Africa

Men working for Edy Prasetyo harvesting catfish in Indramayu, West Java, take a break on a recent day. Credit: Kafil Yamin/IPS

By Kafil Yamin
INDRAMAYU, Indonesia, Jun 24 2022 (IPS)

For years Indramayu has been known as one of Indonesia’s rice centres. The district in West Java is the country’s number one rice producer, generating 1.3 million tonnes of husked rice in 2021, according to Indonesia’s Centre of Statistics (BPS). The country’s total rice production was 54 million tonnes.

What we witness as we drive to the district confirms the rice-dominant economy. Paddy fields stretch on the right and left as far as the eye can see. This is early June, traditionally the start of the harvest, but the plants are still green, indicating that the harvest is still months away.

It is also a clear sign that the paddy growing cycle has changed, due to a shift in climate.

Ironically, Indramayu was one of the five poorest districts in West Java in 2021, according to the BPS report, which also revealed that the Covid-19 pandemic increased the number of poor in Indramayu by 13 percent.

Even before the pandemic, Indramayu was a pocket of poverty in Indonesia. The majority of people in the paddy-dominant district are not land-owning farmers but farm labourers or landless growers.

Paddy fields are labour-intensive only during planting season and harvest, which take place three times a year on average. That leaves three to four months as free time for landless farmers. Both men and women migrate to the capital Jakarta, 240 km away, to find temporary jobs, before returning to Indramayu for the harvest.

 

Labour migration decreasing

Global climate change has been disrupting these patterns — of planting, harvesting, and migration. But one silver lining of this disruption is that landless growers have begun to find alternative livelihoods without migrating to Jakarta. Fish farming is a popular choice in the coastal district.

Indramayu farmers started making ponds along the seashore to raise tiger prawns, a popular commodity. But this farming is vulnerable to incursions from the ocean, including tidal waves.

That’s why Edy Prasetyo, 46, chose to enter the catfish farming business in 2001. Twenty-one years later, Prasetyo has 69 ponds in Soge village, Kandanghaur sub-district.

In recent years catfish has become a favourite street food for middle and low-income people in almost all major cities in Indonesia. Demand is so high that in the Jakarta area, where most Indramayu catfish is sold, shortages are common. Seeing the opportunity, some young local growers have become rich quick.

It’s demanding work, Prasetyo tells an IPS reporter on a recent visit. “We have to stick to a fixed feeding schedule, including during the night and when it rains. Imagine walking around the ponds in heavy rain and throwing catfish food into them. I have 69 ponds. I need at least 10 people to do it.”

But now, new technology is making the farmers’ lives easier. In October 2020, FAO Indonesia and Bogor Agriculture University (IPB) introduced technology known as eFishery to Prasetyo’s village. After a short training he and other catfish farmers began to adopt the system, particularly a digital automatic fish feeder.

Invented by a graduate of Indonesia’s Bandung Institute of Technology (ITB), Gibran Huzaifah, the auto-feeder connects through the internet to farmers’ smartphones. There they can set the breed of fish, feeding schedules and the amount of food pellets to drop into the ponds.

 

Gunawan, 47, a catfish farmer in Ciseeng, West Java, has been using the auto-feeder since 2019. Credit: Kafil Yamin/IPS

 

Detects level of hunger

The auto-feeder is equipped with an in-water, vibration-based sensor that is able to read the movements of hungry versus full fish. Guided by the farmer’s feeding schedule, when the artificial intelligence detects hunger, it releases the amount of feed required. This avoids over or underfeeding the fish.

The auto-feeder connects through the internet to farmers’ smartphones. There they can set the breed of fish, feeding schedules and the amount of food pellets to drop into the ponds

The eFishery’s sensors collect and store real time data, such as feed volumes and consumption levels. Farmers can access this through eFishery’s web and mobile apps on their smartphone, tablet or computer and make any needed changes to the feeding.

“This is the kind of technology we need,” says Prasetyo. “It cuts time spent for feeding the catfish and saves a lot of energy.”

With eFishery, production has increased 25-30 percent, says the farmer, adding that he has more time to spend on other things. Additional benefits of the technology include that the size and weight of the catfish can be controlled and the water quality is monitored.

While Prasetyo spoke, several men placed buckets of catfish on weighing scales and then transferred them to a small truck, which soon drove out of the village, bound for Jakarta.

Losarang sub-district has now become Indramayu’s catfish centre, with the majority of residents farming the species. Catfish ponds dominate the landscape. “Sixty percent of Indramayu’s 200 hectares of catfish ponds are in Losarang sub-district,” said Thalib, the village head.

The technology and knowledge has spread throughout the area, and Prasetyo’s success story has drawn fishermen from other villages to learn about eFishery.

“This is what Member Nations want. This is what this project is designed for,” said Aziz Elbehri, senior economist at the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization’s Regional Office in Bangkok, who leads the 1,000 Digital Villages Initiative (DVI) for Asia and Pacific.

A global initiative inspired by FAO’s Director-General Mr QU Dongyu, the DVI is being piloted in the Asia-Pacific region. Soge village is among many being showcased and sharing its advancements with other villages and areas in Asia and the Pacific, as well as other regions of the world.

“A successful undertaking in one village should be copied, or in popular terms, replicated to other villages. And this is what is happening here now,” Elbehri told IPS as he and his FAO team visited Soge village on 26 May.

“Indonesia is one of the success stories,” Elbehri said, pointing out several female catfish farmers who joined his visit. As eFishery is a national innovation, the project is also driving national excellence, he added.

 

Challenges remain

Catfish farming is not without challenges. Mardiah, 52, has been farming the species for 26 years. “Sometimes we go through lack of water during prolonged drought, which has caused many of our catfish to die. At other times, we get flooded during heavy rainfall and our ponds are destroyed,” he told IPS, adding that farmers can do little about such natural occurrences. Disease is another serious threat.

But what gives farmers their largest headache is the soaring price of catfish food. “More and more people make fish ponds, while catfish food production remain the same. This make its price soar,” Mardiah said.

Head of the Indramayu Fishery and Marine Office, Edi Umaedi, told IPS that fish ponds cover 560 hectares in his area, more than half of it is used for catfish farming. Last year, Indramayu’s catfish production reached 85,000 tonnes.

Setting up the business is not difficult, added Umaedi, and farmers prefer it because unlike rice, catfish can endure a water shortage and do not require irrigation. “Fish ponds, particularly catfish ponds, do not need a vast amount of land. One pond of 100 or 200 square metres is enough to farm catfish.”

To date, FAO and IPB have established eFishery in 30 villages in West Java and there are plans to expand to other Indonesian provinces.

 

Credit: FAO

By Jong-Jin Kim
BANGKOK, Jun 24 2022 (IPS)

It wasn’t that long ago that Internet connectivity faded the moment one left a populated area like a city or big town – “no service” was the take-away message back then. But thanks to 3G, 4G and now 5G mobile technology, coupled with widespread installation of cellular towers in rural areas region-wide, that little message shows up much less frequently.

Most importantly, the rapid spread of internet connectivity and mobile telephony, reaching into the most remote rural communities, has resulted in countless opportunities to help address chronic problems such as poverty, malnutrition and inequality.

