AFGHANISTAN
"WE WANT TO LIVE
AS HUMANS":
Repression of Women and Girls in Western Afghanistan
Afghan women and girls have suffered mounting abuses, harassment
and restrictions of their fundamental human rights during 2002, Human
Rights Watch said in a new report. The 52-page report, "We Want to Live
As Humans": Repression of Women and Girls in Western Afghanistan, focuses
on the increasingly harsh restrictions on women and girls imposed by Ismail
Khan, a local governor in the west of Afghanistan who has received military
and financial assistance from the United States. Human Rights Watch said
that the situation in Herat was symptomatic of developments across the
country, and that women and girls were facing new restrictions in several
other regions as well.Human Rights Watch found that women's and girls'
rights in Herat had improved since the fall of the Taliban, noting that
many women and girls have been allowed to return to school and university,
and to some jobs. But the report found that these advances were tempered
by growing government repression of social and political life. Ismail
Khan has censored women's groups, intimidated outspoken women leaders,
and sidelined women from his administration in Herat. Restrictions on
the right to work mean that many women will never be able to use their
education.
( C1411), 12/02, 52 pp., $7.00
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BRAZIL
FINAL
JUSTICE
Police and Death Squad Homicides of Adolescents in Brazil
Despite the considerable attention that has been brought to homicides
of adolescents, impunityfor those responsible for these abuses has in
most respects, continued to prevail. As the cases in Final Justice reveal,
this impunity is the product of several factors, but one primary cause
is the lack of political will to adequately investigate and prosecute
those responsible for violence against children and adolescents. When
the will to prosecute does exist, investigations and convictions are possible.
Unfortunately, this is rarely the case, and even individual convictions
in a handful of high-profile cases may have little impact on the larger
problem and on the structures of violence that fuel abuses by Brazil's
police force and unofficial death squads. The struggle to end the pattern
of homicides of adolescents will not be fast or easy. A large measure
of blame for this violence must be attributed to the poverty, economic
and racial inequalities, domestic violence and substance abuse problems
that draw poor Brazilian youth onto the streets or into crime. Similarly,
complex social forces and the banalization of violence create a situation
where vigilante justice is frequently an acceptable method of protecting
communities, which are often poorly served by their elected governments,
from those who are perceived as criminals and threats to safety. Yet protecting
Brazil's children and adolescents--and particularly the most common targets
of violence: poor, black or dark-skinned adolescent boys--from violence
cannot and should not wait for the solutions to other entrenched social
problems, particularly when it is apparent that the police, either on-
or off-duty, are responsible for a significant proportion of the killings.
(1231) 2/94, 160 pp., ISBN 1-56432-123-1, $15.00
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BULGARIA
CHILDREN
OF BULGARIA
Police Violence and Arbitrary Confinement
Children in Bulgaria are often deprived of their basic rights by police,
the very people who are supposed to protect them. After conducting a fact-finding
mission to Bulgaria in the spring of 1996, Human Rights Watch concludes
that street children are often subjected to physical abuse and other mistreatment
by police, both on the street and in police lockups, and by skinhead gangs,
who brutally attack the children because of their Roma (Gypsy) ethnic identity.
Once detained by police, children fall victim to gross procedural inadequacies
in the juvenile justice system in Bulgaria. Through administrative bodies,
known as Local Commissions for Combating Juvenile Delinquency, children
may be sentenced to confinement in one of eleven Labor Education Schools
(the Bulgarian equivalent of juvenile reform institutions), for their "reeducation."
The practice of confining children to these essentially penal institutions,
without due process, violates international law. Further, the conditions
in Labor Education Schools, where children may be confined for up to three
years, are notoriously harsh and do little to advance the development of
the child's overall well-being, and do much to impede it. This report examines
both police mistreatment and abuse of street children, and the Labor Education
School system in Bulgaria.
(2009) 9/96, 160 pp., ISBN 1-56432-200-9, $15.00
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BOSNIA AND HERCEGOVINA
HOPES BETRAYED:
Trafficking Of Women
And Girls To Post-Conflict Bosnia And Herzegovina For Forced Prostitution
Traffickers who have forced thousands of women and girls into prostitution
in Bosnia and Herzegovina are not being apprehended for their crimes,
Human Rights Watch said in a new report released today. Local corruption
and the complicity of international officials in Bosnia have allowed a
trafficking network to flourish, in which women are tricked, threatened,
physically assaulted and sold as chattel, the report said. The 75-page
report, “Hopes Betrayed: Trafficking of Women and Girls to Post-Conflict
Bosnia and Herzegovina for Forced Prostitution,” documents how local Bosnian
police officers facilitate the trafficking by creating false documents;
visiting brothels to partake of free sexual services; and sometimes engaging
in trafficking directly. Human Rights Watch also obtained documents from
the United Nations Mission in Bosnia and Herzegovina (UNMIBH) that revealed
cases of International Police Task Force (IPTF) officers visiting nightclubs
as clients of trafficked women and girls, arranging to have trafficked
women delivered to their residences, and in one case, tampering with witnesses
to conceal an IPTF officer's complicity.
(D1409), 11/02, 73pp., $7.00
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BURMA
"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.
(2739) 10/02, 220 pp., $20.00
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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. Events of October and December
1996 in Burma, which saw hundreds of high school and university students
take to the streets to demand the protection of their rights, especially
the right to form student unions, highlight the urgent need for reform.
Over three hundred students and youths were arrested during the December
demonstrations, at least fifty of whom remain unaccounted for.
(C901) 1/97, 27 pp., $5.00
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CHINA
CHINESE ORPHANAGES
A Follow-Up
The publication of our Death By Default in January 1996 was followed by
weeks of intense media coverage. We found that most orphaned or abandoned
children in China die within one year of their admittance to state-run
orphanages and that the government does little or nothing to prevent it.
While the report generated a response that was overwhelmingly supportive,
it also provoked sharp criticism, not only from the Chinese government,
which was expected, but also from some concerned groups and individuals
in the West who felt that the report would harm rather than help the children
in these institutions. Others differed with our perceptions of the observable
conditions in China's orphanages or misunderstood our arguments and conclusions.
We address the various charges that arose and respond to the Chinese government's
allegations that the report was a fabrication.
