Africa

What does the Russian mercenary group's failed mutiny mean for its fighters in African countries?

A new mindset has helped propel a resurgent Zimbabwe into the final stage of World Cup qualifying.

A former logger is leading her community to help regrow Madagascar’s rainforest by swapping tree seeds for healthcare.

Anti-racism protesters in Brooklyn, New York, demonstrate demanding justice for the killing of African American, George Floyd. Credit: UN News/Shirin Yaseen

By Norman Solomon
SAN FRANCISCO, USA, Jun 27 2023 (IPS)

A recent Justice Department report concluded that “systemic” racial bias in the Minneapolis Police Department “made what happened to George Floyd possible.”

During the three years since a white police officer brutally murdered Floyd, nationwide discussions of systemic racism have extended well beyond focusing on law enforcement to also assess a range of other government functions.

But such scrutiny comes to a halt at the water’s edge — stopping short of probing whether racism has been a factor in U.S. military interventions overseas.

Hidden in plain sight is the fact that virtually all the people killed by U.S. firepower in the “war on terror” for more than two decades have been people of color. This notable fact goes unnoted within a country where — in sharp contrast — racial aspects of domestic policies and outcomes are ongoing topics of public discourse.

Certainly, the U.S. does not attack a country because people of color live there. But when people of color live there, it is politically easier for U.S. leaders to subject them to warfare — because of institutional racism and often-unconscious prejudices that are common in the United States.

Racial inequities and injustice are painfully apparent in domestic contexts, from police and courts to legislative bodies, financial systems and economic structures. A nation so profoundly affected by individual and structural racism at home is apt to be affected by such racism in its approach to war.

Many Americans recognize that racism holds significant sway over their society and many of its institutions. Yet the extensive political debates and media coverage devoted to U.S. foreign policy and military affairs rarely even mention — let alone explore the implications of — the reality that the several hundred thousand civilians killed directly in America’s “war on terror” have been almost entirely people of color.

The flip side of biases that facilitate public acceptance of making war on non-white people came to the fore when Russia invaded Ukraine in early 2022. News coverage included reporting that the war’s victims “have blue eyes and blond hair” and “look like us,” Los Angeles Times television critic Lorraine Ali noted.

“Writers who’d previously addressed conflicts in the Gulf region, often with a focus on geopolitical strategy and employing moral abstractions, appeared to be empathizing for the first time with the plight of civilians.”

Such empathy, all too often, is skewed by the race and ethnicity of those being killed. The Arab and Middle Eastern Journalists Association has deplored “the pervasive mentality in Western journalism of normalizing tragedy in parts of the world such as the Middle East, Africa, South Asia and Latin America. It dehumanizes and renders their experience with war as somehow normal and expected.”

Persisting today is a modern version of what W.E.B. Du Bois called, 120 years ago, “the problem of the color line — the relation of the darker to the lighter races.” Twenty-first century lineups of global power and geopolitical agendas have propelled the United States into seemingly endless warfare in countries where few white people live.

Racial, cultural and religious differences have made it far too easy for most Americans to think of the victims of U.S. war efforts in Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, Libya and elsewhere as “the other.”

Their suffering is much more likely to be viewed as merely regrettable or inconsequential rather than heart-rending or unacceptable. What Du Bois called “the problem of the color line” keeps empathy to a minimum.

“The history of U.S. wars in Asia, the Middle East, Africa and Latin America has exuded a stench of white supremacy, discounting the value of lives at the other end of U.S. bullets, bombs and missiles,” I concluded in my new book War Made Invisible. “Yet racial factors in war-making decisions get very little mention in U.S. media and virtually none in the political world of officials in Washington.”

At the same time, on the surface, Washington’s foreign policy can seem to be a model of interracial connection. Like presidents before him, Joe Biden has reached out to foreign leaders of different races, religions and cultures — as when he fist-bumped Saudi Arabia’s de facto ruler Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman at their summit a year ago, while discarding professed human-rights concerns in the process.

Overall, in America’s political and media realms, the people of color who’ve suffered from U.S. warfare abroad have been relegated to a kind of psychological apartheid — separate, unequal, and implicitly not of much importance.

And so, when the Pentagon’s forces kill them, systemic racism makes it less likely that Americans will actually care.

Norman Solomon is the national director of RootsAction.org and executive director of the Institute for Public Accuracy. He is the author of a dozen books including War Made Easy. His latest book, War Made Invisible: How America Hides the Human Toll of Its Military Machine, was published in June 2023 by The New Press.

IPS UN Bureau

 

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With the monsoon refugees in the cramped camps in Cox’s Bazar are expected to be impacted by an increase of dengue, which last year accounted for 1,283 cases in the Rohingya camps. Credit: Rafiqul Islam/IPS

By Rafiqul Islam
DHAKA, Jun 27 2023 (IPS)

With the monsoon in Bangladesh, Rohingya refugee camps in Cox’s Bazar have emerged as a dengue hotspot, with the mosquito-borne disease continuing to spread among the stateless refugees.

“A total of 1,066 dengue cases were reported in highly cramped refugee camps in Cox’s Bazar up to May 23 this year, while the case tally was only 426 among the local community there,” Dr Nazmul Islam, Director of Disease Control and Line of the Directorate General of Health Services (DGHS), said.

However, the latest data of the DGHS revealed that 1,283 people were infected with and 26 people died of dengue in the Rohingya camps and surrounding host community in Ukhiya and Teknaf upazilas of Cox’s Bazar from January 1 to June 6, 2023.

Nazmul said the dengue infection rate is highest in the Rohingya camps.

“Rohingya camps in Cox’s Bazar have the highest number of dengue patients. Last year, over 17,000 dengue patients were identified there. The number of dengue patients is so high this year, too,” he said.

Official data showed that dengue cases increased significantly in 2022 when the monsoon started. Experts fear the dengue situation will be more acute in the Rohingya camps during the monsoon this year.

Bangladesh witnessed its largest influx of Rohingya refugees in 2017 following a military crackdown in the Rakhine State of Myanmar. According to UNHCR, about 7,73,972 Rohingya people entered the country as refugees, totaling nearly 10 million with the previous influxes.

The forcibly displaced Rohingyas took shelter in overcrowded makeshift camps where they lacked access to civic amenities, including education, food, clean water, and proper sanitation, and also face natural disasters and infectious disease transmission.

“Most refugees have no adequate access to clean water, sanitary facilities, or healthcare. The monsoon season also poses a huge threat to thousands of Rohingya families living in makeshift shelters as dengue outbreak emerges in camps during the period,” said Ro Arfat, a Rohingya refugee.

