Reports

The 87-page report, “‘Between Hunger and the Virus,’ The Economic Impact of the Covid-19 Pandemic on People Living in Poverty in Lagos, Nigeria,” documents how a five-week lockdown, rising food prices, and a prolonged economic downturn have had a devastating impact on informal workers, slum dwellers, and other urban poor families in Lagos. The absence of a functioning social security system meant that government assistance, including cash transfers and food handouts, reached only a fraction of people going hungry.

This report documents human rights abuses committed against largely Nigerian women and girls who are trafficked for sexual and labor exploitation within and outside Nigeria. It also focuses on the experiences of non-Nigerian women and girls who are trafficked into Nigeria, most of them for domestic servitude. It shows how some assistance measures are further violating survivors’ rights. The report highlights physical, mental, social, and economic impact of these abuses on survivors, and describes significant gaps in, and obstacles to, much-needed support services. It further outlines steps the Nigerian government should take to combat trafficking in persons and provide survivors the medical care, psychological counseling, and financial assistance they need to heal from the trauma and rebuild their lives. 

This report documents that since early 2015, Cameroonian soldiers have tortured, assaulted, and sexually exploited Nigerian asylum seekers in remote border areas, denied them access to the UN refugee agency, and summarily deported, often violently, tens of thousands to Nigeria. It also documents violence, poor conditions, and unlawful movement restrictions in Cameroon’s only official camp for Nigerian refugees, as well as conditions recent returnees face in Nigeria.

This report shows how the law, which took effect in January 2014, is used by some police officers and members of the public to legitimize abuses against LGBT people, including widespread extortion, mob violence, arbitrary arrest, torture in detention, and physical and sexual violence. The law has created opportunities for people to engage in homophobic violence without fear of legal consequences, contributing significantly to a climate of impunity for crimes against LGBT people.

This report documents Boko Haram’s increasingly brutal assaults on schools, students, and teachers since 2009 in Borno, Yobe, and Kano states. Between 2009 and 2015, Boko Haram’s attacks destroyed more than 910 schools and forced at least 1,500 more to close. At least 611 teachers have been deliberately killed and another 19,000 forced to flee. The group has abducted more than 2,000 civilians, many of them women and girls, including large groups of students.

This <a href="reporthttp://features.hrw.org/features/HRW_2014_report/Those_Terrible_Weeks_i…; is based on interviews with more than 46 witnesses and victims of Boko Haram abductions in Borno, Yobe, and Adamawa states, including with girls who escaped the April 2014 abduction of 276 girls from Chibok secondary school.

<p>This 146-page report which includes a <a href="photo">http://mm.hrw.org/content/nigeria-turning-blind-eye-mass-killings-0">ph… essay</a>, is based on interviews with more than 180 witnesses and victims of violence in Plateau and Kaduna states, as well as police investigators, prosecutors, defense lawyers, judges, and community leaders.</p>

This 98-page report catalogues atrocities for which Boko Haram has claimed responsibility. It also explores the role of Nigeria’s security forces, whose own alleged abuses contravene international human rights law and might also constitute crimes against humanity.

This 55-page report is based on a two-week research mission that included interviews with victims, politicians, gang leaders, and law enforcement officials. The report found that Rivers’ gangs have grown powerful and violent through ties to influential politicians and because of the impunity long accorded them by political leaders and law enforcement agencies.