(C801) 3/96, 11 pp., $3.00
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DEATH BY DEFAULT
A Policy of Fatal Neglect in China's State Orphanages
China's claim to guarantee the "right to subsistence" conceals a secret
world of starvation, disease, and unnatural death. The victims are orphans
and abandoned children in custodial institutions run by China's Ministry
of Civil Affairs. This report documents the pattern of cruelty, abuse,
and malign neglect, which has dominated child welfare work in China since
the early 1950s. We have pieced together a fragmentary picture of conditions
for abandoned children throughout China, including staggering mortality
rates for infants in state institutions and the failure of official statistics
to track the vast majority of orphans, whose whereabouts and status are
unknown. The Chinese government's own statistics reveal a situation worse
than even the most alarming Western media reports have suggested. In 1989,
the most recent year for which nationwide figures are available, the majority
of abandoned children admitted to China's orphanages were dying in institutional
care. China's demonstrated ability to guarantee the lives and welfare
of the vast majority of its children renders the appalling death rates
in these institutions even more inexcusable and sinister.
View the summary
and recommendations of this report.
(1630) 1/96, 408 pp., ISBN 1-56432-163-0, $20.00
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COLOMBIA
GENERATION
UNDER FIRE
Children and Violence in Colombia
To be a child is to be at risk in Colombia. To be a poor child, a runaway,
a child prostitute, or a child in a war zone is to live with the threat
of murder in daily intimacy. At an average of 6 per day, 2,190 children
were murdered in 1993, according to Colombia's national statistical bureau.
In some regions, the murder of children has reached epidemic proportions.
In the city of Cali, for instance, the murder of children increased by
more than 70 percent between 1991 and 1992. Per capita killings of children
in Colombia exceed those in Brazil, where the killing of black street
youth has captured world headlines. Like most Third World countries, Colombia
is a nation of youth, so to speak of children is to include close to half
its population of 35 million people. A significant number of murders of
children are the direct responsibility of the state. Generation Under
Fire is concerned with the human rights of children targeted by state
agents for murder and torture; state-tolerated vigilante violence against
children (euphemistically referred to as "social cleansing"); the murder
by armed insurgents or their clients of children in open violation of
international humanitarian law; widespread state neglect of the rehabilitation
and appropriate incarceration of abandoned and violent children, which
fuels the"social cleansing"; and the generalized impunity enjoyed by the
killers of children, beginning with agents of the state.
(1444) 11/94, 104 pp., ISBN 1-56432-144-4, $10.00
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DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC OF THE CONGO
THE WAR WITHIN A WAR
Sexual Violence Against Women and Girls in Eastern Congo
Forces on all sides in the Congo conflict have committed war crimes against
women and girls, Human Rights Watch said in a new 114-page report. The
report documents the frequent and sometimes systematic use of rape and
other forms of sexual violence in the Rwandan-occupied areas of eastern
Congo.The report, which is based on numerous interviews with victims,
witnesses, and officials, details crimes of sexual violence committed
by soldiers of the Rwandan army and its Congolese ally, the Rassemblement
congolais pour la démocratie (RCD), as well as armed groups opposed to
them – Congolese Mai Mai rebels, and Burundian and Rwandan armed
groups. These combatants raped women and girls during military operations
to punish the local civilian population for allegedly supporting the “enemy.”
In other cases, Mai Mai rebels and other armed groups abducted women and
girls and forced them to provide sexual services and domestic labor, sometimes
for periods of more than a year.
(2769) 06/02, 126pp., $10.00
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RELUCTANT RECRUITS
Children and Adults Forcibly Recruited
For Military Service in North Kivu
The major rebel group in eastern Congo continues to recruit children
to wage war against the Congolese government, Human Rights Watch
charged in this report. The report details recruitment efforts since
late 2000 by the Congolese Rally for Democracy-Goma (RCD-Goma) and
the Rwandan army troops who support it. RCD-Goma has repeatedly
pledged to demobilize its child soldiers, but has not fulfilled
these promises, the report says. As part of the 1999 Lusaka Accords,
RCD-Goma agreed to halt the use of children as soldiers. In May 2000,
RCD-Goma said it would create a commission to supervise demobilization
of child soldiers, but a year later the commission is not functioning
effectively. In April 2001, authorities of the rebel movement promised
to deliver several hundred children in training at military camps
to representatives of the United Nations. But several days later, they
reportedly allowed some 1800 new recruits between the ages of 12 and 17
to graduate from training at one of these camps.
(A1303), 05/01, 19pp, $3.00
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ECUADOR
TAINTED HARVEST
Child Labor and Obstacles to Organizing on Banana Plantations
Banana workers in Ecuador are the victims of serious human rights abuses,
Human Rights Watch charged in a new report released today. In its investigation,
Human Rights Watch found that Ecuadorian children as young as eight work
on banana plantations in hazardous conditions, while adult workers fear
firing if they try to exercise their right to organize. Ecuador is the
world’s largest banana exporter and the source of roughly one quarter
of all bananas on the tables of U.S. and European consumers. Banana-exporting
corporations such as Ecuadorian-owned Noboa and Favorita, as well as Chiquita,
Del Monte, and Dole fail to use their financial influence to insist that
their supplier plantations respect workers’ rights, the report found.
Dole leads the pack of foreign multinationals in sourcing from Ecuador,
obtaining nearly one third of all its bananas from the country.
(2734), 04/02, 152pp, $15.00
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EGYPT
CHARGED WITH BEING CHILDREN:
Egyptian Police Abuse of Children in Need of Protection
The Egyptian government conducts mass arrest campaigns of children whose "crime" is that they are in need of protection, Human Rights Watch said in a new report released today. Children in police custody face beatings, sexual abuse and extortion by police and adult criminal suspects, and police routinely deny them access to food, bedding and medical care. More than 25 percent of all children arrested in Egypt in 2001 were children considered "vulnerable to delinquency" under Egypt's Child Law. They have committed no crime, and are typically homeless, beggars or truants from school. Police often use the charge as a pretext to clear the streets of children, extort money and information, force children to move on to other neighborhoods, and bring children in for questioning in the absence of evidence of criminal wrongdoing. The 87-page report, "Charged with Being Children: Egyptian Police Abuse of Children in Need of Protection," draws on interviews with dozens of Egyptian children living or working on the street, as well as police, prosecutors, social workers and judges in the juvenile justice system. Human Rights Watch called on the Egyptian government to immediately end its policies of arresting children it deems "vulnerable to delinquency" and of routinely detaining children in police lockups. Egypt should also designate a full time position in the Ministry of Justice to oversee investigations of torture and ill-treatment of children in police custody. Human Rights Watch found that police in Cairo routinely beat children with batons, whips, rubber hoses and belts, and transport them in dangerous vehicles, often with adult detainees. Children held in overcrowded and dirty adult police lockups must bribe guards or beg from criminal detainees to obtain food and bedding. Children who are transferred to the overcrowded al Azbekiya juvenile police lockup receive only marginally better treatment, and may be detained with children significantly older or who have committed serious crimes.
