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Germany Should Translate Trials on Syria into Arabic

Translation Could Engage More Syrians in European Justice Process

This past two years, a landmark criminal trial was held in Koblenz, Germany. It was the first-ever trial held in Europe where alleged Syrian government agents were charged with crimes against humanity committed during Syria’s decade-long conflict.…
Illustration of a court proceeding
News

Witness: Sexual Violence During Kenya’s Covid-19 Lockdown

Government Should Support Community Activists Working to Protect Survivors

Gladys Koskey, 48, has always kept her home in Trans Mara, southwestern Kenya, open to friends and relatives. But in the past decade, her home has also become an important refuge for survivors of sexual and gender-based violence. Gladys leads a group of…
Gladys Koskey helps a nine-years-old rape survivor who lives in her home with her writing.
News

Witness: During Covid-19, Children Go to Work to Help Families Survive

Governments Should Increase Financial Assistance to Help Pandemic Recovery

Around the world, parents lost jobs and income as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic. With few other options, many children whose schools had closed down ended up working to help their families survive. In a new report by Human Rights Watch, the Initiative…
A child sits on the sidewalk in front of a display of goods to sell
News

How to Hold a Former Child Soldier Accountable?

Dominic Ongwen, Kidnapped by the LRA at Age 10, to Face ICC Judgment

After a four-year trial, in February the International Criminal Court will deliver its judgment in the case of Dominic Ongwen, a senior commander of the brutal rebel group the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA). He is charged with 70 counts of war crimes and…
Dominic Ongwen, a senior commander in the Lord's Resistance Army, sits in the court room of the International Court in The Hague, Netherlands
News

Witness: A Mother’s Hungarian Hospital Hell

Sick Children Crammed Together as They Wait for Treatment

It’s every parent’s nightmare: a trip to the playground turns into a serious injury for your child, and rather than enjoying a fun day out, you’re in an ambulance racing to the hospital. For my friend Anna, it was a double nightmare, because the…
News

Witness: Doctors Reveal What Nicaragua Tries to Hide

Wounds Tell the Story of Beatings, Sexual Abuse, Killings

Briones is a neurosurgeon who worked at his private clinic in Managua, Nicaragua’s capital, and another one in the northern city of Estelí. But after the National Police and armed pro-government groups began violently cracking down on the tens of…
201906americas_nicaragua_back
News

“Money Slipped through My Fingers Like Water”

Discrimination against War-Zone Pensioners in Eastern Ukraine

  Seventy-eight-year-old Galina lives in a city on the front line separating Ukrainian troops and Russian-backed armed groups in eastern Ukraine. Before the fighting began five years ago, collecting her Ukrainian pension was as simple as a five…
Older people lining up at bank machines in government-controlled areas of Ukraine.
News

Life or Death Choices for Women Living Under Honduras’ Abortion Ban

Women Tell Their Stories

Abortion in all instances, including rape, is illegal in Honduras. Any woman who has an abortion, and anyone found to have helped her, can be charged with a crime and imprisoned. For that reason, La Línea (“The Line”) was a rare resource in…
Lorena (a pseudonym) was unaware she was pregnant when she went to a hospital in intense pain two years ago. Doctors suspected she had attempted an abortion and called the police. She was taken from the hospital in handcuffs and is now facing charges.
News

The Courage of Women in Mauritania

Tales of Activism in the Fight Against Sexual Violence

Support and Justice - Aminetou Mint Ely More than two decades of activism helping Mauritania’s rape survivors have not dulled Aminetou Mint Ely’s fire. Always dressed in the brightly colored melahfas, traditional…
Rape survivors, NGO leaders, and activists supporting women’s and girls’ rights in Mauritania, Nouakchott, 2018.
News

Colombia: Amicus Curiae on Access to Abortion

Honorable Cristina Pardo Schlesinger Justice of the Constitutional Court of Colombia Rapporteur of Case T-6.612.909   Case: T-6.612.909 Subject: Human Rights Watch amicus curiae brief …
News

Witness: Tobacco Farmers Kept in the Dark

Tobacco Companies Fail to Warn Zimbabwe’s Farmers of Nicotine Poisoning’s Dangers

  Everyone sat on a thatched blanket spread outside under the warm sun, near the tobacco curing barn, with flat farmland, green grass and the occasional tree stretching as far as the eye could see. Admire (not his real name), a tobacco farmer…
A woman sorts dried tobacco leaves in Harare, Zimbabwe while a child sits nearby.
News

Witness: Silently Struggling with Rape in Kenya

Widespread Sexual Violence during Kenya’s 2017 Elections

    Judith Wavinya*, 30, was walking home on a cool August night in her neighborhood of Dandora in Nairobi, after spending the evening with her sister. She had to get back home to her three children and to prepare for the new day –…
Judith Wavinya (not her real name), 30, was attacked by two men on the night of August 11, 2017, as she was walking home. They asked if she knew them, threatened her with knives, and took her to an isolated place where they beat her badly and one of them
News

International Day of Persons with Disabilities: Voices From The Ground

The Stories From People With Disabilities Who Have Endured Humanitarian crises

Simplice – Central African Republic The frustration burned in Simplice Lenguy’s eyes as he spoke about the situation faced by people with disabilities since conflict erupted in the Central African Republic. In…
Ali, a 22-year-old Afghan asylum seeker with a disability, living in Moria camp, on the beach in Lesbos, Greece. He told Human Rights Watch he can’t access showers in the camp and sometimes tries to wash himself in the sea.
News

‘They Said My Character Is Bad’

How a Rape Survivor Found the Courage to Fight for Justice in India

What should have been a short ride from one village to another in India turned into a nightmare that will haunt Kajal (not her real name), a shy young woman, for the rest of her life.  Kajal, who was 23 and married at the time, had set out on…
A close-up photo showing the hands of a sexual violence victim in India.
News

Witness: Hoping for a Child Who Survives

Women in Sudan’s War-torn Southern Kordofan Region Have Little Access to Health Care

When 14-year-old Hassina had still not given birth after more than two days of labor, her family started to worry. She was bleeding and had passed out more than once from exhaustion and pain. The nearest hospital was miles away.…
Mukuma Hamad, a volunteer health worker (L), and James Atai, a nurse, sit at a table displaying almost the total stock of basic medicines in the only health clinic in Hadara village, rebel-controlled Southern Kordofan.
News

Witness: A Doctor’s Struggle to Bring Relief to Dying Patients

Guatemala’s Red Tape Stops Physicians From Prescribing Pain Medication

Dr. Eva Duarte has spent more than a decade helping people with advanced cancer through their final months. Even now she cries as she recalls how some of her patients spent their last days. “There was a man, Carlos, I will never…
Dr. Eva Duarte writing prescriptions for her patients
News

Witness: A Needless Death in US Immigration Detention

Officials Ignored Suicide Attempt, Mental Health Concerns

When Tiombe Kimana Carlos committed suicide at 34, she had spent two-and-a-half years in immigration detention at York County Prison in Pennsylvania. And, according to her lawyer, there was no end in sight. This was not her…
Detention

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