Africa

Credit: UNHCR

By Lori Silberman Brauner
TEANECK, New Jersey, Apr 26 2022 (IPS)

It was a long, harrowing road for Freshta and Shabaneh, two mothers (their names are pseudonyms) who fled Kabul, Afghanistan, late last summer before eventually settling in the southern New Jersey township of Hamilton.

Shabaneh, 30, the mother of three boys who was then between four and five months pregnant, recalls her flight out of Kabul’s Hamid Karzai International Airport on a U.S. army plane under less-than-optimal conditions.

Whatever seats had been in place had been removed from the plane to accommodate all the passengers, and she had no choice but to sit with her kids on plastic bags on the floor. “They were crying and I was nauseous,” she said through a translator. “I was feeling terrible.”

Freshta, 27, a medical student who fled the country with her husband and three kids, was then between two and three months pregnant. Before leaving, she had to pass through checkpoints manned by the Taliban, who questioned her paperwork, hassling her before she bravely told them: “Put your guns away, there are children here.”

The two families were among the more than 84,600 Afghan nationals, American citizens, and Lawful Permanent Residents who (as of Feb. 19) have arrived in the United States as part of Operation Allies Welcome, the coordinated federal government effort to support and resettle Afghan refugees — including those who worked on behalf of the United States — with more than 76,000 Afghan nationals having been resettled across the country, according to the Department of Homeland Security.

Both women’s husbands worked for American organizations, which enabled them to come to the United States on Special Immigrant Visas (SIVs): Shabaneh’s at a U.S. NGO, and Freshta’s at an American security company. Both women have parents and extended family left behind in Afghanistan, and requested pseudonyms to protect their well-being.

Through a translator, Sara Abasi, a volunteer ESL teacher who has been tutoring her, Shabaneh said that due to the Taliban takeover “our life was in danger,” so they decided to come to the United States.

The scariest moment before her departure was the morning, Aug. 15, when the Taliban took over Kabul; her husband was at work. “We couldn’t contact my husband,” as the Taliban had shut down the phone system. “I didn’t know if he was dead or alive.” He eventually returned home at 9 p.m. after walking for hours from his office.

Freshta’s family, it turns out, could have come to the U.S. in 2018 through the SIV program, but changed their minds because, as Abasi said, “they had a good life over there.”

But after last summer’s Taliban takeover, because of their connection to the U.S. government (her brother-in-law was also working for them), “their data was in the Taliban’s hands, so their lives were in danger.” Freshta, who had been training as a medical student in Kabul, then had two girls and a boy.

After Shabaneh’s family’s six-hour flight, they wound up at the Al Udeid Air Base in Doha, Qatar, where they spent 13 days before coming to the U.S. While “the food was great,” the living conditions were terrible, with no real beds or privacy, Shabaneh said. “We couldn’t sleep.”

It may have been even worse before her arrival — an Aug. 24 report in Axios detailed an email sent by supervisory special agent Colin Sullivan, an official at U.S. Central Command, to his colleagues titled “Dire conditions at Doha,” stating that the base, which had no air conditioning, was awash in loose feces and urine and infested with rats.

Following the revelation, the Pentagon told Axios it had taken concrete steps to improve conditions on the ground, including installing more than 100 toilets and offering 7,000 traditional Afghan meals three times a day.

The next stop for Shabaneh’s family was in the United States, at the Fort Bliss military installation outside of El Paso, Texas. There she had four or five prenatal check-ups and they had pillows and beds to sleep in, but conditions were still far from pleasant. The location had “very big bugs” — cockroaches — according to Lindsey Stephenson, another translator for the women. They grabbed the first resettlement opportunity they were offered, in New Jersey.

Freshta spent eight days in Qatar before coming to the U.S., and three months at the Fort Pickett military base in Virginia. As she tells it, “we didn’t have enough doctors,” only for emergencies, and it was difficult to eat the food while pregnant and nauseous — although she did have two ultrasounds to check on the baby’s health.

By the time conditions had improved, her family had left the base to be resettled in Hamilton, a large Trenton, NJ, suburb.

While the women were finally able to live in real housing, challenges remained for them in terms of accessing health care. Stephenson explained the women’s situation while having their initial post-base check-ups in New Jersey.

Noting that their resettlement agency had a contract with Eric B. Chandler Health Center, a community health center in New Brunswick affiliated with Robert Wood Johnson (RWJ) Medical School, she said that it was a good 45 minutes away. While pregnant women receive priority, it is still a hassle; and on top of that, “they don’t drive. They have to be driven… and guess what, their kids weren’t in school either.”

Shabaneh, who discretely nursed her two-month-old son while speaking in her apartment — as her kids, Freshta’s kids, and Stephenson’s kids noisily played around them — eventually gave birth at RWJ University Hospital. “They were really kind to me,” she said. From the beginning she chose to breastfeed, although she was offered formula as a feeding option.

Freshta also praised the care she received as a pregnant woman, noting that when she experienced a change in the baby’s movements, she instantly was told to come to the hospital — Capital Health in Hopewell, NJ — where she remained for 25 hours for evaluation.

Yet despite the quality care she received, she still prefers the Afghan medical system. “Our doctors in Afghanistan were more knowledgeable,” said Freshta, who spent considerable time working in a hospital setting as a medical student and could only look on while U.S. medical staff struggled to insert a needle in her arm for routine blood work. As Stephenson noted, “because of the lack of technology, then people actually have to be more skillful with their hands.”

Virtua Health Systems, which has five hospitals in southern NJ, and whose Mt. Holly location is just down the street from Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst — the military base where many of the Afghan refugees were housed after coming to the United States — saw some 123 births from this population and over 1,000 encounters “in triage,” said Pamela Gallus, RN, assistant vice president of patient care services, Virtua Mt. Holly Hospital. “And we really early on saw them for a lot of other things other than deliveries. We did a lot of their prenatal care when they first arrived.”

What kind of medical care had these women previously had in Afghanistan? “It was somewhat variable,” said Dr. Michelle Salvatore, medical director, OB/GYN Hospitalists at Virtua Mt. Holly. “Some of the patients had what we would consider regular physician prenatal care prior to coming.

I would say that was not the majority of patients. Many of the patients lived in remote places in Afghanistan and villages and…and hadn’t really had a lot of interface with health care…. So, this was a little bit of a different scenario as we were trying to provide more of a preventative care-type model for them.”

