Africa - INTER PRESS SERVICE

Credit: Mark Kerrison/In Pictures via Getty Images

By Andrew Firmin
LONDON, Jul 11 2024 (IPS)

Sudan is the scene of unimaginable suffering. As war between army and militia continues, civilians are paying the highest price. Both sides are killing non-combatants and committing gross human rights crimes.

The country stands on the brink of famine. It’s experiencing its worst recorded levels of food insecurity and over 750,000 are at risk of starvation.

Around 11 million people have been forced to flee their homes, armed forces have stolen and destroyed food supplies, crops and livestock, and many people are no longer able to earn a living or farm. UN human rights experts accuse both sides of using denial of food as a weapon, including by blocking humanitarian deliveries and looting depots.

Many of the worst-affected areas are in Darfur, where the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) militia has gained territory and is currently besieging El Fasher. The RSF grew out of the militias that committed genocide in Darfur two decades ago, and they’re again accused of genocide, carrying out ethnically motivated mass killings. Meanwhile, the army it’s fighting, the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF), has blocked the main humanitarian access point on the border with Chad.

Proxy war

The conflict broke out in April 2023, sparked by a power struggle between two men: Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, SAF commander-in-chief and leader of the ruling junta, and Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, known as Hemeti, RSF head. The two worked together in the 2021 coup that ousted a civilian government. A plan to incorporate the RSF into the SAF was the flashpoint of their battle for leadership and, crucially, control of resources.

But beyond the two warring egos, bigger forces are at play. Several other states are taking sides in the conflict, enabling it to continue. Much of the foreign involvement is opaque and subject to official denials. Egypt and Iran are among states providing military support to the SAF. Meanwhile, forces from the eastern part of divided Libya have allegedly helped supply the RSF, and the Chadian government is accused of cooperating with it.

Another distant war is echoing in Sudan. Russia, which has extensive goldmining interests in the country, initially seemed to be siding with the RSF, particularly through its mercenary fighters. In response, Ukrainian troops reportedly carried out attacks on Russian mercenaries and RSF forces. More recently, however, Russia may be tilting towards the SAF, possibly eyeing the development of a Red Sea naval base. Russia recently abstained on a UN Security Council resolution calling on the RSF to end its siege of El Fasher, which it could have vetoed.

But the biggest player is the United Arab Emirates (UAE), the Gulf petrostate that’s increasingly asserting itself in many African countries. In countries undergoing conflict, it takes sides. In Ethiopia, when federal troops fought separatist groups from Tigray, the UAE supported the government. In Libya, it’s backed the eastern forces fighting those in the west.

In Sudan, it’s firmly on the RSF’s side. It’s supplying weapons to the RSF, including reportedly through shipments disguised as humanitarian aid and supplies routed through other African counties where it has a presence. Key RSF backroom operations are being run from UAE locations. Wounded RSF fighters are reportedly being treated in Abu Dhabi. Without the UAE’s support, it’s highly unlikely the RSF would be able to sustain its war effort on its current scale. The UAE denies it all, but a UN expert panel found the allegations credible.

The UAE has extensive economic interests at stake. It receives more Sudanese gold than any other country, some of which makes its way to Russia. It has large agricultural investments and a major Red Sea port plan.

There are political interests too. The UAE doesn’t want countries it has a stake in to democratise. It supports several anti-democratic African governments, including in Algeria, Egypt and Tunisia. It likely sees backing the RSF as the best way to ensure the democratic transition once promised by the 2019 revolution remains thwarted.

A Middle East power struggle is playing out in Sudan. The UAE has long taken a similar stance to Saudi Arabia’s, but increasingly shows an appetite to contest Saudi supremacy. The two ended up diverging over their involvement in the conflict in Yemen. Its Sudan policy is another way the UAE can demonstrate its independence.

The UAE’s role also accounts for Iran’s pro-SAF position, while Saudi Arabia is trying to distinguish itself from both by brokering peace talks, known as the Jeddah process, which so far have come to little.

The UAE also has powerful friends in the west, not least the UK and the USA, and it’s using them to limit international scrutiny. The British government, which currently leads on Sudan at the UN Security Council, was reported to have pressured African states not to criticise the UAE over its support for the RSF.

Time for action

The people of Sudan deserve better than to be pawns in a proxy war waged by distant states.

But people in the UAE have no way to pressure their government if they’re upset about the blood on its hands. Civic space in the UAE is closed and those who speak out are routinely criminalised.

This means it falls on others to mobilise. States helping perpetuate the conflict should come under greater pressure from other states, the international community and international civil society.

The first and most urgent demand must be for unfettered humanitarian access. Even then, an immediate ceasefire is needed. There must the follow a process of genuine dialogue to build peace and plan for transition, which must involve Sudanese civil society in its diverse forms.

The international community must step up its efforts. The UN’s fact-finding mission, established last October following civil society advocacy, has been severely hampered by funding shortfalls, as has the humanitarian response plan. States must adequately resource the UN response.

States, the international community and civil society must also throw the spotlight on the UAE. There must be consequences. When the RSF eventually faces justice, those who enabled it must also be held to account – and the UAE’s rulers should be first in line.

Andrew Firmin is CIVICUS Editor-in-Chief, co-director and writer for CIVICUS Lens and co-author of the State of Civil Society Report.

 

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The newly-signed Sierre Leone law outlawing child marriage also says that those who entered into marriage as children before the new legislation came into effect can petition for annulment. Credit: Joyce Chimbi/IPS

By Joyce Chimbi
FREETOWN & NAIROBI, Jul 11 2024 (IPS)

“A person shall not contract marriage with a child,” Sierra Leone’s landmark Prohibition of Child Marriage Act 2024 says, outlawing, in no uncertain terms, child marriage, giving consent to and attempted child marriage, officiating, attending and promoting child marriage, and use of force or ill-treatment of a child.

The legislation was signed by Sierra Leone President Julius Maada Bio earlier in July in a ceremony organized by First Lady Fatima Bio, whose “Hands Off Our Girls” campaign played a crucial role in this achievement.

Men who marry girls under 18 face 15 years in prison, a fine of around USD 4,000, or both.

Fatou Gueye Ndir, Senior Regional Engagement and Advocacy Officer for Girls Not Brides, told IPS that the power of the new legislation towards ending harmful practices cannot be overemphasized, as “it also includes provisions for enforcing penalties on offenders, protecting victims’ wives, and ensuring access to education and support services for young girls affected.” 

Girls Not Brides is a global partnership of over 1,400 civil society organizations committed to ending child marriage and enabling girls to fulfill their potential. Fatou says the new law has injected new life into the fight against child marriage and early and forced marriages in Sierra Leone.

“This is a turning point. We call upon the government to continue to provide support services for affected girls and access to education, which are essential so that girls are protected and are not negatively impacted by criminalization of child marriage.”

The law also prohibits conspiracy to cause child marriage and aiding and abetting child marriage. So comprehensive is the new law that it also prohibits cohabitation with a child, any attempt to do so, conspiracy to cause cohabitation with a child and, aiding and abetting cohabitation with a child.

Fatima Maada Bio, the First Lady of Sierra Leone, championed the legislation with her Hands Off Our Girls campaign. Credit: UN

UNICEF says in 2020 alone, nearly 800,000 girls under the age of 18 were married, accounting for a third of the girls in Sierra Leone. Half of them married before they turned 15. So prevalent is the child marriage scourge that approximately nine percent of all children will have gotten married by age 15, and 30 percent by age 18.

Hannah Yambasu, director for Women Against Violence and Exploitation in Society Sierra Leone (WAVES-SL), which is a national NGO, told IPS that in the absence of a law prohibiting child marriages, “the compulsory education policy, where all children must go to school, has not been enough to keep girls within the education system. There are ethnic groups and communities that believe girls, in and out of school, should not turn 18 years old before getting married.”

She says girls entered risky territory at the age of 12 and that many were subsequently forced into child marriages and their lifelong consequences.

Yambasu agrees, saying that the law in and of itself is not enough and concerted efforts must be made to sensitize the community on all sections of the law, especially as the Customary Marriage and Divorce Act 2009 allowed for child marriages with the consent of a parent or guardian and did not stipulate a minimum age of marriage. Stressing that massive, grassroots civic education is urgently needed.

Fatou said effective implementation of the law will lead to substantial gains and positive outcomes in education, health and the economic advancement of women. Emphasizing that child marriage and education are strongly interlinked, as girls who stay longer in school are protected from child marriages. Furthermore, girls will have fewer disruption caused by early marriage or early pregnancy and, are more likely to perform better.

“Child marriage is linked to girls’ pregnancy, so the law will progressively help reduce maternal and infant mortality. Delaying marriage and pregnancy will significantly lower the risk associated with early childbirth, including all the complications that often lead to higher rates of maternal and infant mortality,” Fatou says.

Further indicating that girls who avoid early child marriage are less likely to experience the psychological trauma or stress associated with child marriage, leading to improved mental health outcomes.

“When more girls complete their education, there will be a larger pool of educated women entering the workforce, contributing to economic growth and development. Educated women are more likely to secure better-paying jobs, which can elevate the economic status of their families, reducing poverty levels,” she says.

The rapid rise in the child population in Africa necessitates radical steps towards ending all harmful practices, including child marriage, as they derail progress towards universal access to education. Child marriage is particularly a major obstacle to sustainable development. Six of the world’s 10 countries with the highest rates of child marriage are in West and Central Africa, where the average prevalence across the region remains high—nearly 41 per cent of girls marry before reaching the age of 18.

The new Sierra Leone law is timely, especially in light of the Sustainable Development Goals Report 2024, which details the significant challenges the world is facing in making substantial strides towards achieving the SDGs. It features areas with setbacks while also showcasing where tangible progress has been made, for instance, the world continues to lag in its pursuit of gender equality by 2030.

While harmful practices are decreasing, the report finds it are not keeping up with population growth. One in five girls still marries before age 18, compared to one in four 25 years ago—68 million child marriages were averted in this period.

The report raises concerns that far too many women still cannot realize the right to decide on their sexual and reproductive health. Violence against women persists, disproportionately affecting those with disabilities. With just six years remaining, current progress falls far short of what is required to meet the SDGs. Without massive investment and scaled-up action, the report calls into question the achievement of the SDGs.

The UN’s Summit of the Future will be held in September 2024. A once-in-a-generation opportunity to enhance cooperation on critical challenges and reaffirm existing commitments, including to the Sustainable Development Goals.

Yambasu understands these challenges all too well, as she works closely with adolescent girls, women and vulnerable persons, including those with disabilities and implores all governments, stakeholders and the older generation to give girls a chance to live their life as they choose

“A chance to go to school and to later on choose the husband of their choice. They go into forced marriages with their hearts bleeding and the trajectory of their lives changing for the worst. All children deserve protection and happiness, and we now have a legal blueprint to safeguard their dreams,” she says.

Stressing that girls deserve “access to all the tools necessary to fully participate in developing our nations in Africa. We need to rise up against all harmful practices. The traditions are there, yes, and we want to preserve them. But let us keep only those that develop and advance our communities.”

Note: This article is brought to you by IPS Noram in collaboration with INPS Japan and Soka Gakkai International in consultative status with ECOSOC.

IPS UN Bureau Report

 

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Grandparents looking after a toddler at a park in Viet Nam. Credit: Pexels/Loifotos
 
According to the World Population Prospects 2024: Summary of Results published July 10, it is expected that the world’s population will peak in the mid-2080s, growing over the next sixty years from 8.2 billion people in 2024 to around 10.3 billion in the mid-2080s, and then will return to around 10.2 billion by the end of the century. The size of the world’s population in 2100 is now expected to be six per cent lower—or 700 million fewer—than anticipated a decade ago. Meanwhile, the UN is commemorating World Population Day on July 11.

By Srinivas Tata
BANGKOK, Thailand, Jul 11 2024 (IPS)

World Population Day on 11 July provides an excellent opportunity to take stock and look ahead regarding population issues that are affecting all aspects of society in Asia and the Pacific.

This year is special, since we also commemorate the adoption of the Programme of Action of the International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD) 30 years ago in Cairo. In Asia and the Pacific, we convened the Seventh Asian and Pacific Population Conference in 2023 which informed the ICPD commemoration earlier this year.

These events help us to reflect on how the concept of population policies has evolved from a narrow focus on population control to identifying and seeking opportunities in the multiple linkages between population and development.

The region has changed beyond recognition from the situation in 1963 when the first Asian and Pacific Population Conference was convened, and population policies were first given serious attention.

The population of the region at that time was 1.9 billion, with a total fertility rate of about 6.0 births per woman and a life expectancy at birth of 51.3 years. Children aged 0-14 accounted for 40 per cent of the total population, whereas persons 65 years or older accounted for about 4 per cent.

Today, the region has a population of about 4.8 billion people which represents about 58 per cent of the world’s total. The total fertility rate has plunged to 1.8 births per woman, life expectancy at birth has increased to 74.7 years, and the proportion of older persons stands at 10.5 per cent of the total population (and it is projected to go up to 19 per cent or almost 1 billion people by 2050).

