• Apr 11, 2013
    The harsh experience of Somalis driven to seek shelter in Mogadiushu 's unsafe camps should be an urgent priority for the country's new government and its foreign donors.
  • Apr 9, 2013
    Human Rights Watch first documented sexual violence in conflict in 1993 when we published a report about how Indian security forces in Kashmir used rape to brutalise women and punish their communities, accused of sympathizing with separatist militants. Since then, we have investigated and documented rape in conflict in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Colombia, Somalia, Iraq, Sierra Leone, Kosovo, Cote d'Ivoire, Guinea, and Haiti.
  • Mar 19, 2013
    On the 10th anniversary of the fall of Saddam Hussein, violence and political crisis plague Iraq. The government blames its problems on regional interference, the unceasing threat of terrorism and the specter of Saddam Hussein’s Baathism. Implicit in their thinking is the idea that rights violations are justified by the state’s responsibility to prevent terrorism.
  • Mar 18, 2013
    Kimberly N. "leaned in" to her career for years. As a vice president of a large charitable organization, she earned high praise and enjoyed her work. When Kimberley got pregnant, she negotiated a six-week maternity leave, and looked forward to resuming work. Things did not go according to plan.
  • Mar 13, 2013
    Across the country, victims of violent crimes, including sexual assault, as well as those who witness it, frequently do not file criminal complaints, cooperate with investigators, or testify truthfully in courts because they fear retaliation. In many rape cases, survivors are threatened or intimidated into settling with the perpetrator.
  • Mar 10, 2013
    Aguet, from South Sudan, was forced at age 15 to marry a 75-year-old man. Her family received 80 cows as dowry in exchange. “I resisted the marriage,” she told Human Rights Watch. But her uncles beat her and the marriage went ahead. Aguet dropped out of school and went to live with her husband, who now also beats her.
  • Mar 7, 2013
    To be forced into marriage and pregnancy as a child--when your own life has barely begun--is a serious violation of human rights. Far from creating a nurturing and safe space, child marriage is a driver of poor maternal health, violence, poverty, and pain.
  • Feb 26, 2013
    Children make up nearly 30 per cent of the world's 50 to 100 million domestic workers, working long hours for little or no pay and at risk of exploitation – but now governments have a chance to do something about it.
  • Feb 18, 2013
    According to December 2011 figures from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, one in four women in the U.S. has been a victim of severe physical violence by an intimate partner in her lifetime. Nearly one in five has been raped.
  • Feb 10, 2013
    It’s an occupational hazard when you work on women’s rights, to routinely face women who have been subjected to unspeakable violence, horrible beyond anything you could imagine. As a young lawyer in South Africa in the 1990s, one of first my clients was stabbed by her estranged husband. I held her hand as she bled to death on the pavement. When I worked as the director of the Tshwaranang Legal Advocacy Centre to End Violence Against Women in Johannesburg, I, and the other lawyers who provided legal advice at the centre, saw women every day looking for help to protect themselves from rape, beatings and other violence. Many of our clients arrived at the office with the signs of violence clearly visible on their bodies and their faces.
  • Feb 6, 2013
    Two years ago, the signs were clear. My mother, with Alzheimer's, heart failure, and kidney failure, was not going to live long. My brothers and I took time off work for medical appointments and hospice care. I worried about her comfort, about how my dad would cope and how the grandkids would feel.
  • Jan 31, 2013
    A Somali woman who said she was raped by state security forces, a journalist who interviewed her, her husband, and two others who tried to assist her, have been charged with multiple crimes, including insulting a government body. They face a court hearing on February 2. The journalist is sitting in a Mogadishu prison right now. All of them – including the woman herself – could face years of prison in the war-torn city if they are convicted.
  • Jan 31, 2013
    The new Somali government, in power since September and much feted by international donors, seems to think they can silence the discussion of sexual violence by the security forces by clamping down on women reporting rape and journalists. The UK - a key donor to Somalia - needs to send an urgent message to the contrary before Saturday's hearing date.
  • Jan 25, 2013
    In spring 2011, a federal government employee in her 30s was sexually assaulted in the District by a man she met on an Internet dating site. At Washington Hospital Center, where she went for a forensic exam so medical personnel could collect evidence from her body, a female detective from the Sexual Assault Unit of the city’s Metropolitan Police Department (MPD) questioned the woman for three hours, interrupting her frequently in a manner — as the woman saw it — meant to discourage her from reporting the assault and to minimize the seriousness of what had happened to her.
  • Jan 11, 2013
    Despite recognition in the Millennium Declaration of the importance of human rights, equality, and non-discrimination for development, the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) largely bypassed these key principles. The fundamental human rights guarantees of equality and non-discrimination are legally binding obligations and do not need instrumental justifications. Discrimination can both cause poverty and be a hurdle in alleviating poverty. Even in countries where there have been significant gains toward achieving the MDGs, inequalities have grown. The MDGs have supported aggregate progress—often without acknowledging the importance of investing in the most marginalized and excluded, or giving due credit to governments and institutions which do ensure that development benefits these populations. Recognition of this shortcoming in the MDGs has brought an increasing awareness of the importance of working to reverse growing economic inequalities through the post-2015 framework, and a key element of this must be actively working to dismantle discrimination.
  • Jan 10, 2013
    Rizana Nafeek was a child herself -- 17 years old according to her birth certificate -- when a four-month-old baby died in her care in Saudi Arabia. She had migrated from Sri Lanka only weeks earlier to be a domestic worker for a Saudi family.
  • Jan 10, 2013
    The quick official response to the horrific gang rape and murder of a young Indian woman shouldn’t fool us. The country has a long way to go when it comes to justice for rape victims.
  • Jan 8, 2013
    Suggesting that women and girls "invite" sexual assault through their clothing or conduct—and therefore blaming the victim— is not uncommon in India. There is talk of legal reform and fast trials but stigma and blaming of survivors of sexual assault will unfortunately live on without concerted efforts to end it.