Reports

The 71-page report, “‘Educate the Masses to Change Their Minds’: China’s Coercive Relocation of Rural Tibetans,” details how participation in “whole-village relocation” programs in Tibet, in which entire villages are relocated, amounts to forced eviction in violation of international law. Officials misleadingly claim that these relocations will “improve people’s livelihood” and “protect the ecological environment.” The government prevents relocated people from returning to their former homes by generally requiring them to demolish these homes within a year of relocating.

The 60-page report, “‘We Can’t See the Sun’: Malaysia’s Arbitrary Detention of Migrants and Refugees,” documents Malaysian authorities’ punitive and abusive treatment of migrants and refugees in 20 immigration detention centers across the country. Immigration detainees can spend months or years in overcrowded, unhygienic conditions, subject to harassment and violence by guards, without domestic or international monitoring.

The 50-page report, “Breaking Barriers to Justice: Nepal’s Long Struggle for Accountability, Truth and Reparations,” describes the decades-long struggle for justice by survivors and victims. Human Rights Watch and Advocacy Forum analyzed the proposed law and reviewed some emblematic cases that faced obstruction by the authorities. They also described obstacles to justice faced by survivors of sexual violence and relatives of victims who filed complaints in 62 cases of conflict-era extrajudicial killings with the assistance of Advocacy Forum. The bill requires amendments to meet victims’ needs as well as legal standards set by the Supreme Court and clearly established in international law.

The 118-page report, “Carbon Offsetting’s Casualties: Violations of Chong Indigenous People’s Rights in Cambodia’s Southern Cardamom REDD+ Project,” concerns a project carried out by the Cambodian Ministry of Environment and the conservation group Wildlife Alliance, that encompasses half a million hectares in the Cardamom mountains, a rainforest area that has been home to the indigenous Chong people for centuries. The project operated for more than two years without consulting the local Chong people on the project, who face forced evictions and criminal charges for farming and foraging in their traditional territories.

The 67-page report, “‘We Have to Beg So Many People’: Human Rights Violations in Nepal’s Legal Gender Recognition Practices,” documents the significant policy gaps that remain in the implementation of Nepal’s legal recognition for transgender people, despite global recognition of Nepal’s progress. Nepal’s pioneering recognition of a third gender “other” category based on self-identification garnered widespread praise and made Nepal an important touchpoint for the rights of sexual and gender minorities. But Nepal has no explicit legal option to change a gender marker to “male” or “female,” and even the procedure for the third gender option is unclear and ad hoc. Interactions between transgender people and the state have become particularly fraught with discriminatory, ill-informed, and requirements for harmful medical practices.

The 38-page report, “‘A Disaster for the Foreseeable Future’: Afghanistan’s Healthcare Crisis,” describes how the collapse of Afghanistan’s economy after the Taliban takeover in August 2021 inflicted severe harm on the country’s healthcare infrastructure. Donors’ decisions to reduce humanitarian aid have further weakened health care access, destabilized the economy, and worsened food insecurity. The Taliban’s abusive policies and practices have greatly exacerbated the crisis. Bans on education for women and girls have blocked most training for future female healthcare workers, ensuring shortages for the foreseeable future.

The 99-page report, “Asleep at the Wheel: Car Companies’ Complicity in Forced Labor in China,” finds that some carmakers have succumbed to Chinese government pressure to apply weaker human rights and responsible sourcing standards at their Chinese joint ventures than in their global operations, increasing the risk of exposure to forced labor in Xinjiang. Most have done too little to map their aluminum supply chains and identify links to forced labor.

The 76-page report, “‘They Don’t Treat Us like Human Beings’: Abuse of Imprisoned Women in Japan,” documents the abusive conditions in many women’s prisons in Japan. Government policies towards women in prison violate international human rights conventions and contravene international standards such as the United Nations Standard Minimum Rules of the Treatment of Prisoners, known as the Mandela Rules. Prison authorities use restraints on imprisoned pregnant women, arbitrarily employ solitary confinement as a form of punishment, verbally abuse women in prison, deny incarcerated women’s opportunities to parent their child in prison, and fail to provide adequate access to health and mental health care.

The 21-page report, “‘We Still Haven’t Recovered’: Local Communities Harmed by Reclamation Projects in the Maldives,” documents how the Maldives government has failed to consult local communities ahead of development projects, heed environmental impact assessment (EIA) mitigation requirements, and provide resources for ongoing monitoring of development projects in the northern island of Kulhudhuffushi and the southern atoll of Addu. These deficiencies have further harmed residents already at risk from the effects of changing weather patterns and rising sea levels, loss of biodiversity, coastal erosion, and increased flooding.

The 90-page report, “Trading Lives for Profit: How the Shipping Industry Circumvents Regulations to Scrap Toxic Ships on Bangladesh’s Beaches” finds that Bangladeshi shipbreaking yards often take shortcuts on safety measures, dump toxic waste directly onto the beach and the surrounding environment, and deny workers living wages, rest, or compensation in case of injuries. The report reveals an entire network used by shipowners to circumvent international regulations prohibiting the export of ships to facilities like those in Bangladesh that do not have adequate environmental or labor protections.

The 39-page report, “‘If We Raise Our Voice They Arrest Us’: Sri Lanka’s Proposed Truth and Reconciliation Commission,” documents abusive security force surveillance and intimidation of activists and campaigners from minority Tamil families of those who “disappeared” during Sri Lanka’s civil war. The authorities are using draconian counterterrorism laws to silence dissenting voices, including those calling for truth and accountability, while government-backed land grabs target Tamil and Muslim communities and their places of worship.

The 82-page report “‘No Internet Means No Work, No Pay, No Food’: Internet Shutdowns Deny Access to Basic Rights in ‘Digital India,’” finds that internet shutdowns impair essential activities and adversely affect economic, social and cultural rights under Indian and international human rights law. Indian authorities, in the name of maintaining public order, have ignored Supreme Court orders setting out procedural safeguards to ensure that internet suspensions are lawful, necessary, proportionate, and limited in scope and territory. Decisions by central and state government authorities to disrupt internet access are often erratic and unlawful, and are used for restricting protests and preventing cheating in examinations.

The 39-page report, “‘Our Numbers are Dwindling’: Myanmar’s Post-Coup Crackdown on Lawyers,” examines the junta authorities’ pattern of harassment, surveillance, arrests, and in some cases torture of lawyers since the coup, particularly those taking on political cases. At least 32 lawyers have been arrested and placed in pretrial detention with little evidence supporting the charges against them, according to the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners.

The 101-page report, “Japan’s ‘Hostage Justice’ System,” documents the abusive treatment of criminal suspects in pretrial detention. The authorities strip suspects of their right to remain silent, question them without a lawyer, coerce them to confess through repeated arrests and denial of bail, and detain them for prolonged periods under constant surveillance in police stations. The Japanese government should urgently undertake wide-ranging reforms, including amending the criminal procedure code, to ensure detainees their fair trial rights and make investigators and prosecutors more accountable.