Africa

Africa is yet to suffer a major outbreak of the coronavirus, but if it did strike, the consequences could be catastrophic.

This article is part of special IPS coverage of International Women’s Day on March 8 2020
 

Farhana Haque Rahman is Senior Vice President of IPS Inter Press Service; a journalist and communications expert, she is a former senior official of the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization and the International Fund for Agricultural Development.

By Farhana Haque Rahman
ROME, Mar 5 2020 (IPS)

The narrative surrounding women’s rights in 2020 carries much hope and possibility. A new decade is ushering in important anniversaries and milestones: 25 years since the Beijing Platform for Action, 110 years since the birth of International Women’s Day and the 10-year countdown to achieve the UN Sustainable Development Goals.

Farhana Haque Rahman

These dates are all significant of course, and their impact is sure to be positive to an extent, yet there is an undertone of wishful thinking that events in themselves can ignite powerful change, and a simplicity that disregards the more complex and insidious existence of systematic inequality.

These milestone moments will be written about, documented in the news, and read by many. But the opportunity for real tangible change gets diluted as we forget that actions perpetuating gender inequality are often normalised, taken for granted, and occur in social strata globally where the news of such events seldom reaches. International Women’s Day,for example, perceived by some as an unmissable opportunity to celebrate, campaign for, and protect women’s rights, is simply ignored elsewhere.

That’s the issue with these occasions and high-level discussions attended by those with access – they create a barrier to understanding for those who aren’t even aware they are occurring. They don’t form part of everyday life for those most actively affected. Women denied education won’t understand what specific legislation means for them, and women denied the opportunity to take autonomy in their lives are not going to be the ones in attendance, or those given access to the results. Women with the privilege of being part of such occasions are likely to have already a recognisable level of emancipation from explicit forms of oppression.

Campaigns for women’s suffrage began over a century ago and the first IWD has its roots in a 1910 session of the International Socialist Congress, although March 8 became accepted as the common date some years later, and was adopted by the feminist movement in 1967. The UN designated 1975 as International Women’s Year and has consistently recognised the annual honoring of women as a call for change and celebration of progress.

Political figures with an unequivocal platform to promote equality are becoming evermore visible. Germany’s Angela Merkel is widely respected for her strong opposition to nationalist and populist movements; Jacinda Ardern of New Zealand is hailed for her stand against hate and discrimination; Bangladesh has been praised for its assistance to one million Rohingya refugees driven out of Myanmar and Sheikh Hasina has been prominent on the international stage in seeking to resolve the humanitarian crisis. All women, all leading purposefully in situations that could easily perpetuate discrimination against so many. Barack Obama’s comments on women making “indisputably” better leaders are clearly justified by these game-changers.

The point here is that while 2020 could be a landmark year for gender equality, the efforts required to reach our goal have to be deliberate and far reaching. Just the instance of these events happening won’t have any measurable result.

Positive reinforcements of achievements do plant the seeds of change. The celebration of role models who represent shattered glass ceilings, the publicised calls for action, and the spotlight on game-changers all bring this possibility of change where women and girls can access conclusions to be reached this year. Having solidarity and a purposeful connection can nurture the strength to fight for the elimination of gender inequality. The girl in Nepalforced to sleep in a tiny hut during her period should hear about the government minister’s wife who became the first menstruating women in her district to spend a night in her own house. The woman who is reluctant to demand that she be paid equal to her male counterpart should hear about other women doing that. The girl consistently told that she is bossy when trying to take initiative should hear about female politicians and businesswomen who are widely respected for their leadership styles. The list goes on.

Access to the knowledge of a possibility of change is crucial. Giving those most affected by gender inequality the solidarity of a community which knows that change is possible will have a significant effect on igniting the shift in gendered practices.

With the SDGs acting as a blueprint for global efforts to eliminate poverty and inequality by 2030, the 10 years we have to achieve this are scarcely enough. More than half of the 129 countries measured in the 2019 SDG Gender Index scored poorly on SDG 5, which calls for international gender equality and the empowerment of all women. There is a serious question to be asked whether setting such goals are operationally viable. As the UN highlights: “The emerging global consensus is that despite some progress, real change has been agonisinglyslow for the majority of women and girls in the world.”

Complete elimination of gender inequality, and the genuine expectation for this to have been met in the 25 years since the Beijing Platform for Action, may be too far-reaching to even aspire to. It risks creating a defeatist mentality, a sense we just don’t have the means to get there. At what point can we confidently say that a country has achieved full equality?

Smaller, more manageable goals with a clearer path for completion, should be adopted instead. In this context it is also important to recognise the shortcomings of setting an absolute in the first place. Such is the volatility of human behavior that there will never be ‘complete’ equality, but there is much that can be done to make the situation better for all.

One of the arguments for the SDGs is that they provide a strong framework for action to be implemented by those in a position of power, such as equal pay for the same job, and access to reproductive health facilities. While these are crucial steps in giving women equality of opportunity, identifying legislative acts as indication of progress towards equality can givethe illusion that further action is unnecessary. This in turn drives more subtle and clandestine forms of gender inequality further away from public recognition.

Yes we should be celebrating these monumental events that bring to light incredibly important issues. IWD 2020, aptly named “I am Generation Equality: Realizing Women’s Rights” which aligns with the UN Women’s Generation Equality campaign, carries this torch. But do not let such moments obscure the painfully slow pace of progress and theinsidious existence of systemic inequality.

However the coronavirus outbreak means that these landmark events are likely to be much curtailed. The first major event to be knocked off course is a March 9-20 meeting in New York of the Commission on the Status of Women. It had been expected to draw more than 7,000 attendees, but will be shortened and scaled down after the UN urged capital-based ministers and diplomats not to travel. But instead of treating this as a setback, we should seize the opportunity to really push the agenda ahead without being bogged down in the usual meaningless formalities and empty platitudes.

The post Many Milestones but Painfully Slow Progress Towards Gender Equality appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Excerpt:

This article is part of special IPS coverage of International Women’s Day on March 8 2020

 

Farhana Haque Rahman is Senior Vice President of IPS Inter Press Service; a journalist and communications expert, she is a former senior official of the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization and the International Fund for Agricultural Development.

The post Many Milestones but Painfully Slow Progress Towards Gender Equality appeared first on Inter Press Service.

By Jennifer Morgan
AMSTERDAM, the Netherlands, Mar 5 2020 (IPS)

Gender inequality – like the climate emergency – is not inevitable, but is kept in place by the poor choices too many cis men make on a daily basis. And it is not just womxn who are hurt and trapped by this patriarchal problem, but girls and non-binary people too, as well as many boys and men.

For millennia, gender inequality has been working very well for the majority of men. Globally, men hold 85% of senior leadership roles in companies, for example, while the 22 richest men in the world have more wealth than all of the womxn in Africa. None of this is by accident and many men are reluctant to change a system they think benefits them.

Meanwhile womxn remain on the frontlines of gender inequality and the climate emergency. And due to the patriarchy, unsurprisingly they are rarely heard on issues that deeply impact them, which as a result, affects society as a whole.

A great number of men do believe in gender equality and this needs to be acknowledged. But it is easy for men to merely ‘believe’ in something they subsequently reap social rewards for. Accepting that gender inequality exists – as much as the climate emergency – and taking positive action is crucial if we are to achieve a more equitable, peaceful and green planet.

Because the fact is equity across the world and spectrum would lead to more life satisfaction, better security and economies, and more sustainable solutions to climate change.

That’s why this International Women’s Day, I call on men to be more than feminist; to do more than just celebrate womxn.

