The 38-page report, “‘A Disaster for the Foreseeable Future’: Afghanistan’s Healthcare Crisis,” describes how the collapse of Afghanistan’s economy after the Taliban takeover in August 2021 inflicted severe harm on the country’s healthcare infrastructure. Donors’ decisions to reduce humanitarian aid have further weakened health care access, destabilized the economy, and worsened food insecurity. The Taliban’s abusive policies and practices have greatly exacerbated the crisis. Bans on education for women and girls have blocked most training for future female healthcare workers, ensuring shortages for the foreseeable future.
Intimidation and Attacks against Women in Public Life in Afghanistan
When a U.S.-led coalition invaded Afghanistan in October 2001, one of the justifications for the war was that it would liberate women from the misogynistic rule of the Taliban. Three years later, on the eve of the country’s first-ever national presidential elections on October 9, 2004, there have been notable improvements for women and girls.
This 58-page report investigates the persistent weaknesses in the Rwandan legal system that hamper the investigation and prosecution of sexual violence. The report also documents the desperate health and economic situation of rape survivors. Many of the women who were raped became infected with HIV.
Abuses Against Children Affected by HIV/AIDS in India
This 209-page report documents how many doctors refuse to treat or even touch HIV-positive children. Some schools expel or segregate children because they or their parents are HIV-positive. Many orphanages and other residential institutions reject HIV-positive children or deny that they house them.
Discrimination against Women Living with HIV in the Dominican Republic
Women in the Dominican Republic are routinely subjected to involuntary HIV testing, and those who test positive are fired and denied adequate healthcare. This 50-page report documents the human rights violations women living with HIV suffer in the public health system as well as in the workplace.
Human Rights Watch has issued numerous reports showing that human rights abuses against persons living with and at high risk of HIV/AIDS contribute significantly to new HIV infections worldwide. This is true in Thailand, the host of this year’s AIDS conference, as well as in numerous other countries worldwide.
The War on Drugs, HIV/AIDS, and Violations of Human Rights
This 60-page report provides fresh evidence of extrajudicial killings, arbitrary arrests and other human rights violations by Thai authorities. The report contains first-hand testimony from relatives of people killed during the drug war, as well as drug users who endured beatings, forced confessions and arbitrary arrests at the hands of Royal Thai Police.
This 33-page report documents how the Tunisian authorities continue to hold as many as 40 of the country’s more than 500 political prisoners in long-term isolation in prisons around the country. This policy violates Tunisian law as well as international penal standards, undermining government claims of prison reform.
In this 70-page report, Human Rights Watch says that the Philippine government bans the use of national funds for condom supplies. Some local authorities, such as the mayor of Manila City, prohibit the distribution of condoms in government health facilities. School-based HIV/AIDS educators told Human Rights Watch that schools often prohibited them from discussing condoms with students.
Human Rights Abuses and HIV/AIDS in the Russian Federation
This 62-page report documents how harsh drug policies and routine police harassment of injection drug users—the population hit hardest by AIDS in Russia—impedes their access or makes them afraid to seek basic HIV-prevention services such as syringe exchange, which is available in other countries around the world.
South Africa's Efforts to Prevent HIV in Survivors of Sexual Violence
This 73-page report documents how government inaction and misinformation from high-level officials have undermined the effectiveness of South Africa’s program to provide rape survivors with post-exposure prophylaxis (PEP) — antiretroviral drugs that can reduce the risk of contracting HIV from an HIV-positive attacker.
A Call for Action on HIV/AIDS-Related Human Rights Abuses Against Women and Girls in Africa
Violence and discrimination against women and girls is fueling Africa's AIDS crisis. African governments must make gender equality a central part of national AIDS programs if they are to succeed in fighting the epidemic.
Inadequate Nutrition and Health Care in the Russian Armed Forces
This 40-page report details how conscripts are deprived of adequate food. The diet of conscripts often lacks meat and green vegetables, and falls short of the Russian military’s own nutritional standard for soldiers. The food they do receive is often of poor quality, rotten, or bug-infested.
Mentally ill offenders face mistreatment and neglect in many U.S. prisons. One in six U.S. prisoners is mentally ill. Many of them suffer from serious illnesses such as schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, and major depression. There are three times as many men and women with mental illness in U.S. prisons as in mental health hospitals.
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.
