Category: Human Rights

Last week, Sierra Leone’s parliament enacted landmark legislation to ban child marriage. The Prohibition of Child Marriage Bill 2024, which makes marriage for anyone under 18 a criminal offense, seeks to protect girls from a harmful practice that has long violated their rights and hindered their development. Child marriage is a serious problem in Sierra […]

(New York) – The United States, European Union, and other governments should urgently counter illicit activities by foreign banks that are assisting the Myanmar military in evading sanctions imposed after its 2021 coup, Human Rights Watch said today. A United Nations report released on June 26, 2024, reveals that since 2022 the military junta has switched the […]

In her report to the Human Rights Council in Geneva, Special Rapporteur Siobhán Mullally said that the 2018 Global Compact for Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration commits countries “to save lives and prevent migrant deaths and injuries through individual or joint search and rescue operations” at sea. But, that hasn’t stopped at least 8,565 people from […]

Today the Department of State released the third public report on the U.S. government’s implementation of the 2021 Presidential Memorandum on Advancing the Human Rights of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer, and Intersex Persons (LGBTQI+) Persons Around the World.  The report highlights our efforts to promote and protect the human rights of LGBTQI+ persons globally […]

European Union leaders and investors are gathering in Cairo on June 29 and 30 for the “Egypt-EU Investment Conference,” which will bring billions to Egypt’s abusive leadership. The conference comes a few months after the controversial upgrading of EU-Egypt bilateral relations to a “strategic and comprehensive partnership” and the related EU pledge of €7.4 billion in concessional loans, […]

The European Commission and Belgium are organising a new aid shipment from Brussels to Gaza via Jordan, in coordination with the City of Brussels and the Belgian Ministry of Defence.  The aid consists of 240 tonnes of supplies collected by the Brussels-based charity organisation Human Smile, including hygiene items, mattresses, sleeping bags and pillows as […]

Since the February 2021 coup, over 5,000 civilians have been killed, at least three million displaced. More than 20,000 political prisoners remain incarcerated. Military airstrikes against civilian targets have increased five-fold in the last six months, even as the junta loses military outposts, territory, and troops to resistance forces. Potential enablers In a new report, […]

As a young woman from Colombia with an intellectual disability, I am honored to represent the voice of those often marginalized. As part of the Marca Bristo Fellowship of Human Rights Watch, I had the opportunity to be a panelist during the seventeenth session of the UN Conference of States Parties to the Convention on the […]

(Nairobi) – The International Criminal Court’s (ICC) announcement of an arrest warrant for the leader of an armed group in Mali highlights the need for Malian authorities to seek justice for serious crimes committed by all warring parties, Human Rights Watch said today. On June 21, 2024, a pretrial chamber of the ICC unsealed an arrest warrant against […]

Houthis have since the end of May arbitrarily arrested dozens of civil society and UN staff without due process, and have held them incommunicado, amounting to enforced disappearance. These detentions followed Yemeni government’s decision to move major banks out of Houthi-controlled territory. Houthis have a history of using detainees as bargaining chips. Houthis should immediately […]