Africa

The Gambia Must Not Repeal FGM Ban

Africa - INTER PRESS SERVICE - Wed, 03/27/2024 - 08:48

Nimco Ali, CEO, The Five Foundation (center), meeting with Andrew Mitchell, (right) Minister for Development, UK, and Harriet King (left), UK High Commissioner to The Gambia. Credit: The Five Foundation

By Alimatu Dimonekene
LONDON, Mar 27 2024 (IPS)

Earlier this month, a UNICEF report on the prevalence of female genital mutilation (FGM) showed that while some success is taking place, the pace of progress remains slow – lagging behind population growth, especially in places where FGM is most common.

The report revealed that over 230 million girls and women worldwide have undergone FGM – a 15 per cent increase, or 30 million more girls and women, compared to the data released eight years ago. The largest share of the global burden is found in African countries, with over 144 million cases, followed by over 80 million in Asia and over 6 million in the Middle East.

As the 68th Commission on the Status of Women (CSW68) concluded last week I became particularly anxious for the women and girls of The Gambia. As advocates from around the world arrived in New York to attend the annual event hosted by the United Nations, our excitement was quickly dissolved.

Just hours before, we had learned from our Gambian colleagues that religious leaders — predominantly men including politicians — were voting to repeal a law passed almost 10 years ago by former President Yayah Janneh, which banned the practice of FGM. In that time a law that has saved thousands of girls and women undergoing this devastating human rights abuse.

It came as a shock. However, as world leaders scrambled on what to do or say following the news it was African women including Jaha Dukureh from Safe Hands for Girls, Fatou Baldeh MBE from Women in Liberation and Leadership, Nimco Ali OBE from The Five Foundation, who showed leadership during one of our most challenging times.

Survivors and activists were relentless in our pursuits. In a few days, many of us took to the media, as well as anywhere we could gather within our communities to say no to repealing the law.

This is a crucial moment for the FGM campaign, which could have even further negative consequences for Gambian women and girls. This fight is not just a call to repeal the law on FGM but if this request succeeds, we are going to see a widespread roll back on other fundamental rights of women and girls.

Fatou Kinteh, the Minister of Gender and Children’s Affairs said in a statement at a meeting at CSW68 that: “Women cannot be empowered if their rights continue to be violated“. Yet, this same government is putting them at risk.

World leaders must confront so-called religious leaders too including Imam Fatty who issued this very carefully planned fatwa, even while FGM is still illegal. Leaders like Imam Fatty are very determined to roll back the progress made in the Gambia in the last 10 years. His pronouncement has already cost lives. Because immediately after his statements many families were already receiving threats to have their daughters cut.

I hope that people like UK Foreign Secretary Lord Cameron now stand up to support Gambian women. In 2014, it was under his leadership that the Girl Summit co-hosted with UNICEF themed “A future free from FGM and child and forced marriage” took place. This helped to catalyse the groundbreaking work that gave rise to the ban. During that Summit, as the guest speaker, I was very pleased to hear of action and funding commitments.

As an FGM survivor activist, a global advocate and speaker, and a mother, I am calling on him, as well as all government representatives around the world to immediately release direct funding to women like me – grassroots activists working on the frontlines – to help with this fight.

Leaders should also sanction those who support the call to repeal the ban on FGM, while also finally calling on nations like Sierra Leone to enact laws and implement sustained policies that go towards protecting and safeguarding girls and women from FGM once and for all.

Alimatu Dimonekene MBE, is a leading women and girls rights advocate in the UK: https://agdgetitdone.co.uk/aboutalimatu

IPS UN Bureau

Follow @IPSNewsUNBureau
!function(d,s,id){var js,fjs=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0],p=/^http:/.test(d.location)?'http':'https';if(!d.getElementById(id)){js=d.createElement(s);js.id=id;js.src=p+'://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js';fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js,fjs);}}(document, 'script', 'twitter-wjs');

Categories: Africa

Global Governance: Time for Reform

Africa - INTER PRESS SERVICE - Wed, 03/27/2024 - 07:58

Credit: Selcuk Acar/Anadolu via Getty Images

By Andrew Firmin
LONDON, Mar 27 2024 (IPS)

At last the UN Security Council has passed a resolution calling for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza. While stopping short of demanding a permanent end to the violence, it goes further than the world’s peak peace and security body had so far managed since the start of the current brutal phase of conflict in October. But the time it’s taken to get to this point signals an ongoing failure of global institutions to uphold human rights.

Today’s conflicts around the world – not just in Gaza, but in Sudan, Ukraine and sadly many other places – are bringing immense cruelty and suffering, targeted at civilian populations and civil society. One in six people are currently exposed to conflict. International rules are supposed to make sure atrocities don’t happen, and if they do, the international community works to halt the bloodshed and bring those responsible to justice. But states are repeatedly flouting the rules.

The latest State of Civil Society Report, from global civil society alliance CIVICUS, highlights how international bodies are flailing as states make hypocritical decisions that undermine the rules-based international order. Belligerents are brazenly ignoring long-established tenets of international human rights and humanitarian law because they expect to get away with it. Civil society has global governance reform plans but isn’t getting a seat at the table.

Powerful states including Russia and the USA are demonstrating selective respect for the rules, shielding allies but castigating enemies. This is clear among the many states that rushed to Ukraine’s defence but have hesitated to criticise Israel. At the basest level, some states are displaying racism as they show concern for white people’s human rights but not for those of people of colour.

The Security Council has moved incredibly slowly, hampered by powerful states using their veto, its resolutions watered down through lengthy processes despite the urgency of the situation. States wanting to see an end to conflicts have taken to other arenas, including the UN General Assembly and Human Rights Council – but these lack the clout of the Security Council.

Human rights are supposed to be one of the UN’s three pillars, alongside peace and security and sustainable development. But they’re very much the poor relation. The human rights pillar gets only 4.3 per cent of the UN’s regular budget. Problems with funding were plain to see in January, when UN offices in Geneva shut down temporarily due to a liquidity crisis, unable to meet heating costs at the height of a human rights emergency. Around 50 UN member states were reported to have failed to pay their 2023 contributions fully or partly.

Some states are withdrawing from the UN’s human rights scrutiny, with Uganda and Venezuela insisting on the closure of human rights offices in their countries, Sudan’s military kicking out a UN mission tasked with restoring democracy and Ethiopia successfully lobbying for an end to a commission scrutinising the many human rights abuses committed during conflict.

At the same time, repressive states are retaliating against activists who take part in UN human rights processes. The most recent report on reprisals against people for cooperating with the UN documented that over the last year, 40 states punished people for using the UN to stand up for human rights. Shockingly, 14 of them were members of the Human Rights Council – almost 30 per cent of the body’s members. It’s a disgrace that points to a broader problem of a lack of respect for human rights by many states active in the UN.

