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.
The briefing paper draws on previously unpublished documents to lay out the way the extermination system was planned in the months before the genocide was launched, 12 years ago this week.
Street Children in the Democratic Republic of Congo
This 72-page report documents how security officials and other adults routinely abuse the country’s street children. In the past 10 years, armed conflict, HIV/AIDS, prohibitive education fees, and even accusations of sorcery have led to a doubling of the number of street children. With no secure access to shelter, food or other basic needs, these children live in insecurity and fear.
Submission to the Committee of Eminent African Jurists
This paper examines Senegal’s legal obligations as well as the different options for bringing Mr. Habré to justice. It notes that—whatever the outcome of the A.U. review—Senegal is under an obligation to prosecute or to extradite Hissène Habré.
Will It Keep Evidence Obtained through Torture or Cruel Treatment out of Commission Trials?
On March 24, 2006, the General Counsel of the Department of Defense issued Military Commission Instruction No. 10, “Certain Evidentiary Requirements,” in response to growing public concern that evidence acquired through torture might be admissible in military commission proceedings.
Since Maoist forces ended their four-month unilateral ceasefire on January 2, 2006, fighting in Nepal’s civil war has engulfed the entire country. Nearly every one of the country’s 75 districts has been affected by the fighting between the Royal Nepali Army (RNA) and the forces of the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist) (the “Maoists”).
This 42-page report describes the increased momentum towards war crimes trials at the end of 2005, and the opportunity created by the transfer of cases from the new War Crimes Chamber in Sarajevo. It also documents the obstacles to sustained progress on fair and effective prosecutions, including limited prosecutorial resources and insufficient assistance by Republika Srpska police.
LTTE Intimidation and Extortion in the Tamil Diaspora
This 45-page report details how representatives of the LTTE and pro-LTTE groups use unlawful pressure among Tamil communities in the West to secure financial pledges. People were told that if they did not pay the requested sum, they would not be able to return to Sri Lanka to visit family members.
More than a year after the Sudanese government and southern-based rebels signed the peace agreement that ended their 21-year war, Sudan’s ruling party has failed to undertake promised reforms that would help end human rights abuses throughout the country, Human Rights Watch said in a briefing paper released today.
Obstructing Access to Legal Abortion after Rape in Mexico
This 92-page report details the disrespect, suspicion and apathy that pregnant rape victims encounter from public prosecutors and health workers. The report also exposes continuing and pervasive impunity for rape and other forms of sexual violence in states throughout Mexico.
In March 2005, members of the Convention on Conventional Weapons (CCW) Working Group on Explosive Remnants of War (ERW) issued a questionnaire to states parties regarding ERW and International Humanitarian Law (IHL).
Memorandum to Delegates to the Convention on Conventional Weapons
This memorandum contains an updated analysis of the responses provided by states parties to the questionnaire on explosive remnants of war and international humanitarian law issued by members of the Convention on Conventional Weapons (CCW) Working Group on Explosive Remnants of War in 2005 .
Human Rights Abuses Impeding Ukraine’s Fight Against HIV/AIDS
This report documents how draconian drug laws and routine police abuse of injection drug users – the population hardest hit by HIV/AIDS in Ukraine – keep them from receiving lifesaving HIV information and services that the government has pledged to provide.
Arbitrary Detention of Women and Girls for “Social Rehabilitation”
This 40-page report documents numerous and serious human rights abuses that women and girls suffer in "social rehabilitation" facilities in Libya. These include violations of their rights to liberty, freedom of movement, personal dignity, privacy and due process. Libyan authorities are holding many women and girls in these facilities who have committed no crime, or who have completed a sentence.
This document details recent violations by both the Burundian government and the rebel National Liberation Forces (Forces Nationales de Libération, or FNL), with which the government is still at war. The report calls on both the government and the international community to establish mechanisms to deliver justice for serious past crimes by government and rebel forces.
