• Netherlands: Joint NGO Letter to Minister Leers
    Letter
    Apr 2, 2012
    We, the undersigned 5 human rights organizations, are writing to urge you not to return Abu Kurke Kebato, a 23-year-old Ethiopian, and his 21-year-old wife Seena Tafse Mohammed, also an Ethiopian national, to Italy. We understand that both were detained on March 29, 2012 pending deportation to Italy on April 5, 2012.
  • Letter to Dutch Minister of Foreign Affairs Regarding December 2012 Netherlands Country Report on Iraq
    Letter
    Mar 8, 2012
    While Human Rights Watch appreciates your government’s discussion of Iraqis identifying as LGBT in the report, we are concerned that the section downplays the severe challenges and risks faced by the LGBT community in Iraq.
  • EU: Rights Abuse at Home Ignored
    Press release
    Jan 22, 2012
    The European Union and member governments proved unwilling to tackle human rights abuse at home during 2011, even as they proclaimed the issue’s importance in inspiring the Arab Spring, Human Rights Watch said today in its World Report 2012.
  • The Netherlands: Transgender Law Violates Rights
    Press release
    Sep 13, 2011

    The Dutch Civil Code violates the human rights of transgender people, and the government should amend it without delay. The government should revise article 28 of the civil code, which requires transgender people to take hormones and undergo surgery to alter their bodies and be permanently and irreversibly sterilized before they can have their gender legally recognized on official documents Human Rights Watch said.

  • Netherlands: Human Rights Watch to Open Amsterdam Office
    Press release
    Sep 12, 2010
    Human Rights Watch will open a new office in Amsterdam on September 14, 2010, in a move to intensify its advocacy on key human rights issues both in the Netherlands and around the world.
  • Letter to Netherlands Informateur on Priorities for the New Government
    Letter
    Sep 10, 2010
    In a letter on September 10 to Tjeenk Willink, who is organizing and overseeing the talks to form a new Dutch government, Human Rights Watch called on the next government to give the highest possible priority to human rights in its international relations while leading by example and addressing flaws in its own asylum system and integration policy.
  • The Netherlands: Do Not Deport Somalis
    Press release
    Jul 22, 2010
    The Dutch government should immediately halt all plans to return Somalis to war-torn Somalia.
  • EU: Defer Hasty Returns of Migrant Children
    Press release
    Jun 4, 2010
    The European Union Justice and Home Affairs Council conclusions on unaccompanied migrant children focus too much on how to send them back to their countries of origin and too little on how to guarantee their safety. The conclusions were adopted on June 3, 2010.
  • The Netherlands: Support Global Protection for Child Domestic Workers
    Press release
    May 6, 2010
    The Dutch government is leading efforts to end child labor as the host of an international conference next week, but the government should also support binding international standards to protect domestic workers. Globally, more girls are in household work than in any other sector of child labor.
  • An Unfair Attack on Gay Troops
    Commentary
    Mar 29, 2010
    Gen. John Sheehan, the former NATO commander, told a Senate committee this month that part of the blame for one of the last half-century's most famous atrocities -- the massacre at Srebrenica during the Bosnian war -- rested on gays in the Dutch military.