It goes beyond a failure to uphold human rights in conflict settings. The short-term calculations of unaccountable leaders are neutralising international agreements forged to tackle major transnational challenges such as the climate crisis and sustainable development, where delivery is falling far short. At the Sustainable Development Goals summit held last September, civil society put forward innovative ideas to unlock the money needed to finance development and climate resilience, but these were ignored. Civil society is often denied access, forced at best to sit on the sidelines of the annual high-level opening of the UN General Assembly.

Today’s multiple crises are exposing the fundamental design flaws of international institutions, testing them beyond their limit. If trust in the UN collapses, people could embrace more authoritarian alternatives. To prevent this, states and the UN must take on board civil society’s many practical reform ideas. The UN must become more democratic and it must fully include civil society as an essential partner.

It can start by implementing some civil society reform proposals. The first of these, and an easy one to adopt, is to appoint a civil society envoy, someone who could encourage best practices on civil society participation across the UN, ensure a diverse range of civil society is involved and drive the UN’s engagement with civil society groups around the world. At a time when civil society is under attack in so many countries, this move would signal the UN takes civil society seriously and potentially unlock further progress.

Another step forward would be a world citizens’ initiative, enabling people to mobilise to collect signatures to put an issue on the UN’s agenda. This could ensure that matters proved to have a high level of global public support are given consideration, including at the Security Council. Many in civil society also support a UN parliamentary assembly to complement the General Assembly and give a voice to citizens as well as governments. This could serve as a valuable corrective to the state-centric nature of decision-making and act as a source of scrutiny and accountability over the decisions the UN makes – or fails to make.

Civil society will keep calling for a rules-based order where clear laws and policies are followed to tackle climate change, end poverty, address deep economic inequality, de-escalate conflicts and prevent gross human rights violations. The UN Summit of the Future in September 2024 should commit to advancing this vision. Civil society is doing its best to engage with the process, calling not for more platitudes but for genuine reforms that put people at the heart of decision-making.

Andrew Firmin is CIVICUS Editor-in-Chief, co-director and writer for CIVICUS Lens and co-author of the State of Civil Society Report.

Categories: Africa

Abandoned Children Growing Problem in Northern Syria

Africa - INTER PRESS SERVICE - Wed, 03/27/2024 - 07:30

Children eating and drinking at the Children's House in Idlib. Abandoned children is a growing issue in the region. Credit: Sonia Al-Ali/IPS

By Sonia Al Ali
IDLIB, Syria, Mar 27 2024 (IPS)

Wael Al-Hassan was returning from work in the Syrian city of Harim when he heard the sound of a baby crying.

He was returning from work on December 10, 2023. He stopped momentarily, turned on his mobile phone flashlight to investigate, and spotted a baby girl, around one month old, wrapped in a white blanket, lying by the roadside.

He felt saddened by the infant’s condition and said, “She was crying loudly, and I saw scratches on her face from cat or dog claws. I then carried her in my arms and took her home, where my wife breastfed her, changed her clothes, and took care of her.”

The phenomenon of abandoning newborns is increasing in northern Syria, where individuals leave their newborns in public parks or alongside roads, then leave the area. Passersby later find the infants, some of them dead from hunger or cold.

Al-Hassan said that the next morning, he handed the baby girl over to the police to search for her family and relatives.

Social Rejection

Social worker Abeer Al-Hamoud from the city of Idlib, located in northern Syria, attributes the primary reason for some families abandoning their children to the widespread poverty and high population density in the province. Additionally, there is fear of the security situation (the area is not in the control of the Syrian regime and is often under attack), the prevalence of divorces, and spouses abandoning their families after traveling abroad.

Al-Hamoud also points out another reason, which is the spread of the phenomenon of early marriage and marrying girls to foreign fighters who came from their countries to Syria to participate in combat. Under pressure from their families, wives often have to abandon their children after their husband’s death, sudden disappearance, or return to their homeland, especially when they are unable to care for them or provide for them financially. Moreover, these children have no proper documentation of parentage.

Furthermore, Al-Hamoud mentions another reason, which is some women are raped, leading them to abandon their newborns out of fear of punishment from their families or societal stigma.

Al-Hamoud warns that the number of abandoned children is increasing and says there is an urgent need to find solutions to protect them from exploitation, oppression, and societal discrimination they may face. She emphasizes that the solutions lie in returning displaced persons to their homes, improving living conditions for families, raising awareness among families about the importance of family planning, and launching campaigns to integrate these children into society.

Alternative Families

It’s preferable for members of the community to accept these children into their families, but they face difficulties in registering the births.

Thirty-nine-year-old Samaheer Al-Khalaf from the city of Sarmada in northern Idlib province, Syria, sponsored a newborn found abandoned at a park gate, and she welcomed him into her family.

She says, “After 11 years of marriage to my cousin, we were not blessed with children, so we decided to raise a child found in the city at the beginning of 2022.”

Al-Khalaf observes that the Islamic religion’s prohibition on “adoption” prevents her from registering the child under her name in the civil registry. Additionally, she cannot go to areas controlled by the Syrian regime to register him due to the presence of security barriers.

She says, “I fear for this child’s future because he will remain of unknown lineage. He will live deprived of his civil rights, such as education and healthcare, and he won’t be able to obtain official documents.”

Children’s House Provides Assistance

With the increasing numbers of children of unknown parentage, volunteers have opened a center to receive and care for the children abandoned by their families.

Younes Abu Amin, the director of Children’s House, says, “A child of unknown parentage is one who was found and whose father is unknown, or children whose parentage has not been proven and who have no provider.”

“The organization ‘Children’s House’ opened a center to care for children separated from their families and children of unknown parentage in the city of Sarmada, north of Idlib,” says Abu Amin. “The number of registered children in the center has reached 267, ranging in age from one day to 18 years. Some have been placed with foster families, while others currently reside in the center, receiving all their needs, including shelter, food, education, and healthcare.”

Upon arrival at the center, Abu Amin notes that the center registers each child in its records, transfers them to the shelter department, and makes efforts to locate their original family or relatives and send them to them or to find a foster family to provide them with a decent life.

Abu Amin explains that the center employs 20 staff members who provide children with care, psychological support, and education. They work to create a suitable environment for the children and support them psychologically to help with emotional support.

He emphasizes that the center survives on individual donations to cover its expenses – which are scarce. There is an urgent need for sufficient support, as the children require long-term care, especially newborns.

A young girl Marah (8) and her brother, Kamal (10), lost their father in the war. Their mother remarried, leaving them to live in a small tent with their grandfather, who forces them to beg and sell tissues, often leaving them without food for days.

Consequently, they decided to escape from home. Kamal says, “We used to sleep outdoors, overwhelmed by fear, cold, and hunger, until someone took us to the child center.”

