Reports

Abortion Access in the State of Mexico

The 44-page report, “Navigating Obstacles: Abortion Access in the State of Mexico,” found that the state’s abortion law does not guarantee access to this essential service, even for legally eligible cases. Barriers to access include healthcare providers denying or delaying services, withholding necessary information, questioning the veracity of sexual violence survivors' statements, subjecting women to mistreatment, and imposing arbitrary requirements for access that contradict existing law and regulations.

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  • May 1, 2024

    Digital Metering at the US-Mexico Border

    The 68-page report, “We Couldn’t Wait: Digital Metering at the US-Mexico Border,” details how the Biden and López Obrador administrations have made a difficult-to-use US government mobile application, CBP One, all but mandatory for people seeking asylum in the United States. The result is de facto “metering,” a practice formalized early in the Trump administration that limits the number of asylum seekers processed at ports of entry each day, turning others back to Mexico.

    Report cover in English
  • March 6, 2024

    The Need for Legal Gender Recognition in Tabasco, Mexico

    The 60-page report, “‘I Just Want to Contribute to Society’: The Need for Legal Gender Recognition in Tabasco, Mexico,” documents the pervasive socioeconomic disadvantages that trans people experience due to a mismatch between their gender and their identity documents. A lack of accurate documents, often in combination with anti-trans bias, has led to discrimination, harassment, and violence for trans people.

    English report cover
  • January 6, 2021

    Children and Families Sent to Harm by the US ‘Remain in Mexico’ Program

    The 103-page report, “‘Like I’m Drowning’: Children and Families Sent to Harm by the US ‘Remain in Mexico’ Program,” is a joint investigation by Human Rights Watch, Stanford University’s Human Rights in Trauma Mental Health Program, and Willamette University’s Child and Family Advocacy Clinic. Children and adults interviewed described being sexually assaulted, abducted for ransom, extorted, robbed at gunpoint, and subjected to other crimes under the US Migrant Protection Protocols (MPP), known as the “Remain in Mexico” program. In many cases, they said these attacks occurred immediately after US authorities sent them to Mexico to await US immigration court hearings on their asylum applications, or as they returned from hearings. Witnesses said that Mexican immigration officers or police committed some of these crimes.

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  • June 4, 2020

    Family Violence against People with Disabilities in Mexico

    The 71-page report, “‘Better to Make Yourself Invisible’: Family Violence against People with Disabilities in Mexico,” documents the abuse and neglect many people with disabilities face at the hands of their families, with whom they are often trapped due to a lack of government support for independent living. Human Rights Watch also describes the often-insurmountable challenges people with disabilities face in accessing justice and protection from their abusers.

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  • February 28, 2018

    Abusive Conditions for Women and Children in US Immigration Holding Cells

    This report is based on interviews with 110 women and children. Human Rights Watch found that US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) agents routinely separate adult men and teenage boys from other family members. The practice runs counter to agency policy that families should be kept together whenever possible while in holding cells. After the initial period of detention in the freezing holding cells, sometimes for days, men usually remain separated from the rest of their family upon transfer to longer-term detention facilities.

    Cover of the CRD Texas report
  • March 31, 2016

    Mexico’s Failure to Protect Central American Refugee and Migrant Children

    This report documents wide discrepancies between Mexican law and practice. By law, Mexico offers protection to those who face risks to their lives or safety if returned to their countries of origin. But less than 1 percent of children who are apprehended by Mexican immigration authorities are recognized as refugees, according to Mexican government data.

     

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  • February 20, 2013

    The Enduring Cost of a Crisis Ignored

    This 176-page report documents nearly 250 “disappearances” during the administration of former President Felipe Calderón, from December 2006 to December 2012. In 149 of those cases, Human Rights Watch found compelling evidence of enforced disappearances, involving the participation of state agents.

  • November 9, 2011

    Killings, Torture, and Disappearances in Mexico’s “War on Drugs”

    This report examines the human rights consequences of President Felipe Calderón’s approach to confronting Mexico’s powerful drug cartels.

  • April 29, 2009

    Mexico's Misuse of Military Justice to Prosecute Abuses in Counternarcotics and Public Security Operations

    This 76-page report details 17 cases involving military abuses against more than 70 victims, including several cases from 2007 and 2008. The abuses include killings, torture, rapes, and arbitrary detentions. Not one of the military investigations into these crimes has led to a conviction for even a single soldier on human rights violations.

  • February 12, 2008

    A Critical Assessment

    This 128-page report examines the commission's work on more than 40 human rights cases, including recent abuses by soldiers involved in law enforcement operations, police crackdowns against demonstrators in Guadalajara and San Salvador de Atenco, and the killings of women in Ciudad Juárez over the past decade, among others. The report also examines the commission’s role in addressing abusive laws, including restrictions on freedom of expression, and responding to important reforms, such as the Mexico City abortion law passed in 2007.

  • May 16, 2006

    Bold Ambitions, Limited Results for Human Rights Under Fox

    This 150-page <a href="http://hrw.org/reports/2006/mexico0506/"&gt; report </a> documents the successes and failures of Fox’s human rights policies. The report offers detailed recommendations for his successor —who will be chosen in the July presidential election —on how to build upon the Fox agenda, while avoiding its significant shortcomings.

  • March 6, 2006

    Obstructing Access to Legal Abortion after Rape in Mexico

    This 92-page report details the disrespect, suspicion and apathy that pregnant rape victims encounter from public prosecutors and health workers. The report also exposes continuing and pervasive impunity for rape and other forms of sexual violence in states throughout Mexico.

  • July 23, 2003

    Why Mexico’s First Real Effort To Address Past Abuses Risks Becoming Its Latest Failure

    This 29-page report examines the shortcomings of the Special Prosecutor’s Office and concludes that its main problem has been the inadequate support it has received from the government. President Vicente Fox created the Special Prosecutor’s Office in November 2001 to investigate and prosecute human rights violations committed under previous governments.
  • December 5, 2001

    Mexico's Failure to Punish Army Abuses

    In this new report, Human Rights Watch called on Mexico to end military jurisdiction over all cases involving human rights violations. The Mexican justice system currently leaves the task of investigating and prosecuting army abuses to military authorities. Because of this arrangement, serious violations go unpunished.