For a start, we need men to be anti-patriarchal and anti-misogynist, and to be actively campaigning against climate denial, for the benefit of all. Only then would we begin to get closer to the #IWD2020 theme of equality.

Jennifer Morgan

What I am calling for may sound overwhelming, but small individual changes in attitude can lead to huge progressive shifts in the stale social norms that are damaging too many people at our collective detriment.

“We are all parts of a whole. Our individual actions, conversations, behaviors and mindsets can have an impact on our larger society,” as the IWD organizers say.

Men can proactively start to promote gender equality in the spaces they dominate in many straightforward ways: by listening to womxn and not talking over them; crediting them for their ideas; rejecting male only settings; ensuring womxn are included on panels and sports teams; refusing to play into stereotypes, and calling out others who are being anti-womxn, anti-diversity and anti-science.

In my privileged position as a white Western female leading a global and diverse environmental organization, I strive to use my leadership to empower and protect, and include people of all backgrounds.

It often strikes me how I have more access to the halls of power than those with the experience of living on the frontlines of the climate emergency. Those dealing with the devastating droughts, floods and fires linked to climate change, who predominantly are womxn who are Black, Indigenous, of color, from the Global South.

They are truly powerful people, from whom I get much inspiration, and yet their voices remain too often unheard by decision-makers, policymakers, the media, and beyond, due to the patriarchy. Amplifying these womxn’s voices and increasing their access to opportunities and platforms is central to my mission, and the mission of Greenpeace.

For there can be no green peace without gender equality. At Greenpeace, we aspire to become a leader in building and supporting a workforce that more accurately reflects the diversity of the global community Greenpeace serves, as well as the values the organization espouses, and have initiatives on harassment prevention, unconscious bias and structural power.

We take a zero-tolerance position on sexual, verbal, or physical harassment, bullying and any kind of discrimination based on gender, race, sexual orientation, gender identity, disability, faith, or any other aspect of our beings.

We will continue to examine how systematic marginalization and issues of equity intersect with our core mission and values as Greenpeace. We do this work readily because people power is linked to virtually everything Greenpeace does, from the impact we can make in the world to our ability to thrive as part of a movement.

We must always try to act in a way that sees, values, and embraces people in all their diversity. Boosting the voices of those the patriarchy actively tries to silence will lead to greater equity and better climate solutions.

Remarkable womxn are already leading the charge from Autumn Peltier and Brianna Fruean, the matriarchs of Wet’suwet’en fighting the Coastal Gas Link pipeline, to Vanessa Nakata and Winona LaDuke, among the many others.

But the patriarchy is man-made, much like climate change. It is more than time for cis men to combat gender inequality and the climate emergency alongside womxn, whom they should truly accept as their equals.

The post There Can Be No Green Peace Without Gender Equality appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Excerpt:

This article is part of special IPS coverage of International Women’s Day on March 8 2020

 

Jennifer Morgan is the Executive Director of Greenpeace International

The post There Can Be No Green Peace Without Gender Equality appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Teenager Karen Semens, from the Federated States of Micronesia, says her main challenge growing up is being a girl. She says that her culture doesn’t afford girls the same rights and opportunities of boys. Photo supplied.

By Neena Bhandari
SYDNEY, Australia, Mar 5 2020 (IPS)

For 13-year-old Karen Semens, growing up on Pohnpei — one of the four main island states in the Federated States of Micronesia, which comprises of more than 600 islands in the western Pacific Ocean — the main challenge is being a girl.

“In our culture, girls don’t have the same rights and opportunities nor do they get credit and recognition for their achievements as boys do. This prevents us from speaking our minds. For example in family meetings, only men make the decisions. I would like all girls to be treated as equals and have a say in decision making,” the 8th grade pupil from the Ohmine Public Elementary school in Pohnpei, tells IPS.

Equal rights for the girl child, climate change, access to healthcare and education are some of the issues Pacific island children are raising at the 84th extraordinary outreach session of the Committee on the 1989 United Nations (U.N.) Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) being held in Samoa’s capital, Apia, from Mar. 2 to 6.

Over 100 children from Pacific Island nations are having the opportunity to highlight the issues impacting them and their hopes for the future to the Committee on CRC. In a historic first, a U.N. human rights treaty body is meeting outside the U.N. headquarters of New York or Geneva, offering more governments, civil society organisations, regional agencies, and national human rights and academic institutions a chance to directly interact with the CRC and learn about its work. Having the session in Samoa is also providing the Committee with new insights and understanding of local and regional issues of the Pacific.

On the Mwokilloa atoll, where 13-year-old Austin Ladore’s mother grew up and where he spends his summer holidays, rising sea levels and coastal erosion are threatening the very existence of this low lying island and its people.

“We want action on climate change so our islands are protected and we, the children, can have a sustainable future,” Austin, Semens’s classmate, tells IPS.

“We are at the frontline, facing the consequences of climate change,” Ladore says. 

Austin Ladore (13), who is in 8th grade at the Ohmine Public Elementary school in Pohnpei, one of the four main island states in The Federated States of Micronesia, says children on his island are on the frontline of climate change. Photo supplied.

These children would also like access to proper healthcare, drinking water, good quality education, and affordable nutritious food.

“There aren’t enough qualified doctors and our hospitals aren’t equipped to treat some of the chronic diseases. Many of us eat unhealthy instant noodles as fruits and vegetables are very expensive. Every day, it is getting hotter. It makes us dehydrated, but there is scarcity of drinking water. Most of the schools on the islands have outdated books. We want a solution to all these problems,” Semens tells IPS.

The Committee consists of 18 Independent experts that monitor implementation of the CRC, the most widely ratified human rights treaty in history, by its 196 States parties. During this session, the Committee will review the Federated States of Micronesia, the Cook Islands and Tuvalu on how their countries are protecting, promoting and can further improve the rights of children under the CRC. It will also prepare Lists of Issues on the Republic of Kiribati.

Acting chief justice Vui Clarence Nelson of Samoa, who is the vice-chair of the CRC and the only Pacific Islander to ever sit on any of the U.N. treaty bodies tells IPS: “The Pacific is a strategic choice by the Committee as it is a region with big potential for improved treaty body effectiveness where: reporting rates and civil society engagement levels are generally low; treaty body engagement and implementation is impeded by geographical and resource constraints – in Kiribati, the Federated States of Micronesia and the Cook Islands, it takes three days to travel by boat to the more remote outlying islands; and representation on the treaty bodies is extremely low, further reducing the likelihood of effective engagement and implementation.”

The Session is ‘extraordinary’ in nature because of being held in Samoa and is one week in length as opposed to three.

“By ‘bringing the treaty body system to the regions and rights holders in their backyard’ it is believed that the following impacts will be achieved: Increased ratification of human rights instruments; increased engagement of the States, national human rights institutions, and the civil society with the treaty body system in particular with the Committee on the Rights of the Child; and raising global awareness of regional issues – especially the effects of climate change in the Pacific. To this end a special part of the Session is being devoted to climate change and the right to a healthy environment,” Nelson tells IPS.

The principal intergovernmental organisation in the region, the Pacific Community’s (SPC – Sustainable Pacific Development) human rights division Regional Rights Resource Team (RRRT) has partnered with the U.N. to bring this extraordinary session to Samoa.

SPC RRRT director Miles Young tells IPS: “It is an excellent example of collaboration amongst many parties with a common interest in bringing the treaty body system closer to its stakeholders – in this case, the children, people and countries of the Pacific. This level of interaction with Pacific Islanders would not have occurred had the hearing been held in Geneva or New York.  The effect will be to make the treaty body system – and therefore human rights – more tangible to Pacific Islanders.”