Investing in an enabling environment to ensure equal access is key to ensuring the benefits of rural digitalization are enjoyed more broadly

From farmers to fishers to herders, digital technologies are increasingly relied upon to help transform and enhance livelihoods for hundreds of millions of people each day. From a smart phone in the hands of a woman or man checking optimal conditions to sow a field, or band together to rent a drone for aerial assessments, to a herder checking the weather, to fishers finding the best places to cast their nets, digital technologies are becoming increasingly accessible, useful and affordable for those in rural areas.

This paradigm shift offers great hope to get this region – and the world – back on track to meet the 2030 SDG deadline.

While this digital revolution sweeping rural areas of Asia and the Pacific holds great promise, not everyone is benefiting equally. Indeed, in some cases, digital technologies can even be disruptive, or lead to unintended consequences by widening, not reducing, the digital divide if their implementations result in a loss of decent work.

This needs to be addressed, and it’s in everyone’s best interests to do so. Policy makers in countries across the region do understand the added value, and they see the economic benefits digitalization of rural areas bring to their nations and people. Hence, investing in an enabling environment to ensure equal access is key to ensuring the benefits of rural digitalization are enjoyed more broadly.

 

Credit: FAO

 

Digitalization of rural areas needed now – more than ever before

Indeed, the move to accelerate implementation of digital technologies, equitably across the region’s rural areas couldn’t come at a more important time. The global pandemic hit rural communities disproportionately hard – particularly with respect to individual livelihoods. Now, as we try to recover from the devastation of COVID-19, we are facing the highest prices for many basic foods – the highest we’ve seen in decades. Higher food costs hit poorer and marginalized communities the hardest, particularly in rural areas, as they must spend a greater proportion of their disposable income to feed their families.

These challenges are compounding an already existing and alarming situation. Last year, prior to the inflation of food commodities, FAO and partners pointed out that many people – at that time – already couldn’t afford a healthy diet in Asia and the Pacific.

By leveraging the advancements offered by digital technologies we can find ways to counter some of these and other devastating negative effects that already existed such as severe weather related events, droughts and floods.

That is already happening in some countries in this region, and they are well on the road to digitalization of even the smallest and most remote villages and towns. And they have good examples to share with their neighbors.

At the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), we’ve been following these trends, policies and initiatives of our Member Nations in the Asia-Pacific region. We know the full scale of their desire and determination to embrace, and fully harness, the potential of digitalization.

For our part, FAO has pledged to assist in bringing together these existing good practices of our Members, and to create a space for others to share their digital solutions as part of FAO’s 1,000 Digital Village Initiative. A key component of this initiative is the Digital Village Knowledge Sharing Platform for Asia-Pacific that can act as a one-stop village square, where those working in the food and agriculture sectors can share their innovations and technologies with us all.

A digital village isn’t necessary a small place. It is a concept – one that is inclusive, operational, country-led and fit-for-purpose to deliver solid benefits to people.

At the end of the day, the ultimate goal is to make things better for everyone.

Working together, and sharing together, this region’s digital village innovations and technologies can help lead us all to a world of better production, better nutrition, better environment and a better life – leaving no one behind!

 

Credit: FAO

 

More information on the Digital Village Initiative:

Join the Knowledge sharing and policy dialogue live (and recorded) – 27 June 2022, Bangkok, and more information about the Programme is here.

At G20, FAO’s Director-General calls for closing of digital divide.

FAO Video on Digital Village Centres empowering farmers in Bangladesh and a social media video here

For more information on FAO’s Digital Village work with our Members in Asia and the Pacific, see here.

For more information on FAO’s Digital Village work with our Members in Africa, see here.

For more information on FAO’ Digital Village work with our Members in Latin America and the Caribbean, see here.

 

Excerpt:

Jong-Jin Kim is Assistant Director-General and Regional Representative, Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO)

The World Food Programme (WFP) says 41 million people around the world, including in Nigeria (pictured) are at imminent risk of famine. Credit: UNOCHA/ Eve Sabbagh

By Danielle Nierenberg
NEW ORLEANS, Jun 24 2022 (IPS)

When I first met Dr. Roland Bunch, I have to be honest—he scared me. As one of the most well-respected leaders on agronomy and resilient land management, he offers extremely prescient predictions on how famines take root when soils fail—and also has an admirably clear-eyed view of what we need to do better.

When we first met in the mid-2000s, I was at the Worldwatch Institute and invited him to contribute a chapter to a book I was writing. He described how farmers in Malawi and other countries in Sub-Saharan Africa were noticing their soil was getting tired.

Maize yields were unpredictable and decreasing year to year—problematic when that’s the crop you depend on most for both consumption and sale to earn your livelihood. Droughts were a major concern, but Dr. Bunch understood that farmers were, rightly, more worried about loss of soil fertility.

Droughts and depleted soils can be difficult to distinguish. While fertile soils can soak up and retain what little rain does fall, depleted soils become compacted and water simply runs off, so each problem accentuates the other.

Plus, when farmers are facing infertile soils, they are more likely to move to new areas of land, which unfortunately eats up arable land without regenerating it. And in some cases, folks give up farming altogether and move to cities, where it’s difficult for them to find jobs that match their skills.

He wrote this warning right around the 2007–08 food and financial collapse, which stretched into riots and famines around the globe over the next half-decade. And unfortunately, we may be back where we were then.
Dr. Bunch warns that the coming famine will be a “hurricane of hunger,” which sounds ominous to me and so many of us who work in this space. But things are not hopeless.

Over the past 20 years, one of the so-called solutions that’s been heavily promoted in places like Malawi are fertilizer subsidies and artificial fertilizers—which are not the answer.

We forget that artificial fertilizer should be used sparingly like medicine, to help get farmers over a hump or temporarily boost soil quality to allow for better use of organic matter.

But unfortunately, subsidies have led to farmers becoming dependent on artificial soil amendments and have actively disincentivized growing a more diverse set of crops or using organics to fertilize soils in countries across Sub-Saharan Africa, Latin America, and more.

One of the answers to what we’re seeing around soil infertility are cover crops and ‘green manure’ (which refers not to colorful animal poop but rather the practice of growing certain crops to turn or incorporate back into the soil).

These can be things like bushes, trees, and vines that help improve soil quality, control weeds, and retain water. Other great options are crops like cowpeas and scarlet runner beans, which people can eat.

This is something else we often forget when we’re talking about how to keep folks from being hungry: The foods people have depended on for generations are not only regenerative but also delicious! Farmers have an opportunity,

Roland says, to return to growing these indigenous crops—sometimes called forgotten crops or orphan crops—that are resilient to droughts, have deep root structures to keep water and nutrients in soils, grow perennially so they don’t need to be replanted every year, and taste really, really good.

Between crises like climate change, soil depletion, global conflicts, and Covid’s supply chain fallout, the bottom line—and it’s a sobering one—is that we’re facing a massive famine and that “hurricane of hunger” over the next year.

I’ve talked before in this newsletter about the power of citizen eaters and the participatory democracies Frances Moore Lappé advocates for—but for these ideas to actually translate into powerful results, we need governments that are actively engaging in agriculture.

Roland says it’s possible to end hunger in one generation, and quite inexpensively, but only if we have the will to do so. We’ll need action from leaders in policy, business, and more to invest in helping farmers adopt greener, more regenerative soil practices.

As he says, better soils lead to better lives—which is more urgent now than ever before.

I want to thank and commend Dr. Roland Bunch for his leadership and—seriously—for scaring me. His predictions not only frighten me but also give me hope. He tells us how bad things can be—but also how good things can be if, again, we have that political engagement.

