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Click to expand Image Palestinians stand behind a barrier as Israeli forces block farmers from accessing their lands in Halhul town near Hebron, in the occupied West Bank, on November 20, 2025. © 2025 Mosab Shawer/Middle East Images/AFP via Getty Images

The European Union’s obligation to ban trade with Israel’s illegal settlements is not in question. But its leadership’s will to comply has long been.

Following growing pressure from civil society, trade unions, legal scholars, some EU governments and members of the European Parliament, and a series of unilateral bans by some EUmember states, the European Commission could finally present a “list of options” to restrict that illegal trade at the EU level ahead of the July 13 EU foreign ministers gathering. 

But continuing to frame the ban as an “option” is misleading: as more than 50 groups emphasized in a June 22 letter to the commission, the only “option” that complies with international and EU law is a ban.

Israel’s settlements are illegal. The transfer of civilians from Israel into the Occupied Palestinian Territory (OPT) is a war crime, committed in a context of intensifying ethnic cleansing and apartheid against the Palestinian population, and a decades-long occupation that the International Court of Justice (ICJ) found to be unlawful.

In its 2024 advisory opinion, the Court found that all states have an obligation to “take steps to prevent trade or investment relations that assist in the maintenance of the illegal situation created by Israel in the [OPT]”.

The European Commission claims its trade policy complies with the obligations laid out by the ICJ, as the trade benefits granted to Israel under the bilateral association agreement do not extend to the illegal settlements.

But that claim is patently flawed.

In fact, even if tariffs on settlement goods and services were meticulously applied (which they aren’t), that still would not prevent trade with the settlements. And that trade contributes to their economic viability, in breach of international law.

EU treatyprovisions and case law are clear: EU trade must comply with international law. Currently, it doesn’t. 

The commission has a duty to remedy that, by proposing a ban under the EU’s “Common Commercial Policy,” which would then need approval by a qualified majority of EU member states and by the European Parliament.

The EU has spent decades expressing “concerns” while Palestinians suffered atrocitycrimes, as Israel’s illegal settlement policy and related abuses only intensified.

It should at least stop bankrolling them. And that’s not an “option.”

Click to expand Image A prison van believed to be carrying Jimmy Lai leaving West Kowloon Magistrates Courts where his sentencing took place in Hong Kong, February 9, 2025. © 2025 Vernon Yuen/NEXPHER/Sipa via AP Photo

(Tokyo) – Beijing has restructured Hong Kong’s governance to answer to Party leadership rather than Hong Kong’s people six years after imposing the draconian National Security Law, Human Rights Watch said today.

“Hong Kong’s highly repressive national security regime and bureaucracy have erased long-protected rights and cast a deeply troubling shadow over its future” said Elaine Pearson, Asia director at Human Rights Watch. “As Beijing continues to radically transform Hong Kong, the deadly Tai Po housing complex fire illustrates the tragic consequences of a society that has lost its ability to hold the powerful accountable.”

The Chinese Communist Party and state have comprehensively reengineered Hong Kong’s foundation of governance, reshaping its leadership, personnel, institutions, and ideology. The authorities no longer present national security as an exceptional response to the 2019 protests, but as a standing principle of administration. They have enforced citywide compliance by punishing increasingly minor acts and targeting ordinary people for peaceful expressions.

After Beijing imposed the National Security Law in June 2020, authorities neutralized the city’s democracy movement by imprisoning pro-democracy politicians, leaders, and activists, or forcing them into exile. They also turned the previously quasi-democratic legislature into a rubber stamp, dismantled independent media and civil society, and entrenched a national security architecture throughout the government.

The Hong Kong government has continued to expand that security architecture over the past year. In March, it granted police new powers under the National Security Law, including the authority to require suspects to provide device passwords. In June, the government bypassed the legislature and used subsidiary legislation to grant the city’s leader authority to designate any criminal act a national security case. This allows arbitrarily subjecting anyone accused of an ordinary criminal offense to national security procedures, stripping them of fundamental due process protections, including the rights to bail and to be tried by impartial judges.

In May, the government allocated HK$5 billion (US$638 million) to the national security budget, bringing the total to HK$18 billion (US$2.3 billion). No public information is available about how the funds are being used. The national security apparatus relies on secrecy; police increasingly no longer make national security arrests public.

Beijing is also ruling Hong Kong directly through mainland institutions and officials it controls. While Hong Kong’s chief executive remains John Lee, the Beijing-appointed Hongkonger, real power lies with party institutions that report directly to Xi Jinping. Instead of policies formulated through a publicly accessible, transparent process, they are now decided at the top of the Chinese Communist Party by the Party’s Central Leading Group on Hong Kong and Macau Affairs (中央港澳工作领导小组). The leading group directs the Hong Kong and Macao Work Office (港澳工作办公室), headed by Xia Baolong, which in turns directs the China Liaison Office (香港中联办), headed by Zhou Ji. Zhou is also an “advisor” to the Hong Kong National Security Committee, which effectively directs all Hong Kong affairs under Xi’s “Comprehensive National Security Concept” (总体国家安全观).

The rubber-stamp Legislative Council also includes a growing number of individuals with deep ties to the Chinese party-state. As of the 2025 legislative term, a record 27 lawmakers out of 90 are members of China’s National People’s Congress or the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference. At least 45 hold positions or directorships in Chinese state-owned enterprises, an increase of about 60 percent from the previous term.

Hong Kong’s government leadership also increasingly draws from former police officers. In addition to John Lee, at least six incumbent department heads or deputies have backgrounds in law enforcement. In May and June, two former police officials, both known for their leadership roles during the crackdown of the 2019 democracy protests, were appointed to head the government communications and public hygiene departments, instead of from the usual senior professional career civil servants trained for such posts.

These appointments appear to be part of a broader pattern of institutional reshaping with government departments increasingly expected to do Beijing’s bidding. For example, the public hygiene and fire departments have targeted businesses whose owners are perceived to hold pro-democracy views.

The government frequently uses the national security offense of “sedition” to criminalize everyday speech. Peaceful online comments supporting Hong Kong independence or selling books about opposition figures can lead to imprisonment. According to government figures, 401 people have been arrested for “activities that endanger national security,” with 182 convicted.

The government cites national security to justify censoring expression across the arts, film, and publishing. Even restaurant licenses now include national security clauses.

In April, the Education Bureau issued a curriculum framework for schools to teach “values” like national security and patriotism. Schools routinely take students to visit the national security exhibition at the Hong Kong Museum of History, which vilifies popular democracy protests in Hong Kong’s contemporary history. In April, the “Hong Kong Story” exhibition reopened after six years of renovations and with substantial changes by the government made to its content, including the use of Chinese government language to describe Hong Kong’s colonial history and the removal of references to China’s 1989 democracy movement.

The draconian national security regime has been used by the government to stamp out dissent and act with impunity, with far‑reaching consequences. The deadly Tai Po fire in November 2025 is an example of this new approach. Despite ample evidence pointing to government negligence, no officials have apologized or shown any indication of accepting accountability. Instead, the authorities silenced critics on social media and arrested a student and a YouTuber for “sedition” after they spoke out. The government also barred victims from displaying banners on their homes and journalists from accompanying survivors as they returned to their apartments to retrieve their belongings.

“The Chinese government dishonestly claims the national security regime targets only a small minority of people, but in reality it has turned the city into a security fortress, leaving people powerless,” Pearson said, “Foreign governments should keep speaking out about Hong Kong, and not forget that it is the ordinary people who fought so hard for universal suffrage and basic rights who suffer the most.”

Click to expand Image An older couple shelters from the sun under an umbrella near the Canal Saint-Martin in Paris, Ile-de-France, France, on June 26, 2026. © 2026 Gauthier Bedrignans/Hans Lucas/AFP via Getty Images

As Europe swelters through the second intense heat wave of 2026, governments are issuing warnings, closing schools or adjusting class hours, and urging people to stay indoors.

Extreme heat is a weather event, but its consequences for people whose specific needs are overlooked in government climate planning or adaptation policies can be perilous. Age, needs and accommodations of children, older people, and people with disabilities must be accounted for or their rights will be disproportionately impacted. Human Rights Watch research points to a common lesson: heat waves become disasters when governments fail to prepare for their unequal impacts.

Academic research suggests that children’s learning outcomes decline when classroom temperatures rise into the mid-20s degrees Celsius. In 2024, the United Nations Children’s Fund found that heat waves disrupted schooling for an estimated 171 million students worldwide.

Students at Springwood High School in the Blue Mountains, west of Sydney, Australia, were tired, distracted, and struggling to concentrate in hot classrooms without air conditioning. But when they used temperature sensors to establish that classroom temperatures exceeded 24 degrees Celsius for 60 percent of the summer, the students helped explain why their quality of education was deteriorating, and what needed to change.

Older people are at particular risk of heat-related illness and death, with older women especially at risk based on factors including increased cardiovascular strain and being more likely to live alone. Despite the risk being foreseeable, the fact that the vast majority of heat-related deaths in heat waves across Europe have been among older people, indicates a failure to adequately respond. In Spain’s 2022 heat wave, 98 percent of heat-related deaths were people 65 and older. 

People with disabilities are also at heightened risk. In Andalusia in southern Spain, they described to Human Rights Watch the physical and mental impact of the extreme heat in 2022, including difficulties breathing, infections, losing consciousness, loneliness, and social isolation. All felt neglected by the Andalusian authorities, whose 2022 Heatwave Action Plan did not include specific measures to ensure the safety of people with disabilities, except for those in institutions.  

Governments need stronger plans to protect children, older people, and people with disabilities from increasingly common extreme heat. Officials should consult these communities to ensure that those most affected can help shape responses and prevent further harm and deaths.

Click to expand Image Bangui, Central African Republic. © 2016 Reuters

On June 12, the Central African Republic accepted 18 men and women of other nationalities deported from the United States, despite its own fragility as a country recovering from decades of conflict and suffering a protracted humanitarian crisis.