Fourteen Pacific Island Countries (Cook Islands, Fiji, Kiribati, Marshall Islands, Federated States of Micronesia, Nauru, Niue, Palau, Papua New Guinea, Samoa, Solomon Islands, Tonga, Tuvalu, Vanuatu) have ratified the CRC.

While progress has been made in implementing the CRC, especially in enacting child protection laws, reducing child poverty, child marriages and mortality rates for children under five years of age, many challenges persist.

Besides climate change, children are suffering from economic inequalities, food and water insecurity, poverty, epidemics and outbreaks of diseases, domestic violence, sexual abuse and neglect, absence of child protection laws and mechanisms, high levels of corporal punishment in the family and domestic setting, outdated child rights legislation in some of the jurisdictions, and in some States an inadequate child justice system.

“The event has raised the profile of the CRC in the Pacific and we can build on this to generate greater momentum for human rights. We, in the Pacific, are almost always the ‘forgotten’ region when it comes to global affairs.  This is an opportunity to raise a key issue for the region – climate change in the context of Pacific children and the region more generally,” Young says.

In June 2019 the annual meeting of chairpersons of the treaty bodies stated its support for conducting dialogues with States Parties at a regional level. The U.N.’s Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) has organised the Samoa session with assistance and advocacy of SPC RRRT. The governments of the United Kingdom, New Zealand, Australia and Sweden are sponsoring the session and the Government of Samoa is hosting the event.

“RRRT will be assessing the pros and cons of the sitting – this analysis will feed into the U.N.’s review of the treaty body system, which the U.N. is currently undertaking, and help inform decisions on how and where it holds future treaty body hearings,” Young adds.   

Speaking at the opening ceremony of the session on 2nd March, SPC’s deputy director general, Dr A Aumua said: “In the Pacific, there is a saying that ‘it takes a village to raise a child’. The meaningful participation of children is essential to the fulfilment of their rights, aspirations and full human potential. I’m confident that we can show the leadership needed to build a sustainable future for the children of this region.”

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The post The Future Pacific Island Children Want appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Permanent Representative of Norway to the United Nations, Ambassador Mona Juul, is also president of the U.N.Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC). Courtesy: Monica Hellman/Permanent Mission of Norway to the United Nations

By Samira Sadeque
UNITED NATIONS, Mar 5 2020 (IPS)

Ambassador Mona Juul started her role as the Permanent Representative of Norway to the United Nations in January 2019, and is also the president of the United Nations Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC). 

Prior to joining as the Permanent Representative, Juul had an extensive career where she played key roles in major foreign diplomacy efforts. Soon after starting her career in 1986, she was a part of the Cabinet of the Minister for Foreign Affairs team from 1992 to 1993 that worked on secret negotiations between Israel and Palestine Liberation Organisation that culminated in the 1993 Oslo Accords. 

With a Master’s degree in political science from University of Oslo, Juul went on to embrace numerous other roles including the Special Advisor, Ambassador and Middle East Coordinator in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. In July 2019, just within a few months of joining as the Permanent Representative to the U.N., she also became the president of ECOSOC. 

Her role in Norway’s foreign relations, as well as in diplomacy efforts in the Middle East is one that is of inspiration to anyone who dreams of being in the field — more so for women. We caught up with Ambassador Juul on her journey: 

Inter Press Service (IPS): As the U.N. Permanent Representative for Norway, what is your key message for this year’s International Women’s Day (IWD)?

Mona Juul (MJ): My message to women and men, girls and boys is to speak up in favor of women and girls, and protect those who defend their rights. 

IPS: As president of ECOSOC, you have expressed your concern about “a new generation of global inequalities – fuelled by climate change, technological change” – can you share how these inequalities affect women specifically? And how do we address that?

MJ: Norway fights for women’s rights and opportunities every day. In the U.N. and all over the world, we are continuously working to increase girl’s access to education, to decide over their own bodies and to have fundamental human rights. Norway is a consistent partner for women’s rights. We will keep our promise to work tirelessly to promote gender equality for all.

IPS: As the U.N. Permanent Representative as well as president of ECOSOC, what does this year’s IWD theme #EachforEqual mean to you?

MJ: We must place gender equality at the heart of our work. The rights of women and gender equality remains a reform priority and a cross-cutting issue for me as president of ECOSOC. This year, we celebrate 25 years of championing women’s rights since we adopted the Beijing Platform for Action. It is a vision of a more prosperous, peaceful and fair world, that is better for women and men, girls and boys. Women’s participation is a prerequisite and a key factor for economic growth.

IPS: What is your message to young women who would like to one day work in this field? 

MJ: Stand up against inequalities. Fight for what you believe in. Each one of us can make a difference. Today and every day, I am reminded of Nelson Mandela’s words: ‘The best weapon is to sit down and talk’. I hope that if we all followed that advice, we would each be equal.

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The post Q&A: ‘Place Gender Equality at the Heart of our Work’ appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Excerpt:

This article is part of special IPS coverage of International Women’s Day on March 8 2020

 

For International Women’s Day, IPS United Nations is featuring female permanent representatives who to share about their work, inspiration and challenges in an otherwise male-dominated field. This is the first in the series.

The post Q&A: ‘Place Gender Equality at the Heart of our Work’ appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Millions of Nigerians live in flimsy housing under very precarious circumstances.

By Anis Chowdhury and Jomo Kwame Sundaram
SYDNEY and KUALA LUMPUR, Mar 4 2020 (IPS)

As the outbreak of the novel coronavirus COVID-19 threatens a global pandemic, major stock markets around the world have suffered their worst performance since the 2008 financial crush.

Growth disruption
The OECD has warned that the coronavirus outbreak could halve global economic growth this year to 1.5%, the slowest rate since 2009. It has cut its 2020 growth forecast for China to a 30-year low of 4.9%, down from 5.7% in November.

Anis Chowdhury

The IMF downgraded its growth forecast for China to 5.6% in 2020, its lowest since 1990. Economists, polled by Reuters during 7-13 February, expected China’s economic growth to slump to 4.5% in the first quarter of 2020, down from 6% in the previous quarter, the slowest since the financial crisis.

Meanwhile, China’s manufacturing sector tumbled in February, as many factories remained closed after the annual lunar new year break. The Manufacturing Purchasing Managers Index (PMI), a widely used measure of factory activity, plunged to a record low in February, reflecting the sharp contraction.

The World Trade Organization (WTO) head expects the coronavirus epidemic to greatly slow the global economy, as China accounts for 19.1% of global GDP using purchasing power parity (PPP), or 17% at current exchange rates, 13% of global trade, and 28% of global manufacturing output in 2018.

Impact on developing economies
Developing countries, especially those dependent on commodity exports and global supply chains, are particularly vulnerable.

The impact is expected to be more severe for the 21 African countries the IMF sees as ‘resource-intensive’, where growth had already slowed to about 2.5%. Trade between Africa and China grew 2.2% in 2019 to US$208.7bn, compared with a 20% rise the year before.

Jomo Kwame Sundaram

Even Latin America counts China as its largest overall trade partner. The key downside risk is further deterioration of the commodity terms of trade. The most exposed economies are Chile, Peru and, to some extent, Brazil.

Asian developing countries linked to China through supply chains, raw material exports, investment and tourism are especially vulnerable, while other Asian giants, Japan and South Korea, have also been hit by the virus.

Global supply chain disruptions
The virtual shutdown of the ‘factory of the world’ has slowed the supply of products and parts from China, disrupting production the world over. Apple’s manufacturing partner in China, Foxconn, is experiencing production delays, while a Lombardy electronics factory was forced to close by the Italian authorities due to an outbreak.