I’ve included more writing from Dr. Bunch and other luminaries in the Learn More section below, and as always, please shoot me an email at danielle@foodtank.com with your perspectives and ideas for how we move forward.

Danielle Nierenberg is President of Food Tank and an expert on sustainable agriculture and food issues. She has written extensively on gender and population, the spread of factory farming in the developing world and innovations in sustainable agriculture.

IPS UN Bureau

 

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A man sells poultry in Refugees Market, Peshawar, on 17 June. Credit: Ashfaq Yusufzai/IPS.

By Ashfaq Yusufzai
PESHAWAR, Jun 23 2022 (IPS)

“We came here in 1979 after Russia’s invasion of Afghanistan. My children and grandchildren have grown up here and they don’t want to go back to that war-ravaged country. I go there occasionally to mourn the deaths of near and dear ones,” says Muhammad Jabbar, 67, a former resident of Kabul, capital of Afghanistan.

This South Asian nation is home to 1.3 million registered refugees and more than double this number of unregistered ones who have fled neighbouring Afghanistan
Jabbar, who sells dry fruits in Muhajir Bazaar (known as the ‘refugees market’), in Peshawar, the capital of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, one of Pakistan’s four provinces, said that he hadn’t been able to convince his family members to visit their country due to the endless violence.

The latest in that series of events was the takeover by Taliban militants in August 2021, which has further heightened Jabbar’s fears that even he may no longer be able to visit his native land. At the same time he acknowledges that Pakistan is now the family’s home and calls the local people ‘friendly’.

This South Asian nation is home to 1.3 million registered refugees and more than double this number of unregistered ones who have fled neighbouring Afghanistan. Most of them run small businesses or do petty jobs and send remittances to their family members who remain across the border.

A vegetable seller in the same market, Hayat Shah, says business is so good that he and his family never think of returning. “We are very happy as here we live in peace and earn money for our survival. In Afghanistan, people are faced with an extremely hard economic situation. My two sons and a daughter study here in a local school,” says Shah, 49.

“We arrived in Peshawar in early 1992 when our home was bombed by unknown people. My parents and two brothers died,” he adds.

 

An awareness session with Afghan women in Akora Khattak refugee camp, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, 16 June. Credit: Ashfaq Yusufzai/IPS.

 

Shah and his family live in Baghlan Camp in Peshawar, one of 3,500 refugee families in the camp (though UNHCR now calls camps ‘refugee villages’). There are 54 refugee camps across Pakistan — 43 in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province — housing 32 per cent of refugees. More than two-thirds of refugees live in urban areas, where they are legally permitted to work, according to UNHCR.

Most Afghans interviewed by IPS in the market, said they feel that Pakistan is now home. Ninety percent of merchants in the sprawling market are Afghan businessmen, who run clothing, fish, meat and fruit and vegetable shops. “Refugees bazar is bustling with Afghan women and men buying all sorts of stuff,” says fruit seller Ghafoor Shah. “This market is no different from any market in Afghanistan, where women clad in burkas can be seen shopping,” he adds.

Sultana, 51, says they visit the bazaar frequently to do bulk shopping for the Islamic festival Eidul Fitre, marriage ceremonies and other holidays. “We can find all type of articles we need in accordance with Afghan traditions. Us women can talk to Afghan shopkeepers and tailors easily in our own languages compared to Pakistanis, with whom conversation is difficult.”

UNHCR spokesman for Pakistan Qaisar Khan Afridi told IPS that the arrival of new refugees after the Taliban took charge in Kabul has created major issues.

“Over, 250,000 Afghans have reached here in the last 18 months — that’s just the registered refugees. The UN refugee agency is in talks with the host government to seek a solution to the problem of these people who aren’t registered in Pakistan yet,” he says adding, “Pakistan isn’t accepting new refugees,” he adds.

The UNHCR’s voluntary repatriation programme for refugees to Afghanistan has come to almost a complete halt. Only 185 families have returned since January this year, with each getting US$250 as assistance. About 4.4 million refugees have been repatriated since 2002.

Muhammad Hashim, a reporter for Shamshad TV channel in Jalalabad, told IPS that the Taliban aren’t allowing journalists to work freely and suspect anyone who was employed during the former government’s tenure. “I came with my wife and two daughters to Pakistan using back routes and now we’re trying to seek asylum in the US or any European country. Going back is out of the question,” he told IPS, awaiting registration outside UNHCR’s office in Peshawar.

Hashim, 41, says he survived a murder attempt a day before his departure for Pakistan and left so quickly that his belongings remain in Afghanistan.

Women journalists are sitting at home, he adds. Fearing prosecution by Taliban, hundreds of people who worked in the police or in offices under the former Afghan government have also rushed to Pakistan, he says. “Violence and lack of jobs, education and health facilities are haunting the people.”

 

Muhammad Abbas Khan, Commissioner for Afghan Refugees Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, speaks at a function marking visits of senior UNHCR officials to Padhana refugee camp, Haripur district, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, 17 June 2022. Credit: Ashfaq Yusufzai/IPS.

 

Schoolteacher Mushtari Begum, 39, is among the fresh refugees. “I did a masters in computer science from Kabul University and used to teach in a private girls school for eight years. Now, the women’s schools have been shut down and teachers and students are sitting in their homes,” says Begum, a mother of two. “We live with relatives in Peshawar temporarily and have run of money,” she added.

On 12 June the Pakistan government approved a policy under which transit visas will be issued to Afghan asylum seekers to enable them to travel to any country of their choice. At the same time, the federal cabinet said that Pakistan has always welcomed refugees and would continue to host them in their trying times.

Gul Rahim, who drives a taxi in Nowshera district near Peshawar, says he arrived here in 2002 and has been lucky to educate his two sons. “Pakistan has proved a blessing for me. In Afghanistan I wouldn’t have been able to raise my sons, who are now teaching at a refugee school and helping me financially.”

 

Afghan students take classes at the Padhana refugees camp, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, Pakistan 15 June. Credit: Ashfaq Yusufzai/IPS

 

Fazal Ahmed, a local officer at the Afghan commissionerate in Peshawar, which oversees all refugee camps in the province, says they hold awareness sessions for refugees from time to time, on issues like violence and gender, health and education. “In over 30 refugee camps we also arrange skill development programmes, especially to enable women to earn their livelihoods.

“Sports activities are part of our programme, which we organize in collaboration with the UNHCR,” he says. Afghan students have also been admitted in Pakistani schools, universities and medical colleges, he adds.

However, all is not well. Many refugees complain of being harassed by police, a charge vehemently denied by authorities.

“We arrived here in February 2022 because of fear of reprisals by the Taliban. We have no documents because Pakistan isn’t registering new refugees and police often arrest us and release us only when we pay bribes,” says Usman Ali, who worked as a police constable in the former government in Kabul. Ali, 24, said his elder brother, a former army soldier, was killed by the Taliban in December 2021.

“To save my life, I rushed to Pakistan’s border in a passenger bus and ended up in Peshawar,” he adds.

Local government official Jehanzeb Khan tells IPS that Afghans are treated as guests. “There are isolated cases where Afghans are mistreated by local people but we take action when complaints are filed,” he says.