Nazmul said Rohingya refugees live in a limited space in the camps where there is not enough scope to runoff rainwater, so stagnant water creates an enabling environment for the breeding Aedes mosquito, carrier of the dengue virus.

He said the risk of dengue infections climbs in densely populated areas. With the monsoon, the dengue situation could turn dangerous in the refugee camps.

Dr Iqbal Kabir, Professor and Director at the Climate Change and Health Promotion Unit, the Ministry of Health, Bangladesh, said in recent years, environmental changes have been markedly observed throughout the globe, and there is no exception in Bangladesh.

“The nature of the Aedes mosquito is that it must bite five humans to suck blood as per its demand, and an Aedes mosquito lays more than 200 eggs a time. Once they get suitable humidity and temperature, mosquito breeding occurs,” Kabir said.

He observed that dengue spreads very fast, but the authorities have not controlled dengue infections in the highly-crowded refugee camps in Cox’s Bazar.

During the monsoon, Bangladesh experiences spikes in dengue outbreaks. In 2022, 17 refugees died from dengue infections in Rohingya camps.

Despite having a high dengue infection rate in the camps, lack of awareness about the virus and the absence of prompt diagnosis of the disease make the Rohingya refugees more vulnerable.

“An Aedes mosquito can infect many within seconds, and keeping densely populated refugee camps safe from mosquitoes is really difficult. So there is a high possibility of a severe outbreak in the refugee camps,” said Mahbubur Rahman, Civil Surgeon, and Chief Health Officer for Cox’s Bazar.

Urgent Action Needed

The burden of dengue is related to the changes in rainfall patterns. The rainfall pattern has been changed. Pre-monsoon erratic rainfall is linked with the increase of vectors.

Unusual rainfall occurred in Cox’s Bazar area earlier this year, triggering dengue outbreaks in the camps.

Kabir said the dengue national guideline should be revisited to check dengue outbreaks across the country, including Rohingya camps.

He suggested launching a crash programme to prevent dengue infections in Rohingya camps; if clustering could be ensured, it would be easy to deal with the dengue situation there.

Golam Rabbani, head of BRAC’s Climate Bridge Fund, said the Bangladesh government should initiate research and increase the authorities’ capacity to tackle any future outbreak of dengue in the country.

He says the Department of Public Health and the DGHS should identify dengue as one of the most climate-sensitive diseases and improve their disease profile, suggesting the government initiate investment and policy interventions to address the dengue in Bangladesh.

IPS UN Bureau Report

 

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Credit: White House, September 2020
 
Ron DeSantis is considered Trump's biggest rival for the Republican presidential primaries. But for the Florida governor, it's a battle of unequal weapons

By Marco Bitschnau
NEUCHATEL, Switzerland, Jun 26 2023 (IPS)

It’s been seven months since Florida Governor Ron DeSantis celebrated a brilliant re-election victory in the midst of an otherwise mixed Republican midterm performance. He had come in with nearly 20 per cent more votes than Democrat Charlie Crist.

This was an almost surreally good result for a state that, until a few years ago, was considered a veritable swing state – and still is, according to many local media. His fabulous result made Florida’s already successful chief executive the man of the hour overnight.

Every smile, every gesture, every Caesar-like sweep of the crowd by the beaming victor seemed to say: here is someone who could actually challenge Donald Trump for the Republican presidential nomination in 2024. Someone who shares many of his strengths but few of his weaknesses.

A steep downward spiral

Today, these scenes seem like something from another world. Trump, who had basically been written off at one point, has now overtaken his opponent in almost all of the major opinion polls: most recently, Trump’s lead according to Quinnipiac was 31 percentage points, (33 at FOX News, 34 at Morning Consult and 42 at Harvard/Harris).

To some extent, the results are even more disastrous for DeSantis at the individual state level. In West Virginia, for example, a poll at the end of May saw him trailing behind Trump by a whopping 45 percentage points, with only 9 per cent thinking he was the right candidate.

Admittedly, even under the best of circumstances, the Harvard lawyer wouldn’t be a good fit for the coal mining towns of Appalachia. But falling below the 10 per cent mark should still wound his ego.

It is unclear what this rapid decline in pre-election popularity can be attributed to. On the one hand, of course, it seems possible that the mid-term election hype surrounding DeSantis was too great and that the situation is simply returning to normal.

On the other hand, it may relate to the criminal proceedings against Trump, his increased media presence as a result and an incipient nostalgia for his time in office. But there is a widespread view that the challenger himself is not entirely free of his own misery.

DeSantis’ presidential candidacy was announced comparatively late, the campaign launch with Twitter boss Elon Musk – in theory, an impressive idea – suffered from technical defects, and the narrative of the valiant fight against ‘wokeness’ also seems to be wearing thin these days. In this case, as so often in life, oversaturation creates frustration.

All the more so, as one should know how to abandon a topic if it threatens to bog down the discourse and to change the branding strategy – a skill that the governor, who tends toward micromanagement, evidently cannot claim as one of his strengths.

For example, when DeSantis threatened to take control of the 100-square-kilometre Reedy Creek Improvement District away from the media company Disney – which had publicly opposed a Florida anti-gay law – it initially went down well with an electorate that was already sceptical about such corporate privileges.

But then, the ensuing exchange of blows did not inspire an image of a confident leader. Instead of being celebrated as a winner, DeSantis escalated the conflict, which has since become a tangle of legal confusion and has led to a freeze on Disney’s investments in the state.

Even if the 44-year-old still gets the legal upper hand in the end, the scratches on his image as ‘a tough man of action’ cannot be glossed over so quickly. They also pose a big risk for him: the impression seems to be gaining ground that, despite all his shrewdness, he lacks a certain something – the assertiveness and the authority of his rival, who is still surrounded by a post-presidential aura.

And nowhere is this difference in image more evident than when Trump and DeSantis refer to each other.

While Trump has been touring the country for months, ranting about ‘Ron DeSanctimonious’ as a nobody ‘who needs a personality transplant’ and owes his success to him alone, people in the DeSantis camp are at a loss as to how to counter this strategy.

Some don’t want to get involved in a mudslinging contest where they can only lose against the Insulter-in-Chief. Others see the greater danger – too much restraint, following the old proverb that ‘the best defence is a good offence’.

Beating Trump at his own game

Trump’s own campaign history is, of course, the best example of how successful this second strategy can be: in 2016, with a deliberately hyper-aggressive manner, he managed to repudiate all of his competitors and redirect existing loyalties to himself.