Some carmakers, including Nissan and Hyundai, have temporarily closed factories outside China due to parts supply shortages. European manufacturing could suffer considerably due to its extensive links with China through supply chains. Already, four of the world’s biggest carmakers are expected to shut down European production.

Meanwhile, 94% of Fortune 1000 companies are facing supply chain disruptions due to the coronavirus. Even the pharmaceutical industry is expected to face disruption.

For the Harvard Business Review, “the worst is yet to come”, expecting the Covid-19 impact on global supply chains to peak in mid-March, “forcing thousands of companies to throttle down or temporarily shut assembly and manufacturing plants in the U.S. and Europe”.

Commodity prices plunge
Prices for commodities, from natural rubber to coal, plunged in February as Chinese companies cancelled orders, dragging down prices.

The Wall Street Journal reports one of the worst routs in commodity prices in years due to the coronavirus outbreak as prices for some natural resources plunged to new lows.

With the outbreak spreading to more countries, the oil price has been dropping precipitously as global demand weakens further. US and Brent crude benchmark prices fell 16% and 14% respectively during the past week, to its lowest levels since July 2017.

Meanwhile, iron ore prices dropped to US$81.35 per tonne during the first week of February from around US$90 throughout January.

Perfect storm?
Years of spending cuts due to fiscal austerity policies have undermined public health provisioning, not only in developing countries, but also in developed economies.

Various countries are bracing for economic fall outs from the COVID-19 virus outbreak, but have very limited policy space after eschewing sustained fiscal recovery efforts following the 2008-2009 global financial crisis.

Instead, monetary policies, including unconventional ones, with historically low interest rates and central bank balance sheets, are still being relied upon.

China’s central bank has already cut the country’s benchmark lending rate in February. The US Federal Reserve has recently further loosened monetary policy, with others quickly following or expected to follow. However, while rate cuts may temporarily boost financial market indicators, they are unlikely to be of much help.

Despite rejecting sustained fiscal efforts to revive economic growth in favour of austerity for a decade, debt levels continued to rise as revenue declined due to tax breaks. Scope for a ‘big boost’ fiscal package is also limited by public perceptions of the record global debt level—estimated at US$253tn, more than three times global GDP.

Although the economic consequences of the COVID-19 outbreak require a global response, multilateralism is in disarray. As if to underscore its growing irrelevance, the G20 missed an important opportunity to provide leadership at its 22-23 February finance ministers’ meeting in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.

The post Coronavirus Exposes Global Economic Vulnerability appeared first on Inter Press Service.

The tip-off of the inaugural Basketball Africa League is delayed due to health concerns related to the coronavirus.

Patrícia Campos Mello. Credit: Marcos Villas Boas

By Natalie Southwick and Renata Neder
NEW YORK, Mar 4 2020 (IPS)

Brazilian journalist Patrícia Campos Mello made her career reporting from conflict zones around the world — but lately, the greatest threats to her security are coming from closer to home.

In recent weeks, Campos Mello has faced a violent onslaught of crude threats and personal attacks, after a witness in a Congressional hearing suggested she had offered to trade sexual favors for information.

The unfounded allegations spread on WhatsApp and Twitter, fed by trolls and politicians sharing memes calling her a “prostitute,” and spilled over into the public conversation, with President Jair Bolsonaro repeating the claims in a February 18 interview.

“It’s an attempt to discredit the work of us female journalists,” says political journalist Juliana Dal Piva, who has also been harassed for reporting on the president and his family. “When the articles are critical of Bolsonaro, this is the attack. They imply that journalists are willing to trade sex for information.”

From denied opportunities to workplace harassment, attacks by troll armies, sexual violence and even femicide, the job description for female journalists in Latin America has some horrifying drawbacks.

Most governments and workplaces still lack proper mechanisms to respond to these threats, leaving female reporters to come up with survival tactics on their own.

For most male journalists, danger lies in the field — but for women, the office can pose a threat, too. In 2017, Bolivian television journalist Yadira Peláez was fired from a state TV station after reporting her boss for sexual harassment — then the station sued her for “economic damage.”

A 2017 survey of almost 400 women journalists in 50 countries found that 38 percent of incidents of gender-based violence against women journalists came from a boss or supervisor.

The lurid attacks on women like Campos Mello play on an old sexist trope: the glamorous journalist who, in the process of reporting a big scoop, falls in love — or at least into bed — with her source.

The reality is closer to the opposite. In a 2017 survey of nearly 500 female journalists in Brazil, 10 percent said they had received offers of exclusive information or materials in exchange for sex.

Although sources are more likely to try to negotiate a date in exchange for an interview, female journalists are the ones who face professional consequences for any rumor of impropriety.

They are the ones whose social media profiles are scoured, private information shared, personal photos downloaded and turned into memes, who open their email to a deluge of violent threats — stalking, rape, murder, photos of dismembered bodies — and who must keep doing their job.

To attack a male journalist’s credibility, go after his work or objectivity. To attack a female journalist’s credibility, go after her body.

For women in the public eye, their physical appearance, personal relationships, professional histories and families all become fair game. Dal Piva says her greatest fear is that the campaigns against her might expose her family members to similar harassment.

The attacks are even harsher against women of color and queer women, like Brazil’s Maria Júlia Coutinho, or sports reporter Fernanda Gentil, who has talked openly about the homophobia she faced in 2016 when her relationship with another woman became public.

While threats against female reporters are a universal truth, they have frightening implications in Latin America, a region with some of the world’s highest violent death rates for women.

Since 1992, 96 women journalists have been killed in connection with their work. Eleven of those were in Latin America — all but two in either Mexico or Colombia.

Yet despite institutional barriers, threats and sexist smear campaigns, Latin America’s female reporters continue setting the standard, leading newsrooms, developing innovative projects and pushing the envelope on what journalism can — and should — do.

And they are fighting back. As the #MeToo movement has rippled through offices and newsrooms, its effects appear in coordinated efforts among female journalists to support and protect one another.

After Bolsonaro’s comments on Campos Mello, nearly 850 women journalists published an open letter protesting the “sordid and false attacks.”

In 2018, after a series of on-camera assaults targeted female soccer reporters, a group of Brazilian journalists launched the #DeixaElaTrabalhar (#LetHerWork) campaign, pressuring authorities to take action against sexual harassment on and off the field.

A year earlier, a group in Mexico launched an NGO, Versus, to combat “abuse, violence and discrimination” against women reporters. Colombian journalist Jineth Bedoya, herself a survivor of sexual violence, has for decades been an outspoken advocate for safety for women journalists and justice for survivors.

CPJ and other organizations, including the International Federation of Journalists and the International Association of Women in Radio and TV, have resources on how to protect accounts from hacks or doxing, responding to online harassment, and preventing sexual violence.

While preventative steps and advice are useful in the moment, they don’t address the source of the problem: a professional and societal context that devalues the work and presence of women, and often pressures women to simply be quiet — something out of character for successful journalists.

Fighting those norms will be a long-term battle, but Latin America’s women journalists are ready.

*The Committee to Protect Journalists is an independent, nonprofit organization that promotes press freedom worldwide. Press inquiries: press@cpj.org +1-212-300-9032

Latest Data:
250 journalists imprisoned as of Dec 1, 2019
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The post To Attack a Female Journalist’s Credibility, Go After Her Body appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Excerpt:

This article is part of special IPS coverage of International Women’s Day on March 8 2020

 

Natalie Southwick is Program Coordinator/Coordinadora del Programa, Central and South America & the Caribbean, The Committee to Protect Journalists* (CPJ) & Renata Neder is CPJ's Brazil Correspondent

The post To Attack a Female Journalist’s Credibility, Go After Her Body appeared first on Inter Press Service.

