Reports

The 58-page report, “‘An Island Jail in the Middle of the Sea’: Bangladesh’s Relocation of Rohingya Refugees to Bhasan Char,” finds that Bangladesh authorities transferred many refugees to the island without full, informed consent and have prevented them from returning to the mainland.

The 65-page report, “‘I Sleep in My Own Deathbed’: Violence against Women and Girls in Bangladesh,” draws on 50 interviews to document the obstacles to realizing the government’s goal of a society without violence against women and children.

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.

This report identifies key practices by clothing companies that fuel abusive cost-cutting methods by factories that harm workers.

This report is based on a May 2018 visit to Cox’s Bazar. Human Rights Watch found that the mega camp is severely overcrowded. The average usable space is 10.7 square meters per person, compared with the recommended international standard of 45 square meters per person.

This report details dozens of arbitrary arrests since the Information and Communication Technology Act 2006 was amended in 2013 to incorporate harsher penalties and allowing the police to make arrests without warrant.

This report found that at least 90 people were victims of enforced disappearance in 2016 alone. While most were produced in court after weeks or months of secret detention, Human Rights Watch documented 21 cases of detainees who were later killed, and nine others whose whereabouts remain unknown. 

This report documents abuses suffered by a group of hijras, when they were forced to undergo so-called medical examinations at a hospital in Dhaka, the capital, in 2015, as part of a government employment program.

This report calls upon Bangladesh authorities to order prompt, impartial, and independent investigations into all alleged “kneecappings” and other deliberate infliction of serious injuries by members of the security forces.

This report documents how Bangladesh’s health system largely ignores the impact of exposure to arsenic on people’s health. An estimated 43,000 people die each year from arsenic-related illness in Bangladesh, according to one study.

This 134-page report is based on more than a hundred interviews conducted across the country, most of them with married girls, some as young as age 10.

This 78-page report is based on interviews with more than 160 workers from 44 factories, most of them making garments for retail companies in North America, Europe, and Australia.