These aggregates mark variation at the subregional levels, with older persons in countries in East and North-East Asia, for example, already accounting for a much greater share of the total population compared to countries in other parts of the region.

This has significant implications for the labour force, economy, health care and sustainability of social protection systems. The issue has been highlighted by ESCAP and the UN system for years, and it is now receiving heightened attention from Governments, civil society and mainstream media, some of whom are making doomsday predictions resulting in negative perceptions of older persons and outright ageism.

Some governments have initiated pro-natalist policies with limited effect. The demographic changes that have happened over decades cannot be reversed by the flick of a switch.

We need to understand that population ageing is the result of significant progress and achievements in health care, nutrition, education, strives toward gender equality and empowerment of women and greater reproductive choices for women.

Population ageing can be seen as a natural outcome of these achievements, but clearly, we need to adapt better to these changes that affect all aspects of society. We need a range of interconnected policies which ensure stronger social protection systems, promote active and healthy ageing, and build strong care systems. We need to support older women who are often the most likely to be left behind.

Also, the younger people of today are older persons of tomorrow, and thus we must adopt a life course approach to population ageing that recognizes the importance of data and evidence and accords priority to the rights of older persons.

As proportions of older persons rise, significant cohorts of populations in different age groups will co-exist in our region for the first time in history. This means that managing inter-generational relations will be critical to ensuring harmonious, cohesive, inclusive and sustainable societies in the future.

Ensuring gender equality is critical to addressing this issue. Relieving women, including many older women, of the huge unpaid care burden and ensuring their participation in the labour force will contribute to maintaining labour force productivity keeping them active and healthy for longer periods. This will add trillions of USD to the GDP of countries in the region.

This can only be achieved if population policies are reimagined to explore their multiple links to the different dimensions of development, taking into account the changing age and family structures.

In the end, it is as important to add life to years as it is to add years to life.

Srinivas Tata is Director of ESCAP’s Social Development Division.

IPS UN Bureau

 

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One of the terminals of the port of Açu on its inner side, in a channel dredged to a depth of 14.5 metres to receive vessels of up to 3.7 metres draught and a variety of cargoes. Credit: Mario Osava / IPS

By Mario Osava
SÃO JOÃO DA BARRA, Brazil, Jul 10 2024 (IPS)

With barely 10 years in operation, the port of Açu is now the second in Brazil in cargo transport and seeks to become an industrial and energy transition hub. But so far it has contributed little to local development, causing environmental and social damage.

The megaproject, which is presented as “the largest private deep-water port and industrial complex in Latin America”, occupies 130 square kilometres in the municipality of São João da Barra, some 30 kilometres from the city and 320 kilometres northeast of Rio de Janeiro, in the state of the same name.

It channels 30% of Brazil’s oil exports and 24 million tonnes of iron ore transported through a 529-kilometre-long pipeline from the mine of the Brazilian subsidiary of the British transnational Anglo American, in Conceição do Mato Dentro, a municipality in the neighbouring southern state of Minas Gerais.“It’s an enclave without social, political and economic interests in the surrounding territory, with no connection to local reality": José Luis Vianna da Cruz.

In 2023, 84.6 million tonnes of cargo will pass through this port, 27% more than in 2022. This growth averages 30 % annually since it started operating in October 2014, according to its management.

“Here you can arrive and leave by sea and land without the queues of trucks that affect other ports, such as Santos,” Brazil’s largest, located in the neighbouring state of São Paulo, said Eugenio Figueiredo, president of the Port of Açu Operations management company.

Its location outside urban centres is one of the local advantages he mentioned to a group of journalists, including from IPS, who visited the port on 4 July. In addition, the main export products do not arrive by road. Oil comes by sea from offshore wells in the Atlantic and iron ore by pipeline.

The Port of Açu, the second largest cargo port in Brazil, stretches into the sea to receive giant ships destined to transport iron ore and oil. Credit: Wikimedia commons

The depth, of 14.5 metres at the terminals sheltered within a canal and 25 metres at the advanced jetty in the sea, is another favourable point to facilitate access for giant ships. Being private speeds up the operations, lacking the bureaucracy of public ports, according to Figueiredo.

So far, the company reports that it has invested the equivalent of 3.7 billion dollars in this mega-infrastructure, and plans to invest a further 4.070 billion over the next 10 years.

Oil, energy transition and industry

Being some 80 kilometres away from the Campos Basin, where offshore oil fields were discovered in the last four decades, allows Açu to offer a base for oil companies that is not only a port. A helicopter pad enables the rapid transport of people and light equipment to the oil platforms.

The large industrial area already hosts two flexible pipeline factories for deepwater oil exploration and extraction. A 1300 megawatt natural gas-fired thermal power plant is also operating in the area and another with a capacity of 1700 megawatts is under construction.

The president of the Port of Açu Operations, Eugenio Figueiredo. Credit: Mario Osava / IPS

Of the 130 square kilometres of the industrial port complex, 40 kilometres make up the Caruara Private Natural Heritage Reserve, the largest conservation area of restingas, a coastal ecosystem of sandy, not very fertile soils and low vegetation. The remaining 90 square kilometres are under port and industrial occupation, with 22 companies already installed.

The reserve was created after the company that owns it delimited the area of the port and industrial complex, with two objectives: the environmental protection of the restinga and, in the part closest to the urban centre, to prevent encroachment by the population.

The complex also aims at energy transition, initiated by the natural gas-fired power plants. Plans include the future production of green hydrogen, harnessing the great potential of photovoltaic and wind power generated in the sea near the coast, where favourable winds blow.

The increasingly large wind turbine blades will have to be manufactured locally, and space available for this industry is another advantage of the Açu complex, Figueiredo said.

The map shows the 130 square kilometres of the Açu Complex, with 40 kilometres in green representing the Caruara Reserve, a coastal ecosystem of sand, lagoons and low vegetation. The rest is destined for the port and the industries being installed in its logistic hub. Credit: Mario Osava / IPS

Logistical bottleneck

The port is now seeking to attract more agricultural exporters from the closest states, Minas Gerais and Goiás, already present since 2020. For this, Minas Port, one of the companies operating in the port, inaugurated on 4 July two warehouses with a capacity for 65,000 tonnes of grain.

“It is a super-port, with a fantastic terrain, successful in the export of iron ore and oil, and with a strategic location in the centre-east of Brazil, which demands large scale ports. But it has a fragility: its land connection”, said economist Claudio Frischtak, specialised in infrastructure and president of Inter.B Consultoría, interviewed in Rio de Janeiro.

The port is remote from major agro-export production regions and access roads are inadequate. Its future expansion depends on a railway connecting to the existing network of Brazil’s Vale group, the country’s largest iron ore exporter, which lies some 300 kilometres away, he said.

That distance could be more than halved if Vale builds an 80-kilometre section already agreed with the local government, and another 87-kilometre section under study.

But Prumo Logística, controlled by US fund EIG and owner of the port of Açu, is hoping that a railway will be built between Rio de Janeiro and Vitoria, the capital of the central-eastern state of Espírito Santo, which would reduce to 50 kilometres the stretch needed to connect the port to an extensive rail network, Figueiredo said.

Moreover, the success of the industrial project requires attracting investors, a difficult feat without “reasonable logistics”, with rail and good roads, said Alcimar Ribeiro, an economist and professor at the State University of Northern Rio de Janeiro (UENF).

Economic alternatives to the Açu complex are necessary because the Campos basin, a nearby source of oil, is already “mature”, with a declining production. “In 2010 it represented 87% of Brazilian oil production, today only 20%,” Ribeiro told IPS in São João da Barra.

Flexible pipes used in deep sea oil exploration, manufactured by the two industrial plants installed in the Açu Complex. Credit: Mario Osava / IPS

Far from local development

The area of influence of Açu, mainly São João da Barra, with its 36,573 inhabitants according to the 2022 census, and Campos dos Goitacazes, with 483,540 inhabitants, has been in economic decline for several decades, after the sugar cycle ended.

The port offers 7,000 direct jobs, including those of companies installed in the area, 80% of them to local workers, according to Caio Cunha, manager of Port Relations and the Caruara Reserve.

But most of them are temporary jobs, in the construction of port expansions and currently of the second thermoelectric plant, Ribeiro explained.

In addition, local employees are generally low-skilled, with outsiders being hired for more skilled jobs, says Sonia Ferreira, leader of the neighbourhood association SOS Atafona, a beach district in São João da Barra, which has lost more than 500 homes to erosion by the sea.

One positive effect of the port is that it has sparked young people’s interest in studying, she acknowledged. But she hopes the port will make structural investments in health, education and urban infrastructure, to effectively improve the quality of local life.

Caio Cunha, manager of Port Relations and the Caruara Reserve at the port of Açu. In the background, photos of native fruits. Credit: Mario Osava / IPS

The central problem is that the megaproject is “an enclave without social, political and economic interests in the surrounding territory, with no connection to local reality. It only lacks a wall to separate itself, having its own heliport, hotel and shopping mall, for its self-sufficiency”, said sociologist José Luis Vianna da Cruz.

Having automated operations, the port and the companies located here employ few workers, said this professor at the Fluminense Federal University with a doctorate in regional development, by phone with IPS from Campos.

The megaproject did increase tax revenues for local municipalities, but did not reduce poverty nor unemployment in the region.

Da Cruz also questions the number of jobs reported by the port – 7,000 – and argues they would not compensate for the unemployment caused by the expropriation of the land of 1,500 families who lived there to make way for the port and industrial complex.

Many of these families received less than fair compensation or are still fighting for their rights, he added.

The current owners of the port are not to blame. It was the Industrial Development Company of the State of Rio de Janeiro (Codin) which prepared the land where the port is located at the beginning of this century.

But the salinisation of lagoons and the water table, which affected farmers and even the water for urban consumption, was due to the improper disposal of mud removed for deepening the canal where 11 port terminals were installed, according to Da Cruz, author of several studies on the socio-environmental impacts of local projects.

By CIVICUS
Jul 10 2024 (IPS)

 
CIVICUS discusses the exclusion of women from international talks on Afghanistan currently being held in Qatar with Sima Samar, former chairperson of the Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission (AIHRC). The AIHRC is the Afghan national institution devoted to the promotion, protection and monitoring of human rights. Its status is now a matter of contention: on returning to power, the Taliban decreed its dissolution, but the AIHRC refuses to abide by the decision due to the illegitimate nature of the Taliban regime.

Sima Samar

The meeting between the Taliban, envoys from up to 25 countries and other stakeholders being hosted by the United Nations (UN) in Doha, Qatar, has sparked an international outcry because Afghan women haven’t been invited. This is the third such meeting but the first to include the Taliban, who aren’t internationally recognised as Afghanistan’s rulers. Rights activists have criticised the UN’s approach, saying it gives legitimacy to the Taliban and betrays its commitment to women’s rights. They are calling for gender apartheid to be recognised as an international crime and for sanctions to be imposed on those responsible.

What’s the purpose and relevance of the third Doha meeting on Afghanistan?

The third Doha meeting was convened following a UN Security Council resolution that mandated an independent assessment of the situation in Afghanistan, with the aim of facilitating Afghanistan’s reintegration into the international community and the UN. The appointed independent expert, a former Turkish diplomat, conducted a comprehensive assessment. While it acknowledged the Taliban’s human rights violations, particularly against women, it did not sufficiently address issues such as the persecution of minorities and the erosion of democratic processes.

The UN sees these meetings as part of a plan for a peaceful Afghanistan that respects human rights, particularly for women and girls, and is integrated into the global community. But the decision to exclude women from these critical discussions is deeply contradictory. By accepting the Taliban’s conditions for participation in the talks, the UN is undermining its commitment to promoting inclusivity and gender equality.

Why are rights groups criticising the meeting and what are their demands?

Rights groups have been highly critical of the UN’s approach to the meeting for a number of reasons. First, they have condemned the exclusion of women from the main discussions. This exclusion directly contradicted the UN’s commitment to gender mainstreaming and its resolutions advocating women’s participation in peace processes. Second, there was a significant lack of transparency about the agenda and proceedings of the meetings, particularly the separate women’s session that followed the main discussions. This opacity fuelled concerns about the effectiveness and sincerity of the engagement.

Critics say the meeting focused mainly on economic issues, ignoring important discussions on human rights and women’s rights. This has raised concerns the UN is indirectly legitimising the Taliban’s harsh policies. Rights groups want future meetings to be inclusive and transparent and ensure women’s voices are heard. They want the UN to stick to its rules and not agree to demands that violate human rights.

What’s the situation of Afghan women under the Taliban?

Since the Taliban came back to power, the situation for women in Afghanistan has deteriorated dramatically. Women have been almost completely removed from public life, allowed to work only in very limited fields such as health and primary education, and then only under strict conditions.

Afghanistan is the only country in the world that prohibits girls beyond 11 to 12 years old from receiving education. Even below that level, there are severe restrictions, including the imposition of the hijab on young girls and a curriculum increasingly focused on religious instruction, which threatens to radicalise the next generation.

Women working in any capacity face severe economic discrimination. Their salaries are capped at unsustainable levels, making it impossible for them to live independently. When female health workers went on strike over these unfair conditions, the Ministry of Public Health refused to engage in dialogue.