By External Source
Mar 4 2020 (IPS-Partners)

The International Rescue Committee (IRC) and the Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC) call upon all parties to the conflict in the North-West and South-West regions of Cameroon to uphold international human rights and international humanitarian law and cease all attacks on civilians without delay.

The crisis destabilizing the English speaking parts of Cameroon has taken a worrying turn, with an increasing number of reports of targeted attacks against civilians, property and violations of the humanitarian space. More than 700,000 people are displaced, nearly 1 million children are out of school, and the humanitarian needs are mounting.

Survivors have shared testimonies of gruesome attacks that have left children orphaned, people homeless, and limited or cut off access to public facilities such as hospitals and schools. “I have been out of school for two years. The boys stopped us from going to school. They would beat you if you tried,” said Charlene, a 23 year-old single mother. “My teacher wanted to give us private classes so we could sit our exams, but they took and tortured him”.

The conflict would take even more from Charlene when her home was burned down by the military. “There was fighting and the boys hid in our corridor. The military set fire to the house to catch them. We became homeless. We lost everything.”

Reports indicate that an incident on February 14 in Ngarbuh Village, North-West Cameroon, left 24 killed, most of whom were women and children. This is only one of several incidences of disturbing attacks, many of which remain undocumented and impact directly the civilian population.

NRC, the IRC and partners have also witnessed attacks on civilians during humanitarian distributions. “We cannot silently witness defenceless civilians, who are already suffering from extreme deprivation, being attacked while seeking lifesaving assistance,” said Maureen Magee, NRC Regional Director for Central and West Africa. “People in need of humanitarian assistance must be allowed to access necessary support, without having to fear for their lives.”

“This crisis needs more attention,” said Paul Taylor, IRC Regional Vice President for West Africa. “People have been forced to flee and sleep in open air without adequate food or clean water. Aid agencies need additional resources to meet the needs of those displaced by this crisis, and all parties need to ensure that aid agencies are able to access those who are in desperate need of basic services.”

The IRC and NRC call for the immediate cessation of attacks against civilians, the respect of humanitarian space, and that parties to the conflict allow unimpeded access for humanitarian organizations, in accordance with the law, to conduct a coordinated response to reach the people most in need.

For interviews or more information, please contact:

NRC: media@nrc.no, +4790562329

IRC: Kellie Ryan, kellie.ryan@rescue.org or communications@rescue.org, +254758710198

The post Joint statement on attacks on civilians in the North-West and South-West regions of Cameroon appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Rashmi Hamal is a local heroine who helped to save her friend from an early marriage. She campaigns actively against child marriages in the Far Western Region of Nepal. Credit: Naresh Newar/IPS

By External Source
UNITED NATIONS, Mar 4 2020 (IPS)

Twenty-five years after the historic Beijing women’s conference in China – a milestone in advancing equal rights – violence against women and girls is not only common, but widely accepted, a new UN report revealed.

While there have been remarkable gains for girls in education, little headway has been made to help shape a more equal, less violent environment for them, warned the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF), together with UN Women and the non-governmental organization Plan International in their report, A New Era for Girls: Taking stock on 25 years of progress.

“25 years ago, the world’s governments made a commitment to women and girls, but they have only made partial good on that promise”, flagged UNICEF Executive Director Henrietta Fore.

The report highlighted that in 2016, women and girls accounted for 70 per cent of detected trafficking victims globally, mostly involving sexual exploitation.

“As long as women and girls have to use three times the time and energy of men on looking after the household, equal opportunities for girls to move from school into good jobs in safe workplaces are going to be out of reach”

Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka, UN Women Executive Director

Moreover, an astonishing one-in-20 girls between the ages of 15 and 19, has experienced rape in her lifetime.

“While the world has mustered the political will to send many girls to school, it has come up embarrassingly short on equipping them with the skills and support they need not only to shape their own destinies, but to live in safety and dignity”, the UNICEF chief spelled out.

 

Lagging on equal rights

The report has been launched in line with the Generation Equality campaign to open a global conversation for action and accountability on gender equality, and to mark the 25th anniversary of the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action.

“Since 1995 in Beijing, when a specific focus on ‘girl child’ issues first emerged, we have increasingly heard girls assert their rights and call us to account”, said UN Women Executive Director Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka. “But the world has not kept up with their expectations of responsible stewardship of the planet, a life without violence, and their hopes for economic independence”.

Girls today are at a startling risk of violence, whether it is in school, at home, or online as well as throughout their communities, which leads to physical, psychological and social consequences.

A New Era for Girls also covers harmful practices, such as child marriage and female genital mutilation (FGM), which continue to disrupt and damage the lives and potential of millions of girls around the world.

According the report, each year 12 million girls are married in childhood, and four million risk FGM.

And girls aged 15-19, are as likely to justify wife-beating, as boys of the same age.

“As long as women and girls have to use three times the time and energy of men on looking after the household, equal opportunities for girls to move from school into good jobs in safe workplaces are going to be out of reach”, said the UN Women chief.

“For everyone’s sake, that’s got to change, along with making sure that the skills girls learn are right for the new tech and digital jobs of the future, and that the violence against them ends”.

 

Credit: Shafiqul Alam Kiron/IPS

 

79 million fewer girls out of school

The report noted that in the past 20 years, the number of girls out-of-school has dropped by 79 million and over the last decade, more are actually likely to be in secondary school than boys.

However, it also pointed to negative trends for girls in nutrition and health.

For example, globalization has shifted traditional diets to more processed, unhealthy foods and aggressive marketing techniques targeting children have fuelled consumption, along with sugar-sweetened beverages.

“Access to education is not enough”, maintained the UNICEF chief, adding, “we must also change people’s behaviours and attitudes towards girls”.

Meanwhile, concerns are growing over poor mental health, exacerbated in part by the excessive use of digital technology.

A New Era for Girls revealed that suicide is currently the second leading cause of death among adolescent girls in that age bracket, surpassed only by maternal conditions.

Turning to their heightened risk of sexually-transmitted infection, the report found that some 970,000 adolescent girls between the ages of 10 and 19 are living today with HIV – accounting for around three-in-four new infections among adolescents worldwide – as compared to 740,000 girls in 1995.

“True equality will only come when all girls are safe from violence, free to exercise their rights, and are able to enjoy equal opportunities in life”, concluded the UNICEF Executive Director.

This story was originally published by UN News

 

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An increasing number of New Yorkers appear to have started wearing face masks as a precaution against the coronavirus. The city recorded its first case 1 March. Credit: UN Photo/Loey Felipe

By Thalif Deen
UNITED NATIONS, Mar 4 2020 (IPS)

First, it was the ill-fated annual sessions of the UN Commission on the Status of Women (CSW), scheduled for March 9-20, which was undermined by the spreading coronavirus COVID-19.

Now comes a second potential casualty—the upcoming month-long (27 April-22 May) Review Conference of the Treaty on Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) which may be upstaged by the deadly virus.

The landmark treaty— which represents the only binding multilateral commitment to the goal of disarmament by the world’s nuclear-weapon States—would also mark its 50th anniversary this year.

But a lingering question remains: will the Review Conference be either postponed, cancelled or held under restrictive conditions–even as the Trump administration plans to deny entry visas to visitors, and by extension delegates, from heavily-infected countries, including China, Japan, South Korea, Iran, Italy and the Philippines, among others.

