• Italy: Leave “Nomad Emergency” in the Past
    Written statement
    May 11, 2012
    The Italian government should abandon any initiative aimed at perpetuating the effects of the past “Nomad Emergency."
  • Hungary: Revoke Law Criminalizing Homeless
    Press release
    Apr 16, 2012
    The Hungarian government should revoke a new national law that makes it a crime to be homeless.
  • Statement on the right to food in China at the Human Rights Council
    Oral statement
    Mar 6, 2012

    In his report on the right to food, the Special Rapporteur makes references to the household registration system as a source of exclusion from public benefits, to the relationship between the right to food and the right to freedom of expression, and to the difficulties posed by resettlement programs to ensuring the right to food 

  • Singapore: Domestic Workers to Get Weekly Day of Rest
    Press release
    Mar 5, 2012
    The decision by Singapore’s Manpower Ministry to grant foreign domestic workers a weekly rest day is an important reform but falls short of international standards. The changes, announced on March 5, 2012, go into effect only for new contracts beginning in January 2013 and do not address the exclusion of domestic workers from other key labor protections in Singapore’s Employment Act.
  • Azerbaijan: Homeowners Evicted for City Beautification
    Press release
    Feb 29, 2012
    (Baku) – The government of Azerbaijan has forcibly evicted homeowners and demolished their homes for urban development projects in Baku, the capital, Human Rights Watch said in a report released today. Dozens of families have been evicted from the neighborhood where the arena for the May 2012 Eurovision Song Contest is being built.
  • Statement on sports and human rights at the UN Human Rights Council
    Oral statement
    Feb 27, 2012
    Human Rights Watch has long taken the position that there cannot be successful sporting events, such as the Olympic Games, in an environment where serious human rights abuses are occurring.
  • Nigeria: Child Lead Poisoning Crisis
    Press release
    Feb 7, 2012
    Thousands of children in northern Nigeria need immediate medical treatment and dozens of villages remain contaminated two years into the worst lead poisoning epidemic in modern history, Human Rights Watch said today while releasing a video on the issue. Four hundred children have died, according to official estimates, yet environmental cleanup efforts have not even begun in numerous affected villages.
  • US: Proposed Rules Would Save Child Farmworker Lives
    Press release
    Feb 2, 2012
    The rules are intended to make paid farm work safer for the hundreds of thousands of children in the United States who labor in agriculture. They would not apply to children working on their parents’ farms.
  • 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.
  • New, unneeded obstacles to abortion
    Commentary
    Jan 22, 2012
    A federal appeals court this month upheld a Texas law that requires a woman seeking an abortion to undergo a sonogram, forces doctors to describe that sonogram in detail to her and then requires that she wait 24 hours before she can undergo the procedure.