The Taliban’s systematic discrimination places women in an inferior position in all aspects of life, from education to employment, perpetuating a cycle of oppression and marginalisation. There is an obvious gap between the goals of the Doha meeting, which aim to achieve a peaceful Afghanistan with human rights for women and girls, and the harsh realities faced by Afghan women under Taliban rule.

What should the international community do to support Afghan women?

To support women’s rights in Afghanistan, the international community must take a firm stand against the Taliban’s policies.

First, the Taliban should not be recognised as a legitimate government until they comply with international human rights standards, including those relating to women’s rights. Second, existing sanctions against the Taliban should be strengthened to pressure them to comply with human rights norms. Third, the international community should hold the Taliban accountable for their crimes, including rights violations against women, through legal mechanisms and continuous advocacy.

The plight of Afghan women is not just a national issue, but a global one that affects the stability and peace of the entire region. Ignoring women’s suffering will only perpetuate conflict and undermine efforts to achieve sustainable peace and development. The international community has a moral obligation to ensure the protection of Afghan women’s rights and uphold the principles of justice and equality in any engagement with the Taliban.

What should be done to ensure women are included in future talks on Afghanistan?

To ensure the inclusion of women in future international talks, it is essential that their participation is mandated at every stage of the dialogue process. Women must be at the table for all discussions, as their exclusion fundamentally undermines the legitimacy and effectiveness of the talks.

The international community should strongly reject any conditions set by the Taliban that violate human rights principles, particularly those that exclude women. Transparency is also crucial. Agendas and outcomes of meetings should be openly shared to ensure inclusiveness and accountability.

Civic space in Afghanistan is rated ‘closed’ by the CIVICUS Monitor.

Get in touch with the Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission through its website or Facebook page, and follow @AfghanistanIHRC and @DrSimasamar on Twitter.

 

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The aftermath of a missile strike on the center of Kyiv. July 2024. Credit: UNICEF Ukraine

By James E. Jennings
ATLANTA, Georgia, Jul 10 2024 (IPS)

Herman Wouk’s 1971 novel The Winds of War traced the romance, bravery, fear, and faith required for American youths to join the military, deploy to the war zones, and confront the mighty Axis threat in the lead-up to WW II. It later became a dramatic TV series.

Today multitudes around the world are increasingly affected by ongoing conflicts, or are living in societies so disordered that they might even welcome war as a solution to their problems.

The news on just one day in June 2024 was not reassuring: The US and NATO agreed to unleash Ukraine to attack Russia; Israel thumbed its nose at American demands to end its genocidal war in Gaza; Hezbollah bombarded northern Israel for the umpteenth time and Israel reciprocated.

Yemen exchanged missile attacks with US warships in the Red Sea; while Israel and Iran engaged in slinging hundreds of Intercontinental ballistic missiles at each other.

Meanwhile, China announced that any attempt to award sovereignty to Taiwan would receive a strong military response. Only a few days later on July 4 at Astana in Kazakhstan, Russia and China convened a bloc of their Eurasian allies for the Shanghai Cooperation Organization to stake out a policy of resistance to Euro-American control of the world economy.

Equally sobering, Japan and the Philippines have just initiated a defense alliance that echoes Japan’s security zone posture in WW II. All these moves signify that the great powers are indeed readying for war.

Elsewhere major regional wars in Sudan and Congo are ongoing; Haiti is in bloody chaos, and the same is true of several countries in West Africa, namely Mali, Niger, and Burkina Faso, which recently formed the Alliance of Sahel States to oppose the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS).

Political destabilization within nations is in the balance everywhere, from Myanmar and Bangladesh to Europe and Latin America, with an astounding political division in the United States as well. What could possibly go wrong?

The real problem in America and the West is one of cultural fatigue, with a lack of clear focus on what course to follow, as we had in both World Wars and the Cold War. A “War to End Wars,” like the WW I rallying cry, would not fly today.

Neither would “Make the World Safe for Democracy” as both world wars aimed to do; or “Better Dead than Red,” the slogan of the Cold War. Instead, it’s “Ho-hum, another war.” Not very inspiring.

The Ostrich is famous for sticking its head in the sand when danger approaches. With wars simmering all around, Americans may be practicing that same tactic. There was a disquieting moment at the June 6 D-Day ceremony in Normandy commemorating the 80th anniversary of the allied assault on the Nazi defenses during WW II.

In her prayer, US Army Chaplain Karen Meeker gave thanks for those who sacrificed their lives and blessed the surviving heroes at the ceremony, but also used an ominous phrase: “As war clouds gather….”

Does she know something the rest of us don’t? Probably so, and it is disquieting. War clouds are indeed gathering. All we need to do is pay attention to the news, listen to the statements of key leaders of many of the great powers, and read the headlines. It is hard to miss the central theme: that the world is becoming more and more ungovernable.

At a conference in Tallinn, Estonia during May, Yale Historian Timothy Snyder suggested that the present time reminds him of Europe in 1938, just before the start of WW II. That should frighten everybody. His warning means that unless something extraordinary prevents it, an expanding, generalized conflict may lie ahead.

Among today’s most urgent problems are the ongoing genocidal war in Gaza, the bloody and seemingly endless Russia-Ukraine War, and regional wars in Sudan, Congo, and Myanmar.

The growing East-West economic divide and the North-South poverty gap appear intractable. If these conflicts expand, global civilization is facing a world of hurt.

Maybe that’s why a tough guy image like that cultivated by our more pugnacious presidents like Andrew Jackson and Teddy Roosevelt remains so appealing today, along with a larger than life “John Wayne” type of fictional character. However, it’s never that simple, and there is always a price to be paid.

Roosevelt’s son Quentin died in the very war his father advocated so fiercely. The Greek historian Herodotus recorded the sage but painful observation that, “In times of peace, sons bury their fathers; in times of war, fathers bury their sons.”

What then is to be done? Perhaps the US could start by ending support for the blood-lust killing of so many defenseless civilians in Gaza. All it would take is for President Biden to have the guts to say no to an ally and mean it. On Taiwan vs. China and Iran vs. Israel and the US, why not sit and talk with our adversaries?

That simple tactic has worked before. Why not at least start a meaningful peace process in Sudan and Congo? It may take a long time, but peace is always better than war.

At the US Academics for Peace conferences we convened in Iraq, Iran, Syria, and Sudan over the decades before and after the US invasion of Iraq, we advocated the principle that dialogue is essential or conflict is inevitable.

Why not try? It might work.

James E. Jennings, PhD is President of Conscience International and Executive Director of US Academics for Peace.

IPS UN Bureau

 

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Streets in Rafah were emptying as families continue to flee in search of safety, following an evacuation order by the Israeli authorities. Credit: UNRWA

By Thalif Deen
UNITED NATIONS, Jul 10 2024 (IPS)

An overwhelmingly staggering 186,000 killings in Gaza –- compared with the official figure of over 37,000—has resurrected accusations of genocide and war crimes in the devastating nine-month-old war between Israel and Hamas, with no signs of a cease-fire.

The new estimates have come from The Lancet, one of the most prestigious peer-reviewed British medical journals.

In recent conflicts, says the article, titled “Counting the Deaths in Gaza: Difficult but Essential”, indirect deaths range from three to 15 times the number of direct deaths.

“Applying a conservative estimate of four indirect deaths per one direct death to the 37, 396 deaths reported, it is not implausible to estimate that up to 186, 000 or even more deaths could be attributable to the current conflict in Gaza,” according to The Lancet.

The disproportionate killings in Gaza are in retaliation to the 1,200 killed by Hamas inside Israel on October 7.

Dr. Simon Adams, President and CEO of the Center for Victims of Torture, the largest international organization that treats survivors and advocates for an end to torture worldwide, told IPS “since the beginning of this war, Israel’s military operations in Gaza have consistently violated the international legal principles of distinction, proportionality and precaution”.

The result has been incalculable civilian suffering in Gaza. It is impossible to have an accurate death toll when so many bodies are still under the rubble, or literally torn to pieces because Israel continues to conduct airstrikes on residential buildings, hospitals, and even UN schools where displaced and vulnerable civilians are sheltering, he pointed out.

“The Israeli government’s collective punishment of the Palestinian people is a war crime. Their actions have made it impossible to provide an accurate death toll. But I certainly trust The Lancet’s scientific rationale more than I trust any press release by the Israeli Defense Forces,” declared Dr Adams.

Sarah Leah Whitson, executive director of Democracy for the Arab World Now (DAWN), told IPS conflict-related mortality estimates are the standard methodology for determining actual deaths resulting from a war, and have sadly been all too accurate.

“If Israel continues its indiscriminate bombardment and starvation of the Palestinian people, we can expect the actual death figure to exceed 200,000, to say nothing of the hundreds of thousands of injured and traumatized people who will suffer for decades to come”, she declared.

Nihad Awad, National Executive Director, Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), said:

“We have all known that the real death toll in the Israeli genocide in Gaza is much higher than has been reported. This new data by respected researchers adds yet another piece of evidence proving that a genocide is occurring in Gaza and necessitating international action to end the suffering and bring justice to the Palestinian people.”

This realistic death toll, he pointed out, is backed up by the new reports that Israeli forces are free to kill civilians and destroy homes at will, without any of the rules of engagement required by international law.

“The Biden administration – which is enabling the genocide, ethnic cleansing and forced starvation – must act to stop this growing horror.”

He said The Lancet figures – estimating almost eight percent of the Gaza population killed – would be equivalent to some 26 million Americans killed, or almost the entire population of Texas.

“President Biden and his administration have been supplying the weapons for Israel to commit this horrible genocide and have been obstructing any accountability for Israel,” said Awad.

Asked about the findings, UN Spokesperson Stephane Dujarric said: “We were not involved, as far as I know, into this study. I think it is not a stretch of the imagination that the numbers are probably undercounted, given the fact that the debris and rubble is yet to be cleared. But whatever number we’re speaking about, it is tragic, overwhelming, and even hard to imagine”.

The Lancet says using the 2022 Gaza Strip population estimate of 2, 375, 259 would translate to 7·9% of the total population in the Gaza Strip.

A report from Feb 7, 2024, at the time when the direct death toll was 28, 000, estimated that without a ceasefire there would be between 58, 260 deaths (without an epidemic or escalation) and 85, 750 deaths (if both occurred) by Aug 6, 2024, says the Lancet, which has extremely high standards for its research papers.

Armed conflicts, The Lancet says, have indirect health implications beyond the direct harm from violence. Even if the conflict ends immediately, there will continue to be many indirect deaths in the coming months and years from causes such as reproductive, communicable, and non-communicable diseases.

The total death toll is expected to be large given the intensity of this conflict; destroyed health-care infrastructure; severe shortages of food, water, and shelter; the population’s inability to flee to safe places; and the loss of funding to UNRWA, one of the very few humanitarian organisations still active in the Gaza Strip.

An immediate and urgent ceasefire in the Gaza Strip is essential, accompanied by measures to enable the distribution of medical supplies, food, clean water, and other resources for basic human needs.

At the same time, there is a need to record the scale and nature of suffering in this conflict. Documenting the true scale is crucial for ensuring historical accountability and acknowledging the full cost of the war. It is also a legal requirement.

The interim measures set out by the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in January, 2024, require Israel to “take effective measures to prevent the destruction and ensure the preservation of evidence related to allegations of acts within the scope of … the Genocide Convention”.

IPS UN Bureau Report

 

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Pakistan and Iran continue deporting Afghan refugees to their country of origin, leaving returnees in dire situations. Credit: Learning Together.

By External Source
Jul 9 2024 (IPS)

Sarai e Shamali camp in Kabul is a temporary refugee shelter. The camp receives on average 100 Afghans a day, forcibly returned from Pakistan and Iran where most had sought asylum when the Taliban took over power in Afghanistan three years ago.

The deportation has left these individuals in a desperate situation, facing severe financial hardship, homelessness, and a lack of means to earn a living.

Mastora, 32, spent her entire life in Pakistan with her family, where her husband sold leather, and they lived comfortably. Now, forcibly returned to Afghanistan, they have left everything behind in Pakistan and have nothing. “We have no house, no means of livelihood, not even money for transportation, and the Taliban do not provide us any support,” says Mastora.

Seven women were interviewed for this report; three of them were forcibly returned from Iran and four from Pakistan. Mastora, a mother of five, was among the women interviewed.

She was born in Pakistan where her parents had moved 40 years ago from poverty-stricken Afghanistan in search of a better life.

Mastora and her family are among the hundreds of thousands of Afghans who have been expelled from Pakistan when last year the country suddenly announced a forced deportation of undocumented Afghan refugees from the country, uprooting families that have been living in Pakistan for decades.

Iran also decided to send back Afghan refugees living in the country.

Pakistan has expelled more than 500 000 Afghans in the first phase of the deportation in November last year. The country’s authorities have announced a second phase of expulsion to be carried out in July this year that would affect 800 000 Afghans who they claim are illegal migrants.