Asked about their physical conditions when they landed in the hospitals, Dr. Nicole Lamborne, Virtua’s vice president of clinical operations-women’s health, said that despite the “incredible amount of stress they were under… physically, I don’t think we saw too many issues of really malnourished [patients], just different nourished.”

While in general, they were thinner patients, “it actually reduces some of our obstetrical complications — they were much more used to walking places. So, I think physically, in a lot of ways, they’re healthier than some of the patients that we have in the United States.”

Afghan women demonstrated interesting cultural patterns for breastfeeding after giving birth. “Every one of them was seen by a lactation consultant,” said Gallus. While only about 40 out of some 120 patients breastfed exclusively, “there were only two or three who [exclusively] formula fed,” Gallus said.

“The rest of them all ‘combo fed,’ where they gave a little bit of formula and primarily breastfed, because that is their culture. But they often felt that until their milk was established…they wanted to be able to give the baby some form of nutrient.”

Does it really matter if a newborn gets just a few bottles of formula? While the milk of women who exclusively formula feed will eventually come in — “it’s just a better supply” if one exclusively breastfeeds, said Virtua Mt. Holly Lactation Consultant Shirley Donato, RN, acknowledging that “it’s helping the baby to learn how to breastfeed and things like that.”

The new moms “came in knowing about formula…I don’t know if they educated them on the base about their choices and to make sure they had formula if they were formula feeding, but they came in knowing that formula was an option,” Lamborne said. “They had formula on the base,” Gallus concurred.

There are recommended practices for the introduction of infant formula into humanitarian settings, said Hannah Tappis, DrPH, MPH, a senior technical adviser at Jhpiego, an affiliate of John Hopkins University, whose expertise focuses on maternal health in crisis situations.

“The best thing you can do for a lot of places is give cash — not to send your old things or to, you know, go to Costco and stock up on formula,” Tappis said. “The best thing to do is to donate to organizations that if that’s what they need they’ll purchase [it].”

But donating formula “in a more global context” is not recommended, she said. “And you know, that doesn’t mean small charities or church charities aren’t doing it. But certainly the big organizations wouldn’t accept it, and it would be generally discouraged.”

At least before the women left the army base, Virtua medical personnel tried to create an atmosphere most conducive to breastfeeding. “One of the things that we always do here is we do ‘skin to skin’ as soon as the baby is born, so we put the baby actually on the chest and the breast,” Gallus said. Virtua also facilitates full-time rooming in with the babies to facilitate bonding; there is no nursery per se where the babies are lined up by bassinets.

In the meantime, Freshta, who was nearing the end of her pregnancy during a reporter’s visit, gave birth to a healthy baby boy on April 6. Although she had had a C-section, according to Stephenson, she was ready to return home after just two nights in the hospital. She chose to breastfeed him.

Lori Silberman Brauner is an award-winning journalist, editor and freelance writer who most recently served as deputy managing editor at the New Jersey Jewish News. She received a B.A. in political science from Muhlenberg College; an M.A. in international affairs from Drew University; and an M.S. from the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism. She is a fellow in the International Center for Journalists’ Global Nutrition and Food Security program.

IPS UN Bureau

 

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Mr Musk, who made the shock bid just over a week ago, said he would "unlock" the social media firm's potential.

By Jomo Kwame Sundaram
KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia, Apr 26 2022 (IPS)

Curbing capital flight from developing countries is long overdue. New sanctions against Russian oligarchs show this can be done with the requisite political will. Recent research also shows how to more effectively stop capital flight.

Capital flight
Capital flight is widespread, with resource-rich countries more vulnerable. ‘Mis-invoicing’ exports and embezzling export earnings of state-owned mineral companies have been central to such wealth appropriation.

Capital flight is enabled, not only by national conditions, but also by transnational facilitators. Internationally, capital flight is aided by institutions and professional enablers such as bankers, lawyers, accountants and consultants.

Capital should flow to investments yielding the most returns. But economic theory suggests making more depends on appropriating what economists call ‘rents’. These rents may be secured by many means, legal or otherwise.

Developing countries – especially resource-rich economies – are generally more susceptible to abuse. Wealth buys power and influence, enabling further accumulation. Thus, in the real world, natural resource endowments become a curse – not a blessing.

Since the 1990s, the IMF’s sixth Article of Association – authorizing national capital controls – has been ‘flexibly reinterpreted’ by management and staff. Instead of protecting national economies, they have eased transborder capital flows – and flight.

To add insult to injury, advocates falsely claim that more capital will thus flow into, rather than out of developing countries. After all, conventional economic theory insists capital flows from ‘capital-rich’ to ‘capital-poor’ countries.

The reality of capital flowing ‘upstream’ – to rich countries – underscores how mainstream economic textbooks mislead. Clearly, the real world is very different from the one that such economists believe should exist.

Enabling illicit outflows
Unsurprisingly, the wealthy – especially the ‘crooked’ – want to keep their assets abroad – beyond the reach of national authorities, and rivals. As such wealth has often been acquired illicitly, owners want to protect themselves from investigation, prosecution and expropriation.

Capital flight is enabled by transnational financial networks with considerable influence. These involve global banks and financial institutions, auditors and accounting firms, tax lawyers and consulting firms for hire. Along with corporate executives and government officials, they facilitate capital flight, sharing in the spoils.

With both states and markets at their disposal, transnational financial networks successfully overcome national constraints. Prerogatives of national sovereignty are also abused to obscure their transactions and operations from surveillance.

Capital flight is enabled, even incentivized by national environments allowing the wealthy to surreptitiously sneak financial assets offshore. Instead of helping developing countries protect their meagre assets, international financial institutions have facilitated, even worsened the haemorrhage.

Elites influence the law and its enforcement, typically by employing enabling professionals and friendly legislators. After all, laws and governments are neither impartial nor efficient, constantly reshaped by influence, often connected to wealth. Hence, some illicit activities and wealth may be unlawful while others may not be.

National legal jurisdictions have been changed to ease cross-border flows. Rules, norms and practices have been changed to hide wealth transfers from national and international authorities, rules and regulations. Hence, natural resource endowments especially enable capital flight.