On Nasir Bagh Road, where Ali sells cosmetics goods from a hand cart, Police Officer Ahmad Nawaz told IPS that they arrest only those Afghans who are involved in crimes and are friendly towards innocent ones. “The Afghans commit robberies and even murders and go back to Afghanistan. We don’t harass Afghans (living here) because they are in trouble,” Nawaz adds.

 

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Notwithstanding the various declarations, international agreements, conventions, platforms for action, and the progress achieved in recent decades, women continue to lag behind men in rights, freedoms, and equality. Credit: UN Women, India

By Joseph Chamie
PORTLAND, USA, Jun 23 2022 (IPS)

Why aren’t more women angry about their subordination, discrimination, and unequal treatment in the 21st century? Of course, some of the world’s women are angry, but they are comparatively few.

Women represent half of the world’s population and clearly play vital roles in humanity’s development, wellbeing, and advancement. Yet, women continue to experience discrimination, abusive treatment, misogyny degrading slurs, and subordinate roles in virtually every major sphere of human activity. 

Despite their treatment, discrimination, and subordination, most women aren’t expressing anger. If the situation between the two sexes were reversed, men would certainly be angry and would no doubt take the necessary steps to change the inequalities. 

Article 2 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights adopted nearly seventy-five years ago applies all rights and freedoms equally to women and men and prohibits discrimination on the basis of sex. 

Some 40 years ago, the international community of nations adopted the Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination Against Women. And more recently, the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goal 5 aims to achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls. 

Notwithstanding those various declarations, international agreements, conventions, platforms for action, and the progress achieved in recent decades, women continue to lag behind men in rights, freedoms, and equality.

 From the very start of life in some parts of the world, baby girls are often viewed less favorably than baby boys. In many societies boy babies continue to be preferred over girl babies. In too many instances the preference for sons has resulted in sex ratios at birth that are skewed in favor of males due to pregnancy interventions by couples.

The natural sex ratio at birth for human populations is around 105 males per 100 females, though it can range from 103 to 107. At present, at least seven countries, including the world’s two largest populations, have skewed sex ratios at birth reflecting son preference pregnancy interventions (Figure 1).  

 

Source: United Nations.

 

China and India have skewed sex ratios at birth of 113 and 110 males per 100 females, respectively. High sex ratios at birth are also observed in Azerbaijan (113), Viet Nam (112), Armenia (111), Pakistan (109), and Albania (109). In contrast, for the period 1970-1975 when pregnancy interventions by couples had not yet become widespread, the sex ratios at birth for those seven countries were within the expected normal range. 

Also in some countries, the female sex ratio imbalance continues throughout women’s lives. For example, India, Pakistan, and China, which together account for nearly 40 percent of the world’s population, the sex ratios for their total populations are 108, 106, and 105, respectively. In contrast, the population sex ratios are 100 in Africa and Oceania, about 97 in Northern America and Latin America and the Caribbean, and 93 in Europe (Figure 2).

 

Source: United Nations.

 

In terms of education, while progress has been achieved in the past several decades, girls continue to lag behind boys in elementary school education in some countries, especially in Africa, the Middle East, and South Asia. For example, 78 girls in Chad and 84 girls in Pakistan are enrolled in primary school for every 100 boys.

Among young women between 15 to 24 years approximately one-quarter are expected not to finish primary school. In addition, about two-thirds of the illiterate people in the world are women.  

With respect to decision making, women do not have political representation or participation levels similar to men. Worldwide the estimated percentages of women in national parliaments, local governments, and managerial positions are 26, 36, and 28 percent, respectively. Even in developed countries, such as the United States, women make up 27 percent of Congress, 30 percent of statewide elected executives, and 31 percent of state legislators.

The labor force participation of women is also considerably lower than that of men. Globally in ages 25 to 54 years, for example,  62 percent of women are in the labor force compared to 93 percent of men. Also, the majority of the employed women, or 58 percent, are in the informal economy earning comparatively low wages and lacking social protection.

In general women are employed in the lowest-paid work. Worldwide women earn about 24 percent  less than men, with 700 million fewer women than men in paid employment. 

Women perform at least twice as much unpaid care as men, including childcare, housework, and elder care. Unpaid care and household responsibilities often come on top of women’s paid work. 

Increasing men’s participation in household tasks and caregiving would contribute to a more equitable sharing of those important domestic responsibilities. Also, governmental provision of childcare to families with young children would help both women and men combine their employment with family responsibilities.

A global comparative measure of women’s standing relative to men for regions and countries is the gender parity index. The index considers gender-based gaps across four fundamental dimensions: economic participation and opportunity, educational attainment, health and survival, and political empowerment.

The regions with the highest gender equality are Western Europe and Northern America with parity indexes of 78 and 76, respectively. In contrast, the regions with the lowest gender equality are South Asia and the Middle East and North Africa with parity indexes of 62 and 61, respectively (Figure 3).

 

Source: World Economic Forum.

 

With respect to countries, the top five countries with the highest gender equality are Iceland, Finland, Norway, New Zealand, and Sweden, with parity indexes ranging from 82 to 89. The bottom five  countries with the lowest gender equality are Afghanistan, Yemen, Iraq, Pakistan, and Syria, with parity indexes between 44 to 57.

 

Source: World Economic Forum.

 

In addition to the four fundamental dimensions of the gender parity index noted above, other important areas reflecting women’s subordination include misogyny,  sexual harassment, domestic abuse, intimate partner violence, and conflict-related sexual violence.

Worldwide it is estimated that 27 percent of women between ages 15 to 49 years had experienced physical or sexual violence by intimate long-term partners, often having long-term negative effects on the health of women as well as their children.

In addition, civil conflicts in countries, such as Ethiopia, Myanmar, South Sudan, and Syria, have all featured alarming reports of sexual violence against women. More recently, conflict-related sexual violence by the Russian forces in Ukraine is being reported, which has contributed to renewed attention by the international community to the sexual violence women face in conflict situations. 

The sexual harassment of women is a widespread global phenomenon. Most women have experienced it, especially in public places, which are often considered the domain of men with the home being considered the place for women. The reported percentages of women having experienced some form of sexual harassment in India and Viet Nam, for example, are nearly 80 and 90 percent, respectively. 

In addition to harassment, women in places such as India face risks from cultural and traditional practices, human trafficking, forced labor and domestic servitude. Moreover, the sexual harassment of women at the workplace is responsible for driving many to resign from their jobs.

Again, if men were experiencing misandry, discrimination, abusive treatment, harassment, and the subordination that women endure, they would be angry, intolerant, and no doubt turn to government officials, legislatures, courts, businesses, rights organizations, and even the streets to demand equality. Women should give serious consideration to the actions that men would take if inequalities were reversed.

With women continuing to lag behind men in rights, freedoms, and equality, the puzzling question that remains is:  why aren’t more women angry?

 

Joseph Chamie is a consulting demographer, a former director of the United Nations Population Division and author of numerous publications on population issues, including his recent book, “Births, Deaths, Migrations and Other Important Population Matters.”

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The recent eviction debacle involving the Maasai community in the Loliondo division in Tanzania’s northern Ngorongoro District has elevated indigenous people’s concerns about losing their ancestral lands under the ‘30by30’ plan in the Post-2020 Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF). Bradford Zak/Unsplash

By Busani Bafana
BULAWAYO, Zimbabwe, Jun 23 2022 (IPS)

In early June 2022, more than 30 people from the Maasai community in the Loliondo division in Tanzania’s northern Ngorongoro District were reportedly injured, and one person died following clashes with security forces over the demarcation of their ancestral lands for a new game reserve.