(E1501) 02/03, 87pp., $7.00
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UNDERAGE AND UNPROTECTED
Child Labor in Egypt's Cotton Fields
Egyptian children employed by cotton-farming cooperatives work long hours,
routinely face beatings at the hands of foremen, and are poorly protected
against pesticides and heat, Human Rights Watch said in a this new report.
Most of the children are also well below the country's legal minimum age
of twelve for seasonal agricultural work, the report charged.The children
are employed under the authority of the Agriculture Ministry, and the
Egyptian government has a responsibility to ensure compliance with
the country's 1996 Child Law. The report also documents conditions faced
by more than one million rural children who are hired each year from May
to July, largely during the school recess, to control cotton leafworm
infestations. Working eleven hours a day, seven days a week, the children
inspect cotton plants for leafworm eggs and manually remove infected portions
of leaves. An agricultural engineer assigned to one of the cooperatives
told Human Rights Watch that children were cheaper to hire, more obedient,
and had the "appropriate height" for inspecting cotton plants.
(E1301) 01/01, 20pp., $3.00
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GENERAL
CHILDREN IN COMBAT
Throughout the world, thousands of children are used as soldiers in armed
conflicts. Although international law forbids recruiting children under
15, they may be found in government armies or armed rebel groups. Armed
forces often claim that the children in their camps are there for their
own protection and welfare. In fact, the involvement of the children in
the conflict puts them in grave danger and is highly detrimental. 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 while
serving.
(G801) 1/96, 23 pp. $3.00
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GUATEMALA
FROM THE HOUSEHOLD TO THE
FACTORY:
Sex Discrimination in the
Guatemalan Labor Force
Women in Guatemala's largest female-dominated labor sectors face persistent
sex discrimination and abuse, Human Rights Watch charges in this report.
The 147-page report examines two sectors, export processing and private
households, which employ tens of thousands of women sewing clothes for
sale in the United States and working as live-in domestic workers. The
report, From the Household to the Factory: Sex Discrimination in the Guatemalan
Labor Force, also finds that some U.S.-based clothing retailers contract
with Guatemalan "maquilas," or export-processing factories, that discriminate
against women who are pregnant. The Guatemalan labor code protects women
workers from this type of discrimination, but is rarely enforced in the
maquila sector. Meanwhile, women and girls working in private households
do not have adequate legal protection, and are frequently subject to sexual
assault and other abuses by their employers.
(2696), 01/02, 152pp., $15.00
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GUATEMALA'S FORGOTTEN
CHILDREN
Police Violence and Arbitrary
Detention
Thousands of children living in Guatemala's streets face routine beatings,
thefts, and sexual assaults at the hands of private security guards (who
are under the jurisdiction of the Interior Ministry) and the National
Police. More serious crimes against street children, including assassination
and torture, have lessened since their heyday in the early 1990s, but
do still occur. In April 1996, sixteen-year-old Susana Gmez was raped
by two National Police officers while a third kept watch. In September
1996, sixteen-year-old Ronald Ral Ramos was shot and killed by a Treasury
Police officer. More than ten other street children were murdered in 1996
under suspicious circumstances. As of April 1997, all of the perpetrators
in these cases remained at large. While three convictions for murders
of street children handed down in late 1996 and early 1997 represent significant
and encouraging news, hundreds of other cases involving crimes against
street children remain stalled; most are never even investigated. Crimes
against street children are a low priority for police investigators, particularly
when a fellow officer is implicated. In contrast, juvenile offenders,
and even non-offenders, are dealt with harshly. "Juvenile justice" in
Guatemala suffers from multiple and severe defects, rendering it less
than justice and little more than warehousing. Street children are arrested
and locked-up arbitrarily, sometimes merely for being homeless, other
times for such vague "offenses" as "creating a public scandal," or "loitering."
Children in detention receive no meaningful rehabilitation, education,
psychological treatment or vocational training. They are crowded together
in unsanitary conditions and are mistreated by unqualified staff--all
in violation of international standards.
(2130) 8/97, 144 pp., ISBN 1-56432-213-0, $10.00
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GETTING
AWAY WITH MURDER
The Medicolegal System and Human Rights in Guatemala
Since the overthrow of a reformist democratic government in 1954, Guatemala
has been known for astounding military violence inflicted on a defenseless
civilian population. A new civilian government elected in 1986 first raised
and then dashed hopes for an end to the torture, murder and disappearances
carried out with impunity by the security forces. This report analyzes
the medicolegal system and its handling of several recent political killings,
including the December 1990 army massacre of villagers in Santiago Atitlan,
to show why the perpetrators of political murders are rarely punished
in Guatemala. In addition, the report chronicles a series of exhumations
of clandestine graves conducted by the forensic team assembled by Americas
Watch and Physicians for Human Rights at the start of 1991 in a remote
mountain village in the embattled Quiche province. (With photographs.)
(0073) 1991, 64 pp., ISBN 1-56432-007-3, $7.00
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GUINEA
FORGOTTEN CHILDREN
OF WAR:
Sierra Leonean Refugee Children in Guinea
Sierra Leonean refugee children in Guinea are among the most vulnerable
children in the world. They have lived through an extremely brutal war-most
have witnessed or suffered unspeakable atrocities including widespread
killing, mutilation, and sexual abuse. The human rights abuses that drove
these children into flight are only the first chapter of hardship
for many Sierra Leoneans affected by the crisis. Even after traveling
across an international border to seek refuge in Guinea, they remain vulnerable
to hazardous labor exploitation, physical abuse, denial of education,
sexual violence and exploitation, cross-border attacks, militarization
of refugee camps, and recruitment as child soldiers. Human Rights Watch
visited Guinea in February and March 1999. In the refugee camps, they
interviewed dozens of refugee teachers, social workers, and other community
leaders as well as forty-nine refugee children: thirty-three girls and
sixteen boys ranging in age from six to seventeen. This report relates
the testimony of these children, whose names have been changed to protect
their privacy.
(A1105), 7/99, 55 pp., $7.00
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INDIA
SMALL CHANGE:
Bonded Child Labor in India's Silk Industry
The Indian government is failing to protect the rights of hundreds of
thousands of children who toil as virtual slaves in the country's silk
industry, Human Rights Watch said in this new report. The 85-page report,
"Small Change: Bonded Child Labor in India's Silk Industry,"calls on the
Indian government to implement its national laws to free and rehabilitate
these "bonded children." Bound to their employers in exchange for a loan
to their families, they are unable to leave while in debt and earn so
little they may never be free. A majority of them are Dalits, so-called
untouchables at the bottom of India's caste system. Human Rights Watch
interviewed children, employers, government officials and members of nongovernmental
organizations in three states that form the core of India's sari and silk
industries: Karnataka, Uttar Pradesh and Tamil Nadu. At every stage of
the silk industry, bonded children as young as five years old work 12
or more hours a day, six and a half or seven days a week. Children making
silk thread dip their hands in boiling water that burns and blisters them.