Upon reaching the center, they returned to their studies, played with other children, and each other, just like children with families.

Kamal expresses his wish, “I hope to continue my education with my sister so we can rely on ourselves and escape from a life of injustice and deprivation.”

These children, innocent of any wrongdoing, are often left to fend for themselves, bearing the brunt of war-induced poverty, insecurity, homelessness, instability, and early marriage.

IPS UN Bureau Report

Categories: Africa

IMF Urges Non-alignment in Second Cold War

Africa - INTER PRESS SERVICE - Wed, 03/27/2024 - 07:26

By Jomo Kwame Sundaram
ACCRA, Ghana, Mar 27 2024 (IPS)

The IMF no. 2 recommends non-alignment as the best option for developing countries in the second Cold War as geopolitics threatens already dismal prospects for the world economy and wellbeing.

IMF warning
Ominously, International Monetary Fund (IMF) First Deputy Managing Director Gita Gopinath warns, “With the weakest world growth prospects in decades – and…the pandemic and war slowing income convergence between rich and poor nations – we can little afford another Cold War”.

Jomo Kwame Sundaram

While recognising globalisation is over, she appeals to governments to “preserve economic cooperation amid geoeconomic fragmentation” due to the second Cold War.

Growing US-China tensions, the pandemic and war have changed international relations. The US calls for ‘friend-shoring’ while its European allies claim they want to ‘de-risk’. While still pleading for ‘globalisation’, China realistically stresses ‘self-reliance’.

Multilateral rules were rarely designed to address such international conflicts as ostensible ‘national security’ concerns rewrite big powers’ economic policies. Hence, geoeconomic conflicts have few rules and no referee!

Historical perspective
After the Second World War, the US and USSR soon led rival blocs in a new bipolar world. After Bandung (1955) and Belgrade (1961), non-aligned countries have rejected both camps. This era lasted four decades.

World trade-to-GDP rose with post-war recovery and, later, trade liberalisation. With the first Cold War, geopolitical considerations shaped trade and investment flows as economic relations between the blocs shrank.

According to her, such flows increased after the Cold War, “reaching almost a quarter of world trade” during the “hyper-globalization” of the 1990s and 2000s.

However, globalization has stagnated since 2008. Later, about “3,000 trade restricting measures were imposed” in 2022 – nearly thrice those imposed in 2019!

Cold War economics
Gopinath sees “ideological and economic rivalry between two superpowers” as driving both Cold Wars. Now, China – not the Soviet Union – is the US rival, but things are different in other respects too.

In 1950, the two blocs accounted for 85% of world output. Now, the global North, China and Russia have 70% of world output but only a third of its population.

Economic interdependence grew among countries as they became “much more integrated”. International trade-to-output is now 60% compared to 24% during the Cold War. This inevitably raises the costs of what she terms economic ‘fragmentation’ due to geopolitics.

With the Ukraine war, trade between blocs fell from 3% pre-war to -1.9%! Even trade growth within blocs fell to 1.7% – from 2.2% pre-war. Similarly, FDI proposals “between blocs declined more than those within blocs…while FDI to non-aligned countries sharply increased.”

China is no longer the US’s largest trading partner, as “its share of US imports has fallen” from 22% in 2018 to 13% in early 2023. Trade restrictions since 2018 have cut “Chinese imports of tariffed products” as US FDI in China fell sharply.

However, indirect links are replacing direct ties between the US and China. “Countries that have gained the most in US import shares…have also gained more in China’s export shares” and FDI abroad.

A BIS study found “supply chains have lengthened in the last two years”, especially between “Chinese suppliers and US customers”. Hopefully, Gopinath suggests, “despite efforts by the two biggest economies to cut ties, it is not yet clear how effective they will be”.

For Gopinath, trade restrictions “diminish the efficiency gains from specialisation, limit economies of scale due to smaller markets, and reduce competitive pressures.”

She reports IMF research suggesting “the economic costs of fragmentation… could be significant and weigh disproportionately on developing countries”, with losses around 2.5% of world output.

Losses could be as high as 7% of GDP depending on the economy’s resilience: “losses are especially large for lower income and emerging market economies.”

Much will depend on how things unfold. She warns, “Fragmentation would also inhibit our efforts to address other global challenges that demand international cooperation.”

Policy options
Policymakers face difficult trade-offs between minimising the costs of fragmentation and vulnerabilities, and maximising security and resilience.

Gopinath recognises her ‘first best solution’ – to avoid geoeconomic hostilities – is remote at best, given current geopolitical hostilities and likely future trends. Instead, she urges avoiding “the worst-case scenario” and protecting “economic cooperation” despite polarisation.

She wants adversaries to “target only a narrow set of products and technologies that warrant intervention on economic security grounds”. Otherwise, she advocates a “non-discriminatory plurilateral approach” to “deepen integration, diversify, and mitigate resilience risks”.

Despite the odds, Gopinath appeals for a “multilateral approach…for areas of common interest” to “safeguard the global goals of averting climate change devastation, food insecurity and pandemic-related humanitarian disasters”.

Finally, she wants to restrict “unilateral policy actions – such as industrial policies”. They should only address “market failures while preserving market forces”, which she insists always “allocate resources most efficiently”.

Not recognising the double standards involved, she wants policymakers “to carefully evaluate industrial policies in terms of their effectiveness” But, she is less cautious and uncritical in insisting on neoliberal conventional wisdom despite its dubious track record.

Unsurprisingly, two IMF staffers felt compelled to write in 2019 of ‘The Return of the Policy That Shall Not Be Named’. Despite much earlier extensive European and Japanese use and US President Biden’s recent embrace of industrial policy, the Fund seems caught in an ideological trap and time warp of its own making.

While making excessive claims about gains from globalisation, Gopinath acknowledges “economic integration has not benefited everyone”.

Thankfully, she urges developing countries to remain non-aligned and “deploy their economic and diplomatic heft to keep the world integrated” as the new Cold War sets the world further back.

Pragmatically, Gopinath observes, “If some economies remain non-aligned and continue engaging with all partners, they could benefit from the diversion of trade and investment.”

By 2022, “more than half of global trade involved a non-aligned country…They can benefit directly from trade and investment diversion”, reducing the Cold War’s high costs.

IPS UN Bureau

Categories: Africa

Child Malnutrition in Peru Driven Up by Poverty and Food Insecurity

Africa - INTER PRESS SERVICE - Wed, 03/27/2024 - 02:39

A young Quechua mother, originally from Peru's southern Andes highlands, walks through the streets of Lima, carrying her young daughter in her lliclla (a colorful shawl made by native women in the Andes). A quarter of Peru's rural population under the age of five suffers from chronic malnutrition, clear evidence of inequality, which will have severe impacts on the rural child population. CREDIT: Wálter Hupiú / IPS

By Mariela Jara
LIMA, Mar 27 2024 (IPS)

Quechua farmer Felipa Noamesa, who lives in the southern Peruvian department of Cuzco, prepares a cream of fava bean soup for breakfast every morning with bread and vegetable soup with noodles. Her children are grown up, so her priority is that her five-year-old granddaughter does not suffer from anemia or malnutrition, two problems she frequently sees in her community.