According to human rights organisations, the Maasai community was blocking eviction from its grazing sites at Lolionda over the demarcation of 1 500km of the Maasai ancestral land, which the government of Tanzania has leased as a hunting block to a United Arab Emirates company.

The eviction of the Maasai is a realisation of fears indigenous communities have about the loss of their ancestral lands under the ‘30by30’ plan proposed in the Post-2020 Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF). The plan calls for conserving 30 percent of the earth’s land and sea areas. Close to 100 countries have endorsed the science-backed proposal to protect 30 percent of the planet by 2030, which is target 3 of the 21 targets in the GBF.

Indigenous communities worry that the current plan does not protect their rights and control over ancestral lands and will trigger mass evictions of communities by creating protected areas meant to save biodiversity.

The fourth meeting of the Open-Ended Working Group on the Post-2020 Global Biodiversity Framework opened in Nairobi, Kenya, this week (June 21-26), hosted by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP). The meeting is expected to negotiate the final new pact for adoption at the United Nations Biodiversity Conference, which includes the 15th meeting of the Conference of the Parties (COP 15) to the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) to be held in Montreal, Canada in December 2022.

Human rights in the deal for nature

Indigenous groups are calling for a human-rights approach to conservation and strengthening of community land tenure. They emphasise that the international pact to stop and reverse biodiversity loss should include indigenous communities like the Maasai.

Jennifer Corpuz, Indigenous lawyer and global policy expert. Credit: J Corpuz

“We are highlighting the situation with the Maasai in Tanzania as an example of what should not be happening anymore, and the best way to avoid this is to ensure that there is a human rights language in the post-2020 framework,” Indigenous lawyer and global policy expert Jennifer Corpuz, a Kankana-ey Igorot from the Philippines and a member of the International Indigenous Forum for Biodiversity (IIFB) told IPS in a telephone interview.

“In particular, we identify target 3 of the framework, which is area-based conservation and the proposal to expand the coverage of the areas of land and sea that are protected. It is important to have the rights of indigenous people and local communities recognised,” Corpuz noted.

Corpuz said there is growing recognition among scientists about the importance of traditional knowledge and how it can guide decision-making on climate change and biodiversity, as well as the participation of indigenous people in biodiversity monitoring, which are the focus of targets 20 and 21 of the framework.

The CBD COP15 is expected to take stock of progress towards achieving the CBD’s Strategic Plan for Biodiversity 2011-2020, as well as decide on a new global biodiversity framework negotiated every ten years. The CBD is an international treaty on natural and biological resources ratified by 196 countries to protect biodiversity, use biodiversity without destroying it, and equally share any benefits from genetic diversity.

Indigenous leaders say the evidence is clear about the role of indigenous communities in biodiversity protection following recent reports produced by the Nairobi-based UNEP and other conservation organisations like the World Wildlife Fund (WWF).

“Achieving the ambitious goals and targets in the post-2020 global biodiversity framework will not be possible without the lands and territories recognised, sustained, protected, and restored by [Indigenous peoples and local communities],” the report noted.

Under siege worldwide, from the rainforests of the Amazon and the Congo to the savannahs of East Africa, indigenous communities could continue to play a protective role, according to their leaders and scientists whose work supports the quest of indigenous peoples to control what happens on their territories.

Biodiversity in extinction

A landmark report from the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES),  has warned that around 1 million animal and plant species are now threatened with extinction, many within decades. The assessment report noted that at least a quarter of the global land area is traditionally owned, managed, and used by indigenous peoples.

“Nature managed by Indigenous Peoples and Local Communities is under increasing pressure but is generally declining less rapidly than in other lands – although 72% of local indicators developed and used by Indigenous Peoples and Local Communities show the deterioration of nature that underpins local livelihoods,” the report noted. It highlighted that the areas of the world projected to experience significant adverse effects from climate change, ecosystem functions and nature’s contributions to people are also areas in which large concentrations of Indigenous Peoples and many of the world’s poorest communities live.

Experts have warned that the success of the post-2020 GBF depends on adequate financing to achieve the targets and goals in the framework.

The finance component needs more attention, political priority and progress, Brian O’Donnell, Director, Campaign for Nature, told a media briefing alluding to the last framework that failed to reverse biodiversity loss because of a lack of financial commitment.

“This is no time for half measures. This is the time for bold ambition by governments around the world… We think a global commitment of at least one percent of GDP is needed annually to address the biodiversity crisis, that is the level of crisis finance that we need to materialise, and parties need to commit to that level by 2030,” O’Donnell said. “We feel wealthy countries need to increase the support for developing  countries in terms of investing at least 60 billion annually into biodiversity conservation in the developing world.”

IPS UN Bureau Report

 

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Florencia Guimaraes, a transgender woman who two years ago got a job for the first time in her life, in the public sector, takes part in a demonstration in defense of the rights of the LGTBI collective. Lohana Berkins, whose photo she carries on the banner, was the founder of the Association of the Struggle for the Transvestite-Transsexual Identity, who died in 2016. CREDIT: Courtesy of Florencia Guimares

By Daniel Gutman
BUENOS AIRES, Jun 23 2022 (IPS)

“At the age of 35, with a document that says who I really am, I went back to school and finished my studies, which I had left at 14 because I could no longer bear the bullying and mistreatment,” said Florencia Guimaraes, a transgender woman whose life was changed by Argentina’s Gender Identity Law.

The new law passed by Congress in May 2012 was a pioneer in the world, since it allows people to change their gender, name and photo on their identity document, without the need for medical tests, surgeries or hormone treatments.

One of the 12,665 people who did so was Florencia, who today is 42 years old. She was born a boy, but since childhood she felt she was a girl, and for this reason she says that she faced barriers to access education and the labor market, which drove her into sex work for years in order to survive.

“There is nothing special about my story. Exclusion was a direct springboard to prostitution, which most of us started to practice at a very young age. It has to do with the lack of opportunities,” she told IPS."The fact that transgender people have no alternative to sex work is slowly changing since the passage of the law, which gave visibility to a group that was discriminated against and hidden, but it is still very recent." -- Esteban Paulón

“The law and our identity documents were tools that empowered us. It’s true that before it was not written down anywhere that we could not study, but we were seen as ‘sick’ and there were mechanisms that expelled us from the educational system,” she added.

Official figures indicate that 62 percent of the 12,665 people who changed their national identity card (DNI) in the last 10 years chose to be female and 35 percent chose to be male. They thus began the slow road to the recovery of their rights in this South American country of 47 million people.

In addition, there are almost three percent (354 people) who recently opted to mark with an “X” the box on their document corresponding to their sex, thanks to a decree signed in July 2021 by President Alberto Fernández recognizing the “non-binary” gender.

Diego Watkins, a 28-year-old trans man who has been the visible face of the Association of Transvestites, Transsexuals and Transgenders of Argentina (ATTTA), says this recognition marked a “before” and “after”.

“I was a person with no identity, no future, no life plan. If I said I had a toothache, they sent me to the psychologist. Knowing and being known who I am gave meaning to my life,” he told IPS.

As a symptom of its current strength, the group has appropriated the term transvestite, traditionally used in Argentina as an insult or in a derogatory fashion. Today, being a transvestite is a political identity and the word is used, precisely, as a banner to vindicate the right to be trans, say members of the community.

