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Investing in Teachers, School Leaders Key in Keeping Girls in School UN-African Union Study Finds

Thu, 07/04/2024 - 09:38

Girls at Dabaso Girls School in Malindi, Kenya, pose with a ball during break time. Universal secondary education could virtually end child marriage and reduce early childbearing by up to three-fourths, according to an African Union and UNESCO report. Credit: Courtesy of Stafford Ondego for the EDT PROJECT

By Maina Waruru
NAIROBI & ADDIS ABABA, Jul 4 2024 (IPS)

Investing in teachers and school leaders in Africa is the most important factor in promoting educational opportunities for girls, keeping them in school and ending child marriage, ultimately reducing gender inequality through education.

Having more female teachers in schools and having more of them lead the institutions is even more important for keeping the girls in school beyond the primary level and providing them with role models to motivate them to continue learning.

While low educational attainment for girls and child marriage are profoundly detrimental for the girls, their families, communities, and societies, investments in teachers and school leaders are also key in ending lack of learning, identified as the single biggest cause of school dropout for girls, besides traditional factors including social and cultural ones.

Despite data showing that less than a fifth of teachers at the secondary level for example, are women in many African countries, and the proportion of female school leaders is even lower, the teachers have been proven to improve student learning and girls’ retention beyond primary and lower secondary school.

As a result, better opportunities must be given to women teachers and school leaders in order to bring additional benefits to girls’ education, as women often remain in teaching for a longer time, a report by the United Nations and the African Union says.

The absence of the above has led to high drop-outs, resulting in low educational attainment, a higher prevalence of child marriage, and higher risks of early childbearing for girls across Africa, according to the report, Educating Girls and Ending Child Marriage in Africa: Investment Case and the Role of Teachers and School Leaders.

“Increasing investments in girls’ education yields large economic benefits, apart from being the right thing to do. This requires interventions for adolescent girls, but it should also start with enhancing foundational learning through better teaching and school leadership,” the document tabled at the 1st Pan-African Conference on Girls and Women’s Education taking place July 2–5 in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.

The lack of foundational learning is a key cause leading to drop-out in primary and lower-secondary schools, it finds, further noting that while teachers and school leaders are key to it, new approaches are also needed for pedagogy and for training teachers and school heads.

“Targeted interventions for adolescent girls are needed, but they often reach only a small share of girls still in school at that age; by contrast, improving foundational learning would benefit a larger share of girls (and boys) and could also make sense from a cost-benefit point of view,” it adds.

Parents in 10 francophone countries who responded to household surveys cited the lack of learning in school—the absence of teaching despite children attending classes—for their children dropping out, accounting for over 40 percent of both girls and boys dropping out of primary school, it further reveals.

The lack of learning, blamed on teacher absence, accounts for more than a third of students dropping out at the lower secondary level, meaning that improving learning could automatically lead to significantly increased educational attainment for girls and boys alike.

“To improve learning, reviews from impact evaluations and analysis of student assessment data suggest that teachers and school leaders are key. Yet new approaches are needed for professional development, including through structured pedagogy and training emphasizing practice. Teachers must also be better educated; household surveys for 10 francophone countries suggest that only one-third of teachers in primary schools have a post-secondary diploma,” the survey carried out in 2023 laments.

It calls for “better opportunities” for female teachers and school principals, noting that this would bring additional benefits as women also tend to remain in teaching for a longer time compared to men.

Better professional standards and competency frameworks are also needed for teachers to make the profession more attractive and gender-sensitive, it finds, revealing that countries have not yet “treated teaching as a career” and lack a clear definition of competencies needed at different levels of the profession.

Throughout sub-Saharan Africa, just over two-thirds of girls complete their primary education and four in ten complete lower secondary education explains the study authored by Quentin Wodon, Chata Male, and Adenike Onagoruwa for the African Union’s International Centre for the Education of Girls and Women in Africa (AU/CIEFFA) and the UN agency for education, culture and science, UNESCO.