“At my neighbors’ homes there are little children who don’t want to eat, who have swollen tummies, who have parasites, whose eyes look yellow and who fall asleep at school because they can’t stay awake,” the 44-year-old indigenous horticulturist told IPS during an interview at her plot of land in Paruro, the town where she lives with her husband, her daughter and her five-year-old granddaughter, Mayra, who she takes care of while her mother goes to school."Peru will have a couple of generations with much greater health problems, much lower productivity and many more restrictions to generate sustainable livelihoods in the broad sense." -- Carolina Trivelli

At their house they don’t eat beef, pork or lamb, but they do eat guinea pigs (Cavia porcellus), an Andean rodent of recognized nutritional value, which she raises in a small shed next to her house, close to their organic garden.

“For lunch I make broth, stew or roast guinea pig and combine it with fresh corn, potatoes, vegetables from my garden and cheese,” she said in her home in Paruro, the seat of the province of the same name, located more than 3,000 meters above sea level.

Peru, a country of 33 million people, faces a political and institutional crisis aggravated by the interim presidency of Dina Boluarte, who in December 2022 replaced Pedro Castillo, ousted and imprisoned for an attempt to seize control of all branches of power after less than 19 months in office.

The institutional crisis is compounded by an economic recession, the reduction of agricultural production due to climatic phenomena such as El Niño, and a poverty level that climbed to 30 percent in 2023, according to official provisional data.

Against this backdrop, the levels of anemia and malnutrition in children under five years of age are of concern.

According to official figures presented last year, chronic malnutrition affected 11.7 percent of the population, but with a greater impact in rural areas: 24 percent compared to seven percent in urban areas.

Other forms of malnutrition also present worrying indicators: 42 percent of the population aged six to 35 months has anemia, with a higher percentage in rural areas (51.5 percent) than in urban areas (39 percent). Meanwhile, nine percent of children under five years of age are overweight or obese.

In the Andes highlands department of Cuzco, with a population of 1.4 million divided among its 13 provinces, child malnutrition reaches 14 percent and anemia 51 percent. It is only surpassed by the central-western department of Huancavelica, which reports 29 percent child malnutrition. This situation reflects the harsh impact of inequality and poverty.

Felipa Noamesa, a 44-year-old Quechua farmer, stands in her vegetable garden in Paruro, a village in the southern Peruvian department of Cuzco. Malnutrition is a common problem in her community and her concern is to feed her young granddaughter a nutritional diet so that she will grow up strong and healthy. CREDIT: Mariela Jara / IPS

A price the whole country will pay

Carolina Trivelli, an economist and researcher at the Institute of Peruvian Studies, which has worked for more than 50 years in the country, said that as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic and the subsequent economic crisis, access to nutritious and healthy food for individuals and families has declined.

“Unfortunately chronic malnutrition stopped going down and has remained steady at around 11.7, 11.5, 12 percent over the last three to four years,” the former minister of Development and Social Inclusion during the government of Ollanta Humala (2011-2016) told IPS in an interview at her home in Lima.

She said this has to do with the specific situation of families, the public apparatus and structural conditions such as high food inflation that affects the ability of families in a context of recession to afford food in sufficient quantity and quality to combat malnutrition. In addition, there is anemia, overweight and obesity.

Trivelli said these three elements make up a set of malnutrition problems that particularly affect the most vulnerable groups, including children from the poorest socioeconomic sectors.

Economist and former Minister of Inclusion and Social Development of Peru, Carolina Trivelli, is interviewed in her home office in Lima. She warns about the cost that the country will pay over the next two generations due to the high level of chronic child malnutrition, a problem that she says should be a priority on the public agenda. CREDIT: Mariela Jara / IPS

When looking at the figures for consumption of food needed to address anemia and chronic child malnutrition, the difference between the consumption levels of the poorest 20 percent and the wealthiest 20 percent is enormous. So not only is there a problem of access to affordable food, but it is a major issue among the most vulnerable sectors.

“Peru is going to pay the cost of this, all Peruvians are going to pay it over the next two generations,” she warned.

The expert in agricultural economics said that “Peru will have a couple of generations with much greater health problems, much lower productivity and many more restrictions to generate sustainable livelihoods in the broad sense.”

Ernesto Fisher is mayor of San Salvador, a town in the province of Calca in the southern Peruvian Andes highlands region of Cuzco, which has one of the highest levels of chronic child malnutrition in the country. The municipal government has put a priority on attention to the problem, but he said they need the support of the central government to ensure drinking water and sanitation for the entire population. CREDIT: District of San Salvador

Focus on water and sanitation

Calca, another of Cuzco’s provinces, contains some of the municipalities with the most worrying rates of malnutrition and anemia. For example, in the municipality of San Salvador, population around 6,000, child anemia stands at 26 percent.

This fact is related to the quality of their housing, most of which is in a precarious condition, while they have low levels of access to services, especially those who live in the countryside.

“From the mayor’s office we are prioritizing food security projects for raising chickens and guinea pigs so that families can improve their nutritional intake, and we are also delivering iron syrup to health posts to be supplied to children and their mothers,” the mayor, Ernesto Fisher, told IPS from San Salvador.

In a telephone interview, Fisher, in office since 2022, said that to eradicate the problem it is necessary to address water and sanitation deficiencies in his town. To this end, the municipal government is designing projects aimed at guaranteeing water resources for irrigation of family crops, drinking water and sewage services connected to the public network.

“Without sanitation it is impossible to talk about fighting anemia and malnutrition. We will not be able to complete it in this administration, but we will leave the projects on track so that eight years from now all of San Salvador will have running water and sanitation,” he promised.

He called on the national authorities, especially President Boluarte, to prioritize projects that help close inequality gaps such as securing water for different uses. “The rest will come later,” the mayor said, stressing that this should be the top priority.

Boiled ears of fresh corn, pieces of cheese and beans, and roasted corn are common foods in the diet of rural Andean families in Peru. However, the decline in agricultural production due to droughts and other climatic events has reduced their access in quantity and quality. CREDIT: Mariela Jara / IPS

It’s not just about budget funds

Peru’s public policies reduced chronic child malnutrition between 2008 and 2016, as documented by the World Bank, which pointed to it as a successful experience.

However, the current situation shows that the problem is no longer seen as a priority. Trivelli said that it is not just a question of budget funds, but of combining multiple efforts simultaneously so that resources are spent effectively.