They breathe smoke and fumes from machinery, handle dead worms that cause
infections, and guide twisting threads that cut their fingers. As they
assist weavers, children sit at cramped looms in damp, dim rooms. They
do not go to school and are often beaten by their employers. By the time
they reach adulthood, they are impoverished, illiterate, and often crippled
by the work, the report said.
(C1502), 01/03, 88pp., $10.00
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POLICE ABUSE AND KILLINGS
OF STREET CHILDREN IN INDIA
At least eighteen million children live or work on the streets of India,
laboring as porters in railway stations or bus terminals, as ragpickers,
and as vendors of food, tea, or handmade articles. These street children
are routinely subjected to arbitrary and illegal detention, torture, and
extortion, and on occasion, murder at the hands of police who engage in
these violations of international and Indian law with impunity. Based
on interviews with more than one hundred children during a one-month investigation
in India, this report details police abuse and killings of street children
in Bangalore, Bombay, Madras, New Delhi, and the state of Andhra Pradesh.
Human Rights Watch calls on the Indian government to put an immediate
end to police violence against street children, to prosecute the police
concerned, to implement the recommendations of the National Police Commission,
to ratify the United Nations Convention against Torture, and to invite
the U.N. Special Rapporteur on Torture and the U.N. Working Group on Arbitrary
Detention to India to investigate police mistreatment of street children.
(205X) 11/96, 200 pp., ISBN 1-56432-205-X, $15.00
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THE SMALL HANDS OF SLAVERY
Bonded Child Labor in
India
At least fifteen million children work as bonded laborers in India. Whether
chained to carpet looms, sweating in silver smithies, or working in the
field from dawn until dusk, these children endure miserable lives. They
earn little and are beaten often. They do not go to school. From the age
of four or five, many work for years in appalling conditions in often
futile attempts to pay off family debts. Based on interviews with over
one hundred children during a two-month investigation in India, this report
details their plight in the silk, beedi (hand-rolled cigarettes), synthetic
gems, silver, leather, agricultural, and carpet industries. Bonded child
labor is outlawed by international and Indian law, but the Indian government
has failed utterly to end it. Human Rights Watch calls on the government
of India to end bonded child labor by establishing independent bodies
to inspect work sites and identify bonded child laborers, prosecuting
and suspending licenses for employers using bonded child labor, and implementing
a comprehensive rehabilitation program to ensure that bonded child laborers
are sent to school. Human Rights Watch also calls on the international
community to pressure the Indian government to release and rehabilitate
these children.
View the summary
and recommendations of this report.
(172X) 9/96, 190 pp., ISBN 1-56432-172-X, $15.00
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RAPE FOR PROFIT
Trafficking of Nepali Girls and Women to India's Brothels
Hundreds of thousands of women and children are employed in Indian brothels--many
of them lured or kidnapped from Nepal and sold into conditions of virtual
slavery. The victims of this international trafficking network routinely
suffer serious physical abuse, including rape, beatings, arbitrary imprisonment
and exposure to AIDS. Held in debt bondage for years at a time, these
women and girls work under constant surveillance. Escape is virtually
impossible. Both the Indian and Nepali governments are complicit in the
abuses suffered by trafficking victims. These abuses are not only violations
of internationally recognized human rights but are specifically prohibited
under the domestic laws of both countries. The willingness of Indian and
Nepali government officials to tolerate, and, in some cases, participate
in the burgeoning flesh trade exacerbates abuse. Even when traffickers
have been identified, there have been few arrests and fewer prosecutions.
Rape for Profit focuses on the trafficking of girls and women from Nepal
to brothels in Bombay, where they compose up to half of the city's estimated
100,000 brothel
workers.
(155X) 6/95, 96 pp., ISBN 1-56432-155-X, $7.00
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ISRAEL/PALESTINIAN AUTHORITY
SECOND CLASS:
Discrimination Against Palestinian Arab Children in Israel's Schools
Second Class: Discrimination Against Palestinian Arab Children in Israel's
Schools, is based on Human Rights Watch investigations at twenty-six Arab
and Jewish schools and on nationwide statistics compiled by the Israeli
government. Nearly one-quarter of Israel's 1.6 million schoolchildren
are Palestinian Arab citizens and are educated in schools run by the Israeli
government, but operated separately from those of the Jewish majority.
The report found striking differences in virtually every aspect of the
education system. The Education Ministry does not allocate as much money
per head for Palestinian Arab children as it does for Jewish children.
Their classes are 20 percent larger on average. They get far fewer enrichment
and remedial programs-even though they need them more-in part because
the Ministry uses a different scale to assess need for Jewish children.
Their school buildings are in worse condition, and many communities lack
kindergartens for three and four-year-olds. Palestinian Arab schoolchildren
do not have the same access to counseling and vocational programs. One
of the largest gaps is in special education, where disabled Palestinian
Arab children get less funding and fewer services, have limited access
to special schools, and lack appropriate curricula.
(2661) 12/01, 187 pp., ISBN 1-56432-266-1, $20.00
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JAMAICA
"NOBODY'S CHILDREN:"
Jamaican Children in
Police Detention and Government Institutions
In the island nation of Jamaica, many children-often as young as twelve
or thirteen-are detained for long periods, sometimes six months or more,in
filthy and overcrowded police lockups, in spite of international standards
and Jamaican laws that forbid such treatment. The children are often held
in the same cells as adults accused of serious crimes, vulnerable to victimization
by their cellmates and to ill-treatment by abusive police; and virtually
always, they are held in poor conditions, deprived of proper sanitary
facilities, adequate ventilation, adequate food,exercise, education, and
basic medical care. Some of these children have not been detained on suspicion
of criminal activity but have been locked up only because they are deemed
"in need of care and protection." Human Rights Watch visited five working
police lockups in Jamaica in late August to early September 1998 and interviewed
more than thirty children about their experiences in the lockups. Human
Rights Watch found that children detained in police lockups remain in
their overcrowded cells twenty-four hours a day, let out, if at all, only
for court dates and for once-daily trips to the filthy toilet and showers.
There are no exercise facilities. The children receive no education at
all and have reading materials only if books are brought in by family
members. In many lockups, the dim lighting (at times near-darkness, even
during the day) makes reading impossible anyway.
(2300), 7/99, 165pp., 1-56432-230-0, $15.00
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Children
Improperly Detained in Police Lockups
Every day in Jamaica, children as young as ten are locked in dark, overcrowded,
vermin-infested cells, where they are physically and mentally abused by
both the police and other inmates. Most are suspected of criminal offenses;
others have been abused, neglected or labelled "uncontrollable" and brought
to the lockups because more suitable locations are already full or too
far away. Some children stay for only days, others remain in detention
for weeks and months. Although the lockups have been publicly denounced
as unfit, they remain in use for children awaiting the determination of
their fate.
