Photo Essays

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    Nigeria: Mercury in Gold Mining
    June 25, 2012
    Negotiations for an international treaty to limit the use of mercury should seek to protect the health rights of artisanal gold mining communities, such as those in Bagega, Nigeria. Mercury is highly toxic that attacks the central nervous system, causing tremors and twitching, memory loss, brain damage, or other neurological and behavioral disorders. It can also damage the kidneys and the lungs. Mercury is particularly harmful to children and can cause developmental problems and irreversible brain damage. Under international human rights law, work with hazardous substances and processes is classified among the worst forms of child labor. Artisanal and small-scale gold mining – gold mining without industrial equipment – is one of the largest sectors for mercury use globally and 13 million people worldwide, including children, work in artisanal gold mining and use mercury to extract gold from the ore.
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    Burma: Isolated in Yunnan
    June 25, 2012
    Several thousand ethnic Kachin refugees from Burma are isolated in Yunnan, China, where they are at risk of return to a conflict zone and lack needed humanitarian aid. Human Rights Watch documented how 7,000 to 10,000 ethnic Kachin refugees are scattered across more than a dozen makeshift settlements lacking adequate shelter, food, potable water, sanitation, and basic health care. Most children have no access to schools, while adults are vulnerable to abuses by local employers and have been subject to arbitrary drug testing and prolonged and abusive detention by the Chinese authorities. While the government of China has allowed most of the refugees to stay in Yunnan, some have been forced back to the conflict zone or denied entry into China at the border. Many Kachin originally fled severe abuses by the Burmese army ­– including attacks on villages, killings, rape, and the use of abusive forced labor. Most of the displaced fled to makeshift camps in Burma, where international humanitarian aid has been minimal, and the only assistance has come from private and local Kachin aid networks.
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    South Omo: Pastoralists forced from their land
    June 18, 2012
    The Ethiopian government is forcibly displacing indigenous pastoral communities in Ethiopia’s Lower Omo valley without adequate consultation or compensation to make way for state-run sugar plantations and the construction of Africa's highest dam, the Gibe III hydropower project. The Lower Omo valley, one of the most remote and culturally diverse areas on the planet, is home to around 200,000 people from eight unique agro-pastoral communities who have lived there for as long as anyone can remember. Their way of life and their identity is linked to the land and access to the Omo River. Human Rights Watch reports on how government security forces are forcing communities to relocate from their traditional lands through violence and intimidation, threatening their entire way of life with no compensation or choice of alternative livelihoods. Government officials have carried out arbitrary arrests and detentions, beatings, and other violence against residents of the Lower Omo valley who questioned or resisted the development plans.
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    Russia: Moscow's "March of Millions"
    June 13, 2012
    On June 12, Russian political opposition and civic movements held another “March of Millions” mass demonstration in central Moscow. Thousands of protesters gathered at Pushkin Square at noon and walked down the Boulevard Ring to Andrei Sakharov Avenue for a rally and concert by rap and rock musicians who performed a collection of protest songs, “The White Album,” especially for the event. The city administration authorized both the march and the rally. According to media reports, about 50,000 people took part in the event. People of various political convictions joined in the calls for freedom, state accountability, and fair elections. Protesters were especially careful to avoid violating the new restrictive law on public rallies, which sets out exorbitant fines for, among other things, damaging public property. So when marching along the boulevards, protesters took great care to avoid stepping on the grass so as not to give the authorities a pretext to penalize the organizers on those grounds. There was a strong police presence, but no police interference with the protest.
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    Qatar: Abuse of Migrant Workers
    June 8, 2012
    Hundreds of thousands of mostly South Asian migrant construction workers in Qatar risk serious exploitation and abuse, sometimes amounting to forced labor, Human Rights Watch urges both the government and the The Fédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA) to make sure that their commitments to respect workers’ rights in preparation for the 2022 World Cup are carried out. Human Rights Watch examined an employment system that effectively traps workers in their jobs. The problems include exorbitant recruitment fees, which often take workers years to pay off, coupled with Qatar’s restrictive employer sponsorship system and the employers’ routine confiscation of worker passports, granting employers inordinate control over the workers. Workers’ high debts and the restrictions they face if they want to change employers often leave them to accept jobs or working conditions they did not agree to in their home countries, or to continue work under conditions of abuse. Workers face obstacles to reporting complaints or seeking redress, and the abuses often go undetected.