“We can give a family all the food and training they need, but if they don’t have sewage, a safe water source, and proper solid waste management, the problems of chronic malnutrition and anemia are not going to be reduced. If those children go to a school that does not have toilets, we will continue to reproduce the cycle,” she said.

Statistics show that it is the poorest people in rural areas and children who are directly affected by policies that do not place them at the center of their actions.

Trivelli argued that anemia and chronic malnutrition in children should be considered a priority problem of public interest addressed by a body at the highest political level, such as the Presidency of the Council of Ministers, in order to overcome the current scattered approach.

“We are not talking about a health issue only but about a crisis of food, development and poverty, and it needs to be part of the public agenda,” she insisted.

Categories: Africa

What is at stake in South Africa's election?

BBC Africa - Wed, 03/27/2024 - 01:24

The ANC has governed since the end of apartheid, but its vote could fall below 50% for the first time.

Categories: Africa

What is at stake in South Africa's election?

BBC Africa - Wed, 03/27/2024 - 01:24

The ANC has governed since the end of apartheid, but its vote could fall below 50% for the first time.

Categories: Africa

Governments Worldwide Prioritize School Feeding for Its Multiple Benefits

Africa - INTER PRESS SERVICE - Tue, 03/26/2024 - 19:22

By Marty Logan
KATHMANDU, Mar 26 2024 (IPS)

Before COVID-19 hit, in January 2020, 388 million children worldwide were being fed every day at school. Soon after lockdowns began, that number plummeted to 18 million, but just two years later, in 2022, it had recovered, and more — school feeding had reached 420 million children.

Labelled the world’s largest social security net by the United Nations World Food Programme, school meals have become essential tools for governments rich and poor globally. Not only does school feeding allow once-hungry students to focus on learning, in many cases the schemes also help to improve nutrition and eating habits, ensure regular attendance, and through buying ingredients locally or in-country, help to boost local and national economies.

Today’s guest, Donald Bundy, is Director of the Global Research Consortium for School Health and Nutrition. He told me that he is not surprised at the swift recovery of school meals after COVID-19 — he says it was politically expedient for many governments to bring them back quickly. What he didn’t predict was that the recovery would surpass pre-pandemic numbers, even as governments north and south struggled to overcome barriers such as broken supply chains, growing inequality, and persistent inflation.

Bundy points out that school feeding is not an initiative of aid agencies or donor governments. In fact, 98% of the programmes are financed by national governments as investments in their people and future workforce.

We also discuss how countries in the global south, such as Brazil, India and Rwanda, are breaking ground for innovative school feeding while outlier northern countries, such as Canada and Norway, are starting to discuss whether it’s time to adopt national programmes. Bundy also explains how fallout from the pandemic pushed lawmakers in the United States to adopt school meals schemes which led to universal initiatives that feed all students in some of the country’s largest cities, like Houston, New York and Washington, DC.

Resources

Global Research Consortium for School Health and Nutrition
School Meals Coalition
School Feeding Is Now the World’s Largest Social Safety Net – IPS News article

Categories: Africa

The Swiss coach reviving Ghana's Black Queens

BBC Africa - Tue, 03/26/2024 - 17:54

How Swiss coach Nora Hauptle is restoring pride to Ghana's Black Queens after years in the African football wilderness.

Categories: Africa

Parents Harness Pedal and Wind Power To Demand Climate Action

Africa - INTER PRESS SERVICE - Tue, 03/26/2024 - 13:55

Yamandú Pagliano plans to cross Praia do Cassino, the world's longest beach, stretching 250 kilometers along Brazil's southern coast from Uruguay, in his homemade wheeled wind buggy, to highlight the need to address global heating. Credit: Yamandú Pagliano

By Paul Virgo
ROME, Mar 26 2024 (IPS)

Extreme sports are not just for young people. Climate activism isn’t either. Yamandù Pagliano is proof.

The 59-year-old father of two is gearing up for an epic feat. He plans to cross the longest beach on Earth, the Praia do Cassino, stretching from the border of Uruguay 250 kilometres up Brazil’s southern coastline, on his home-made wheeled wind buggy.

It’s a massive challenge both in physical and mental terms and one that brings multiple risks with it, including the danger of getting lost, crashing, or being swept out into the sea if the weather turns nasty.

But the Montevideo native has a special motive for taking it on.

Organizers want to highlight the “institutional indifference” to the climate crisis at all levels of government, promote sustainable transport and tourism, draw attention to the need for more cycle paths, especially in southern Italy, and make a loud appeal for peace around the world

Pagliano is a member of Parents for Future (PFF), a global network of citizens concerned about the climate crisis set up to support and echo the calls made by the young people of the Fridays for Future (FFF) movement.

When he takes on the Praia do Cassino challenge, he’ll be flying the Parents for Future flag on the mast of his wind buggy to highlight the need to address global heating.

“It’s going to be a PFF challenge,” Pagliano told IPS.

“My involvement in PFF started after my daughter joined FFF. Soon I was in Parents for Future Latin America (PFF LATAM) and then I helped to set up PFF Uruguay.

“I hope all the detailed stories of the crossing will help people become aware of the climate crisis, biodiversity loss and pollution. I’ll probably find dead animals and plastic garbage on the beach and face extreme weather events”.

Pagliano knows that the climate crisis is no longer a distant problem for future generations as people in Uruguay have been faced with the consequences first hand, as seen with last year’s severe drought that caused dramatic water shortages.

“In Uruguay the winters are not as cold as they used to be, and summers are a lot hotter,” he said.

“We have had big floods, with houses carried down the coast, and recently we had the biggest drought in our history, with almost no water coming out of the tap”.

Fittingly for an initiative that seeks to show the need for sustainability, Pagliano made his windcar out of reused material, welding together pipes he picked up from a scrap yard, while the sail is second-hand.

“There’ll be no phone signal in the middle section of the beach and I’ll be on my own for quite some time,” said Pagliano, who works in construction.

“I will be completely isolated. You have to be ready for every eventuality.

“Depending on the wind, it could take two or three days.

“It could take just one day with an early departure in good conditions, with the wind blowing in the perfect direction and at the perfect strength.

“It gets tiring physically after a while, but the adrenalin keeps you pumped up.

“It’s a good way to highlight the need to be sustainable.

“It’s a natural sport. There’s no contamination. No carbon footprint.

“I’ll do the crossing first and then go public if I’m successful, like Gagarin,” he quipped.

He is not the only parent harnessing renewable energy to draw attention to the need for climate action.

On the other side of the world, the Italian section of PFF is getting ready for the Running For Future, Cycling For Peace – a bike event which, fittingly for the land of the Giro d’Italia, is split into stages.

