Reports

“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.

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  • Genocide, War Crimes and Crimes Against Humanity

    Topical Digests of the Case Law of the ICTR and the ICTY

    This 285-page book organizes the tribunals’ decisions by topic, including genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes, individual criminal responsibility, command responsibility and sentencing.

  • Child Soldier Use 2003

    A Briefing for the 4th UN Security Council Open Debate on Children and Armed Conflict

    Throughout 2003 thousands of children were deployed as combatants, to commit abuses against civilians, as sex slaves, forced labourers, messengers, informants and servants in continuing and newly erupting conflicts.

  • Policy Paralysis

    A Call for Action on HIV/AIDS-Related Human Rights Abuses Against Women and Girls in Africa

    Violence and discrimination against women and girls is fueling Africa's AIDS crisis. African governments must make gender equality a central part of national AIDS programs if they are to succeed in fighting the epidemic.

  • Preparing for Elections

    Tightening Control in the Name of Unity

    The Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) is labeling possible political opponents "divisionist" and taking steps to silence them in order to ensure victory in upcoming elections.

  • Lasting Wounds:

    Consequences of Genocide and War for Rwanda's Children

    Rwandan children still suffer the devastating consequences of the 1994 genocide and the war that preceded and followed it, Human Rights Watch said in a report released today.

  • Rwanda: Observing the Rules of War?

    Both Rwandan government troops and adversary rebel forces of the Army for the Liberation of Rwanda (ALIR) have given civilians greater protection in the conflict in Rwanda’s northwest in 2001, Human Rights Watch said in a report released today.

  • Uprooting The Rural Poor In Rwanda

    The Rwandan government has violated the basic rights of tens of thousands of people by forcing them to abandon their homes in rural areas and move to makeshift dwellings in government-designated sites, Human Rights Watch charges in this report.

  • Protectors or Pretenders

    Government Human Rights Commissions in Africa

    State-sponsored national human rights commissions represent a new vogue among governments, and particularly in Africa. The number of state human rights commissions has multiplied across the continent in the past decade, spreading from one country in 1989 to two dozen by 2000.

  • Leave None to Tell the Story

    Genocide in Rwanda

    In 1994 a small elite chose genocide to keep power in Rwanda. They used state resources and authority to incite - or force - tens of thousands of Rwandans to kill the Tutsi minority. Within one hundred days, they slaughtered more than half a million people, three quarters of the Tutsi of Rwanda.

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  • Shattered Lives

    Sexual Violence during the Rwandan Genocide and its Aftermath

    During the 1994 genocide, Rwandan women were subjected to sexual violence on a massive scale, perpetrated by members ofthe infamous Hutu militia groups known as the Interahamwe, by other civilians, and by soldiers of the Rwandan Armed Forces(Forces Armées Rwandaises, FAR), including the Presidential Guard.

  • Rearming With Impunity

    International Support for the Perpetrators of the Rwandan Genocide

    After a year in exile, the perpetrators of the Rwandan genocide have rebuilt their military infrastructure, largely in Zaire, and are rearming themselves in preparation for a violent return to Rwanda.

  • Rwanda: The Crisis Continues

    One year after the genocide began in Rwanda, the crisis continues. Despite calls for justice, no criminal trials, national or international, have taken place.

  • Human Rights in Africa and US Policy

    The White House conference on Africa came at a time when the Clinton Administration’s cautious response to the monstrous crime of genocide in Rwanda was increasingly under attack at home and abroad and offered an opportunity for it to adopt a much-needed change of course.

  • Genocide in Rwanda

    The mysterious death of President Habyarimana of Rwanda in April 1994 was the pretext for Hutu extremists from the late president's entourage to launch a campaign of genocide against the Tutsi, a minority that made up about 15 percent of the population.