Reports

Bhutanese refugee women in Nepal encounter gender-based violence and systematic discrimination in access to aid.This 77-page report examines the uneven response of UNHCR and the government of Nepal to rape, domestic violence, sexual and physical assault, and trafficking of girls and women from refugee camps.

More than 11,000 children fight in Colombia's armed conflict, one of the highest totals in the world. Both guerrilla and paramilitary forces rely on child combatants, who have committed atrocities and are even made to execute other children who try to desert.

Afghan warlords and political strongmen supported by the United States and other nations are engendering a climate of fear in Afghanistan that is threatening efforts to adopt a new constitution and could derail national elections scheduled for mid-2004.

The insecurity plaguing Baghdad and other Iraqi cities has a distinct and debilitating impact on the daily lives of women and girls, preventing them from participating in public life at a crucial time in their country's history. Human Rights Watch interviewed rape and abduction victims and witnesses, Iraqi police and health professionals, and U.S.

Abductions, torture, recruitment of child soldiers, and other abuses have sharply increased in the past year in northern Uganda due to renewed fighting between Ugandan government forces and rebels, a coalition of national and international organizations. This 73-page report details how a slew of human rights abuses have resulted in a humanitarian crisis.

With major military operations continuing in al-Falluja, U.S. authorities should investigate the apparent use of excessive force against Iraqi protesters there on April 28 and 30, Human Rights Watch urged in a new report released today. This challenges the U.S. military's assertion that its troops came under direct fire from individuals in the crowd of protesters on April 28.

Child soldiers who fought in the Angolan civil war have been excluded from demobilization programs, Human Rights Watch said in a new report released today. April marks the one-year anniversary of the agreement that brought peace to mainland Angola in 2002.

Rwandan children still suffer the devastating consequences of the 1994 genocide and the war that preceded and followed it, Human Rights Watch said in a report released today. In the 80-page report, “Lasting Wounds: Consequences of Genocide and War for Rwanda’s Children,” Human Rights Watch documents the widespread abuse and exploitation of children in 1994 and since.

West African governments are failing to address a rampant traffic in child labor that could worsen with the region’s growing AIDS crisis, Human Rights Watch charged in a new report released today. The 79-page report, “Borderline Slavery: Child Trafficking in Togo,” highlights Togo as a case study of trafficking in the region.

Children are being abducted in record numbers in northern Uganda by the rebel Lord's Resistance Army (LRA), Human Rights Watch said in a new report released today. The children are subjected to brutal treatment as soldiers, laborers and sexual slaves. Since June of 2002, an estimated 5,000 children have been abducted-a striking increase from 2001, when fewer than 100 children were abducted.

More girls are employed in domestic work than in any other form of child labor. They are exploited and abused on a routine basis, yet are nearly invisible among child laborers. They work alone in individual households, hidden from public scrutiny, their lives controlled by their employers.

The Egyptian government conducts mass arrest campaigns of children whose "crime" is that they are in need of protection, Human Rights Watch said in a new report released today. Children in police custody face beatings, sexual abuse and extortion by police and adult criminal suspects, and police routinely deny them access to food, bedding and medical care.

Human Rights Watch calls on the U.N. Commission on Human Rights to condemn the execution of juvenile offenders in those few states that retain the practice in an omnibus children's resolution, a resolution on extrajudicial, arbitrary and summary executions, and any resolution on the death penalty.

Sexual abuse of girls in Zambia fuels the HIV/AIDS epidemic and the strikingly higher HIV prevalence among girls than boys, Human Rights Watch said today. Concerted national and international efforts to protect the rights of girls and young women are key to curbing the AIDS epidemic’s destructive course.