Such outflows may even be triply illicit – in terms of mode of acquisition, concealment from tax authorities, and transfer across borders. But not all illicitly transferred flight capital is illicitly acquired. Conversely, illicitly obtained wealth – ‘laundered’ before being transferred abroad legally – is not deemed capital flight.

Some capital flight involves legally acquired wealth illicitly transferred abroad. This may be reported as trade-related payments on the current account – not involving capital account transfers. They may thus bypass, or even contravene capital controls and foreign exchange regulations.

They strive to evade detection, prosecution, litigation, fines, charges and taxes by various revenue authorities. Illicit foreign exchange outflows secretly transferred abroad and not recorded in official national accounts may not be deemed illegal.

Hence, the volume and significance of capital flight estimates tend to be understated. Capital flight is easier from most developing economies – which have become more open in the last four decades with economic liberalization, often demanded by structural adjustment programmes.

Why stop capital flight?
Transnational corruption – across national borders – undermines governance and national resource mobilization needed to enhance productive investments. But many advocates of opening capital accounts justify capital flight by blaming it on allegedly predatory or incompetent governments.

The international financial system features enabling capital flight often also facilitate tax avoidance and evasion by the wealthy. Thus, capital flight doubly undermines domestic resource mobilization by leaching both investible and government resources.

Transborder capital flows avoid or minimize taxes paid, while hiding beneficiaries’ identities and wealth in secretive offshore tax havens. Government finances are also directly hit when externally borrowed funds, or state-owned enterprises and natural resources are embezzled.

Worse, government or public foreign debt has often been abused to directly finance capital flight. Meanwhile, illicit offshore flight capital goes untaxed. This shifts the tax burden to the middle class and domestic businesses unable to sneak their assets abroad, or to otherwise avoid revenue authorities.

Many developing countries continue to suffer significant resource outflows, largely due to illicit capital flight. On the trail of capital flight from Africa: The Takers and the Enablers – edited by Leonce Ndikumana and James Boyce – studies this blight in sub-Saharan Africa. The world has much to learn from their forensic analysis.

The volume estimates haemorrhage from African countries since 1970 at US$2 trillion! Of this, almost 30% has been lost in the 21st century. Adding interest, cumulative offshore assets were US$2.4 trillion by 2018 – more than thrice Africa’s external debt!

The West’s piecemeal approach to sanctions targeting individuals is recognized as costly, time-consuming and ineffectual. Instead, the editors recommend a pre-emptive, across-the-board effort to undermine transnational networks enabling illicit financial flows. This should begin with closing financial system loopholes.

IPS UN Bureau

 

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Crossing the Rio Cobre, at a crossing at Tulloch, St Catherine. Water from the Rio Cobre is diverted to the artificial recharge system at Innswood. Credit: Zadie Neufville/IPS

By Zadie Neufville
Kingston, Jamaica, Apr 26 2022 (IPS)

It will take billions of dollars and many years to fix a growing problem that has placed Jamaica into the unlikely bracket of being among the world’s most water-scarce countries due to the unavailability of potable water.

The worsening water crisis of the Kingston and St Andrew (KMA) metropolis results in rationing for months in some years. The lock-offs are exacerbated by droughts, broken pumps and the crumbling pipelines making up the water distribution system. At the same time, in the aquifers below the capital city, more than 104.3 million cubic meters of water, or about 60 percent of the available resource, remained unusable due to pollution.

A 2020 study, Groundwater Availability and Security in the Kingston Basin, found that high levels of nitrates in the city’s main aquifer were making the water unusable for domestic purposes. The study conducted by researchers at the University of the West Indies (UWI), Mona Campus’ Departments of Chemistry and Geology and Geography, pointed to the contamination by effluent from the septic and absorption pits that litter the city’s landscape and saline intrusion from over-pumping as the cause of the pollution.

Lead researcher Arpita Mandal told IPS via email that the two-year study, which started in 2018, showed no “significant change” in the levels of chloride and nitrates during the period, noting: “The historic data is patchy, but the chloride and nitrate levels have always shown high above the permissible limits”.

The report concluded that there is an urgent need to address the continued contamination of the Kingston Basin, but Debbie-Ann Gordon Smith, the lead chemist in the study, noted that the cleaning process would be extremely lengthy and costly.

According to the study, many of the wells across KSA were decommissioned because between 50 and 80 per cent of the effluent from absorption pits and septic tanks goes directly into the ground. The report said the same was true for many Caribbean Islands, including Barbados, Antigua and Barbuda, and Grenada.

Noting the concerns for the quality and quantity of water in the aquifers of the KSA, the managing director of the Water Resources Authority (WRA) Peter Clarke pointed to the existence of several working wells in use by companies that treat the water to potable standards for industrial use.

He said that while the contamination from “200 years of pit latrines” (in KSA) continues to cause concern, “the hardscaping of car parks and roofs” means there is less water available to recharge the aquifer. Therefore, to preserve the continued viability of the aquifer, the WRA, Jamaica’s water management and regulatory body, is preparing to put a moratorium on new wells.

Clarke is confident that the island has enough water and reserves of the precious liquid for decades to come. He noted, however, that in Jamaica’s case, it is the distribution and access that makes water a scarce commodity in some areas.
“It is where the people are, where water is distributed, and access to the water that is important,” he said.

In 2015 the state-owned domestic distribution agency, the National Water Commission (NWC), announced an extensive 15 million US dollar programme to refurbish Kingston’s ageing distribution network. The programme included decontamination and recovery of old wells, decommissioning old sewage plants, and rehabilitation of water storage facilities.

In the process, the water company mended 40,000 leaks, which back then were reportedly costing the city 50 percent of the potable water it produced. They also replaced the ageing pipelines installed before the country’s independence in 1962. The programme continues with the replacement and installation of hundreds of miles and pipelines.

Clarke explained that Jamaica’s groundwater supply is three to four times greater than that which runs to the sea via the island’s 120 rivers and their networks of streams and provides 85 per cent of potable needs. Jamaica uses roughly 25 per cent of its available groundwater resources and 11 per cent of its accessible surface water.

To satisfy the growing demand in the KMA, Clarke said, the Ministry of Economic Growth and Job Creation is considering a new treatment plant in St Catherine among its planned and existing solutions. In 2016, an artificial groundwater recharge system was built at the cost of just over 1 billion Jamaican dollars or 133 million US dollars, on 68 acres (27.5 hectares) of what was once cane-lands in Innswood, St Catherine, to replenish the wells that supply the most populated areas of the metropolis and surrounding areas.