The new arrivals included people from Afghanistan, Iran, Iraq, Jordan, Turkey, Armenia, Georgia, Kyrgyzstan, Cameroon, Egypt, and Tunisia, all of whom had US court-ordered protections against deportation to their countries of origin due to fears of persecution or torture.

Central African authorities should do the right thing and protect anyone fearing persecution, torture, or other serious harm in their home countries, who under international law should not be forcibly repatriated.

This is the first time an African state participating in a US third-country transfer agreement has accepted people from Iran and Afghanistan, where risks are particularly high for returnees. 

In Iran, though an interim peace agreement has halted active fighting with the US and Israel, the country’s already dire situation has worsened in recent months. Tens of thousands of arrests followed January’s countrywide massacres of protesters and bystanders.

Iran’s authorities have arbitrarily executed at least 44 men since March on politically motivated charges, at least two of whom were sentenced to death after returning from abroad. A UN Fact-Finding Mission concluded that Iran’s authorities have committed crimes against humanity.

In Afghanistan, the human rights situation has continued to deteriorate. Women and girls face institutionalized discrimination and repression by the Taliban. Human rights defenders, journalists, and former government personnel are at particular risk. Human Rights Watch has documented cases of forced returnees arbitrarily detained and tortured. Afghanistan is also facing dire economic conditions marked by soaring unemployment and a broken healthcare system.

Given that six people the US deported to the Central African Republic are women, the authorities should ensure that reception conditions respect their dignity, privacy, and access to basic necessities, including menstrual hygiene supplies.

Central African authorities should not have colluded with US mistreatment of refugees and asylum seekers in the first place. Now that they have, they need to ensure deportees’ due process rights, freedom of movement, and adequate living conditions. The country should refuse to continue to be a dumping ground for people the United States refuses to accept.

Click to expand Image Zaida Catalán and Michael Sharp. © Instagram/Zaida Catalán; John Sharp

The Democratic Republic of Congo’s High Military Court in Kinshasa, the capital, has convicted on appeal the Congolese army Colonel Jean de Dieu Mambweni of the war crime of murder for orchestrating the assassinations of Zaida Catalán and Michael J. Sharp. The United Nations experts were abducted and executed in March 2017 while investigating mass killings in Kasai Central province. 

The verdict announced on June 5 ends a trial chapter that began nine years ago before a military tribunal in Kananga, Kasai Central Province. Human Rights Watch reviewed a recorded video of the judgment. Mambweni’s conviction marks the first time a court has recognized the responsibility of a senior military officer in planning the murders. In 2022, Mambweni had been sentenced to 10 years in prison for “failing to assist persons in danger and disobeying orders.”

In the final appeal ruling, Mambweni and 53 Kamuina Nsapu militia members were sentenced to death for their alleged roles in the murders. Twenty-seven of the accused were at the trial, 22 were convicted in absentia, and 5 had died. 

While Congo has not carried out an execution since 2003, the de facto moratorium was lifted in 2024. Human Rights Watch opposes capital punishment under all circumstances, as unique in its cruelty and finality, and calls on Congo to abolish the death penalty.

The families of Catalán, a Swede, and Sharp, an American, told Human Rights Watch they are encouraged by the court’s ruling, while also strongly objecting to the death penalty and arguing that there is still a need to look further up the chain of command.

“Still unresolved is the arrest and prosecution of those up the chain of command,” said John Sharp, Michael’s father. “We believe Colonel Mambweni could not have engineered such a crime on his own authority.” 

Questions also remain regarding what happened to the missing Congolese interpreter and motorcycle drivers who had been with Sharp and Catalán.

To ensure that justice is served, the authorities should continue their investigation so that all those involved are held accountable, no matter their rank, and to reveal what happened to those missing.

Click to expand Image A column of black smoke rises above buildings in Bamako on April 26, 2026. © 2026 AFP via Getty Images

(Nairobi) – Islamist armed groups and Malian armed forces and their allies have committed serious abuses against civilians since fighting escalated in Mali in April 2026, Human Rights Watch said today.

On April 25, the Al-Qaeda-linked Group for the Support of Islam and Muslims (Jama’at Nusrat al-Islam wal-Muslimin, or JNIM) carried out coordinated attacks across Mali. JNIM joined forces with Tuareg fighters of the Azawad Liberation Front (Front de libération de l’Azawad, or FLA), who are seeking to overthrow the military junta led by Gen. Assimi Goïta and backed by Russian fighters from Africa Corps (formerly the Wagner Group). All parties have unlawfully attacked civilians and some parties destroyed and looted their homes and shops. On April 28, JNIM announced a “total siege” of the capital, Bamako, threatened to kill civilians obstructing its operations, and attacked civilian vehicles. Malian armed forces responded with apparent reprisals against Fulani communities and two apparent airstrikes killing civilians.

“As fighting flares up again, the warring parties in Mali are once again carrying out grave abuses against civilians, repeating former patterns of harming civilians,” said Ilaria Allegrozzi, senior Sahel researcher at Human Rights Watch. “All parties are obligated to respect international humanitarian law, take all feasible steps to avoid civilian harm, and facilitate access to humanitarian aid.”

Human Rights Watch remotely interviewed 34 people between April 26 and June 9, including 30 witnesses to abuses, as well as civil society members, community leaders, and journalists. Human Rights Watch also verified and geolocated four videos posted online and six photographs and analyzed satellite imagery showing destroyed shelters. Human Rights Watch sent a letter to Mali’s justice minister on June 11 but received no response.

On April 25, clashes between JNIM and allied FLA fighters against Malian and Africa Corps forces in the northern cities of Gao and Kidal killed 13 civilians and wounded at least 25. Between May 6 and 21, JNIM fighters burned more than 40 civilian vehicles bound for Bamako, accusing passengers of violating the siege of the capital, and publicly executed a man in the northern town of Tonka. Between May 14 and 17, the military also conducted abusive counterinsurgency operations against Fulani communities in central Mali, killing 38 civilians, including 23 children. Mali’s military carried out two apparent drone strikes in the central villages of Guimbé on April 25, which killed 12 children and teenagers, and Tené on May 17, which killed 10 men and women.

Click to expand Image Graphic © 2026 Human Rights Watch

A 38-year-old man in Kidal said he heard gunfire early on April 25 which escalated into heavy fighting as JNIM and FLA fighters entered the town, attacked the military base, and looted the town market, while Malian and Africa Corps forces returned fire. “I was struck by bullets in the right shoulder and left thigh,” he said. “I don’t know who shot me because gunshots were coming from all directions, but I know soldiers evacuated me to the Gao hospital by helicopter.”

On May 14, the FLA spokesman, Mohamed El Maouloud Ramadane, told Human Rights Watch: “We took sufficient measures so that civilians are not collateral victims of the fighting. We wrote several times to communities located around the city [of Kidal] to tell them to leave and not to approach military sites.”

On the night of May 17, an explosive munition, apparently dropped from a drone believed to have been operated by the military, killed at least 10 civilians in Tené village, as residents gathered for a traditional wedding. The groom, who had gone with others to collect his bride and the wedding food, was among those killed. “I heard a noise coming from the sky and then an explosion and then there were screams everywhere,” said a 45-year-old man. “We rushed there and found that the damages were enormous, with dead and injured people.”

Human Rights Watch has previously documented how Malian military forces have conducteddrone attacks that caused civilian casualties.

On May 9, 10 days after JNIM announced the start of the siege of Bamako, JNIM fighters burned at least 40 civilian vehicles in the village of Zambougou, about 60 kilometers from the capital. A 43-year-old bus passenger said: “A jihadist said: ‘Didn’t we warn you that Bamako is under siege? Get out!’ Then they set the buses on fire.” There were no military forces in the vicinity and none of the vehicles carried weapons or military equipment.

Since September 2025, JNIM has cut off fuel supplies into Mali, blocking and attacking tanker truck convoys from neighboring countries and killing truck drivers, triggering severe shortages that have halted transport, disrupted education and electricity, and paralyzed daily life in Bamako and elsewhere. While the laws of war do not prohibit sieges, warring parties must take all feasible precautions to avoid harming civilians and comply with the principles of distinction and proportionality. Siege tactics that prevent civilians getting access to items essential for their survival are prohibited.

In a June 15 reply to Human Rights Watch, JNIM said civilians “violating some of the rules of order enforced by JNIM in its areas of controls or on the siege … are deterred proportionately to their violation as per the Sharia [Islamic law] rulings regarding offenders – leniently in some cases and strictly in others.”

All parties to Mali’s armed conflict are bound by international humanitarian law, notably Common Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions of 1949 and customary laws of war. Deliberate or indiscriminate attacks against civilians or civilian property are prohibited. Individuals who commit serious violations of the laws of war with criminal intent or are responsible as a matter of command responsibility may be prosecuted for war crimes.

Mali’s international partners, including the United Nations and the African Union, should work closely with the UN Independent Expert on the situation of human rights in Mali and Mali’s National Human Rights Commission to document serious human rights abuses by all sides and press authorities to investigate those responsible.

“Longstanding impunity continues to fuel the cycle of abuses against civilians in Mali,” Allegrozzi said. “The UN and the AU should support independent accountability efforts, including a fact-finding mission that can lay the groundwork for criminal investigations and prosecutions.”

For additional details about Mali’s armed conflict and the recent attacks, please see below.

Mali’s Armed Conflict

Since 2012, successive governments in Mali have battled Islamist and separatist armed groups. In 2024, JNIM, an Al-Qaeda-linked coalition seeking to expand Islamist rule across the Sahel, and the FLA, a Tuareg separatist coalition seeking independence for northern Mali, entered into an alliance despite their ideological differences, and joined forces during the April 2026 offensive. Their cooperation includes, among others, weapons transfers, training, and intelligence sharing.

After coups in 2020 and 2021, Gen. Assimi Goïta expelled French and UN forces, strengthened ties with Russia, and ended a nine-year-old peace agreement with predominantly Tuareg armed groups. Since 2021, the junta has relied on the Russia-linked Wagner Group, later rebranded Africa Corps, under the direct control of the Russian defense minister and created after the Wagner Group founder, Yevgeny Prigozhin, died in 2023.

