Reports

This report examines the physical and psychological damage caused by medically unnecessary surgery on intersex people, who are born with chromosomes, gonads, sex organs, or genitalia that differ from those seen as socially typical for boys and girls.

This report is based on data obtained via a Freedom of Information Act request to federal immigration authorities. The data covers nearly 300,000 federal detentions of immigrants in facilities in California over a four-and-a-half-year span.

This report reveals systemic failures, such as unreasonable delays in care and unqualified medical staff, that are likely to expose a record number of people to dangerous conditions under President Donald Trump’s ramped-up deportation and detention plans.

This report identifies federal and state laws and policies that are keeping naloxone out of the hands of people most likely to witness accidental overdoses, denying them the ability to save lives. 

This report details how about 63 percent of prisoners in California county jails in recent years were not sentenced, with many being held awaiting trial because they could not afford bail. 

This report documents a range of problems facing LGBT students.

This report finds that enforcement of drug possession laws causes extensive and unjustifiable harm to individuals and communities across the country.

This report examines how transgender youth are adversely affected by rules that bar them from using bathrooms and locker rooms matching their gender identity.

This report found that many rape victims suffering from trauma were unfairly discharged for a “personality disorder” or other mental health condition that makes them ineligible for benefits.

This report documents the inadequate, haphazard, and in many cases, non-existent HIV testing, treatment, and linkage to care in the jails.

This report documents 28 cases of transgender women who were held in US immigration detention between 2011 and 2015. More than half of the transgender women Human Rights Watch interviewed were held in men’s facilities at some point.

This report scrutinizes how courts approach hundreds of thousands lawsuits brought every year by debt buyers – firms that specialize in buying up bad debts which they then try to collect for themselves. These suits have often been marred by patterns of apparent error, legal deficiency, and alleged illegality. 

The 73-page report, “Teens of the Tobacco Fields: Child Labor in United States Tobacco Farming,” documents the harm caused to 16- and 17-year-olds who work long hours as hired laborers on US tobacco farms, exposed to nicotine, toxic pesticides, and extreme heat.

This 153-page report sets out evidence to support the main criminal charges that can be brought against those responsible for state-sanctioned torture, and challenges claims that prosecutions are not legally possible.

This report documents how the US regularly places legal residents and other immigrants with strong ties to US families into deportation proceedings for drug offenses. Often, those offenses are decades old or so minor they resulted in little or no prison time.