Africa

Aid agencies warn that it is becoming more dangerous, not less, in southern Africa after Cyclone Idai.

Dr Mohammad Amir Hossain Bhuiyan

By Naznin Tithi
Mar 22 2019 (IPS-Partners)

The depletion of groundwater table in Dhaka has made water crisis in the city acute, especially during the dry season. What are the reasons behind this?

We have conducted many research studies in the last 15/20 years and have found that Dhaka’s groundwater table has been gradually depleting at an average rate of one metre or 30/40 centimetres sometimes. Because of the rapid urbanisation of the city, the demand for groundwater has been increasing. In the multi-storied buildings and towers that are being constructed, high-powered pumps are used to extract water from underground. This contributes significantly to the lowering of the groundwater table. In Dhaka, there is no water in the shallow aquifers (50-70 feet deep). Presently, water is being extracted from the intermediate and deep aquifers, which are 600 to 800 feet deep.

Another reason for this depletion is our total dependency on groundwater. The whole city depends on groundwater. Although we have Sayedabad Water Treatment Plant, which uses the water from Shitalakhya, the capacity of the plant and the quality of water it produces are not satisfactory. Because of industrial pollution, the amount of heavy metals and other harmful elements in the Shitalakhya has increased to dangerous proportions. The Sayedabad plant does not have the required efficiency to treat such extremely polluted water. This treated water is not safe to drink. So we are left with the water supplied through pipelines by the Wasa.

Moreover, industries inside Dhaka use excessive amounts of groundwater. So the shortage of water in the city is particularly acute in industrial areas such as Tejgaon and Old Dhaka.

The World Bank in a recent report found that the sources of water are contaminated with E.Coli and arsenic. Also, harmful bacteria were found in 82 percent of supplied water. What are the reasons for this contamination?

Through my research study, I found that even the deep layers of water have been contaminated with excessive amounts of heavy metals and other pollutants. So even after boiling the water supplied by Wasa and purifying it through regular water filters, the heavy metals cannot be removed. There are pathogens and hookworms in the water supplied by Wasa. When you boil this water, you will notice some residue which looks like white thread. These are nothing but worms. Moreover, the water supplied by Wasa has Faecal Coliform, Escherichia Coli (E.Coli) and many other bacteria.

Contaminants enter the water pipelines in so many ways. The reserved tanks of Wasa, where 50,000 gallons or more water are stored, are not cleaned regularly. Then the water pipelines are getting connected with the sewerage lines. Sewerage lines are filled with faecal coliform which enters the water pipelines through leakages.

Moreover, groundwater gets contaminated during the construction of high-rise buildings. When the soil is dug up for building construction, some weak joints are created in the ground. The pollutants from the surface seep into these weak joints and contaminate underground water, especially when high-powered pumps are used to extract water from underground, the pollutants from the surface seep in through the weak joints. Underground water also gets polluted by pollutants from the rivers.

Can’t anything be done to ensure that the water remains safe throughout the whole process—from extraction to supply?

In the developed countries, when water is extracted from underground, it is boiled to kill the pathogens, bacteria and other pollutants. After this water is cooled, it is distributed for people’s use. But in Bangladesh, after the water is extracted from underground, it is supplied to the pipelines straight away. Although this is a very expensive process, if we can do what developed countries do, the water quality will be better. We should also clean and replace the pipelines from time to time. In addition, if chlorination is done following the proper method, a lot of germs can be killed.

Researchers have also found that bottled and jar water are polluted with E.Coli and other pollutants. Who should be held accountable for this?

The BSTI has been looking after this at present. But the BSTI is not the relevant authority here. Everything related to water, including the quality of bottled water, should be checked by the Department of Public Health and Engineering. Carrying out random drives and fining some illegal businessmen will not solve the problem. The sources of the illegal businesses must be identified and addressed.

I think the government should take a policy decision to ban bottled water, say, after 10 years. Bottled water can be used for drinking purposes, only for the time being. But the use of jar water should be banned. Because if it is not banned, no sincere efforts will be made to make the Effluent Treatment Plants (ETPs) work, and the pollution of the rivers will not stop. This is not possible for the government to do at one go but this can be done in phases. The use of bottled and jar water should be discouraged and the use of river water after proper treatment should be given priority.

