Reports

Doula Care for Justice in Maternal Health in Florida

The 62-page report, “Witness, Ally, Advocate, Climate Worker: Doula Care for Justice in Maternal Health in Florida,” found that the state provides inadequate financial and programmatic support for doula care, including under state-based Medicaid plans on which almost half of all women who are pregnant or give birth in the state rely. Doulas are non-clinical health workers who provide expert support during birth and provide individualized information about health care options, rights, and resources. Academic and US government research suggests that doula services can help improve the availability, accessibility, and quality of health care services for pregnant people. One multi-country analysis of evidence found continuous labor support by doulas may reduce rates of cesarean delivery and improve Apgar scores (indications of good health in newborns) and women’s ratings of the experience.

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  • April 23, 2019

    How Apparel Brand Purchasing Practices Drive Labor Abuses

    This report identifies key practices by clothing companies that fuel abusive cost-cutting methods by factories that harm workers. Many global brands tout their commitment to ensuring rights-respecting workplaces in the factories that produce their goods, but undercut their efforts with relentless pressure on suppliers to drive down prices or produce faster, Human Rights Watch found. Many suppliers respond to those pressures with abusive cost-cutting methods that harm workers. One factory owner ruefully summarized the problem, saying that brands are “paying for a bus ticket and expecting to fly.”

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  • April 16, 2019

    Environment of Fear in South Africa’s Mining-Affected Communities

    The 73-page report “‘We Know Our Lives Are in Danger’: Environment of Fear in South Africa’s Mining-affected Communities” and video cites activists’ reports of intimidation, violence, damage to property, use of excessive force during peaceful protests, and arbitrary arrest for their activities in highlighting the negative impacts of mining projects on their communities. Municipalities often impose barriers to protest on organizers that have no legal basis. Government officials have failed to adequately investigate allegations of abuse, and some mining companies resort to frivolous lawsuits and social media campaigns to further curb opposition to their projects. The government should protect the activists.

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  • April 10, 2019

    Abusive Prosecutions and Erosion of Fair Trial Rights in Turkey

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  • April 4, 2019

    Large-Scale UN Response Needed to Address Health and Food Crises

    This report documents increased numbers of maternal and infant deaths; the unchecked spread of vaccine-preventable diseases, such as measles and diphtheria; and sharp increases in the transmission of infectious diseases such as malaria and tuberculosis in Venezuela. Available data shows high levels of food insecurity and child malnutrition, as well as of hospital admissions of malnourished children. 

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  • March 22, 2019

    Atrocities by Armed Islamists and Security Forces in Burkina Faso’s Sahel Region

    This report documents over 40 killings by armed Islamist groups, mostly of people suspected of collaborating with the government, and the execution by Burkinabè security forces of over 115 men accused of supporting or harboring the armed Islamists. The Burkinabè government has promised to investigate the allegations. Key international actors, including the United Nations Security Council, which is visiting Burkina Faso in late March, should urge the government to follow through on this commitment.

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  • March 21, 2019

    Trafficking of Kachin “Brides” from Myanmar to China

    This report documents the selling by traffickers of women and girls from Kachin and northern Shan States into sexual slavery in China. Trafficking survivors said that trusted people, including family members, promised them jobs in China, but instead sold them for the equivalent of US$3,000 to $13,000 to Chinese families. In China, they were typically locked in a room and raped so they would become pregnant.

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  • March 19, 2019

    Japan’s Abusive Transgender Legal Recognition Process

    This report documents how Japan’s Gender Identity Disorder Special Cases (GID) Act harms transgender people who want to be legally recognized but cannot or do not want to undergo irreversible medical procedures like sterilization. 

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  • March 14, 2019

    Education for Children with Disabilities in Kazakhstan

    This report shows that Kazakhstan’s education system segregates and isolates children with disabilities. Even for children who can access schools in their communities, most are taught in separate classrooms with other children with disabilities. Thousands are in special schools for children with disabilities, often far from their homes. Others are educated at home, with a teacher visiting for a few hours per week at best. Children in closed psychiatric institutions receive very little or no education.

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  • March 6, 2019

    Abuses against Children Suspected of ISIS Affiliation in Iraq

    This report shows that Iraqi and KRG authorities often arrest and prosecute children with any perceived connection to ISIS, use torture to coerce confessions, and sentence them to prison in hasty and unfair trials. International law recognizes children recruited by armed groups primarily as victims who should be rehabilitated and reintegrated into society.  

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  • February 18, 2019

    Vigilante Groups Attack Minorities

    This report describes the use of communal rhetoric by members of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) to spur a violent vigilante campaign against consumption of beef and those engaged in the cattle trade. Between May 2015 and December 2018, at least 44 people – including 36 Muslims – were killed in such attacks. Police often stalled prosecutions of the attackers, while several BJP politicians publicly justified the attacks.

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  • February 6, 2019

    Attacks on Women’s Rights in Poland

    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.”

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  • February 4, 2019

    Acid Violence in Cambodia

    This report documents the use by private actors of nitric or sulfuric acid to inflict pain and permanently scar victims, and efforts by survivors to get justice and medical care. After several highly publicized acid attacks in Cambodia, the government in 2012 passed the Law on Regulating Concentrated Acid to curb the availability of acid used in attacks and to provide medical care and legal support to victims. Since passage of the law, acid attacks have dropped and regulations have reduced the availability of acid in the capital, Phnom Penh. However, Human Rights Watch found that many survivors of these attacks are unable to get adequate health care and meaningful compensation as the law requires, and that those responsible for attacks are rarely prosecuted.

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  • January 31, 2019

    The Criminalization of Peaceful Expression in Myanmar

    This report documents the use of broad and vaguely worded laws against activists, journalists, and ordinary citizens by Aung San Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy-led government. While discussion of a wide range of topics now flourishes in the media and online, those speaking critically of the government, military, or their officials, as well as abuses in Rakhine or Kachin States, are frequently subject to arrest and prosecution.

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  • January 23, 2019

    Unfair and Abusive Labor Practices in Pakistan

    This report documents a range of violations in Pakistan’s garment factories. They include a failure to pay minimum wages and pensions, suppression of independent labor unions, forced overtime, insufficient breaks, and disregarded regulations requiring paid maternity and medical leave. Human Rights Watch also identified problems in the government’s labor inspection system. Pakistan authorities should revamp labor inspections and systematically hold factories accountable for abuses. Domestic and international apparel brands should take more effective measures to prevent and correct labor rights abuses in the factories that produce clothing for them.

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  • January 21, 2019

    EU Policies Contribute to Abuse of Migrants in Libya

    This report documents severe overcrowding, unsanitary conditions, malnutrition, and lack of adequate health care. Human Rights Watch found violent abuse by guards in four official detention centers in western Libya, including beatings and whippings. Human Rights Watch witnessed large numbers of children, including newborns, detained in grossly unsuitable conditions in three out of the four detention centers. Almost 20 percent of those who reached Europe by sea from Libya in 2018 were children. 

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