The ‘race’ starts in Rome’s Piazza del Popolo on May 10 and features 16 stages over nine days, roughly following the Via Francigena pilgrimage route southwards to end in Lecce on May 19.

Each stage will be used to focus on a specific aspect of the ecological crisis, such as air pollution, urban sprawl and the problems created by intensive livestock farming, while at the same time showing how they are all interconnected.

Organized with Fridays for Future Italia, the aims are multiple.

Among other things, organizers want to highlight the “institutional indifference” to the climate crisis at all levels of government, promote sustainable transport and tourism, draw attention to the need for more cycle paths, especially in southern Italy, and make a loud appeal for peace around the world.

The Italian section of Parents for Future gears up for “Running For Future, Cycling For Peace” — a multi-stage cycling event starting in Rome’s Piazza del Popolo on May 10th and ending in Lecce on May 19th, following the Via Francigena route. Credit: Paul Virgo

“We chose a cycling initiative because the bicycle has become a symbol of ecology,” said Maria Santarossa of Parents for Future Italia.
“It is a clean means of transport, which enables you to stay fit and be in direct contact with nature.

“We chose a pilgrims’ path because we can consider it an emblem of the beauty of nature and it’s a way to remind ourselves that we must take care of beauty.

“We have involved many other movements, associations, committees, and networks because we want people to know that many of us have the same objectives regarding the very serious climate and environmental crisis that is present in everyone’s lives”.

It is free to take part in the event, although participants have to cover their own accommodation and food expenses.

It is the second such event. The first took place in 2021, going from Rome northwards along the Via Francigena to Milan for the PreCOP26 conference that was held there.

That was such a success that it inspired the Polish section of Parents for Future to stage a climate grand tour of its own.

Each national PFF group is autonomous and does its own thing, campaigning on the issues that are most appropriate given the local situation.

PFF Italia, for example, is currently engaged in a major campaign to convince consumers to switch to utility companies whose electricity comes only from renewable sources.

There is also an umbrella group, Parents for Future Global (PFFG), which, among other things, is campaigning to support the drive for a Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty.

Categories: Africa

'I will govern with humility and transparency'

BBC Africa - Tue, 03/26/2024 - 13:51

Bassirou Diomaye Faye is expected to become Senegal's youngest-ever president.

Categories: Africa

SA court rejects ANC bid to de-register Zuma party

BBC Africa - Tue, 03/26/2024 - 13:49

South Africa's governing ANC wanted to stop the party backed by the ex-president from running in May.

Categories: Africa

Customers return $10m taken during bank glitch

BBC Africa - Tue, 03/26/2024 - 13:20

A technical problem at an Ethiopian bank allowed people to withdraw more money than they held.

Categories: Africa

Chinese businessman sentenced to death in Nigeria

BBC Africa - Tue, 03/26/2024 - 12:50

Frank Geng Quarong was found guilty of murdering his girlfriend - a killing that shocked Nigeria.

Categories: Africa

UN Security Council’s Ceasefire Resolution in Gaza Welcomed

Africa - INTER PRESS SERVICE - Tue, 03/26/2024 - 10:02

Dr Riyad Mansour, Permanent Representative of the State of Palestine to the United Nations addresses journalists at the stakeout after the immediate humanitarian ceasefire was announced.

By Naureen Hossain
UNITED NATIONS, Mar 26 2024 (IPS)

After nearly six months of a devastating war in Gaza, the UN Security Council has at last adopted a resolution calling for an immediate humanitarian ceasefire. The resolution calls for the ceasefire to come into effect for the month of Ramadan, demands the unconditional release of all hostages and ensures humanitarian access.

On Monday, resolution 2728 (2024) was passed with fourteen votes in favor, with only the United States abstaining from voting. The draft was presented by Mozambique’s Ambassador Pero Afonso on behalf of the ten elected members of the Council, or the E10. He noted that all members of the Council were mandated under the UN Charter to maintain international peace and security and that their “actions impact the entire international community.”

“The E10 has always respected the call for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza as a fundamental step,” he said. “For this reason, and in respect for the holy month of Ramadan, we have proposed the present resolution that demands an immediate ceasefire during this sacred period, leading to a permanent and sustainable ceasefire.”

As noted by the representative of Korea, this resolution is the first text adopted that has been introduced by elected Council members on a regional agenda item. Members of the Council expressed the hope that this resolution would only be the first step towards a lasting peace and a more permanent end to the war in Gaza, wherein efforts to send in humanitarian aid and rebuild the state could proceed without interruption.

E10 speaking at the security council stakeout after the humanitarian ceasefire resolution.

“We delivered the strongest signal thus far: we demand an immediate ceasefire for the month of Ramadan, leading to a lasting, sustainable ceasefire,” said the representative from Slovenia. “It is a call we have all been desperate to hear from the council. A short and focused resolution is the firm sign from the council that this conflict must stop.”

“An immediate ceasefire is a priority step, but it is only the first step, given the catastrophic humanitarian situation in Gaza,” said the representative of Switzerland.

The representative of Guyana noted that women and children have been disproportionately affected by the war, with pregnant and lactating women and children being the most vulnerable to the risk of famine and malnutrition. She added that the hostages’ families were “in anguish” as there seemed no clear prospect of their loved ones’ return. “After more than five months of utter terror and destruction, a ceasefire is the difference between life and death for the hundreds of thousands of Palestinians and others.”

The resolution also acknowledged the diplomatic efforts of Egypt, Qatar, and the United States to reach an agreement between the parties involved.

The United States’ decision to abstain from voting was a signal of the mounting pressure from the international community as the threat of famine looms over Gaza and the toll of devastation continues to rise. It also signals the Biden administration’s growing frustration with Israeli leaders’ lack of cooperation. US Ambassador Linda Thompson-Green stated that support for the objectives of the resolution was “not simply rhetorical.”

“We’re working around the clock on the ground through diplomacy because we know that it is only through diplomacy that we can push this agenda forward,” she said in her statement to the Security Council. They would support “some of the critical objectives in this non-binding resolution.”

Thompson-Green also added that the US delegation disagreed on some points, such as a lack of condemnation of Hamas for the October 7 attacks.

The United States has previously used their veto on three separate occasions to vote down ceasefire resolutions introduced since the beginning of the current conflict. The most recent instance was in February, when Algeria presented a draft resolution. It was following this session that the US delegation announced that they would put forward their own resolution for a humanitarian ceasefire and would allow for the safe return of all hostages, as well as a direct condemnation of Hamas. When the time came for the US resolution to be voted on earlier in March, it failed to pass when both China and Russia used their veto.

Speaking at the Security Council, Riyad Al Mansour, the permanent observer of the State of Palestine, remarked that the international response to Israel’s involvement since October 7 should be one that “enforces consequences for these crimes”.