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    Peru: Disability Rights in the Voting Booth
    May 14, 2012
    Peru should remove significant barriers preventing people with disabilities from exercising their right to vote and other civil rights. The failure to dismantle the obstacles is undermining Peru’s leadership as one of the first countries to ratify, in 2008, the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. Based on interviews with more than 100 people with disabilities and their families, Human Rights Watch found that people with sensory, intellectual, and psychosocial disabilities were arbitrarily denied their right to vote. Human Rights Watch also examined the barriers that people with these and other disabilities face when exercising their political rights, including the difficulty of getting identity documents essential for voting, and the absence of support mechanisms to help people with disabilities make voting decisions.
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    Libya: NATO Air Strikes and Civilian Deaths
    May 14, 2012
    The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) has failed to acknowledge dozens of civilian casualties from air strikes during its 2011 Libya campaign, and has not investigated possible unlawful attacks. NATO’s military campaign in Libya, from March to October 2011, was mandated by the United Nations Security Council to protect civilians from attacks by security forces of then-Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi. The number of civilian deaths from NATO air strikes in Libya was low given the extent of the bombing and duration of the campaign, however, the absence of a clear military target at seven of the eight sites Human Rights Watch visited raises concerns of possible laws-of-war violations that should be investigated.The eight air strikes that Human Rights Watch investigated resulted in 72 civilian deaths, including 20 women and 24 children.
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    Libya: Explosive Remnants of War caused by NATO Air Campaign
    April 24, 2012
    During the 2011 air campaign in Libya, NATO aircraft attacked targets at the Mizdah military depot south of Tripoli a total of 56 times between April and July, creating an extensive explosive remnants of war (ERW) problem. Human Rights Watch has confirmed two deaths and seven injuries from ERW in six separate incidents at the Mizdah depot between August and December 2011. Almost all the ERW casualties were local residents of Mizdah, who were visiting the site to collect scrap metal or inspect the damaged facilities. The NATO alliance has recently taken some steps to provide strike data from the 2011 combat operation in Libya. This information will facilitate survey, clearance, and risk education.
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    Afghanistan: Moral Crimes
    March 26, 2012
    Approximately 400 women and girls are imprisoned in Afghanistan for “moral crimes”, which usually involve flight from unlawful forced marriage or domestic violence. Some women and girls have been convicted of zina, sex outside of marriage, after being raped or forced into prostitution. Zina is a crime under Afghan law, punishable by up to 15 years in prison. Human Rights Watch found that almost half the women in prisons and all the girls in juvenile detention centers had been arrested after they fled a forced marriage and women who had fled abusive husbands and relatives. Some women interviewed by Human Rights Watch had gone to the police in dire need of help, only to be arrested instead. The women and girls described abuses including forced and underage marriage, beatings, stabbings, burnings, rapes, forced prostitution, kidnapping, and murder threats. Virtually none of the cases had led even to an investigation of the abuse, let alone prosecution or punishment.
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    Saadiyat: The Island of Happiness Revisited
    March 15, 2012
    The Gulf emirate of Abu Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates has been working to convert Saadiyat Island into an international tourist destination, with access to universities, museums, as well as golf courses, hotels, and luxury residences. Based on interviews, Human Rights Watch found that in spite of commitments by both the developers and their foreign partners to take steps to avoid abuse of migrant workers on Saadiyat Island, and in spite of some improvements in the working conditions of migrant workers, abuses are continuing. Workers continue to report indebtedness for recruitment fees paid to obtain their jobs in the UAE. Workers also reported a lack of or misleading information, illegal salary deductions, in some instances overcrowded and unhygienic housing conditions. Contrary to commitments of the developers, only one worker of the 47 interviewed reported that he retained custody of his passport, while the rest said that their employers retained their passports. Human Rights Watch urges developers and their foreign partners to do more to ensure that adequate accountability measures are put in place to protect migrant workers.