| | |
|
| |
|
|
Burma Vote to Nowhere The May 2008 Constitutional Referendum in Burma
HRW Index No.: 1-56432-314-5 May 1, 2008 Download PDF, 377 KB, 65 pgs Purchase online Download E-Book Crackdown Repression of the 2007 Popular Protests in Burma
HRW Index No.: C1918 December 7, 2007 Download PDF, 1800 KB, 131 pgs Purchase online Download E-Book Sold to Be Soldiers The Recruitment and Use of Child Soldiers in Burma
HRW Index No.: C1915 October 31, 2007 Download PDF, 2000 KB, 151 pgs Purchase online Download E-Book "They Came and Destroyed Our Village Again" The Plight of Internally Displaced Persons in Karen State While the nonviolent struggle of Daw Aung San Suu Kyi against the Burmese military government’s continuing repression has captured the world’s attention, the profound human rights and humanitarian crisis endured by Burma’s ethnic minority communities has largely been ignored. Decades of armed conflict have devastated ethnic minority communities, which make up approximately 35 percent of Burma’s population. HRW Index No.: C1704 June 10, 2005 Download PDF, 415 KB, 69 pgs Purchase online Out of Sight, Out of Mind Thai Policy Towards Burmese Refugees and Migrants This 50-page report documents Thailand’s repression of refugees, asylum seekers, and migrant workers from Burma. The Thai government is arresting and intimidating Burmese political activists living in Bangkok and along the Thai-Burmese border, harassing Burmese human rights and humanitarian groups, and deporting Burmese refugees, asylum seekers and others with a genuine fear of persecution in Burma. HRW Index No.: C1602 February 25, 2004 Download PDF, 244 KB, 50 pgs Purchase online Burma: Child Soldier Use 2003 A Briefing for the 4th UN Security Council Open Debate on Children and Armed Conflict The Burmese army, the Tatmadaw, continued to recruit large numbers of child soldiers, despite government statements to the contrary. Human Rights Watch estimated that children may account for 35 to 45 percent of new recruits into the national army, and 70,000 or more of Myanmar’s estimated 350,000 soldiers. Children, some as young as eleven, were forcibly recruited, brutally treated during training, used in forced labour by the army and forced to participate in armed conflict. Children were also used to commit human rights abuses against civilians and other child recruits. January 16, 2004 "My Gun Was As Tall As Me" Child Soldiers in Burma Burma is believed to have more child soldiers than any other country in the world. The overwhelming majority of Burma's child soldiers are found in Burma's national army, the Tatmadaw Kyi, which forcibly recruits children as young as eleven. These children are subject to beatings and systematic humiliation during training. Once deployed, they must engage in combat, participate in human rights abuses against civilians, and are frequently beaten and abused by their commanders and cheated of their wages. Refused contact with their families and facing severe reprisals if they try to escape, these children endure a harsh and isolated existence. Children are also present in Burma's myriad opposition groups, although in far smaller numbers. Some children join opposition groups to avenge past abuses by Burmese forces against members of their families or community, while others are forcibly conscripted. Many participate in armed conflict, sometimes with little or no training, and after years of being a soldier are unable to envision a future for themselves apart from military service. HRW Index No.: 2739 October 16, 2002 Download PDF Purchase online Myanmar: Child Soldiers Global Report 2001 From the Coalition to Stop the Use of Child Soldiers Myanmar is estimated to have one of the largest numbers of child soldiers of any country in the world, with up to 50,000 children serving in both government armed forces and armed opposition groups. The ILO has condemned the forced recruitment of children in Myanmar and has taken measures to address the government’s use of forced labour. The activities of God’s Army, a breakaway Karen group led by young twins, focused world attention on the use of child soldiers by ethnic armed groups. Armed groups in the Shan State have declared they will not recruit children below 18. June 12, 2001 Malaysia/Burma: Living in Limbo: Burmese Rohingyas in Malaysia After fleeing systematic discrimination, forced labor, and other abuses in Burma, ethnic Rohingya in Malaysia face a whole new set of abuses in Malaysia. These include beatings, extortion, and arbitrary detention. The refugees are forced to live in poverty and constant fear of expulsion from the country. The 78-page report, "Living in Limbo: Burmese Rohingyas in Malaysia," details the treatment of Rohingya exiles in Malaysia. Denied legal recognition as refugees, Rohingya children are often not permitted to attend school, and many are denied health care. They are also at constant risk of arrest. Malaysian government officials detain and deport even those persons the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) has recognized as refugees. In Malaysia's immigration detention camps, out of the eye of domestic and international monitors, detainees have been robbed and beaten. Former detainees interviewed by Human Rights Watch claimed that food and medical care is grossly inadequate in some detention centers, and that some detainees had died as a result. Children have been detained with unrelated adults, separated from their families, and deported alone to the Thai border. From the moment of their arrest to their expulsion, the Rohingya are vulnerable to demands for bribes by government officials. August 1, 2000 Purchase online Burma (Myanmar): Landmine Monitor Report 2000 Key developments since March 1999: Government forces and at least ten ethnic armed groups continue to lay antipersonnel landmines in significant numbers. Landmine Monitor estimates there were approximately 1,500 new mine victims in 1999. The Committee Representing the People's Parliament endorsed the Mine Ban Treaty in January 2000. August 1, 2000 Burma/Thailand -- Unwanted and Unprotected: Burmese Refugees in Thailand At almost no time since Burmese asylum seekers started arriving on Thai soil in 1984 has the need for protection of this group been greater. Human rights violations inside Burma continue almost a decade after the State Law and Order Restoration Council (SLORC) seized power in Burma in September 1988 HRW Index No.: C1006 October 1, 1998 Purchase online Burma/Thailand—No Safety in Burma, No Sanctuary in Thailand This report documents the continued systematic violation of internationally recognized human rights by the Burmese military against ethnic minority villagers in Burma’s Karen, Mon, and Shan States during 1996 and 1997. HRW Index No.: C906 July 1, 1997 Purchase online Children’s Rights and the Rule of Law