Human Rights Watch has extensively documented widespread abuses by JNIM, Malian forces, and allied Russian fighters and ethnic militias. Victims of serious abuse have little, if any, access to justice. The military authorities have failed to hold those responsible for grave violations accountable, fostering impunity and emboldening abusive commanders. Mali’s withdrawal from the Economic Community of West African States’ regional bloc in January 2025 and its announced exit from the International Criminal Court in September 2025 further weakened access to justice.

Recent Fighting

On April 25, 2026, JNIM launched coordinated attacks across Mali. In Kati, north of Bamako, fighters carried out a car bombing that killed Defense Minister Gen. Sadio Camara. JNIM attacked the central towns of Mopti and Sévaré and, alongside FLA forces, the northern cities of Kidal and Gao.

During fighting against Malian forces in Kidal, JNIM and FLA fighters looted the market. In Gao, two cars exploded near a camp for internally displaced persons, killing six civilians, wounding six others, and destroying at least ten homes. “The shelters [in the displaced persons camp] … were destroyed,” said a 50-year-old man. “I was the first at the scene.… [W]e evacuated the injured to the Gao regional hospital and buried the dead at the Gao cemetery around 4 p.m.… The victims were hit … by the debris from one of the vehicles.”

A 43-year-old man caught up in the fighting in Gao said he went outside to help those trapped inside the homes destroyed by an apparent car bomb set by JNIM fighters, but “soldiers posted on the other side of the street opened fire.” He said: “I don’t know if they fired at me or at the rebels, but I still got hit by three bullets in my ankles.”

Another man, 43, said soldiers killed his teenage son in Gao: “I am shocked by the perpetrators of this attack, but also by the Malian army, which does not distinguish between civilians and soldiers.” He added: “When the attackers were driven back, the army remained in the streets … shooting at anything that moved.… At about 10 a.m., … my son ran outside[and] soldiers shot him. He was hit in the back … he passed away around 2 p.m.

Two days later, Russian fighters withdrew from Kidal after reaching a deal with JNIM and the FLA, leaving the town under insurgent control. About 200 Malian soldiers were left behind in Kidal and taken prisoner. JNIM and FLA also captured the northern towns of Tessalit and Tessit. In Bamako, JNIM attacked a military airbase near the international airport and attempted to advance toward the presidential palace, but Malian forces and Russian fighters repelled the attack.

In its June 15 reply to Human Rights Watch, JNIM said: “There can be no war without cost.… [Peace] can only be achieved after long attrition, pains and tragedies of which befall all members of society, from all segments and affiliations, whether civilian or military.”

JNIM Abuses

Attacks on Civilian Vehicles

Zambougou, Ségou Region, May 9

Witnesses said that on May 9, JNIM burned at least 40 civilian vehicles, including cars, buses, and trucks, in the village of Zambougou. “They ordered us to get off and said we should continue on foot because they had decreed an embargo on Bamako,” said a 45-year-old man who had been traveling to Bamako. “Once they set the buses on fire, the air was unbreathable.… Some had tried to take out some luggage, but in vain … the flames had spread.”

A 45-year-old woman said her car followed military forces heading to Zambougou to rescue passengers whose vehicles had been burned. “I counted at least 35 vehicles burned, mostly buses,” she said. “A tractor-trailer carrying sheep caught my attention: the animals were burning inside.”

Human Rights Watch geolocated a series of four videos shared online to Zambougou, in which at least 16 burning or burned buses and trucks can be seen.

Koumantou, Sikasso Region, May 9

Two passengers traveling to Bamako on separate buses said that at about 11 a.m., JNIM fighters stopped three buses shortly after they left Koumantou on their way to Bamako, about 240 kilometers away. The fighters ordered all passengers and drivers out, then set the buses on fire. “They told us that the siege [on Bamako] had been enforced, but as we continued to take the road, what happened to us was … our responsibility,” a 53-year-old man said. “They burned our bus but didn’t harm anyone.”

Public Execution

Tonka, Timbuktu Region, May 21

On May 21, at about 7:30 p.m., two JNIM fighters abducted Abdoul Salam Maïga, a 48-year-old ethnic Songhoy Quranic teacher, while he was speaking with friends near Tonka’s market. About one hour later, they brought him back blindfolded to the central square and executed him in front of terrified residents.

“We recovered his body at about 11 p.m. at the public square, one bullet in the head,” a 45-year-old man said. “Those who were forced to watch told me the jihadists returned on five motorcycles with Abdoul Salam [Maïga] and took him to the square reserved for public festivities and shot him.”

“Maïga had denounced the deviant practices of the jihadists, which go against Islam,” a friend of the dead teacher said. “That’s why they killed him.”

Other residents believe Maïga’s killing may be linked to longstanding tensions between Songhoy and Bella communities in Tonka. Songhoy people are widely regarded as the founders of the town, while Bella, a subgroup of the Tuareg people, have historically been viewed as descendants of enslaved communities in the area. As Islamist armed groups gained power and weapons in the area, they also recruited heavily among Bella communities, causing power dynamics to shift, which residents say may have contributed to the killing of the Songhoy teacher.

In November 2025, in Tonka, JNIM fighters had abducted and later publicly executed Mariam Cissé, a Songhoy social media influencer, accusing her of collaborating with the Malian army.

Malian Army Abuses

Sarkala Werè, Ségou Region, May 14

On May 14, at about 9 a.m., dozens of Malian soldiers in at least 10 pickup trucks, accompanied by Dozo militiamen on about 20 motorbikes, entered Sarkala Werè village and fired on civilians trying to flee or hide. They killed at least 31 Fulani civilians, including 23 children, 13 of them under age 10, and one woman, burned homes, and looted up to 700 animals. Two survivors said that while JNIM operates around Sarkala Werè, no JNIM fighters were in the village before or during the attack, which they believe targeted residents solely because they were Fulani. The attack displaced the entire community.

Islamist armed groups, including JNIM, have long recruited from Fulani communities in the area. Malian authorities and allied ethnic militias have repeatedly equated Fulani civilians with Islamist fighters to justify killings and other serious abuses.

The Dozo, or “traditional hunting societies,” made up largely of ethnic Bambara, have operated as self-defense militias in the Ségou and Mopti regions since 2014. Human Rights Watch has documented repeated abuses by Dozo members against Fulani civilians, as well as cases in which Dozo and other militias acted as proxies of the Mali armed forces.

Witnesses said the soldiers and militia arrived from the direction of Dougabougou, about 15 kilometers north of Sarkala Werè, and split into two groups, with one positioning itself in a nearby forest. Residents said Fulani civilians routinely flee into the forest when the army approaches because of repeated abuses against their community. They believed the soldiers anticipated their escape routes and coordinated the attack accordingly.

A 65-year-old man identified the Dozo by their traditional clothes “with a horned hat and gris-gris [amulets].” He said:

The Dozo and the soldiers just opened fire.… I ran away and dodged the bullets. They chased us – men, women, and children. We all started running toward the forest.… When we arrived, the soldiers hiding there started shooting at us … one by one, at point-blank range.

A man, 36, said the attackers “chased us like hunters pursuing guinea fowls in the bush.” He said he saw soldiers shoot his son before escaping into the forest, where he hid until returning around 5 p.m. to find the village “in total desolation”:

My only boy had been shot in the stomach.… I found his body lying … just 200 meters in front of the house.… We waited until nightfall to start recovering the bodies in the village and its surroundings. We first recovered 24 bodies, all children, except for one woman.… The next morning, we searched for other bodies in the forest. We ended up discovering seven of them, all men.… So, we put all the children in a mass grave and the men in another mass grave and the woman was buried alone next to the children.

Human Rights Watch reviewed a video purportedly showing the bodies of victims of Sarkala Werè which was filmed on the night of May 14. The video, lit by flashlight, shows at least 14 bodies, most likely all male, wearing civilian clothing. At least one child can be seen. Human Rights Watch could not verify the date or the location of this video.

Witnesses also said the military and the militia burned at least 10 straw huts and looted livestock. Satellite imagery from May 20 that Human Rights Watch analyzed shows at least 25 burned straw huts in the village.

Click to expand Image Satellite imagery from May 20, 2026, shows at least 25 burned straw huts in Sarkala Werè, Ségou region, Mali. Image © 2026 Planet Labs PBC. Graphic © 2026 Human Rights Watch.

A Malian human rights organization and international media also reported the incident. The Malian army’s chief of staff has not commented on any operations in the area.

Human Rights Watch received a list compiled by residents with the names of the 31 victims, including 23 children, ages 2 to 16, 7 men, ages 35 to 76, and a 40-year-old woman.

Guirowel, Mopti Region, May 17

On May 17, at about 6 a.m., Malian soldiers arrived in at least 4 pickup trucks and about 100 motorbikes and surrounded Guirowel, a Fulani village in a JNIM-controlled area. The soldiers came from the direction of Sévaré, 15 kilometers south of Guirowel. They opened fire on residents outside their homes, killing seven men and causing all the residents to flee. Two witnesses said some soldiers tried to stop the shooting, but others continued to fire. After the killings, soldiers rounded up about 10 men but released them and left the village by 9 a.m.

A 50-year-old man whose brother was summarily killed by soldiers said:

I heard the soldiers shouting to each other, in Bambara: “Stop shooting! Just take them!” Unfortunately, the damage was already done.… When soldiers on the four pickup trucks went further into the village, the orders changed and they started rounding us up, before changing their minds again and letting us go.… My brother came out [of the house] and … was shot in front of my eyes.

Another man, 45, said he saw soldiers fatally shoot his 28-year-old brother in the abdomen “just outside his home.” He said that when the military left, “we recovered the bodies and transported them to the cemetery [and] carried out the burial of each victim around 4 p.m.” He added that before leaving, the soldiers “warned us: ‘For today, it’s not much. The next time we come back and find you here, we’ll kill everyone.’”

Human Rights Watch reviewed a list compiled by residents with the names of the seven victims, all Fulani men, ages 28 to 47. Human Rights Watch also reviewed two photographs showing the bodies of two men, provided by their families.

