Reports

This report documents communal attacks by armed groups against 42 villages and hamlets in Mopti region, particularly near the Burkina Faso border, and the town of Djenne, a UNESCO World Heritage site. The violence has led to widespread displacement, hunger, and looting of livestock, affecting civilians from various communities. President Ibrahim Boubacar Keita should ensure that Mali’s security forces impartially protect all civilians at risk from attacks by militias and Islamist armed groups. Judicial authorities should investigate and prosecute groups responsible for abuses.

This report found that while European Schools are paying increasing attention to inclusion, children with disabilities continued to face problems. They are rejected, pressured into changing schools, or are not provided with appropriate accommodations and support to allow them to learn and thrive in an inclusive environment. 

This report documents how state and federal policies contribute to a treacherous reproductive health environment in Alabama, where women are dying from cervical cancer at rates higher than in any other US state. The report presents the experiences of women mostly from the Alabama Black Belt, a largely rural region of Alabama that is primarily African American and has high rates of poverty and poor physical health. Human Rights Watch found that governments are not doing enough to facilitate access to reproductive health care services and provide information to prevent these deaths.

This report documents the harmful impact of state and federal policies on transgender women in two Florida counties – Miami-Dade and Broward – that have the highest rates of new HIV infection in the United States. Many women interviewed said they experience disrespect, mistreatment, and in some cases, denial of services from government-funded clinics. Florida’s inaccurate and incomplete data collection on HIV among transgender people leaves them undercounted and excluded from government programs to address the epidemic.

This report documents how the global travel companies Airbnb and Booking.com are listing and facilitating the rental of dozens of properties in settlements in the occupied West Bank. Settlements of civilians in occupied territory are unlawful under international humanitarian law regardless of the status of the land on which they are built. The presence of the settlement properties triggers serious human rights abuses against Palestinians, including blocking their access to nearby privately-owned plots of land, restricting their freedom of movement and, because of those travel restrictions, limiting their right to access education and health services and protections for keeping families intact.

Abortion is illegal in the Dominican Republic in all circumstances, even when a pregnancy is life-threatening, unviable, or the result of rape.

This report concludes that many girls simply have no access to education, including because of a shortage of government schools – especially for girls. Nearly 22.5 million of Pakistan’s children – in a country with a population of just over 200 million – are out of school, the majority of them girls. Thirty-two percent of primary school age girls are out of school in Pakistan, compared with 21 percent of boys. By ninth grade, only 13 percent of girls are still in school.

This report documents unwanted sexual contact and violence that is so common in North Korea it has come to be accepted as part of ordinary life. Many North Koreans told Human Rights Watch that when an official in a position of power “picks” a woman she has no choice but to comply with any demands he makes, whether for sex, money, or other favors. Women interviewed said that the sexual predators include high-ranking party officials, prison and detention facility guards and interrogators, police and secret police officials, prosecutors, and soldiers. Fearful of social disgrace and retaliation, and with few, if any, avenues for redress, North Korean women rarely report abuse.

This report shows how the lack of clarity about the legal status of same-sex conduct leaves LGBT people vulnerable to arbitrary arrests, physical violence, and routine discrimination. The justice minister issued a moratorium on arrests for adult consensual same-sex conduct in 2012, but there are divergent views about its legality. 

This report details the barriers survivors face in reporting abuse and getting help. They include social stigma, lack of awareness, and lack of trust in police. Police often refuse to register or investigate women’s reports of domestic violence, instead funneling victims into the patently unfair and extremely burdensome process of private prosecution, for which the victim must gather all necessary evidence and bear all costs. Human Rights Watch also found that survivors face obstacles to finding emergency shelter. 

This report evaluates patterns of arrest and detention conditions in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, 25 years after the Oslo Accords granted Palestinians a degree of self-rule over these areas and more than a decade after Hamas seized effective control over the Gaza Strip. Human Rights Watch detailed more than two dozen cases of people detained for no clear reason beyond writing a critical article or Facebook post or belonging to the wrong student group or political movement. 

This report documents abuses against female students in secondary schools, primarily by teachers and school officials. Human Rights Watch found cases of teachers who abuse their authority by engaging in sexual relations with students in exchange for money, good grades, food, or items such as mobile phones and new clothes. 

This report details security force occupation of land both during and after the armed conflict. It identifies the lack of transparency and due process, failure to map occupied land, inadequate support to affected people and communities, and prolonged delays in providing appropriate reparations for decades of loss and suffering. The military has also used some confiscated lands for commercial profit rather than national security and returned damaged or destroyed property to owners without compensation.

This report focuses on two mining projects that were Guinea’s two largest bauxite producers in 2017: La Société Minière de Boké (SMB), a joint venture linked to the world’s largest aluminum producer, China Hongqiao Group, that has expanded extremely rapidly since it began in 2015; and la Compagnie des Bauxites de Guinée (CBG), a decades-old company co-owned by multinationals Alcoa and Rio Tinto. Guinea’s government, which has transformed Guinea into the world’s third-largest exporter, should take immediate steps to better regulate companies and protect communities.

This report draws on research Human Rights Watch has published on enforced disappearances in Iraq since 2014, when Iraqi forces launched anti-ISIS operations, and documents an additional 74 cases of men and four cases of boys detained by Iraqi military and security forces between April 2014 and October 2017 and forcibly disappeared. The enforced disappearances documented are part of a much wider continuing pattern in Iraq. Iraqi officials have failed to respond to inquiries from the families and Human Rights Watch for information about the disappeared.