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By Inés M. Pousadela
MONTEVIDEO, Uruguay, Aug 4 2023 (IPS)

The title shouldn’t fool you: Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen is one of the world’s longest-ruling autocrats. A political survivor, this former military commander had been bolted to his chair since 1985, presiding over what he turned into a de facto one-party system – and now apparently a dynastic regime.

On 23 July, running virtually unopposed, Hun Sen’s Cambodian People’s Party (CPP) took 82 per cent of the vote, winning almost all seats. The only party that could have offered a challenge, the Candlelight Party, had been banned on a technicality in May.

Following the proclamation of his ‘landslide victory‘, Hun Sen finally announced his retirement, handing over his position to his eldest son, Hun Manet. Manet had already been endorsed by the CPP. Winning a parliamentary seat, which he just did, was all he had to do to become eligible. To ensure dynastic succession faced no obstacle, a constitutional amendment passed in August 2022 allows the ruling party to appoint the prime minister without parliamentary approval.

Hun Sen isn’t going away: he’ll remain CPP chair and a member of parliament, be appointed to other positions and stay at the helm of his family’s extensive business empire.

A slippery slope towards autocracy

Hun Sen came to power in a world that no longer exists. He managed to cling onto power as everything around him changed.

He fought as a soldier in the Cambodian Civil War before defecting to Vietnam, taking several government positions under the 1980s Vietnamese government of occupation. He was appointed prime minister in 1985, and when 1993 elections resulted in a hung parliament, Hun Sen refused to concede defeat. Negotiations resulted in a coalition government in which he served as joint prime minister, until he orchestrated a coup to take sole control in 1997. At the head of the CPP, he has won every election since.

In 2013 his power was threatened. A new opposition party, the Cambodia National Rescue Party (CNRP), offered a credible challenge. The CPP got its lowest share of votes and seats since 1998. Despite obvious fraud, the CNRP came dangerously close to defeating Hun Sen.

In the years that followed, Hun Sen made sure no one would challenge him again. In 2015, the CNRP’s leader Sam Rainsy was summarily ousted from the National Assembly and stripped of parliamentary immunity. A warrant was issued for his arrest, pushing him into exile. He was then barred from returning to Cambodia, and in 2017 convicted for ‘defaming’ Hun Sen. His successor at the head of the CNRP, Kem Sokha, soon faced persecution too.

In November 2017, the Supreme Court ordered the dissolution of the CNRP and imposed a five-year political ban on 118 opposition members.

As a result, the only parties that eventually ran on a supposedly opposition platform in 2018 were small parties manufactured by government allies to give the impression of competition. In the run-up to the vote, the CPP-dominated National Election Committee (NEC) threatened to prosecute anybody who urged a boycott and warned voters that criticising the CPP wasn’t allowed. What resulted was a parliament without a single dissenting voice.

There was no let off after the election, with mass arrests and mass trials of former CNRP members and civil society activists becoming commonplace. Rainsy was sentenced in absentia to life imprisonment, and Sokha was given 27 years for ‘treason’. At least 39 opposition politicians are behind bars, and many more have left Cambodia.

But as the CNRP faded, the torch passed to the Candlelight Party. In June 2022 local elections, Candlelight proved that Hun Sen was right to be afraid: in an extremely repressive context, it still took over 20 per cent of the vote. And sure enough, in May 2023 the NEC disqualified Candlelight from the July election.

Civic space under assault

Political repression has been accompanied by tightening civic space restrictions.

The crackdown on independent media, underway since 2017, intensified in the run-up to the latest electoral farce. In March 2022, the government stripped three digital media outlets of their licences after they published stories on government corruption. In February 2023, Hun Sen ordered the closure of Voice of Democracy, one of the few remaining independent media outlets, after it published a story about Manet. Severe restrictions weigh on foreign media groups, some of which have been forced out of the country.

In contrast, government-owned and pro-government media organisations are able to operate freely. Major media groups are run by magnates close to the ruling family. One media conglomerate is headed by Hun Sen’s eldest daughter. As a result, most information available to Cambodians comes through the filter of power. Most media work to disseminate state-issued disinformation and discredit independent voices as agents of propaganda.

The right to protest is heavily restricted. Gatherings by banned opposition parties are prohibited and demonstrations by political groups, labour unions, social movements and essentially anyone mobilising on issues the government doesn’t want raised are routinely dispersed by security forces, often violently. Protesters are subjected to threats, intimidation, arbitrary arrests and detention, and further criminalisation.

As if leaving people with no choice wasn’t enough, Hun Sen also mounted a scare campaign to force them to vote, since a low turnout would undermine the credibility of the outcome. People were threatened with repercussions if they attempted to boycott the election or spoil ballot papers. The election law was hastily amended to make this a crime.

Experience gives little ground to hope that repression will let up rather than intensify following the election. There’s also no reason to expect that Manet, long groomed for succession, will take a different path from his still-powerful predecessor. The very least the international community should do is to call out the charade of an election for what it was and refuse to buy the Cambodian regime’s whitewashing attempt.