Two witnesses said the military had raided Guirowel twice before the May 17 attack, including on May 3, when they burned the home of a man they accused of having ties with JNIM, and on May 10, when they searched homes. Villagers said they had raised concerns about the military’s conduct with local military authorities, who reassured them that the military was there to protect civilians.

Apparent Military Drone Strikes

Mali has acquired and used Turkish-made Bayraktar TB2 drones since 2022.

Guimbé, Mopti Region, April 25

On the evening of April 25, an explosive munition, apparently dropped from a military drone, hit a group of JNIM fighters and civilians by the Bani riverbank in Guimbé village, four kilometers south of Mopti town, killing at least 12 children and teenagers and several fighters. Four witnesses said that JNIM fighters were active across Mopti that day, briefly occupying government offices and attacking a bank, and that at the time of the strike “a column of jihadists” crossed the river “in a disordered way.”

A 49-year-old man whose 18-year-old son was killed in the strike said:

All five children who were around the motorbike died … there were also small children bathing. The fragments hit them. We found some children dead in the water. Some were cut off, their bodies shredded. As for [the] five children who were washing the motorbike, we only recognized them by their heads, feet, and shoes. As for the small children, some were hit in the abdomen, others in the head.

A man, 45, said he heard a whistle and then a loud explosion: “Women started crying and the news spread rapidly.… We found 12 children dead on the spot, including my 8-year-old child … [who] was still breathing a little. But when I took him in my arms, he passed away.”

Another man said:

In the evening, we couldn’t bury the dead because the drone had come back to fly over the village, so out of fear, the village chief ordered everyone to go home. The next day, we buried all the bodies north of the village, not far from the river. Not all in the same mass grave. The shredded bodies, collected in wheelbarrows, were buried together in one mass grave. The others, the whole bodies, each in his own grave.

Human Rights Watch reviewed a list compiled by witnesses with the names of the 12 victims, all males ages 8 to 18.

Tené, San Region, May 17

At about 9 p.m. on May 17, an explosive munition, apparently dropped from a drone believed to have been operated by the military, hit a courtyard in the small town of Tené, where people had gathered for a community wedding celebration, killing 10 civilians and wounding 10 others. Among those killed was the groom, who had traveled by motorbike to the bride’s home.

JNIM operates around Tené, but three witnesses said there were no Islamist fighters or any other armed men at the wedding. Informed sources said that around the time of the attack, a group of JNIM fighters was heading toward Tené on motorbikes, reportedly with their lights off.

The witnesses said a gray drone, shaped like a small plane, had been flying over Tené since 6 p.m. “The drone was flying high in the sky,” a 50-year-old man said. “I heard something like a buzzing and then the explosion, which came from where the livestock market is.”

A 45-year-old man who rushed to the site said he found “young men and women dead, their bodies torn apart, heads broken, bellies cut open, and seriously injured people who were screaming.” He added that “animals were also killed and at least 10 motorcycles burned.”

“The following day we carried out the burial,” a 34-year-old man said. “We dug 10 graves at the cemetery and we prayed for them.”

Human Rights Watch geolocated the location of the strike based on witness accounts and a series of six photographs published by a local news outlet showing two damaged houses, a destroyed wall, and two burned motorbikes in a residential courtyard.

Human Rights Watch reviewed a list compiled by residents of 10 people killed: 6 women, ages 18 to 34, and 4 men, ages 18 to 23.

Click to expand Image Location of the apparent May 17, 2026, drone strike in Tené, San region, Mali. Image © 2026 Airbus. Google Earth. Graphic © 2026 Human Rights Watch.

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(Sydney) – Australia has refused to commit to reforms for the incarceration of children, offshore detention of asylum seekers, and phasing out fossil fuels, despite repeated calls to do so from United Nations member countries, Human Rights Watch said today.

In its written response to its fourth Universal Periodic Review (UPR) at the UN Human Rights Council, the Albanese Labor government accepted just 128 of the 332 recommendations it received (38 percent). This is a lower acceptance rate than at the 2021 UPR, when the former Coalition government accepted 51 percent of the recommendations.

“Australia claims it takes its human rights obligations seriously, yet ignored the majority of the recommendations resulting from the UN review process,” said Annabel Hennessy, Australia researcher at Human Rights Watch. “For years, other countries have called on Australia to stop incarcerating children as young as 10, end the offshore detention of asylum seekers, and take real action on climate change, yet Australia still refuses to act.”

The UPR is a United Nations Human Rights Council process in which the human rights records of member states are reviewed by other states every five years.

In its response to recommendations received during the UPR, Australia said it recognized that it “must do more to address the overrepresentation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples in the criminal justice system” and was “committed to improving youth justice outcomes.”

However, these claims were undermined by Australia’s refusal to accept recommendations from 27 countries to raise the age of criminal responsibility. States have called on Australia to raise the age of criminal responsibility every UPR review cycle.

Currently, children as young as 10 can be held criminally responsible and incarcerated in most Australian jurisdictions. This is well below the 14-year-old minimum age of criminal responsibility recommended by United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child.

First Nations children make up approximately 60 percent of those incarcerated in Australia, though they make up only about 6 percent of the child population.

Australia also did not accept recommendations from states calling for it to enact a national Human Rights Act. Australia does not have a national Human Rights Act or charter and a parliamentary inquiry recently found that while there is some protection against human rights violations in existing laws, there is an inadequate “piecemeal approach.”

On refugees and asylum seekers, Australia claimed it was committed to ensuring its migration system respected its international obligations and the human rights of migrants, refugees, and asylum seekers. However, it did not accept recommendations explicitly calling on it to end its offshore processing regime under which asylum seekers are forcibly transferred to the Pacific island nation of Nauru.

In response to recommendations calling for greater action on climate change, Australia said it was “playing a leadership role in global climate action” through its role as president of negotiations for COP31, this year’s annual UN climate conference, is due to be held in late 2026.

Australia accepted only 3 of 17 recommendations calling for greater action on climate change. The climate recommendations Australia did not accept included those from Pacific neighboring states, which are facing some of the greatest human rights threats because of the climate crisis. The Marshall Islands urged Australia to accelerate its transition away from fossil fuels, while Fiji called for it to legislate the right to a clean, healthy and sustainable environment.

“While Australia claims it is a global climate leader, the Albanese government continues to approve new fossil fuel projects,” Hennessy said. “Rather than more hollow words, Australia should match its rhetoric with action and with concrete plans to transition away from fossil fuels ahead of the UN climate change conference.”

Click to expand Image A session of the United Nations Human Rights Council, Geneva, Switzerland, February 26, 2024. © 2024 Hannes P Albert/picture-alliance/dpa/AP Photo

(Sydney) – Australia has refused to commit to reforms for the incarceration of children, offshore detention of asylum seekers, and phasing out fossil fuels, despite repeated calls to do so from United Nations member countries, Human Rights Watch said today.

In its written response to its fourth Universal Periodic Review (UPR) at the UN Human Rights Council, the Albanese Labor government accepted just 128 of the 332 recommendations it received (38 percent). This is a lower acceptance rate than at the 2021 UPR, when the former Coalition government accepted 51 percent of the recommendations.

“Australia claims it takes its human rights obligations seriously, yet ignored the majority of the recommendations resulting from the UN review process,” said Annabel Hennessy, Australia researcher at Human Rights Watch. “For years, other countries have called on Australia to stop incarcerating children as young as 10, end the offshore detention of asylum seekers, and take real action on climate change, yet Australia still refuses to act.”

The UPR is a United Nations Human Rights Council process in which the human rights records of member states are reviewed by other states every five years.

In its response to recommendations received during the UPR, Australia said it recognized that it “must do more to address the overrepresentation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples in the criminal justice system” and was “committed to improving youth justice outcomes.”

However, these claims were undermined by Australia’s refusal to accept recommendations from 27 countries to raise the age of criminal responsibility. States have called on Australia to raise the age of criminal responsibility every UPR review cycle.

Currently, children as young as 10 can be held criminally responsible and incarcerated in most Australian jurisdictions. This is well below the 14-year-old minimum age of criminal responsibility recommended by United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child.

First Nations children make up approximately 60 percent of those incarcerated in Australia, though they make up only about 6 percent of the child population.

Australia also did not accept recommendations from states calling for it to enact a national Human Rights Act. Australia does not have a national Human Rights Act or charter and a parliamentary inquiry recently found that while there is some protection against human rights violations in existing laws, there is an inadequate “piecemeal approach.”

On refugees and asylum seekers, Australia claimed it was committed to ensuring its migration system respected its international obligations and the human rights of migrants, refugees, and asylum seekers. However, it did not accept recommendations explicitly calling on it to end its offshore processing regime under which asylum seekers are forcibly transferred to the Pacific island nation of Nauru.

In response to recommendations calling for greater action on climate change, Australia said it was “playing a leadership role in global climate action” through its role as president of negotiations for COP31, this year’s annual UN climate conference, is due to be held in late 2026.

Australia accepted only 3 of 17 recommendations calling for greater action on climate change. The climate recommendations Australia did not accept included those from Pacific neighboring states, which are facing some of the greatest human rights threats because of the climate crisis. The Marshall Islands urged Australia to accelerate its transition away from fossil fuels, while Fiji called for it to legislate the right to a clean, healthy and sustainable environment.

“While Australia claims it is a global climate leader, the Albanese government continues to approve new fossil fuel projects,” Hennessy said. “Rather than more hollow words, Australia should match its rhetoric with action and with concrete plans to transition away from fossil fuels ahead of the UN climate change conference.”

Click to expand Image Marchers with the Greater Seattle Business Association, Washington State's LGBTQ+ and allied chamber of commerce, during the annual Seattle Pride Parade, June 25, 2023. © 2023 Lindsey Wasson/AP Photo

When the Egypt and Iran teams meet at Lumen Field in Seattle tonight, soccer fans will be free to wave the rainbow flag. The Fédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA) confirmedThursday that it would not bar the symbol from the stadium over formal objections from both countries’ football federations. It is the right call. 