The government has been talking about reducing the use of groundwater for quite some time now. What should be done to reduce our dependency on groundwater and ensure optimal use of surface water?

The government has set a target of ensuring safe water for all by 2021. There’s only two years until 2021 but not much progress has been made to ensure this. Immediate steps should be taken to reduce the use of groundwater and ensure the maximum use of surface water. The use of groundwater in the industrial and agricultural sector should also stop.

We have no other alternatives to using river water for all purposes. We have to bring water from the rivers where industrial pollution is much less. The water of Buriganga, Turag, Shitalakhya and Balu cannot be used because these rivers are extremely polluted. If we treat this water and supply it to the consumers, it will create a public health disaster. We have also carried out research on the Meghna river and found its water to be contaminated with the pollutants from nearby factories. However, the water quality of Padma and Jamuna is relatively better. This water can be brought to Dhaka through pipelines and after treatment can be used by the residents of Dhaka.

The use of ETPs should be made mandatory for all factories. If the laws are strictly enforced, the rivers will be pollution-free and the water can be used for industrial and agricultural purposes. The government must ensure that those who violate the law face harsh penalty.

Another thing we should do is store water from Dhaka’s surrounding rivers during the rainy season. During July-August, even the water of Buriganga gets cleaner. We will have to reserve that water by building polders, reservoirs and ponds all around Dhaka. This water can be used from November till April after proper treatment.

We should take a policy decision to not use groundwater for the next 15/20 years. It has to be done immediately. One of the results would be the groundwater table rising up. Water crisis and pollution are major issues in Dhaka and solving these problems should be given due importance by the government.

This story was originally published by The Daily Star, Bangladesh

The post ‘We should not use groundwater for the next 15/20 years’ appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Excerpt:

Dr Mohammad Amir Hossain Bhuiyan, professor and chairman, Department of Environmental Sciences, Jahangirnagar University, talks to Naznin Tithi of The Daily Star about why it is absolutely necessary to stop using groundwater and find alternative sources of water for residents of Dhaka.

The post ‘We should not use groundwater for the next 15/20 years’ appeared first on Inter Press Service.

A selection of the week's best photos from across the continent and beyond.

Individuals who worked for the East German intelligence service have been questioned as part of the ongoing inquiry.

Congressman Juan Guaidó of the Popular Will party, president of the National Assembly since Jan. 5, was sworn in on Jan. 23 before a crowd as Venezuela's interim president. Credit: NationalAssembly

By Ivar Andersen
STOCKHOLM, Mar 21 2019 (IPS)

More than 60 countries have recognized Juan Guaidó as legitimate interim president. But among international trade unions, support for Venezuelan self-determination is resolute.

On January 23, the leader of the National Assembly, Juan Guaidó, declared himself  interim president of Venezuela. His claim on the presidency was immediately recognized by the United States who, through Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, called for the world to “pick a side”.

A little over 60 countries have followed in the footsteps of the United States, according to information from Al Jazeera. On February 4, Sweden joined the list.

“Sweden supports and acknowledges Juan Guaidó as the leader of the National Assembly and, in accordance with the country’s constitution, his attempts to serve as interim President of Venezuela, now responsible for making sure free and fair democratic elections will be called,” said Margot Wallström, Minister for Foreign Affairs, in a statement that stressed the importance of solving the crisis peacefully.

The international trade union movement on the other hand, has chosen a different approach. On the same day as Guaidó declared himself president, the Trade Union Confederation of the Americas (TUCA), released a harsh statement:

“We condemn the unilateral decision adopted today, January 23, by a group of governments of the region, notably led by the USA, to ignore the legitimacy of the government of President Maduro and to recognize the self-proclaimed ’president of the transition’, representative Juan Guaidó.”

TUCA is calling upon the government of Venezuela and the opposition to seek out dialogue, and for the international community to support this, but also states that the support for Guaidó “is a grave act of interference and intervention in the internal affairs of a sovereign country, setting back the region to times we thought belonged to the past, in which coups d’état and military dictatorships were instigated”.