This Trump was someone who savagely lashed out at his hapless predecessors, Mitt Romney and John McCain – and was enthusiastically acclaimed for it by people who had supported both.

He was someone who openly accused George W. Bush of ‘destabilising the Middle East’ and waging unjust wars – and was met with approval from people who had spent half their lives defending those same wars. Someone who wanted to turn the Grand Old Party into his personal electoral vehicle – and the more brazenly he pursued this goal, the more open doors he charged through.

According to this logic, Trump would have to be ‘out-Trumped’, so to speak, in order to knock him off his pedestal. He would have to be ridiculed, with doubt cast on his assertiveness. Ask him where the promised border wall went, why Mexico didn’t pay for it and why Chinese products are still flooding the US market.

Accuse him of being too soft on criminals and too hard on freedom-loving patriots. Call him a failure because he has proven incapable of carrying out the Make America Great Again agenda. In short: turn his own weapons against him. However, it is hardly to be expected that DeSantis, with his wait-and-see attitude, will rise to the task anytime soon. The fear of prematurely losing support among the Trump supporters who are still to be wooed is likely too great.

The Indian-born biotech entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy, who is also vying for the Republican nomination and enjoys the advantage of being able to throw his punches from outside the political field of vision, is more skilfull Although he greatly respects Trump, he recently went on record saying that Trump failed in his fight against the cartels and has kept very few of his promises: ‘I think I’m closer to Trump in 2015 than Trump today is to Trump in 2015.’

It’s not a bad move to position himself as an alternative for voters who want to make a distinction between personalities and political positions. It’s a strategy that was successful enough for the unknown Ramaswamy to now rank in the polls ahead of established party figures like Tim Scott and Nikki Haley, whose half-hearted campaigns – both of whom are obviously eyeing the vice presidency – are still struggling.

For DeSantis, whose options are more limited, it remains a fight with unequal weapons – and against time. In order to show that he actually has a real chance, he has to reverse the disastrous poll trend as soon as possible and unite a broad coalition of all those behind him, who have little interest in a third attempt by ex-President Trump.

This includes moderate Republicans who recognise a power-conscious pragmatist behind the rhetorical bombast, the old party establishment just waiting for the right opportunity to free itself from the Babylonian captivity of the last few years, but also various libertarians, evangelicals and grassroots conservatives from the orbit of former presidential aspirant Ted Cruz, who believed that Trump ruled in an overly dirigiste manner, or who don’t consider him sufficiently ideologically sound.

Forging and maintaining such a heterogeneous alliance requires not only political mobility and a strong ground game but also a bulging war chest – and at least in this respect, DeSantis seems capable of scoring.

Despite the botched start, his campaign raised a whopping $8.2 million within 24 hours of announcing his candidacy, while Trump has managed to raise only $9.5 million over the past six months. The fact that this man from the small town of Dunedin has won the hearts of so many donors is more than just a sign of encouragement.

Anyone who has sufficient financial resources on the hellishly expensive US primary election stage can also get through a dry spell here and there without having to fear direct operational collapse. And this much is certain: in his fight against Trump, the eternal comeback kid, DeSantis will need every penny.

Marco Bitschnau is pursuing a PhD in political sociology at the Swiss Forum for Migration and Population Studies (SFM) at the University of Neuchâtel and is a research associate at the Swiss National Science Foundation. His research focuses on migration, populism, democracy and the welfare state.

Source: International Politics and Society (IPS)-Journal published by the International Political Analysis Unit of the Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung, Hiroshimastrasse 28, D-10785 Berlin

IPS UN Bureau

 

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Hundreds of Sudanese are stuck at the border with Egypt, after the country reversed an exemption allowing women, children and elderly men to cross freely without a visa.

Perla Venegas is one of 1444 female bus drivers in the surface public transport network in Santiago, Chile, which aims at gender inclusion and offers job stability and shift flexibility compatible with family life. CREDIT: Orlando Milesi / IPS

By Orlando Milesi
SANTIAGO, Jun 26 2023 (IPS)

Sexual harassment and discrimination are daily realities for women on public transport in Chile and also an obstacle for plans to expand mass transit in order to reduce pollution in several cities in this South American country.

Santiago, the capital, is the most polluted city based on fine air particulate matter among the large Latin American cities, according to the World Air Quality Report 2022, ahead of Lima and Mexico City, while five other Chilean cities are among the 10 most polluted in South America.

Sexual harassment is the most visible form of discrimination against women in Chilean public transportation, in addition to insecurity due to poorly lit bus stops, inadequate buses, and more frequent trips at times when women are less likely to travel.

Personal accounts gathered by IPS also mentioned problems such as the constant theft of cell phones and the impossibility for young women to wear shorts or low-cut tops when traveling on buses or the subway, the backbone of Santiago’s public transportation system.

To address these problems, the Chilean government and the Santiago city government adopted gender strategies: they put in place special telephones to report harassers and thieves, began installing “panic buttons” and alarms at bus stops, and incorporated more women in driving and security.

“When I was younger I suffered a lot of harassment because I didn’t have the character to stand up to the harassers. Now that I am older, I am able to confront an aggressor without fear, even when he is harassing another person, whether a man or a woman. When I confront them, they run away,” Bernardita Azócar, 34, told IPS.

 

Bernardita Azócar, in a subway station in Santiago, Chile, heads to her job in a collection agency. She says she suffered sexual harassment on public transport in the capital when she was younger, but now she is more alert to any aggression and feels empowered to help others who suffer the same bad experience. CREDIT: Orlando Milesi / IPS

 

“It happened to me a couple of times when I was younger. They want to grope you or try to touch another girl and now I confront them. I suffer less because I’m more aware and I try not to put myself at risk,” she added during a dialogue at the University of Chile subway station in Santiago.

Azócar, who works for a collection company, said the root cause of harassment lies in education and in Chilean society.

“If you wear a miniskirt or show cleavage, society points the finger at you, as if you were provoking men and it was your fault. And I don’t think that’s why it happens. It’s abuse to be harassed in the public system…or anywhere else,” she said.

Maite, a humanities student at the Catholic University, feels that women are at a disadvantage on public transportation.

“When a woman takes a bus, she tends to sit next to the aisle to have an easier way to flee from any threat. Or she sits next to another woman so as not to travel alone. There are many things that women do that are not explicit. They are behaviors we learn, to get by on public transportation,” said the young woman who, like her friends, preferred not to give her last name.

According to Maite, “women can’t wear shorts or backpacks on the bus, or openly use a cell phone. Every time you get on the bus you have to take a lot of measures.”