On June 25, FIFA called the tournament “an inclusive event that welcomes people from all backgrounds,” and said rainbow flags and other flags representing sexual orientation and gender identity are permitted under its stadium code of conduct, provided they are used in line with the rules. 

This announcement is overdue, especially after FIFA shamefully canceled its own anti-discrimination campaign for the 2025 FIFA Club World Cup. 

Human Rights Watch has long documented human rights abuses of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) people in both of the countries whose teams are playing tonight. In Egypt, which denies the existence of LGBT people, no statute explicitly criminalizes same-sex conduct; instead, a vaguely worded “debauchery” law is used selectively to arrest, prosecute, and torture LGBT people. 

Iran’s Islamic penal code prescribes punishments ranging from flogging, which constitutes torture, to death sentences for men engaging in consensual same-sex conduct. That is why a simple act like raising a flag is unnerving for these governments. 

That is the context in which the football federations in Cairo and Tehran told FIFA they wanted to ban rainbow flags from their match.

The contrast with the World Cup in 2022 is important. Then, FIFA allowed the host government Qatar, whose government has a record of rights violations against LGBT people, to confiscate rainbow items from fans, detain a journalist over his rainbow t-shirt, and threaten to sanction captains for wearing the “One Love” armband. Since 2016, under its own statutes, FIFA has been bound to respect all internationally recognized human rights.

Seattle’s Pride Match Day shows human rights commitments can be honored, when FIFA chooses. The Seattle World Cup host city organizers captured this sentiment perfectly, affirming: “Soccer has a unique power to unite people across borders, cultures, and beliefs. We are honored to host a Pride Match and to celebrate Pride as part of a global football community. This match reflects our ongoing commitment to respect, dignity and unity for all.”

Click to expand Image Moussa Tiangari, Niamey, Niger, June 2024. © 2024 Amnesty International

18 months ago, Niger’s military junta arrested and detained Moussa Tiangari, a prominent human rights defender in the country. Following an investigation, the United Nations is now calling for his release. 

The UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention, an independent expert body that investigates cases of deprivation of liberty, found that Tiangari’s detention is arbitrary and violates international human rights law.

In its opinion released on June 23, the UN working group called on Nigerien authorities to release Tiangari and provide him with reparations. It also called for an independent investigation into his arbitrary detention and accountability for those responsible.

Tiangari, 56, is the secretary general of a civil society organization, Alternative Espaces Citoyens, and an outspoken critic of the military junta. He was arrested at his home in Niger’s capital, Niamey, on December 3, 2024. He was held incommunicado for two days before finally being located at the Central Service for Combating Terrorism and Organized Transnational Crime, an inter-agency law enforcement body, headquartered in the capital.

On January 3, 2025, Niamey’s High Court charged him with “terrorism apology,” and “plotting against the authority of the state through collaboration with enemy powers,” among other offenses. The investigating judge ordered his pretrial detention in Filingué prison, about 170 kilometers from Niamey. Family visits require judicial authorization and, because of the distance, are limited to twice a week. In 2025, Tiangari’s lawyers unsuccessfully filed three appeals seeking his release. He is yet to stand trial.

According to the UN working group, Tiangari has not been informed of the identity of the alleged terrorist group he is accused of having links to. The charges brought against him, including allegedly plotting with enemy powers, means he could face the death penalty. 

Since seizing power in July 2023, the junta has targeted political opponents, civil society members and journalists. The military authorities continue to arbitrarily detain former President Mohamed Bazoum and have withdrawn Niger from key regional and international accountability bodies, including the regional bloc Economic Community of West African States and the International Criminal Court.

The UN working group has spoken clearly: now Niger’s military authorities should act. They should immediately release Tiangari and the other detainees who are languishing in prison because of baseless and politically motivated charges.

Click to expand Image A German police officer takes a man to a deportation flight to Pakistan, February 25, 2025, Hesse, Germany. © 2025 Boris Roessler/picture-alliance/dpa/AP Photo

The European Union is forging ahead on its quest to increase deportations regardless of the consequences for people’s rights. On June 17, the European Parliament approved a Return Regulation that portends increased detention, forced removals, and externalization. Two days later, 19 EU states signed an open letter encouraging “full use of the new possibilities” of “return hubs.” 

The idea is to send people, including families with children, to somewhere outside the EU if they cannot be deported directly to their country of origin. It is unclear whether people will be detained wherever they go and for how long, whether they will be deported onward to their country of origin despite threats to their rights, or if they will have opportunities to rebuild their lives in a country to which they have no connection. Potential access to justice and redress people would have for rights violations is anyone’s guess. 

Five countries—Austria, Denmark, Germany, Greece, and The Netherlands—have made no secret of their interest in setting up what could be a joint return hub. Destinations reportedly under consideration include countries with terrible human rights records, including Rwanda, Uganda, Uzbekistan, Tunisia, Libya, Egypt, Ethiopia, Mauritania, and Kazakhstan. The EU has failed to address grave human rights concerns in its engagement with their governments. How any of them would meet the Return Regulation’s requirement to respect international human rights standards is difficult to see. 

Human Rights Watch has consistently found that deportations to third countries exposes people to arbitrary detention, ill-treatment, destitution, and chain refoulement—that is return to places of danger. United States deportations of third-country nationals to Mexico, El Salvador, Cameroon, Rwanda, Eswatini, Ghana, and South Sudan have subjected people to harm and undermine good faith implementation of international human rights law.

EU countries should drop plans for return hubs. EU leaders like French President Emmanuel Macron and Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez who have criticized return hubs should insist on iron-clad safeguards if discussions go forward and before any EU money is spent. These include at a minimum a prior human rights assessment, individualized assessments before any transfers, clear conditions on treatment and reception, effective remedies, and fully transparent and independent monitoring. None of the countries being considered, with Rwanda and Uzbekistan reportedly at the top of the list, would pass a serious rights review. 

Click to expand Image Amret MFI advertisement posted on the wall of the home of a Tampuan Indigenous borrower in Pa Chon Thom village, Ratanakiri, Cambodia, reading: “Amret helps you buy agricultural equipment without having your own money” [left]; “Amret is always ready to help you and your family” [right]. © 2023 Private

The World Bank’s International Finance Corporation (IFC) rejected its ombudsman’s findings about harm related to investments in Cambodia’s microfinance sector, failing a critical test of accountability, Human Rights Watch said today. In its response, published on June 24, 2026, the IFC refuted the ombudsman’s determination that it had violated its own environmental and social policies. 

“The IFC Board’s decision to reject the findings of its own ombudsman is a blow for accountability in Cambodia’s microfinance sector and for millions of indebted microfinance borrowers in Cambodia,” said Elaine Pearson, Asia director at Human Rights Watch. “The IFC should stop deflecting its own responsibilities and instead get to work providing a remedy for past harm and preventing future harm.” 

The Board of Directors of the IFC, the World Bank’s private sector investment arm, issued a statement announcing that, in response to a 2022 complaint filed on behalf of 18 Cambodian microfinance borrowers, the IFC would enact a plan to support complainants to use existing complaint procedures in the country. The statement says, “In approving the Plan, the Board recognized that there has been no policy noncompliance under IFC’s Policy on Environmental and Social Sustainability.”

The Compliance Advisor Ombudsman (CAO), the organization’s internal watchdog, on June 24, had published its 142-page investigation into the allegations made in the 2022 complaint. The report details extensive harm directly related to several areas of IFC non-compliance and specifically finds that the “IFC did not comply with its Sustainability Policy obligations” to protect “poor and vulnerable people,” ensure microfinance institutions (MFIs) establish adequate grievance mechanisms, or prevent adverse impacts on Indigenous Peoples and their lands.

Cambodia has the most microcredit debt per capita of any country. Predatory lending and collection practices by Cambodian microfinance institutions have led to human rights harms, including forced land sales, families going hungry, children being forced out of school into the workforce, and apparent debt-driven suicides.

This harm is especially prevalent in Indigenous communities, where many people cannot read, speak, or write Khmer. Human Rights Watch found in a September 2025 report that Cambodian microfinance institutions backed by international investors have aggressively marketed loans in Indigenous communities, leading to this harm.

The ombudsman found similar harm in areas with Indigenous peoples as a result of the IFC’s violation of its own performance standards. “In multiple cases, [banks and financial institutions] accepted as collateral land situated within Indigenous Peoples’ territories, risking loss of communal land plots without community consent and the subsequent potential erosion of the integrity of Indigenous Peoples’ communal land, their culture, and their access to natural resources—risks that PS7 requires clients to avoid,” the ombudsman says in the report.

The ombudsman’s report further stated that the IFC did not apply its sustainability policy to assess possible environmental and social impacts on Indigenous peoples, nor did it “identify related mitigation measures in the investments covered by this case, which include microfinance providers operating in IP-majority regions.”

The IFC has invested more than $US400 million in Cambodian microfinance providers over the last 10 years, continuing to invest even after concerns were raised about the levels of debt and predatory loan practices as far back as 2016. The ombudsman also raises concerns that IFC failed to conduct proper due diligence on these investments’ potential impacts in Indigenous areas, noting, “During due diligence, IFC relied on clients’ self-reporting, without documented verification, that their projects would not carry risks of adverse impacts to Indigenous Peoples or their land and cultural heritage."

Human Rights Watch raised concerns about over-indebtedness and predatory lending in Cambodia’s microfinance sector directly with the IFC in 2020 and in 2025. In its July 2025 letter responding to those concerns, IFC management sought to distance itself from the harm to borrowers, saying, “[R]isks and impacts related to consumer protection are not managed through IFC’s” requirements. While the ombudsman rejected this narrow interpretation of IFC policy in its report, the Board’s decision effectively endorses IFC management’s claim that microfinance borrowers are not project-affected people, and that the IFC’s sustainability policies do not apply to them.

Cambodian groups, Human Rights Watch, and the ombudsman have all separately recommended a remedy process for Cambodia’s microfinance sector in which a grievance mechanism operating independently from financial institutions would be established, and potential remedies for borrowers would include compensation, debt relief, and land restitution.