Many national trade union confederations have taken the same position. South Africa’s largest confederations Cosatu and Saftu condemn what they both call a “coup attempt”.

Trade unions in Canada are protesting the government’s decision to recognize Guaidó. The trade union confederation CLC writes that it supports “the Venezuelan people’s right to peaceful self-determination”.

Venezuela Presidential Election 2018



On May 20, 2018, the sitting president of Venezuela, Nicolás Maduro, was reelected for a second, six-year term. The EU and the United States, as well as associations like OAS and the Lima Group, rejected the election process.

In a statement on May 28, the Council of the European Union wrote: “The substantially reduced electoral calendar, bans and other major obstacles to the participation of opposition political parties and their leaders, as well as the non-respect of minimal democratic standards as indicated by numerous reported irregularities, notably the widespread abuse of state resources, voter coercion and unbalanced access to media, led to these elections being neither free nor fair.”

The election result was recognised by some countries, including China, South Africa, Cuba, Iran, Syria, and Turkey.

The voter turnout was 46 percent, the lowest since the fall of the military dictatorship in 1958.

The country’s largest trade union, the Canadian Union of Public Employees, states that Canada “has chosen to side with Donald Trump and US foreign policy”, while the Canadian Union of Postal Workers calls the Canadian standpoint “deeply disturbing” and “ in direct violation of international law”.

The global union IndustriALL condemns the acknowledgement of Guaidó and “also rejects the external boycott, which has clear political and economic motives that violate Venezuela’s sovereignty”.

The relationship between the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC) and Venezuela has been tense for some time, due to the fact that the country’s leadership doesn’t acknowledge ITUC’s affiliate ASI. But the ITUC also opposes foreign interference in the matter of the presidency.

“Concerning the Presidency of Venezuela, that is a matter for the people of Venezuela to decide, not any other entity outside of the country,” says Director of Communications Tim Noonan to Arbetet Global.

The ITUC also refers to its statement on Venezuela, which was adopted by the organisation’s world congress in December last year, before Guaidó’s challenge.

“The ITUC supports its affiliates in Venezuela in their struggle to strengthen democracy and dialogue, and the workers and people of Venezuela in dealing with the enormous difficulties that they are experiencing due to the economic blockade imposed on Venezuela.”

The Swedish Trade Union Confederation, LO, is in favour of humanitarian aid and UN led reconcilliation efforts. The international department stresses that the LO does not take sides in the question of the presidency, but does take a swing at foreign involvement.

“The unstable political situation is worsened by superpowers like China, the United States, and Russia trying to manoeuvre the political map,” says Åsa Törnlund, union officer responsible for South America.

Translation: Cecilia Studer 

This story was originally published by Arbetet Global

 

The post International Trade Unions Condemn Recognition of Guaidó appeared first on Inter Press Service.

The International Organization for Migration (IOM) has launched a project called Migrants as Messengers (MaM), which aims to make future candidates aware of the dangers of irregular migration. In Guinea, migrants who have returned home are involved in awareness-raising activities with logistical support and training from IOM-Guinea. Courtesy: Amadou Kendessa Diallo

By Issa Sikiti da Silva
COTONOU, Benin , Mar 21 2019 (IPS)

Elhadj Mohamed Diallo wants to make sure that others won’t experience what he has lived through. The former irregular migrant who has returned home to Guinea from a jail in North Africa is calling on his fellow returnee migrants to establish associations in their respective countries, which will serve as powerful platforms to combat irregular migration across the continent.

“If I had the resources, I would tour Africa to create awareness about irregular migration. But because I haven’t got [those resources], I am urging all the African returnees wherever they are to take this fight into their hands and do something to stop the people who want to travel that route from experiencing what we went through,” he tells IPS.

The resource-rich West African nation has a population of about 13 million, of which 60 percent are less than 25 years of age. But widespread corruption, poverty, the country’s low score on the Human Development Index (Guinea ranks 175 out of 189 countries on the index), coupled with political unrest, has seen hundreds of young people attempt irregular migration with the hope of finding peace and stability in Europe.