“Accepting any justification for such crimes is renouncing our humanity and destroying the rule of international law beyond repair,” he said.

For Palestinians, the ceasefire resolution had to signal a turning point.

“This must lead to saving lives on the ground. This must signal the end of this assault of atrocities against our people. Save the lives of those who survived against all odds. Tell them help is on the way. End this injustice; end it now. All of this is long overdue.”

Once the meeting had adjourned, Afonso, representing the E10 Group, told reporters that resolutions passed by the Security Council were binding and mandatory. “Every member state is under the obligation to implement those measures,” he said.

Mansour also reiterated this, adding: “If Israel is not going to implement it, then it is the duty of the Security Council to use Chapter 7 to take punitive measures in order to make them obey the measure of the Security Council.”

Beyond the Security Council, the response to UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres stated on X, formerly known as Twitter, that the resolution “must be implemented. Failure would be unforgivable.”

UNRWA Commissioner-General Philippe Lazzarini expressed his thanks to the Secretary-General for his support of UNRWA and the people of Palestine. On the matter of the Security Council resolution, he said on Twitter: “We now hope for its implementation so that people in Gaza [and the] region can finally get some respite and the peace they all aspire to.”

Human Rights Watch’s UN Director Louis Charbonneau said in a statement: “Israel needs to immediately respond to the UN Security Council resolution adopted today by facilitating the delivery of humanitarian aid, ending its starvation of Gaza’s population, and halting unlawful attacks. Palestinian armed groups should immediately release all civilians held hostage. The US and other countries should use their leverage to end atrocities by suspending arms transfers to Israel.”

Israel’s response to the resolution so far does not suggest that they will respect the Security Council’s decision. Israeli Ambassador Gilad Erdan expressed disappointment that while the Council has previously condemned terrorist attacks, including the most recent attacks that occurred in Moscow over the weekend, it had not condemned Hamas for October 7, the events of which he described as “the most wide-spread and barbaric massacre suffered by the Jewish people since the Holocaust.”

He remarked that the resolution’s denouncement of the taking of hostages was “what should have been the driving moral force.”

He added that the Council should “not settle for words but take action” when it comes to ensuring the return of hostages. “It is unfathomable that when it comes to hostages, we still only see inaction. Yet when it comes to the situation in Gaza, the Council rushed to take action.”

It was also announced that Prime Minister Netanyahu canceled a planned trip to Washington, D.C., shortly after the Council resolution was adopted. This was in response to what was perceived as the US shifting its position, which would affect war efforts against Hamas and its efforts to rescue the hostages.

As binding international law, the Security Council’s decision should be respected, and it must not be held back from implementing its measures at any cost. The limited time of the remaining weeks of Ramadan should urge the Security Council and other enforcers of international law to implement a more lasting, if not permanent, ceasefire.

Categories: Africa

Will Israel Defy Another Security Council Resolution?

Africa - INTER PRESS SERVICE - Tue, 03/26/2024 - 07:42

A Security Council meeting in progress. Credit: United Nations

By Thalif Deen
UNITED NATIONS, Mar 26 2024 (IPS)

The UN Security Council (UNSC) resolution for a temporary cease-fire in the ongoing conflict in Gaza— adopted by a 14-0 vote with the US abstaining –- marks a significant step forward in momentarily halting the five-month-old fighting which has claimed the lives of over 32,000 Palestinians and 1,200 inside Israel.

But a lingering question remains: how will Israel respond?

Clearly, Israel has had a longstanding notoriety for flouting UNSC resolutions —and still never having to pay a price for such violations—primarily because of the unyielding support of the United States.

Stephen Zunes, Professor of Politics, University of San Francisco, who has written extensively and authoritatively on the politics of the Security Council, told IPS: “By my count, Israel has initially stood in violation of as many as 40 UN Security Council resolutions for at least a decade following their passage, though they eventually came into compliance with about a dozen of those. They remain in violation of the others”.

Successive U.S. administrations, including the Biden administration, have made clear they would veto any UN Security Council resolution that would impose sanctions or any other kind of pressure to force Israel into compliance, he said.

While it is certainly a positive development that the Biden administration did not veto Monday’s Security Council resolution calling for a ceasefire as it has previously, the United States again demonstrated its isolation in the international community by being the only country to not vote in favor.

The Biden administration threatened to veto the original draft resolution calling for a permanent ceasefire, only agreeing to not cast a veto in return for dropping the word “permanent.”

White House spokesperson John Kirby said the United States did not vote in favor because the resolution did not condemn Hamas, despite the fact that it did not condemn Israel either.

The wording of the various clauses which the Biden administration also apparently demanded are revealing: While it “demands” that Hamas release the hostages, the United States made sure that the resolution only “emphasizes the urgent need” to get desperately-needed aid to Palestinians and that it did not mention that it is Israel that is preventing it, said Dr Zunes, currently Torgny Segerstedt Visiting Research Professor, at the Department of Sociology and Work Science, University of Gothenburg, Sweden.

At the same time, even though the ceasefire resolution, if honored, would only stop the fighting for two weeks, it is significant that the United States allowed for even a temporary ceasefire resolution to pass without conditioning it on the release of Israeli hostages, he noted.

“This is no doubt a reflection of the growing domestic and international pressure the Biden administration has been facing over its support for Israel’s horrific war on the people of Gaza.

Whatever the wording of the resolution, however, it is unlikely that Israel will abide by it and the United States would certainly veto any attempt by the United Nations to enforce it,” he declared.

Oxfam’s UN Representative and Head of New York Office Brenda Mofya said: “We welcome the Security Council’s adoption of a ceasefire resolution so Palestinians in Gaza can have much-needed respite from the relentless and devastating Israeli violence and critical aid can reach them”.

However, this resolution, while a step in the right direction, falls short of the permanent ceasefire which is truly required and comes too late for the over 32,000 Palestinians in Gaza that have been killed, and thousands more unaccounted for, while the Security Council wrung its hands over semantics, she argued.

“For nearly six months, the rest of the international community has repeatedly called for a permanent ceasefire, the release of all hostages, and the provision of unrestricted aid into Gaza. It is long overdue for UN Security Council Member States to finally heed these calls with the moral leadership that is rightfully expected of them and to stop the killing and suffering in Gaza.

“Now this resolution has passed, it is imperative for Member States to fulfil their obligations to ensure that it is implemented so that Palestinians never endure violence such as this again. This includes immediately halting the transfer of weapons, parts, and ammunition to Israel and Palestinian armed groups,” she said.

“A mere two-week pause is not enough. This initial cessation in violence must lead to a permanent ceasefire that lasts and a sustainable peace for Palestinians and Israelis alike, so people in Gaza can mourn their loved ones and begin the long road of recovery and reconstruction,” declared Mofya.

