The United States should ratify the Convention on the Rights of the Child, which is supported by nearly every other nation in the world, Human Rights Watch said today. The United States and Somalia are the only countries that have failed to ratify the Convention, which was adopted 20 years ago, on November 20, 1989

In recent weeks hundreds of young men and boys from the Dadaab refugee camps have been secretly recruited for the force, lured with false promises of lavish pay and claims of backing from the United Nations and the United States.

Iran should immediately halt the planned executions of three men under charges of male homosexual conduct allegedly committed when they were children.

The Kenyan government should immediately stop the recruitment of Somalis in refugee camps to fight for an armed force in Somalia. Kenyan authorities have directly supported the drive, which has recruited hundreds of Somali men and boys in the sprawling Dadaab refugee camps as well as Kenyan citizens from nearby towns.

The US Congress should amend outdated labor laws that allow even young children to work in commercial US agriculture. Legislation introduced today by Congresswoman Lucille Roybal-Allard of California would for the first time apply the same age and hour requirements to children working in agriculture as for children working in other occupations.

The United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child should press the Philippines government to take meaningful steps to investigate death squad killings and prosecute the perpetrators.

In 2004, a teenage girl incarcerated at the Illinois Youth Center in Warrenville was sexually abused by a male employee at the facility. The abuse consisted of repeated acts of oral sex and sexual intercourse. There was no doubt that the abuse occurred, and the employee ultimately pleaded guilty to two counts of criminal sexual assault.

An estimated 150 unaccompanied migrant children being held in a detention center on Lesvos Island were on a hunger strike for four days to protest their living conditions.