The journey is a harsh one and Diallo’s own experiences of irregular migration are traumatic. In Morocco he was attacked by five youth and seriously wounded in the face and back. It, however, didn’t deter him from trying to reach Europe through irregular means. And it was only after he had been held for the third time in a Libyan jail that he eventually returned home through the European Union (EU)-International Organisation of Migration (IOM) Joint Initiative for Migrant Protection and Reintegration.

The 31-year-old is one of the Guinea migrants assisted to return home by the IOM. A total of 12,609 Guinean migrants stranded in North Africa have been assisted by the EU-IOM initiative to return home from Niger, Libya, Mali and Morocco. According to IOM’s recent figures, four percent of the returnees to Guinea are women, with six percent being minors.

Thirty returning migrants, including Diallo, were selected to become volunteers as part of IOM’s Migrants as Messengers (MaM) campaign in Guinea, which kicked off in June 2018. MaM, which runs in Senegal, Guinea and Nigeria, is a unique peer-to-peer “awareness-raising project about irregular migration which includes various campaigns targeting, among others, parents, returning migrants and candidates to irregular migration.”

Les gens partent et ils meurent

« Je suis revenue sain et sauf, Dieu merci ». C’est pas évident de survivre la route terrestre vers la Libye. Madiama raconte son vécu. Partagez sa vidéo! #MigrantsasMessengers

Posted by Migrants as Messengers on Friday, November 16, 2018

“They are carried out by young migrants who returned from different North African countries with the support of IOM and its partners,” Mariama Bobo Sy, the spokesperson for IOM in Guinea, tells IPS about the project.

As part of the awareness campaign, returnee migrants in Guinea have participated in events at football games, music shows and even universities.

“They also organised focus groups with young people in different neighbourhoods of Conakry and outside of the capital, particularly in Mamou, a crossroads town located 275 km of Conakry. Also, they were time to time in touch with the media to discuss the issue of irregular migration in a view of reaching more people, and get the message across to various sections of the population,” Sy says.

The experience made Diablo realise there was a need for further action. He has gone on to found the Guinean Organisation for the Fight against Irregular Migration, known as Organisation Guinéene pour la Luttecontre la Migration Irregulière (OGLIM) in French.

Apart from its headquarters in the capital Conakry, OGLIM has five national branches, namely in Kindia, Mamou, Labe, Kankan and Nzerekore. The group has currently 550 members in Conakry and 250 outside the capital.

“The terrible things that we saw and experienced during our ordeal in North Africa should serve as a catalyst for teaching the young generations about the dangers of irregular migration,” Diablo explains.
“However, we have to do it in a united manner so that the message conveyed through concerted efforts and as a bloc reaches the communities effectively and makes a long-lasting impact in our society.”

Related Articles

• Hope Springs Once Again for Nigeria’s Returnee Migrants
• Awareness Raising, a Deterrent to Educate Guineans About Irregular Migration
• For Love of the Game: Using Football to Educate Nigerians About the Dangers of Irregular Migration

The post Call for Returnee Migrants to Join Forces to Fight Irregular Migration appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Cameroon will travel to China for a four nation tournament as they seek competitive matches ahead of the Women's World Cup.

Parts of southern Africa have been left devastated after Cyclone Idai swept through Mozambique, Malawi and Zimbabwe, destroying towns and villages in its path.

Italian club AS Roma hopes to further improve its connection with fans in Nigeria by setting up a Pidgin Language Twitter account.

By Jens Berggren
STOCKHOLM, Sweden, Mar 21 2019 (IPS)

Every year, the World Economic Forum asks some 1,000 decision-makers from the public sector, business, academia and civil society across the globe to assess the risks facing the world over the decade to come.

Since 2012, water crisis has consistently been ranked as one of the threats with the highest potential impact as well as likelihood.

This year “water crisis” is named as the risk with the fourth biggest impact. When asked how likely the risks are to occur, “water crisis” is placed as number nine.

The top scores on both impact and likelihood are perceived to be: extreme weather events; failure of climate change mitigation nd adaptation; and natural disasters.

Jens Berggren

But wait a minute – what are extreme weather events, poorly managed climate change and natural disasters? Almost always the answer is water.