The IFC’s plan includes none of those commitments. Instead, it proposes to engage in “loan restructuring, deferred repayments, or interest adjustments” and to help complainants access existing grievance mechanisms, which the ombudsman and Human Rights Watch both found to be ineffective. It also mentions supporting the establishment of a “financial ombudsman,” but provides no commitments on how that mechanism would operate in line with international standards.

“The CAO issued a damning report, and this is a completely inadequate response, cutting off access to accountability and remedy for Cambodian borrowers, in Indigenous and non-Indigenous areas, who face risks from IFC-backed microfinance loans,” Pearson said. “The IFC’s Board should reverse this disastrous decision and fully adopt the ombudsman’s recommendations to address the harm raised in the report.”

Click to expand Image A same-sex couple hold hands during an event to raise awareness of gay rights in Hong Kong on May 25, 2019. © 2026 Philip Fong/AFP via Getty Images

(New York) – The censorship of prominent social media accounts, foreign films, and events with lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) themes around Pride month illustrates the deteriorating rights situation for LGBT people in China, Human Rights Watch said today. A number of these events were organized by foreign embassies and cultural institutes.

“Under Xi Jinping, the Chinese government’s intensifying repression and promotion of normative gender and sexuality has resulted in shrinking spaces for LGBT people,” said Yalkun Uluyol, China researcher at Human Rights Watch. “Almost three decades since China decriminalized homosexuality, authorities’ paranoia about grassroots social movements has severely undermined LGBT people’s ability to gain visibility and equality.”

In May 2026, the social media company WeChat suspended multiple public channels featuring LGBT content after they reported the response from the Research Office of China’s Supreme People’s Court to an online petition about legal protection against discrimination based on sexual orientation, gender identity, and gender expression. The response, though not legally binding, was the first recognition of its kind by a judicial body in China and was subsequently welcomed by LGBT activists and supporters.

On June 17, WeChat also suspended the public account of Zhenzhen’s Rainbow (镇镇的彩虹), a channel of the Beijing-based Rainbow Violence Prevention Center, which provides support for LGBT people who have faced gender-based violence. WeChat—which, like all social media companies in China, is required by the Chinese authorities to actively monitor and censor users—said the channel had violated relevant regulations but provided no details.

The Chinese government appears particularly concerned about LGBT groups’ potential foreign ties, Human Rights Watch said.

On June 19, Red Note (小红书), a major Chinese social media company, reportedly banned the account of a Paris-based independent bookstore after it promoted a screening of a transgender-themed film in Paris. Red Note said the account had been banned but provided no further explanation.

This came after the Institut Français (French Institute), the French government’s global cultural organization, canceled screenings of LGBT-themed films scheduled for June 6 and 7 in Beijing following police visits. The French newspaper Le Monde reported that the institute had concerns related to the “continued harassment of the cultural center and its Chinese staff.” The police had apparently demanded to check the identification cards of Chinese people who were going to attend the event, which would have intimidated the audience.

On May 31, the German cultural center Goethe-Institut in Beijing abruptly announced that an in-person event on gender expression scheduled to take place that day had been moved online because the venue was “being blocked.”

Chinese authorities also reportedly “demanded the cancellation” of the Rainbow Run, a sports event organized by the Finnish embassy as part of the European Union Delegation’s Beijing Diversity Week, Radio France International reported.

The police reportedly told the organizers that “the race is contrary to Chinese culture” on May 29, and on May 30, the day of the race, the authorities tried to prevent some runners from leaving the Finnish embassy and followed and photographed about 15 diplomats participating in the run. The police interrogated two drag artists invited to Beijing Diversity Week for nearly seven hours at their hotels, the report said.

Public events on the rights of LGBT people have also faced increasing scrutiny in Hong Kong, where such events were routine until June 2020, when Beijing imposed a sweeping human rights crackdown. Pink Dot, an organization that has organized large outdoor carnivals and concerts for LGBT communities since 2014, canceled its annual carnival planned for June 2026 for the second year in a row, with venue management citing “licensing issues.”

The Chinese government decriminalized homosexuality in 1997 and removed it from the official list of mental disorders in 2001. However, China’s Civil Code defines marriage exclusively as between a man and a woman, and the government does not legally recognize same-sex partnerships. Chinese law also lacks explicit nondiscrimination protections based on sexual orientation and gender identity.

LGBT people have attempted to litigate for equality in court with limited success notwithstanding government control over the courts. In August 2024, a custody ruling by a Beijing court became the first legal recognition in China that a child can have two mothers. However, the petitioner, Didi, was denied contact with her son on the grounds that she did not give birth to him and is not genetically related to him.

LGBT people in China have organized peaceful groups and activities since at least 1998, especially in major cities like Beijing, although they have always experienced police harassment. Access to the internet in the early 2000s provided LGBT people with a relatively free and anonymous public space to express themselves and connect with each other, while university campuses also became an important space for the LGBT movement in China around the 2010s. Notably, Sun Yat-sen University in Guangdong province became the first campus to host a registered student club in China focusing on LGBT issues.

Since Xi came to power, and especially since 2015 when authorities waged a nationwide crackdown on human rights lawyers and arrested prominent feminists, LGBT activists and organizations have faced increasingly severe restrictions. The 2016 Charity Law and 2017 Law on the Management of Foreign NGO Activities further restricted the freedom of association of LGBT people in China by interfering with their ability to register as legal entities.

Sun Yat-sen University students, who had been displaying large rainbow flags on campus beginning in 2006, ended the practice in 2017 following state pressure and the suspension of their social media accounts. Shanghai’s Pride parade organizers, who had held annual parades since 2009, ended their activities in 2020. These parades were the first of their kind in China. In 2023, the largest LGBT organization in China, Beijing LGBT Center, ceased its operations.

The Chinese government’s suppression of free speech and association, along with its promotion of state-approved normative gender and sexuality, violates the rights of LGBT people and its international legal obligations, Human Rights Watch said.

“LGBT people in China are entitled to equality and basic rights, not hostility and marginalization,” Uluyol said. “The Chinese government should immediately halt its censorship of LGBT content and events, while concerned governments, especially the European governments whose events were censored, should press the Chinese government to protect the rights of LGBT people.”

Click to expand Image Peter Magyar, Prime Minister of Hungary, delivers a speech in the Hungarian Parliament before the agenda in Budapest, June 15, 2026.  © 2026 Balint Szentgallay/NurPhoto via AP

(London, June 25, 2026) – The new Hungarian government’s plan to make sweeping changes to key institutions through a rushed 17th amendment to the constitution, risks halting advances to restore the rule of law, Human Rights Watch said today. The plans to remove the country’s president and the head of its constitutional court lack due process safeguards.

If the 17th Amendment is passed, the current term of Hungary’s President Tamás Sulyok would cease the following day. He would be replaced by a new president elected by parliament for a maximum term of five years, or until a new constitution enters force. Prime Minister Péter Magyar has made clear that replacing the sitting president, elected by a Fidesz majority parliament in 2024, is a priority for his government. Sulyok has refused to resign.

“Hungary’s new government has a mandate to set right the damage done to the rule of law during 16 years of Fidesz rule, including reversing its arbitrary stacking of key state institutions with Fidesz loyalists,” said Benjamin Ward, deputy Europe and Central Asia director at Human Rights Watch. “But restoring the rule of law requires respecting due process and taking time to ensure genuine consultation before enacting sweeping constitutional changes.”

A proposed 17th Amendment to the constitution, published on June 22, 2026, would make wide-ranging changes to Hungary’s government, with the impact of summarily removing the president and the head of the constitutional court. The president can already be impeached under the constitution, although any such process would be conducted by the constitutional court. The government has chosen not to pursue that route and instead to change the constitution to remove the president, Human Rights Watch said.

The government has given the public, including civil society, only five days, until June 27, to respond to these major changes, before putting them to a parliamentary vote, where they are expected to pass given the new ruling party’s two-thirds supermajority.

The government’s announcement also set out a plan for a broader, consultative process for an entirely new constitution to follow later in the year. The government contends that “given the urgency of the situation” it needs to change several constitutional rules before a future inclusive, consultative process begins to replace Hungary’s 2011 Fundamental Law, the current constitution.

The 17th Amendment would also introduce a mandatory retirement age of 70 for Constitutional Court judges and terminate the mandate of any sitting justice already older than 70, the month after the amendment enters force. The current president of the court, Péter Polt, is 70, so the change would effectively end his term. The prime minister has made clear he wants Polt to step down, which Polt has not done.

The proposal is reminiscent of Fidesz’s 2011 judicial changes, which reduced the mandatory retirement age for all judges to 62, in order to force out senior judges. The Court of Justice of the European Union found the lowered mandatory retirement age unlawful in 2012. The Fidesz government subsequently lifted the mandatory retirement age for judges in 2013 to allow five of its preferred Constitutional Court judges to remain in their posts.

The amendment also creates maximum term limits of 12 years for all members of parliament, with term limits to be used to assess eligibility of candidates in the first general election after the amendment passes. While term limits for elected officials are not unlawful, the Council of Europe’s constitutional advisory body, the Venice Commission, has advised against their use while acknowledging that states have a right to establish such limits in line with their constitution.

Human Rights Watch has identified many challenges facing the new Hungarian government in its efforts to restore the rule of law and respect for human rights in the country.

Some initial steps have been promising, including: allowingthe country’s prolonged state of emergency to lapse; restoring Hungary’s membership of the International Criminal Court; dropping charges against key Pride march organizers; and dropping a politically motivated espionage probe into a leading independent journalist. The new government has also passed significant media reforms, amending legislation governing the ownership structure of public media, and proposing legislation to abolish the Sovereignty Protection Office.

“Hungary’s new government has good reason to embark on a major institutional overhaul, but the ends do not justify the means in a state that respects the rule of law,” Ward said. “The progress the government makes on restoring the rule of law after years of damage is precious and fragile, and can be undone with hasty legislation that rides roughshod over due process and fairness.”

