Human Rights Watch

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10 Questions Journalists Should Ask FIFA and Qatari Authorities About Rights Abuses

When FIFA convenes its 72nd Congress in Doha, Qatar, on March 31, 2022, in preparation for the World Cup, journalists, football associations, fans, and others should press both FIFA officials and Qatari authorities about human rights in the Gulf state, particularly the rights of migrant workers, women, and lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) people. Since 2010, human rights organizations, trade unions, and media have consistently documented the rampant human rights abuses in the country, especially against migrant workers, including widespread wage theft, high recruitment fees, unexplained deaths, and passport confiscation, among others. While Qatar has introduced several reforms with much fanfare, they came too late, have proven […]

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UN Body Condemns Sri Lanka’s Criminalization of Same-Sex Acts

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In a major judgment issued this week, a United Nations treaty body called on Sri Lanka’s government to repeal its law criminalizing adult, consensual same-sex conduct – including between women. The case was brought under the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) by Rosanna Flamer-Caldera, an LGBT rights activist who faced harassment and discrimination for her sexual orientation and human rights advocacy on behalf of sexual and gender minorities. The judgment by the UN Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women concerned Sri Lanka’s Penal Code, a relic of British colonial rule that dates to 1883. […]

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Deadly Violence against LGBT People in Iraq

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In February news circulated that a 23-year-old transgender woman, Doski Azad, had been killed by her brother in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq. I read the news, having just concluded my research on armed groups’ killings, abductions, torture, and sexual violence against LGBT people in Iraq, and thought, how can LGBT people get justice and accountability when they can be killed and abused with impunity, even in their own homes? Over the past six months, I interviewed 54 LGBT Iraqis who have survived harrowing violence at the hands of Iraqi armed groups and the police. Some of them also had intimate knowledge […]

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Indiana Lawmakers are Making Life Worse for LGBTQ Youth

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This month, lawmakers in Indiana voted to advance a bill that would prohibit transgender girls from playing sports with other girls. This discriminatory and harmful bill quickly gained traction even though there doesn’t seem to be any issue in Indiana with transgender girls participating in athletics. Efforts to bar transgender girls from participating in school sports are profoundly misguided. Proponents of these bills narrowly fixate on the possibility that some transgender girl might potentially outperform her cisgender peers. To avoid that scenario, they cruelly prevent transgender kids from participating at all. This marks transgender children as different from a young age […]

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Cameroon Court Punishes Anti-LGBTI Violence

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Last week a court in Cameroon handed down a 6-month prison sentence and fine of 650,000 CFA (US$1,106) to one of the perpetrators of a violent attack on an intersex person last year in Yaoundé, Cameroon’s capital. The court’s decision reflects growing recognition of the fundamental rights of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and intersex people in Cameroon, including their right to be protected from violence. In November 2021, a violent mob sexually assaulted, beat, threatened, and humiliated27-year-old Sara (not their real name) while others filmed the attack in two horrific videos which later circulated on social media. In the aftermath of the attack, police arrestedone man, […]

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Interview: Helping LGBT People Flee Afghanistan

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The human rights and humanitarian crisis in Afghanistan threatens everyone there, but lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) people, and other sexual and gender minorities, face an acute threat of violence and even death from the Taliban authorities. These people find hope in Rainbow Railroad, a nongovernmental organization that helps LGBT people flee across borders to safety. Rainbow Railroad provided invaluable support and advice to Human Rights Watch and OutRight Action International for our new report, “Even If You Go to the Skies, We’ll Find You”: LGBT People in Afghanistan After the Taliban Takeover.  Heather Barr, associate women’s rights director at Human Rights Watch, interviewed […]

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Beijing Olympics Begin Amid Atrocity Crimes

The 2022 Beijing Winter Olympicswill open amid atrocity crimes and other grave human rights violations by the Chinese government, 243 nongovernmental organizations from around the world said today. The groups urged governments to join a diplomatic boycott of the Games, slated to begin February 4, 2022, and for athletes and sponsors not to legitimize government abuses. “It’s not possible for the Olympic Games to be a ‘force for good,’ as the International Olympic Committee claims, while the host government is committing grave crimes in violation of international law,” said Sophie Richardson, China director at Human Rights Watch. Under President Xi Jinping, Chinese authorities […]

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Namibian Court Rules It Cannot Require Recognition of Same-Sex Marriages

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Namibia’s High Court ruled last week that it could not require that the marriages of two same-sex couples conducted outside of the country be granted legal recognition. The couples, legally married in South Africa and Germany, had been unable to obtain a work permit and residency permit, respectively, for their non-Namibian spouses and so launched a court case against Namibia’s failure to recognize same-sex marriages. In its decision, the court expressed sympathy with the couples’ position and emphasized that discrimination based on sexual orientation is unacceptable under domestic and international law. Nevertheless, it concluded that the court was bound by a decades-old Supreme Court […]

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Guatemala: Anti-Trans Bill Threatens Rights

A group of lawmakers in Guatemala has advanced a bill that would stigmatize transgender people and curtail children’s and adolescents’ rights to education, information, and health, Human Rights Watch said today. Congress should reject the bill and instead address the violence and discrimination that lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) people face in the country.   Bill 5940 uses the rhetoric of protecting children and adolescents from “gender identity disorders” to justify a patently discriminatory measure that would ban the dissemination of any information about transgender identity in school sex education curricula. The bill would also require media outlets to label programs with transgender […]

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US: Slow Progress on Human Rights

The administration of President Joe Biden has made slow progress protecting human rights in the United States, Human Rights Watch said today in its World Report 2022. “The Biden administration has made some big-picture pronouncements on key issues like racial and gender equity with little evidence so far that the words will translate into real impact for people whose rights have been systematically and historically ignored or trampled,” said Nicole Austin-Hillery, US Program executive director at Human Rights Watch. “Black people in the United States still suffer from significant economic disparities stemming from systemic racism that have impacts across generations, and border policies […]

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