Of the 1,000 most severe disasters that have occurred since 1990, water-related disasters accounted for 90 per cent. With extreme water and weather events increasing in both frequency and severity in the wake of climate change, floods and droughts are set to strike harder and more often in the years to come.

Annual flood losses in Europe are expected to increase fivefold to 2050 and up to 17-fold by 2080.

Water doesn’t have to create a disaster to be a problem.

The sheer uncertainty around the future water availability is causing planning problems for cities, businesses and households. Shall we invest in expanding our water supplies or our stormwater drains or both? Should farmers invest in draining or irrigation? Does your home insurance cover both wild fires and mud slides?

During last summer’s heat wave in Sweden, fans were out of stock almost everywhere, reportedly creating a second-hand market where 50 SEK fans sold for 1,500 SEK. Will fans be the hot item in 2019 as well or will rainwear be the coolest thing around?

On closer inspection, 9 of the 10 risks with above average impact and likelihood have clear linkages to water.

Apart from the already mentioned, poor water governance too often plays a part in “man-made natural disasters”, “large-scale involuntary migration”, “interstate conflict” and “failure of regional or global governance”, as well as “bio-diversity loss and ecosystem collapse” where populations of freshwater species have declined by an average of 83 per cent over the last fifty years, far more than species on land or in the sea.

No one interested in managing risks can afford to ignore the role of water management.

So, what can be done?

Firstly, we need to understand that water risks are much more than its absence. Water is used by everyone, everywhere for almost everything.

Changes in its availability will have huge impacts on how we live and make a living. Ignoring the increasing water variability is a sure way, both figuratively and literally, to so called “stranded assets” – investments that become obsolete due to events rather than age.

We all need to apply the understanding of the role that water plays in our societies to policies and incentives in and by almost every sector and actor.

The big question we need to ask is: are our governance structures suited to the current and future realities of water? Are we being guided to use the water that we sustainably can borrow from nature as effectively as we can?

And are we sufficiently supported in our efforts to protect our loved ones, our lives and our livelihoods from the less benevolent aspects of water?

If not, now is the time to start discussing this with our peers and our leaders.

Despite the challenges I am optimistic. Yes, adapting our societies to new water regimes are daunting tasks. But we have three great things working in our favor.

The first is, somewhat paradoxically, that the world has neglected water challenges for so long. This means that there is still a lot of low-hanging fruits, good innovative solutions and plenty of unused tools in our tool boxes.

The second is that water tends to foster collaboration as we are often simply sit in the same boat.

The third is that water underpins progress and development in so many other sectors and vice versa. By acting to improve how we use, manage and protect ourselves from water, there is likely to be gains of different kinds also with regards to poverty reduction, nutrition, health, manufacturing industries, our seas, energy sector, conflict prevention etc.

It will not always be easy, but I am sure that together we can find tools for all the different water situations so that water will continue to be a source of life, peace and prosperity.

The post 9 of the 10 Worst Global Risks are Linked to Water appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Excerpt:

Jens Berggren is Spokesperson & Advisor at the Stockholm International Water Institute (SIWI)

The post 9 of the 10 Worst Global Risks are Linked to Water appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Some consumers had complained about unwanted side-effects, prompting the authorities to investigate.

Nigeria under-20 coach Paul Aigbogun would welcome Arsenal teenager Folarin Balogun to his squad but has not spoken to him about switching national allegiances.

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By Fahad Ferdous
DHAKA, Bangladesh, Mar 21 2019 (IPS-Partners)

(UNB/IPS) – Bangladesh is collecting data on international transactions of multinational companies to stop them from siphoning off money from the country.

Dhaka ranked second in South Asia by Washington-based Global Financial Integrity (GFI) in terms of illicit outflow of money. Some $5.9 billion was siphoned out of the country in 2015 through trade mis-invoicing.

The Transfer Pricing Cell of the National Board of Revenue, the revenue collecting authority of Bangladesh, has prepared a list of companies and is collecting data on priority basis. NBR sources said the cell will mainly collect data from the important offices and prepare separate files for each of them.

Transfer price is the price at which divisions of a company transact with each other for goods or services. It usually takes place when two related companies or two subsidiaries controlled by a parent, engage in international trade with each other.

