Reports

The 47-page report, “Justice as a Weapon: Political Persecution in Bolivia,” documents instances of baseless or disproportionate charges, due process violations, infringement of freedom of expression, and excessive and arbitrary use of pretrial detention in cases pursued by the interim government. Human Rights Watch also found examples of abuse of the justice system against Morales opponents during the Morales administration.

The 42-page report, “‘Video Unavailable’: Social Media Platforms Remove Evidence of War Crimes,” urges all stakeholders, including social media platforms, to come together to develop an independent mechanism to preserve potential evidence of serious crimes. They should ensure that the content is available to support national and international investigations, as well as research by nongovernmental organizations, journalists, and academics. Rights groups have been urging social media companies since 2017 to improve transparency and accountability around content takedowns

The 77-page report named “A Case for Legal Abortion: The Human Cost of Barriers to Sexual and Reproductive Rights in Argentina,” describes the consequences of the Senate’s rejection of a 2018 bill that would have fully decriminalized abortion during the first 14 weeks of pregnancy. Human Rights Watch documented cases of women and girls who have, since then, encountered an array of barriers to access legal abortion and post-abortion care. The barriers include arbitrarily imposed gestational limits, lack of access to and availability of abortion methods, fear of criminal prosecution, stigmatization, and mistreatment by health professionals.

The 50-page report, “The Air is Unbearable: Health Impacts of Deforestation-Related Fires in the Brazilian Amazon,” uses official health and environmental data to estimate that 2,195 hospitalizations due to respiratory illness are attributable to the 2019 fires. Nearly 500 involved infants under a year old, and more than 1,000 involved people over age 60. These hospitalizations represent only a fraction of the total health impact from fires, as millions of people were exposed in 2019 to harmful levels of air pollution resulting from the deforestation-related burning of the Amazon.

The 78-page report, “‘How Can We Work Without Wages?’: Salary Abuses Facing Migrant Workers Ahead of Qatar’s FIFA World Cup 2022” shows that employers across Qatar frequently violate workers’ right to wages and that Qatar has failed to meet its 2017 commitment to the International Labour Organization (ILO) to protect migrant workers from wage abuses and to abolish the kafala system, which ties migrant workers’ visas to their employers. Human Rights Watch found case after case of wage abuse across various occupations including security guards, servers, baristas, bouncers, cleaners, management staff, and construction workers.

The 55-page report, “Stopping Killer Robots: Country Positions on Banning Fully Autonomous Weapons and Retaining Human Control,” reviews the policies of the 97 countries that have publicly elaborated their views on killer robots since 2013. The vast majority regard human control and decision-making as critical to the acceptability and legality of weapons systems. Most of these countries have expressed their desire for a new treaty to retain human control over the use of force, including 30 that explicitly seek to ban fully autonomous weapons.

The 225-page report, “Revoked: How Probation and Parole Feed Mass Incarceration in the United States,” finds that supervision – probation and parole – drives high numbers of people, disproportionately those who are Black and brown, right back to jail or prison, while in large part failing to help them get needed services and resources. In states examined in the report, people are often incarcerated for violating the rules of their supervision or for low-level crimes, and receive disproportionate punishment following proceedings that fail to adequately protect their fair trial rights.

The 77-page report, “‘They Treated Us in Monstrous Ways’: Sexual Violence Against Men, Boys, and Transgender Women in the Syrian Conflict,” found that men and boys have been vulnerable to sexual violence in the Syrian conflict since it began. People Human Rights Watch interviewed said that gay and bisexual men, transgender women, and nonbinary people were subject to increased violence based on their actual or perceived sexual orientation or gender identity. Transgender women are often perceived as gay men in Syria and are targeted for the same reasons.

The 67-page report, “‘I Was Hit So Many Times I Can’t Count’: Abuse of Child Athletes in Japan,” documents Japan’s history of corporal punishment in sport – known as taibatsu in Japanese – and finds child abuse in sports training throughout Japanese schools, federations, and elite sports. In interviews and a nationwide online survey, Japanese athletes from more than 50 sports reported abuses that included being punched in the face, kicked, beaten with objects like bats or bamboo kendo sticks, being deprived of water, choked, whipped with whistles or racquets, and being sexually abused and harrassed.

The 65-page report, “‘It Wasn’t Really Safety, It Was Shame’: Young People, Sexual Health Education, and HPV in Alabama,” documents the Alabama state government’s failure to provide young people with comprehensive, inclusive, and accurate information on sexual and reproductive health. Human Rights Watch also found that the state is not addressing barriers to the human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine – an effective tool to prevent several types of cancer – and that vaccination rates throughout Alabama remain low.

The 69-page report, “‘You Have No Right to Complain’: Education, Social Restrictions, and Justice in Taliban-Held Afghanistan” focuses on the everyday experiences of people living in Taliban-held districts and Taliban restrictions on education, access to information and media, and freedom of movement. The Taliban’s widespread rights abuses in areas it controls raise concerns about their willingness and ability to keep commitments on rights in any future peace agreement

The 92-page report, “‘Bring Me Back To Canada’: Plight of Canadians Held in Northeast Syria for Alleged ISIS Links,” says that Canada has not brought home any of the estimated 47 Canadians – 8 men, 13 women, and 26 children – detained for more than a year in overcrowded, filthy, and life-threatening conditions. Most of the children are under age 6, including a 5-year-old orphan. Since March 2020, Canada has repatriated 40,000 other citizens from 100 countries in response to the Covid-19 pandemic, including 29 from Syria.

The 61-page report, “‘I Want to Continue to Study’: Barriers to Secondary Education for Syrian Refugee Children in Jordan,” documents increasingly difficult obstacles to education the further Syrian refugee children progress in school, with enrollment rates collapsing from nearly 90 percent in primary classes to just 25 to 30 percent in secondary school, according to governmental and United Nations data. With UN support, Jordan has created humanitarian education plans for Syrian refugees that aim to increase enrollment overall, but without specific secondary-school enrollment goals. Few foreign donors support secondary education. Informal education programs hosted by nongovernmental groups only reach a tiny fraction of children, Human Rights Watch found.

The 64-page report, “Once You Get Out, You Lose Everything” documents how the 2013 Matrimonial Property Act, which recognized that married women have the same rights as married men, and other legal reforms are undermined in practice. Kenya’s constitution is consistent with international interpretations of equality and nondiscrimination but falls short of ensuring substantive change for lack of adequate enforcement. Looking at the situation in two counties, Human Rights Watch found that ambiguous and antiquated laws that remain on the books and discriminatory social and traditional practices make it difficult for married, divorced, separated, and widowed women to claim property the law entitles them to.

The 44-page report, “‘They Talk to Us Like We’re Dogs’: Abusive Police Stops in France,” documents repetitive, baseless police stops targeting minorities including children as young as 10, older children, and adults. These stops often involve invasive, humiliating body pat-downs and searches of personal belongings. Most stops are never recorded, the police don’t provide written documentation or usually tell people why they were stopped, and measures to improve accountability have been ineffective. Several of the children and adults interviewed said police used racial slurs.