Reports

This 49-page report documents the Sri Lankan government's responsibility for the plight of the 230,000 to 300,000 displaced persons trapped in the Vanni conflict zone. They face severe shortages of food and other essentials because of government restrictions on humanitarian assistance.

Some 1,000 unaccompanied migrant children who have entered Greece in 2008 without parents or caregivers struggle to survive without any state assistance, Human Rights Watch said in a new report issued today.

In this 100-page report, Human Rights Watch documents how the government's HIV treatment program has failed to get lifesaving drugs to the majority of children who need them. If untreated, half of all children born with HIV will die before their second birthdays.

The 104-page report, "So Much to Fear: War Crimes and the Devastation of Somalia," describes how the Somali Transitional Federal Government (TFG), the Ethiopian forces that intervened in Somalia to support it and insurgent forces have committed widespread and serious violations of the laws of war.

This 22-page report says that in Andalusia, the southern region that is a common entry point for migrants, authorities have said they intend to send up to 1,000 unaccompanied children in their custody to Morocco, claiming that safeguards are in place. But officials could not explain how they determined it was in a child’s best interest to return, as required by law.

In this 125-page report, the ACLU and Human Rights Watch found that in Texas and Mississippi children ranging in age from 3 to 19 years old are routinely physically punished for minor infractions such as chewing gum, talking back to a teacher, or violating the dress code, as well as for more serious transgressions such as fighting. Corporal punishment, legal in 21 states, typically takes the form of “paddling,” during which an administrator or teacher hits a child repeatedly on the buttocks with a long wooden board. The report shows that, as a result of paddling, many children are left injured, degraded, and disengaged from school.

This 182-page report documents human rights abuses against civilians, particularly indigenous tribal communities, caught in a deadly tug-of-war between government security forces and the vigilante Salwa Judum and Naxalites.

This 98-page report documents how, in the last several years, members of FESCI have been implicated in attacks on opposition ministers, magistrates, journalists, and human rights organizations, among others.

The Coalition to Stop the Use of Child Soldiers was formed in May 1998 by leading nongovernmental organizations to end the recruitment and use of child soldiers, both boys and girls, to secure their demobilization, and to promote their reintegration into their communities.

This 35-page report documents how attacks on several towns in West Darfur’s “northern corridor” were a vicious reprise of Khartoum’s “scorched earth” counterinsurgency tactics. The report, based on interviews with more than 60 witnesses and victims of the attacks in West Darfur, shows how Sudanese armed forces and government-backed “Janjaweed” militia killed and injured hundreds of civilians and destroyed and looted property.

In this update to Human Rights Watch’s work on eliminating the sentence of life without parole for juvenile offenders, a number of findings are presented that illustrate the troublesome nature of the sentence and how it is applied to youthful offenders.

This 23-page report documents how such children live without legal identity or access to elementary education. These children live in the Yanbian Korean Autonomous Prefecture in eastern Jilin Province, northeast China (near its border with North Korea). Some are from North Korea while others were born in China and have Chinese fathers and North Korean mothers.

This 82-page report documents the routine arrest of children for such “offenses” as begging, running away from home, or being alone with a member of the opposite sex. Prosecutors can hold children, like adults, for up to six months before referring them to a judge. In the case of girls, authorities can detain them indefinitely, without judicial review, for what they say is “guidance.” Detention centers mix children under investigation or trial with children convicted of a crime and sometimes with adults. Judges regularly try children without the presence of lawyers or sometimes even guardians, even for crimes punishable by death, flogging, or amputation.