Click to expand Image A Kenyan police officer, part of a UN-backed multinational force, patrols a street in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, December 5, 2024. © 2024 Odelyn Joseph/AP Photo

China is pressing the United Nations budget committee to defund numerous human rights posts in negotiations on the 2026-2027 UN peacekeeping budget, including essential personnel for the newly established UN Support Office in Haiti.

China is recommending against funding for staff to monitor compliance by a new security force for Haiti with the UN’s human rights due diligence policy, according to a document summarizing member states’ positions in the UN General Assembly’s Fifth Committee, which approves the budget. Human rights due diligence in Haiti is especially important in light of numerous past abuses by peacekeepers there.

Some of the funding China is opposing for 2026-2027 is for the UN support office to assist the Gang Suppression Force. It is a non-UN security force that a small group of countries established to work with the Haitian National Police and armed forces to counter criminal groups that have taken control of much of Haiti.

While the Gang Suppression Force is not a UN mission, the UN provides logistical support, and under UN rules, this means the force must comply with the UN’s human rights due diligence policy.

Since 2017, Human Rights Watch has documented how China and Russia—two countries with abysmal human rights records—have led a sustained push to cut as many UN human rights posts as possible. Backed by Egypt, Iran, North Korea, and others, they have also sought to defund multiple UN rights investigations around the world.

In addition to Haiti, China is currently seeking to defund UN human rights posts in Syria, South Sudan, and Democratic Republic of Congo. Russia is supporting China’s efforts in the peacekeeping budget negotiations, which are scheduled to conclude this week.

China’s defunding efforts come after the UN leadership was forced to slash UN spending due to a liquidity crisis largely caused by the US withholding billions of dollars of obligatory UN dues and China paying late.

Delegations from Europe, Latin America, and elsewhere are resisting China’s efforts. And multiple UN diplomats have said that the US delegation is not supporting the current Chinese push to cut human rights posts.

Member states should continue to resist attempts by China and Russia to undermine the UN’s ability to deter, monitor, and report on human rights abuses.

Click to expand Image Protesters hold US flags and placards during a nationwide "No Kings" rally in Louisville, Kentucky, on June 14, 2025, on the same day as President Donald Trump's military parade in Washington, DC. © 2025 LEANDRO LOZADA/AFP via Getty Images

(Washington) – Trump administration policies threaten the exercise of human rights that are essential to democracy, Human Rights Watch said today as the country prepares to celebrate the 250th anniversary of its Declaration of Independence. Human Rights Watch released a web feature that illustrates the breadth of new threats in 2026 alone. 

“Respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms is an essential element of democracy,” said Tanya Greene, US director at Human Rights Watch. “The Trump administration has been violating human rights across the board, including many that are intrinsically bound up with the meaningful exercise of democracy.”

The administration has substantively undermined or threatened the rule of law, free speech and expression, the right to vote, and key oversight, accountability, and transparency mechanisms, Human Rights Watch said.

Human Rights Watch has investigated and documented myriad ways human rights in the United States are menaced by the current administration, including the elimination of federal civil rights remedies for discrimination, abusive, racist, and violent immigration enforcement, efforts to impose unwarranted restrictions on voter registration, and moves to impede the exercise of reproductive rights.

“The US should celebrate the nation’s founding principles and promise,” Greene said. “That includes acknowledging and challenging its failings and working to guarantee human rights and democracy for all.”

Click to expand Image Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan at press conference during a NATO summit in The Hague, Netherlands, June 25, 2025. © 2025 Markus Schreiber/AP Photo

(Istanbul, June 25, 2026) – The arrest of at least 209 people in the Turkish capital, Ankara, ahead of the July 7-8, 2026 NATO summit there highlights Türkiye’s ruthless intolerance of freedom of speech and assembly, Human Rights Watch said today.

In raids overnight between June 22 and 23, the police arrested people including political activists, lawyers, an academic, and a journalist who is a prominent LGBT rights activist. The Ankara prosecutor’s office said on June 23 that the arrests were to “decipher the action and activities of terrorist organizations,” and linked those arrested to revolutionary leftist groups and to the Islamic State (ISIS) without providing details of any alleged crimes or criminal activity.

“The misuse of terrorism laws to conduct mass arrests and silence people in the run-up to a NATO summit flies in the face of the founding values of the alliance,” said Benjamin Ward, deputy Europe and Central Asia director at Human Rights Watch. “The authorities should immediately release those detained, and NATO should insist that peaceful expression and assembly must be permitted around the summit.”

The evening before the arrests, the Ankara governor’s office banned all public assemblies and demonstrations and activities such as distributing leaflets and displaying banners from midnight on June 28 to midnight on July 10.

The 13-day ban is being justified on grounds of security and public order for the NATO summit, as is the authorization of “preventative policing powers.” The arrests followed a few hours after the announcement of the ban, although the prosecutor’s office’s statement about the arrests made no explicit reference to the NATO summit or the ban.

The authorities issued an order barring any contact with the detainees for 24 hours, before allowing their lawyers to visit. It is not yet known which, how many, or on what grounds, any of the detainees might face criminal investigation or if courts will remand some in pretrial detention.

Turkish media reported that one man, alleged to have connections to the armed group Islamic State, died in an exchange of gunfire with police at the time of his attempted arrest. The circumstances of his death require a full, effective, independent investigation, capable of objectively determining the extent of any police responsibility for his death, Human Rights Watch said.

The arrests and the NATO summit take place as other rights violations are prevalent in Türkiye, including far-reaching restrictions on the main political opposition party, the media, and freedom of expression in general.

The leadership of the main political opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) was recently removed by court order, and Ekrem Imamoglu, the Istanbul mayor and opposition presidential candidate, has been excluded from political life by being detained and put on trial. Many journalists face abusive prosecutions for critical reporting and social media posts, with at least 21 reporters and media workers currently in prison.

The Turkish authorities also have in recent days arbitrarily ordered the blocking of X social media accounts belonging to LGBT and women’s rights organizations in Türkiye, including well-known organizations providing services to women subjected to domestic violence and sexual violence. Those bans came as LGBT groups prepared to celebrate Pride month with planned assemblies and events that the Turkish authorities generally seek to prevent.

“Clearing the streets of Ankara of potential protesters only further exposes the Turkish government’s deepening repression,” Ward said. “Türkiye’s NATO allies should use their influence to urge the authorities to change course.”

Click to expand Image Detainees stand by a window inside the federal immigration center at Delaney Hall in Newark, New Jersey, where ICE is housing detained immigrants, on May 26, 2026. © 2026 Adam Gray/Getty Images 52 people died in US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) custody during the first 500 days of President Trump’s second term, reflecting a soaring mortality rate. ICE so severely limits the information it provides to Congress, families, and the public that oversight is nearly impossible.The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and Congress should act immediately to reduce the number of people in detention and to ensure access to adequate health care in line with the United States’ human rights obligations.

(Washington, DC, June 25, 2026) – The rate of people dying in US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) custody has soared, with at least 52 deaths reported since the start of President Donald Trump’s current administration, Human Rights Watch and Physicians for Human Rights said in a report released today.

June 25, 2026 Dying in Detention

Rising Deaths in an Expanding US Immigration Detention System

Download the full report in English

Appendices

The 73-page report, “Dying in Detention: Rising Deaths in an Expanding US Immigration Detention System,” documents the increasing number of deaths in ICE custody through expert statistical and medical analysis, exposing a rising mortality rate and raising serious questions about the adequacy of the health care provided by ICE and its contracted personnel. The increase in the mortality rate comes as the Trump administration is subjecting record numbers of immigrants to mandatory detention, including in inhuman and degrading conditions, while gutting internal oversight mechanisms.

“People are dying in ICE custody at the highest rate in many years, even after accounting for the surge in detention,” said Brian Root, senior technology and human rights advisor at Human Rights Watch. “DHS and Congress should act immediately to reduce the number of people in detention and to overhaul conditions, including by ensuring access to adequate health care in line with the United States’ human rights obligations.”

Human Rights Watch conducted quantitative analysis of deaths in ICE custody from October 1, 2015, through June 4, 2026, analyzing trends in the rate of deaths over time. Physicians for Human Rights conducted medical analysis of the 39 deaths in ICE custody during the first year of the current Trump administration, largely based on limited public information.

Click to expand Image Graphic © 2026 Human Rights Watch

The organizations examined several cases in greater depth than previously reported, drawing on interviews with family members, attorneys, and former cellmates of the deceased and, in two cases, reviewing supplementary medical records. 

In one case, Maksym Chernyak, a 44-year-old man from Ukraine, suffered a stroke after showing unmistakable signs of a medical emergency, which detention staff witnessed but failed to act on. The resulting delays in transferring him to higher-level care almost certainly contributed to his death, the groups found.

In another case, Lorenzo Antonio Batrez Vargas, 32, died in ICE custody in 2025, following a Covid-19 diagnosis and 12 days in isolation. To access records related to his detention, treatment, and death, Vargas’s family filed a Freedom of Information Act request in October 2025, followed by a lawsuit in December. As of early May 2026, they had not received any additional information. 

“Only a mother who has lost her child knows what I am feeling,” his mother said. “I want my child, and I can’t do anything.” 

During the first year of the second Trump administration, the number of people in ICE detention increased 77 percent, from about 40,000 to over 71,000. At the same time, the rate of deaths in ICE custody rose 140 percent. Human Rights Watch and Physicians for Human Rights have documented abusive conditions in US immigration detention facilities since the 1990s.

Click to expand Image Graphic © 2026 Human Rights Watch

The current Trump administration has dismantled the already limited internal oversight mechanisms within the Department of Homeland Security (DHS)—ICE’s parent agency—making it harder to obtain information, pursue recourse for abuse, or hold the agency and its contractors accountable.