All the women interviewed had no place to live; only four had managed to rent a house after several days of living in misery. The government of Afghanistan has failed to provide them with any support. Of the seven women interviewed, only one had received 1800 afghani (equivalent to 23 euros) from the UN when she was departing from Pakistan.

The arrival of the deportees has had immediate impact on Kabul where the cost of rent and prices of real estate have risen significantly.

The reason why many Afghans fled to neighbouring Pakistan and Iran was largely due to economic collapse after the Taliban takeover of power, persecution faced by many and the ensuing harsh oppression of women under the hard-line Islamist Taliban regime.

Afghans are however, being forcibly returned to a country where the conditions have worsened.

Madina Azizi, a civil activist and law graduate fled to Afghanistan a year ago. “I was in Pakistan for over nine months”, she said, “and now I have been forced to return to Afghanistan and I fear for my security. In Pakistan I did not live from one day to the next in fear of the Taliban coming after me”, said Azizi

In addition to financial issues, the women are also deeply worried about their daughters’ future in Afghanistan where the Taliban have clamped down girls’ education.

Shakiba and Taj Begum have been deported from Pakistan. They are illiterate, but their husbands are well-educated, and according to them, that’s why they know the value of education.

“I was in Pakistan for seven years; my daughter is 16 years old, and she was studying in the 9th grade. In Pakistan, my husband and I were working to build the future of our children, but now we have nothing here, we have no job, we have no shelter, and I am worried about the future of my two daughters, says Shakiba. ”

Begum also voices similar worries. “I was in Pakistan for four years. I have a daughter who was studying in grade 7 in Pakistan; my husband was a tailor. Our life was much better than it is now in Afghanistan. It’s been two weeks since we returned, and we haven’t found a home yet. We haven’t received any help. We are left wondering what to do.”

Malai, Feroza and Halima, deportees from Iran say they left Afghanistan after the Taliban took over power because they were no longer allowed to work. In Iran, however, they all had gainful employment. Malai worked as a cleaner with her husband, Feroza worked in a restaurant while Halima worked a hairdressing salon.

“Now we can barely manage our lives. If we are able to procure food for breakfast, we struggle to have some for the evening. When we are able to procure food for one day we have to portion it for the next day as well. We are living in great difficulties. We often have survived on tea and bread for days”, the women say.

The women have also recounted how their daughters and sons have no work and do not receive any support. The girls are not allowed to pursue further studies.

Due to the economic hardship and security risks facing the women who have been forced back into Afghanistan, immigration experts and women’s rights activists are calling on the Pakistani and Iranian authorities to halt the forced deportation of Afghans.

Excerpt:

The author is an Afghanistan-based female journalist, trained with Finnish support before the Taliban take-over. Her identity is withheld for security reasons

Joey Shea is the UAE researcher at Human Rights Watch.

By Joey Shea
Jul 9 2024 (IPS)

At least 84 Emirati human rights defenders and political dissidents are on trial in the UAE, facing death sentences or life in prison on spurious charges related to their political activism and human rights work, in a case that has its origins in another from over a decade ago. A verdict is expected July 10.

“We hope that before you sentence us to death, you will give us the opportunity to defend ourselves,” implored Sheikh Muhammad al-Siddiq, an Emirati political dissident, during a March court hearing.

Public scrutiny on this case is necessary for these defendants to have any hope for freedom. The silence of the international community – now and over the last decade – has led us to where we are now: 84 of the UAE’s brightest civil society members are at risk of losing their voices forever.

Public scrutiny on this case is necessary for these defendants to have any hope for freedom. The silence of the international community – now and over the last decade – has led us to where we are now: 84 of the UAE’s brightest civil society members are at risk of losing their voices forever

The trial has been characterized by t fair trial and due process violations. Emirati authorities have restricted access to case material and information, shrouded the hearings in secrecy, and violated the principle of double jeopardy—an international legal rule that prohibits trying people twice for the same offense after they had received a final verdict. Judges have brazenly directed witness testimony. Most disturbingly, defendants have repeatedly described abusive detention conditions such as physical assaults, forced nudity, and prolonged solitary confinement that would amount to torture.

Emirati authorities announced the mass trial in December 2023 as the eyes of the world were on the UAE during the COP28 climate summit in Dubai: The timing was shocking, during an international meeting in the UAE that was promised to be “the most inclusive ever held.”

The bold timing can be chalked up to the impunity the UAE has enjoyed over the last decade. Despite the country’s continuing crackdown on political dissidents and civil society, few, if any, governments have dared to criticize the country’s rights record. The UAE has become a key security ally for many governments and has fostered strong economic ties.

The new trial can trace its origins back to the 2013 “UAE94” mass trial of political dissidents, where an Abu Dhabi court sentenced 69 defendants to between 5 and 15 years in prison on charges related to their political activism.

Most of the defendants from the 2013 trial are being tried in the new case on nearly identical charges, even after having served their full sentences. Emirati human rights defenders believe the authorities brought the new case to keep the dissidents detained indefinitely – there is little hope for an alternative outcome unless allied governments speak out.

Diplomatic missions expressed some concern over the UAE’s crackdown on civil and political rights in 2011 and 2013. In 2013, international institutions at least attempted to send observers to the trial. No embassy has sent monitors to observe trial proceedings to our knowledge.

But limited scrutiny was quickly traded for stronger economic and security relationships. Human rights groups have been pushing for sustained attention on the case for years, but instead silence has prevailed. This silence has led to Emirati state security authorities becoming emboldened and acting with greater impunity.

The UAE has long leveraged its economic and security relationships to prevent public criticism of its human rights record, but now the silence from the UAE’s western allies is nearly absolute. More than a decade on from the UAE94 trial, the silence from the UAE’s partners is total. During my recent trip to the UAE, diplomatic missions told me that public expression of concern for the fair trial violations we documented was out of the question; even private engagement was highly unlikely.

All governments concerned with human rights, particularly close security and economic allies of the UAE, should publicly condemn the trial’s abuses and send monitors to the July 10 session.

Sustained public attention and pressure may have led to the release of the UAE94 defendants upon completion of their sentences. Instead, the case was lost to political expediency and the new case was announced.

While the 2013 trial was covered extensively by the international press, the new case has barely made headlines. A few dedicated and brave outlets that have closely followed the trial, often at great personal risk to staff, but many more have not. Reporters following the trial could face travel bans, intimidation and deportation.

If neither the foreign press nor the diplomatic community provide the necessary scrutiny, the 84 may be condemned to suffer for many more years on July 10.

 

Excerpt:

Joey Shea is the UAE researcher at Human Rights Watch.

On 15 November 2022, the world’s population reached an estimated 8.0 billion people, a milestone in human development. This unprecedented growth, according to the UN, is due to the gradual increase in human lifespan owing to improvements in public health, nutrition, personal hygiene and medicine. It is also the result of high and persistent levels of fertility in some countries. Meanwhile, the UN will be commemorating World Population Day on July 11.

By Yumeng Li
WASHINGTON DC, Jul 9 2024 (IPS)

Across East Asia, birthrates are plummeting. Japan’s has been falling for eight straight years and recently hit a record low of 1.2 children per woman, the lowest since record keeping began in 1899.

For reference, a total fertility rate of 2.1 is needed to maintain a stable population. China’s total fertility rate is now approaching 1.0. South Korea’s plummeted in 2023 to a record low of 0.72, the worlds’ lowest.

While global population continues to grow overall, East Asia is facing a rapidly shrinking and aging population. It’s a remarkable demographic polarization. What are the factors behind it?

Amid bleak employment prospects, demanding work environment, and rising costs of living and childrearing in the backdrop of economic instability, young people in East Asia are skeptical about marriage and children.

The COVID-19 pandemic triggered massive labor market disruptions and doubled the unemployment rate among youth in Asia and the Pacific. China faces unprecedented youth unemployment of 21.3%, including many college graduates.

Japan’s inflation-adjusted real wages have been declining for two straight years, and not keeping pace with rising living expenses. Yet long working hours and a phenomenon of overwork-related deaths, known as karoshi, persist.

South Korea and China are the first and second most expensive countries in the world to raise children. Korean households spending an average of 17.5% of their monthly income on private tutoring, close to the total amount spent on food and housing.

But economic conditions are just part of the story. Behind East Asia’s falling fertility rates are concerns over deep gender inequality. Persistent traditional gender roles make East Asian women bear the double burden responsibility for housework and childrearing plus holding down a job in an intense overwork culture.

On top of this, workplace discriminates against mothers. “Maternal harassment” is prevalent in Japan, with women having bonuses reduced, pressured to resign, or fired when they become pregnant. In Korea, 46% of unemployed married women are “career-interrupted,” i.e. their professional lives are disrupted by marriage, pregnancy, childcare, or other family-related matters.

In China women face job discrimination based on marital or parental status. Employers often view women as “time bombs” likely to take multiple maternity leaves with the nation’s pronatalist policies, and so are reluctant to hire or promote them.

Meanwhile fear-mongering, pronatalist rhetoric that raises the alarm about population decline is dangerous in how it assigns women outsized responsibilities or “duties” to bear children, and even blames women’s rights movements.

On the stump South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol blamed feminism for the country’s low fertility fate because it prevented “healthy relationships between men and women.” Chinese President Xi Jinping spoke before the National Women’s Congress of the need to “actively cultivate a new culture of marriage and childbearing.”

Such rhetoric not only ignores the economic determinants of fertility, it blames women and treats them as reproductive vessels, infringing on their autonomy, intensifying gender inequality, and exerting coercive social pressure that undermines their reproductive choices and rights.

Reproductive rights aren’t just a matter of managing population size; they are fundamental human rights. To build a sustainable and just future, governments need to address the deeper economic and social causes of declining fertility while respecting women’s rights. Combating these structural inequities is critical for a healthier population, regardless of whether the goal is to raise low fertility rates.

We know from experience that trying to push people into having more children by offering subsidies, tax breaks, or cash allowances doesn’t work. A better way to start ameliorating the tough economics of having children in East Asia would be to develop a more family-friendly work culture including flexible hours and working at home, government services that help mothers stay in or re-enter the workforce.

Men and women, birth, adoptive, and surrogate parents alike, would all benefit from paid parental leave and other family-friendly workplace policies.

To tackle gender inequity at work, policymakers should clearly define and prohibit gender discrimination by employers in recruiting, evaluation, and assigning benefits. We need more specific enforcement of anti-discrimination laws and better mechanisms for bringing complaints to uphold the rights women in the workplace.

We also need to combat stigma and discrimination against single parents, non-traditional partnerships, and same-sex couples and so they can access the same parental benefits and child care infrastructure as traditional parents.

We won’t get to a more sustainable and equitable future without respecting women’s rights and addressing structural economic and social injustices. Rather than trying to reverse demographic trends by raising fertility rates, we have a window of opportunity to adapt to those trends fairly and equitably.

Recognizing the pitfalls of pronatalist campaigns that erode women’s autonomy, governments in East Asia and everywhere have a responsibility to adopt rights-based policies that respect it.

Yumeng Li is an undergraduate at Duke University and a Stanback Population Research Fellow at the Population Institute, a nonprofit based in Washington, D.C., that supports reproductive health and rights.

IPS UN Bureau

 

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Tidal waves on Namkhana Island have flooded a house in West Bengal, India. Tidal waves on Namkhana Island have flooded a house in West Bengal, India. Natural disasters. Storms, heavy rainfall, and floods wreck havoc here. Credit: Supratim Bhattacharjee / Climate Visuals

By Aishwarya Bajpai
NEW DELHI, Jul 9 2024 (IPS)

Cyclones and floods have become increasingly frequent across different parts of India, posing a significant threat to the country’s population.

According to global data, India ranks as the second-highest-risk nation, with 390 million people potentially to be affected by flooding due to climate change and among them are 4.9 million fishworkers.

Venkatesh Salagrama, a Kakinada-based expert on small-scale fisheries, and also an independent consultant to the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization has been quoted as saying: “For every boat in the sea, there are at least 5-20 people depending on it.”

From 2015 to 2023, Indians have faced the devastating impacts of floods and heavy rainfall (see graph). Among those most affected are the ‘ocean people’ or fishworkers, whose lives are further endangered by rising temperatures and unpredictable weather patterns.

People in India affected by floods. Credit: Aishwarya Bajpai/IPS

They already struggle with government initiatives aimed at intensifying the use of the ocean for the blue economy and the corporatization of coastal lands for port development, known as the nationwide ‘Sagarmala Project’ further denying them rights to coastal lands. Thereby, making the rights of fishworkers precarious, with no protective government laws in place. Climate change exacerbates their vulnerability, turning their worst fears into reality.

For instance, recently in December 2023, Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh (southern coastal states in India) and faced Cyclone Michaung, which led to extensive flooding. The cyclone brought extreme rainfall, with parts of the Tamil Nadu coast experiencing more rainfall in a single day than the average annual rainfall, a consequence of climate change.

In places like Kayalpattinam and Thoothukudi, where the average annual rainfall is around 900-950 mm, more than 1000 mm fell in a single day. However, the cyclone was not the immediate cause of the flooding.