The system currently injects an extra five million gallons of potable water per day to replenish abstractions from the supply wells. The Ministry of Local Government and Rural Development announced last month that it is considering similar systems to store excess water for use in times of drought and to reduce evaporation from surface systems like reservoirs and dams in other water-stressed areas of the island,

Both Gordon Smith and Mandal agree that Kingston’s water shortage is worsened by climate variations, increased urbanisation, and the inadequate management of existing resources. In the last few years, a construction boom in the KMA has transformed the KMA, placing increased pressure on the available water supply.

The UWI’s Climate Research Group has warned of increased temperature and extremes in rainfall and droughts. Based on the 6th Assessment Report (AR6) of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the Group warned Caribbean governments to brace for more prolonged and more intense droughts and higher temperatures that will impact, among other things, food production and water supplies.

In the case of the KSA, the NWC has continued to build and upgrade the city’s sewage treatment capacity in the areas affected to end sewage and wastewater contamination of the aquifer. Hopefully, the aquifer will naturally flush itself when the work is complete.

“Jamaica is not short of water,” Clark said. “It’s a distribution issue”.

IPS UN Bureau Report

 

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Many French people were left disappointed by the options in the presidential run-off.

Members of the “We are half; we want parity without harassment!” campaign stand outside Congress in Peru in 2018, in a demonstration advocating laws such as the one passed in 2020 on parity in political participation or the 2021 law that combats harassment and violence against women politicians. Spokesperson Elizabeth Herrera holds one side of the poster on the far right in the top row. CREDIT: Courtesy of the campaign

By Mariela Jara
LIMA, Apr 25 2022 (IPS)

Women entering the political arena in Peru face multiple obstacles due to gender discrimination that hinders their equal participation, which can even reach the extreme of political harassment and bullying, in an attempt to force them out of the public sphere.

“Women elected officials at the regional or municipal level only last one four-year term,” Elizabeth Herrera, spokeswoman for the “We are half, we want parity without harassment!“ campaign, told IPS in an interview. “After that, they’re not interested anymore, they feel that the system has expelled them.”

The campaign is a civil society initiative promoted by feminist organizations such as the Manuela Ramos Movement and the Flora Tristán Center in alliance with the National Network of Women Authorities (Renama), which has been a driving force for important advances for women’s political participation without discrimination, such as the Parity and Alternation Law, in force since July 2020.

Herrera, a 36-year-old political scientist, said women in politics face a number of hurdles. “They don’t give you the floor, they slander you, they attack you on social networks, there is physical and even sexual violence, which leads you to say, I don’t want to be here anymore, what’s the point,” she said.

A report by the National Jury of Elections – the country’s electoral authority – found that 47 percent of women experienced political harassment in Peru’s presidential and legislative elections in 2021, while in the last regional and municipal elections, in 2018, the percentage was 69.6 percent.

The harassment and bullying come from both within the same party and from other parties. “If you are a female authority, the adversaries seek to expel you from the decision-making spaces, they do not want to see us there, as historically we have not been present; they tell us that it is not for us,” Herrera said.

She added that many fellow party members also harass their women colleagues, to prevent them from competing for positions in the organization or for candidacies.

“We have seen cases in which documents are hidden from them, they are insulted, and this comes on top of the online harassment through the social networks, which is brutal,” she said.

She mentioned the case of a woman authority in the Puno region, in Peru’s southern Andes highlands, who feels terrible guilt because she believes that her son took his own life due to the systematic harassment against her.

The pressure suffered by the women is so great that the campaign must request their authorization to make their cases public. “Not all of them want to speak out because of the intimidation and harassment from the members of their own parties,” she said.

Peruvian women make up half of the population and the electorate but are underrepresented politically and in elected office. Meanwhile, those who decide to participate in politics endure a combination of discrimination and harassment aimed at driving them out of politics. The photo shows protesters in Lima holding a national flag, demanding greater female participation. CREDIT: Mariela Jara/IPS

A model for drafting regional legislation

In 2017, the Inter-American Commission of Women (CIM) provided a model draft law on political violence against women in the Latin American and Caribbean region.

It described such violence as “any action, conduct or omission, carried out directly or through third parties that, based on gender, causes harm or suffering to a woman or to various women, which has the effect or purpose of impairing or nullifying the recognition, enjoyment or exercise by women of their political rights.”

It stated that the violence can be physical, sexual, psychological, moral, economic or symbolic.

The proposal raised the urgent need for governments to act on the problem, since eliminating violence against women in political life is a condition for democracy and governance in the region.

Previously, the hemispheric declaration on Violence and Political Harassment against Women, adopted in 2015, had made it clear that achieving political parity required not only electoral quotas but also guaranteeing conditions for women to exercise their right to equal participation.

Strides made in Peru

In Peru, women’s rights organizations helped pushed through the first laws on gender quotas for electoral lists, which were passed in 1997, while progress was made towards the new law on parity and alternation approved in 2020.

The 2020 law contributed to the fact that in the 2021 congressional elections, women gained 35 percent of the seats in the single chamber legislature: 47 out of 130.

In the next municipal and regional elections, on Oct. 9, the law is expected to increase the scant presence of women, who despite making up half of the population and the electorate, are represented in a much smaller proportion.

There are two statistics that graphically reflect the discrimination and inequality suffered by women in politics: in the previous regional and municipal elections, in 2018, only one percent of mayors elected were women, and no female governors were elected in the 24 departments into which this Andean country of 33.5 million inhabitants is divided.

Rocio Pereyra hopes to become mayor of Pueblo Libre, a municipality on the outskirts of Lima. Showing the symbol of female power, she poses in front of the former home of Manuela Saenz, a libertarian woman who contributed to the cause of Peruvian independence and broke down gender stereotypes. “She is an inspiration to me,” says the pre-candidate for mayor in Peru’s October municipal and regional elections. CREDIT: Mariela Jara/IPS

A case in point

Rocio Pereyra, 33, is a pre-candidate for mayor for Pueblo Libre, one of the 43 municipalities that make up the metropolitan area of Lima. She will participate in the internal elections of her party, the center-left coalition Juntos por el Perú (Together for Peru), to try to win the candidacy in the October elections.

