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.
Abuse and Exploitation of Child Domestic Workers in Indonesia
This report documents how hundreds of thousands of girls in Indonesia, some as young as 11, are employed as domestic workers in other people’s households, performing tasks such as cooking, cleaning, laundry, and child care. Most girls interviewed for the report worked 14 to 18 hours a day, seven days a week, with no day off. Almost all are grossly underpaid, and some get no salary at all.
Exploitation of Migrant Construction Workers in Russia
This 130-page report documents widespread withholding of wages, failure to provide required contracts, and unsafe working conditions by employers at construction sites across Russia.
The Chin People of Burma: Unsafe in Burma, Unprotected in India
In this 93-page report, Human Rights Watch documents a wide range of human rights abuses carried out by the Burmese army and government officials. The abuses include forced labor, arbitrary arrests and detention, torture, religious repression and other restrictions on fundamental freedoms.
The briefing paper details some of the glaring deficiencies in current US labor law that significantly impair the right of workers to freely choose whether to form a union. It recommends that the US Congress pass the Employee Free Choice Act to help remedy these shortcomings and bring US law closer to international standards.
Humanitarian Law Violations and Civilian Victims in the Conflict over South Ossetia
This 200-page report details indiscriminate and disproportionate attacks by both Georgian and Russian forces, and the South Ossetian forces' campaign of deliberate and systematic destruction of certain ethnic Georgian villages in South Ossetia. It also describes Russia's failure to ensure public order and safety in areas of Georgia that were under its effective control.
Human Rights and Humanitarian Consequences of Political Repression in Zimbabwe
This 33-page report details the Zimbabwean government's responsibility for the country's humanitarian crisis. A cholera epidemic has left over 2,000 Zimbabweans dead and another 39,000 ill. Over 5 million Zimbabweans face severe food shortages and are dependent on international aid.
Rights Abuses of Ethnic Khmer in Vietnam’s Mekong Delta
This report documents ongoing violations of the rights of the Khmer Krom in southern Vietnam and also abuses in Cambodia against Khmer Krom who have fled there for refuge. Wary about possible Khmer Krom nationalist aspirations, Vietnam has suppressed peaceful expressions of dissent and banned Khmer Krom human rights publications.
The 19th annual World Report summarizes human rights conditions in more than 90 countries and territories worldwide. It reflects extensive investigative work undertaken in 2008 by Human Rights Watch staff, usually in close partnership with human rights activists in the country in question.
This 42-page report documents how Iranian authorities use security laws, press laws, and other legislation to arrest and prosecute Iranian Kurds solely for trying to exercise their right to freedom of expression and association. The use of these laws to suppress basic rights, while not new, has greatly intensified since President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad came to power in August 2005.
The Plight of Civilians in Sri Lanka’s Vanni Region
This 49-page report documents the Sri Lankan government's responsibility for the plight of the 230,000 to 300,000 displaced persons trapped in the Vanni conflict zone. They face severe shortages of food and other essentials because of government restrictions on humanitarian assistance.
Systematic Failure to Protect Unaccompanied Migrant Children in Greece
Some 1,000 unaccompanied migrant children who have entered Greece in 2008 without parents or caregivers struggle to survive without any state assistance, Human Rights Watch said in a new report issued today.
This 216-page report focuses on the present-day situation rather than on past abuses. Human Rights Watch documents how Morocco uses a combination of repressive laws, police violence, and unfair trials to punish Sahrawis who advocate peacefully in favor of independence or full self-determination for the disputed Western Sahara.
The Origins of "Sodomy" Laws in British Colonialism
This 66-page report describes how laws in over three dozen countries, from India to Uganda and from Nigeria to Papua New Guinea, derive from a single law on homosexual conduct that British colonial rulers imposed on India in 1860. This year, the High Court in Delhi ended hearings in a years-long case seeking to decriminalize homosexual conduct there. A ruling in the landmark case is expected soon.
