The Impact of Lead Contamination on Children’s Rights in Kabwe, Zambia
This report examines the effects of lead contamination in Kabwe, a provincial capital, on children’s rights to health, a healthy environment, education, and play. Twenty-five years after the mine closed, children living in nearby townships continue to be exposed to high levels of toxic lead in soil and dust in their homes, backyards, schools, play areas, and other public spaces. The Zambian government’s efforts to address the environmental and health consequences of the widespread lead contamination have not thus far been sufficient, and parents struggle to protect their children.
Discrimination in Education against Pregnant Girls and Adolescent Mothers
This report draws on extensive Human Rights Watch research on the rights of girls in Africa. Human Rights Watch examined national laws, policies, and practices that block or support pregnant girls’ and adolescent mothers’ right to primary and secondary education in all African Union (AU) member countries. Africa has one of the highest rates of adolescent pregnancy in the world. African governments should urgently adopt laws and policies to ensure that schools allow and support pregnant girls to stay in school and to return to school after having a child.
This report examines the impact of commercial farms on residents’ rights to health, housing, livelihood, food and water security, and education. It examines how women have been disproportionately affected and often excluded from negotiations with commercial farmers. Based on more than 130 interviews with rural residents affected by commercial farming, the report examines the human rights record of six commercial farms that exemplify much larger failures of rights protection and governance. It also draws on interviews with government officials, commercial farmers, advocates, and lawyers.
Barriers to HIV Services and Treatment for Persons with Disabilities in Zambia
The 80-page report documents the obstacles faced by people with disabilities in both the community and healthcare settings. These include pervasive stigma and discrimination, lack of access to inclusive HIV prevention education, obstacles to accessing voluntary testing and HIV treatment, and lack of appropriate support for adherence to antiretroviral treatment.
Labor Abuses in Zambia's Chinese State-owned Copper Mines
This 122-page report details the persistent abuses in Chinese-run mines, including poor health and safety conditions, regular 12-hour and even 18-hour shifts involving arduous labor, and anti-union activities, all in violation of Zambia’s national laws or international labor standards.
This 135-page report documents the failure of the Zambian prison authority to provide basic nutrition, sanitation, and housing for prisoners, and of the criminal justice system to ensure speedy trials and appeals, and to make the fullest use of non-custodial alternatives.
Gender-Based Abuses and Women’s HIV Treatment in Zambia
While acknowledging the significant overall progress made by the Zambian government in scaling up HIV treatment generally, this report documents how the government has fallen short of its international legal obligations to combat violence and discrimination against women.
A Call for Action on HIV/AIDS-Related Human Rights Abuses Against Women and Girls in Africa
Violence and discrimination against women and girls is fueling Africa's AIDS crisis. African governments must make gender equality a central part of national AIDS programs if they are to succeed in fighting the epidemic.
State-Sponsored Homophobia and its Consequences in Southern Africa
Many leaders in southern Africa have singled out lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people as scapegoats for their countries' problems, Human Rights Watch and the International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission (IGLHRC) state in this report.
The Links between Human Rights Abuses and HIV Transmission to Girls in Zambia
Sexual abuse of girls in Zambia fuels the HIV/AIDS epidemic and the strikingly higher HIV prevalence among girls than boys, Human Rights Watch said today. Concerted national and international efforts to protect the rights of girls and young women are key to curbing the AIDS epidemic’s destructive course.
State-sponsored national human rights commissions represent a new vogue among governments, and particularly in Africa. The number of state human rights commissions has multiplied across the continent in the past decade, spreading from one country in 1989 to two dozen by 2000.
Political tensions began to rise in Zambia soon after the conclusion of the June 1997 Consultative Group (CG) meeting on Zambia. Two weeks after the meeting closed, the opposition United National Independence Party (UNIP) found its Lusaka headquarters besieged by police and filled with tear gas.
On November 18, 1996 presidential and parliamentary elections were held in Zambia, five years almost to the day since the first multiparty elections in November 1991. The election results returned President Frederick Chiluba and his Movement for Multiparty Democracy (MMD) to power; but these were very different elections.
On November 18, 1996, Zambians voted in parliamentary and presidential elections—the second multiparty elections since the end in 1991 of twenty-seven years of authoritarian and mostly single-party rule, under former president Kenneth Kaunda.
On March 4, 1993 President Chiluba declared a state of emergency, alleging the existence of a plot to overthrow the government by illegal means. The plot, known as the “Zero Option Plan,” was said to have been devised by members of the opposing United National Independence Party with support form the governments of both Iraq and Iran.