“I am leading a team that wants to bring about major changes in the district, that seeks the integral development and welfare of the local residents,” she told IPS.

In an interview in the district’s central square – where historical national independence figures such as Simón Bolívar, José de San Martín and Manuela Sáenz once converged – Pereyra stated that the low participation of women in politics has several causes, but all of them are related to discrimination and gender violence.

“We face a series of limitations that prevent us from considering ourselves one hundred percent autonomous. If you are facing violence at home or abuse from your partner, or if you do not have economic independence, it will be much more difficult for you to access spaces for political participation,” she said.

In the public sphere, Pereyra said, women are not yet recognized as equals, and are told: this is not your place, go home, do the housework, stay in the private sphere.

She said that an attempt is made to drive them out of politics by means of harassment, bullying, discrediting, invalidating their opinion and their professional, labor and political careers. “And these situations are experienced by many women when they exercise their oversight function and denounce acts of corruption,” she added.

“The message they want to send us is clear: That we better not participate in politics, because they can even mess with your family, with your children,” Pereyra said.

“Obviously women will feel even more vulnerable and will feel that they must protect their homes. So that reinforces the gender role that has been socially assigned to us. It is very pernicious,” she said.

Pereyra herself has often experienced discrimination.

“On one occasion a journalist in the district insinuated that I was involved in politics because I had a romantic relationship with a candidate,” she cited as an example.

And recently, she said, “within my own party as a pre-candidate, my interlocutor never looked at me when I spoke, but at a male colleague. Even though I was the leader, he did not speak to me.”

“Gestures can also be violent. I felt so impotent and I wanted to leave, but I said to myself, no! I’m staying and I will demonstrate my political capacity, with my actions,” Pereyra said.

“Closed. This party doesn’t care about women,” reads a banner held by a group of women demonstrators in the Peruvian capital in front of the headquarters of one of the political parties that violates the laws on gender parity in political participation. CREDIT: Mariela Jara/IPS

A new law should help

Law 31155, which prevents and punishes harassment against women in political life, has been in force since April 2021, promoted by the “We Are Half” campaign and which includes the tenets laid out by the CIM.

Herrera, the campaign spokeswoman, said that within this framework, political organizations are required to establish standards for how to address and punish these cases. “It is up to us now to monitor compliance,” she added.

In Pereyra’s view, the country will not change by decree and she argues that laws are not enough, and that what is needed is a cultural change based on education that contributes to generating gender equality and non-discrimination, and eradicates “machismo” and sexism from the political sphere.

As for the performance of women authorities or congresswomen, she raised the need for a feminist agenda.

“We do not go into politics to be an ornament or to echo what men say, but to bring up issues that affect us. The basis of democracy is equality and freedom, and this will not be possible if our rights are restricted. Our presence and feminist agenda will contribute to deepening democracy and to bringing to life the promise of a truly fair and egalitarian country,” she said.

The regional office of the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) highlighted in a publication in March that the unequal distribution of power in politics undermines the effectiveness of governance in Latin America and the Caribbean.

It pointed out that despite the advances in legislation, only 19 of the 46 countries and territories in the region achieved gender parity at some point in the last 20 years, while only five achieved it at the ministerial level, two in national parliaments and one in municipalities.

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The worldwide degradation, fragmentation, and destruction of ecosystems are accelerating and generating serious consequences for flora, fauna and human well-being. Credit: Guillermo Flores/IPS

By Joseph Chamie
PORTLAND, USA, Apr 25 2022 (IPS)

Since the first Earth Day observed on 22 April 1970, world conditions have worsened greatly across three critically interrelated global dimensions that portend a disastrous future for life on planet Earth.

First, CLIMATE CHANGE is certainly the most worrisome threat to human security. The scientific evidence clearly demonstrates that climate change is a threat to the well-being of humans and the planet.

Global warming is resulting in unstable life-threatening changes in the planet’s climate and living conditions. Those cataclysmic changes are the consequence of human populations-caused atmospheric carbon pollution primarily due to the burning of fossil fuels.

Unfortunately, the response of world leaders to climate change has largely been the Climate Change Shuffle: deny, delay, and then do little. In brief, the international community of nations is witnessing the abdication of leadership by the major countries of the world.

Some have concluded that the world is in the midst of a human-caused extinction event. Many of the impacts of global warming are undeniable and are now considered as simply irreversible.

The ten warmest years on record have happened since 2005. In addition, 2020 was the second warmest year on record, being just 0.02 degrees Celsius less than the warmest year in 2016.

The 2020 world surface temperature averaged across land and ocean was 0.98 degrees Celsius warmer than the 20th century average of 13.90 Celsius. Also, the 2020 average was 1.19 Celsius warmer the pre-industrial period of 1880-1990 of 13.69 Celsius (Figure 1).

 

Source: Climate.gov.

 

The goal to limit global warming to well below the Paris Agreement rise of 2 degrees Celsius, or preferably to 1.5 degrees Celsius, compared to pre-industrial levels is considered a losing battle.

In addition to the lack of global leadership, cooperation and enforceable objectives with explicit timetables, world leaders continue to sell out to wealthy interests and corporations that push for promised techno-fixes.

Second, WORLD POPULATION, which grew at record high rates during the 20th century, continues to grow and is greatly impacting all living organisms and natural resources on the planet.

Between 1920 and 2020, the population of the world quadrupled, increasing from 1.9 billion to 7.8 billion people. Moreover, since the first Earth Day fifty-two years ago, the human population on the planet has more than doubled, growing from 3.7 billion to nearly 8 billion today and is expected to add another 2 billion people by 2070 (Figure 2).

 

Source: United Nations.

 

Despite planet Earth reaching 8,000,000,000 human beings, countries continue to resist population stabilization and reductions. Many government officials, economic advisors, businesses, mainstream media, and others frequently lament population slowdowns and call for more demographic growth, particularly through increased birth rates.

Environmental degradation coupled with climate change is increasingly fueling mass human migration. Growing numbers of men, women and children are moving domestically and internationally to escape difficult living conditions

In addition, human migration is at record levels and greatly impacting nations worldwide. The global number of immigrants has reached a high of around 281 million, with more than 84 million people displaced from their homes and more than 30 million refugees. In addition, millions of men, women, and children continue to attempt illegal migration.

