The Cruel and Ineffective Criminalization of Unhoused People in Los Angeles
The 337-page report, “‘You Have to Move!’ The Cruel and Ineffective Criminalization of Unhoused People in Los Angeles,” documents the experiences of people living on the streets and in vehicles, temporary shelters, and parks in Los Angeles, as they struggle to survive while facing criminalization and governmental failures to prioritize eviction prevention or access to permanent housing. Law enforcement and sanitation “sweeps” force unhoused people out of public view, often wasting resources on temporary shelter and punishments that do not address the underlying needs. Tens of thousands of people are living in the streets of Los Angeles; death rates among the unhoused have skyrocketed.
In investigations in Egypt, Ecuador, India, and the United States, Human Rights Watch has found that the children working in agriculture are endangered and exploited on a daily basis. Human Rights Watch found that despite the vast differences among these four countries, many of the risks and abuses faced by child agricultural workers were strikingly similar.
As Afghan and United Nations officials prepare for the forthcoming loya jirga (grand national assembly), as called for in the 2001 Bonn Agreement to choose Afghanistan's next government, ordinary Afghans are increasingly terrorized by the rule of local and regional military commanders - warlords - who are reasserting their control over large areas of Afghanistan.
Weapons Proliferation, Political Violence, and Human Rights in Kenya
This 119-page report, entitled Playing with Fire: Weapons Proliferation, Political Violence, and Human Rights in Kenya, documents the dangerous nexus between arms availability and ethnic attacks in Kenya. The report highlights politically instigated armed violence on Kenya's coast during the last general election cycle, in 1997.
As part of the military buildup resulting from the December 13, 2001, attack on the Indian parliament, both India and Pakistan have emplaced large numbers of antipersonnel and antivehicle mines along their common border.
Vigilante violence and human rights abuses by vigilante groups have become increasingly serious problems in Nigeria in recent years. Despite repeated government promises to tackle crime and to reform and expand the police force, the rate of armed robbery and other violent crime in Nigeria remains extremely high.
On May 1, the Department of State certified to the U.S. Congress that Colombia had met the three human rights conditions contained in the Foreign Operations, Export Financing and Related Programs Act, 2002 (P.L. 107-115). By law, the State Department must certify before releasing the first tranche of military aid for FY 2002, an estimated $104 million dollars.
Since the September 11 attacks in the United States, Prime Minister Mahathir has justified use of the Internal Security Act (ISA) on counter-terrorism grounds. The September attacks also prompted a major shift in U.S. policy regarding political repression in Malaysia. In July 2001, Foreign Minister Syed Hamid met with U.S.
Afghan women continue to face serious threats to their physical safety, which denies them the opportunity to exercise their basic human rights and to participate fully in the rebuilding of their country.
State Abuses of Unaccompanied Migrant Children by Spain and Morocco
Moroccan migrant children in Spain are frequently beaten by police and abused by staff and other children in overcrowded, unsanitary residential centers, Human Rights Watch charged in this report. Spain also summarily expels children as young as eleven to Morocco, where Moroccan policebeat and ill-treat them and then abandon them to the streets.
On April 3, 2002, the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) launched a major military operation in the Jenin refugee camp, home to some fourteen thousand Palestinians, the overwhelming majority of them civilians.
What is the UN General Assembly Special Session for Children? What does Human Rights Watch hope the session will accomplish? What role has the United States taken during these negotiations? Why is the Convention on the Rights of the Child important to the Special Session? Why hasn't the United States ratified the Convention?
The United Nations Security Council should maintain the arms embargo against the Liberian government, Human Rights Watch said in releasing a new report about abuses in Liberia today. Human Rights Watch also called for the arms embargo to be extended to cover the rebel Liberians United for Reconciliation and Democracy (LURD), and for an end to Guinea’s support for the LURD. The U.N.
The Cambodian government should take immediate steps to investigate and prosecute perpetrators of political violence committed during commune-level elections held in February 2002, Human Rights Watch said in a report released today. Action to end impunity should be a pre-condition for any aid to prepare for next year's national elections, Human Rights Watch said.
