Reports

Car Companies’ Complicity in Forced Labor in China

The 99-page report, “Asleep at the Wheel: Car Companies’ Complicity in Forced Labor in China,” finds that some carmakers have succumbed to Chinese government pressure to apply weaker human rights and responsible sourcing standards at their Chinese joint ventures than in their global operations, increasing the risk of exposure to forced labor in Xinjiang. Most have done too little to map their aluminum supply chains and identify links to forced labor.

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  • June 5, 2007

    Opportunities and Risks for Workers’ Rights

    On May 10, 2007, congressional leaders and the US Trade Representative (USTR) reached an historic agreement on a “new trade policy template” (template) that has the potential to be an important step towards ensuring that workers’ rights are better protected in US trade accords.
  • April 30, 2007

    Wal-Mart's Violation of US Workers’ Right to Freedom of Association

    In this 210-page report, Human Rights Watch found that while many American companies use weak US laws to stop workers from organizing, the retail giant stands out for the sheer magnitude and aggressiveness of its anti-union apparatus. Many of its anti-union tactics are lawful in the United States, though they combine to undermine workers’ rights. Others run afoul of soft US laws.

  • February 16, 2007

    A Human Rights Watch Background Briefing

    Indonesia’s military has a longstanding practice of raising independent income outside the approved budget process. It earns funds from businesses it owns, services it provides for hire, and the protection rackets it operates.
  • January 31, 2007

    The Human Rights Impact of Local Government Corruption and Mismanagement in Rivers State, Nigeria

    This 107-page report details the misuse of public funds by local officials in the geographic heart of Nigeria’s booming oil industry, and the harmful effects on primary education and basic health care. The report is based on scores of interviews in Rivers state with government and donor agency officials, civil servants, health care workers, teachers, civil society groups and local residents.
  • January 11, 2007

    Protecting Migrant Domestic Workers’ Rights

    While some governments have already started making meaningful reforms to help domestic workers work in greater safety and dignity, others are pursuing superficial changes that fail to address the root causes of exploitation and abuse. Governments around the world have choices to make about the route they will take; this essay identifies some of the positive options available.
  • June 20, 2006

    The Human Rights Cost of the Indonesian Military’s Economic Activities

    This 136-page report is the most comprehensive account to date of the harmful effect on civilians of the armed forces' involvement in business. Human Rights Watch calls on the Indonesian government to ban all military businesses, reform the budget process, and hold military personnel accountable for crimes.

  • September 19, 2005

    In September 2003 and September 2004, Human Rights Watch argued for partial or total suspension of tariff benefits when we submitted Andean Trade Preferences Act (ATPA) petitions to the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative (USTR). In those petitions, we detailed Ecuador’s failure to meet the ATPA and ATPDEA workers’ rights criteria.
  • April 21, 2005

    Written Testimony Submitted to the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Ways and Means

    Human Rights Watch welcomes the opportunity to testify regarding workers’ human rights under the proposed United States-Dominican Republic-Central America Free Trade Agreement (D.R.-CAFTA). Human Rights Watch takes no position on free trade per se, but we take an active interest in workers’ human rights.
  • April 7, 2005

    The potential future dangers of widespread production and continued proliferation of cluster munitions demand urgent action to bring the humanitarian threat under control. At least seventy countries stockpile cluster munitions and the aggregate number of submunitions in these stockpiles is staggering.
  • March 18, 2005

    Human Rights Watch welcomes this opportunity to present views regarding whether Ecuador meets the eligibility criteria of the Andean Trade Promotion and Drug Eradication Act (ATPDEA). These criteria include those in the original Andean Trade Preferences Act (ATPA), as well as those added in the ATPDEA, which extended and expanded the ATPA in 2002.
  • February 4, 2005

    Guns, Oil and Power in Nigeria’s Rivers State

    On September 27, 2004, the leader of a powerful armed group threatened to launch an “all-out war” in the Niger Delta - sending shock waves through the oil industry – unless the federal government ceded greater control of the region’s vast oil resources to the Ijaw people, the majority tribe in the Niger Delta.
  • June 10, 2004

    A Human Rights Watch Backgrounder

    Child domestic workers are nearly invisible among child laborers. They work alone in individual households, hidden from public scrutiny, their lives controlled by their employers. Child domestics, nearly all girls, work long hours for little or no pay. Many have no opportunity to go to school, or are forced to drop out because of the demands of their job.

  • June 9, 2004

    Hazardous Child Labor in El Salvador’s Sugarcane Cultivation

    Businesses purchasing sugar from El Salvador, including The Coca-Cola Company, are using the product of child labor that is both hazardous and widespread. Harvesting cane requires children to use machetes and other sharp knives to cut sugarcane and strip the leaves off the stalks, work they perform for up to nine hours each day in the hot sun.
  • March 10, 2004

    A Human Rights Watch Briefing Paper, March 2004

    On February 20, 2004, President George W. Bush notified Congress of his intent to sign the U.S.-Central America Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA)-an accord that the United States recently negotiated with Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, and Nicaragua. According to U.S.