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“My Teacher Said I Had a Disease”

Barriers to the Right to Education for LGBT Youth in Vietnam

The 65-page report, “‘My Teacher Said I Had a Disease’: Barriers to the Right to Education for LGBT Youth in Vietnam,” documents how LGBT youth in Vietnam face stigma and discrimination at home and at school over myths such as the false belief that same-sex attraction is a diagnosable, treatable, and curable mental health condition. Many experience verbal harassment and bullying, which in some cases leads to physical violence. Teachers are often untrained and ill-equipped to handle cases of anti-LGBT discrimination, and their lessons frequently uphold the widespread myth in Vietnam that same-sex attraction is a disease, Human Rights Watch found. The government of Vietnam should fulfill its pledges to protect the rights of LGBT people.

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  • Kidnapped by ISIS

    Failure to Uncover the Fate of Syria’s Missing

    This report highlights 27 cases of individuals or groups apprehended by ISIS and last heard of in its custody before the group’s military defeat. They include activists, aid workers, journalists, and anti-ISIS fighters from a range of groups, government and anti-government, as well as residents living under ISIS control. While the number of missing is uncertain, the Syrian Network for Human Rights has documented 8,143 cases of people detained by ISIS whose fate remains unknown.

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  • “How Much More Blood Must Be Spilled?”

    Atrocities Against Civilians in Central Mali, 2019

    Most civilians were the targets of deliberate attacks, while others were killed by explosive devices indiscriminately placed on roadways. The report analyzes the lack of justice for these and past atrocities against civilians and pushes the government to hasten the disarmament of abusive armed groups and efforts to ensure justice, and for Mali’s partners to support these efforts.

  • Deported to Danger

    United States Deportation Policies Expose Salvadorans to Death and Abuse

    The US government has deported people to face abuse and even death in El Salvador. The US is not solely responsible—Salvadoran gangs who prey on deportees and Salvadoran authorities who harm deportees or who do little or nothing to protect them bear direct responsibility—but in many cases the US is putting Salvadorans in harm’s way in circumstances where it knows or should know that harm is likely.

  • “If We Don’t Get Services, We Will Die”

    Tanzania’s Anti-LGBT Crackdown and the Right to Health

    This report documents how since 2016 the government of Tanzania has cracked down on LGBT people and the community-based organizations that serve them. The Health Ministry in mainland Tanzania has prohibited community-based organizations from conducting outreach on HIV prevention to men who have sex with men and other key populations vulnerable to HIV. It closed drop-in centers that provided HIV testing and other targeted and inclusive services, and banned the distribution of lubricant, essential for effective condom use for HIV prevention among key populations and much of the wider public.

  • “As Long as We Live on the Streets, They Will Beat Us”

    Rwanda’s Abusive Detention of Children

    This report documents the arbitrary detention of street children for periods of up to six months at Gikondo Transit Center, in Kigali, the capital. It follows three Human Rights Watch reports in 2006, 2015, and 2016 on transit centers, including Gikondo, where ill-treatment and beatings are common. Since 2017, a new legal framework and policies under the government’s strategy to “eradicate delinquency” have sought to legitimize and regulate detention in so-called transit centers. But in reality, this new legislation provides cover for the continuing arbitrary detention of, and violations against, detainees, including children.

  • “The Guerrillas Are the Police”

    Social Control and Abuses by Armed Groups in Colombia’s Arauca Province and Venezuela’s Apure State

    This report documents violations by the National Liberation Army (ELN), the Patriotic Forces of National Liberation (FPLN), and a group that emerged from the demobilized Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC). Abuses including murder, forced labor, child recruitment, and rape are often committed as part of the groups’ strategy to control the social, political, and economic life of Arauca and Apure. Impunity for such abuses is the rule.

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  • Fashion’s Next Trend

    Accelerating Supply Chain Transparency in the Apparel and Footwear Industry

    This report describes how dozens of brands and retailers are publicly disclosing information about their supplier factories. This has become a widely accepted step toward better identifying and addressing labor abuses in garment supply chains. 

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  • Born Without Civil Rights

    Israel’s Use of Draconian Military Orders to Repress Palestinians in the West Bank

    This report evaluates Israeli military orders that criminalize nonviolent political activity, including protesting, publishing material “having a political significance,” and joining groups “hostile” to Israel. Human Rights Watch examined several case studies to show that Israel unjustifiably relies on these sweeping orders to jail Palestinians for anti-occupation speech, activism, or political affiliations; outlaw political and other nongovernmental organizations; and shut down media outlets. 

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  • “These Children Don't Belong in the Streets”

    A Roadmap for Ending Exploitation, Abuse of Talibés in Senegal

    This report analyzes the Senegalese government’s policy, programming, and judicial efforts from 2017 to 2019 to address the abuses. The groups found that these efforts have been insufficient and set out a roadmap to end forced begging and abusive conditions in the Quranic schools, known as daaras.

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  • “We Let Our Children Go Hungry to Pay”

    Abuses Related to the 2020 Election Levy in Burundi

    This report documents the campaign by the ruling National Council for the Defense of Democracy-Forces for the Defense of Democracy party (Conseil national pour la défense de la démocratie-Forces de défense de la démocratie, CNDD-FDD) with the youth wing and local officials to collect “voluntary” contributions from the population. Human Rights Watch found that people have been forced to pay multiple times or more than the officially requested amount, or were not given a receipt, exacerbating the situation. 

  • “Are We Not Human?”

    Denial of Education for Rohingya Refugee Children in Bangladesh

    This report documents how Bangladesh prohibits aid groups in the refugee camps in the Cox’s Bazar district from providing Rohingya children with accredited or formal education. There is no secondary-level education, and groups are barred from teaching the Bengali language and using the Bangladesh curriculum. Rohingya children have no opportunity to enroll in or continue their education at private or public schools outside the refugee camps.

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  • A Dirty Investment

    European Development Banks’ Link to Abuses in the Democratic Republic of Congo's Palm Oil Industry

    This report documents that investment banks owned by Belgium, Germany, the Netherlands, and the United Kingdom are failing to protect the rights of people working and living on three plantations they finance. Human Rights Watch found that Feronia and its subsidiary in Congo, Plantations et Huileries du Congo, S.A. (PHC), expose workers to dangerous pesticides, dump untreated industrial waste into local waterways, and engage in abusive employment practices that result in extreme poverty wages.

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  • “They Were Shouting ‘Kill Them’”

    Sudan’s Violent Crackdown on Protesters in Khartoum

    This report documents Sudanese security forces’ attack on the protesters’ sit-in camp in Khartoum on June 3, 2019 and in following days in other neighborhoods of the capital, Khartoum, and neighboring Bahri and Omdurman. Human Rights Watch also documented attacks on protesters leading up to the June 3 crackdown and a subsequent attack on protesters on June 30 in Omdurman.

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  • “There Is a Price to Pay”

    The Criminalization of Peaceful Speech in Lebanon

    This report finds that powerful political and religious figures have increasingly used the country’s criminal insult and defamation laws against people leveling accusations of corruption and reporting on the country’s worsening economic and political situation. Convictions under these laws can lead to prison terms of up to three years. Parliament should urgently repeal the laws that criminalize speech, some of which date from Ottoman and French Mandate periods.

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