Burma acceded to the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) in 1991. Since then, however, there has been little progress toward the implementation of the convention, and the underlying problems which impede implementation have not changed. These include a total lack of the rule of law and accountability of the government, as well as draconian restrictions on freedom of expression, association and peaceful assembly, which prevent local reporting and monitoring of the human rights situation of children. HRW Index No.: C901 January 1, 1997 Purchase online Burma Children's Rights and the Rule of Law This report examines the context within which children and their parents must struggle to exercise their rights and looks in detail at the legal provisions which deny them even the most basic rights and freedoms. It also reports on the current situation of children in Burma and the daily practices used by the military and other government agents which violate international law. These include abuses of international humanitarian law in ethnic minority areas, including the use of children as porters for the army and the forcible relocation of tens of thousands of civilians; the recruitment of children under the age of sixteen into the armed forces, often forcibly; arbitrary arrest and detention, often without charge or trial; the routine use of children as unpaid laborers on government construction projects; the arrest of high school students for writing or distributing leaflets, or for simply calling out slogans, under censorship laws which also severely limit the publication of children=s books and magazines; and the use of forced labor. The report concludes that the government has shown little political will to implement the terms of the CRC, suggesting that its accession was not so much an indication of its desire to desire to protect the rights of children as an empty gesture designed to improve its image abroad. Nevertheless, Human Rights Watch welcomes the efforts of the Committee on the Rights of the Child to engage the government in constructive dialogue regarding implementation and urges the international community to support the committee=s work. January 1, 1997 Download PDF, 275 KB, 27 pgs The Ronhingya Muslims: Ending a Cycle of Exodus? The title of this report is taken from a United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) report of June 1995 on the repatriation of over 200,000 Burmese refugees, most of them members of the Rohingya Muslim minority, from Bangladesh to their home state of Arakan in northern Burma. The repatriation is being held up as a success story by the UNHCR. For the UNHCR, the return of so many refugees by early 1996, most of whom had left Burma in 1991 and 1992, was a vindication of its shift from providing refugee relief to promoting voluntary repatriation as the most durable solution to refugee problems. But the story of the Rohingyas was not over: the cycle of exodus has not ended. HRW Index No.: C809 September 1, 1996 Children in Combat Throughout the world, thousands of children are used as soldiers in armed conflicts.1 Although international law forbids recruiting children under fifteen as soldiers, such young children may be found in government armies and, more commonly, in armed rebel groups. Armed forces, both governmental and non-governmental, often claim that the children in their camps are there for their own protection and welfare. In fact, however, the involvement of the children in the conflict puts them in grave danger and is detrimental to their physical and mental health and development. This report concerns the ways in which children are recruited, the possible reasons for their recruitment and participation, the roles children play in combat and in violence against civilians, and their treatment by the groups that recruit them. It does not deal with all of the countries in which child soldiers are used, but only with countries in which Human Rights Watch has investigated the practice. Legal standards for the prevention of the recruitment of children and problems in applying and enforcing them are covered as well. January 1, 1996 Download PDF, 219 KB, 26 pgs Printer friendly version Entrenchment or Reform? Human Rights Developments and the Need for Continued Pressure Since 1990 we have documented an ongoing pattern of abuse in Burma, including arbitrary detention, denial of the right of freedom of expression and association, forced labor, abuses of humanitarian law in the course of military operations against insurgents, and discrimination against ethnic minorities. HRW Index No.: C710 July 1, 1995 Abuses Linked to the Fall of Manerplaw The human rights situation in Burma has not improved with the passing of each new U.N. resolution condemning abuses; if anything, it is worse. This report documents the gross violation of human rights of the civilian population during the Burmese offensive against the KNU from November 1994 to February 1995. It is based on data collected during a research mission to the Thai-Burmese border in January and February 1995 where we interviewed over 50 men who had been forcibly taken as porters by the Burmese military to carry heavy artillery and other supplies to mountain tops near Manerplaw, the KNU headquarters on the Moei River between Thailand and Burma. HRW Index No.: C705 March 1, 1995 THE MON Persecuted in Burma, Forced Back from Thailand Pressure from the international community has resulted in some signs of movement by the SLORC, the ruling military government of Burma, toward adhering to successive U.N. resolutions and improving its international image. But the fundamental issue of widespread human rights abuses has not changed. This report documents the continued systematic violation of internationally recognized human rights committed by the Burmese army in 1993-1994 against one of Burma's main ethnic minorities, the Mon. HRW Index No.: C614 December 1, 1994 A Modern Form of Slavery Trafficking of Burmese Women and Girls into Brothels in Thailand Thousands of Burmese women and girls are trafficked into Thai brothels every year where they work under conditions tantamount to slavery. Subject to debt bondage, illegal confinement, various forms of sexual and physical abuse, and exposure to HIV in the brothels, they then face wrongful arrest as illegal immigrants if they try to escape or if the brothels are raided by Thai police. HRW Index No.: 107X December 1, 1993 Purchase online
|
 
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Contribute to Human Rights Watch
Home | About Us | News Releases | Publications | Info by Country | Global Issues | Campaigns | Community | Bookstore | Film Festival | Search | Site Map | Contact Us | Press Contacts | Privacy Policy © Copyright 2006, Human Rights Watch 350 Fifth Avenue, 34th Floor New York, NY 10118-3299 USA |