Human Rights Watch and Physicians for Human Rights found that ICE fails to disclose adequate information about the circumstances surrounding deaths in its custody, leaving critical questions unanswered about the care detained people received and whether its provision met international human rights standards. In addition, the agency’s reporting is often delayed, in apparent violation of its own reporting requirements, which include public disclosure of a death within 48 hours, and more detailed public reporting within 30 days. The limited information currently made available raises serious concerns about the nature of many of these deaths and the adequacy of people’s care in custody. 

“ICE so severely limits the information it provides to Congress, families, and the public that oversight is nearly impossible,” said Dr. Katherine Peeler, the report’s co-author, assistant professor of pediatrics at Harvard Medical School, and medical adviser at Physicians for Human Rights. “In the cases where we do have access to ICE and outside hospital records, we are seeing a breathtaking breach of the duty of care.”

The deaths of people in US immigration detention point to potential violations of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), which protects the right to life and obligates states to take steps to safeguard the lives of those in its custody. Poor detention conditions and failure to provide adequate medical care, can also amount to violations of the prohibition against cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment in the ICCPR and the Convention Against Torture (CAT).

DHS and its contractors should fully and publicly account in a timely fashion for every death in their custody. Congress should reduce the number of people subject to detention, prioritize alternatives, and withhold funding for any further detention expansion. It should robustly address the rising death toll, inadequate medical care, and chronic failures of transparency and reporting by DHS. Congress should also establish new, independent oversight mechanisms with real enforcement authority, including mandatory independent investigations of every in-custody death and public disclosure of all death reviews and autopsy reports, and impose penalties on ICE for failure to comply. 

DHS funding has substantially increased with the recent appropriation of $70 billion through 2029. Congress should legislate standalone oversight mechanisms to ensure that the money does not expand an abusive system that has failed to protect lives. 

“Families have a right to know what happened to their loved ones in ICE detention,” Peeler said. “As long as people are held in US immigration custody, the government has a legal and moral obligation to protect their lives, and when it fails, a public obligation to account for what happened. Right now, it is failing on all counts.”

Click to expand Image Since 2023, Maureen Kamatu, 28, has been self-employed at a mobile money cash-transfer booth in Lilongwe. When she first started the business, she faced open discrimination from customers and neighboring vendors. “Passersby often said derogatory things about me as a person with albinism. I heard things like, ‘Is she going to be able to see well? Is she going to be able to count the money? Are you sure she can do this job?’” © 2025 Samer Muscati/Human Rights Watch

For years, efforts to protect the rights of people with albinism in Malawi have rightly focused on ending horrific attacks, killings, abductions, and grave tampering. These efforts remain essential as attacks continue. But safety alone is not enough.

On June 19, the government announced a new National Action Plan on Persons with Albinism (2026–2030), marking an important shift toward addressing another persistent challenge: economic exclusion.

The plan recognizes that poverty is both a cause and consequence of discrimination. It identifies barriers that many people with albinism face, including discrimination in hiring, unsafe and noninclusive workplaces, limited access to capital, and exclusion from social security programs.

Malawi’s previous national action plan (2018–2022) focused primarily on protection from violence, justice, health, and education while largely silent on employment rights and economic discrimination.

The new plan goes much further in tackling some systemic rights violations and their root causes. It includes commitments to expand vocational training, entrepreneurship, and digital literacy programs tailored to people with albinism; improve access to microfinance; promote public and private sector employment opportunities; and ensure that people with albinism, particularly women and older people, are included in social security programs.

These measures were informed by consultations with organizations of people with albinism, civil society groups, the Malawi Human Rights Commission, and Human Rights Watch. Human Rights Watch provided detailed input, including recommendations related to economic inclusion and social security, many of which were included in the plan.

A recent joint report by Human Rights Watch and the Africa Albinism Network documented how stigma and discrimination deny many people with albinism access to decent work and economic security.

The new action plan will not, by itself, end that exclusion. Malawi’s previous action plan demonstrated how ambitious commitments can falter when funding is inadequate and implementation mechanisms are weak. The success of this new plan will depend on sustained political commitment, meaningful participation of people with albinism, and adequate resources.

If fully implemented and properly funded, the plan could become a model for other countries in the region seeking to move beyond protection alone and address the social and economic inequalities that play such a central role in undermining the rights of people with albinism.

Click to expand Image © 2026 Diana Ejaita for Human Rights Watch Women and girls in Cameroon face persistent domestic violence and gender discrimination without meaningful protection or access to justice.Entrenched systemic gender inequality, discriminatory laws, and weak institutions, exacerbated by chronic underinvestment in prevention and survivor support, fuels the violence. The government needs to urgently reform discriminatory family laws, update and adopt the long-delayed Family Code, establish a coordinated national response to domestic violence, and ensure services are accessible across the country.

 

(Nairobi) – Cameroon’s government has blatantly failed to meet its decade-old commitment to substantially reduce violence against women and girls, Human Rights Watch said in a report released today. The failure leaves victims and survivors exposed to harm without meaningful protection or access to justice, even as officials acknowledge that violence against women and girls is worsening.

The 75-page report, “‘I Live in Constant Peril:’ Discrimination, Lack of Economic Autonomy and Violence Against Women in Cameroon,” documents widespread violence against women, including physical, psychological, and economic abuse, in most cases by husbands and intimate partners. Researchers found that physical and economic abuse was used to restrict access to financial resources, social security, employment, property, and economic independence. These abuses are not isolated incidents but are rooted in entrenched gender inequality, discriminatory laws, and weak institutions, exacerbated by the government’s chronic underinvestment in prevention and survivor support.

June 24, 2026 “I Live in Constant Peril”

Discrimination, Lack of Economic Autonomy and Violence Against Women in Cameroon

Download the full report in English

“Violence against women is not simply the result of abusive actions by individuals: it is enabled and compounded by Cameroon’s discriminatory laws and institutional failures that leave survivors without protection,” said Juliana Nnoko, senior women’s rights adviser at Human Rights Watch. “The government urgently needs laws, policies, and services that reflect the realities of domestic violence, prioritize prevention, and support survivors in accessing justice.”

Between September and December 2024, Human Rights Watch interviewed 60 women who had experienced domestic violence and/or discrimination, as well as three religious leaders and seven government officials responsible for social service delivery in Maroua, Douala, and Buea. Researchers also reviewed several government policies and reports on gender-based violence.

Many of those interviewed experienced economic impacts that trapped them in abusive relationships due to their lost access to income, land, housing, paid employment, and social security. Husbands had sold jointly acquired property without the wife’s consent or compensation, sabotaged employment opportunities, cancelled business leases, and destroyed work equipment.

One woman said she spent nearly three decades confined to the family’s compound, forbidden from leaving, speaking to others, or pursuing her desire to start a small business, and beaten if she disobeyed.

Women who had sought help from authorities described being pressured to reconcile with their abusers, being blamed for the violence, or facing retaliation after reporting abuse. Several said their husbands had ties to police or local officials, making reporting even more dangerous and hopeless.

“I went to the police station, thinking they would summon [my husband],” said Yvonne D., a 54-year-old data processor in Douala, whose full name, as with others, is held for her protection. “Instead, the policeman listened, did not take notes, smiled, and just said ‘Truly! Women!’ When I returned home and my husband found out I had gone to the police, he beat me severely in front of our children and threw me out of our home.”

Accountability remains limited, reinforcing a climate of impunity. “I was told to persevere [in preserving the marriage] for my children by family, social affairs, and police,” said Rosalind E., a 44-year-old hairdresser in Buea. When she went to the police, a female commissioner advised her “to drop it because it is a family matter.” The state prosecutor also advised her to drop the case after her husband was arrested because he was not willing to cooperate with the police.

Because of structural discrimination in Cameroon, women face systematic dispossession of land and property by male relatives and in-laws, even when they have documents proving ownership. Brothers and uncles exploit their authority to seize or sell land, often disregarding deceased parents’ wishes, while widows are intimidated into relinquishing rights.

All the older women interviewed described experiencing multiple, intersecting forms of discrimination, including barriers to inheriting from their parents, discriminatory matrimonial property rights during marriage and widowhood, and gendered obstacles to accessing pensions and essential public services. Despite court cases and official papers, the women remain vulnerable and deprived of their right to property.

In 2011, the Cameroonian government pledged to combat gender-based violence including cutting the prevalence in half. In the subsequent 15 years, however, the government has failed to take meaningful steps to fulfil this commitment. A revised Family Code, a key legal reform needed to protect women’s rights and comply with Cameroon’s obligations under international law, has sat in draft form for more than 20 years. Cameroon has no national policy or guidelines on domestic violence.

The current legal framework governing family relations contains discriminatory provisions that designate husbands as heads of household, and the primary managers of matrimonial property. These provisions weaken women’s decision-making power over place of residence, employment, and property, trapping women in abusive marriages.

Police, healthcare providers, and judicial officials are ill-equipped to protect survivors or hold abusers accountable. The government has no comprehensive, coordinated system for collecting or disaggregating data on gender-based violence, leaving the true scale of the problem, including the prevalence of domestic violence and even femicide, largely invisible to policymakers and the public.

Cameroon is a party to the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women and the African Union’s Maputo Protocol, both of which require governments to eliminate discriminatory laws, prevent violence against women and girls, and ensure effective remedies for survivors. These obligations include taking steps to respect, protect, and fulfill women’s rights to bodily integrity, nondiscrimination, and economic, social, and cultural rights, including their rights to property, housing, health, social security, work, and an adequate standard of living. Domestic violence is not a private family matter: it is a serious human rights violation that governments have an obligation to prevent and address, Human Rights Watch said.

Cameroon’s international obligations require legal reform, sustained funding for survivor-centered services, and meaningful accountability for abusers. The Cameroon People’s Democratic Movement and its chairman, Paul Biya, have governed Cameroon for more than four decades. This is not a case of successive governments failing to act: it is the same party, and the same president, bearing uninterrupted responsibility for the absence, for decades, of meaningful legislative action to eliminate violence against women.

“The government should urgently reform discriminatory family laws, update and adopt the long-delayed Family Code, establish a coordinated national response to domestic violence, and ensure services are accessible across the country,” Nnoko said. “Being a woman in Cameroon should not mean having to experience discrimination and violence.”