Maite and four other classmates told IPS that they take a combination of buses and the subway to go to school and that none of them have suffered harassment on the bus, but they know of several cases that happened to their friends.

“If someone tries to touch me or crowd me too closely I don’t feel so safe,” said Elena, a commercial engineering student.

“A friend of mine had her cell phone stolen. I have not been harassed, but I would never go on the bus or subway in shorts even if I were dying of heat. I wear long pants because wearing shorts is a risk,” added Emilia, a psychology student.

 

The five university students in this group lament the discrimination women suffer on Chilean public transport and recognize that they have a “code of conduct” that they personally follow to avoid problems, such as not wearing shorts or miniskirts or showing cleavage, even in summertime, although it sometimes restricts their personal freedom. CREDIT: Orlando Milesi / IPS

 

The joys and pitfalls of being a female bus driver

Getting more people to use buses and other public transport in Chile, a long narrow country with a population of 19.8 million, is difficult because 71 percent of households own at least one car.

The incorporation of more female bus drivers is aimed at a friendlier mass transit system.

Perla Venegas, 34, has been working as a bus driver in Santiago’s public transportation system for six years.

“I like my job and driving. The most complicated thing is dealing with cyclists, pedestrians and passengers, who are never satisfied,” she told IPS while parked waiting to pull out on the corner of Santa Rosa and Alameda, in the heart of downtown Santiago.

Her route connects downtown Santiago with the municipality of Maipú, in the western outskirts of the capital.

“I’m on a par with the male drivers, but I’m more cautious, not so aggressive and I’m a more defensive driver. I have been complimented several times, especially by elderly people,” said Venegas, who lives with her two daughters, aged 16 and 8.

“I have female colleagues who have been hit and beaten. I received a death threat from a passenger because when the route ended he wouldn’t get off. He was a homeless drug addict. It was 5:30 AM. In the end I found a carabineros (police) patrol car and I turned him in,” she said.

She added that she has had both pleasant and negative experiences and acknowledged that she is proud that her eldest daughter also wants to be a bus driver “although I would not like her to experience the hard parts.”

 

The Santiago subway is the backbone of the mass transit system in the Chilean capital. It makes it possible to reach 23 of the 32 municipalities that encompass the capital and allows passengers to combine with a bus network to reach any point of the metropolitan region. CREDIT: Orlando Milesi / IPS

 

Staying alert in the subway, the main means of public transport

On the Santiago subway there are 2.3 million trips on working days. Its tracks cover 140 kilometers on six lines, with 136 stations in 23 of the 32 municipalities that comprise the metropolitan area. Greater Santiago is home to 7.1 million people.

An additional 2.1 million average daily trips are made on surface public transport.

According to official statistics, during the first five months of the year there were 21 pollution episodes in Santiago above the maximum standard level and eight environmental alerts for excess fine particulate matter, so increasing the use of public transport instead of private vehicles is considered a priority for the authorities.

Paulina del Campo, the subway’s sustainability manager, told IPS that gender issues are a strategic objective in this state-owned company.

“We have taken the issue of harassment very seriously. We do not have large numbers, but we do have moments like March 2022 when the issue was raised because of situations in the streets and in universities that included public transportation,” she said.

After meetings with authorities and student leaders, the subway increased the presence of female security guards at stations in the university district.

“One of the things they said is that in a situation of harassment it is much more comfortable to ask for help from a woman than from a man,” explained Del Campo.

The company thus hired a specific group of female guards to receive and respond to complaints.

“Qualified staff respond and are trained to provide support for the victims. We can quickly activate the protocols with the carabineros police. When it happens we can intercept the train and often arrest the people (aggressors) on the spot,” said Del Campo.

In another campaign, a standard methodology designed by international foundations with expertise in harassment was adapted to the situation in Chile.

At the same time, the subway increased its female staff and the number of women in leadership positions.

“Two years ago we had a female staff of around 20 percent and now, in May, 26.5 percent of the 4,400 subway workers are women. In the area of security guards we have a staff of approximately 700 and of these 110 are women,” explained the company’s Sustainability Manager.

 

These two women are security guards at the Plaza Egaña subway station, on line 6 in Chile’s capital. The state-owned Metro company is increasing the number of women in its services as part of a gender policy that even includes the maintenance of trains. CREDIT: Orlando Milesi / IPS

 

Gender policies in public transportation

The Metropolitan Public Transport Directorate (DTPM) informed IPS that it aims to reduce the male-female gap in public transport.

It also plans to increase the number of women bus drivers.

The Red system, with buses running throughout Santiago, currently employs 1,444 women – only 7.6 percent of all drivers.

“Many women who have entered this field come from highly precarious and unregulated jobs, so this opportunity has allowed them greater autonomy and, on many occasions, to leave violent environments and improve their self-confidence,” the DTPM stressed in response to questions from IPS.

“This has meant an effort to train and generate conditions to keep and promote women who are part of the system,” it added.

Origin-Destination Surveys reveal that women are the main users of public transport and 65 percent of trips for the purpose of caring for the home, children or other people are made by women. They are more likely to make multidirectional trips and in the so-called off-peak hours, with little traffic.

According to the DTPM, waiting for the bus is one of the most critical moments in every trip.

“This is why we installed the panic button at bus stops and real-time information on the arrival of buses to improve the perception of security,” it explained.

The information is available through an application on cell phones, while the panic buttons began as a women’s safety pilot plan in October 2022 at stops in one of the capital’s municipalities. The plan is to extend them to a large number of stops in Santiago.

Credit: United Nations

By Thalif Deen
UNITED NATIONS, Jun 26 2023 (IPS)

When the United Nations commemorated ‘International Day of Women in Diplomacy’ last week, the President of the General Assembly (PGA) Csaba Kőrösi rightly pointed out the woeful absence of women to hold that position in the UN hierarchy.

“Women have played a central role in the history of the United Nations ever since the signing of the UN Charter,” he said, “but out of the 78 people elected to my role, President of the General Assembly, only four have been women.”

So far, the only four women elected as PGAs in the 78-year history of the UN were: Vijaya Lakshmi Pandit from India (1953), Angie Brooks from Liberia (1969), Sheikha Haya Rashed Al-Khalifa from Bahrain (2006) and Maria Fernando Espinosa Garces from Ecuador (2018).

The 193-member General Assembly (GA) is described as the highest policy making body at the United Nations – and according to a longstanding diplomatic protocol, the PGA is virtually treated as head of state at international conferences.

At a dinner hosted by a UN ambassador years ago, one of the former women PGA’s told a group of reporters she was at a summit meeting of world leaders in a Middle Eastern capital where all the heads of state were, rightfully, accommodated in the front rows of the hall.