Solange Fabián is a transgender woman and member of the board of directors of the Hotel Gondolín, which houses more than 40 transvestites, many of them sex workers, in Buenos Aires. At the top of the window you can see the aftermath of a fire that occurred this month and according to the residents of Gondolin was intentional and was a hate attack. CREDIT: Daniel Gutman/IPS

The slow road to change

Florencia Guimaraes, who graduated in Gender and Politics at the National University of General Sarmiento, has headed for the last two years the Access to Rights Program for Transvestites, Transsexuals and/or Transgendered Persons at the Magistrates Council of the City of Buenos Aires, the body that administers the Judiciary of the Argentine capital.

“It’s the first time in my life that I’ve gotten a job and this, of course, would not have been possible without the law,” she said.

She is also president of the Casa de Lohana y Diana, a self-managed center for the transvestite community in Laferrere, one of the most populous and poorest suburbs of Buenos Aires.

“We offer training workshops with job opportunities, since most of them, despite the law, are still excluded and survive by means of prostitution,” says Florencia.

According to a 2019 study published by the Public Defense of Buenos Aires, entitled The Butterfly Revolution, only nine percent of the trans population is inserted in the formal labor market and the vast majority have never even gotten a job interview.

LGTBI rights organizations agree that the total transgender population in the country is between 10 and 15 percent higher than the 12,665 people registered.

Women from the Casa de Lohana y Diana, a self-managed support space for transgender women that operates in Laferrere, one of the poorest localities in the suburbs of Buenos Aires. In the Casa, courses with job opportunities are offered, with the aim of enabling women to leave sex work. CREDIT: Courtesy of Florencia Guimaraes

“The fact that transgender people have no alternative to sex work is slowly changing since the passage of the law, which gave visibility to a group that was discriminated against and hidden, but it is still very recent,” activist Esteban Paulón, who heads the Institute for LGTB+ Public Policy, a civil society organisation, told IPS from the city of Rosario.

Paulón was undersecretary of Sexual Diversity Policies in the northwestern province of Santa Fe, of which Rosario is the main city. He led a vulnerability survey there in 2019, which reached almost a third of the 1,200 trans people in that province.

The study found that only 46 percent finished high school and only five percent completed tertiary or university studies.

And the results were especially revealing in terms of emotional distress related to gender identity: 75 percent said they had self-harmed with varying frequency and engaged in problematic alcohol consumption; 77 percent had consumed other substances; and 79 percent had eating disorders.

Perhaps the harshest statistic is that, according to estimates by LGTB organizations, the average lifespan is between 35 and 41 years.

Paulón said that of the 1,200 trans people living in Santa Fe, only 30 are over 50 years old.

And he explained: “The chain of exclusion has made it impossible for transvestites to take care of their health. Many go to the hospital for the first time with an advanced infection caused by AIDS, a disease that today can be managed with medication.”

Valeria Licciardi, a trans woman who became well-known through her participation in the Big Brother reality TV show and now owns a brand of panties designed especially for transvestites, believes that the law is a starting point for social change.

“We were given our place as citizens and our right to identity, to be who we want to be, was recognized,” she told IPS.

But she warned about an undesired effect of the law: “The more we advance in rights, the more hatred and discrimination against us from one sector also grows.”

She cited the example of an arson attack that was reported this month at the so-called Hotel Gondolin, a shelter for the transvestite community that operates in a squat in the Villa Crespo neighborhood of Buenos Aires.

“It was in the early hours of the morning. The police told us that, according to the security camera footage, two men started the fire from the street,” Solange Fabián, a member of the Hotel Gondolín’s board of directors, told IPS.

Diego Watkins, a transgender man, received one of the first documents with a new identity in 2012, when the Gender Identity Law came into force in Argentina. A long-time activist of the Association of Transvestites, Transsexuals and Transgenders of Argentina, he is seen in this photo taking part in an assembly. CREDIT: Courtesy of Diego Watkins

Overcoming barriers

Seeking to improve labor inclusion, a presidential decree issued in 2020 established that one percent of jobs in the national public administration must be filled by trans people, and a registry of applicants was created.

“We are making progress in implementation and there are already 300 trans people working, which we estimate to be 0.2 percent of the total number of public sector positions,” Greta Peña, undersecretary for Diversity Policies at the Ministry of Women, Genders and Diversity, told IPS.

“We also have 6,007 people listed in the registry, which indicates that there is a great desire among the trans community to go out and work,” she added.

This year, the Undersecretariat launched a one-time economic assistance plan for trans people over 50 years of age, consisting of six minimum wages, since this is the group facing the greatest difficulties in entering the labor market.

“Although no regulation resolves structural violence by itself, the gender identity law has been a milestone in the democratic history of this country, which has not only had an impact on trans people but on the entire population,” Peña said.

An investigation was launched after detectives were alerted to potential modern slavery offences.

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Women move food from a distribution site on the outskirts of Herat, Afghanistan in 2021. Credit: WFP/Marco Di Lauro

By Neil Turner
KABUL, Afghanistan, Jun 23 2022 (IPS)

Early estimates in the Afghan provinces of Khost and Paktika indicate that the earthquake took lives of over a thousand people, with the death toll likely to rise. Many more have been injured, lost their homes and everything they owned.

We still do not have the full picture of humanitarian needs among people displaced by the earthquake, but the Taliban authorities have already launched their own response and called for urgent humanitarian assistance, granting humanitarian agencies full access to the affected areas and conducting search and rescue.

Our teams are on the ground conducting a rapid needs assessment in the Spera district of Khost province. The Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC) will support the affected communities with cash and provide emergency shelter. We will also shortly send another team to Paktika to assess the situation there.

Environmental disasters such as earthquakes and droughts are regular occurrences in Afghanistan, remaining one of the key drivers of displacement. Cascading impacts of climate change and a deepening economic crisis make it more difficult to achieve durable, long-term solutions for displaced Afghans, despite a significant decrease in fighting since August 2021.”

Facts and figures:

• The Spera District in Khost Province; Barmala, Ziruk, Nika and Gayan Districts in Paktika Province are among the areas most affected by the earthquake.
• Khost Province is home to thousands of internally displaced Afghans, returnees, and refugees from Waziristan.
• 1,800 households are now confirmed to be destroyed, but the exact levels of damage and destruction are yet unknown.
• The number of casualties is rising as search and rescue operations continue to be led by the de-facto authorities. Helicopters are used to reach people in rural, hard-to-reach areas, take urgent medical supplies and food provisions.
• Most of the population affected by the earthquake has already experienced multiple displacements and has been severely hit by the economic collapse, following the financial restrictions placed on the country after the Taliban takeover.
• Last year 1.3 million people have been internally displaced nationwide. This is an unprecedentedly high number, due to a combination of conflict and natural disasters.
• Over 24 million people – more than half of the Afghan population – need humanitarian assistance to survive. That is an increase of 30 per cent from last year.
• The REACH mid year assessment for Afghanistan indicates a worsening economic situation for Afghans. Households are taking on more debt, primarily driven by the need to purchase food amidst rising prices and shrinking incomes.
• The FAO-WFP have now listed Afghanistan in the top six countries that have populations identified or projected to experience starvation or death, or at risk of deterioration towards catastrophic conditions, who require the most urgent attention.
• NRC has been present in Afghanistan since 2003. We have 1,400 Afghan employees and work in 14 provinces across the country. We assisted over 840,000 people in 2021

Neil Turner is Country Director for the Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC) in Afghanistan.