Inés M. Pousadela is CIVICUS Senior Research Specialist, co-director and writer for CIVICUS Lens and co-author of the State of Civil Society Report.

 

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Did you know Buffon could've been a midfielder if it wasn't for the Cameroonian goalkeeper?

Smallholder farmer Elizabeth Mpofu uses renewable energy to reduce emissions from firewood at her farm in Shashe, Mashava. Credit: Farai Shawn Matiashe/IPS

By Farai Shawn Matiashe
BULAWAYO, ZIMBABWE, Aug 4 2023 (IPS)

When Nelson Mudzingwa arrived in the Shashe farming area in Mashava in Masvingo, about 294 kilometres from the capital Harare, in the early 2000s, the land was barren, with no hope that the soils could be suitable for farming.

The area used for cattle ranching had turned into a semi-arid.

Livestock was dying due to hunger while trees succumbed to deforestation, and water levels in the nearby Shashe River had decreased because of siltation.

More than two decades later Shashe farming area has transformed into a reputable farming hub.

This was done by employing agroecology techniques, including using locally available resources such as growing traditional grains, rehabilitating the area by planting trees, water harvesting to conserve water and venturing into poultry to get manure to improve soil fertility.

“When I harvest crops in the fields, I make sure that I put aside seed in preparation for the next season,” says Mudzingwa, the 53-year-old small-holder farmer who was born in Chiwundura in Midlands Province, a central part of Zimbabwe.

“By digging contours that channel water in our fields, we have improved the chances of receiving rainfall in Shashe. Even during the dry season, we receive rainfall which was not common when we first arrived.”

Peter Mudzingwa looking at harvested groundnuts at his father Nelson Mudzingwa’s farm in Shashe, Mashava. Credit: Farai Shawn Matiashe/IPS

Shashe farming area has evolved into a learning area where farmers around Zimbabwe and beyond the borders come to learn agroecology at Shashe Agroecology School, a centre of agroecology, of which Mudzingwa is one of the founders.

Zimbabwe, just like the rest of the southern African region, has been experiencing climate change-induced prolonged droughts and incessant rainfall resulting in floods.

Climate change does not discriminate.

Every living being must pay.

The majority of Zimbabweans live in rural areas, and climate change, caused by human activities, is a major threat to their livelihood.

They rely on agriculture to feed their families as well as earn a living by selling some of the produce.

Government and non-governmental organisations have been working hand in hand to introduce measures that reduce the impacts of climate change.

In Shashe, agroecology farming is basically conserving the land and environment.

This concept involves strengthening the resilience of smallholder farmers through the diversification of agroecosystems.

That is organic soil management and water harvesting for conservation.

In the Shashe farming area, smallholder farmers like Mudzingwa grow a variety of food crops, including grains, cereals, legumes, vegetables, fruit trees and medicinal plants.

They also rear livestock, including cows, sheep, goats, pigs and chickens.

The grains such as sorghum, millet and rapoko are drought-resistant crops meaning smallholder farmers can still have a bumper harvest even during droughts.

Everything on the Mudzingwa’s farm is recycled.

“Livestock are our biggest source of manure. We collect crop residues from the fields and feed the cattle. Then we collect waste and make organic manure in compost,” says Mudzingwa, who is an agriculturist by profession.

The smallholder farmers in this area have fish ponds where they farm different species like catfish and breams.

Mudzingwa says fish farming, poultry, and crops depend on each other for survival.

“We feed fish with chicken droppings and worms. We keep worms in the composts we make for manure. The water from the fish ponds after harvesting is channelled to the garden because it is highly nutritious,” he says.

Another smallholder farmer is Elizabeth Mpofu, who has fed and clothed her three children and one grandchild using proceeds from her agroecology venture in the Shashe farming area.

She turned to sustainable farming after realising that rainfed agriculture was no longer viable in this area; she was resettled following the Land Reform Programme in the early 2000s.

The chaotic Land Reform Programme implemented under President Robert Mugabe saw black farmers taking back their land from the few minority white farmers two decades after Zimbabwe gained its independence from the British colonialists.

Just like Mudzingwa, Mpofu is into fish farming, growing drought-resistant crops like millet and sorghum, poultry and water harvesting to conserve moisture in the fields.

Mpofu keeps seeds for the next agriculture season to ensure that traditional grains critical in providing high yields amid climate change do not run into extinction.

Mudzingwa and Mpofu supply other farmers in Shashe and around the country with seeds and pass agroecology knowledge and skills to them.

Mpofu has planted trees and maintained indigenous trees near her plot as part of her reforestation efforts.

Mpofu’s family relies on agroecology.

She keeps some produce for her family after harvesting and sells the excess to other residents in Mashava or Masvingo, the province’s city.

“Agroecology is the way to go. As a woman, I have been able to look after myself and my family,” Mpofu, a widower, tells IPS.

The agroecology initiative in Mashava and Bikita has reached about 500 smallholder farmers, says Simba Guzha, a regional project manager for Voluntary Service Overseas, a charity supporting farmers like Mpofu and Mudzingwa.