(B611) 10/94, 17 pp., $3.00
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KENYA
IN THE SHADOW OF DEATH:
HIV/AIDS And Children's Rights In Kenya
The government of Kenya is
failing to care for millions of children who have been orphaned
by AIDS or whose family members suffer from the disease.HIV/AIDS has
orphaned about a million children in Kenya and at least 13 million in
Africa,and left millions more impoverished and marginalized in many
African countries. The disease has also weakened the extended family
and other communities to which orphans have traditionally turned.This
report charges that the Kenyan government has failed to take responsibility
for children who are at higher risk of human rights abuse when the
disease ravages their families. As children are forced to become breadwinners,
they are pulled out of school and often forced to take on potentially
dangerous labor that is inappropriate for children. Leading Kenyan
government officials have not spoken out forcefully enough to reduce
the social stigma associated with HIV/AIDS, Human Rights Watch said.
It called on President Daniel arap Moi to break the "conspiracy of
silence" that has fostered discrimination against children affected by
the HIV/AIDS crisis. Many children are also unable to inherit property
to which they are entitled because they are unable to navigate legal
processes that are cumbersome and ill-suited to claimants who are
minors.The report focuses on Kenya as an illustrative case of a
phenomenon that affects much of Africa.
(A1304), 06/01, 35pp, $5.00
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SPARE
THE CHILD:
Corporal Punishment in Kenyan Schools
For most Kenyan children, violence is a regular part of the school experience.
Teachers usecaning, slapping, and whipping to maintain classroom discipline
and to punish children for poor academic performance. The infliction of
corporal punishment is routine, arbitrary, and often brutal. Bruises and
cuts are regular by-products of school punishments, and more severe injuries
(broken bones, knocked-out teeth, internal bleeding) are not infrequent.
At times, beatings by teachers leave children permanently disfigured,
disabled or dead. Such routine and severe corporal punishment violates
both Kenyan law and international human rights standards. According to
the U.N. Committee on the Rights of the Child, school corporal punishment
is incompatible with the Convention on the Rights of the Child, the world's
most widely-ratified human rights treaty. Other human rights bodies have
also found some forms of school-based corporal punishment to be cruel,
inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment, and a practice that interferes
with a child's right to receive an education and to be protected from
violence.
(A1106), 9/99, 59pp., $7.00
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JUVENILE INJUSTICE
Police Abuse and Detention
of Street Children in Kenya
In addition to the hazards of living on the streets, street children in
Kenya are subject to frequent beatings, extortion, and sexual abuse by
police. In violation of international law, they are rounded up and held
for days or weeks in police lockups under deplorable physical conditions,
commingled with adults and often beaten. Those who are brought to court
are usually charged with vagrancy or are classified as being "in need
of protection or discipline." Pending adjudication of their cases, they
are committed by courts to crowded remand institutions where they languish
until their cases are decided. Without legal representation, these children
may be finally committed by courts to correctional institutions called
approved schools and borstal institutions, and prisons. Based on interviews
with sixty children, this report documents the treatment of street children
by police and in the juvenile justice system as a whole. Upwards of 40,000
street children live in Kenya. With their numbers on the rise, they are
likely to continue to suffer violations of their rights, unless measures
are taken to ensure better training and strict accountability of police,
the judiciary, and staff of remand and correctional institutions.
(2149) 5/97, 168 pp., ISBN 1-56432-214-9, $15.00
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LIBERIA
EASY
PREY
Child Soldiers in Liberia
Child soldiers are among the most tragic victims of the war in Liberia.
Although international law forbids the use of children under the age of
15 as soldiers, thousands of young children have been involved in the
fighting since it began in December 1989. The main rebel forces, the National
Patriotic Front of Liberia (NPFL) and the United Liberian Movement for
Democracy in Liberia (ULIMO), have consistently used children under the
age of 18, including thousands under 15. Children are also reportedly
used by the other warring factions. As a consequence, thousands of children
in Liberia have suffered cruelly during the war: many have been killed
or wounded or witnessed terrible atrocities. Moreover, many children themselves
have been forced to take part in the killing, maiming or rape of civilians.
The use of children as soldiers presents grave human rights problems.
Many of these children have been killed during the conflict, thus denied
the most basic right -- the right to life. Others have been forcibly conscripted
by the warring factions, and separated from their families against their
wills. Many have joined warring factions to survive. All have been denied
a normal childhood. Reintegrating these children into their communities
is a task of immense difficulty. Some children's parents have been killed,
their families have fled, and no relatives can be found. In others, families
have refused to take children back because of the abuses they have committed.
Human Rights Watch believes that 18 is the minimum age at which people
may properly take part in armed conflict.
(1398) 9/94, 88 pp., ISBN 1-56432-139-8, $7.00
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PAKISTAN
PRISON BOUND
The
Denial of Juvenile Justice in Pakistan
Children accused of committing criminal offenses in Pakistan are routinely
tortured by police, Human Rights Watch said today. Many of these children
go on to spend months or even years in overcrowded detention facilities
awaiting the conclusion of their trials. The treatment of children in
detention violates Pakistani law, as well as the Convention on the Rights
of the Child, which was adopted by the United Nations General Assembly
ten years ago this Saturday and ratified by Pakistan a year later. Despite
a law that requires police to bring criminal suspects before a judge within
twenty-four hours of arrest, children may spend as long as three months
in detention before seeing a judge. Children share their cells with adults
while in police custody, and like adult detainees, are routinely subjected
to various forms of torture or ill-treatment, including being beaten,
hung upside down, or whipped with a rubber strap or specially-designed
leather slipper.uman Rights Watch calls on the Pakistani authorities to
establish independent bodies to hear and investigate complaints of abuse
by police and prison personnel, and to ensure the strict separation of
adults and children deprived of their liberty. Authorities should also
provide sufficient teaching staff and modern vocational training in each
facility housing juveniles, and prohibit imposition of the death penalty
on children under the age of eighteen.
(2424) 11/99, 147pp., ISBN 1-56432-242-2, $15.00
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CONTEMPORARY
FORMA OF SLAVERY IN PAKISTAN
Throughout Pakistan employers forcibly extract labor from adults and children,
restrict their freedom of movement, and deny them the right to negotiate
the terms of their employment. Employers coerce such workers into servitude
through physical abuse, forced confinement, and debt-bondage. The government
of Pakistan is complicit in these abuses, both by the direct involvement
of the police and through the state's failure to protect the rights of
bonded laborers. It rarely prosecutes or punishes employers who hold workers
in servitude, and workers who contest their exploitation are often imprisoned
under false charges. We call on the government of Pakistan to comply with
its own national laws as well as with international human rights and labor
laws outlawing bonded labor, to ensure that all workers are allowed to
organize and be represented by unions, and to prosecute to the full extent
of the law employers who have held workers in bonded labor and those who
have physically or sexually abused bonded laborers.