The 10-day CSW meeting, one of the key annual gatherings of women, was shrunk to a one-day event, scheduled for March 9 — because of the fast-spreading coronavirus—which would have shut off most of the approximately 8,000-9,000 participants from overseas.

“The 50-year old NPT is threatening the world with an even worse illness than the new terrifying coronavirus,” one anti-nuclear activist warned.

According to the United Nations, the Treaty, particularly article VIII, paragraph 3, envisages a review of the operation of the Treaty every five years, a provision which was reaffirmed by the States parties at the 1995 NPT Review and Extension Conference and the 2000 NPT Review Conference.

John Burroughs, Executive Director, Lawyers Committee on Nuclear Policy, New York City, told IPS that aside from whether protection of health warrants a postponement of the Review Conference, delay could be good for the non-proliferation/disarmament regime.

Right now, the United States, Russia, and China have nothing to offer in the way of nuclear arms reductions, actual or prospective, he argued.

Signing ceremony at UN Headquarters in New York for the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, 20 September 2017. Credit: UN Photo/Paulo Filgueiras

“This is despite the commitments they made, along with the United Kingdom and France, at the 2010 Review Conference, “to undertake further efforts to reduce and ultimately eliminate all types of nuclear weapons”.

The failure to fulfill this and other commitments made at the 1995, 2000, and 2010 conferences is the single most important factor casting a pall over the upcoming conference and making a consensus substantive outcome unlikely, warned Burroughs.

Dr Rebecca Johnson, Director, Acronym Institute for Disarmament and Diplomacy, who has reported on every NPT meeting since 1994, told IPS “the COVID-19 coronavirus spreads quickly, so on grounds of public health, we all need to limit physical meetings and travel.”

“On those grounds, I think it would probably be prudent to postpone the NPT Review Conference to a time when we have a clearer idea of the COVID-19 impacts and there is greater capacity to deal with it’.

If this is to be their decision, she noted, the UN and NPT states need to make it sooner rather than later, as a lot of people — myself included — have already booked travel and accommodation in New York.

“I would not support any proposals to “limit” the NPT Review Conference as this would likely be used to restrict the full participation of civil society and many delegations who do not have their nuclear experts based in New York”.

Dr Johnson said the postponement of the Review Conference to 2021 should not be a political problem for the NPT and non-proliferation regime, and may even turn out to be advantageous for the health of the NPT.

“This year, there are deep concerns that toxic political relations between several nuclear-armed or significant NPT States Parties will cause the NPT Review Conference to fail, the third time since 2015. There may be better prospects for a positive NPT outcome in 2021, though of course nothing is certain in life or politics!”

She added: “If held in 2021, it would be sensible to choose the most practical NPT-related city, whether Vienna, Geneva or New York.”

Burroughs said it is conceivable that the picture will be better by the end of 2020. He said Reuters reports that on February 28, a senior US administration official said that President Trump is willing to hold a summit of the five NPT nuclear weapon states to discuss arms control.

“While China maintains that it will not join trilateral arms control negotiations due to the vast disparity between its nuclear forces and those of the United States and Russia, it has said that it would discuss “strategic security” issues in a five-power format”.

China’s position that it will not engage in arms controls talks should be challenged. Negotiators can be creative, he said.

One can imagine, for example, addressing intermediate- and short-range missiles, most conventionally armed, fielded in its region by China, as well as US and Russian actual and planned deployments of such missiles, Burroughs said.

“Or China’s long-range nuclear forces could be capped while US and Russian reductions proceed. More ambitiously, the five NPT nuclear weapon states could launch negotiations on global elimination of nuclear arsenals and invite non-NPT nuclear-armed states and perhaps other states to join”.

The five NPT nuclear weapons states are the US, UK, China, Russia and France – all veto-wielding permanent members of the UN Security Council– while the four non-NPT nuclear armed states are India, Pakistan, Israel and North Korea.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-russia-summit-idUSKCN20M3CJ
https://www.fmprc.gov.cn/mfa_eng/wjbxw/t1746174.shtml

Dr M. V. Ramana, Professor and Simons Chair in Disarmament, Global and Human Security, and Director, Liu Institute for Global Issues, at the School of Public Policy and Global Affairs, University of British Columbia, told IPS “I think there is a good case to postpone the Review Conference”.

“At this point, we don’t know how the coronavirus infections will spread — and bringing together a large number of people from different countries to one building definitely contributes a level of risk”.

Further, he said, there will be the additional uncertainty imposed by the Trump administration’s plans to block people from various countries with high levels of infections. Some of those countries, China and Iran, are central to the future of the NPT.

The writer can be contacted at thalifdeen@aol.com

The post Coronavirus Threatens to Wreck Nuclear Review Conference appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Major League Soccer side Montreal Impact sign Kenya midfielder Victor Wanyama on a free transfer from Tottenham Hotspur.

Afra Burga Ambui spent 9 years in forced servitude. Now her former employer is in court in Jakarta, Indonesia, facing charges of assault. Credit: Kanis Dursin/IPS

By Kanis Dursin
JAKARTA, Mar 4 2020 (IPS)

When her uncle offered her an opportunity to work in Jakarta almost a decade ago, the then 15-year-old Afra Burga Ambui immediately agreed and soon she was boarding a two-hour flight to the country’s capital and away from her village on Flores Island in East Nusa Tenggara, southern Indonesia.

Soon she will likely testify in a case of assault against the man who kept her as virtual prisoner for almost eight years. It was only last October, after he had beat her so severely that it resulted a head injury, that she was finally able to speak out and seek help.

“I want him to be given a very long jail sentence. He locked me up like a prisoner for over eight years, he has to experience what I have gone through,” Ambui told IPS.

Held captive and abused

Shortly after arriving in Jakarta in November 2010, Ambui was hired as a live-in maid by the businessman. He had agreed to pay her a monthly salary of $44, which was roughly half the city’s minimum wage at the time.

“My employer promised to increase my salary by $3.8 every six months but he never paid my salary. As a live-in maid, I also worked long hours without a day off,” Ambui told IPS before a court hearing in western Jakarta.

Seven months into her job, her employer began beating her with sharp objects, plastic pipes, and sometimes even broom handles.

A family in mourning

“I could not tell my condition to family members or friends because I was not allowed to have a cellular phone. Also I could not run away as the doors were always locked. Even when he asked me to buy something from the nearby grocery stores, he would watch me from the gate,” she said.

Meanwhile, at home on Flores Island, her family had already performed her funeral rites and were mourning her death. Her uncle, who had recruited her, had told them that he and the labour agency had lost touch with Ambui.

And her family had decided not to report her missing to the police because they “didn’t want to destroy family relations,” with the uncle who had recruited her, Ambui explained.

But even though Indonesia has the 2007 Eradication of the Criminal Act of Trafficking in Persons law, which imposes imprisonment of between three to 15 years and a fine between $8,440 and $42,216, Ambui’s former employer is only standing trail for assault under a domestic violence act that carries a sentence of up to 10 years. 

When asked why he had not been charged under the anti-trafficking law, lawyers prosecuting the case told IPS it was the best they could do.

A work contract doesn’t guarantee safety against human trafficking

Santi Arief, a 27-year-old migrant domestic worker from West Sumatra, Indonesia, left for Malaysia in January 2019 with a contract, which, among other things, stated that she would receive a salary of $288 per month. She was also to receive overtime pay for work done outside of work hours and one day a week off. However, her employer wanted to pay her only $234, with no overtime or days off.

Upon her arrival in Malaysia, Arief said she was “locked up in a room, while my boss searched my belongings and confiscated all related documents [her work contract, work permit, visa and passport] and my cellular phone”.  

