Reports

This report shows that staff at Scorpion Prison beat inmates severely, isolate them in cramped “discipline” cells, cut off access to families and lawyers, and interfere with medical treatment. The report also documents cruel and inhuman treatment by officers of Egypt’s Interior Ministry that probably amounts to torture in some cases and violates basic international norms for the treatment of prisoners.

This report examines the impact of extractive industries on communities in some of Malawi’s first mining areas, in Karonga district located on the northwestern shores of Lake Malawi. Malawi’s government has promoted private investment in mining and resource extraction to diversify its economy. But environmental risks are common in resource extraction and mining significantly contributes to climate change, which in turn affects governments’ ability to realize the rights to health, water, and food.

This report documents a range of human rights violations committed by police, including arbitrary arrest and detention, torture, and extrajudicial killings. Human Rights Watch also found that provincial police forces face improper pressure from politicians and local elites, a dearth of ethical and professional standards, and increasing demands and public expectations.

This report examines how transgender youth are adversely affected by rules that bar them from using bathrooms and locker rooms matching their gender identity. Transgender students described how these rules have given rise to physical and verbal harassment, and adversely affected their physical and mental health, academic achievement, and participation in school.

This report documents the economic and social pressures that lead to child marriage, and the devastating consequences of those marriages. Nepal has the third-highest rate of child marriage in Asia, with 37 percent of girls marrying before age 18, and 10 percent before 15, though the minimum age of marriage for both women and men is 20 under Nepali law. An estimated 11 percent of boys marry before 18. Nepal’s government has made some effort to end the practice, but a long-promised national plan has met with delays.

This report documents arbitrary and prolonged detention of children in violation of international and Greek law. Children are held in unsanitary conditions, sometimes with unrelated adults, in police stations and detention centers where they have little access to basic care and services. The report is based on interviews with 42 children who were or had been detained, as well as visits to two police stations and two detention centers in mainland Greece.

This report describes how local authorities punish and humiliate people who show dissatisfaction with or seem reluctant to applaud the Chechen leadership and its policies. The report also details increasing threats, assaults, and detention of journalists and human rights defenders.
 

This report documents the occupation and other military use of schools by state forces and the Taliban in Baghlan province in northeastern Afghanistan. It is based on interviews with more than more than 20 school principals, teachers, and administrators, as well as local families affected by the conflict. As school districts across Afghanistan increasingly find themselves on the front lines of the country’sarmed conflict, students risk their lives at schools being used by soldiers which may become military targets, or are deprived of an education until facilities are found elsewhere.

This report describes Jordan’s generous efforts to enroll Syrian children in its public school system, which was struggling with capacity and quality issues even before refugees began to arrive from Syria. But Human Rights Watch also documented barriers to education, including asylum-seeker registration requirements that many Syrians cannot meet; punishments for refugees working without permits that contribute to poverty, child labor, and school drop-outs; and a bar on enrollment for children who have been out of school for three or more years. Jordan has eased some restrictions, but authorities should expand efforts to realize the fundamental right to education for all Syrian children, Human Rights Watch said.

This report finds that people who don’t conform to gender norms face arbitrary detention, mistreatment, and discrimination accessing employment, housing, and health care. The government should protect the rights of transgender people and others who face similar discrimination, Human Rights Watch said.

This report documents how officials’ biased and untrue statements about lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) people provided social sanction for harassment and violence against LGBT Indonesians, and even death threats by militant Islamists. State institutions, including the National Broadcasting Commission and the National Child Protection Commission, issued censorship directives banning information and broadcasts that portrayed the lives of LGBT people as “normal” as well as so-called “propaganda” about LGBT lives. That combination of discriminatory rhetoric and policy decisions harmed the physical security and right to free expression of LGBT people across the country.

This report documents the arrest and detention of children for alleged association with non-state armed groups or involvement in conflict-related offenses. Overbroad and vague counterterrorism legislation adopted in response to extremist armed groups such as the Islamic State and Boko Haram has increased the detention of children perceived to be security threats. Human Rights Watch specifically examined the detention and treatment of children in Afghanistan, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Iraq, Israel/Palestine, Nigeria, and Syria.

This report is based on interviews with 40 victims of abuses, their family members, witnesses, victims’ lawyers, and other sources. Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch documented nine cases of arbitrary, prolonged detention of civilians by the Ukrainian authorities – including some cases of enforced disappearances – in informal detention sites and nine cases of arbitrary, prolonged detention of civilians by Russian-backed separatists. Most of the cases detailed in the report took place in 2015 and the first half of 2016.

This report documents 34 instances in multi-agency security operations in which the military was actively involved in raiding homes and compounds to arrest people who were allegedly suspected of links with the armed Islamist group, Al-Shabab. But months, and in some cases over a year, later, suspects have not been charged with any crimes and families cannot locate them. In each case, although families reported the disappearance to the police and sought help from various authorities, the authorities failed to inform them of the detainees’ whereabouts or to properly investigate allegations of abuse.

This report documents the important steps Lebanon has taken to allow Syrian children to access public schools. But Human Rights Watch found that some schools have not complied with enrollment policies, and that more donor support is needed for Syrian families and for Lebanon’s over-stretched public school system. Lebanon is also undermining its positive education policy by imposing harsh residency requirements that restrict refugees’ freedom of movement and exacerbate poverty, limiting parents’ ability to send their children to school and contributing to child labor. Secondary school-age children and children with disabilities face particularly difficult obstacles.