“The flooding was largely a result of human mismanagement. Excessive urbanization and development in natural floodplains, combined with inadequate preparation, exacerbated the situation. The state government failed to release water from reservoirs and lakes before the cyclone, leading to overflowing when the heavy rains arrived,” R. Sridhar, Coastal Researcher and Research Scholar at Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi told IPS.

As a result, houses and roads were submerged, cutting off access to various villages and delaying rescue and relief efforts. The state’s response was hampered by damaged infrastructure, and the relief efforts from both the state and NGOs were delayed due to inaccessible roads and train routes.

Before the cyclone, fishworkers were already affected as they were not allowed to venture into the sea due to cyclone warnings, resulting in an initial loss of income. Once the cyclone hit, flooding damaged boats parked both in harbors and along the shoreline, affecting small and mechanized boats alike. Nets and other essential fishing gear were also damaged, representing a significant financial loss as nets are crucial and expensive. The fisher community experienced extensive damage, highlighting the severe impact on their livelihood and resources.

A fishworker only identified Simhadri, a survivor of the cyclone was quoted in The New India Express as saying: “Every fisherman in Gollapudi suffered an average loss of Rs 1 lakh (about USD 1,200) as the fishing nets, motors, and boats got damaged while some were drowned. The collector should pay a visit and provide financial assistance.”

The homes of fishworkers in Andhra Pradesh, provide insight into their living conditions and the challenges they face in maintaining their households. Credit: Aishwarya Bajpai/IPS

There was a significant failure in predicting the extent of rainfall. The India Meteorological Department (IMD) did not provide adequate warnings, resulting in insufficient preparations with Union blaming the state government and vice a versa. The state government requested over 5060 crore from the Union government for flood relief but received only a fraction, which was 450 crores. The capacity of NGOs to provide aid was also limited due to restrictions like the Foreign Contribution Regulation Act (FCRA).

Sridhar further added that “This highlights the need for a more participatory and democratized approach to meteorology, involving fishworkers and ocean people in modern scientific prediction methods who have the traditional knowledge of the sea and weather. Moreover, in terms of preparation, proactive measures such as releasing water from reservoirs before the cyclone would have mitigated the flooding. However, the state government did not take these steps, blaming inadequate warnings from the IMD.”

The ocean people, or fishworkers, are experiencing daily losses, making their plight a clear candidate for the ‘Loss and Damage Fund.’ At the COP27 and 28 world leaders recognized the need to support low-income developing countries grappling with the devastating impacts of climate change.

The result was the creation of the Loss and Damage Fund, a financial lifeline aimed at helping these vulnerable nations recover from climate-induced natural disasters. To ensure the effective implementation of this fund, a Transitional Committee was established, including representatives from 24 developed and developing nations. This collaborative effort underscores a global commitment to addressing the urgent needs of those most affected by climate change.

A compelling aspect of the Loss and Damage Fund is its recognition of both economic and non-economic losses. Non-economic losses encompass injury, loss of life, health, rights, biodiversity, ecosystem services, indigenous knowledge, and cultural heritage—areas where marginalized communities are most affected. For instance, while economic losses might include income forfeited due to heatwaves, non-economic losses would cover the displacement of communities from coastal villages due to beach erosion.

The faces of fishworkers from Andhra Pradesh portray the many work challenges they have faced since the COVID-19 pandemic. Aishwarya Bajpai/IPS

This highlights the profound vulnerability of fishworkers and ocean-dependent communities, acutely impacted by these environmental changes. Further, due to limited economic and social resources available with the fishworkers, some adaptive and counter measures are beyond the fishworkers’ capacities.

The Loss and Damage Fund can be allocated to those results of extreme climate events that cannot be countered or are beyond the practice of climate adaptation (activities to prepare and adjust to the climate change), for example, loss of lives and cultural practices. This complexity will make it harder for marginalized communities like fishworkers to argue their case and access the fund.

Cyclone Yass was a disaster. A low-pressure area formed over the North Andaman Sea and adjoining the east-central Bay of Bengal around May 22, 2021, and further intensified into a severe cyclonic storm, named ‘Cyclone Yaas’. While the coastal region of Sunderban was preparing for a thunderstorm and was thinking of the scale of damage the cyclone could bring, the scenario was a bit different. There was hardly any storm on that day but due to rising sea level, the whole Sunderban and Howrah region, the banks of the Ganges, got flooded, devastating fish stock. Credit: Credit: Kaushik Dutta / Climate Visuals

Despite establishing such measures, the global response has often been more talk than action. Experts argue that the pledged amounts fall drastically short, covering less than 0.2 percent of what developing countries require, estimated at a minimum of $400 billion annually, according to the Loss and Damage Finance Landscape report. In response, members of the Transitional Committee from developing nations have proposed that the fund should aim to allocate at least USD 100 billion annually by 2030 to meet these pressing needs.

“The loss and damage fund should be considered for not only immediate relief and rescue operations but also for preparedness and spreading knowledge. A participatory approach to meteorology can enhance prediction accuracy and disaster preparedness. Additionally, slower and ongoing disasters like coastal erosion and declining fish catches due to climate change also require attention. Fishworkers in various regions have demanded compensation for “fish famine” similar to agricultural famine relief,” Sridhar said.

The Adaptation Gap Report 2023 emphasizes that “a justice lens underscores that loss and damage is not the product of climate hazards alone but is influenced by differential vulnerabilities to climate change, which are often driven by a range of socio-political processes, including racism and histories of colonialism and exploitation.”

As India continues to battle these extreme weather events, the call for tangible action and equitable solutions becomes ever more urgent. The world watches and waits—will the promises of climate justice be fulfilled, or will they remain hollow words in the face of escalating crises?

This feature is published with the support of Open Society Foundations.

IPS UN Bureau Report

 

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Excerpt:

Fishworkers in India bear the brunt of climate change-induced extreme weather events. While they should be considered a potential beneficiary of the Loss and Damage Fund, the complexity of their situation may make it harder for communities like fishworkers to access the fund.

Dormitory of indigenous girls of the Awajún people, in shelters where they live and receive intercultural bilingual education, in the province of Condorcanqui, state of Amazonas, in northeastern Peru. Credit: Courtesy of Rosemary Pioc

By Mariela Jara
LIMA, Jul 8 2024 (IPS)

The main fear facing women leaders who have denounced the systematic rape of girls from the Awajún indigenous people in the northeastern Peruvian department of Amazonas is that, despite the media coverage and sanctions announced by the authorities, it will all come to nothing.

“Our reports started in 2010 and the government has not acted to eradicate rapes against girls. We fear that once again there will be impunity, and the government is very strategic in this,” said Rosemary Pioc, president of the Awajún/Wampis Umukai Yawi (Comuawuy) Women’s Council, from the municipality of Condorcanqui, to IPS.

In June, women leaders from Comuawuy reported the rape of 532 girls between 2010 and 2024 in schools of Condorcanqui, one of the seven provinces of the department of Amazonas. These schools provide bilingual education to children and teenagers between the ages of five and 17.

Girls as young as five years old have died in these schools and shelters, infected with HIV/AIDS by their aggressors.

This is aggravated sexual violence against indigenous girls living in poverty and vulnerability, while sexual aggression against minors is on the rise in this South American country of 33 million inhabitants."I’ve picked up abused, bloodied girls, and I’ve listened to their despair when their parents paid no heed when told of the rapes": Rosemary Pioc.

According to the Ministry of Women and Vulnerable Populations, Peru registered 30,000 reports of sexual violence against children under 17 years of age in 2023.

However, many cases do not reach the public authorities due to various economic, social and administrative barriers, especially when rural populations or indigenous communities are involved.

Peru has 55 indigenous peoples, with a population of four million, living in the national territory since time immemorial, according to the Ministry of Culture database.

Four of these indigenous peoples live in Andean areas and 51 in Amazonian territories, including the Awajún people, who live in the departments of Amazonas, San Martín, Loreto, Ucayali and Cajamarca. However, 96.4% of the indigenous population are Andean peoples, mainly Quechua, and only 3.6% are Amazonian peoples.

Although national and international law guarantee their rights and identities, in practice this is not so for indigenous girls, while poverty and inequalities in access to education, health and food persist.

According to official 2024 figures, 30% of the national population lives in poverty. When differentiated by ethnic self-identification, this rises to 35% among those who learned a native language in childhood.

Extreme poverty reached 5.7%, a national average that rises to 10.5% in Amazonas, a department with more than 433,000 inhabitants, where indigenous families live mainly from agriculture, hunting, fishing and gathering wild fruits.

Rosemary Pioc, president of the Awajún/Wampis Umukai Yawi Council of Women. Credit: Courtesy of Rosemary Pioc

“I’ve picked up bloodied girls”.

Bilingual intercultural education is a state policy in Peru.

Thus, student residences were created to enhance access to education for indigenous children and teenagers living in remote communities, in the case of the province of Condorcanqui, on the banks of the Cenepa, Nieva and Santiago rivers.

The province hosts 18 residences, where the girls live throughout the year, receive meals and attend school.

“Since they cannot return home every day because they are hours or days away by river, the teacher or facilitator takes advantage of this situation and abuses them instead of guaranteeing their care,” said Pioc, herself a member of the Awajún people.

More than 500 rapes have been documented in the last 14 years in this scenario.

The leader explained that these shelters are licensed by the Ministry of Education, although they survive in very poor conditions and are left to their own devices.

Pioc has been denouncing sexual violence against her pupils for years, but the Local Educational Management Unit (Ugel), the Amazonas regional government’s decentralized body for education, has not addressed them in order to prosecute and dismiss the aggressor teachers.

Another dormitory in one of the bilingual intercultural schools where parents of the Awajún people, who live in remote areas along the banks of Peru’s Amazonian rivers, send their daughters between the ages of five and 17. Credit: Courtesy of Rosemary Pioc

“We are in the country of the upside down, because in 2017 a colleague and I were reported for denouncing and defending girls,” she said.

Pioc, as a native of Condorcanqui, knows her reality well. When she was a primary school teacher, she experienced terrible things. “I’ve picked up abused, bloodied girls, and I’ve listened to their despair when their parents paid no heed when told of the rapes”, she said.

She has left teaching to dedicate herself completely to Comuawuy, continue with the reports and prevent impunity.

“A headmaster touched two pupils. Their parents, with great effort, reported him to the Ugel, but nothing happened. He carried on with his contract and then raped his five-year-old niece. ‘Report me if you want. Nothing will happen to me’, he warned me. And so it was. I was the one prosecuted”, she complains.

A month ago, the indigenous women’s reports were widely heard when the Minister of Education, Morgan Quero, and the head of Women’s Affairs, Teresa Hernández, justified the events by attributing them to indigenous cultural practices.

The statements were roundly rejected by various sectors, deeming them racist and evasive of the government’s responsibility to sanction and prevent sexual violence.

Pioc decried the ministers’ statements and expressed her disbelief at the announcements of sanctions and other measures ordered by the Education Office. “They are setting up technical roundtables, but only when the rapists are in prison and the girls’ health has been taken care of will we say they have complied,” she said.

The two ministers later apologised and said they had been misunderstood, but they remain in their posts, despite many calls for their dismissal.

Genoveva Gómez, head of the Amazonas Ombudsman’s Office. Credit: Amazonas Ombudsman Office

Victims hurt for life

Genoveva Gómez, lawyer heading the Amazonas Ombudsman’s Office, says her sector reported in 2017, 2018 and 2019 the deprivation of student residences and flaws in the investigation of sexual violence cases at the administrative level and in the prosecutor’s office.

In order to correct this situation, her office has recommended “increasing the budget, strengthening the Permanent Commission for Administrative Proceedings, which is responsible for investigating teachers, and that cases that are time-barred at the administrative level should be referred to the Public Prosecutor’s Office because rape is a crime that has no statute of limitations,” she explained.

Gómez spoke to IPS as she travelled from Chachapoyas, also in the department of Amazonas and the headquarters of her organisation, to Condorcanqui, to take part in a meeting of the Coordination Body for the Prevention, Attention and Punishment of Cases of Violence Against Women and Family Members, convened by the mayor of that municipality.

The lawyer argued that the Awajún girls who have been sexually assaulted will be hurt for life and that it is urgent to implement mechanisms that guarantee justice, and emotional support for them and their families.

“As a society we must be clear that these acts violate fundamental rights and should not go unnoticed,” she stressed.

Gómez said that by August at the latest Condorcanqui will have a Gesell Chamber, a key means for the prosecutorial investigation in cases of sexual violence against minors to avoid re-victimisation through a single interview. The nearest one was in the city of Bagua Grande, a seven-hour car ride.

The chamber consists of two rooms separated by a one-way viewing glass. In one room, children and teenagers who are victims of rape and other sexual assaults talk about this violence with psychologists and provide information relevant to the case. In the other, family members, lawyers and prosecutors observe without being seen by the victim.

Afterwards, the psychologist in charge asks them about aspects requested by the observers. Everything is recorded and serves as valid evidence for the trial, and the victim does not have to testify in court.

Gómez also stated that access to justice has many barriers and it is up to the government to remove them so as not to send a message of impunity to the population, in particular to the Awajún girls.