But sometimes, high prices are shown for an imported product or service to evade taxes. This illegal practice is known as ‘transfer mispricing’. There are allegations that multinational companies are siphoning off billions of taka in the pretext of transfer pricing.

The NBR now has decided to collect data of multinational companies at its 9th board meeting. It will create separate tax profiles for the companies after completing audit.

On July 2, 2014, the NBR issued rules regarding transfer pricing under a provision incorporated in the Finance Act 2012. The Board took two years for framing the rule.

Some tax officials said it will be a time-consuming task. Initially, 921 companies operating in Bangladesh will be under the purview of their auditing, a senior tax official said..

In the preliminary stage, information about international transactions will be collected and the companies will be given a question paper. The next course of action will be decided after getting the answers, the official said.

The Deputy Commissioner of Taxes (DCT) may impose a penalty equivalent to a maximum one percent of the value of each international transaction in case of failure to keep, maintain or provide information, documents or records or comply with the notice.

A penalty of up to Tk 300,000 (USD 3,573) can be imposed by the DCT for failure in giving report by chartered accountants.

The post Bangladesh moves to stop siphoning off money by multinational companies appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Excerpt:

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The post Bangladesh moves to stop siphoning off money by multinational companies appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Fifa bans Togo referee Kokou Hougnimon Fagla for life after finding him guilty of accepting a bribe to manipulate a friendly international.

Some of the US women legislators elected to office in November 2018

By Thalif Deen
UNITED NATIONS, Mar 21 2019 (IPS)

The dramatic increase in women legislators voted into office last November and the historic high of women candidates for the 2020 presidential elections have visibly changed the male-dominated political landscape in the US.

The reasons for the transformation include a growing new political power structure; the rise of gender empowerment; the widespread impact of the #MeToo Movement against sexual abuse; and perhaps, most important of all, a backlash against US President Donald Trump’s steady stream of public insults denigrating women as “bimboes”, “dogs” “fat slobs,” “disgusting animals” and “having low IQs”.

At the November mid-term elections, a record 102 women won seats in the US House of Representatives and 10 won in the Senate, for a total of 112 women — the most ever to serve in the US Congress.

Jody Williams, the 1997 Nobel Peace Prize Laureate and chair of the Nobel Women’s Initiative, told IPS: “As a US citizen and an activist promoting women’s rights everywhere, like many, I was pleased with the outcome of the 2018 mid-term elections”.

“In my opinion, Mr. Trump’s bombastic misogyny did influence this outcome, both in the numbers of women who decided to run for office in the various elections across the country, and also in the voting that brought so many women into office,” she declared.

“I think it is also the result of women recognizing the changing power structures – even if too slow for many – and deciding to use their individual power to add momentum to those changes,” Williams added.

In its 2018 annual survey of parliamentarians worldwide, the Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU), based in Switzerland, rightly pointed out last week that the November elections in the US were apparently “historic” where diversity in women’s representation was particularly remarkable, with younger and more ethnically diverse women entering both the Senate and the House of Representatives– and for the first time.

Both the lower house (23.5 per cent of all representatives) and the upper house (25 per cent) included more women than ever before.

Of these, 37 per cent were women of colour, including the first two Muslim women and the first two Native American women.

The 2018 election also yielded the two youngest women ever to be elected to the U.S. Congress, both aged 29, as well as five new lesbian, gay, and bisexual parliamentarians (4 of them women).

Deb Haaland and Sharice Davids are the first Native American women elected to Congress while Rashida Tlaib and Ihlan Omar are the first Muslim women to represent their states in the House.

And, at 29, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Abby Finkenauer are the youngest women to serve as US legislators.

Tlaib was born in the US to Palestinian immigrant parents, and Omar, who migrated to the US from a refugee camp in Kenya after fleeing the civil war in Somalia, is the first Somali American to serve in the US Congress.

Deb Haaland, a member of the Pueblo of Laguna tribe, is the first Native American indigenous woman elected to Congress, alongside Sharice Davids, who is a member of the Ho-Chunk Nation, a Native American tribe that hails from Wisconsin.

And there is also a historic number of women—six in all — who have formally declared their candidacies for the US Presidential elections scheduled to take place in November 2020.

