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.
Human Rights Abuses in Vietnam, China, Cambodia, and Lao PDR
More than 350,000 people identified as drug users are held in compulsory drug "treatment" centers in China and Southeast Asia. Detainees are held without due process for periods of months or years and may be subjected to physical and sexual abuse, torture, and forced labor.
Condoms as Evidence of Prostitution in Four US Cities
This 112-page report documented in each city how police and prosecutors use condoms to support prostitution charges. The practice makes sex workers and transgender women reluctant to carry condoms for fear of arrest, causes them to engage in sex without protection, and puts them at risk of HIV and other sexually transmitted diseases.
This report details treatment of migrants, typically from sub-Saharan Africa, who arrive in Malta after treacherous boat journeys across the Mediterranean, in unseaworthy boats, without enough food, water, or fuel. Upon arrival in Malta, virtually all irregular migrants are detained – and the conditions in detention can exacerbate the trauma of the journey.
Concentration and Abuse of Power in Chávez's Venezuela
This report documents how the accumulation of power in the executive and the erosion of human rights protections have allowed the Chávez government to intimidate, censor, and prosecute critics and perceived opponents in a wide range of cases involving the judiciary, the media, and civil society.
Badly Written Provisions and Draconian Punishments Violate Due Process and Free Speech
This report analyzes Iraq's new draft law on information technology crimes. It finds that the draft law is part of a broad effort by authorities to suppress peaceful dissent by criminalizing legitimate information sharing and networking activities.
The 99-page report documents the failure of the police and the judiciary to prevent and punish rising attacks on migrants. Despite clear patterns to the violence and evidence that it is increasing, the police have failed to respond effectively to protect victims and hold perpetrators to account, Human Rights Watch found.
Torture, Custodial Deaths, and Unfair Trials after the 2009 Mutiny of the Bangladesh Rifles
The 57-page report provides a detailed account of the mutiny and documents serious abuses in the aftermath, including torture by security forces of people in custody on suspicion of planning the mutiny, and of ongoing concerns about fair trial violations in mass trials of hundreds of suspects at a time. The notorious Rapid Action Battalion (RAB) has allegedly been involved in many of the abuses.
Arbitrary Arrests, Torture, and Enforced Disappearances in Syria’s Underground Prisons since March 2011
This report is based on more than 200 interviews conducted by Human Rights Watch since the beginning of anti-government demonstrations in Syria in March 2011. The report includes maps locating the detention facilities, video accounts from former detainees, and sketches of torture techniques described by numerous people who witnessed or experienced torture in these facilities.
Counterterrorism Laws Worldwide since September 11
The 112-page report says that while terrorist attacks have caused thousands of deaths and injuries, that is no justification for counterterrorism laws that violate the basic rights of suspects and that are also used for politically motivated purposes.
Kachin Refugees from Burma in China’s Yunnan Province
This 71-page report describes how at least 7,000 to 10,000 ethnic Kachin refugees have fled war and abuses in Burma since June 2011, seeking refuge in southwestern China. The report is based on more than 100 interviews with refugees, displaced persons in Burma, victims of abuses, relief workers, and others.
This 105-page report documents violations of due process rights, patterns of wrongful deprivation of liberty, and the harsh, unacceptable prison conditions in which detainees live. The research was done during a 10-month period before and after South Sudan’s independence, on July 9, 2011.
Abuses against the Indigenous Peoples of Ethiopia’s Lower Omo Valley
This report documents how government security forces are forcing communities to relocate from their traditional lands through violence and intimidation, threatening their entire way of life with no compensation or choice of alternative livelihoods.
Mining, Regulatory Failure, and Human Rights in India
This 70-page report finds that deep-rooted shortcomings in the design and implementation of key policies have effectively left mine operators to supervise themselves. This has fueled pervasive lawlessness in India’s scandal-ridden mining industry and threatens serious harm to mining-affected communities.
Protecting Migrant Workers in Qatar Ahead of FIFA 2022
This report examines a recruitment and employment system that effectively traps many migrant workers in their jobs. The problems they face include exorbitant recruitment fees, which can take years to pay off, employers’ routine confiscation of worker passports, and Qatar’s restrictive sponsorship system that gives employers inordinate control over their employees.
This 76-page report documents abuses by the chengguan Urban Management Law Enforcement (城管执法) forces, including assaults on suspected administrative law violators, some of which lead to serious injury or death, illegal detention, and unlawful forceful confiscation of property.
