Genocide Watch, a leading organization dedicated to the prevention of genocide and mass atrocities worldwide, has published a Country Report on Laos, drawing urgent attention to the severe human rights violations against the Hmong community. The report highlights systemic discrimination, forced displacement, and state-sponsored violence targeting the Hmong people. For decades, the Lao government has pursued policies of repression, driving thousands of Hmong from their homes and subjecting them to relentless persecution. Since the late 1970s, military offensives have resulted in thousands of Hmong deaths and the displacement of approximately 300,000 individuals. Those who remain, particularly in regions such as Phou Bia, face constant threats, including arbitrary arrests, enforced disappearances, extrajudicial killings, and military blockades that cut off access to food, water and healthcare.
The report documents how government initiatives, often linked to large-scale development projects and Chinese-funded infrastructure projects, have fueled land confiscation and displacement of Hmong communities. The report highlights the use of heavy artillery, chemical weapons, and starvation tactics to forcibly displace Hmong communities. Villages have been destroyed, and civilians subjected to violence and forced labor. Many Hmong families have been forcibly relocated to military-controlled settlements, where they are stripped of their rights and left in conditions of severe poverty. Those who resist are often met with violence or imprisonment.
Religious persecution against Hmong Christians is another major concern highlighted in Genocide Watch’s report. Hmong Christians have been particularly targeted by the Lao government, facing harassment, intimidation, and violent reprisals for practicing their faith. Many have been forced to renounce Christianity under duress, arrested, expelled from their villages, or had their places of worship destroyed. The government’s crackdown on religious minorities, which considers unregistered religious activities a threat to state ideology, has led to widespread human rights violations. In 2024 alone, at least four Christians were killed, 159 expelled from their communities, 60 arrested, and 25 churches were attacked or demolished.
Genocide Watch categorizes Laos at Stage 4 (Dehumanization), as minorities are labeled as enemies of the state; Stage 6 (Polarization), with government propaganda fueling societal divisions and hostility; and Stage 8 (Persecution), as state-led efforts to isolate, displace, and eliminate Hmong communities persist. The report calls for urgent international action, including an independent UN-led investigation into human rights abuses in Laos, the immediate cessation of persecution against minorities and activists, unrestricted access for human rights organizations to all regions of the country, and the formal recognition of the Hmong as an indigenous people with protected land and cultural rights. It also urges the Lao government to repeal repressive laws, release political prisoners, investigate human rights violations, and hold perpetrators accountable.
UNPO has actively raised the issue of the Hmong through reports and at international forums, most recently at the UPR Info Pre-Sessions in Geneva, highlighting the grave human rights violations the Hmong face in Laos. UNPO has also submitted the case to the UN Office on Genocide Prevention and the Responsibility to Protect, highlighting the longstanding persecution of the ChaoFa Hmong. The submission emphasizes the urgent need for international attention to prevent further atrocities and to hold the Lao government accountable for its actions. Despite these efforts, the Lao government has refused to respond, and has continued to deny access to international observers and aid organizations, further exacerbating the suffering of the Hmong.
Since 2020, the United Nations Working Group on Enforced Disappearances and Special Rapporteurs has submitted joint allegation letters (AL LAO 3/2020 and UA LAO 3/2021) raising concerns over enforced disappearances, extrajudicial killings, reprisals and other gross human rights violations against the Hmong in the Phou Bia region of Xaisomboun Province. These letters also address ongoing land seizures and the isolation of the region from international scrutiny. The publication of Genocide Watch’s report further underscores the gravity of the Hmong peoples’ situation and the urgent need for international attention. Genocide Watch warns that without immediate intervention, the systematic oppression of the Hmong community in Laos will continue to escalate.
UNPO continues to highlight the urgent need for international attention on the situation of the Hmong in Laos. We call on the Lao government to halt military violence and human rights abuses against the Hmong ChaoFa communities forced into hiding and to recognize the Hmong as an indigenous people with legal protections under international standards. It urges Laos to ratify the Convention on Enforced Disappearances and accede to the Rome Statute to ensure accountability for serious human rights violations. UNPO also demands safeguards against land grabbing and forced relocations, unrestricted access for international observers to investigate ongoing abuses in Xaisomboun Province, and the urgent provision of humanitarian aid to address the basic needs and healthcare of the Hmong population.
UNPO will continue to raise these concerns at international forums and work towards ensuring meaningful action to address the challenges faced by the Hmong community.