“I insisted that he honour the signed contract but because of that he decided not to pay my salary altogether. I was also made to work long hours and without a day off,” she told IPS.

Towards the end of last year she escaped and sought protection at the Indonesian Embassy in Kuala Lumpur, but her employer had falsely reported her as an irregular migrant to immigration authorities and she was later arrested.

She was detained in prison for several months, living in “unbearable” conditions and also being verbally assaulted by the guards. Eventually someone forced her to sign some documents, which Arief now believes were papers to withdraw the complaint against her employer.

She was sent back to Indonesia soon after.   

Indonesia lacks official records of human trafficking 

Arief and Ambui are just two of thousands, or even tens of thousands, of victims of human trafficking. According to Fitri Lestari, head of Migrant CARE’s Legal Division, a non-governmental organisation working with migrant workers, “human trafficking is becoming rampant with the number of victims increasing every month, in fact every day”. 

The government has no official record of human trafficking cases here. According to the national police, a total of 2,400 cases were investigated and brought to court over from 2013 to 2018.

“We believe those 2,400 cases are just the tip of the iceberg of trafficking in Indonesia,” Destri Handayani, Deputy Assistant for Women Right’s at the  Ministry of Women’s Empowerment and Child Protection, told IPS.

“Many victims don’t want to report to the police because it involves their own family members, close relatives, or in some cases well-connected public figures,” Handayani said.

In some cases, active or retired military/police officers are taught to own or have a connection with many of the so-called labour agencies here.   

Endemic corruption and a human trafficking law that is not implemented  

The 2018 Trafficking in Persons Report, by the United States Embassy in Jakarta praised efforts taken by Indonesia to stem human exploitation but noted the country “does not fully meet the minimum standard for the elimination of trafficking”. It paid attention to the fact that “endemic corruption among officials remained, which impeded anti-trafficking efforts and enabled many traffickers to operate with impunity”.

But not all law enforcement agencies are charging accused criminals with the human trafficking law. In late January, Jakarta police arrested six people for luring 10 teenage girls into prostitution. The girls were reportedly forced to serve at least 10 customers per night or face a fine if they refused, prompting the National Commission on Child Protection (KPAI) to call for harsher punishment for traffickers.

“Those children were recruited and sold both off and online by recruiters,” KPAI commissioner Ai Maryati Shalihah told IPS. “The perpetrators should be punished severely under the anti-trafficking law, not the child protection law, to deter anyone considering exploiting children.”

But Indonesia still remains a transit country, particularly for refugees and asylum seekers from the Middle East, Afghanistan, Pakistan and East Africa, who are looking to for a better life in Australia or other countries.

• Since 2008, the government has established task forces to combat human trafficking in almost half of its 514 municipalities and regencies across 32 provinces.
• Task force members come from various government agencies, including the national police, the state intelligence agency and the ministries of foreign affairs, health, labour, and social affairs.
• These task forces coordinate prevention efforts and handling of victims of human trafficking, conduct advocacy campaigns and trainings on the dangers of trafficking, and monitor victim protection programmes such as rehabilitation and social reintegration.

In 2017, Indonesia ratified the ASEAN Convention Against Trafficking in Person Especially Women and Children and enacted a national law designed to protect its workers overseas.

Demand for Indonesian workers abroad

But, according to Handayani, high demand for Indonesian workers and the involvement of human trafficking syndicates have undermined the country’s efforts to combat the crime.

“Overseas demand for Indonesian workers remains high, while law enforcement has managed to prosecute small-time field recruiters only, while the funders and end-users remain free to operate,” Handayani said.

At least 4.5 million Indonesians are working in Asia and the Middle East and around 1.9 million of them are undocumented, making them vulnerable to trafficking. A majority of these workers are in domestic service, or work in factories, in the construction industry, on palm oil plantations in Malaysia, and aboard fishing vessels in the Indian and Pacific Oceans.

The Global Sustainability Network ( GSN ), which actively supports the U.N. Sustainable Development Goal 8 of decent work and economic growth, has focused much of its work on eliminating modern slavery.  It has been focusing efforts on creating a global movement of change and a list of recommendations aimed at employers, it states, among other things, that there should be; no withholding of passports and IDs, wages should be directly paid into employees’ bank accounts, their living conditions must be safe and they must be guaranteed freedom of movement.

Emi Sahertian, a church leader and activist in Kupang, the capital of East Nusa Tenggara province, said that while Jakarta’s anti-trafficking programmes were good, they did not address economic poverty as a root cause.

According to a World Bank report, around 9.4 percent of the country’s 264 million people still live below the poverty line in 2019.

“People risk their lives by entering a country illegally because they have no stable income at home. The government should direct its efforts towards creating new jobs,” Sahertian told IPS from Kupang.

This is part of a series of features from across the globe on human trafficking. IPS coverage is supported by the Airways Aviation Group.

The Global Sustainability Network ( GSN ) is pursuing the United Nations Sustainable Development Goal number 8 with a special emphasis on Goal 8.7 which ‘takes immediate and effective measures to eradicate forced labour, end modern slavery and human trafficking and secure the prohibition and elimination of the worst forms of child labour, including recruitment and use of child soldiers, and by 2025 end child labour in all its forms’.

The origins of the GSN come from the endeavours of the Joint Declaration of Religious Leaders signed on 2 December 2014. Religious leaders of various faiths, gathered to work together “to defend the dignity and freedom of the human being against the extreme forms of the globalisation of indifference, such us exploitation, forced labour, prostitution, human trafficking” and so forth.

 

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The post Indonesia’s Laws Ineffective against Human Trafficking appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Excerpt:

Despite having a law and various tasks forces to combat human trafficking, Indonesia is still grappling with the crime that likely sees tens of thousands of people turned into modern day slaves.

The post Indonesia’s Laws Ineffective against Human Trafficking appeared first on Inter Press Service.

As World Health Organization chief, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus has people hanging on his every word.

How a health crisis on the other side of the world spelled disaster for a South African industry.

By Jan Lundius
STOCKHOLM / ROME, Mar 3 2020 (IPS)

The great American impeachment show has ended not with a bang, but with a whimper. The dirt was washed away from President Trump, the perfect Teflon Guy. Maybe his invulnerability comes from the fact that he appears to be more of a brand than a real person, adapted to a frame of mind that increasingly dominates social media – cheap entertainment, shallowness, vulgarity, invectives, and catchy phrases without support in well-founded facts. Trump is all and nothing, a shape shifting trickster pretending to be the role model for voiceless masses.

We are subjects to a constant flow of information. Social media makes it easy to select issues that interest us. Influenced by this selective behaviour people tend to adapt their views to those of their idols, accepting them with lock, stock, and barrel, defending them as if they were part of them. Just as they tend to excuse their own improprieties, they accept the flaws of their role models.

An era characterized by strong mainstream parties with loyal followers and generally stable politics is now coming to an end, the latter being replaced by general opinions floating around on social media. However, this does not hinder that some of these opinions are supported by fanatical believers.

In 1848, Marx and Engels proclaimed: ”A spectre is haunting Europe – the spectre of communism”.2 We may now replace this spectre with National Populism, haunting not only Europe, but many other regions of the world as well. This ideology has been claimed to emanate from the so-called Four Ds´ – distrust, destruction, deprivation, and de-alignment.3

Distrust of politicians and institutions fuelled by a general feeling that they are governed by elites distanced from ordinary citizens. It is also assumed that a ”voiceless” majority is ignored while historically marginalized groups, like women and ethnic minorities, gain voice and presence in the legislature.