Today’s enormous human mobility has resulted in the Great Migration Clash. The Clash is a worldwide struggle between those who desperately want out of their countries and those who vehemently want to keep others out of their countries.

More than a billion people, largely in poor and violence ridden countries, would like to move permanently to another country. At the same time, no less than a billion people, mainly in wealthy developed countries, say fewer immigrants should be allowed to enter.

Immigration is a top concern of voters in most migrant-receiving countries, with many concerned about the effects of immigration on their society and culture. Most migrant-destination countries are turning to border walls, barriers and patrols, repatriating those unlawfully resident, resisting accepting refugees and denying most asylum claims.

In addition, as the demand for migrants is a small fraction of the supply of people wishing to migrate, illegal immigration continues to be a major global challenge. The increased migration, particularly illegal migration, is contributing to the rise of right-wing populist and nativist parties.

Anti-immigrant sentiment has also spread to include refugees and asylum seekers. Many country policies to stem illegal immigration are undermining the established international rights and protections granted to refugees and asylum seekers.

Third, ENVIRONMENTAL DEGRADATION is also critically altering conditions for all living organisms across the planet. The worldwide degradation, fragmentation, and destruction of ecosystems are accelerating and generating serious consequences for flora, fauna and human well-being.

The worsening conditions across land, sea, and air have been brought about by the unsustainable numbers of humans and their ongoing damaging behavior. The extraction of oil, gas, coal, and water, the logging, mining, fishing hunting, and the ever-increasing needs and demands of 8,000,000,000 humans have ruined large areas of planet Earth.

The degradation of environment includes reduced biodiversity, deforestation, depletion of natural resources, deteriorating ecosystems, and pollution. Since the first Earth Day in 1970, the planet has experienced a catastrophic decline in global wildlife populations and the natural environment is continuing to be destroyed by humans at an unprecedented rate.

During the past five decades, for example, the world experienced an average 68 percent drop in monitored vertebrate species, i.e., mammals, birds, amphibians, reptiles, and fish. In addition, the decline in monitored vertebrate species over the past half century varied considerably by major region from a low of 24 percent in Europe and Central Asia to a high of 94 percent in Latin America and the Caribbean (Figure 3).

 

Source: World Wildlife Fund, based on 20,811 populations of 4,392 species (mammals, birds, amphibians, reptiles, and fish).

 

Biodiversity loss has largely been the result of habitat destruction due to unsustainable agriculture and logging, the continuing ruin of grasslands, forests, and wetlands, and the overexploitation of fish, mammals and natural resources. In the coming years the biggest driver of further biodiversity loss is expected to be human-induced climate change.

In addition, environmental degradation coupled with climate change is increasingly fueling mass human migration. Growing numbers of men, women and children are moving domestically and internationally to escape difficult living conditions. Those changing conditions include prolonged drought, excessive heat, rising sea levels, large-scale flooding, extreme wildfires, dying coral reefs, violent storms, and weather-produced disasters.

What needs to be done today to address climate change, world population, and environmental degradation, are not secrets, unknowns, or recent discoveries.

Over the past decades, scientists, environmental organizations, international agencies, intergovernmental panels, and many others have repeatedly warned world leaders about climate change, world population and environmental degradation. In addition, they have clearly spelled out the immediate steps required to address those critical issues.

Briefly, among those steps are: (1) adoption of energy efficiency and conservation practices and the replacement of fossil fuels with low-carbon renewables; (2) reduction of emissions of short-lived climate pollutants; (3) protection and restoration of the planet’s ecosystems; (4) shift from consumption of animal products to diets of mostly plant-based foods; (5) transition from emphasis on GDP growth toward sustaining ecosystems; and (6) the stabilization of world population, and ideally a gradual reduction, within a framework ensuring social integrity.

Unfortunately, based on the behavior of countries today and their expected actions in the future with respect to climate change, world population, and environmental degradation, objective observers are increasingly arriving at an unavoidable conclusion. Namely, it will be highly unlikely to avoid a disastrous future for life on planet Earth.

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.”

Transgender refugees from Ukraine have met various challenges including access to hormone medicine since fleeing the war torn country. Credit: Ed Holt/IPS

By Ed Holt
BRATISLAVA, Apr 25 2022 (IPS)

Soon after Russia invaded her country, Anastasiia Yeva Domani found herself forced to abandon the regime of vital medicines she was taking.

The transgender activist could no longer get hold of the hormone medicines she needed to regularly take in Ukraine as supply chains were disrupted and the vast majority of pharmacies were closed.

“I, like many others, had to pause hormone treatment for a while. We had no choice,” she told IPS.

Domani spent two weeks off her treatment before she managed to get hold of medicines from Poland.

Now, her home in Kyiv has become the headquarters of a network she and other members of the transgender support organisation that she heads, Cohort, are running that helps find and then distribute hormones to those who need them across Ukraine.

It is not an easy task, though. For transgender people in Ukraine, both among those who have remained in their homes and those who make up part of the estimated 6.5 million internally displaced people in the country, a shortage of hormone medicines remains a major problem.

“There is a big problem getting hormone drugs. Some can be found in some cities in Ukraine, some abroad, and using the internet, and with the help of various LGBT activists and others all over the country, we have managed to get what we can,” she said.

“We have sent some hormones to people in March, but at the end of April, they are going to need more, and we will have to find them somewhere,” she added.

But having to halt hormone therapy is not the only serious problem transgender people are facing because of the conflict.

Activists say many transgender people, especially transgender women, have problems leaving Ukraine.

At the start of the war, all Ukrainian men aged 18-60 were ordered to stay in the country. As refugees began leaving, reports emerged of transgender women being turned back at the border, often because the gender marked on their identification documents did not match their actual gender, but sometimes simply because border guards who gave them physical examinations declared them to be men and told them they could not leave.

LGBT+ organisations which spoke to IPS confirmed they knew of such cases.

“Some transgender people have made it over the border into Poland, but there are many who have not been able to come over,” said Julia Kata of the Polish TransFuzja Foundation, which helps transgender people.

“They have been stopped because of problems with their ID documents where gender markers have not yet been changed, or they do not have the necessary medical confirmation that they have started transition,” she added.

