Children around the world face systematic barriers to schooling that are undermining global progress towards universal primary education.

Most travelers to Papua New Guinea have heard of the country's high crime rate. What they don't know is that many Papua New Guineans are as scared of the police as they are of common criminals.

The Papua New Guinea government must act to stop the police from engaging in brutal beatings, rape and torture of arrestees, many of who are children, Human Rights Watch said in a new report released today.

In the midst of South Africa’s explosive HIV/AIDS epidemic, sexual violence can be a death sentence. In April 2002 the South African government pledged to provide rape survivors with post-exposure prophylaxis (PEP), antiretroviral drugs that can reduce the chances of contracting the virus from an HIV-positive attacker. South Africa’s PEP programme is promising, one that could become a model for other countries. But South Africa’s own inaction is undermining its promising initiative.

Rwandan children still suffer the devastating consequences of the 1994 genocide and the war that preceded and followed it.

As the international Aids conference continues in Barcelona, Janet Fleischman of Human Rights Watch contributes this personal view on the special and urgent need to protect young girls and women from HIV infection.

The murder on April 17 of two Rwandan refugee children in Nairobi, Kenya, shows the need for the Kenyan government to provide effective protection to refugees at risk in Nairobi, said Human Rights Watch today.

Violence against children is a bigger problem than governments acknowledge, and in fact is often carried out by officials of the state, Human Rights Watch charged in a new study released today.