Footnote:

At the press briefing on June 22, UN deputy Spokesperson Farhan Haq told reporters that Secretary-General Antonio Guterres was saddened to hear of the tragic loss of life caused by the earthquake which struck Afghanistan near the city of Khost. Hundreds of people have reportedly been killed and injured, and this tragic toll might continue to rise. The Secretary-General said that his heart goes out to the people of Afghanistan who are already reeling from the impact of years of conflict, economic hardship and hunger. He conveyed his deep condolences to the families of the victims and wishes a speedy recovery to the injured.

“The Secretary-General said that the UN in Afghanistan is fully mobilized and that our teams are already on the ground assessing the needs and providing initial support. He added that we count on the international community to help support the hundreds of families hit by this latest disaster. Now is the time for solidarity, the Secretary-General stressed. On the humanitarian side, our colleagues tell us that numbers are expected to rise as search and rescue operations continue.”

IPS UN Bureau

 

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Patricia Acosta, Estéfhanny Díaz's mother, carries a poster with a photo of her daughter and granddaughters Tatiana and Yamile. The three disappeared six years ago and so far the authorities, in her opinion, have done little to find them. Acosta, 50, poses in the Plaza Cívica de Ventanilla, a district of the port city of Callao, next to the Peruvian capital. CREDIT: Mariela Jara/IPS

By Mariela Jara
LIMA, Jun 22 2022 (IPS)

“They mustn’t stop looking for her,” said Patricia Acosta, mother of Estéfhanny Díaz, who went missing on Apr. 24, 2016, along with her five-year-old and eight-month-old daughters, after attending a children’s birthday party in Mi Perú, a town in the coastal province of Callao, next to the Peruvian capital.

In an interview with IPS in the Plaza Cívica de Ventanilla, another district in Callao, Acosta, along with Jenny Pajuelo, Yamile’s aunt, called on the authorities to conduct a thorough investigation to find Díaz and her daughters Tatiana and Yamile, and to stop placing women who disappear under suspicion.

“She was 22 years old, she was a calm girl, at her young age she had learned to be a mother. I feel that my daughter did not leave of her own free will, but that she has been disappeared. That’s three lives that are missing!” exclaimed Acosta, while showing photographs of her daughter and granddaughters.

Pajuelo, Yamile’s aunt, said “it is a wound that is always open.” April marked the sixth anniversary of their disappearance.

The disappearance of women is a serious problem in Peru that is linked to forms of gender-based violence such as femicide, human trafficking and sexual violence.

A report by the Ombudsman’s Office revealed that, of the 166 victims of femicide registered in 2019 at the national level, 16 had previously been reported as missing to the national police, that is, one in 10.

Last year, the number of women murdered for gender-related reasons in Peru totaled 146, according to that autonomous public agency.

The Peruvian Penal Code defines femicide “as the action of killing a woman because she is a woman, in any of the following contexts: domestic violence, sexual harassment, abuse of power, among others,” which does not limit the crime to sexist crimes committed by the victim’s partner or ex-partner, as in other legislations within and outside the Latin American region.

In addition to femicides in this South American country of 32 million people, there is the growing phenomenon of missing women as another expression of gender violence.

The Ombudsman’s Office reported that between January and September 2021, 4,463 women, adolescents and girls went missing. This represented a nine percent increase in relation to the same period in 2020, when there were 4,052 cases.

Jenny Pajuelo and Patricia Acosta hold posters of their missing loved ones. Pajuelo is the aunt of Yamile, who was eight months old when she disappeared along with her sister Tatiana and mother Estéfhanny Díaz. Acosta, a mother and grandmother, fights tirelessly for her family members to be found and not to remain on the growing list of missing women and girls in Peru. CREDIT: Mariela Jara/IPS

Erika Anchante, commissioner of the Ombudsman’s Office’s Women’s Rights section, told IPS that following its 2019 findings, the following year the Office began issuing the report “What happened to them?” to highlight the figures on disappearances and make the problem visible.

The last of these reports, published this June, underscored that in the first five months of 2022, 2,255 alerts on disappearances of women and girls were registered, with the aggravating factor that between March and May the number of cases of girls and adolescents reported missing increased.

“Unfortunately, the numbers are increasing every year, including during the pandemic, despite the restrictive measures that were taken in relation to circulation,” Anchante said.

She explained that the Ombudsman’s Office has issued several recommendations regarding improving the handling of complaints, training the personnel in charge of this process, and eliminating gender stereotypes faced by families, as well as myths such as waiting 24 or 72 hours.

“No, the complaints must be received immediately and dealt with in the same way, because the search must be launched under the presumption that the victim is alive. And the first few hours are crucial to be able to find them alive,” Anchante said.

A screenshot of the Women’s Rights commissioner in Peru’s Ombudsman’s Office, Erika Anchante, taken during her interview via videoconference. The institution has proposed eliminating gender stereotypes in the handling of cases of missing women, one of the causes that delay investigations. CREDIT: Mariela Jara/IPS

Improvements in the regulatory framework

In April, the Ministry of Women and Vulnerable Populations published a new regulation that includes the disappearance of women, children and adolescents as a new form of gender violence.

It thus took up the proposal of the Ombudsman’s Office and civil society institutions such as the Flora Tristán Center for Peruvian Women for compliance with General Recommendation No. 2 of the Committee of Experts on Missing Women and Girls in the Americas of the Follow-up Mechanism to the Belem do Para Convention (MESECVI).

This committee monitors the States Parties’ compliance with the Inter-American Convention on the Prevention, Punishment and Eradication of Violence against Women, approved for the countries of the Americas and also known as the Convention of Belém do Pará, after the Brazilian city where it was signed in 1994.

Commissioner Anchante said she hoped the new ministerial norm, which is incorporated into the regulations of the Law to Prevent, Punish and Eradicate Violence against Women and Family Members, would improve the procedures for dealing with cases of missing women.

Liz Meléndez, director of the feminist Flora Tristán Center, holds a small card that says “Búscalas” (Look for them) – the slogan of activists fighting against the disappearance of women in Peru. She provided support in the high-profile case of Solsiret Rodríguez, a young woman missing since 2016, who was found four years later to have been a victim of femicide. CREDIT: Courtesy of Liz Meléndez

Many stories of violence following disappearances

Liz Meléndez, director of the non-governmental Flora Tristán Center for Peruvian Women, said the ministerial norm will contribute to raising awareness about the disappearance of women as a form of violence. It will also promote policies to improve the process of searching for missing women and punishing those responsible.

“The treatment they have been receiving is evidence of how the gender stereotypes that prevail in Peruvian culture have caused the State to fail to comply with its obligations, such as acting with strict due diligence according to international human rights standards,” she said.

“This means that it must take effective and immediate measures in the first hours of the disappearance and implement the necessary actions for the search and investigation,” she argued.

Meléndez said that behind the cases of missing women there are many stories of violence, some linked to femicides and others to human trafficking and sexual violence.

The activist complained that the victims’ relatives suffer humiliation in their search process, especially in police stations, and that they suffer delays in the investigations.

The feminist institution has proposed specific protocols for the search for missing women and argues that the fact that a woman is missing should be considered an aggravating factor in cases of femicide.

