Reports

Human Rights Abuses Against Children Under El Salvador’s “State of Emergency”

The 107-page report, “‘Your Child Does Not Exist Here’: Human Rights Abuses Against Children Under El Salvador’s ‘State of Emergency,’” documents arbitrary detention, torture, and other forms of ill-treatment against children under President Nayib Bukele’s “war on gangs.” Detained children have often faced overcrowding, lack of adequate food and health care, and have been denied access to their lawyers and family members. In some cases, children have been held, in the first days after arrest, alongside adults. Many have been convicted on overly broad charges and in unfair trials that deny due process.

A woman holds a photo of her son at a protest

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  • February 18, 2003

    Egyptian Police Abuse of Children in Need of Protection

    The Egyptian government conducts mass arrest campaigns of children whose "crime" is that they are in need of protection, Human Rights Watch said in a new report released today. Children in police custody face beatings, sexual abuse and extortion by police and adult criminal suspects, and police routinely deny them access to food, bedding and medical care.
  • February 14, 2003

    Briefing to the 59th Session of the UN Commission on Human Rights

    Human Rights Watch calls on the U.N. Commission on Human Rights to condemn the execution of juvenile offenders in those few states that retain the practice in an omnibus children's resolution, a resolution on extrajudicial, arbitrary and summary executions, and any resolution on the death penalty.
  • January 27, 2003

    The Links between Human Rights Abuses and HIV Transmission to Girls in Zambia

    Sexual abuse of girls in Zambia fuels the HIV/AIDS epidemic and the strikingly higher HIV prevalence among girls than boys, Human Rights Watch said today. Concerted national and international efforts to protect the rights of girls and young women are key to curbing the AIDS epidemic’s destructive course.
  • January 22, 2003

    Bonded Child Labor in India's Silk Industry

    The Indian government is failing to protect the rights of hundreds of thousands of children who toil as virtual slaves in the country's silk industry, Human Rights Watch said in this new report. The 85-page report, "Small Change: Bonded Child Labor in India's Silk Industry,"calls on the Indian government to implement its
  • January 16, 2003

    Sexual Violence in the Sierra Leone Conflict

    The 75-page report, “'We’ll Kill You If You Cry:' Sexual Violence in the Sierra Leone Conflict,” presents evidence of horrific abuses against women and girls in every region of the country by the rebel Revolutionary United Front (RUF), as well as other rebel, government and international peacekeeping forces.
  • December 17, 2002

    Repression of Women and Girls in Western Afghanistan

    Afghan women and girls have suffered mounting abuses, harassment and restrictions of their fundamental human rights during 2002, Human Rights Watch said in a new report.
  • November 26, 2002

    Trafficking of Women and Girls To Post-Conflict Bosnia and Herzegovina for Forced Prostitution

    Traffickers who have forced thousands of women and girls into prostitution in Bosnia and Herzegovina are not being apprehended for their crimes. Local corruption and the complicity of international officials in Bosnia have allowed a trafficking network to flourish, in which women are tricked, threatened, physically assaulted and sold as chattel, the report said.
  • October 30, 2002

    Human Rights Watch Briefing Paper

    Free trade alone cannot ensure greater respect for workers' rights nor prevent millions of people from being excluded from the benefits of globalization. Human Rights Watch believes that measures to protect workers' rights should be built into trade agreements to ensure that globalization does not come at the expense of human rights.

  • October 16, 2002

    Child Soldiers in Burma

    Burma is believed to have more child soldiers than any other country in the world. The overwhelming majority of Burma's child soldiers are found in Burma's national army, the Tatmadaw Kyi, which forcibly recruits children as young as eleven. These children are subject to beatings and systematic humiliation during training.
  • September 26, 2002

    Why the International Community Should Reject Australia's Refugee Policies

    The government of Australia has taken increasingly aggressive measures in recent years to prevent unauthorized asylum seekers from reaching its shores. One year ago, on September 26, 2001, it enacted new legislation that extended the legal basis for its policies, which are among the most restrictive in the developed world.
  • September 18, 2002

    HIV/AIDS, Human Rights And Federally Funded Abstinence-Only Programs In The United States

    Programs teaching teenagers to "just say no" to sex before marriage are threatening adolescent health by censoring basic information about how to prevent HIV/AIDS, Human Rights Watch charged in a new report released today.
  • June 20, 2002

    Sexual Violence Against Women and Girls in Eastern Congo

    Forces on all sides in the Congo conflict have committed war crimes against women and girls, Human Rights Watch said in a new 114-page report.
  • June 11, 2002

    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.
  • May 7, 2002

    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.
  • May 2, 2002

    The United States and the Rights of Children

    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?