(1541) 7/95, 96 pp., ISBN 1-56432-154-1, $7.00
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RUSSIA
ABANDONED TO THE STATE:
Cruelty and Neglect in Russian Orphanages
This report documents how, from the moment the state assumes their care,
orphans in Russia---of whom 95 percent still have a living parent---are
exposed to shocking levels of cruelty and neglect. Infants classified
as disabled are segregated into "lying-down" rooms, where they are changed
and fed but are bereft of stimulation and essential medical care. Those
who are officially diagnosed as "imbetsil" or "idiot" at age four are
condemned to life in little more than a warehouse, where they may be restrained
in cloth sacks, tethered by a limb to furniture, denied stimulation, training,
and education. Some lie half-naked in their own filth, and are neglected,
sometimes to the point of death. The "normal" children---those deemed
to be "educable"---are subjected to cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment
by institution staff. They may be beaten, locked in freezing rooms for
days at a time, abused physically, denied adequate education and training.
It is deplorable that the very state that is charged with the care and
nurture of more than 600,000 children "without parental care," condemns
untold numbers to an archipelago of grim institutions. Abandoned children
suffer a lifelong stigma that ultimately robs them of fundamental economic,
social, civil and political rights guaranteed by international treaties.
Human Rights Watch calls on the Russian Federation, which has long prided
itself on the education of its children, to stop all medical personnel
from pressing parents to institutionalize newborns with various disabilities,
and reallocate resources spent on institutions to develop humane, non-discriminatory
alternatives.
(1916) 12/98, 228 pp., ISBN 1-56432-191-6, $15.00
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SIERRA LEONE
"WE'LL KILL YOU IF
YOU CRY"
Sexual Violence in the Sierra Leone Conflict
The widespread and systematic use of rape and other sexual violence during
the ten-year civil war in Sierra Leone is documented in a new Human Rights
Watch report released today. The 75-page report, “We’ll Kill You If You
Cry:” Sexual Violence in the Sierra Leone Conflict, presents evidence
of horrific abuses against women and girls in every region of the country
by the rebel Revolutionary United Front (RUF), as well as other rebel,
government and international peacekeeping forces. The Human Rights Watch
report, which is based on hundreds of interviews with victims, witnesses
and officials, details crimes of sexual violence committed primarily by
soldiers of various rebel forces —the RUF, the Armed Forces Revolutionary
Council (AFRC), and the West Side Boys. The report also examines sexual
violence by government forces and militias, as well as international peacekeepers.
(A1501), 01/03, 75pp., $7.00
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SOUTH AFRICA
SCARED AT SCHOOL:
Sexual Violence Against Girls in South African Schools
In schools across South Africa, thousands of girls of every race and economic
group are encountering sexual violence and harassment that impede
their access to education, Human Rights Watch charged in a report
released today. School authorities rarely challenge the perpetrators,
and many girls interrupt their education or leave school altogether
because they feel vulnerable to sexual assault, Human Rights Watch
said. The 138-page report, "Scared at School: Sexual Violence Against
Girls in South African Schools," is based on extensive interviews with
victims, their parents, teachers, and school administrators in KwaZulu-Natal,
Gauteng, and the Western Cape. It documents how girls are raped, sexually
abused, sexually harassed, and assaulted at school by their male
classmates and even by their teachers. According to the report,
girls have been attacked in school toilet facilities, in empty classrooms
and corridors, hostel rooms and dormitories. Teachers can misuse
their authority to sexually abuse girls, sometimes reinforcing sexual
demands with threats of corporal punishment or promises of better grades,
or even money. Human Rights Watch called on the South African government
and its National Department of Education to develop a national plan
of action to address the problem of school-based sexual violence,
in broad cooperation with students, parents, teachers, and school
administrators.
(2572), 03/01, 138pp, $10.00
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SPAIN AND MOROCCO
NOWHERE TO TURN:
State Abuses of Unaccompanied Migrant Children by Spain and Morocco
Moroccan migrant children in Spain are frequently beaten by police and
abused by staff and other children in overcrowded, unsanitary residential
centers, Human Rights Watch charged in this report. Spain also summarily
expels children as young as eleven to Morocco, where Moroccan police beat
and ill-treat them and then abandon them to the streets. The sixty-two
page report, "Nowhere to Turn: State Abuses of Unaccompanied Migrant Children
by Spain and Morocco," documents widespread abuse of Moroccan children
who travel alone to the Spanish cities of Ceuta and Melilla, located on
the North African coast. Human Rights Watch interviewed dozens of current
and former migrant children during a five-week investigation in Spain
and Morocco. Many children had been summarily expelled multiple times.
(D1404), 05/02, 62pp., $7.00
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SUDAN
THE
LOST BOYS
Child Soldiers and Unaccompanied Boys in Southern Sudan
This report focuses on the use of child soldiers by the rebel Sudan People's
Liberation Army. The government's ill treatment of children is described
in another report (see 1290). The use of child soldiers bodes ill for
the future of the country. Boys as young as 11 have been recruited to
fight in Sudan's civil war. No one knows the exact number of boys who
have been forced to fight, but the number is in the thousands. Hundreds
of these children have been killed or grievously wounded. Others have
died of starvation or disease. Many have been subjected to severe beatings
and all have lived in deplorable conditions. Rehabilitating and reintegrating
them into their communities poses an immense task.
(A610) 11/94, 25 pp., $5.00
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TURKEY
A
MATTER OF POWER
State Control of Women's Virginity in Turkey
An investigation of the prevalence of forcible virginity control exams
and the role of the government in conducting or tolerating such exams,
this report cites several separate incidents in the spring of 1992 when
young females committed suicide after authorities ordered them to submit
to examinations of their hymens.
(D607) 6/94, 38 pp., $5.00
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NOTHING
UNUSUAL
The Torture of Children in Turkey
Helsinki Watch has documented scores of cases of torture in Turkey since
1982, and Turkish lawyers who represent detainees claim that police routinely
torture between 80 and 90 percent of political suspects and about 50 percent
of ordinary criminal suspects, including children. Nothing Unusual documents
the torture of children under the age of eighteen in Turkey. It concludes
that such torture takes place in police stations and is carried out by
police during the interrogation of children accused of both criminal and
political offenses. In addition, children are not allowed to see lawyers
during their interrogations nor are their families notified by police
of their whereabouts. It concludes with specific recommendations to end
these appalling practices.