But she was deprived of that honor because she was a woman — and was offered a back row seat – in a country which did not obviously believe in gender empowerment.

“Gender parity?”, one of the journalists at the dinner table remarked, “it’s always a losing battle”.

Kőrösi told delegates only one in 4 Permanent Representatives (PRs) are women – “even if some of them are spearheading this session’s major, and very complicated, negotiation processes”.

He said the latest ‘Women in Diplomacy Index’ shows that, in 2023, only one fifth of all ambassadors in the world are women.

“I extend my gratitude to the women PRs for their strong leadership of some of the most challenging talks, including on the SDG Summit, Financing for Development, or Universal Health Coverage, just to mention a few.”

“In my own Office”, he said,” women account for two thirds of the team, with the same proportion in the management of the OPGA (Office of the President of the General Assembly).“

“For it is only by working together that we will achieve a sustainable future for both halves of humanity”.

According to a new report from the World Economic Forum it will take about 131 years for women to attain gender parity with men – and not until 2154.

Speaking during the commemoration of ‘International Day of Women in Diplomacy’, US Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield shared a little history.

She said: “US Ambassador Madeleine Albright (1993-97), who was our representative at the Security Council, told me that she created this group called the G7. And it was all of the women that I thought were on the Security Council and I was amazed that there were seven women at that time”.

“And so, I went to see her after I started here, and I said there are only five women on the Security Council now. And she said that’s fantastic – because I was the only woman on the Council (during 1993-97).

Her G7 were all the women in the General Assembly—seven out of 193 ambassadors.

“So, we have made progress. But there’s still more to be made. And I think as women, we are able to bring out those issues that really highlight and amplify women in the Security Council”.

“We ensure that there are women speakers who come to brief the Council. We ensure that issues related to Women, Peace, and Security are amplified in our discussions. And it’s not that men don’t always do it, but they don’t do it enough. As women we’re constantly aware and constantly looking for opportunities to raise women up,” she said.

According to the UN, women have been playing a crucial role in global governance since the drafting and signing of the United Nations Charter in 1945.

“Women and girls represent half of the world’s population and, therefore, also half of its potential. Women bring immense benefits to diplomacy. Their leadership styles, expertise and priorities broaden the scope of issues under consideration and the quality of outcomes”.

“Research shows that when women serve in cabinets and parliaments, they pass laws and policies that are better for ordinary people, the environment and social cohesion. Advancing measures to increase women’s participation in peace and political processes is vital to achieving women’s de facto equality in the context of entrenched discrimination”.

Out of the 193 Member States of the United Nations, only 34 women serve as elected Heads of State or Government.

“Whilst progress has been made in many countries, the global proportion of women in other levels of political office worldwide still has far to go: 21% of the world’s ministers, 26% of national parliamentarians, and 34% of elected seats of local government.”

According to a new UN report, at the current pace of progress, equal representation in parliament will not be achieved until 2062.

The UN General Assembly (UNGA) is the world’s largest yearly meeting of world leaders. While the UNGA has been the setting for several historic moments for gender equality, much has yet to be achieved regarding women’s representation and participation.

The 15-member UN Security Council has primary responsibility for the maintenance of international peace and security. “While women currently represent slightly over a third of the Security Council’s members — far higher than the average — it is still far from enough”, says the UN.

“Historically, diplomacy has been the preserve of men. Women have played a critical role in diplomacy for centuries, yet their contributions have often been overlooked. It’s time to recognize and celebrate the ways in which women are breaking barriers and making a difference in the field of diplomacy”.

At the UNGA’s 76th Session, the General Assembly by consensus declared the 24th of June each year to be the ‘International Day of Women in Diplomacy’.

By its resolution (A/RES/76/269), the Assembly invited all Member States, United Nations organizations, non-governmental groups, academic institutions and associations of women diplomats — where they exist — to observe the Day in a manner that each considers most appropriate, including through education and public awareness-raising.

According to UN Women:

• There are 31 countries where 34 women serve as Heads of State and/or Government as of January 2023.
• Of the five United Nations-led or co-led peace processes in 2021, two were led by women mediators, and all five consulted with civil society and were provided with gender expertise.
• In 2022, the Security Council held its first-ever formal meeting focusing on reprisals against women participating in peace and security processes.
• In multilateral disarmament forums, wide gaps persist in women’s participation and women remain grossly underrepresented in many weapons-related fields, including technical arms control – only 12 per cent of Ministers of Defense globally are women.
• Countries where there are more women in legislative and executive branches of government have less defense spending and more social spending.

Meanwhile, the Related “UN Observances” on Women include

• Gender equality
• International Women’s Day
• International Day of Women Judges
• International Day of the Girl Child
• International Day of Rural Women
• International Delegate’s Day
• International Day of Multilateralism and Diplomacy for Peace
• International Day of Women in Multilateralism
• Women Rise for All

IPS UN Bureau Report

 

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George Orwell's satirical novel has such resonance it has been translated into the local Shona language.

ECW Executive Director Yasmine Sherif launches the Multi-Year Resilience Programme in Yirol, South Sudan. The three-year programme, delivered by Save the Children, the Norwegian Refugee Council and Finn Church Aid, in close conjunction with the Ministry of General Education and Instruction and other partners, will reach at least 135,000 crisis-affected children and youth. Credit: ECW/Jiménez

By Joyce Chimbi
NAIROBI, Jun 24 2023 (IPS)

South Sudan is experiencing one of the most severe crises in the world today, causing fragility, instability, and economic stagnation. While a peace agreement was reached in 2018, sporadic intercommunal violence and climate-induced disasters continue to spur displacement. More than 2.2 million people are internally displaced. Another 2.3 million have fled to neighboring countries as refugees.

“South Sudan ranks the lowest on the human development index. It is the poorest country in the world and will need to catch up across all sustainable development goals and especially in areas such as eliminating extreme poverty, improving the education system, and gender equality. Yet, before COVID-19, 2.8 million children, and adolescents, or 70 percent of school-aged children, were not attending school. The number is now closer to 3 million,” ECW’s Executive Director Yasmine Sherif told IPS.

Sherif was on a field mission to South Sudan, where she met the President of South Sudan, Salva Kiir Mayardit, and Awut Deng Acuil, South Sudan’s Minister of General Education and Instruction, to assist immediate solutions to the education crisis in a country where only 13 percent of children transition to secondary school. For them, education and conflict are two sides of the same coin. Their joint mission is to ensure no child is left behind, especially in hard-to-reach areas such as Pibor and Abyei.

