Reports

The 61-page report, “‘I Want to Continue to Study’: Barriers to Secondary Education for Syrian Refugee Children in Jordan,” documents increasingly difficult obstacles to education the further Syrian refugee children progress in school, with enrollment rates collapsing from nearly 90 percent in primary classes to just 25 to 30 percent in secondary school, according to governmental and United Nations data. With UN support, Jordan has created humanitarian education plans for Syrian refugees that aim to increase enrollment overall, but without specific secondary-school enrollment goals. Few foreign donors support secondary education. Informal education programs hosted by nongovernmental groups only reach a tiny fraction of children, Human Rights Watch found.

The 44-page report, “‘They Talk to Us Like We’re Dogs’: Abusive Police Stops in France,” documents repetitive, baseless police stops targeting minorities including children as young as 10, older children, and adults. These stops often involve invasive, humiliating body pat-downs and searches of personal belongings. Most stops are never recorded, the police don’t provide written documentation or usually tell people why they were stopped, and measures to improve accountability have been ineffective. Several of the children and adults interviewed said police used racial slurs.

The 43-page report, “‘No One Cared He Was A Child’: Egyptian Security Forces’ Abuse of Children in Detention,” documents abuses against 20 children between the ages of 12 and 17 when they were arrested.

The 91-page report, “China’s ‘Bilingual Education’ Policy in Tibet: Tibetan-Medium Schooling Under Threat,” examines the Chinese government’s rollback of minority education rights in Tibet under the guise of improving access to education. It highlights compulsory “bilingual” kindergartens that immerse Tibetan children in Chinese language and state propaganda from age 3, in the name of “strengthening the unity of nationalities.” These developments reflect an assimilationist policy for minorities that has gained momentum under President Xi Jinping’s leadership.

This report documents the arbitrary detention of street children for periods of up to six months at Gikondo Transit Center, in Kigali, the capital. It follows three Human Rights Watch reports in 2006, 2015, and 2016 on transit centers, including Gikondo, where ill-treatment and beatings are common. Since 2017, a new legal framework and policies under the government’s strategy to “eradicate delinquency” have sought to legitimize and regulate detention in so-called transit centers. But in reality, this new legislation provides cover for the continuing arbitrary detention of, and violations against, detainees, including children.

This report analyzes the Senegalese government’s policy, programming, and judicial efforts from 2017 to 2019 to address abuses against talibé children living in traditional Quranic boarding schools. It sets out a roadmap to end forced begging and abusive conditions in the Quranic schools, known as daaras.

This report documents how Bangladesh prohibits aid groups in the refugee camps in the Cox’s Bazar district from providing Rohingya children with accredited or formal education. There is no secondary-level education, and groups are barred from teaching the Bengali language and using the Bangladesh curriculum. Rohingya children have no opportunity to enroll in or continue their education at private or public schools outside the refugee camps.

This report documents discrimination and barriers to education in the country’s public school system for most children with disabilities. A major obstacle is a mandatory government medical test that can exclude them from education altogether, the groups found. Additional barriers include inaccessible school buildings, discriminatory attitudes of school staff, and lack of adequate training for teachers and school administrators in inclusive education methods.

This report documents how Nigerian authorities are detaining children, often based on little or no evidence. Children described beatings, overwhelming heat, frequent hunger, and being packed tightly in their cells with hundreds of other detainees “like razorblades in a pack,” as one former detainee said.

The 80-page report found that examiners whose job is to certify a child’s status as a minor – that is, under age 18 – do not comply with international standards. Human Rights Watch found that examiners use various justifications to deny children protection. These include children’s minor mistakes with dates, their reluctance to discuss particularly traumatic experiences in detail or work they did in home countries or while in transit, and what examiners deem as unrealistic life goals.

This report examines the effects of lead contamination in Kabwe, a provincial capital, on children’s rights to health, a healthy environment, education, and play. Twenty-five years after the mine closed, children living in nearby townships continue to be exposed to high levels of toxic lead in soil and dust in their homes, backyards, schools, play areas, and other public spaces. The Zambian government’s efforts to address the environmental and health consequences of the widespread lead contamination have not thus far been sufficient, and parents struggle to protect their children.

This report documents how authorities have stalled the rollout of a long-awaited sexuality education program, leaving hundreds of thousands of adolescent girls and boys without scientifically accurate information about their health. The country has the highest teen pregnancy rate in Latin America and the Caribbean, according to the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO). The country’s total ban on abortion means an adolescent girl facing an unwanted pregnancy must continue that pregnancy against her wishes or obtain a clandestine abortion, often at great risk to her health and even her life. 

Nearly 10 years after Human Rights Watch’s first report documenting abuses against talibé children in Senegal, the scale of ongoing abuse remains staggering. Over 100,000 talibé children living in traditional Quranic schools are forced to beg daily by their teachers. This report documents scores of serious abuses committed against talibé children in 2017 and 2018 by Quranic teachers or their assistants, including forced begging, beatings, sexual abuse, chaining, imprisonment, and the deaths of 16 talibé children due to abuse, neglect or endangerment. The report also documents human trafficking and dangers linked to talibé migration.