Reports

The 50-page report, “‘Five Babies in One Incubator’: Violations of Pregnant Women’s Rights Amid Israel’s Assault on Gaza,” finds that Israeli forces’ unlawful blockade of the Gaza Strip, its severe restrictions on humanitarian aid, and attacks on medical facilities and healthcare personnel have directly harmed women and girls during pregnancy, childbirth, and the postpartum period. The Israeli government, as the occupying power in Gaza, has violated the right to the highest attainable standard of health and other rights of pregnant women and girls, including the right to dignified, respectful health care throughout pregnancy, childbirth, and postpartum, as well as the right to newborn care.

The 78-page report, “Reproductive Rights in the US Wildfire Crisis: Insights from Health Workers in Oregon State,” finds that the US government needs to do more to address the growing threat wildfires pose to maternal and newborn health, particularly in marginalized communities. The organizations documented the impacts of recent wildfires on maternal and newborn health in the state of Oregon, drawing on the experiences of community health workers and maternal health providers, among others.

The 44-page report, “Navigating Obstacles: Abortion Access in the State of Mexico,” found that the state’s abortion law does not guarantee access to this essential service, even for legally eligible cases. Barriers to access include healthcare providers denying or delaying services, withholding necessary information, questioning the veracity of sexual violence survivors' statements, subjecting women to mistreatment, and imposing arbitrary requirements for access that contradict existing law and regulations.

The 39-page report, “Access Denied: How Florida Judges Obstruct Young People’s Ability to Obtain Abortion Care,” documents how in Florida many judges deny young people’s petitions, forcing them to continue a pregnancy against their wishes, travel outside the state, or seek a way to manage abortion outside the health system. Judges have the power to make highly subjective determinations about a young person’s maturity and interests. Vague criteria in state law enable highly arbitrary decision-making, with judges making decisions based on factors such as the young person’s grades and impressions of their demeanor during a nerve-wracking hearing.

The 128-page report, “‘Why Do They Want to Make Me Suffer Again?’ The Impact of Abortion Prosecutions in Ecuador” documents how these laws are having widespread harmful consequences in Ecuador, costing lives through increased maternal mortality and morbidity, cutting women and girls off from essential services, and undermining broader efforts to promote sexual and reproductive health. Women and girls charged with abortion often experience violations of their rights to medical confidentiality and due process, and face significant obstacles to accessing quality legal representation. The prosecutions affect not only women who wish to end an unwanted pregnancy but also those who experience miscarriages or obstetric emergencies, or urgently require post-abortion care.

The 73-page report, “‘The Only People It Really Affects Are the People It Hurts’: The Human Rights Impacts of Parental Notice of Abortion in Illinois,” is the product of a collaboration between Human Rights Watch and the ACLU of Illinois. The groups found that young people often seek judicial bypass because they fear physical or emotional abuse, being kicked out of the home, alienation from their families or other deterioration of family relationships, or being forced to continue a pregnancy against their will. The groups also documented the hardships faced by young people forced to involve unsupportive family members in their abortion decision or navigate an unfamiliar court system to obtain a judicial bypass, and the additional stress and delays in seeking care this caused.

The 77-page report named “A Case for Legal Abortion: The Human Cost of Barriers to Sexual and Reproductive Rights in Argentina,” describes the consequences of the Senate’s rejection of a 2018 bill that would have fully decriminalized abortion during the first 14 weeks of pregnancy. Human Rights Watch documented cases of women and girls who have, since then, encountered an array of barriers to access legal abortion and post-abortion care. The barriers include arbitrarily imposed gestational limits, lack of access to and availability of abortion methods, fear of criminal prosecution, stigmatization, and mistreatment by health professionals.

This report documents how authorities have stalled the rollout of a long-awaited sexuality education program, leaving hundreds of thousands of adolescent girls and boys without scientifically accurate information about their health. The country has the highest teen pregnancy rate in Latin America and the Caribbean, according to the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO). The country’s total ban on abortion means an adolescent girl facing an unwanted pregnancy must continue that pregnancy against her wishes or obtain a clandestine abortion, often at great risk to her health and even her life. 

This report documents how, since coming to power in 2015, the Law and Justice government has targeted women’s rights groups through raids and defunding, often with little warning and no clear rationale. Human Rights Watch found that government agencies have dragged employees who support women’s rights protests or collaborate with women’s rights groups before disciplinary hearings and threatened their jobs. The government has failed to counter – and sometimes appeared to support – public smear campaigns by ruling party and other politicians and church-backed groups that mischaracterize women’s rights organizations and their work as dangerous to families and so-called “traditional values.”

Abortion is illegal in the Dominican Republic in all circumstances, even when a pregnancy is life-threatening, unviable, or the result of rape.

This report documents gaps in the Brazilian authorities’ response that have a harmful impact on women and girls and leave the general population vulnerable to continued outbreaks of serious mosquito-borne illnesses. The outbreak hit as the country faced its worst economic recession in decades, forcing authorities to make difficult decisions about allocating resources. But even in earlier times of economic growth, government investments in water and sanitation infrastructure were inadequate. Years of neglect contributed to the water and wastewater conditions that allowed the proliferation of the Aedes mosquito and the rapid spread of the virus, Human Rights Watch found.

This report documents how women and girls cannot get contraception and have little access to health care if they face complications during pregnancy and childbirth. The parties to the six-year-long conflict, the Sudanese government and the rebel Sudan People’s Liberation Army-North (SPLA/M-North), have both obstructed impartial humanitarian aid.

This 26-page report found that Ecuador’s criminal code limits women’s and girls’ reproductive rights by prohibiting abortion with few exceptions, even in the case of pregnancies that result from sexual violence. The criminal code imposes penalties including prison terms ranging from one to five years for women and girls who obtain abortions.

This 52-page report documents the many obstacles women and girls face in getting the reproductive health care services to which they are entitled, such as contraception, voluntary sterilization procedures, and abortion after rape.