“Years of conflict and forced displacement, compounded by climate-induced disasters, have taken a heavy toll on South Sudan’s next generation. Now is the time to turn the tide and provide the most vulnerable girls and boys with the protection and hope that only a quality education offers. By working together with the Government, donors, civil society, and across the United Nations, this is the single best investment we can make for the future of this young country and the entire region,” said Sherif when she met with Ministry officials in Lakes State.

At least 135,000 children will benefit from the ECW’s Multi-Year Resilience Programme in South Sudan. Credit: ECW/Jiménez

ECW is the United Nations global fund for education in emergencies and protracted crises and has supported South Sudan with multi-year investment since 2020. To address these interconnected crises through the transformative power of education, President Kiir and Sherif announced USD 40 million in catalytic grant funding in a function attended by key stakeholders, including the governor of Lakes State, education officials, parents, and children.

From the Lakes State, the fund has launched its second and the largest ever multi-year investment amounting to USD 75 million and has secured two-thirds of that amount, which is USD 50 million. Of this, ECW contributed USD 40 million. The Global Partnership for Education provided another USD 10 million for Education. In addition to the new multi-year investment, ECW also announced a half-a-million dollar First Emergency Response grant to support the immediate education response to the arrivals of refugees and returnees fleeing Sudan.

“We appeal to government donors and the private sector to close the remaining gap of one-third, equivalent to USD 25 million, to fully fund a multi-year investment education program. We say five for five to fully fund the multi-year investment. If five strategic donor partners and private sector (partners) offered five million dollars each, we would have a fully funded multi-year resilience program in the education sector,” she says.

ECW funding in South Sudan now tops USD 72 million, up from the fund’s USD 32 million invested to date – reaching close to 140,000 children, built or rehabilitated over 160 classrooms and temporary learning spaces, and provided learning materials to 50,000 children thus far.

With the extended response multi-year response, children will continue to enjoy a quality, safe, inclusive education. Sherif says there is a special focus on children with disability, especially those with cognitive disabilities, an invisible problem that often goes unrecognized among children in developing countries.

Further stressing that the President and education ministries are fully committed to bringing girls back to school through progressive messaging to the community, policy, and law. The push to keep girls in school and out of reach of child marriages and early child pregnancies is unrelenting.

“The Government of South Sudan is fully committed to ensuring that all children are able to obtain a quality education. Education Cannot Wait’s top-up investment will provide life-saving educational opportunities for tens of thousands of crisis-affected girls and boys across the country,” said President Salva Kiir Mayardit.

“To advance this work, we are calling on world leaders to step up funding for ECW and its in-country partners. This is a critical investment in sustainable development, peace, and prosperity for the people of South Sudan and crisis-impacted children worldwide.”

Closer home, the current conflict in Sudan is fuelling additional needs in South Sudan. More than 100,000 people have crossed the border in recent weeks. Cornered by unrelenting multiple challenges, options for a better future shrink with every new challenge. Unmitigated, an entire generation of children could miss out on lifelong learning and earning opportunities.

“In light of the unfolding Sudan crisis, we will allocate and make an announcement of half a million dollars to support the Government of South Sudan to provide education to arrivals and returnees fleeing the Sudan conflict. Children and adolescents who were already going to school will continue to do so uninterrupted, have school meals, and psychosocial and mental health support,” Sherif said.

The new funding will extend ECW’s Multi-Year Resilience Programme in South Sudan for another three years. The three-year programme will be delivered by Save the Children, the Norwegian Refugee Council, and Finn Church Aid, in conjunction with the Ministry of General Education and Instruction and other partners.

It will reach at least 135,000 crisis-affected children and youth – including refugees, returnees, and host-community children – with holistic education supports that improve access to school, ensure quality learning, enhance inclusivity for girls and children with disabilities, and build resilience to future shocks.

Importantly, the new multi-year programme will improve responsiveness and resilience through improved evidence-based decision-making, strengthen coordination and meaningful engagement with local actors, and scale-up resource mobilization.

As the United Nations global fund for education in emergencies and protracted crises, ECW collaborates closely with governments, public and private donors, UN agencies, civil society organizations, and other humanitarian and development aid actors to increase efficiencies and end siloed responses.

ECW and its strategic partners are assessing the impacts of the civil war in Sudan on neighboring countries, including the Central African Republic, Chad, Ethiopia, and South Sudan, to provide agile and responsive investments that return crisis-impacted girls and boys to the safety and protection of quality learning environments. The fund urgently appeals to public and private sector donors for expanded support to reach more vulnerable children and youth.

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Lucineide Cordeiro loads manure from her two oxen and two calves into the "sertanejo" biodigester that produces biogas for cooking and biofertilizer for her varied crops on the one-hectare agroecological farm she manages on her own in the rural municipality of Afogados da Ingazeira, in the semiarid ecoregion of northeastern Brazil. CREDIT: Mario Osava / IPS

By Mario Osava
AFOGADOS DA INGAZEIRA, Brazil , Jun 24 2023 (IPS)

“The biodigester really gives a huge boost to those who have the courage to do things,” said Maria das Dores Alves da Silva, based on her own experience as a 63-year-old small farmer.

She did not hesitate to accept the offer of Diaconia, a social organization of Protestant churches in Brazil, to acquire the equipment to produce biogas on her farm in the rural area of Afogados da Ingazeira, a municipality of 38,000 people in the state of Pernambuco in the Northeast region of Brazil."We seek to promote energy, food and water autonomy to maintain more resilient agroecosystems, to coexist with climate change, strengthening community self-management with a special focus on the lives of women." -- Ita Porto

At first she did not have the cattle whose manure she needed to produce biogas, that enables her to save on liquefied petroleum gas, which costs 95 reais (20 dollars) for a 13-kg cylinder – a significant cost for poor families.

She brought manure from a neighboring farm that gave it to her for free, in an hour-long trip with her wheelbarrow, until she was able to buy her first cow and then another with loans from the state-owned Banco del Nordeste.

“Now I have more than enough manure,” she said happily as she welcomed IPS to her four-hectare farm where she and her husband have lived alone since their two children became independent.

Das Dores, as she is known, is an example among the 163 families who have benefited from the “sertanejos biodigesters” distributed by Diaconia in the sertão of Pajeú, a semiarid micro-region of 17 municipalities and 13,350 square kilometers in the center-north of Pernambuco.

