• Burma: Ethnic Cleansing in Arakan State
    Apr 22, 2013
    Burmese authorities and members of Arakanese groups have committed crimes against humanity in a campaign of ethnic cleansing against Rohingya Muslims in Arakan State since June 2012. Human Rights Watch documented the role of the Burmese government and local authorities in the forcible displacement of more than 125,000 Rohingya and other Muslims and the ongoing humanitarian crisis. Burmese officials, community leaders, and Buddhist monks organized and encouraged ethnic Arakanese backed by state security forces to conduct coordinated attacks on Muslim neighborhoods and villages in October 2012 to terrorize and forcibly relocate the population. The tens of thousands of displaced have been denied access to humanitarian aid and been unable to return home.
  • Child Marriage: South Sudan
    Mar 6, 2013
    The government of South Sudan should increase efforts to protect girls from child marriage. The country's widespread child marriage exacerbates South Sudan's pronounced gender gaps in school enrollment, contributes to soaring maternal mortality rates, and violates the right of girls to be free from violence, and to marry only when they are able and willing to give their free consent.
  • Yemen: Juvenile Offenders Face Execution
    Mar 4, 2013
    Yemen is one of only four countries known to have executed people in the last five years for crimes committed as children. The others are Iran, Saudi Arabia, and Sudan. President Hadi should break with Yemen’s past of arbitrary justice and state-sanctioned violence by reversing the execution orders of the three young men with signed execution decrees. Ending executions of juvenile offenders is a clear and straightforward way for Yemen’s government to show it honors its human rights commitments.
  • India: Sexual Abuse of Children
    Feb 7, 2013
    The Indian government should improve protections for children from sexual abuse as part of broader reform efforts following the gang rape and murder of a student in New Delhi in December 2012.
  • Uzbekistan: Labor Abuses in the Cotton Fields
    Jan 22, 2013
    Uzbek authorities have increased the use of forced labor by adults and older children in the cotton sector during the past year in an effort to shift the burden away from younger children in response to public scrutiny and international pressure. Human Rights Watch found that for the 2012 harvest, the Uzbek government forced over a million of its own citizens, children and adults – including its teachers, doctors, and nurses – to harvest cotton in abusive conditions on threat of punishment. Uzbek authorities refused to allow international monitors into the country for the fourth year in a row, and arrested and intimidated local activists and independent journalists who attempted to report on the forced labor situation.
  • Italy Sends Kids Back to Bad Conditions in Greece
    Jan 22, 2013
    Italy is summarily returning unaccompanied migrant children and adult asylum seekers to Greece, where they face a dysfunctional asylum system and abusive detention conditions, Human Rights Watch said in a report published today. Stowaways on ferries from Greece, including children as young as 13, are sent back by Italian authorities within hours without adequate consideration of their particular needs as children or their desire to apply for asylum.