This has led to some taking drastic action to get out of the country, and migration experts have also pointed to other dangers, such as violence and exploitation, which refugees can be exposed to when taking illegal routes out of countries.

“I know some trans women have resorted to leaving the country illegally, but this is not something we would support,” Domani said, adding how dangerous such attempts could be.

However, even when transgender people do make it out of Ukraine, they, and other members of the LGBT+ community, are facing further challenges as they find themselves in countries where LGBT+ communities have in recent years faced increasing prejudice, stigma, and discrimination.

The International Lesbian, Gay, Bi-Sexual, Trans and Intersex Association (ILGA) produces an annual ranking of the laws and policies impacting the human rights of LGBT+ people in individual European countries. In its most recent edition, many states bordering Ukraine scored very poorly.

Wiktoria Magnuszewska, an activist with the Polish Lex Q LGBT+ advocacy organisation, told IPS: “There is a lot of fear among transgender people who come here. This is connected to the general social atmosphere in Poland towards the LGBT+ community.”

Activists in other countries agree. Viktoria Radvanyi of Budapest Pride in Hungary told international media: “They are fleeing from Ukraine where their rights and dignity are not as respected as in other places in free societies. Then they arrive in countries like Hungary, Poland, and Romania where the state doesn’t support LGBTQ equality….”

Some organisations in receiving countries are working to provide help specifically for LGBT+ refugees when they arrive, including finding LGBT+-friendly accommodation, advice, help in dealing with local institutions, psychological support, and helping with access to other healthcare services.

The latter is expected to be of particular importance for transgender people, explained Kata, who said her organisation is co-operating with “trans-inclusive healthcare providers” so that any transgender refugees who need to access Polish healthcare will get appointments with doctors “who view them inclusively”.

She added that one of the main priorities of transgender refugees when they come to Poland, alongside “surviving and finding somewhere to stay”, was how to continue their transition. So far, she said, there had been no reports of any transgender refugees having any problems accessing the hormones they need.

Despite this help, some LGBT+ refugees prefer to move further into Europe rather than stay in countries that do not have a positive attitude toward their community.

“What we are seeing is that some LGBT+ people are leaving because of the situation in society here towards their community,” Justyna Nakielska, an advocacy officer with the Campaign Against Homophobia (KPH) in Poland.

Meanwhile, back in Ukraine, Domani says, attitudes to the LGBT+ community seem, for the moment at least, to have changed markedly in recent weeks.

Before the war, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy had pledged to fight discrimination based on gender identity and sexuality. There had been advances in legal safeguarding of LGBT+ rights, including a ban on workplace discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity.

But general attitudes in society towards the LGBT+ community were ambivalent at best, and in the ILGA’s latest rankings, Ukraine had an even worse score than most of the other countries on its borders.

But since the outbreak of war the situation has changed, said Domani.

“Since the war started, all Ukrainians think about are the Russian occupiers – they forgot their homophobia, their xenophobia, and all the focus now is on Russia,” she said.

She warned, though, that in areas which Russian forces had managed to fully occupy, there was already great concern over the fate of LGBT+ people, particularly in light of the Kremlin’s stance towards the community in Russia and reports that before the invasion, it had drawn up ‘kill lists’ targeting activists.

“There are no problems with LGBT+ people in Ukraine at the moment – with the exception of those in the Russian-occupied territories. We already know of some trans people who left the Kherson region [in southern Ukraine] on the day the war started because collaborators gave Russian occupiers information about human rights and LGBT+ activists,” Domani warned.

IPS UN Bureau Report

 

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According to the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), some $115.4 million are urgently needed to prevent a further deterioration of the food insecurity situation and worsening of the disruption of food supply chains in Ukraine. There is urgency to support Ukrainian farmers in planting vegetables and potatoes during this spring season, and farmers should be allowed and supported to go to their fields and save the winter wheat harvest, the FAO said April 19. Credit: Anatolii Stepanov / FAO

By Eugenio Dacrema
ROME, Apr 25 2022 (IPS)

The breakout of the conflict in Ukraine and the following imposition of heavy Western sanctions on Russia are causing sharp price increases in food and energy commodities —of which both Ukraine and Russia represent key exporters — as well as disruptions to global supply chains, impacting the post-pandemic economic recovery.

As a result, the IMF’s 2022 projections for global economic growth have been revised and now follow a downward trajectory, while global consumer price inflation is expected to increase by 6.4% in 2022, the highest rate since 1995.

Emerging markets and developing countries are expected to see the highest average inflation increases, at 7.1 and 11.6% respectively.

The ripple effects of the conflict in Ukraine are reverberating across the global economy against the backdrop of two years of steadily growing food prices, which reached a record high in February 2022, exceeding the previous peak set in February 2011.

The index then rose by a further 12% in March. Macroeconomic conditions deteriorated for most countries worldwide, with debt levels growing increasingly unsustainable for numerous low-income economies.

Eugenio Dacrema

After decreasing steadily over the previous two decades, poverty rates have been growing worldwide since 2020 along with the number of people experiencing food insecurity.

The World Bank estimates the pandemic has led to an additional 97 million extremely poor people compared to pre-pandemic projections. Higher food prices could drive many to require food aid.

A seismic hunger crisis is enveloping the world amidst a time of unprecedented needs. Climate shocks, conflict, COVID-19, and the spiraling costs of food and fuel — compounded by the conflict in Ukraine and its knock-on effects for countries dependent on that region’s supply of wheat (as well as other food) — could drive at least 47 million people across 81 countries to the edge of famine, while the number of severely food insecure people has doubled over the past two years, which currently stands at 276 million, according to the World Food Programme.

Risk factors sparked by the conflict in Ukraine

The ongoing war in Ukraine is likely to affect economies around the world through five main channels, and it is likely to generate major repercussions in numerous countries’ food security and domestic socioeconomic stability in both the short- and medium-term:

• The short-term impact on global food prices: This is given by Russia’s and Ukraine’s roles as major producers of food commodities (primarily cereals and vegetable oils). Since the beginning of the Ukraine crisis, shipments from the Black Sea have been dramatically reduced, with an immediate impact on countries importing cereals directly through this route, especially MENA (Middle East & North Africa) countries.