Farmer Maria das Dores Alves da Silva stands between the manure pit and the “sertanejo” biodigester designed by Diaconia, a social organization of Protestant churches in Brazil, which has already installed 713 biogas production plants in eight of Brazil’s 26 states. CREDIT: Mario Osava / IPS

Biofertilizer

In addition to using the biogas, she sells the manure after it has been subjected to anaerobic biodigestion that extracts the gases – the so-called digestate, a biofertilizer that she packages in one-kilo plastic bags, after drying and shredding it.

Every Saturday, she sells 30 bags at the agroecological market in the town of Afogados da Ingazeira, the municipal seat. At two reais (40 cents) a bag, she earns an extra income of 60 reais (12.50 dollars), on top of her sales of the various sweet cakes she bakes at home, at a cost reduced by the biogas, and of the seedlings she also produces.

The seedlings provided her with a new business opportunity. “The customers asked me if I didn’t also have fertilizer,” she said. The biodigester produces enough fertilizer to sell at the market and to fertilize the farm’s crops of beans, corn, fruit trees, flowers and different vegetables.

This diversity is common in family farming in Brazil’s semiarid Northeast, but even more so in the agroecological techniques that have expanded in this territory of one million square kilometers in the northeastern interior of the country, which has an arid biome highly vulnerable to climate change, subject to frequent droughts, and where there are areas in the process of desertification.

The Pajeú river basin is the micro-region chosen by Diaconia as a priority for its social and environmental actions.

On Lucineide Cordeiro’s small farm, cotton, corn, sesame, sunflower, cassava and fruit trees are alternated in the fields, as recommended by agroecology, which is on the rise on family farms in Brazil’s semiarid Northeast, which is threatened by longer and more severe droughts due to the climate crisis. CREDIT: Mario Osava / IPS

Energy and food security

“We seek to promote energy, food and water autonomy to maintain more resilient agroecosystems, to coexist with climate change, strengthening community self-management with a special focus on the lives of women,” Ita Porto, Diaconia’s coordinator in the Pajeu ecoregion, told IPS.

“The production of biogas on a rural family scale fulfills the needs of energy for cooking, sanitary disposal and treatment of animal waste and reduction of deforestation, in addition to increasing food productivity, with organic fertilizer, while bolstering human health,” said the 48-year-old agronomist.

More than 713 units of the “sertanejo biodigester”, a model developed by Diaconia 15 years ago, have been installed in Brazil. In addition to the 163 in the sertão do Pajeú, there are 150 in the neighboring state of Rio Grande do Norte and another 400 distributed in six other Brazilian states, financed by the Caixa Econômica Federal, a government bank focused on social questions.

“Hopefully the government will make it a public policy, as it has already done with the rainwater harvesting tanks in the semarid Northeast,” said Porto.

More than 1.3 million rainwater harvesting tanks for drinking water have already been built, but some 350,000 are still needed to make them universal in rural areas, according to the Articulation of the Semi-Arid (Asa), a network of 3,000 social organizations that spearheaded the transformative program.

Maria Das Dores examines the biofertilizer that comes out of the biodigester, without the gases from the animal manure. She sells this by-product at the agroecological market in the town of Afogados da Ingazeira, the seat of the municipality where her four-hectare farm is located, which earns her an average extra income of 12.5 dollars a week. CREDIT: Mario Osava / IPS

The value of manure

“One cow is enough to produce the biogas consumed in our stove,” said Lucineide Cordeiro, on her one-hectare farm where she grows cotton, corn, sesame seeds and fruit, in an interconnected agroecological system, along with chickens, pigs and fish in a pond.

She also has two oxen and two calves, which she proudly showed to IPS during the visit to her farm.

“Pig manure produces biogas more quickly, but I don’t like the stench,” the 37-year-old farmer who is the director of Women’s Policies at the Afogados da Ingazeira Rural Workers Union told IPS.

The difference in the crops before and after fertilization by the biodigester by-product is remarkable, according to her and other farmers in the municipality.

She tends to her many crops on her own, although she is sometimes helped by friends, and has several pieces of equipment such as a brushcutter and a micro-tractor.

“It’s the best invention,” says Lucineide Cordeiro, as she shows IPS the seeder created by the Japanese for small-scale farming, which allows her to sow in half a day the land that used to take her two days to plant, on her one-hectare farm in Afogados da Ingazeira, in Brazil’s semiarid Northeast. CREDIT: Mario Osava / IPS

“But the seeder is the best invention that changed my life, it was invented by the Japanese. Planting the seeds, which used to take me two days of work, I can now do in half a day,” Cordeiro said.

The seeder is a small machine pushed by the farmer, with a wheel filled with seeds that has 12 nozzles that can be opened or closed, according to the distance needed to sow each seed.

The emergence of appropriate equipment for family farming is recent, in a sector that has favored large farmers in Brazil.

Female protagonism clashes with male chauvinist violence

For the success of local family farming, the support of the Pajeú Agroecological Association (Asap), of which Cordeiro is a member and a “multiplier”, as the women farmers who are an example to others of good practices are called, is important.

In family farming the empowerment of women stands out, which in many cases was a response to sexist violence or oppression.

Blue flames emerge from the burners of Maria Das Dores’ biogas stove at her home in Afogados da Ingazeira, in Brazil’s semiarid Northeast region. A single ox or cow produces enough manure to generate more biogas than a family requires for its domestic needs. CREDIT: Mario Osava / IPS

“The first violence I suffered was from my father who did not let me study. I only studied up to fourth grade of primary school, in the rural school. To continue, I would have had to go to the city, which my father did not allow. I got married to escape my father’s oppression,” said Cordeiro, who also separated from her first husband because he was violent.

After living in a big city with the father of her two daughters, she separated and returned to the countryside in 2019. “I was reborn” by becoming a farmer, she said, faced with the challenge of taking on that activity against the idea, even from her family, that a woman on her own could not possibly manage the demands of agricultural production.

Organic cotton, promoted and acquired in the region by Vert, a French-Brazilian company that produces footwear and clothing with organic inputs, has once again expanded in the Brazilian Northeast, after the crop was almost extinct due to the boll weevil plague in the 1990s.

In the case of Das Dores, a small, energetic, active woman, she has a good relationship with her husband, but she runs her own business initiatives. Thanks to what she earns she was able to buy a small pickup truck, but it is driven by her husband, who has a job but helps her on the farm in his free time.

“He drives because he refuses to teach me how, so I can’t go out alone with the vehicle and drive around everywhere,” she joked.