(0529) 1/92, 80 pp., ISBN 1-56432-052-9, $7.00
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UGANDA
THE SCARS OF DEATH:
Children
Abducted by the Lord's Resistance Army in Uganda
The Scars of Death documents the abduction and killing of children in
northern Uganda by a rebel group calling itself the Lord's Resistance
Army. The heavily-armed rebels abduct children as young as eight from
their schools and homes. The children are forced to carry heavy loads,act
as personal servants to the rebels, and, in the case of girls, serve as
"wives" to rebel commanders. Once abducted, the children undergo a brutal
initiation into rebel life: they are forced to participate in acts of
extreme violence, often compelled to help beat or hack to death fellow
child captives who have attempted to escape. The rebels march their child
captives to base camps in neighboring southern Sudan, and many children
die of disease or starvation during the march. Thosewho survive the journey
are given rudimentary military training and then forced into combat against
the Ugandan army and the rebel Sudan People's Liberation Army. Many of
the children are killed during the fighting.Children abducted by the Lord's
Resistance Army become virtual slaves: their labor, the bodies and their
lives are all at the disposal of their rebel captors. The Scars of Death
tells the children's stories, in their own words. The Lord's Resistance
Army's abduction of children presents an extreme example of a global trend
toward an increased reliance on child soldiers. Human Rights Watch calls
on the Lord's Resistance Army,the government of Sudan and the government
of Uganda to end the continued abduction and killing of children, and
calls on the international community to take concrete steps to end the
use of child soldiers throughout the world.
(221-1) 09/97, 152 pp., ISBN 1-56432-221-1, $10.00
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UNITED KINGDOM/NORTHERN IRELAND
CHILDREN
IN NORTHERN IRELAND
Abused by Security Forces and Paramilitaries
Children in Northern Ireland are caught between two powerful groups --
security forces on one hand, and paramilitary groups that advocate political
violence on the other. Many of the almost 3,000 people who have lost their
lives in "The Troubles" since 1969 have been children. Moreover, police
officers and soldiers harass young people on the street, hitting, kicking
and insulting them. Police officers in interrogation centers threaten,
trick and insult youngsters and sometimes physically assault them. Children
accused of crimes are locked up in adult detention centers and remand
prisons in shameful conditions. Because police in Northern Ireland have
largely abdicated normal policing in many troubled areas, paramilitary
groups have filled the resulting vacuum with alternative criminal justice
systems. These paramilitary groups -- the Irish Republican Army on the
Catholic side and the Ulster Defense Association on the Protestant side
-- police their own communities. They punish children they believe to
be "anti-social" by shooting or brutally beating them, and sometimes by
banishing them from Northern Ireland. The abuses of children by all sides
violate international human rights laws and standards as well as the laws
of war.
(0804) 7/92, 112 pp., ISBN 1-56432-080-4, $10.00
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UNITED STATES
IGNORANCE ONLY
HIV/AIDS, Human Rights And Federally Funded Abstinence-Only Programs In
The United States
Programs teaching teenagers to "just say no" to sex before marriage are
threatening adolescent health by censoring basic information about how
to prevent HIV/AIDS, Human Rights Watch charged in a new report released
today. The forty-seven page report focuses on federally funded "abstinence-only-until-marriage"
programs in Texas, where advertising campaigns convey the message that
teenagers should not use condoms because they don't work. Some school-based
programs in Texas do not mention condoms at all. Federal health agencies
share the broad scientific consensus that condoms, when used correctly,
are highly effective in preventing the transmission of HIV. Yet the U.S.
government currently spends more than $ 100 million each year on "abstinence-only-until-marriage"
programs, which cannot by law "promote or endorse" condoms or provide
instruction regarding their use. The Bush administration is advocating
a 33 percent increase in funding for these programs.
HRW Index No.: G1405
September 18, 2002 Report
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HATRED IN THE HALLWAYS:
Violence & Discrimination Against
Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Students in U.S. Schools
To the more than two million lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender youth
of school age living in the United States and to those who are questioning
their sexual orientation or gender identity, Dylan N.'s story is
all too familiar. It is a story of harassment, abuse, and violence;
a story of deliberate indifference by school officials who disclaim
any responsibility for protecting Dylan or ensuring his right to an
education; a story of escalating violence; a story of the failure of legal
protection; and finally, a story of a young man denied an education
because of his sexual orientation. In this report, Human Rights
Watch documents attacks on the human rights of lesbian, gay, bisexual,
and transgender youth who are subjected to abuse on a daily basis
by their peers and in some cases by teachers and school administrators.
These violations are compounded by the failure of federal, state, and
local governments to enact laws providing students with express
protection from discrimination and violence based on their sexual
orientation and gender identity, effectively allowing school officials
to ignore violations of these students' rights.
ISBN 1-56432-259-9, 05/01, 220pp, $20.00
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FINGERS TO THE BONE:
United States Failure to Protect
Child Farmworkers
Hundreds of thousands of child farmworkers are laboring under dangerous
and grueling conditions in the United States, Human Rights Watch charged
in a report released today. HRW found that child farmworkers
often work twelve- and fourteen-hour days, and risk pesticide poisoning,
heat illness, injuries and life-long disabilities. The vast majority of
child farmworkers are Latino. The laws governing minors working in agriculture
are much less stringent than those for other sectors of the economy, Human
Rights Watch said, allowing children to work at younger ages, for longer
hours, and under more hazardous conditions than children in other jobs.
"Fingers to the Bone:United States Failure to Protect Child Farmworkers,"
focuses on children aged thirteen to sixteen. Some of these young workers
told Human Rights Watch that they work as many as seventy or eighty hours
a week. Often, their workdays begin before dawn.
(2491), 6/00, 112pp., ISBN 1-56432- 2491, $10.00
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NO MINOR MATTER:
Children in Maryland's
Jails
With frequent references to "juvenile predators," "hardened criminals,"
and "young thugs," U.S. lawmakers at both the state and federal levels
have increasingly abandoned efforts to rehabilitate child offenders through
the juvenile court system. Instead, many states have responded to a perceived
outbreak in juvenile violent crime by moving more children into the adult
criminal system. Between 1992 and 1998, at least forty U.S. states adopted
legislation making it easier for children to be tried as adults; a similar
measure for youth charged with federal crimes is pending in the U.S. Congress.
These measures neither reduce crime nor lead to rehabilitation. But they
often do lead to serious abuses when children are held in adult jails,
sometimes in appalling conditions of confinement, occasionally sharing
cells with adult detainees, and frequently provided inadequate education,
medical and mental health care, or age-appropriate recreational opportunities.