This demand arose from the Flora Tristán Center’s involvement in the case of Solsiret Rodríguez, a university student, activist and mother of two who disappeared in August 2016, whose remains were found four years later after a tireless struggle by her parents and unceasing demands from feminist groups.

In the end, it came out that she had been killed the very night she disappeared.

In the living room of her home in the San Martin de Porres district of northern Lima, Rosario Aybar shows the photo of her daughter Solsiret Rodriguez, who disappeared in August 2016. Her tireless struggle with support from feminist activists ensured that the case was not shelved, the victim’s remains were found and those guilty of her death were convicted this June. CREDIT: Mariela Jara/IPS

Transforming pain into strength

Rosario Aybar, or Doña Charito as she is known, endured countless sexist comments when she and her husband reported the disappearance of their daughter Solsiret, who in 2016 was 23 years old.

“I was told by the police that, in their experience, women my daughter’s age leave because they are hot-headed, not to worry, that she would be back,” she told IPS during a meeting at her home.

She faced such comments on the long road she traveled knocking on the doors of the different police stations and the prosecutor’s office, fighting so that her daughter’s case would not be shelved.

Thanks to this persistence, the two people responsible for Solsiret’s femicide were sentenced to 30 and 28 years in prison, on Jun. 3.

The convicted couple were Kevin Villanueva, Solsiret’s brother-in-law (the brother of the father of her children), who received the longer sentence, and his girlfriend at the time Andrea Aguirre. During the years that the search went on they claimed they knew nothing about what had happened to Solsiret. But part of the victim’s remains were found in Aguirre’s home in February 2019, after her arrest.

“Behind a missing woman there is a lot of aggression,” said Aybar, with a sad sort of serenity. “And I will explain to you why. Because they try to make them disappear; without a body there is no crime. With my daughter they used a ‘combo’ (a construction tool, used to beat her), a knife…. it’s cruel, it’s very cruel, there is so much hatred.”

Now she has become an activist to bring visibility to the problem of missing women. “I have transformed my pain into strength, that enabled me to move forward, the support of so many young women, otherwise, what would have become of me,” she said.

Patricia Acosta, Estéfhanny’s mother, has also had to learn to live with something she never imagined: the disappearance of her daughter and granddaughters. “I live with sadness, but I must also have joy, I still have my son who was 13 years old when his sister disappeared. I can’t drag him into this grief.”

In the case of her daughter and granddaughters, neither she nor the authorities suspect the person who was her partner when they disappeared.

Like Aybar, she participates in the Missing Women Peru collective that supports families who are searching for daughters, sisters, sisters-in-law and other relatives, fighting to keep the authorities, society and the media from forgetting them.

“We do not want them to be invisible to the State, their lives were cut short and we do not know what happened to them, and it is a human right to find them. Now we have to continue searching for truth and justice,” said Pajuelo, who keeps alive the memory of her nieces Tatiana and Yamile. “They would have been 11 and six years old by now,” she says, looking at their photos.

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As Africa rebuilds following the pandemic, investment in the fight against malaria and NTDs will make healthcare systems more resilient and support longer-term pandemic preparedness. Credit: UNDP Kenya/James Ochweri

By Claude Mambo Muvunyi
KIGALI, Jun 22 2022 (IPS)

Since the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, healthcare systems globally have battled to deal with the repercussions unleashed by the disease. From the outset, Africa was considered particularly vulnerable due to several factors: limited healthcare provision in some areas, high prevalence of HIV and TB in a number of countries, and limited fiscal room to respond to the pandemic’s financial impacts.

Yet governments across the continent still managed to come together to respond to the pandemic with unprecedented speed. This was possible due to previous experience handling outbreaks such as Ebola, yellow fever and cholera, with systems put in place to deal with outbreaks. In many respects, Africa responded well.

The need for increased investment in healthcare has never been clearer. Prioritizing domestic health is one of the best investments African countries can make in themselves to secure the vision for a prosperous and peaceful continent

However, what began as a health crisis soon progressed into an economic crisis too. The pandemic tipped Africa into its first recession in 25 years. It increased extreme poverty on the continent for the first time in decades. Although African economies are slowly rebounding, the recovery is constrained by low vaccination rates, budget constraints, unequal access to external finance, and increasing debt vulnerabilities.

The need for increased investment in healthcare has never been clearer. Prioritizing domestic health is one of the best investments African countries can make in themselves to secure the vision for a prosperous and peaceful continent.

To achieve this, Africa must meet its health commitments as outlined in the United Nation’s Sustainable Development Goals. A critical focus is the elimination of malaria and neglected tropical diseases.

On June 23, Rwanda will host the Kigali Summit on Malaria and NTDs hosted by President Paul Kagame and co-convened by The RBM Partnership to End Malaria and Uniting to Combat NTDs.

The Summit is a signal moment to renew high-level commitments to end malaria and Neglected Tropical Diseases (NTDs) and unlock the potential for countries to build a healthier, safer world. Malaria and NTDs, a group of 20 communicable diseases most commonly affecting the most vulnerable people in the world, continue to thrive in areas of poverty, afflicting the lives and livelihoods of billions of people, a large majority in Africa. These diseases are preventable and treatable.

This year, Rwanda was WHO Certified for having eliminated Human African Trypanosomiasis (HAT), commonly referred to as sleeping sickness. To date, 45 countries have eliminated at least one NTD and 600 million people no longer require treatment for the group of diseases. Two decades of investments in combatting malaria have saved 10.6 million lives and prevented 1.7 billion cases, significantly reducing burdens on health systems worldwide.

In the last five years, Rwanda made progress in malaria response with a drop in malaria cases from 4.8 Million cases in 2017 to 1.1 Million in 2021, from eighteen thousands severe malaria in 2016 to two thousands in 2021 and from 700 deaths due to malaria to 69 in the same period.

As Africa rebuilds following the pandemic, investment in the fight against malaria and NTDs will make healthcare systems more resilient and support longer-term pandemic preparedness. Ending malaria and NTDs must be a central component of our response to COVID-19. The right combination of investment and innovation will in turn increase our capacity to prevent, detect and respond to future pandemics.

To achieve this, political will and leadership is needed. We know what we need to do. But we must unlock the potential for a malaria and NTD free world and improve the lives of millions. I have seen the central role that leadership plays. Rwanda is internationally recognized for its success in offering universal access to healthcare, thanks to political focus.

The Kigali Summit is a pivotal moment. With endemic countries at the forefront, civil society, the private sector and non-profit organisations must work together to ensure progress against these preventable diseases, especially as we learn from our response to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Governments must coordinate efforts from all stakeholders and partners, channelling them into one universal goal: building better healthcare systems across the continent.

What’s more, donor countries must meet their commitments in the fight against the disease burden. Prioritizing and mobilizing commitments including a fully resourced Global Fund this year is essential if we are to defeat HIV, TB and malaria, and ensure a healthier, safer and more equitable future for all.

As African countries continue to work to protect their populations against COVID-19, now must be the moment to prioritise investment in the elimination of malaria and NTDs, and to leverage that investment to protect against future threats and build stronger healthcare systems and healthier African populations.

Put simply, the future of Africa depends on its people. A healthy population can unlock stronger economic growth and deliver a better future for all.

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Prof. Claude Mambo Muvunyi is Director General of Rwanda Biomedical Centre