Destruction of national groups´ historic identity and established way of life. North America and most of Europe are assumed to be ruled by culturally liberal politicians, transnational organizations and global finance, eroding nations and moral values by encouraging mass-migration. At the same time it is believed that ”politically correct” agendas seek to silence any opposition.

A sense of deprivation is growing, particularly among workers and small business owners who are experiencing decreasing wealth and vanishing benefits. Millions are convinced they are losing out relative to others. Feelings inflamed by a conviction that even if they do not belong to an underclass of strangers and welfare-takers they are nevertheless excluded from decision making. Accordingly, many suffer from de-alignment, feeling lost in a world perceived as more chaotic and less predictable than it was in the past.

Such notions are by demagogues successfully applied to seductive tactics. They present themelves and their party as spokespersons for the people, an imaginary unified group, with the same identity, interests, characteristics, and needs. What the people have in common are their nationality and culture. Gender, class, ideology, income, education or individuality do not matter. Political schemers indicate the existence of an elite that is not on the people’s side. A self-sufficient class of highly educated and wealthy politicians and bureaucrats who control media and have lost all contact with the common man, while lining their own pockets on the bases of their influence. For a political rabble-rouser it is also opportune to identify a group as scapegoats, who are not part of the people and accordingly lack any common interests with them. These scapegoats are depicted as being in league with the elite, which ensures that resources of the people are directed towards these alien parasites. Should the people get rid of the scapegoats as well as the elite everything would be just as fine as before.

Through such deceptive simplifications a politician like Donald Trump, in spite of the fact that he is a billionaire and part of a wealthy, privileged elite, attracts a fan base cosidering him to be the incarnate hope for benign change. Donald Trump, who was a pop-culture icon before he became a politician, has been adopted by what has been called toxic fandom.

Fan is short for fanatic originating from the Latin fanaticus, meaning “of or belonging to the temple, a temple servant, a devotee.” Fandom is a subculture composed of people characterized by a shared feeling of empathy and camaraderie emerging from a common interest. It is supported by a parallel ”make-believe” universe created by social media and a growing industry catering to the wishful thinking of gratified consumers. Several supporters of nationalist leaders seem to consider them as incarnations of their own beliefs. If such an idol is accused of misconduct his/her fans are ready to rush to his/her defense, since attacking an idol would be like attacking them.

Michael Schulman, staff writer at The New Yorker, recently stated that ”a glance around the pop-culture landscape gives the impression that fans have gone mad”.4 ”Couch potatoes” that earlier idled their time away in front of TV-sets and computers are now rising up and are through social media becoming active, opinionated participants in what is happening around them.

For example, when the TV-series Game of Thrones in May 2019 did not end in accordance with several fans´expectations more than 1.7 million of them signed a petition to HBO to ”remake Game of Thrones Season 8 with competent writers.” However, such incidents are nothing compared to what happens to an individual who dares to question the behaviour of an admired idol. Social media provides numerous examples of how idol detractors are targeted by outrageous threats directed towards them and their families.

The stout support Donald Trump receives from Republican politicians and his immovable base appears to be a mixture of fandom and concerns about personal power and well-being. Extremely few Republicans want, or dare to, state that ”the emperor is naked”, that Trump actually is an ignorant bully and a narcissist guilty of a great number of misdeeds and abuse of power. Doing that may result in being hounded by Trump fans who brazenly stood by his side during the impeachment proceedings.

Contrary to Trump, who seems to be a self-consciously constructed media product, US Senator Mitt Romney appears to be a morally motivated politician adhering to steadfast principles. Trump proclaims his guiding principle to be America First, while Mitt Romney in 2010 realeased a book he called No Apology: The Case for American Greatness.5 However, Romney´s Americanism is contrary to Trump´s populism founded on strict morals. The American Exceptionalism he brings forward in his book is based on three related ideas. The first is that US history is different from the one of other nations. Through the American Revolution (1765-1783) the USA became the first new nation and thus developed a unique ideology – Americanism, based on liberty, equality before the law, individual responsibility, republicanism, representative democracy, and laissez-faire economics. Second is the idea that the US has a unique mission to transform the world, that Americans have a duty to ensure that ”government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.” The third is a conviction that the United States’ history and mission give it superiority over other nations.

Mitt Romney served as Governor of Massachusetts from 2003 to 2007 and was the Republican Party’s nominee for President of the United States in the 2012 election. Furthermore, he is a fifth-generation member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (the Mormons) and has throughout his adult life served as this religion´s bishop. He is a faithful follower of the Mormons´ moral code based on a scripture called the Word of Wisdom. Accordingly, he abstains from the consumption of alcohol, coffee, tea, and tobacco and follows his Church´s Law of Chastity, which prohibits adultery and sexual relations outside of marriage. When Romney critizises Trump he does so from a moral standpoint.

One might be skeptical to both Mormonism and American Exceptionalism, though it is difficult not to admire the personal courage Romney displayed on February 5, when he on the Senate floor decried President Trump’s intents to ”corrupt” a general election to keep himself in office as “perhaps the most abusive and destructive violation of an oath of office that I can imagine.” Romney was the only Republican politician who publically supported the impeachment of Trump. In his speech Romney condemned the lies and moral laxity of the US president, answering the question ”whether the President committed an act so extreme and egregious that it rises to the level of high crime and misdemeanor” by ”Yes, he did.”

Romney counted with attacks and accusations of disloyalty from his fellow Republicans. And he certainly became a target of the uncontrollable wrath of Trump´s fandom and of course of their idol as well. Trump labeled Romney as a ”failed presidential candidate” adding that ”I don´t like people who use their faith as justification for doing what they know is wrong.” Nevertheless, it was the other way around – Romney used his faith to justify what he believed to be right. In opposition to the complicity of his party colleagues, he stood his ground by declaring ”I am a profoundly religious person. My faith is at the heart of who I am. I take an oath before God as enormously consequential.” 6

Mitt Romney proved that personal moral conviction and decency can survive within a party that has been hijacked by National Populism and spineless sycophants. We may hope that more people like Mitt Romney are prepared to listen to their conscience and be brave enough to reveal the manipulations and lies of narcissistic manipulators like Donald Trump. We also have to find effective means to address the deceit, hate and ignorance that have invaded social media.

1 Nicoletti, Gianluca (2015) “Umberto Eco:´Con i social parola a legioni di imbecelli´,” La Stampa, June 11.
2 Hobsbawm, Eric (2012) How to Change the World: Reflections on Marx and Marxism. New Haven.Yale University Press.
3 Eatwell, Roger and Matthew Goodwin (2018) National Populism: The Revolt Against Liberal Democarcy. London: Penguin Books.
4 Schulman, Michael (2019) ”Fans are more powerful than ever. Does their passion have a dark side?” The New Yorker, September 9.
5 Romney, Mitt (2010) No Apology: The Case for American Greatness. New York: St. Martins Press.
6 https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/05/us/politics/mitt-romney-impeachment-speech-transcript.html

Jan Lundius holds a PhD. on History of Religion from Lund University and has served as a development expert, researcher and advisor at SIDA, UNESCO, FAO and other international organisations.

The post Personal Conviction Versus Fandom: The Case of Mitt Romney appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Excerpt:

“Social media gives legions of idiots the right to speak when they once only spoke at a bar after a glass of wine, without harming the community. They were immediately silenced, but now they have the same right to speak as a Nobel Prize winner. It's the invasion of the idiots.” 1

                                                                                                                                                           Umberto Eco

The post Personal Conviction Versus Fandom: The Case of Mitt Romney appeared first on Inter Press Service.

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