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.
This 119-page report is Human Rights Watch’s first major report on Japan since the launch of its Tokyo office in April 2009. The report examines the alternative care system’s organization and processes, problems found in the institutionalization of children and infants, and abuses that take place.
The 77-page report documents discrimination by school authorities in four Indian states against Dalit, tribal, and Muslim children. The discrimination creates an unwelcome atmosphere that can lead to truancy and eventually may lead the child to stop going to school.
Florida’s Prosecution of Children as Adults under its "Direct File" Statute
This 110-page report details the harm that results from the state’s practice of giving prosecutors full discretion to decide which children to prosecute in adult courts. More than 98 percent of the 1,500 cases of children charged as adults between 2012 and 2013 were brought by prosecutors under the direct file statute.
Uneven Progress in Ending Forced Child Begging in Senegal
The 43-page report examines Senegal’s mixed record in addressing the problem in the year since a fire ripped through a Quranic boarding school in Dakar housed in a makeshift shack, killing eight boys.
This 69-page report documents how child marriage prevents girls and women from participating in all spheres of life. The practice violates the rights to health, to education, to be free from physical, mental, and sexual violence, and to marry only when able and willing to give free and full consent.
Child Labor and Mercury Exposure in Tanzania’s Small-Scale Gold Mines
This 96-page report describes how thousands of children work in licensed and unlicensed small-scale gold mines in Tanzania, Africa’s fourth-largest gold producer. They dig and drill in deep, unstable pits, work underground for shifts of up to 24 hours, and transport and crush heavy bags of gold ore.
Detention, Abuse, and Neglect of Migrant Children in Indonesia
This 86-page report details Indonesia’s poor treatment of migrant and asylum-seeking children. They arrive in Indonesia after fleeing persecution, violence, and poverty in Somalia, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Burma, and elsewhere. Indonesia detains hundreds of migrant and asylum-seeking children each year without giving them a way to challenge their detention.
This 33-page report is based on more than 70 interviews, including with 16 students and 11 teachers who fled Syria, primarily from Daraa, Homs, and greater Damascus. The report documents the use of schools for military purposes by both sides.
The Irreparable Harm of Placing Children on Sex Offender Registries in the US
This 111-page report details the harm public registration laws cause for youth sex offenders. The laws, which can apply for decades or even a lifetime and are layered on top of time in prison or juvenile detention, require placing offenders’ personal information on online registries, often making them targets for harassment, humiliation, and even violence.
The 95-page report documents the consequences of child marriage, the near total lack of protection for victims who try to resist marriage or leave abusive marriages, and the many obstacles they face in accessing mechanisms of redress.
The 30-page report found that at least 22 individuals have been sentenced to death despite evidence that they were under age 18 at the time of their alleged crimes. In the last five years, Yemen has executed at least 15 young men and women who said they were under 18 at the time of their offense.
This 82-page report examines how current government responses are falling short, both in protecting children from sexual abuse and treating victims. Many children are effectively mistreated a second time by traumatic medical examinations and by police and other authorities who do not want to hear or believe their accounts.
Summary Returns of Unaccompanied Migrant Children and Adult Asylum Seekers from Italy to Greece
This report documents the failure of Italian border police at the Adriatic ports of Ancona, Bari, Brindisi, and Venice to screen adequately for people in need of protection, in violation of Italy’s legal obligations. Human Rights Watch interviewed 29 children and adults who were summarily returned to Greece from Italian ports, 20 of them in 2012.
This 73-page report found that some child domestic workers – who are overwhelmingly girls – toil for 12 hours a day, 7 days a week, for as little as US$11 a month. Some girls told Human Rights Watch that their employers frequently beat and verbally abused them, denied them education, and sometimes refused them adequate food.
