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Rainforest Mafias

How Violence and Impunity Fuel Deforestation in Brazil’s Amazon

This report documents how illegal logging by criminal networks and resulting forest fires are connected to acts of violence and intimidation against forest defenders and the state’s failure to investigate and prosecute these crimes. 

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  • “Get on the Ground!”: Policing, Poverty, and Racial Inequality in Tulsa, Oklahoma

    A Case Study of US Law Enforcement

    This report details how policing affects Tulsa, particularly in the segregated and largely impoverished North Tulsa area. Human Rights Watch found that black people are subjected to physical force, including tasers, police dog bites, pepper spray, punches, and kicks, at a rate 2.7 times that of white people. Some neighborhoods with larger populations of black people and poor people experienced police stops more than 10 times the rate of predominantly white and wealthier neighborhoods. Arrests and citations lead to staggering accumulations of court fees, fines, and costs, often for very minor offenses, that trap poor people in a cycle of debt and further arrests for failing to pay.

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  • “They Didn’t Know if I Was Alive or Dead”

    Military Detention of Children for Suspected Boko Haram Involvement in Northeast Nigeria

    This report documents how Nigerian authorities are detaining children, often based on little or no evidence. Children described beatings, overwhelming heat, frequent hunger, and being packed tightly in their cells with hundreds of other detainees “like razorblades in a pack,” as one former detainee said.

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  • Subject to Whim

    The Treatment of Unaccompanied Migrant Children in the French Hautes-Alpes

    The 80-page report found that examiners whose job is to certify a child’s status as a minor – that is, under age 18 – do not comply with international standards. Human Rights Watch found that examiners use various justifications to deny children protection. These include children’s minor mistakes with dates, their reluctance to discuss particularly traumatic experiences in detail or work they did in home countries or while in transit, and what examiners deem as unrealistic life goals.

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  • “When We’re Dead and Buried, Our Bones Will Keep Hurting”

    Workers’ Rights Under Threat in US Meat and Poultry Plants

    This report describes alarmingly high rates of serious injury and chronic illness among workers at chicken, hog, and cattle slaughtering and processing plants. Human Rights Watch interviewed workers who described serious job-related injuries or illnesses, and nearly all the interviewed workers identified production speed as the factor that made their job dangerous.

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  • “Don’t Punish Me for Who I Am”

    Systemic Discrimination Against Transgender Women in Lebanon

    Lebanese General Security has banned a group of activists and academics from re-entering Lebanon following their participation in a September 2018 conference on gender and sexuality, Human Rights Watch, the Arab Foundation for Freedoms and Equality (AFE), and Legal Agenda said today. General Security officers attempted to unlawfully shut down the conference and took names of all conference participants from the hotel registry, including those from highly repressive countries. The agency apparently used the information to create a list of people who are not welcome in Lebanon. This appears to be the first time Lebanon has imposed a collective ban on individuals for participating in a conference.

  • “You Pray for Death”

    Trafficking of Women and Girls in Nigeria

    This report documents human rights abuses committed against largely Nigerian women and girls who are trafficked for sexual and labor exploitation within and outside Nigeria. It also focuses on the experiences of non-Nigerian women and girls who are trafficked into Nigeria, most of them for domestic servitude. It shows how some assistance measures are further violating survivors’ rights. The report highlights physical, mental, social, and economic impact of these abuses on survivors, and describes significant gaps in, and obstacles to, much-needed support services. It further outlines steps the Nigerian government should take to combat trafficking in persons and provide survivors the medical care, psychological counseling, and financial assistance they need to heal from the trauma and rebuild their lives. 

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  • “We Have to Be Worried”

    The Impact of Lead Contamination on Children’s Rights in Kabwe, Zambia

    This report examines the effects of lead contamination in Kabwe, a provincial capital, on children’s rights to health, a healthy environment, education, and play. Twenty-five years after the mine closed, children living in nearby townships continue to be exposed to high levels of toxic lead in soil and dust in their homes, backyards, schools, play areas, and other public spaces. The Zambian government’s efforts to address the environmental and health consequences of the widespread lead contamination have not thus far been sufficient, and parents struggle to protect their children.

  • “No Year without Deaths”

    A Decade of Deregulation Puts Georgian Miners at Risk

    This report documents how weak labor protections and limited government oversight have allowed mining practices that undermine safety to flourish. Georgian labor law does not sufficiently regulate working hours, rest time, weekly breaks, and night work, and does not provide for government oversight of all labor conditions.

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  • “They Are Making Us into Slaves, Not Educating Us”

    How Indefinite Conscription Restricts Young People’s Rights, Access to Education in Eritrea

    This report documents how the Eritrean government forcibly channels thousands of young people, some still children, each year into military training even before they finish their schooling. Instead of developing a pool of committed, well-trained, career secondary school teachers, the government conscripts teachers, also for indefinite service, giving them no choice about whether, what, or where to teach. These policies have a devastating impact on education and lead many young people to flee the country.

  • The War in Catatumbo

    Abuses by Armed Groups Against Civilians Including Venezuelan Exiles in Northeastern Colombia

    This report documents killings, disappearances, sexual violence, recruitment of children as soldiers, and forced displacement by the National Liberation Army (ELN), Popular Liberation Army (EPL), and a group that emerged from the demobilized Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC). Armed groups use threats to gain control, including against community leaders and human rights defenders, some of whom have been killed. Venezuelans who fled the humanitarian emergency in their country are among the victims. 

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  • Why Sex Work Should be Decriminalised in South Africa

    This documents violence experienced by sex workers in South Africa, and their difficulties in reporting crimes and creating safe places to work. Sex workers also reported being sexually exploited by police and forced to pay bribes to officers. 

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  • Basra is Thirsty

    Iraq’s Failure to Manage the Water Crisis

    This report found that the crisis is a result of complex factors that if left unaddressed will most likely result in future water-borne disease outbreaks and continued economic hardship. The authorities at the local and federal level have done little to address the underlying conditions causing the situation.

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  • “We Can’t Help You Here”

    US Returns of Asylum Seekers to Mexico

    This report finds that thousands of asylum seekers from Central America and elsewhere, including more than 4,780 children, are facing potentially dangerous and unlivable conditions after US authorities return them to Mexico. The US and Mexico agreed on June 7, 2019 to dramatically expand the returns program.

  • Rigging the System

    Government Policies Co-Opt Aid and Reconstruction Funding in Syria

    This report looks at the government’s policies for and restrictions on humanitarian assistance and reconstruction and development funding to Syria. Human Rights Watch found that the Syrian government has developed a policy and legal framework that allows it to divert aid and reconstruction resources to fund its atrocities, punish those perceived as opponents, and benefit those loyal to it.

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