Guzha tells IPS that affordable and less resource-input farming practices like agroecology are important to enhance agricultural production and increase food security at the household level.

“In Zimbabwe, agriculture production is mainly rainfed, and smallholder farmers in marginalized areas contribute more than 70 percent of food production in the country, yet they lack they do not have the financial capacity to purchase synthetic inputs.”

“In Mashava, most soils are loamy sands to sandy which are prone to acidification, leaching and poor structure and can barely support plant life, the use of organic fertilisers and green cover crops that bind the soil help to replenish such soils and enhance microbial activity that supports plant life while sequestering carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.”

Guzha says agroecology in Mashava has empowered women and the youth, who are usually marginalised and vulnerable.

“It has enhanced their productive capacity as well as empowered them to have diversified food sources and income-generating activities,” he says.

“Agroecology promotes growing of indigenous or orphan crops and diversity that are well suited to low rainfall areas like Mashava, hence, farmers are guaranteed of getting something in case of severe droughts. It has promoted local diets and culturally acceptable foods that are nutritious and healthy for the local people.”

IPS UN Bureau Report

 

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Women are still woefully underrepresented in leadership positions, even in industries where women constitute the majority of workers. Credit: Patricia Grogg/IPS

By Jemimah Njuki and Jocelyn Chu
NEW YORK, Aug 4 2023 (IPS)

Last week, there was uproar in Kenya when a report about one of the largest banks, Equity Bank, revealed a 52 percent gender pay gap between their female and male employees working in similar positions. This difference is neither okay nor acceptable. However, documenting the gap is laudable because that is the first step in trying to fix it.

Of course, the gender pay gap is not unique to Kenya nor to the banking sector. Worldwide, on average, women only make 80 cents for every dollar earned by men. No country has successfully closed the gender pay gap. As a result of this gap, there’s a lifetime of income inequality between men and women. This has many consequences, including that more women are retiring into poverty than men.

Worldwide, on average, women only make 80 cents for every dollar earned by men. No country has successfully closed the gender pay gap. As a result of this gap, there's a lifetime of income inequality between men and women. This has many consequences, including that more women are retiring into poverty than men

The gender pay gap is even worse for some demographics of women, such as women of color and women raising children. In the United States Black women are paid only 69.5% of white men’s wages while Hispanic women are paid only 64.1% of white men’s wages. In sub–Saharan Africa, women with children are paid 37% less than men, and in South Asia, they are paid 35% less.

Women’s educational gains have not ended the gap. For example, in the U.S., despite gains in educational attainment, women still face a significant wage gap. While women are more likely to graduate from college than men, at every education level, they are paid less than men.

The wage gap actually widens with higher levels of educational attainment. Among workers who have only a high school diploma, women are paid 78.6% of what men are paid. Among workers who have a college degree, the share is 70.2%, and among workers who have an advanced degree, it is 69.8%. The gender pay gap also increases with age.

Many reasons have been advanced for the gender pay gap – some of them structural including occupational and sectoral segregation, devaluation of “women’s work”, societal norms, and discrimination, all of which took root well before women entered the labor market.

Within all sectors and both formal and informal economies, there is striking occupational segregation, with women typically occupying the lowest occupational categories, earning less, and having fewer entitlements to social security and pensions.

Women are overrepresented in sectors that are underpaid and undervalued, such as in social work and health care. They are still woefully underrepresented in leadership positions, even in industries where women constitute the majority of workers.

If women take time off due to unpaid care work responsibilities and then go back to a job market where pay histories are used to determine job entry bands, their pay ends up lower than their male counterparts. Discrimination and gender stereotypes also give rise to biased judgments and decisions, impeding women’s advancement and pay.

Pay audits and pay transparency measures can help expose pay differences between men and women and identify the underlying causes. This is because addressing the gender pay gap requires knowing that it exists and what is causing it, which is why the Equity Bank sustainability report, while heavily criticized, is important.

A study in Finland found that 73% of human resource representatives found equal pay audits, in line with national legislation on pay transparency, to be useful in promoting workplace equality.

In fact, about 55% of enterprises surveyed reviewed job descriptions and/or altered wages, continued examining their gender pay gap or reformed their remuneration framework, because of information discovered from audits.

Pay transparency can also provide women, unions and other employees with the information and evidence they require to negotiate pay rates and provide as well as provide them with the means to challenge potential pay discrimination.

Other actions that can help close the pay gap are laws that require reporting of pay by gender, race, and ethnicity, and that prohibit employers from asking about pay history. Requiring employers to post pay bands when hiring has also been shown to have impact.

While this is positive, further action is required from governments and employers to address the gender pay gap. The Equal Pay International Coalition, convened by UN Women, the International Labour Organization and the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development is a mechanism to bring together stakeholders to commit to pay transparency and to closing the gender pay gap. But while many countries have adopted pay transparency legislation, more time is needed to assess the impact and effectiveness of the measures adopted.

There is also need for policies that lift wages for most workers while also reducing gender and racial/ethnic pay gaps. Minimum wages and strengthening workers’ rights to bargain collectively for higher wages and benefits is critical for closing the gender pay gap.

