Recommendations: Reform the Judiciary to ensure judicial independence, integrity, accountability and accessibility. Enact and effectively enforce anti-corruption legislations. Enactment of Civil Procedure Code. Migrant workers 11. More than one-third of population are foreigners. 86 Compared to the low incomes of most migrant workers, cost of remittance transactions is costly.87Moreover, issues pertaining to accessibility of health services, specially to the 63000 undocumented migrant workers88 are distressing.89,90Undocumented migrant workers are labelled as a ‘national security threat’.91 Additionally migrant workers were excluded during initial stages of disaster response. 92, 93 12. Migrant Workers are subjected to acts indicative of fraudulent recruitment, confiscation of passports, non-payment of wages, forced labour and debt bondage. 94Similarly they live in inhumane conditions. 95, 96PHTA is inconsistent with definition of human trafficking under international standards.97 Recently government has initiated a regularization project to address issues pertaining to undocumented migrant workers. 98 However, there is still a need to fully implement PHTA and address the issue of inadequate institutional capacity.99Application of OSH measures remain limited in construction industry dominated by migrant workers.100,101,102 Recommendations: Take concerted efforts to implement PHTA. Establish minimum wage and OSH standards. Abolish measures taken to segregate migrant workers. Ensure that accessibility to health care for migrant workers is included in the policy framework Freedom of Expression 13. Although Constitution guarantees press freedom and freedom of thought and expression, the government imposed legal restrictions on this freedom and often hindered this right. 103, 104 In 2016, Parliament passed Anti-Defamation and Freedom of Expression Act which allowed severe penalties to be imposed 105 106 and forced newsrooms to practice self-censorship.107, 108 14. Authorities are accused of threatening, 109arresting110, 111 and using unnecessary force112, 113 against journalist and media persons. 114 Further, authorities are accused of confiscating115 or damaging media equipment.116, 117 Journalists were stalked,118 threatened119 and attacked.120 The government failed to effectively investigate and prosecute the disappearance of Ahmed Rilwan Abdullah, a journalist and human rights advocate;121 and the murder of Yameen Rasheed, a blogger and pro-democracy human rights activist.122 As such, PCIMED was established in December 2018 to inquire into unsolved cases of murder and enforced disappearances and significant progress was made in the disappearance of Rilwan. 123 15. The restrictions on freedom of expressions observed during the past years have been recently relaxed. 124 The Anti-Defamation law was repealed in November 2018.125 Recommendations: Take effective measures to address issue of threats and intimidation directed to journalists, civil society activists and human rights defenders. Enforce measures to end the system of impunity for LEO. Freedom of Assembly 16. Freedom of Assembly is not guaranteed as specified under international legal standards.126 Freedom of assembly was severely infringed for political opponents 127 and culture of impunity persisted.128 Accordingly, LEOs violated freedom of assembly by using excessive and disproportionate force during and to disperse protests.129, 130, 131, 132, 133 Although considerable number of cases were lodged against LEAs, no actions were taken due to lack of sufficient evidence. 134 Meanwhile, a record number of arrests were made during protests and considerable number of protestors were convicted.135 Furthermore, protestors were terminated or were transferred from their jobs.136,137,138 A Presidential Action Committee was established to review cases where employees were dismissed due to political motivation. 139, 140 Recommendations: Amend Freedom of Assembly Act in compliance with international legal standards and best practices Disability 17. Disability rights are not adequately mainstreamed into government policies and action plans and as a result PwDs have limited access to public services, healthcare, education, employment,141 transport, public spaces and buildings including mosques. 142, 143 Services accessible to PwDs are mostly limited to Male’ and the infrastructure, travel expenses and living conditions in Male’ make it difficult for people from outside of Male’ to seek those services.144 The monthly financial benefit of $130 given to PwDs is not a sufficient allowance to enhance their standard of living. 145 18. Despite being explicitly indicated in the Disability Act,146 there is no national database of PwDs, and there is no adequate study carried out to evaluate the extent to which fundamental human rights are realized by PwDs. Official estimations suggest that social protection program has failed to reach nearly 50% of PwDs.147 However, no study has been conducted to assess the impact and outreach of the program.148 To get registered in NSPA, people with mental disabilities are required to do psychological assessments which can only be carried out in Male’.149 Lack of employment possibilities is a major challenge for PwDs.150, 151,152 19. NGOs estimated that about 10% of PwDs and 40-60% of WwDs are subjected to sexual and other forms of abuse,153 and authorities fail to provide adequate protection to PwDs from such abuse.154 20. The current mechanism where the Disability Council is answerable to a cabinet minister while the responsibility of the DC is to hold the state accountable is a major concern. A study by NCTC and UNDP suggest that the Disability Council was not fully functional between 2014 to 2018 and hence, many grievances were unanswered.155 Recommendations: Mainstream disability rights into government policies and action plans. Ensure that PwDs have equal access to education, employment and healthcare without any discrimination. Revise the Disability Act and ensure the full 3