Reports

This report documents the use and abuse of a range of broad and vaguely worded laws to criminalize peaceful expression, including debates on matters of public interest, and provides specific recommendations for the repeal or amendment of those laws.

This report describes how France, and especially the United States, were pivotal in bringing Habré to power, although signs of his brutality were already evident. The two countries saw Habré as a bulwark against the expansionist designs of Libya’s Muammar Gaddafi, whose forces were occupying northern Chad. Human Rights Watch details how both the United States and France continued to provide Habré’s government with critical support, even as it committed widespread and systematic human rights violations.

This report details the Ethiopian government’s use of excessive and unnecessary lethal force and mass arrests, mistreatment in detention, and restrictions on access to information to quash the protest movement. Human Rights Watch interviews in Ethiopia and abroad with more than 125 protesters, bystanders, and victims of abuse documented serious violations of the rights to free expression and peaceful assembly by security forces against protesters and others from the beginning of the protests in November 2015 through May 2016.

 

This report says that governments around the world made a commitment two decades ago to remove barriers to education for their children. But Human Rights Watch found that discriminatory laws and practices, high fees, violence, and other factors keep children and adolescents out of school in many countries. The report is based on Human Rights Watch research in more than 40 countries, covering nearly two decades. The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, UNESCO, has reported that 124 million children and adolescents are out of school.

 

This report documents shortcomings in the system that prevent children from receiving the care guaranteed by international standards and Swedish law. Children endure long delays in the appointment of legal guardians to safeguard the child’s best interests and wait months before meeting with a social worker or healthcare provider. In some cases, the specific needs of girls are not sufficiently identified or addressed. Amid a backlog of cases, unaccompanied children face lengthy waits in processing their asylum applications.

 

This report documents the pressure families face to send children born with disabilities to large residential institutions, often far away from their homes, separating them from their families. There, children may experience neglect, inappropriate medication, and lack of privacy and have limited or no access to education. 

This report documents the impacts of serious and prolonged drinking water and sanitation problems for thousands of indigenous people – known as “First Nations” – living on reserves. It assesses why there are problems with safe water and sanitation on reserves, including a lack of binding water quality regulations, erratic and insufficient funding, faulty or sub-standard infrastructure, and degraded source waters. The federal government’s own audits over two decades show a pattern of overpromising and underperforming on water and sanitation for reserves.

This report draws upon two decades of Human Rights Watch research on child labor and other labor rights abuses, environmental damage, and violations of the rights to health, land, food, and water, in the context of global supply chains.

This report shows that the three officials charged in the mob attack were not acting alone. The ruling Cambodian People’s Party (CPP) transported protesters to the National Assembly in Phnom Penh a day after Hun Sen threatened to retaliate against the CNRP for demonstrating against him in Paris. Police stood by during the assault that inflicted serious injuries on assemblymen Kung Sophea and Nhay Chamraoen. After the attack, the mob went to the home of deputy CNRP leader Kem Sokha and threw stones and menaced those inside.

 

This report details how criminal laws are used to limit and chill free speech in India. It documents ways overbroad or vague laws are used to stifle political dissent, harass journalists, restrict activities by nongovernmental organizations, arbitrarily block Internet sites or take down content, and target marginalized communities, particularly Dalits, and religious minorities.

This report documents how child tobacco workers are exposed to nicotine, handle toxic chemicals, use sharp tools, lift heavy loads, and work in extreme heat. The work could have lasting consequences for their health and development. Companies should ban suppliers from using children for work that involves direct contact with tobacco, and the Indonesian government should regulate the industry to hold them accountable.

 

This report shows how changing patterns of unrest and politicized detentions, prosecutions, and convictions from 2013-2015 correlate with the latest phase of the government’s “stability maintenance” campaign – a policy that has resulted in unprecedented surveillance and control in Tibetan villages and towns.

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. Others were given “Other Than Honorable” discharges for misconduct related to the assault that shut them out of the Department of Veterans Affairs healthcare system and a broad range of educational and financial assistance. The consequences of having “bad paper” – any discharge other than “honorable” – or being labeled as having a “personality disorder” are far-reaching for veterans and their families, impacting employment, child custody, health care, disability payments, burial rights – virtually all aspects of life.


 

The report, “‘We Feel We Are Cursed’: Life under ISIS in Sirte, Libya,” also finds that ISIS is inflicting severe hardship on the local population by diverting food, medicine, fuel, and cash, along with homes it seized from residents who fled, to fighters and functionaries it has amassed in the Mediterranean port city. As the de facto government in Sirte, ISIS has the duty to ensure that all residents are able to exercise their basic human rights, including the rights to food and health.

This report examines the shortcomings in Japanese government policies that expose LGBT students to bullying and inhibit access to information and self-expression. Bullying is widespread and brutal in Japan’s schools, yet government policies addressing bullying do not specifically address LGBT students, who are among the most vulnerable to bullying. Instead, the national bullying prevention policy promotes social norms at the expense of basic rights. LGBT students told Human Rights Watch that teachers have told them that by being openly gay or transgender, they are being selfish and should expect not to succeed in school.