Ecuador’s Slow Progress Tackling and Preventing School-Related Sexual Violence
The 60-page report, “‘Like Patchwork’: Ecuador’s Slow Progress Tackling and Preventing School-Related Sexual Violence,” documents significant gaps in the government’s response to prevent and tackle abuses in Ecuador’s education system. Many schools still fail to report abuses or fully implement required protocols. Judicial institutions do not adequately investigate or prosecute sexual offenses against children, affecting survivors’ ability to find justice.
Indefinite Detention Without Trial in the United Kingdom Under Part 4 of the Anti-Terrorism, Crime and Security Act 2001
The U.K. government introduced emergency legislation in the wake of the September 11 attacks in the U.S. The resulting Anti-Terrorism Crime and Security Act became law on December 14, 2001. This briefing paper details how indefinite detention, contained in part 4 of ATCSA, has seriously damaged the mental and physical health of the detainees.
The Kyrgyz government’s human rights record has steadily deteriorated during the past several years. Human Rights Watch has documented serious rights violations, particularly in the areas of political participation, freedom of assembly, and freedom of expression. Local rights groups in particular have exposed serious violations of fundamental rights.
The Venezuelan government is undermining the independence of the country’s judiciary ahead of a presidential recall referendum that may ultimately be decided in the courts. President Chávez’s governing coalition has begun implementing a new court-packing law that will strip the Supreme Court of its autonomy.
Human Rights Watch submitted a number of requests to the U.S. government for documents relating to trafficking in persons in Bosnia pursuant to the Freedom of Information Act. Two years after our initial request, we obtained a limited number of documents.
Since the establishment of the Government of National Unity in Kinshasa in June 2003, peace has eluded eastern parts of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), particularly in Bukavu and the wider Kivu region, Ituri and Northern Katanga.
Child domestic workers are nearly invisible among child laborers. They work alone in individual households, hidden from public scrutiny, their lives controlled by their employers. Child domestics, nearly all girls, work long hours for little or no pay. Many have no opportunity to go to school, or are forced to drop out because of the demands of their job.
Hazardous Child Labor in El Salvador’s Sugarcane Cultivation
Businesses purchasing sugar from El Salvador, including The Coca-Cola Company, are using the product of child labor that is both hazardous and widespread. Harvesting cane requires children to use machetes and other sharp knives to cut sugarcane and strip the leaves off the stalks, work they perform for up to nine hours each day in the hot sun.
This 38-page report examines how the Bush administration adopted a deliberate policy of permitting illegal interrogation techniques – and then spent two years covering up or ignoring reports of torture and other abuse by U.S. troops.
Torture, Detention, and the Crushing of Dissent in Iran
This 73-page report provides the first comprehensive account of the treatment of political detainees in Tehran’s Evin Prison and in secret prisons around the capital since the government launched its current crackdown in 2000.
Right to Basic Education for Children on Farms in South Africa
This 59-page report found that the government’s failure to negotiate contracts with farm owners impedes children’s right to basic education. In the worst cases, farm owners have deliberately obstructed children's access to the schools.
Both Nigeria’s federal and state elections in 2003 and local government elections in 2004 were marred by serious incidents of violence. The scale of the violence and intimidation, much of which went unreported, called into question the credibility of these elections. This report documents cases of electoral violence in 2003.
Detainees held by the United States in Iraq, Afghanistan, and elsewhere have been subjected to sleep and sensory deprivation, held in painful stress positions, forced to stand for long periods of time, interrogated while nude, and otherwise mistreated.
Vietnamese officials and civilians acting on their behalf beat and killed dozens of Montagnards during Easter week demonstrations in the Central Highlands, when thousands of people gathered to protest confiscation of ancestral lands and religious repression, according to new eyewitness testimony obtained by Human Rights Watch.
Counterterrorism and Human Rights Abuses Under Malaysia’s Internal Security Act
This 60-page report documents a pattern of serious abuses against detainees, including beatings, burning with lit cigarettes, and psychological abuse. In addition to suffering from various forms of physical and psychological abuse, detainees held under the Internal Security Act (ISA) have been denied basic due process rights.
The current dire humanitarian crisis in Darfur has been caused by massive, systematic violations of international human rights and humanitarian law constituting crimes against humanity committed by the Sudanese Government and its ethnic militia, the Janjaweed.