Women, who tend to occupy lower-paying jobs, have been shown to benefit the most from increases in minimum wages. An analysis of the increase of minimum wages in Poland between 2008-2009 concluded that higher minimum wages contributed to a lower gender wage gap among young workers.

Deeper changes in societal and cultural norms, especially those on care for children and interventions that seek the equal sharing of responsibilities in caregiving and domestic work by men and boys are needed.

The inequalities between women and men in the world of work will persist unless we act. And we need to act together.

For Equity Bank, this transparency is the first step in taking action to close this gender pay gap. A lot, however, depends on what they do next.

Jemimah Njuki is the Chief, Economic Empowerment at UN Women, and an Aspen New Voices Fellow

Jocelyn Chu is a Programme Specialist at UN Women

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UN inspectors of the Joint Coordination Centre go to inspect a grain shipment aboard the merchant vessel LADY SPERANZA under the Black Sea Grain Initiative, Istanbul, 17 February 2023. Credit: UN/Duncan Moore
 
“Russia is now deliberately targeting Ukraine’s grain storage and export infrastructure… There is a form of madness here as Putin has decided to weaponise food and perhaps his plan is to create a global food crisis.”

By John R. Bryson
BIRMINGHAM, UK, Aug 4 2023 (IPS)

Russia’s special military or colonization operation in Ukraine continues to surprise. These surprises come from a decided absence of strategic thinking by Vladimir Putin and the Kremlin.

Fundamentally, a paradox sits behind Putin’s war with Ukraine. This paradox reflects the tension between Putin’s desire to demonstrate that Russia is still a major power on the world stage and actions that continue to undermine Russia’s economy and international standing.

Central to this tension are differences between Russia and Ukraine regarding the value of human life. A recent battlefield incident highlights this difference.

Serhiy had been wounded and separated from his Ukrainian unit. He was spotted by a Ukrainian drone operator who reacted rapidly to save him. The drone operator from the 15th National Guard stated that they did not want to leave Serhiy as “every life is important to us”.

Putin and the Kremlin place no value on life. Whilst Serhiy was been rescued a Russian priest from the orthodox church proclaimed on Russian state television that Russian forces “came to war not to kill but to die” as a form of sacrifice.

This type of statement reflects the value placed by the Russian establishment on the life of Russian citizens. This then reflects Putin’s paradox as his war with Ukraine has made matters much worse for nearly all Russian citizens.

Putin’s decision to leave the UN-brokered grain export arrangement is another indicator of the value that the Kremlin places on human life. This is another paradoxical decision.

On the one hand, Russia is now deliberately targeting Ukraine’s grain storage and export infrastructure. This is civilian infrastructure, and moreover it is infrastructure that plays a critical role in world food markets and in feeding some of the most vulnerable people living on this planet.

There is a form of madness here as Putin has decided to weaponise food and perhaps his plan is to create a global food crisis. On Wednesday 2 August, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy stated that “Moscow is waging a battle for a global catastrophe. In their madness, they need world food markets to collapse, they need a price crisis, they need disruptions in supplies”.

On the other hand, it is important to explore which countries benefited the most from the Black Sea grain deal. The answer is perhaps surprising – China. Ukraine exported 7.9 million tonnes of grain or just under a quarter of the grain involved in the Black Sea initiative to China.

Putin’s decision to prevent grain from being exported from Ukraine to China raises some interesting questions regarding the special relationship that is supposed to exist between these countries.

Putin’s war with Ukraine has led to Russia’s on-going isolation from international affairs. Putin is trying to address this isolation by trying to make friends. This process includes his intention that Russia “will be ready to provide Burkina Faso, Zimbabwe, Mali, Somalia, Central African Republic and Eritrea with 25-50,000 tonnes of free grain each in the next three to four months”.

There is a problem here in that Putin’s offer of between 150,000 and 300,000 tonnes of grain does not compensate for the 750,000 tonnes of Ukrainian grain that was purchased by the World Food Programme (WFP) and shipped immediately to countries like Ethiopia, Kenya, Somalia, and Sudan.

The WFP is the largest humanitarian organization in the world and importantly this is not controlled by a single nation but was established by the United Nations.

There are rather too many Putin paradoxes. This includes his proclamation regarding the end of “neo-colonialism” and the emergence of a multi-polar global order.

There is the obvious tension here in that Putin states that he is against the application of power and influence to subjugate other countries, but then offers ‘free food’ to some countries and yet free food always comes with strings attached.

Evidently, Putin favours colonialism but also practices neo-colonialism.

Putin’s rhetoric regarding his vision of a new multipolar world must be treated with caution. Putin’s imaginary new world has much in common with George Orwell’s novel ‘Animal Farm’ in that all nations would be equal, but Russia would be more equal than others.

A truly multi-polar world would be one in which initiatives led by organisations like the UN take priority over any initiatives led by any one country. It is time to shift away from one nation trying to dominate global affairs to a world in which effective supranational organisations try to ensure that all living on planet earth are treated equably.