Human Rights Watch calls upon Maryland to end the practice of detaining
children in adult detention facilities, and ensure that conditions of
detention for youth comply with federal and state law and international
standards.
(2432), 11/99, 169 pp., $15.00
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DETAINED AND DEPRIVED OF
RIGHTS:
Children in the Custody of the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service
In this report, Human Rights Watch charges the U.S. Immigration and
Naturalization Service (INS) with violating the rights of unaccompanied
children in its custody. The report finds that roughly one-third of detained
children are held in punitive, jail-like detention centers, even though
most children in INS custody are being detained for administrative reasons
while their case is pending, not as a punishment for criminal behavior.
Approximately 5000 unaccompanied children are detained by the INS each
year. Human Rights Watch focused its report on a Pennsylvania facility
that the INS claims is one of the best in the country. However, the report
found that too many children are locked up in prison-like conditions with
juveniles accused of murder, rape and drug trafficking, where they are
forbidden to speak their native language, instructed not to laugh, and,
according to several interviewees, even forced to ask permission to scratch
their noses. Human Rights Watch found that some children are strip searched
and restrained by handcuffs during transport, and denied basic rights
to privacy.
(G1004), 12/98, 45pp., $5.00
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HIGH COUNTRY LOCKUP
Children in Confinement
in Colorado
Too many children are being held prisoner in Colorado, and as a result
they live in crowded conditions that are sometimes unsafe and frequently
devoid of activities that would prepare them to be useful citizens when
they are released. One institution is so bad it is operating under a court
order. Another, a private institution with children from several states,
so appalled officials from Idaho that it withdrew its inmates. These are
among the highlights of our examination of juvenile detention in Colorado,
a state whose snowcapped mountains and crisp air offers an image that
is too often belied by its institutions. Human Rights Watch visited institutions,
interviewed children, staff members, judges and others, and reviewed the
increasingly punitive legislation governing the courts' treatment of people
in "the system" under the age of eighteen. Like many states, it is moving
away from programs and toward ever-increasing punishment. It is turning
its back on children in its care by sending them to private facilities
both in and out of state. It is flooding its institutions with young people
without taking into account the fact that the vast majority will return
to society. Conditions in Colorado institutions often violate U.S. constitutional
standards as well as those found in the United Nations Convention on the
Rights of the Child and the United Nations Rules for the Protection of
Juveniles Deprived of their Liberty. In this report, we make a series
of recommendations regarding the human rights aspects of imprisonment
in children's facilities in Colorado.
(219-X) 09/97, 120 pp.,ISBN 1-56432-219-X, $10.00
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SLIPPING THROUGH THE
CRACKS
Unaccompanied Children
Detained by the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service
The U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) violates the rights
of hundreds of unaccompanied children each year, some as young as eight,
contrary to international law as well as INS regulations. Based on on-site
visits and interviews conducted at INS facilities in Los Angeles County
and Arizona, our report reveals that children are held in prison-like
conditions for several months or longer. The INS detains too many children
for too long, fails to inform them of their legal rights, interferes with
their efforts to obtain legal representation or to consult in private
with their lawyers, and fails to facilitate contact with family members.
Moreover, the INS fails to keep statistics on or to make public the actions
it takes against thousands of unaccompanied children whom it holds in
custody for seventy-two hours or less. Many of these abuses are due to
the conflicting roles played by the INS: prosecutorial versus care-giving.
Children are arrested, imprisoned, and deported, all by the same agency
charged with protecting their rights. We urge the government to end this
conflict of interest by assigning the care-giving role to appropriate
child welfare agencies while the INS assesses their immigration status.
(2092) 4/97, 128 pp., ISBN 1-56432-209-2, $10.00
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CHILDREN
IN CONFINEMENT IN LOUISIANA
After visits to the four institutions that hold children committed by
the courts for delinquent activity and interviews with over 60 children
confined in the institutions, we concluded that children confined in the
long-term secure facilities in Louisiana are regularly physically abused
by guards and that there is no effective system for bringing these abuses
to the attention of the higher authorities. The conditions for these children
are punitive and there is little focus on treatment and assisting them
to successfully reintegrate into society. Children are kept in isolation
for long periods of time, are improperly restrained by handcuffs and are
often hungry. The state of Louisiana has one of the highest rates of incarceration
of children in the U.S. The conditions in which these children are confined
violate numerous international human rights standards including the United
Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child and the United Nations Rules
for the Protection of Juveniles Deprived of Their Liberty. As a result
of this report, in June 1996 the U.S. Department of Justice opened an
official investigation into conditions in four institutions in Louisiana.
(1592) 10/95, 152 pp., ISBN 1-56432-159-2, $10.00
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A
WORLD LEADER IN EXECUTING JUVENILES
We oppose the imposition of the death penalty on all criminal offenders
in all circumstances because of its inherent cruelty, and, because an
execution is an irrevocable violation of the right to life, miscarriages
of justice, when they occur, can never be corrected. We also oppose the
imposition of the death penalty on offenders whose crimes were committed
when they were below the age of 18. The U.S. is a world leader in such
executions -- 9 juvenile offenders have been executed in the U.S. since
the death penalty was reinstated in 1976 and executions of juvenile offenders
are on the rise -- 4 of the 9 were executed during the last 6 months of
1993. In addition, more juvenile offenders sit on death row in the U.S.
than anywhere else.
(B702) 3/95, 22 pp., $3.00
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ZAMBIA
SUFFERING IN SILENCE:
The Links between Human Rights Abuses and HIV Transmission to Girls in
Zambia
Sexual abuse of girls in Zambia fuels the HIV/AIDS epidemic and the strikingly
higher HIV prevalence among girls than boys, Human Rights Watch said today.
Concerted national and international efforts to protect the rights of
girls and young women are key to curbing the AIDS epidemic’s destructive
course. Human Rights Watch today releases a new 121-page report, “Suffering
in Silence: Human Rights Abuses and HIV Transmission to Girls in Zambia,”
which details sexual abuse and other human rights abuses of Zambian girls,
especially girls orphaned by AIDS. The report documents many incidents
of abuse of orphan girls at the hands of their guardians. Some of the
girls are as young as 11 years old. The United Nations’ annual assessment
of the HIV/AIDS epidemic, released in December, emphasized that in Africa
“the face of AIDS is clearly a female face,” and noted the much higher
rate of HIV transmission among girls than boys on the continent. The Human
Rights Watch report tells the human story behind this disparity, detailing
many ways in which girls in Zambia are vulnerable to the disease through
abuse and subordination.
(2823), 01/03, 130pp., $10.00
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WORLD REPORT SECTIONS ON CHILDREN'S RIGHTS
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