Reports

Violations of Chong Indigenous People’s Rights in Cambodia’s Southern Cardamom REDD+ Project

The 118-page report, “Carbon Offsetting’s Casualties: Violations of Chong Indigenous People’s Rights in Cambodia’s Southern Cardamom REDD+ Project,” concerns a project carried out by the Cambodian Ministry of Environment and the conservation group Wildlife Alliance, that encompasses half a million hectares in the Cardamom mountains, a rainforest area that has been home to the indigenous Chong people for centuries. The project operated for more than two years without consulting the local Chong people on the project, who face forced evictions and criminal charges for farming and foraging in their traditional territories.

Two women harvesting rice in a rural rice field

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  • February 19, 2014

    Human Rights Abuses in Sierra Leone’s Mining Boom

    This 96-page report documents how the government and London-based African Minerals Limited forcibly relocated hundreds of families from verdant slopes to a flat, arid area in Tonkolili District. As a result, residents lost their ability to cultivate crops and engage in income generating activities that once sustained them.

  • February 3, 2014

    The Impact of Mining on Human Rights in Karamoja, Uganda

    This 140-page report examines the conduct of three companies in different stages of the mining process: East African Mining, Jan Mangal, and DAO Uganda. Human Rights Watch found that companies have explored for minerals and actively mined on lands owned and occupied by Karamoja’s indigenous people.

  • November 19, 2013

    Burst Pipes, Contaminated Wells, and Open Defecation in Zimbabwe’s Capital

    The 60-page report describes how residents have little access to potable water and sanitation services, and often resort to drinking water from shallow, unprotected wells that are contaminated with sewage, and to defecating outdoors. The conditions violate their right to water, sanitation, and health.

  • July 15, 2013

    Human Rights Impacts of Weak Governance in Indonesia’s Forestry Sector

    This 68-page report finds that illegal logging and forest-sector mismanagement resulted in losses to the Indonesian government of more than US$7 billion between 2007 and 2011.

  • October 8, 2012

    The Health Repercussions of Bangladesh’s Hazaribagh Leather

    This report documents an occupational health and safety crisis among tannery workers, both men and women, including skin diseases and respiratory illnesses caused by exposure to tanning chemicals, and limb amputations caused by accidents in dangerous tannery machinery.

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  • June 18, 2012

    Abuses against the Indigenous Peoples of Ethiopia’s Lower Omo Valley

    This report documents how government security forces are forcing communities to relocate from their traditional lands through violence and intimidation, threatening their entire way of life with no compensation or choice of alternative livelihoods.

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  • June 14, 2012

    Mining, Regulatory Failure, and Human Rights in India

    This 70-page report finds that deep-rooted shortcomings in the design and implementation of key policies have effectively left mine operators to supervise themselves. This has fueled pervasive lawlessness in India’s scandal-ridden mining industry and threatens serious harm to mining-affected communities.

  • December 6, 2011

    Child Labor, Mercury, and Artisanal Gold Mining in Mali

    This 108-page report reveals that children as young as six dig mining shafts, work underground, pull up heavy weights of ore, and carry, crush, and pan ore. Many children also work with mercury, a toxic substance, to separate the gold from the ore. Mercury attacks the central nervous system and is particularly harmful to children.

  • June 15, 2011

    A Public Health Crisis in Four Chinese Provinces

    This 75-page report draws on research in heavily lead-contaminated villages in Henan, Yunnan, Shaanxi, and Hunan provinces. The report documents how, despite increasing regulation and sporadic enforcement targeting polluting factories, local authorities are ignoring the urgent and long-term health consequences of a generation of children continuously exposed to life-threatening levels of lead.

  • February 1, 2011

    Human Rights Impacts of Papua New Guinea’s Porgera Gold Mine

    This report identifies systemic failures on the part of Toronto-based Barrick Gold that kept the company from recognizing the risk of abuses, and responding to allegations that abuses had occurred.

  • July 14, 2010

    Exploitation of Migrant Tobacco Workers in Kazakhstan

    This 115-page report documents how some employers confiscated migrant workers' passports, failed to provide them with written contracts, did not pay regular wages, cheated them of earnings, and required them to work excessively long hours.
  • May 5, 2010

    Child Labor in US Agriculture

    In this 99-page report Human Rights Watch found that child farmworkers risked their safety, health, and education on commercial farms across the United States. For the report, Human Rights Watch interviewed 59 children under age 18 who had worked as farmworkers in 14 states in various regions of the United States.

  • January 11, 2010

    Failure to End Military Business Activity in Indonesia

    This 20-page report provides a detailed critique of a presidential decree and Defense Ministry regulations addressing military involvement in businesses that were issued in October 2009.

  • December 1, 2009

    The Human Rights Consequences of Illegal Logging and Corruption in Indonesia’s Forestry Sector

    This 75-page report found that more than half of all Indonesian timber from 2003 through 2006 was logged illegally, with no taxes paid. Unreported subsidies to the forestry industry, including government use of artificially low timber market prices and currency exchange rates, and tax evasion by exporters using a scam known as "transfer pricing," exacerbated the losses.

  • June 23, 2009

    A Health and Human Rights Crisis in Mitrovica’s Roma Camps

    This 68-page report tells the story of a decade of failure by the UN and others to provide adequate housing and medical treatment for the Roma, and the devastating consequences for the health of those in the camps.