Of course, this is a utopian vision. The realty will be a continued struggle between competing politicians/nations, and this will result in negative outcomes for all.

John R. Bryson is Professor of Enterprise and Economic Geography – University of Birmingham

The University of Birmingham is ranked amongst the world’s top 100 institutions, and its work brings people from across the world to Birmingham, including researchers and teachers and more than 8,000 international students from over 150 countries.

IPS UN Bureau

 

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Two pregnant girls walk through the center of the capital of El Salvador, a country with one of the highest rates of pregnancies among girls aged 10 to 14, and where, as in the rest of Central America, what prevails are conservative views opposed to the teaching of sex education in schools, which is essential to reducing the phenomenon. CREDIT: Francisco Campos / IPS

By Edgardo Ayala
SAN SALVADOR , Aug 3 2023 (IPS)

Pregnancies among girls and adolescents continue unabated in Central America, where legislation to prevent them, when it exists, is a dead letter, and governments are influenced by conservative sectors opposed to sex education in schools.

The most recent incident reflecting this situation was the Jul. 29 veto by Honduran President Xiomara Castro of an Integral Law for the Prevention of Adolescent Pregnancy, approved by the single-chamber Congress on Mar. 8 and criticized by conservative groups and the country’s political right wing."When I became pregnant I didn't even know what a condom was, I'm not ashamed to say it." -- Zuleyma Beltrán

“We don’t know the arguments behind the veto, but we could surmise that the law is still being held up by pressure from these anti-rights groups,” lawyer Erika García, of the Women’s Rights Center, told IPS from Tegucigalpa.

The influence of lobbying groups

Conservative sectors, united in “Por nuestros hijos” (“for our children”), a Honduran version of the regional movement “Con mis Hijos no te Metas” (roughly “don’t mess with my children”), have opposed the law because in their view it pushes “gender ideology”, as international conservative populist groups call the current movement for the dissemination of women’s and LGBTI rights.

In June, the United Nations expressed concern about “disinformation campaigns” surrounding the Honduran law.

The last of the marches in favor of “family and children” took place in Tegucigalpa, the country’s capital, on Jul. 22.

These groups “appeal to people’s ignorance, to fear, to religion, with arguments that have nothing to do with reality,” said García. “They say, for example, that people will put skirts on boys and pants on girls.”

According to the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), one in four births is to a girl under 19 years of age in Honduras, giving the country the second-highest teenage pregnancy rate in Latin America.

According to the Honduran Penal Code having sexual relations with minors under 14 years of age is statutory rape, whether or not the girl consented.

In 2022, 1039 girls under 14 gave birth.

“The problem is quite serious, and it is aggravated by the lack of public policies to prevent pregnancies among girls and adolescents,” García said.

In the countries of Central America, which have a combined total of some 50 million inhabitants, ultra-conservative views prevail when it comes to sexual and reproductive health and education.

In El Salvador, Honduras and Nicaragua – as well as the Dominican Republic in the Caribbean – abortion is banned under all circumstances, including rape, incest or a threat to the mother’s life.

In the rest of Central America, abortion is only permitted in certain circumstances.

The Honduran president vetoed the law under the formula “return to Congress”, so that it can be studied again and eventually ratified if two thirds of the 128 lawmakers approve it.

 

Zuleyma Beltrán, 41, talked about becoming pregnant at the age of 15 because there is no proper sex education in El Salvador. A second pregnancy led to a miscarriage that landed her in jail in 1999, where many Salvadoran women who miscarry or have abortions end up due to a draconian anti-abortion law. CREDIT: Edgardo Ayala / IPS

 

“I didn’t even know what a condom was”

However, having laws of this nature does not ensure that the phenomenon will be reduced, since legislation is not always enforced.

Since 2017 El Salvador has had a National Intersectoral Strategy for the Prevention of Pregnancy in Girls and Adolescents, and although the numbers have declined in recent years, they are still high.

An UNFPA report noted that in this country the pregnancy rate among girls and adolescents dropped by more than 50 percent between 2015 and 2022.

However, “it is worrisome to see that El Salvador is one of the 50 countries in the world with the highest fertility rates in girls aged 10-14 years,” the UN agency said in its latest report, released in July.

Among girls aged 10-14, the study noted, the pregnancy rate dropped by 59.6 percent, from 4.7 girls registered for prenatal care per 1000 girls in 2015 to 1.9 in 2022.

The map of pregnancies in girls and adolescents in El Salvador added that the country “needs to further accelerate the pace of reduction, adopting policies and strategies adapted to the different realities of girls aged 10-14 years and adolescents aged 15-19 years.”

Such actions must be “evidence-based,” the report stressed.

The reference appears to be an allusion to the prevalence of conservative attitudes of groups that, in Honduras for example, reject sexual and reproductive education in schools.

This lack of basic knowledge about sexuality, in a context of structural poverty, led Zuleyma Beltrán to fall pregnant at the age of 15.

“When I became pregnant I didn’t even know what a condom was, I’m not ashamed to say it,” Beltrán, now 41, told IPS.