Louis Charbonneau, UN director at Human Rights Watch said Israel needs to immediately respond to the UN Security Council resolution by facilitating the delivery of humanitarian aid, ending its starvation of Gaza’s population, and halting unlawful attacks.

Palestinian armed groups should immediately release all civilians held hostage. The US and other countries should use their leverage to end atrocities by suspending arms transfers to Israel, said Charbonneau.

In a statement issued on March 25, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said the US abstention on the Security Council resolution comes on the heels of the Russian and Chinese veto “of our comprehensive draft resolution in the Council, reaffirms the U.S. position that a ceasefire of any duration come as part of an agreement to release hostages in Gaza”.

“While we do not agree with all provisions included in this text, adjustments made by the resolution’s sponsors over recent days are consistent with our principled position that any ceasefire text must be paired with text on the release of the hostages”, he said.

This resolution further explicitly recognizes the painstaking, non-stop negotiations being conducted by the Governments of Egypt, Israel, Qatar, and the United States to achieve such a release in the context of a ceasefire, which would also create space to surge more lifesaving humanitarian assistance for Palestinian civilians, and to build something more enduring.

“Because the final text does not have key language we view as essential, notably a condemnation of Hamas, we could not support it. This failure to condemn Hamas is particularly difficult to understand coming days after the world once again witnessed the horrific acts terrorist groups commit,” Blinken said.

“We reiterate the need to accelerate and sustain the provision of humanitarian assistance through all available routes – land, sea, and air. We continue to discuss with partners a pathway to the establishment of a Palestinian state with real security guarantees for Israel to establish long-term peace and security,” he declared.

Nihal Awad, National Executive Director of the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR), said the Biden administration’s long overdue decision to permit the passage of a Security Council resolution calling for a ceasefire “will only be impactful if our government takes concrete steps to support it.”

The far-right Netanyahu government is already flouting the resolution and promising to continue its genocide in Gaza. The Biden administration should respond by ending the transfer of any new weapons to the Israeli government and taking steps to pursue a just, lasting peace, he said.

IPS UN Bureau Report

Categories: Africa

South Asian Network on Human Rights Calls on Bhutan to Free Political Prisoners

Africa - INTER PRESS SERVICE - Tue, 03/26/2024 - 07:31

By Roshmi Goswami and P. Saravanamuttu
THIMPHU, Bhutan, Mar 26 2024 (IPS)

South Asians for Human Rights (SAHR), a regional network of human rights defenders, has called on the Government of Bhutan to release the political prisoners it has detained for decades.

SAHR made the call on the occasion of the 16th World Social Forum (WSF) held in Nepal recently, where a session was organised on ‘Bhutan’s Prisoners of Conscience’.

The session drew attention to the expulsion of Bhutanese citizens of Nepali origin, also known as Lhotshampas, which started in the late 1980’s into the early 1990’s. While the situation of the Lhotshampa refugees was relatively well known, the reality of political prisoners, many of whom have spent more than 30 years in Chamjang Jail, has only recently been reported. Further, there are also significant numbers of disappeared citizens of Bhutan about whom not much is known.

While at present Bhutan puts up a front of a country high on the Gross National Happiness index, it hides the sufferings of the Lhotshampas who were strategically expelled, made stateless, and also detained as prisoners categorised as ‘non-nationals’ or ‘anti-nationals’.

These Prisoners of Conscience are held in prison for their expressions of political beliefs or identity assertion, while others have been framed. Different international human rights organisations have recognised 50-100 people still held as political prisoners in Bhutan, without trials or cases being brought, with 37 kept in Chamgang Jail.

Bhutan as a country moved towards democracy from absolute monarchy in 2008 with the promulgation of the Constitution. However, in many respects the country has remained autocratic, and successive kings have held ultimate power even as the state security establishment cracked down on Lhotshampa activists who demanded democracy and an end to discriminatory policies, including that of Driglam Namza, which called for cultural purity tied to the ‘Drukpa’ community.

Some of the incarcerated Lhotshampa were arrested in the early 1990s and have been detained for nearly 43 years. Different human rights organisations at various times have made efforts for the release of the political prisoners, without success.

The ultimate power for release of the political prisoners lies at present with King Jigme Khesar Namgyel Wangchuck and SAHR believes that he should personally be held accountable for the continued incarcerations.

SAHR believes that Bhutan’s progression towards a democratic state, where the citizenry is truly ‘happy’ and content, requires the release of the prisoners of conscience. SAHR further calls on the international community, including Nepal as the host country of refugees and India as a country that has not done its bit on the refugee issue being the land neighbour of Bhutan and with deep links to the Bhutanese state, to work to persuade Bhutan to take back the refugees who have refused to take the option of third-country settlement. These Lhotshampa refugees languish in the camps of Southeast Nepal, maintaining a principled stand on their ‘right of return’.

SAHR is also concerned that the remaining several thousand refugees in southeast Nepal are now without support of international organisations such as UNHCR and WFP. Similarly, the Government of Nepal has disbanded the refugee camps, and it has also become difficult for the refugees to move about and lead normal lives.

SAHR demands that the Government of Nepal as well as international organisations re-engage with Bhutanese refugees and provide support and security to the refugees still in Nepal.

SAHR notes that the lives of the refugees have been made more complicated by the scam involving top-level Nepali politicians and officials involved in providing Nepali citizens with fake certificates as Bhutanese refugees to make fraudulent income with the promise to get them settled in third countries.

The exposure of this scam has, through no fault of their own, made the refugees in Nepal more vulnerable to neglect and delays on the hands of the host country’s officialdom.

Further, SAHR demands the following of and on behalf of Bhutan’s prisoners of conscience as well as refugees:

Dr. Roshmi Goswami is Co-Chairperson, South Asians for Human Rights (SAHR); Dr. P. Saravanamuttu is Bureau Member, SAHR

IPS UN Bureau

Categories: Africa

Former prime minister concedes to Senegal opposition

BBC Africa - Mon, 03/25/2024 - 18:28

Ruling coalition candidate Amadou Ba calls Bassirou Diomaye Faye to congratulate him on his victory.

Categories: Africa

From jail to Africa's youngest elected president

BBC Africa - Mon, 03/25/2024 - 17:48

Bassirou Diomaye Faye is set to become the African continent's youngest democratically elected leader.

Categories: Africa

From jail to Africa's youngest elected president

BBC Africa - Mon, 03/25/2024 - 17:48

Bassirou Diomaye Faye is set to become the African continent's youngest democratically elected leader.

Categories: Africa

Pages

THIS IS THE NEW BETA VERSION OF EUROPA VARIETAS NEWS CENTER - under construction
the old site is here
Copy & Drop - Can`t find your favourite site? Send us the RSS or URL to the following address: info(@)europavarietas(dot)org.

You are here

Africa

Pages