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A demonstration in the city of Córdoba, capital of the province of the same name in central Argentina, in favor of legal, safe and free abortion and women's rights. The color green has identified the movement in favor of the legalization of abortion, which was passed by Congress in late 2020. CREDIT: Catholics for Choice

By Daniel Gutman
BUENOS AIRES, Jun 23 2023 (IPS)

Viviana Mazur is a doctor at the Santojanni Hospital in Mataderos, a working-class neighborhood in Buenos Aires. She has witnessed the advances in women’s rights in Argentina, where until 2020 abortion was only allowed on two grounds, while it is now available on demand up to 14 weeks of pregnancy.

“Today what we see at the hospital is that most women come in for a consultation very early; in many cases they do so as soon as their period is late. This makes it possible to resolve almost all abortions with medication, in the woman’s own home, with medical advice and monitoring,” she said."(Medical abortion) is less traumatic and less risky for the woman and it's less costly for the public health system." -- Viviana Mazur

Mazur, who is also coordinator of Sexual Health in the Buenos Aires city government, said there are many advantages of medication abortion over the traditional surgical procedures.

“It’s less traumatic and less risky for the woman and it’s less costly for the public health system,” she told IPS.

In Argentina, as a result of years of struggle by the women’s rights movement, since January 2021 abortion has been decriminalized. In the last stage of the fight, mass demonstrations by women – and also men – wearing green headscarves, which has become a pro-choice symbol in Latin America, filled the streets.

Since then, Law 27,610 on Access to Voluntary Interruption of Pregnancy allows any woman to have an abortion up to the 14th week of pregnancy free of charge and without having to explain the reasons for her decision.

Until the law came into force, access was severely restricted: a Supreme Court ruling in effect since 2012 authorized what was called Legal Termination of Pregnancy, only in the case of rape or if the pregnancy endangered the woman’s life or health.

Argentina’s Minister of Health Carla Vizzotti (C) holds the green headscarf that is the symbol for the feminist movement that fought for the successful legalization of abortion in Argentina. CREDIT: Ministry of Health

More abortions recorded in 2022

In 2022, the first full year in which the law allowing abortion on demand was in force, 96,664 abortions were performed in the public health system of this South American country of 46 million inhabitants, according to official data. This marked a significant increase over 2021, when the total was 73,847, partly due to the rise in abortions in the public health system.

“More than 85 percent of abortions in 2022 were performed with medication,” Valeria Isla, the national director of Sexual and Reproductive Health, told IPS.
.
“The good news is that today these are safe practices taking place within the health system. In any case, since until recently most abortions were clandestine, we believe it is too early to draw conclusions with respect to the number. The figures have yet to stabilize,” she added.

Isla explained that her office provides training to health personnel from all over the country on how to perform abortions and that medications are distributed, as well as equipment for manual vacuum aspiration, which is a less risky medical procedure in a doctor’s office than dilation and curettage, which is performed in an operating room.

In this sense, since 2022 the incorporation of mifepristone into the Argentine health system, in addition to misoprostol, which has been used for years to perform medical abortions, has been a great step forward.

The combination of mifepristone and misoprostol, called “combipack”, makes abortions more efficient and less painful for women, and in fact the combination of these two drugs for pregnancy termination is one of the techniques recommended by the World Health Organization (WHO) since 2005.

Last year, the WHO ratified both as essential drugs for providing quality health services and backed their efficacy and safety for abortion.

Isla explained that since last year the national government has been distributing mifepristone in public hospitals thanks to a donation from the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA).

Since March of this year, mifepristone has been fully available also for the Argentine private health system, since the governmental National Administration of Medicines, Food and Medical Technology (Amnat) authorized its sale in pharmacies.

This has allowed the “combipack” to be used in recent months in the private health system as well, where women now also have easier access to abortion.

“The incorporation of mifepristone has been very important on a day-to-day basis to make abortion easier for women, because it means less misoprostol is used, side effects are reduced and the whole process can be carried out at home, with prior and subsequent checkups,” Florencia Grazzini, a social worker at a primary care clinic in the municipality of Lanús, on the outskirts of Buenos Aires, told IPS.

Grazzini began providing support to women who needed access to abortion long before the legalization of voluntary termination of pregnancy. She worked for years at the Kimelú counseling center, formed by feminist activists and serving the southern area of Greater Buenos Aires.

She said that while access to abortion has now been greatly facilitated, for some women termination of pregnancy is still a stigma.

“Despite the fact that with the law there is no need to gjve a reason for abortions up to 14 weeks of pregnancy, the justification for the decision continues to appear in the record of the consultations,” Grazzini pointed out.

She added that, “We are working so that people can share how they feel about their situation, but we don’t want them to feel that they need to explain in order to access an abortion.”

She said the women are told that they do not need to explain why they wish to have an abortion, although psychological assistance is provided to those who request it.

Abortion, however, sometimes encounters resistance from health professionals themselves. This was reflected in May, when the Ministry of Health updated the Protocol of Care and urged the “elimination of all requirements that are not clinically necessary for the safe practice of abortion.”

Specifically, it called for the elimination of waiting or reflection periods and the requirement of parental or partner consent.

A rally at the Ministry of Health in Buenos Aires, where feminist activists showed their green scarves and demonstrated in favor of women’s rights. CREDIT: Ministry of Health

The need for support

More data that shows that the legalization of abortion has not eliminated all the actual barriers is provided by Socorristas en Red (roughly, “Helpers Online Network”), a women’s organization that provides nationwide support for women who need an abortion.

In 2022, the network received 13,292 calls from women who wanted to terminate their pregnancies.

Only 10 percent of them had abortions in the public health system and the rest had abortions that they arranged elsewhere. The organization provided them with psychological assistance, information, instructions, WhatsApp messages, phone calls, and virtual and face-to-face company by “socorristas” or helpers. With all this they found greater comfort than in the health system.

This picture is completed by the visible inequality in access to abortion in different areas of the country.

Although the number of public hospitals and health centers that perform abortions reached 1793 in 2022 – against less than 1000 in 2021 – in some provinces the supply is very limited. For example, in the northern provinces of Santiago del Estero and Chaco there are only eight and nine health institutions, respectively, that perform abortions.

“In some places there is resistance from officials and a lack of knowledge among fellow workers about outpatient treatment with medications,” Ana Morillo, a social worker in the province of Córdoba, in the center of the country, told IPS.

Morillo, who is an activist and member of the Network of Professionals for Choice and the organization Catholics for Choice, said the advocacy work of the women’s rights movement has made Cordoba one of the provinces with the greatest access to abortion, since there are 180 hospitals and health centers that perform the procedure.

“The greatest inequalities are between cities and rural areas, where it is much more difficult to access an abortion. These are the disparities in the country on which we still have to work the hardest,” she said.

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