She also welcomed the presence of representatives of the education sector in the area, but considered that this should not be a reactive work for a determined period of time, but rather a sustained and planned one that includes prevention.

The theme of the 2024 High Level Political Forum (HPLF) is “Reinforcing the 2030 Agenda and eradicating poverty in times of multiple crisis: the effective delivery of sustainable, resilient and innovative solutions”. The first meeting will be held from 8 July, to 12 July, and the second meeting, from 15 July, to 18 July, under the auspices of the UN Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC).

By Simone Galimberti
KATHMANDU, Nepal, Jul 8 2024 (IPS)

A High-Level Political Forum – described as one of the most important events of the year for discussing the implementation of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)—will take place at the United Nations through July 18.

Will this year edition be covered by global media? Will the international community and the people in general pay attention to it?

The HLPF was envisioned as an exercise in accountability, the only way to hold the member states of the United Nations, accountable to the Agenda 2030, the global blueprint in force since 2015 with its actionable SDGs.

Taking stock of the lack of serious commitment towards the implementation of the SDGs’ predecessor, the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), the international community came up with a different, tighter approach.

After strenuous negotiations, the member states managed to hammer out a stronger mechanism to keep a check on nations would fare in implementing their SDGs.
Despite the divisions, the idea of the HLPF emerged as an acceptable compromise for both sides.

On one side, there was those countries who wanted a loose, “bottom up” approach where the governments would be in charge to set their own plans and targets without legally binding provisions.

These nations would sign up to the Agenda 2030 on condition that they would remain their own masters in devising the plans to achieve the SDGs. In doing so, they also wanted no real and meaningful oversight on their work, accountability was established to be light by purpose during the negotiations.

On the other hand, other nations wanted a much more vigorous enforcing mechanism with real accountability powers. This explains how the HLPF ended up to be a peer-to-peer mechanism where member states would be invited, every two years, to present their national reviews, the so called National Voluntary Reviews or NVRs.

In a concession to those calling for a strong accountability framework, it was agreed that, every four years, the HLPF would entail two official sessions, one of which would be branded as the SDG Summit at the level of the Heads of State and Governments.

Despite the good intentions, the HLPF never achieved the aims it was devised for.

It struggled to get traction and garner the visibility it was hoped it would be able to garner and basically it has become a very technical mechanism for a relatively limited circle of experts and civil society activists.

Most seriously, it was never be able to register with the governments that would see it either as a minor inconvenience or as a missed opportunity. Both sides still saw worthwhile giving the HLPF a pretense of an being an important event.

There is no doubt that having member nations voluntary presenting their VNRs would be better than having no platform at all to understand what nations are doing to implement the SDGs.

Moreover, the HLPF with its rich program of side events has established itself as an important learning and capacity building platform.

Yet it is high time the international community started to rethink the whole exercise.

As it occurred when drafting a new plan replacing the MDGs, also in this case, the degree of ambition must rise.

The recently released Sustainable Development Goals Report 2024, the only official UN publication tracking the status of implementation of the goals, once again portrays a very challenging scenario.

The entire international community is falling well short of their responsibilities and whole humanity is far off in ensuring the wellbeing and sustainability of the planet in the years to come.

Perhaps we should not only fault a weak framework that allows governments off the hook in upholding their pledges.

The whole international system based on cooperation among states is under stress with several ongoing geopolitical crises and perhaps others, even more serious and consequential, are about to emerge.

Despite this worrying scenario, the international community must rise to the challenge

That’s why it is essential to start devising an even more audacious post Agenda 2030 plan.

It needs to have much stronger enforcing mechanisms while maintaining some of its innovations, real improvements relatively to the MDGs.

For example, we should not hesitate at reaffirming the validity of having the 17 SDGs in place.

Over the years, important steps were met in terms of devising the indispensable data for planning their execution and tracking the outcomes.

Plus, the idea of the SDGs somehow got traction in the people’s imagination even though now it requires some brand revamping. The real problem now is the way SDGs should be reported and tracked and the HLPF is simply unfit for the job.

A bold proposal: the international community should work on devising an international binding legal instrument, in simpler terms, a treaty. Such a tool would do a better at creating, among the member nations, more ownership, accountability, and a sense of urgency compounded by a new legal responsibility towards the implementation of the SDGs.

It is now imperative to have much robust oversight mechanisms and such radical changes would be at the foundation of a revamped future post Agenda 2030 process. We need new instruments in order to ensure that governments will really do whatever they can to achieve the SDGs.

The current national reviews cannot continue to be the way they are: voluntary exercises that are implemented and presented just because of a moral obligation of the signatories of the Agenda 2030.

Instead, they must be transformed into real accounting on what each government is doing according to fixed mandatory parameters, including the type and quality of data and information to be included.

Moreover, what I called the future Mandatory National Reviews or MNRs, should also make space to insert data and information of what local governments are doing. Basically, the new MNRs should also contain what are now the unofficial and almost informal Local Voluntary Reviews or LVRs that are still conveniently seen as “add-ons”.

Such reporting should be made on annual basis with no option of derogation nor any flexibility.

Yet in designing it, the unique circumstances of the member states must be taken into account, with significantly simplified reporting obligations for, say, small island developing nations.

All these would require enhanced capabilities on the part of the same governments and with them, substantial resources.

The UN Regional Commissions, the UNDP country level offices and the UN Resident Coordinators who now have bigger authority and responsibilities, should play a bigger role in supporting their host countries in fulfilling the requirements that the treaty would entail.

Such new responsibilities on the part of the nations can only be met by allowing the UN to have a much-strengthened role, a real “mandate” at assessing and evaluating their efforts or dearth of them.

At the moment, the UN agencies and programs at country levels, wherever they operate, are essentially partner of their host governments and it is the way it should be. They fund many of their programs and they are themselves co-implementers of others.

In all fairness, they cannot play the function of evaluators and trackers of what the national government are doing. This is the reason why a treaty would establish a new UN entity entirely focused on assessing and tracking the governments’ work.

Such entity should operate entirely independently and be de facto separated from the UN work on the ground. Shielded by design from any political interferences or influences by national authorities and donor agencies, the new UN entity must be free to issue forthright and impartial assessments with a list of recommendations if due.

A would-be treaty must also entail provisions about financing as well. In practice it would mean putting into a legal signature to the pledge to fulfill the SDGs Stimulus as envisioned by the UN Secretary Antonio Guterres.

This is estimated to be $500 billion a year, an amount that, if you also considering the financing required to fight climate change and biodiversity loss, would be considerably bigger. Like for any treaty consultations, it will be up to the officials to reach a compromise on the technicalities of the financing, for example, deciding if existing multilateral entities and programs would be fit for the purpose to deliver such funding.

I am fully aware that many governments would balk at the idea of another binding treaty.

There will be a lot of pushbacks but, after all, this is always what occurs when bold plans are unfolded.

It took many years, for example, to agree on the need of a plastic pollution treaty whose difficult negotiations are reaching the last mile at the end of the year in South Korea even though the road ahead is still very bumpy.

Yet a treaty is the only way forward if the international community is serious to revert and change direction from the dangerous path that humanity is taking. With no action, it is impossible to envision a better, more sustainable and just world. The viability of future generations is at risk.

To assuage those nations that won’t embrace this idea, those governments that, without doubts, would pull a lot of roadblocks on the way to reach a consensus on the need of a binding legal instrument, a reminder: a treaty is always the result of compromises that must be agreed by all the sides.

Even the SDGs are far from being ideal.

Fundamental issues like the rights of LGBTQ+ communities and the same concept of democracy are remarkably absent from the Agenda 2030. I even got a name that could be considered for such bold milestone: the Treaty for a Sustainable and Just Future.

Working only on extending the SDGs to a longer framework, possibly 2045, is simply no more sufficient. It has become totally inadequate.

We need better tools to ensure that governments around the world take the post Agenda 2030 plan seriously. We need some bold thinking and some nations championing such ambitious approach to start a conversation. What at the moment counts is to start a conversation about a treaty.

Hopefully the civil society would push for it. Perhaps, what would be really a global multi stakeholder coalition of hope, would take shape and starts demanding what the planet and humanity truly require.

Simone Galimberti writes about the SDGs, youth-centered policy-making and a stronger and better United Nations.

IPS UN Bureau

 

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Dr. Abdulrahman Bizri, member of the Lebanese parliament and the parliamentary committee on public health, professor of medicine and infectious diseases at the American University of Beirut (AUB) and chair of the national COVID vaccine committee and response.

By Randa El Ozeir
BEIRUT & TORONTO , Jul 8 2024 (IPS)

This summer is bringing an additional challenge to the public health front in Lebanon, along with higher-than-normal temperatures.

An uptick in food- and water-borne communicable diseases, mainly viral hepatitis A, has been registered in the country, according to recent statistics released by the Lebanese Ministry of Public Health from numbers collected in hospitals, health centers and laboratories.

The hepatitis A virus (HAV) causes hepatitis A, according to the World Health Organization (WHO), which causes inflammation of the liver. The virus is primarily spread when an uninfected (and unvaccinated) person ingests food or water that is contaminated with the feces of an infected person. The disease is closely associated with unsafe water or food, inadequate sanitation, poor personal hygiene and oral-anal sex.”

An unrelenting, thorny economic crisis has been ravaging the country for years and is considered the main culprit for the deterioration of basic facilities, community installations and public services.

Dr. Abdulrahman Bizri, member of the Lebanese parliament and the parliamentary committee on public health, professor of medicine and infectious diseases at the American University of Beirut (AUB) and chairperson of the national COVID vaccine committee and response, blames the collapse of Lebanese currency, the negligence, the intractable economic, political and livelihood crises, the mismanagement and the prevailing misconduct for the complications of preventing and containing diseases, including communicable types.

“All these factors led to failure in sustaining health infrastructure, such as sewage, and providing clean water to households for direct or indirect human use through produce and/or livestock, which resulted in the spread of many diseases, namely the infectious ones transmitted through contaminated water, such as cholera, hepatitis A, acute diarrhea, dysentery, salmonella and other diseases.”

Staff Shortages and Budget Cuts

Government dysfunction, scarcity of maintenance and investment and corruption slowed down the development of services and responses to health outbreaks.

Dr. Hussein Hassan, professor and researcher in food safety and food production at Lebanese American University (LAU), points out two additional elements that have deeply affected the public health situation: the reduced funding and the exodus of medical doctors.

“In hospitals, for example, we have staff shortages due to the brain drain while we are suffering from inefficiency and ghost workers. Unfortunately, we also have bribery and budget cuts that delay much-needed projects.”

Can the Ministry of Health (MoH), with its current shape in light of government spending, decrease its ability to manage and protect against communicable diseases?

Bizri says that “MoH is facing an uphill battle due to its limited and low capacities. It relies heavily on the support of the international community,  for example, WHO, UNICEF, and UNHCR, among others, to control these diseases.”

Dr. Hussein Hassan, professor and researcher in food safety and food production at the Lebanese American University (LAU).

Bridging the gap requires a comprehensive and holistic approach to dealing with the situation based on short-term and long-term steps to be taken on many official and public levels. Hassan believes that “we need to strengthen the surveillance of outbreaks, execute mass vaccination campaigns, provide affected individuals with required supplies, and improve the water and sanitation in crowded areas by installing purification systems and even distributing bottled water.”

Large Presence of Syrian refugees

Poverty, poor public awareness, inadequate education, a social environment with minimal knowledge and disregarding good hygiene practices contribute to communicable disease transmission.

Bizri refers to the sizable presence of Syrian refugees who live in difficult and bad conditions, congregated in unorganized camps with insufficient reliable health structures or safe drinking water. He applauded the three-way partnership between the Lebanese Ministry of Health,  international organizations like WHO and UNHCR, and the considerable Lebanese medical private sector in fighting diseases threatening the country.

“Lebanon succeeded in containing many epidemics that had the potential to prevail. The Lebanese medical body, including civil society, massively volunteered to control the spread of these diseases. The health sector spearheaded the efforts to address the COVID-19 pandemic and is still at the forefront of fighting communicable diseases.”

However, he has reservations regarding the “skeptical role of UNHCR in its fight against many of the epidemics menacing Lebanon as an outcome of the concentrated existence of Syrian refugees, since it does not deal transparently with the Lebanese government and its official institutions.”

To ensure continuity of public health preventative and controlling programs, Hassan mapped out some long-term measures to be put in place, including “economic and political stability, strengthening the healthcare system, investing in improving water supply and sewage systems, and developing and implementing maintenance programs related to water safety, particularly among refugees.”

He acknowledges the crucial role played by international collaboration and financial and technical support delivered by non-governmental organizations (NGOs).

Mistrust has dented the relationship between the healthcare system and the citizens.

“I believe that Lebanese citizens lost faith in the health sector long ago,” said Bizri. “Yet they keep depending on this sector, which offers affordable health and medical services compared to the private healthcare costs in Lebanon. The country boasts advanced medical services and treatments, but its public health is still enduring a significant deficit.”

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By Daud Khan
ROME, Jul 8 2024 (IPS)

Immigrants are essential to Europe’s economic survival. They are needed for doing the jobs that most Europeans no longer want to do. Jobs that involve manual labor in agriculture and industry; or providing home help, care for the elderly; or working un-social hours in the catering business.

