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Invisible victims of sexual violence. Access to justice for women and girls with disabilities in India

HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH
April 2018

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This report is based on 17 cases of sexual violence against women and girls with disabilities in eight Indian states. It comes five years after The Criminal Law (Amendment) Act, 2013 (the 2013 amendments) were adopted in India. It follows Human Rights Watch’s November 2017 report “Everyone Blames Me”: Barriers to Justice and Support Services for Sexual Assault Survivors in India, which found that rape survivors still face significant barriers obtaining justice and critical support services because legal and other reforms have not been fully realised.

This report finds that while the 2013 amendments have made significant progress in responding to the widespread challenges that victims of sexual violence endure, they have yet to properly develop and implement support for survivors with disabilities in the form of trainings and reforms throughout the criminal justice system. It highlights gaps in enforcement and calls for concrete measures to address the needs of women and girls with disabilities seeking justice for abuse. 

Future forsaken : abuses against children affected by HIV/AIDS in India

HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH (HRW)
2004

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This report documents abuses against India’s HIV/AIDS-affected children, including doctors refusing to treat or even touch HIV-positive children, schools expelling or segregating children because they or their parents are HIV-positive, and orphanages and other residential institutions rejecting HIV-positive children or denying that they house them. Children from families affected by AIDS may be denied an education, pushed onto the street, forced into the worst forms of child labour, or otherwise exploited, all of which puts them at greater risk of contracting HIV. This report calls on the Indian government to recognise their plight and to take immediate action to protect them from discrimination and exploitation

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