She added: “I suffered a lot because I didn’t know many things, because I lived in ignorance.”

Two years later, Beltrán became pregnant again but she miscarried, which landed her in jail in August 1999, accused of having an abortion – a plight faced by hundreds of women in El Salvador.

El Salvador not only bans abortion under any circumstances, even in cases of rape. It also imposes penalties of up to 30 years in prison for women who have undergone abortions, and women who end up in the hospital after suffering a miscarriage are often prosecuted under the law as well.

“The State should be ashamed of forcing these girls to give birth and not giving them options,” said Anabel Recinos, of the Citizens’ Association for the Decriminalization of Abortion.

“The State does not provide girls with sex education or sexual and reproductive health, and when pregnancies or obstetric emergencies occur as a result, it is too cruel to them, it only offers them jail,” she added.

Recinos said that, due to pressure from conservative groups, the State has backed down on the strategy of providing sexual and reproductive information in schools.

“Now they are more rigorous in not allowing organizations working in that area to go and give talks on comprehensive sex education in schools,” she noted.

 

Not even baby formula

In Guatemala, initiatives by civil society organizations that since 2017 have proposed, among other things, that the State should offer reparations to pregnant girls and adolescents, to alleviate their heavy burden, have made no progress either.

These proposals included the creation of scholarships, making it possible for girls to continue going to school while their babies were cared for and received formula.

“But unfortunately we have not been able to take the next step, to get these measures in place,” said Paula Barrios, general coordinator of Women Transforming the World, in a telephone conversation with IPS from the capital, Guatemala City.

Barrios said that most of the users of the services offered by this organization, such as legal and psychological support, “are girls and adolescents who are pregnant because of sexual violence and are forced to have their babies.”

She said that in the last five years some 500,000 girls under 14 years of age have become pregnant, and the number is much higher when teenagers up to 19 years of age are included.

“Today we have half a million girls who we don’t know what they and the children who are the products of rape are eating,” Barrios stressed, adding that as in El Salvador and Honduras, in Guatemala, having sex with a girl under 14 years of age is considered statutory rape.

“Society sees it as normal that women are born to be mothers, and so it doesn’t matter if a girl gets pregnant at the age of 10 or 12 years, they just think she has done it a little bit earlier,” she said.

 

Patriarchy and capitalism

The experts from Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador consulted by IPS said the root of the phenomenon is multi-causal, with facets of patriarchy, especially gender stereotypes and sexual violence.

“The patriarchy has an interest in stopping women from going out into the public sphere,” said Barrios.

She said the life of a 10-year-old girl is cut short when she becomes pregnant. She will no longer go to school and will remain in the domestic sphere, “to raise children and stay at home.”

For her part, Garcia, the lawyer from Honduras, pointed out that there is also an underlying “system of oppression” that is intertwined with patriarchy and colonialism, which is the influence of a hegemonic country or region.

“We have girls giving birth to cheap labor to feed the (capitalist) system, and there is a greater feminization of poverty, girls giving birth to girls whose future prospects are ruined,” she said.

In the meantime, to avoid a repeat of her ordeal, Beltrán said she talks to and teaches her nine-year-old daughter about sexuality.

“In order to keep her from repeating my story, I talk to her about condoms, how a woman has to take care of herself and how she can get pregnant,” she said.

“I don’t want her to go through what I did,” she said.

View of the Itaipú hydroelectric plant shared by Brazil and Paraguay on the Paraná River. CREDIT: Mario Osava/IPS

By Philippe Benoit and Anne-Sophie Corbeau
WASHINGTON DC, Aug 3 2023 (IPS)

The Colorado river basin has recently been wracked by an extended drought which brought to the fore major concerns regarding hydroelectricity production. Up on the Colorado sits the iconic Hoover Dam, which transforms water into enough electricity to power 1.3 million people in Nevada, Arizona and California.

Although an agreement was reached by the three dependent Western states to cut water use, it served as a reminder of the dependency of energy production on water … a dependency that is being subjected to greater uncertainties because of climate change.

This phenomenon is not only impacting citizens dependent on the Colorado River but stretches across the United States and the world. Over the past two years, Europe, China, Brazil, Iraq, the Horn of Africa, have experienced the worst droughts in (sometimes hundreds of) years.

The energy-for-water dimension will become increasingly fraught, driven by the combination of climate change, growing populations and increasing prosperity. Not only do we need to redouble our efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, we also require stronger concerted actions on adaptation and resilience

Importantly, the water-to-energy relationship also runs the other way: water production and delivery are themselves dependent on energy.

Moreover, the need of water services for energy is likely to increase, driven by growing populations, rising prosperity (notably in developing countries) and novel uses of energy for water in desalination plants and elsewhere. As we feel the impact of increasingly intense heat waves and droughts, the time has come to revisit the challenges of the water-energy nexus.

The dependence of energy production on water has long been recognized by energy experts, but has surprised many others. Beyond very visible hydropower plants, like the Hoover Dam, water is used to cool down nuclear power plants (through the cooling towers emitting steam that many may have noticed, without perhaps always identifying the purpose), as well as in natural gas and coal-fired plants. Water is also used in various stages of the energy supply chain, including for production and processing.