Daud Khan

So, why are a growing number of European political parties, including mainstream parties, taking an ever stronger anti-immigration stance and why are people voting for them?

I have previously argued that no one really wants immigration to stop, or for immigrants to leave. What the anti-immigrant parties want to do is to create a new subclass of low paid workers who have no rights and no political power (Europe’s Shift to the Far Right and its Impact on Immigration | Inter Press Service (ipsnews.net). Such a “new immigrant proletariat” would enhance profits of those employing such immigrant workers, as well as raise overall living standards of the general population.

Recent events in Italy appear to confirm my hypothesis that low-paid illegal work in deeply imbedded in the system.

On 17 June, in a farm south of Rome an agricultural worker was critically injured and subsequently died. Satnam Singh’s right arm was caught in an agriculture machine and was chopped off. The owner of the farm placed the truncated arm in a box; he then deposited the box, and the injured Satnam Singh, outside his house and drove off. Satnam was eventually taken to hospital, but the delay in getting him medical aid meant that it was not possible to save his life.

What came to light in the subsequent investigations is that Satnam has no stay permit, no work contract and was paid a pittance for back breaking work in debilitating heat and biting cold. The Minister of Agriculture was quick to denounce the event leading to Satnam Sigh’s death and police are prosecuting the owner of the farm. However, the minister was also pointed out Italy’s agriculture sector is viable, dynamic and law abiding, and should not be criminalized due to a single unfortunate event

However, studies and surveys, mostly done by the trade unions, put a lie to his statement. In the case of the agriculture sector, of the roughly 1 million workers, some 230,000 are estimated illegal 1. Like Satnam, they are low-paid and badly treated. There are also allegations of different forms of abuse, as well as widespread use of amphetamines and painkillers to make them work harder.

Moreover, what is also emerging from various investigations is how the system, which supposedly aims to create more legal and controlled immigration, actually works to ensure an ample supply of illegal immigrants. The system works as follow:

Under Italian Law (the Bossi-Fini Act of 2002) Italian employers can ask for foreign workers to legally enter Italy to work in specific sectors, including agriculture and the tourism sector. The implicit agreement is the once they are in Italy, the employer who sponsored their entry would provide them a work contract and wages that are in line with industry standards.

However, in many cases the sponsoring employer does not show up to pick up the workers – let alone provide a job or a contract. The arriving workers find themselves in a foreign country where they cannot speak the language, without a job and without papers. The phenomenon is particularly acute in some regions of Italy such as Campagna (around Naples) where only 3% of workers who enter Italy legally actually sign a contract with the employer who sponsored their entry into the country.

It is here that the so called “contractors” step in. These contractors pick up the newly arrived workers providing them with immediate help and assistance. They then act as intermediaries to arrange jobs for them at wages that are a fraction of what Italians doing the same job would be paid. Moreover, these unscrupulous contractors skim off much of what the workers earn for renting them a house and for providing transport to and from work.

And all this is happening in front of everyone’s eyes, including those of various local and national authorities. For example, authorities know which companies sponsored foreign workers to enter Italy. They also know how many work contracts these companies signed with these immigrant workers. Recent reports show that in the Naples area 22,000 sponsored workers entered the country but not one of the signed a contract.

Similarly, the owner of the farm where Satnam Singh died had declared to the local authorities that he had only one tractor and no workers – facts that were patently untrue but no one ever bothered to check.

These and other facts are often well covered in reports done by the trade unions or by investigative journalists particularly after an accident or an untoward event happens. Moreover, there is nothing really clandestine about what is happening. One has only to drive around the agriculturally rich areas around Rome or the central or northern parts of Italy to see an army of workers from South Asia attending to livestock or toiling in the fields that supply the city with fresh fruit and vegetable. In more southern parts of Italy, it is young men from Africa that are picking oranges and tomatoes.

Similarly in cities such as Rome and Milan there are armies of illegals who work as “riders” delivering food to people’s homes; working as cooks, dishwasher and waiters in restaurants and bars; or working as cleaners or caregivers in people’s homes.

The system seems to suit everyone and if every so often a Satnam Singh dies – well so be it.

1 https://www.fondazionerizzotto.it/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/Sintesi-VI-Rapporto_301122.pdf

Daud Khan is a retired UN staff based in Rome. He has degrees in economics from LSE and Oxford, where he was a Rhodes Scholar; and a degree in Environmental Management from Imperial College London.

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Credit: Oleksandr Rupeta/NurPhoto via Getty Images

By Inés M. Pousadela
MONTEVIDEO, Uruguay, Jul 8 2024 (IPS)

In June, the Namibian High Court struck down two sections of the country’s Sexual Offences Act that criminalised consensual sexual relations between men, finding them unconstitutional. While hardly anyone has been convicted for decades, the fact that their relationships were criminalised forced gay men to live in fear, perpetuated stigma and denied them recognition as rights holders, enabling discrimination, harassment and abuse.

In decriminalising same-sex relations, Namibia follows in the footsteps of Mauritius, which did so in 2023. In both countries, the criminalisation of consensual same-sex relations dated back to colonial times. Colonial overlords imposed these criminal provisions and countries typically retained them at independence, long after the UK had changed its laws.

Namibia gained independence from South Africa in 1990 but retained the criminal provisions South Africa inherited from the UK. South Africa then decriminalised male same-sex conduct in 1994 – sex between women was never criminalised – and recognised same-sex marriage in 2006. But Namibia hadn’t followed the same path – until now.

A concerning regional landscape

Following the decriminalisation of same-sex relations, Namibia is ranked 56th out of 196 countries on Equaldex’s Equality Index, which ranks countries according to their LGBTQI+ friendliness. Only three African countries are ranked higher: South Africa, Cabo Verde and the Seychelles.

Today, 66 countries around the world criminalise same-sex relationships: 31 in Africa, 22 in Asia and the Middle East, six in the Pacific and five in the Caribbean. A disproportionate number are members of the Commonwealth, the alliance mostly made up of countries colonised by the UK. Thirteen of the 29 Commonwealth countries that criminalise same-sex relations are African. This often comes with harsh prison sentences – up to 14 years in Kenya and up to life imprisonment in Sierra Leone and Tanzania. In northern Nigeria and Uganda, the death penalty can apply.

Some Commonwealth African states that have long criminalised same-sex relations, including Ghana, Kenya and Uganda, are experiencing a strong conservative backlash. Typically, small gains in rights have provoked disproportionate responses from anti-rights forces, who assert that LGBTQI+ rights are part of an imported western agenda – even though it’s criminalisation that was imported, and the anti-rights backlash is lavishly funded by foreign forces.

Intertwined legal cases

Same-sex marriage reached Namibia’s courts long before same-sex relationships were no longer a crime. In 2017, two men who’d married in South Africa, one Namibian and the other South African, filed a court application to prevent the South African partner and the couple’s son being treated as ‘prohibited immigrants’. They argued that the Department of Home Affairs and Immigration had discriminated against them on the basis of their sexual orientation and sought recognition of their marriage and joint guardianship of their son. A similar case was filed by a female couple – one Namibian and the other German – and the cases were merged.

In early 2018, the male couple won a petition allowing the South African partner to enter Namibia to be with his husband and son. But in January 2022, the High Court rejected the petition to recognise same-sex marriages celebrated abroad. The judges expressed sympathy for the applicants, but said they couldn’t overturn previous rulings by Namibia’s Supreme Court. However, this raised campaigners’ hopes of a favourable decision in a Supreme Court appeal.

Indeed, in May 2023, the Supreme Court recognised same-sex marriages performed abroad between Namibian citizens and foreign nationals. But the court also said homosexuality was a complex issue and same-sex marriage should be dealt with by parliament.

Meanwhile, same-sex relations between consenting adult males remained a criminal offence. But the time was ripe: in 2021, Namibian LGBTQI+ activists held the country’s largest-ever Pride celebration, which included calls for the repeal of criminalisation. And in 2022, a few months after the High Court decision not to recognise foreign same-sex marriages, LGBTQI+ activist Friedel Dausab challenged the common law offence of sodomy in court. Supported by the Human Dignity Trust, he argued that criminalisation of his identity was incompatible with his constitutional rights.

The High Court handed down its positive decision on 21 June 2024. The judges agreed that laws criminalising same-sex relationships amounted to unfair discrimination and were therefore unconstitutional and invalid.

Conservative backlash

LGBTQI+ advocates around the world welcomed the court’s decision, as did UNAIDS, the UN agency leading the global effort to end HIV/AIDS. But by the time the ruling came, resistance was underway.

In July 2023, in response to the Supreme Court ruling on same-sex marriage, parliament’s upper house quickly passed a bill banning same-sex marriages, including those contracted abroad. The bill would make it an offence to perform, participate in, promote or advertise these marriages, punishable by up to six years in prison. It was subsequently passed by parliament’s lower house and is currently awaiting the president’s decision to assent or veto. An appeal against the court’s decriminalisation decision also can’t be ruled out.

The way forward

While the direction of change so far makes it an example for the region, Namibia still has a long way to go. Outstanding issues include comprehensive protection against discrimination, marriage equality and adoption rights, recognition of non-binary genders, legalisation of gender reassignment and a ban on ‘conversion therapy’, a practice UN experts consider akin to torture.

Social change should be as much a priority as legal progress. The Equality Index makes it clear: social attitudes lag behind laws, with public homophobia a persistent problem. Moral panics, episodically mobilised by anti-rights reactions, cause public opinion to fluctuate, with no decisive majority in favour of equality. This means legal change won’t be enough, and won’t continue unless the climate of opinion changes.

In Namibia, as elsewhere, there’s a tug-of-war between forces fighting for rights and those resisting progress. It’s now a top priority for Namibian LGBTQI+ activists to shift attitudes. In doing so, they should show solidarity with their peers in less tolerant environments and become a source of hope beyond the country’s borders.

Inés M. Pousadela is CIVICUS Senior Research Specialist, co-director and writer for CIVICUS Lens and co-author of the State of Civil Society Report.

 

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By Jomo Kwame Sundaram
KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia, Jul 8 2024 (IPS)

For some time, most multilateral financial institutions have urged developing countries to borrow commercially, but not from China. Now, borrowers are stuck in debt traps with little prospect of escape.

Jomo Kwame Sundaram

More debt, less growth since 2008
The last decade and a half has seen protracted worldwide stagnation, with some economies and people faring much worse than others.

The 2008 global financial crisis and Great Recession have recently been worsened by the Covid-19 pandemic, US Federal Reserve Bank-led interest rate hikes and escalating geopolitical economic warfare.

Following Reagan-inspired tax cuts, ostensibly to induce more private investments, budget deficits have loomed larger. Instead of enabling rapid recovery, greater fiscal austerity is now demanded, as in the 1980s.

After fiscal expansion averted the worst in 2009, unconventional monetary policies, mainly ‘quantitative easing’ (QE), took over. The European Central Bank (ECB) followed the US Fed’s QE lead for over a decade.

QE’s lower interest rates encouraged more borrowing as more credit became available and affordable. With rich nations offering less concessional finance, developing countries had little choice but to turn to markets for loans.

Spending counter-cyclically in a downturn requires government borrowing, which QE made more accessible and cheaper. The resulting borrowing surge has since returned to haunt these economies since 2022-23, when interest rates spiked.

Pushing debt
World Bank slogans, such as ‘from billions to trillions’, urged developing country governments to borrow more on market terms to meet their funding needs for the SDGs, climate and the pandemic.

With capital accounts open, many private investors have long sought ‘safety’ abroad. But when lucrative direct investment opportunities beckoned, e.g., in India, some ‘capital flight’ returned as foreign investments, typically privileged and protected by host governments and international treaties.

Easier credit availability on almost concessional terms, thanks to QE, enabled more, often innovative, financialization. Blended finance and other such innovations promised to ‘de-risk’ private investments, especially from abroad.

Despite less bank borrowing than in the 1970s, indebtedness increased with more market-based debt. However, such indebtedness did not grow the real economy much despite much private technological innovation.

Borrowing sours
The US Fed started raising interest rates from early 2022, blaming inflation on the tight labour market. As interest rates rose sharply, debt became more burdensome.

Thus, government borrowing worldwide became more constrained when more needed. Raising interest rates has dampened demand, including private and government spending for investment and consumption.

But recent economic contractions have been mainly due to supply-side disruptions. The second Cold War, the COVID-19 pandemic, and geo-political economic aggression have disrupted supply lines and logistics.

Raising interest rates dampens demand but does not address supply-side disruptions. Inappropriate policies have not helped, as such anti-inflationary measures have cut jobs, incomes, spending and demand worldwide.

Worse for some
Following the 2008 global financial crisis, successive US presidents have successfully maintained full employment. All central banks are committed to ensuring financial stability, but the US Fed also has an almost unique second mandate to maintain full employment.

Developing countries now face many more constraints on what they can do. Most are heavily indebted with little policy space for manoeuvre. With more financing from markets, the pro-cyclical bias is more pronounced.