They include four Senators: Kirsten Gillibrand of New York, Kamala Harris of California, Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota, and Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, along with Representative Tulsi Gabbard of Hawaii and Marianne Williams, an Independent candidate.

Sanam Aderlini, Founder & Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the International Civil Society Action network (ICAN) told IPS “white supremacy” gained a significant boost in the US with Donald Trump’s victory.

His rhetoric and attitude towards women, particularly strong, independent women who challenge him, has always been vitriolic.

“And, of course, the fact that so much of it is directed at women of color is itself indicative of the ugly mix of racism and sexism that is at the core of these movements and ideology,” said Anderlini.

She pointed out that these extremist movements have very rigid interpretations of gender, and so sadly, the lesbian, gay and bisexual (LGBTQI) community is also typically targeted,

“What we are observing is the rise and spread of different forms of identity based extremism. These movements tap into visceral faith or ethno-racial identities. They also all have the subservience of women and the notion of hyper masculinity and patriarchy at their core”

With regard to women in particular, they seek to either co-opt women to support the movement, or coerce them to control them, said Andelini, who is also on the Commonwealth Panel of experts on Preventing Violent Extremism (PVE).

It is most evident, she pointed out, in the obsession with the control over women’s bodies – either in terms of their covering or in terms of their reproductive capacities.

“Because, they want to control women, they are particularly vitriolic towards women’s rights activists and movements, because they challenge the very essence of what extremist movements represent,” she declared.

Mavic Cabrera Balleza, Chief, Network of Women Peacebuilders, told IPS: “I would rather call it “Feminist movements redux” rather than “backlash” because it is inspired by the activism of feminists in previous generations”.

She said the plural in “movements” also represent the diversity and universality of the feminist ideology.

“I also believe that the election of more and unprecedentedly diverse women in US Congress during the 2018 mid-term elections is only partly because of President Trump.”

As you can see, she said, women are not only condemning the sexist and misogynist messages or demanding punishment for sexual abuses, they are also shining the spotlight and demanding response to issues that have been around for many years but have not been adequately acted upon–if at all.

These include migration, gun violence, universal health care, environmental degradation, wars and militarism –among others.

She said the phenomenal #MeToo campaign on sexual abuse against women has given rise to #Time’s Up, #Niunamenos, #NotOneMore, #BalanceTonPorc, #TotalShutDown, and other campaigns.

“My greatest hope is that the results of the 2018 mid-term elections in the US will resonate around the world as different countries are experiencing or are threatened by authoritarianism”.

“I want to see successful non-violent resistance movements across the world within the next decade. I and my colleagues in the Global Network of Women Peacebuilders are actively contributing towards the realization of this vision,” Cabrera Balleza said.

Anderlini told IPS the overlap or mutually beneficial transactional relationship between the white right and the evangelical movement is not a coincidence either.

“We see it in the Trump-Pence duo,” she noted, referring to Trump’s Vice President Mike Pence.

“Precisely because they target and seek to control women, women were the first to mobilize and speak out and resist. This happens in every country I know – from 1979 Iran, when the Islamists sought to impose the hijab and 100,000 women marched in protest, to Washington DC in 2017 and the million women march”.

The mobilization of women into the political sphere is an extension of these developments, Anderlini said.

In many other countries, the pathway to power is blocked for women so they sustain their activism in civil society.

In the US luckily, there are more opportunities. It is also because of years of work by groups such as Emily’s List and others encouraging and supporting women to run for office, she declared

http://www.icanpeacework.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/AnderliniKeyNOTE-March-1.pdf

The writer can be contacted at thalifdeen@ips.org

The post Did a Backlash Against Trump Trigger Historic Highs for US Women in Politics? appeared first on Inter Press Service.

All the details of the draw for the quarter finals of the African Champions League and Confederation Cup.

A national appeal to help survivors has been launched by the UK's Disasters Emergency Committee.

There is a lack of evidence for the cut-off point adopted by athletics chiefs, a BMJ editorial says.

The BBC's Fergal Keane went to Mozambique to assess the devastation caused by Cyclone Idai.

Aid workers say thousands in Mozambique are still awaiting rescue from catastrophic flooding.