• Two teachers inspect the damage at Ban Ba Ngo Elementary School, Pattani, Thailand. On March 19, 2010, a group of around 15 insurgents set the school alight.
    © 2010 Bede Sheppard/Human Rights Watch
    Malala is face of global attacks on schools
    The gruesome gunning-down of 14-year-old Malala Yousufzai spotlighted the fate of children in Pakistan, one of the world's most dangerous places to go to school. But in war zones around the world, from Afghanistan to Yemen, students, teachers and schools are regularly coming under attack. These are the world's unrecognized Malalas.
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Children's Rights

  • Thailand: Rebels Escalate Killings of Teachers
    Dec 17, 2012

    Separatist insurgents in Thailand’s southern border provinces should immediately end all attacks on teachers and schools, Human Rights Watch said today.

  • Fernando Moleres Wins Tim Hetherington Grant
    Dec 10, 2012
    The photojournalist Fernando Moreles has been awarded the second Tim Hetherington Grant, an annual visual journalism award focusing on human rights, Human Rights Watch and World Press Photo announced today.
  • Iraq: Halt Execution of Yemeni Juvenile
    Dec 9, 2012
    Iraqi authorities should immediately stay the execution of a Yemeni national who was 16 at the time of his alleged offense.
  • Deadly Delays for Nigerian Children
    Dec 7, 2012
    In June, two weeks after I returned from Nigeria, I got a message that another child had died from lead poisoning -the 11th in the same family. I could picture the scene: the child starts convulsing; his parents rush him two hours over barely passable terrain on the back of a motorbike to the nearest town for medical treatment. By the time they reach the clinic, a temporary ward specifically for lead poisoning set up in the wake of the epidemic, it is too late, and another young life has been taken by this preventable tragedy.
  • A victory against modern day slavery
    Dec 1, 2012
    Growing activism against modern-day slavery has highlighted the abuse and exploitation suffered by millions of men, women, and children around the world. Donor funding has flowed to create shelters and services for victims while a proliferation of anti-trafficking legislation has focused on arresting and prosecuting traffickers.
  • Syria: Opposition Using Children in Conflict
    Nov 29, 2012
    Armed opposition groups fighting in Syria are using children for combat and other military purposes, Human Rights Watch said today. Children as young as 14 have served in at least three opposition brigades, transporting weapons and supplies and acting as lookouts, Human Rights Watch found, and children as young as 16 have carried arms and taken combat roles against government forces. Opposition commanders should make public commitments to end this practice, and to prohibit the use of anyone under 18 for military purposes – even if they volunteer.
  • Syria: Evidence Shows Cluster Bombs Killed Children
    Nov 27, 2012
    Compelling evidence has emerged that an airstrike using cluster bombs on the town of Deir al-`Assafeer near Damascus killed at least 11 children and wounded others on November 25, 2012
  • Lessons of war - the misuse of schools by militaries
    Nov 26, 2012
    The contrast was striking. Outside the laughter of boys playing echoed around the school courtyard while inside one classroom a nervous 14-year-old, Ashraf, described the day bullets and shells rained down on his school. "When they started shooting, the principal led us all to the basement," he told me.
  • Australia: End Offshore Transfer of Migrant Children
    Nov 24, 2012
    The Australian government should immediately stop transfers of migrant children - including unaccompanied migrant children and child asylum seekers - to offshore processing sites in Manus Island of Papua New Guinea, and Nauru.
  • A year of progress in eliminating violence against women
    Nov 24, 2012
    On November 25 every year, a grim accounting takes place: the world takes stock of violence against women, the toll it takes, and progress toward eliminating it. The International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women has been commemorated on November 25 for more than three decades. It’s a day each year when my colleagues and I focus on the courageous women we have met, the injustices they’ve suffered, and the hope they inspire.
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