Short- and long-term disruptions to Ukrainian agricultural production caused by military operations and disruptions to Russian exports triggered by Western sanctions are also driving the rapid increase of wheat prices internationally, which have gradually climbed by over 30% since February, as well as the prices of other cereals such as maize. In March, the FAO Food Price Index recorded a 33% year-on-year growth. This is likely to reverberate across most countries’ local prices, especially those importing major shares of their food requirements.

• The long-term impact on global food prices: This is given by the conflict’s impact on fertilizers’ international prices. Russia plays a key role as a producer of both fertilizers and of the main raw materials utilized for their production. Western sanctions combined with export limits imposed by Chinese and Russian authorities are causing fertilizer prices to climb to record levels, with the price of urea, a key N fertilizer, trebling over the last year. If sustained, the current price increase is likely to reduce fertilizer usage in most countries, likely affecting yields of coming harvests and therefore the future availability of agricultural commodities on international markets.

• The significant increase of international energy prices: This is mainly due to Russia’s status as a major global oil and gas exporter and the imposition of Western sanctions, which may impair and/or make energy imports from Russia more expensive. This is likely to affect the economies of countries who are net importers of hydrocarbons. Furthermore, higher energy prices are likely to compound on food prices increases, as fuel represents a key agricultural input. On a positive note, however, increasing energy prices are likely to help the recovery of those economies that are net exporters of oil and gas.

• Macroeconomic destabilization of economies closely linked with Russia: The ruble’s rapid depreciation after the introduction of Western sanctions against Russia and the expected significant contraction of the Russian economy are likely to reverberate gravely on countries in Russia’s economic sphere of influence. In particular, this includes Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan, who heavily depend on the remittances generated by migrant workers in Russia.

• Finally, decreasing supplies internationally is already causing some producing countries to limit or ban exports to ensure domestic price stability. This currently represents the biggest risk factor for food markets, as a rapid ban-induced drop on the supply side may exponentially boost the pace of price increases and effectively bar import-dependent economies from ensuring a vital flow of food supplies.

Vulnerability factors for middle- and low-income countries

Who are the likely countries to be most affected? Since the current supply drop is affecting the share of global cereals production exchanged internationally – approximately one fourth of the total global production – the countries most likely to be affected are those whose domestic production is gravely insufficient to cover for domestic demand.

Among import-dependent countries, low-income states and/or those experiencing grave macroeconomic imbalances – likely as a result of pandemic-induced economic shocks – are those that may encounter the greatest difficulties in affording imports at current prices. The extent of countries’ exposure to socioeconomic distress from the war in Ukraine will depend on five main factors:

• Direct dependency over imports from the Black Sea basin: countries directly importing significant quantities of cereals from Ukraine and Russia are prone to experiencing growing local food prices and/or shortages. Among them are mostly (but not only) countries of the MENA region, such as Egypt, Turkey, Lebanon, Syria, Tunisia, Algeria, Morocco, and Sudan. Some of these countries have already started witnessing cereals shortages and price spikes.

• Availability of pre-existing food stocks: Several countries have been stockpiling food reserves over the past months to buffer the continuous increase of food prices. Such countries may be able to significantly delay the reverberation of international food price increases on their local markets. Their ability to smoothen the price transmission depends on the volume of their stocks relative to their consumption. For Muslim countries, the Ramadan festivities are likely to accelerate the exhaustion of amassed reserves, if available.

• Dependency on food imports: Countries who are net importers of food items, especially cereals, are likely to experience rising prices over the next months, even if they do not import directly from Russia or Ukraine. The stiff rise of international food prices is likely to spill over into local prices at different moments. According to recent research on this topic, increasing international food prices lead to increasing local prices more rapidly in low-income countries – with a 1/2-month average time-lag – while the transmission tends to take more time in middle-income economies (approximately 6 months).

Hence, although at different moments, the increase of international food prices is going to affect all countries dependent on food imports. The World Food Programme (WFP)’s research has highlighted the Sub-Saharan region’s particularly high exposure over the next months, due to the presence of several economies characterized by both import reliance and low-income levels.

• The presence of local buffers to food-price volatility: In some countries, the presence of subsidy programmes on food items and/or temporary measures to tame price increases may delay or avoid altogether transmission of international price increases to local prices. However, in some countries, such measures may become unsustainable if the price increases are particularly pronounced and/or prolonged. Subsidy reduction or removal due to macroeconomic difficulties may result in rapid and sudden increases in local prices. Such a scenario is likely in countries which are already economically instable, e.g., due to accumulation of unsustainable debt loads.

• The presence of pre-existing macroeconomic vulnerabilities: Countries facing macroeconomic difficulties due to diverse factors – such as heavy debt loads, deep current-account deficits, low foreign-exchange reserves, etc. – are likely to be more exposed to negative repercussions caused by increasing food prices. This is the case, for example, of lower-middle income countries that are usually less exposed to food insecurity, such as Pakistan and Sri Lanka. They may face difficulties in financing additional costs for food imports and/or agricultural inputs imports, such as fertilizers. Such additional costs may exacerbate existing macroeconomic fragilities, making potential macroeconomic crises more likely.

As the conflict in Ukraine does not seem to abate anytime soon, its ripple effects are already reverberating across the entire world, especially across those countries that have suffered the most during the pandemic. Particularly worrisome is the situation of those MENA countries already facing pre-existing crises, such as Yemen, Syria, and Sudan.

In Yemen, 16 million people were already facing acute food insecurity before the beginning of the war in Ukraine, while the figures were 12 million and 10 million for Syria and Sudan, respectively. As these countries import large shares of their essential cereals supplies from the Black Sea, they are likely to face an even more dramatic situation over the next months.

Despite its localized nature, this war is already causing victims worldwide through increased hunger and poverty. The WFP is seriously concerned about the world’s most vulnerable people as soaring food prices impact those the UN agency serves as well as millions of families on the edge of hunger, whose incomes have already plummeted with the pandemic.

Eugenio Dacrema is an Early Warning Economic Risk Analyst at the World Food Programme. Previously, he served as an Associate Research Fellow at ISPI’s MENA Centre. He holds a PhD from the University of Trento; he completed his bachelor’s degree at the University of Pavia; and his master’s degree at the University of Bologna in International Sciences specializing in development economics.

Source: Italian Institute for International Political Studies (ISPI)

IPS UN Bureau

 

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