Climate change is expected, through its impact on water supply and availability, to increase vulnerabilities in energy production. For example, changing rain patterns will create uncertainties for hydropower production, which represents 15 percent of global power generation, even if the overall level of rainfall doesn’t change.

Heat waves have reduced water levels and raised water temperature above the levels at which water can be discharged back into rivers, restricting the operation of many nuclear power plants.

And in a completely different dynamic, various coal power plants dependent on barge transport for resupply have seen their operations imperiled by low water levels. These are aspects that have received some, but altogether inadequate, attention to date.

Both hydroelectricity and nuclear generation, two low-carbon sources of electricity, are expected to increase significantly over decades to come under various government programs to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

Moreover, even as the need for water to cool down coal-fired plants is eventually expected to drop as countries transition from this carbon intensive fuel source, new uses for water are emerging, including for the production of hydrogen through electrolysis.

What has attracted less attention is the impact of growing demand for energy from developments in water systems. The UN projects that the world’s population will increase by over 1.2 billion by 2040, with about two-thirds of that increase occurring in emerging economies and other developing countries.

These nations are also projected to see significant increases in their income levels, increasing the ability of their populations to access water services, at home, at the office or for pleasure. Moreover, the demand for food is also similarly projected to increase, and with that, the need for more water irrigation services inevitably powered by energy.

These factors are helping to drive an increase in the demand for energy. For example, the International Energy Agency projects that the amount of energy required by the water sector will more than double within 20 years. The major driver under the IEA’s modelling is the demand from desalination plants.

These are no longer confined to the dryer climates of the Middle East and North Africa, but also in regions which once thought that their water supplies were ample, such as Europe or Asia. Other important growing demand for water is also coming from waste water treatment plants and the supply of clean drinking water and sanitation services to both the billions of poor who currently lack it and the other more prosperous billions across the developing world whose consumption is projected to increase.

Unfortunately, efforts to meet this demand will be exacerbated by climate change. For example, droughts are likely to require the transport of water over longer distances to satisfy the needs of populations suffering from water scarcity, an effort that will require more energy.

Similarly, over the past year, droughts have heightened the possibility of water restrictions for millions of people in Southern Europe, including drinking water, which might in turn require more desalination.

But though tensions are inevitable, actions can be taken to, if not avoid the problems, dampen its impact. Actions lie in the water or energy sectors, and, often, at the intersection of the two. In the water sector, these include reducing water losses, allowing construction of rainwater collection tanks for agricultural use, increasing waste-water facilities, and fast-tracking the installation of desalination plants.

In energy, transitioning to solar irrigation pumps is something that can help everywhere, in rich and poor countries alike. At the intersection, actions include hydropower plant design and management that are better adapted to the changing rainfall patterns of the future, building more efficient water-based cooling systems for other plants, and even greater use of artificial intelligence.

The energy-for-water dimension will become increasingly fraught, driven by the combination of climate change, growing populations and increasing prosperity. Not only do we need to redouble our efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, we also require stronger concerted actions on adaptation and resilience.

Like for energy, we need to be more efficient at using water, whether this is for households needs, industrial processes, agriculture or energy; meanwhile concerted action and discussion between those sectors will be needed.

The recent events along the Colorado River serve as an important wake-up call. Water is at the essence of our quality of life, and energy is an integral part of that story. We need to do a better job of managing our thirst for water and the energy required to satisfy that demand … and we need to do this in the face of a changing climate.

(First published in The Hill on July 7, 2023)

Philippe Benoit is research director for Global Infrastructure Analytics and Sustainability 2050 and previously held management positions at the World Bank and the International Energy Agency. He is also adjunct senior research scholar at Columbia University’s Center on Global Energy Policy.

Anne-Sophie Corbeau is global research scholar at the Center on Global Energy Policy at Columbia University and a visiting professor at Sciences Po.

Protesters condemn retaliatory sanctions and the threat of military force by West African leaders.

Nigerian law protects widows, but the reality they face is quite different.

By Promise Eze
SOKOTO, NIGERIA, Aug 3 2023 (IPS)

In February this year, Chichi Okonkwo not only lost her husband but was stripped of everything they owned together. Her husband was severely injured in a car accident about a month earlier. Despite being rushed to a hospital in Enugu, where they resided, he succumbed to his injuries weeks later. To compound her grief, Okonkwo’s late husband’s male siblings forcibly entered her home in the city a few hours after his passing, confiscating her husband’s land documents, car, money, clothes, and marriage certificate.

In the wake of these heart-wrenching events, Okonkwo was left with nothing but her six children. The eldest is just 18.

“They took everything my husband and I owned and forcibly evicted me and my children from our home,” laments Okonkwo. “They heartlessly claimed that, as a widow, I had no rights to any of my late husband’s possessions.”