Vulnerable developing countries believe they have little choice but to surrender to the market. Poverty in the poorest countries has not declined for almost a decade, while food security has not improved for even longer.

Worse, geopolitics has put much pressure on the Global South to spend more on the military. But most recent food price increases were due to speculation and ‘artificial’ rather than real shortages.

Poor worst off
The likelihood of distress increases with debt burdens. Debt stress has grown tremendously in the last two years, especially for developing countries heavily borrowing in major Western currencies.

Although the apparent reasons for central banks raising interest rates are rarely cited anymore, interest rates have not fallen, and funds have not flowed back to developing countries.

For at least a decade, the US has increasingly warned developing countries against borrowing from China despite its low interest rates compared to most other credit sources except Japan.

Consequently, China’s lending to developing countries, particularly in Sub-Saharan Africa, has fallen since 2016. By 2022, poorer countries had borrowed much more from commercial sources. But such private capital has since fled to the US and other Western markets offering high returns with more security.

Capital flight from developing countries, especially the poorest, followed as much less money went to the poorest developing countries via markets. With fewer funding options, the poorest countries have been the most vulnerable.

Negotiating with varied private creditors in markets, rather than via intergovernmental arrangements, has proved much more difficult. With much more private market funding, such financiers will not take instructions from governments unless compelled to do so.

Hence, little on the horizon offers any real hope of significant debt relief, let alone strong recovery and improved prospects for sustainable development in the Global South.

IPS UN Bureau

 

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A police officer walks after using tear gas to disperse protesters during a demonstration over police killings of people protesting against Kenya's proposed finance bill in Nairobi, June 27, 2024. Credit: Voice of America (VoA)

By Danny Bradlow
PRETORIA, South Africa, Jul 5 2024 (IPS)

The recent Kenyan protests are a warning that the International Monetary Fund (IMF) is failing. The public does not think it is helping its member countries manage their economic and financial problems, which are being exacerbated by a rapidly changing global political economy.

To be sure, the IMF is not the only cause of Kenya’s problems with raising the funds to meet its substantial debt obligations and deal with its budget deficit. Other causes include the failure of the governing class to deal with corruption, to spend public finances responsibly and to manage an economy that produces jobs and improves the living standards of Kenya’s young population.

The country has also been hammered by drought, floods and locust infestations in recent years. In addition, its creditors are demanding that it continue servicing its large external debts despite its domestic challenges and a difficult international financial and economic environment.

Danny Bradlow

The IMF has provided financial support to Kenya. But the financing is subject to tough conditions which suggest that debt obligations matter more than the needs of long-suffering citizens. This is despite the IMF claiming that its mandate now includes helping states deal with issues like climate, digitalisation, gender, governance and inequality.

Unfortunately, Kenya is not an isolated case. Twenty-one African countries are receiving IMF support. In Africa, debt service, on average, exceeds the combined amounts governments are spending on health, education, climate and social services.

The tough conditions attached to IMF financing have led the citizens of Kenya and other African countries to conclude that a too powerful IMF is the cause of their problems. However, my research into the law, politics and history of the international financial institutions suggests the opposite: the real problem is the IMF’s decline in authority and efficacy.

Some history will help explain this and indicate a partial solution.

The history

When the treaty establishing the IMF was negotiated 80 years ago, it was expected to have resources equal to roughly 3% of global GDP. This was to help deal with the monetary and balance of payments problems of 44 countries. Today, the IMF is expected to help its 191 member countries deal with fiscal, monetary, financial and foreign exchange problems and with “new” issues like climate, gender and inequality.

To fulfil these responsibilities, its member states have provided the IMF with resources equal to only about 1% of global GDP.

The decline in its resources relative to the size of the global economy and of its membership has at least two pernicious effects.

The first is that it is providing its member states with less financial support than they require if they are to meet the needs of their citizens and comply with their legal commitments to creditors and citizens. The result is that the IMF remains a purveyor of austerity policies. It requires a country to make deeper spending cuts than would be needed if the IMF had adequate resources.

The second effect of declining resources is that it weakens the IMF’s bargaining position in managing sovereign debt crises. This is important because the IMF plays a critical role in such crises. It helps determine when a country needs debt relief or forgiveness, how big the gap between the country’s financial obligations and available resources is, how much the IMF will contribute to filling this gap and how much its other creditors must contribute.

When Mexico announced that it could not meet its debt obligations in 1982, the IMF stated that it would provide about a third of the money that Mexico needed to meet its obligations, provided its commercial creditors contributed the remaining funds. It was able to push the creditors to reach agreement with Mexico within months. It had sufficient resources to repeat the exercise in other developing countries in Latin America and eastern Europe.

The conditions that the IMF imposed on Mexico and the other debtor countries in return for this financial support created serious problems for these countries. Still, the IMF was an effective actor in the 1980s debt crisis.

Today, the IMF is unable to play such a decisive role. For example, it has provided Zambia with less than 10% of its financing needs. It has been four years since Zambia defaulted on its debt and, even with IMF support, it has not yet concluded restructuring agreements with all its creditors.

What is to be done?

The solution to this problem requires the rich countries to provide sufficient finances for the IMF to carry out its mandate. They must also surrender some control and make the organisation more democratic and accountable.

In the short term, the IMF can take two actions.

First, it must set out detailed policies and procedures that explain to its own staff, to its member states and to the inhabitants of these states what it can and will do. These policies should clarify the criteria that the IMF will use to determine when and how to incorporate climate, gender, inequality and other social issues into IMF operations.

They should also describe with whom it will consult, how external actors can engage with the IMF and the process it will follow in designing and implementing its operations. In fact, there are international norms and standards that the IMF can use to develop policies and procedures that are principled and transparent.

Second, the IMF must acknowledge that the issues raised by its expanded mandate are complex and that the risk of mistakes is high.

Consequently, the IMF needs a mechanism that can help it identify its mistakes, address their adverse impacts in a timely manner and avoid repeating them.

In short, the IMF must create an independent accountability mechanism such as an external ombudsman who can receive complaints.

Currently, the IMF is the only multilateral financial institution without such a mechanism. It therefore lacks the means for identifying unanticipated problems in its operations when they can still be corrected and for learning about the impact of its operations on the communities and people it is supposed to be helping.

Danny Bradlow is Professor/Senior Research Fellow, Centre for Advancement of Scholarship, University of Pretoria

Source: The Conversation

https://theconversation.com/the-imf-is-failing-countries-like-kenya-why-and-what-can-be-done-about-it-233825

IPS UN Bureau

 

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Kenya’s need for climate finance is great—the country has been battered by climate change-related disasters for years—but as this analysis shows, the arrangements remain opaque, leaving the affected communities vulnerable.

Mahrang Baloch during a public appearance. The 30-year-old has emerged as a prominent figure in the Baloch movement. Credit: Mehrab Khalid/IPS

By Karlos Zurutuza
ROME, Jul 4 2024 (IPS)

A 30-year-old woman speaks before tens of thousands gathered in southern Pakistan. Men of all ages listen to her speech in almost reverential silence, many holding up her portrait and chanting her name: Mahrang Baloch.

This took place on January 24 in Quetta, the provincial capital of Balochistan, 900 kilometers southwest of Islamabad. The large, predominantly male crowd that gathered to welcome a group of women was unexpected for many. However, the reasons behind it were compelling.

They were welcomed back home after leading a women’s march towards Islamabad that lasted several months, demanding justice and reparations for missing Baloch people. In a phone conversation with IPS from Quetta, Mahrang Baloch provides the context behind what became known as the ‘march against the Baloch genocide’.

“For two decades, Pakistani security forces have been conducting a brutal military operation against political activists, dissenters, journalists, writers, and even artists to suppress the rebellion for an independent Balochistan, resulting in thousands of disappearances.”

Divided across the borders of Pakistan, Iran, and Afghanistan, the Baloch people number between 15 and 20 million, with their own language and culture.

Following Britain’s withdrawal from India, they declared their own state in 1947, even before Pakistan did. However, seven months later, that territory was annexed by Islamabad. Today, they live in the country’s largest and most sparsely populated province in the country, also the richest in resources, yet plagued by poverty and violence.

Mahrang Baloch, a surgeon by profession, recalls being fifteen years old when her father, an administration official known for his political activism, was arrested in 2009. Two years later, his body was found in a ditch after being savagely mutilated.

“There is no Baloch family that has not lost one of their own in this conflict,” says the prominent activist. Remaining silent, however, doesn’t seem to be an option for them.

“We at the Baloch Unity Committee (BYC) will fight against the Baloch genocide and defend Baloch national rights with public power in the political arena. However, we will continue our struggle outside the so-called parliament of Pakistan, which lacks a true mandate from the people and facilitates the Baloch genocide,” explains the mass leader.

 

Sammi Deen Baloch in Dublin after receiving a human rights award last June. She has not heard from her father since his kidnapping in 2009. (Photo provided by SDB)

 

Harassment

International organizations such as Amnesty International or Human Rights Watch have consistently accused Pakistani security forces of committing serious human rights violations, including arbitrary detentions and extrajudicial executions.

Pakistani authorities declined to respond to questions posed by IPS via email. Meanwhile, the Voice for Missing Baloch People (VBMP), a local platform, cites more than 8,000 cases of enforced disappearances in the last two decades.

The secretary general of that organization is Sammi Deen Baloch, a 25-year-old Baloch woman who led last winter’s march to Islamabad alongside Mahrang Baloch. Baloch is a common surname in the region. The two women are not related.

Sammi Deen also participated in previous marches conducted in 2010, 2011 and 2013. Her father disappeared in 2009, and she has not heard from him ever since. “Fifteen years later, I still don’t know if I am an orphan, and my mother doesn’t know if she is a widow either,” says the young activist.

Last May, Sammi Deen travelled to Dublin (Ireland) to collect the Asia Pacific Human Rights Award, which is given annually to outstanding human rights defenders.

However, bringing Balochistan into the international spotlight always comes at a cost.

“They resort to all kinds of strategies to silence us, from smear campaigns to threats which are also directed against our families. They even file false police reports against us constantly,” Sammi Deen Baloch told IPS over the phone from Quetta.

Mahrang Baloch visited Norway last June after receiving an invitation from the PEN Club International, a global association of writers with consultative status at the UN. Even in the Scandinavian country she was harassed during her stay, forcing the Norwegian police to intervene on several occasions.

Despite the pressure endured by these women, Sammi Deen points to “significant progress” in the attitude of her people after the last march.

“Until very recently, most of the thousands of affected families remained silent out of fear of reprisals, but people massively joined the last protest. Today, more and more people are raising their voices to denounce what is happening,” claims the activist.

 

Khair Bux Marri at his residence in Karachi in 2009. Until his death in 2014, he was one of the most influential and respected leaders of the Baloch people. Credit: Karlos Zurutuza/IPS

 

Thirst for Leadership

Baloch society has historically been organised along tribal lines. Some of its most charismatic leaders, such as Khair Bux Marri, Attaullah Mengal or Akbar Khan Bugti, eventually paid with imprisonment, exile and even death for their opposition to what they saw as a state of occupation by Pakistan.

Muhammad Amir Rana is a security and political economy analyst as well as the President of the Pakistan Institute of Peace Studies. In a telephone conversation with IPS from Islamabad, Rana points to a certain “need for leadership” as one of the keys behind the massive support for Baloch activists.

“The problem is that all those historical leaders are already dead, and those who remain in Balochistan are seen as people close to the establishment by a large part of Baloch society. They no longer represent their people,” explains the analyst.

He also highlights the presence of an “emerging” Baloch civil society structured around the Baloch Unity Committee (BYC), the Baloch Students Organization (BSO Azad ) or the VBMP.

“Mahrang Baloch is a young woman with an academic background who has managed to put the issue of the missing Baloch people in the spotlight, but who also brings together the feelings of her people and seems to be able to channel that into a political movement,” says the expert.

 

Karima Baloch used to hide her face for security reasons. The student leader went into exile in Canada, where she died in 2020 under circumstances not yet clarified (Photo: BSO Azad)

 

It’s an opinion shared by many, including Mir Mohamad Ali Talpur, a renowned Baloch journalist and intellectual.

“The mainstream parties often try to supplant the civil society but they, with their limited aims, are too shallow to take up the mantle. As for the tribal chiefs that remain, they are stooges of the government and their power stems from the governmental support and from the tribes,” Talpur tells IPS over the phone from Hyderabad, 1,300 kilometres southwest of Islamabad.

He also highlights the changes the last march led by women produced.

“Since the last march, all abductions have resulted in protests which include blockades of roads and other similar actions. Mahrang and Sammi have a charismatic aura and emulating them is considered honourable in both urban and tribal sections of society,” explains Talpur. He also stresses that both women give “continuity to Karima Baloch´s legacy.”

He refers to that Baloch student leader forced into exile in Canada, where she died in 2020 in circumstances that have not yet been clarified. The BBC, the British public broadcaster, even included her in its list of “the 100 most inspiring and influential women of 2016.”

As for the more pressing present, Talpur is blunt about the social impact of the women-led march:

“The most significant change is that people have realized that remaining silent about the injustices perpetrated against them only allows things to worsen.”

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