Okonkwo’s children are now out of school because she was a housewife who depended on her husband’s income and is now left with nothing. She revealed that her late husband’s siblings, who seized and were aware of his bank PIN, callously left her with a mere 1 000 naira (approximately USD 2) out of the 2 million naira ($2,600) he had in his account.

Okonkwo said her husband’s relatives swore to drag her to court to challenge her rights, but she cannot afford a lawyer due to her financial situation.

In Nigeria, there are around 15 million widows.

Unfortunately, widows in the country often face the denial of their basic human rights due to traditional and cultural practices rooted in patriarchal beliefs.

According to The World Bank, “In much of Africa, marriage is the sole basis for women’s access to social and economic rights, and these are lost upon divorce or widowhood.”

In a country like Nigeria, where men dominate the economic and political systems, women are often expected to be submissive. The challenges women face are particularly amplified when they become widows, creating a doubly marginalized subgroup. Moreover, this vulnerable position sometimes exposes widows to dehumanizing rituals and harmful practices.

These harmful practices include mourning rites that involve widows sleeping with their deceased husbands’ corpses, shaving of widows’ heads, seclusion, wearing black or white clothes, and being forced to sleep and sit on the floor or mat. Additionally, some widows are coerced into marrying other members of the deceased husband’s family.

Despite laws granting women the right to inherit their husbands’ assets, many widows can still not claim their rightful share of land and property.

Efforts to combat these practices, such as the Violence Against Persons Prohibition Act (VAPP) enacted in 2015, have faced challenges in implementation and adoption by all states. According to the law, offenders are subject to a 500,000 naira ($648) fine or two years in prison. But arrests and prosecution of offenders are rare. And gender-based violence has persisted, which includes violence towards widows.

The enforcement of laws against offenders has been hindered by religious and cultural norms that promote silence and suppression of victimization cases. Victims often face threats or pressure from family members, community, or religious leaders whenever they try to report incidents to law enforcement.

Like Okonkwo, Sarah Temidayo’s life took a tragic turn when she lost her husband of four years to lung cancer in 2019. However, her grief was compounded by the actions of her husband’s relatives, who invaded her home in Lagos mere hours after his passing, intent on claiming everything that belonged to him. They even went so far as to take her wedding gown, certificates, and her then-five-year-old daughter’s clothes. Devastated and without recourse, Temitope sought justice through the legal system, but her efforts have yielded no results.

“I did not pick a pin out of my house. I had to start my life all over again,” she says.

Unfortunately, the nightmare did not end there for Temidayo. She was subjected to constant threats from her husband’s mother, who continued to torment her and accuse her of killing her son through witchcraft. These threats escalated to a terrifying climax when assassins attacked her at a bus stop in March 2021. She managed to survive, albeit with six bullets lodged in her leg. Despite reporting the incident to the police, no investigation was conducted, leaving her feeling abandoned by the system meant to protect her.

According to Ifeoma Oguejiofor, a legal practitioner in Southeast Nigeria, widows face challenges in seeking justice due to the understaffed courts, which can cause delays in the resolution of cases. Additionally, the financial burden of hiring a lawyer becomes a significant obstacle for many widows, making it difficult to access proper legal representation to handle their cases.

“There is a significant difference between the laws written in books and the actual pursuit of justice. According to the law, a surviving spouse, whether in a traditional marriage, a long period of cohabitation, or a marriage registered under the act, is entitled to inherit the estate of their deceased spouse. However, achieving justice through the legal system is often a prolonged and costly process, particularly for widows who have already lost a substantial portion of their assets to their husband’s relatives,” she explains.

“It’s high time the government, traditional rulers, and religious clerics enforce laws to protect widows in Nigeria. No woman should be discriminated against because she lost her husband,” says Hope Nwakwesi, the founder of Almanah Hope Foundation, a non-governmental organization focused on supporting Nigerian widows.

Nwakwesi, a widow who lost her police husband in 1994, endured distressing cultural rites, including having her hair shaved and wearing a mourning dress for a year. She faced further hardships as her relatives forcibly took her property, and she was expelled from her workplace and home in the police barracks. Despite seeking help, many, including police officers who offered assistance, demanded sexual favors in return.

Now, Nwakwesi is advocating for a bill in Nigeria’s legislative chamber. The bill aims to eradicate repressive cultural practices against widows and safeguard their fundamental human rights.

“My goal is to get the bill I’m fighting for approved and signed into law by the Senate. The current Violence Against Persons Prohibition Law is too vague and lacks specific clauses for protecting the rights of widows. Once the new bill becomes law, those who discriminate against widows will face arrest and prosecution by law enforcement agencies,” says Nwakwesi.

Abiola Akiyode-Afolabi, a civil rights activist and founding director of Women Advocates Research and Documentation Centre, noted that “For the government to protect widows effectively, they should review and update existing laws related to widows’ rights to ensure they are comprehensive, enforceable, and in line with international human rights standards.”

“Merely having laws in place is not enough; the government must ensure their effective implementation at all levels of the justice system. This requires training and sensitizing law enforcement officials, judges, and legal practitioners on the rights of widows and the importance of protecting them,” she adds.

IPS UN Bureau Report

 

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