Quoting the latest data from the UNESCO Institute for Statistics, it reveals that while nine in ten girls complete their primary education and over three in four complete their lower secondary education globally, the proportions are much lower in Sub-Saharan Africa, where slightly over two-thirds of the girls—69 percent compared to 73 percent boys—complete their primary education, and four out of ten girls—43 percent compared to 46 percent boys—complete lower secondary education.

Providing girls and women with adequate opportunities for education could have large positive impacts on many development outcomes, including higher earnings and standards of living for families, ending child marriage and early childbearing, reducing fertility, on health and nutrition, and on well-being, among others.

It observes that gains made in earnings are substantial, especially with a secondary education, noting that women with primary education earn more than those with no education, “but women with secondary education earn more than twice as much, but gains with tertiary education are even larger.”

Each additional year of secondary education for a girl could reduce their risk of marrying as a child and having a child before the age of 18.

“Universal secondary education could virtually end child marriage and reduce early childbearing by up to three-fourths. By contrast, primary education in most countries does not lead to large reductions in child marriage and early childbearing,” it declares.

The organizations make a strong case for the importance of secondary education for girls, explaining that universal secondary education would also have health benefits, including increasing women’s knowledge of HIV/AIDS by one-tenth, increasing women’s decision-making for their own healthcare by a fourth, helping reduce under-five mortality by one-third, and potentially lowering under-five stunting in infants by up to 20 percent.

In addition, secondary education while ending child marriage could reduce fertility—the number of children women have over their lifetime nationally by a third on average—slowing population growth and enabling countries to benefit from the “demographic dividend.”

Other benefits include a reduction in “intimate partner” violence, an increase in women’s decision-making in the household by a fifth and the likelihood of registering children at birth by over 25 percent.

To remedy the crisis, there was a need to improve the attractiveness of the teaching profession as one way of getting more females heading schools, Wodon, Director of UNESCO’s International Institute for Capacity Building in Africa (IICBA), said during the report’s launch at the conference.

“Virtually all teachers are dissatisfied with their job, meaning that there is a need to improve job satisfaction in the profession besides improving salaries,” he noted.

While retaining girls in school lowered fertility rates by up to a third in some countries, the study’s aim for advocating for more education for girls had nothing to do with the need for lower fertility but was in the interest of empowering girls and women in decision-making.

Empowering girls through education places them in a better position in society in terms of power relations between them and males, observed Lorato Modongo, an AU-CIEFFA official.

“It is a fact that we cannot educate girls without challenging power dynamics in patriarchal settings, where men make decisions for everyone,” she noted.

Overall, the report regrets that gender imbalances in education and beyond, including in occupational choices, result from deep-seated biases and discrimination against women, which percolate into education. It is therefore essential to reduce inequality both in and through education, acknowledging that education has a key role to play in reducing broader gender inequalities in societies.

“While educating girls and ending child marriage is the right thing to do, it is also a smart economic investment.”

IPS UN Bureau Report

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Categories: Africa

As Heat Soars in India, so Does Domestic Violence

Thu, 07/04/2024 - 08:08

Members of a “Jugnu” club get trained by UN Women to support women who experience gender-based violence. Credit: UN Women

By Umang Dhingra
NEW DELHI, India, Jul 4 2024 (IPS)

As the temperature soars to new heights in India, so does domestic violence. It’s a well-established correlation that is largely left out of the climate change discussion, but the gap is glaring and needs to be bridged.

For the third summer in a row, temperatures in India are breaking historical records. The recent record high of 52.9° C (127.22° F), has resulted in loss of livelihood, water rationing, health impacts, and even death. The heat affects some more than others. As people are advised to shelter at home, those in lower economic strata contend with cramped living situations, lack of air conditioning, and power cuts.

Women bear the worst impacts. New Delhi’s Heat Action Plan (HAP) registers their greater vulnerability – noting, for example, that they’re more susceptible to falling sick from the heat compared to men, the heightened risks for pregnant people, and greater expectations of women to be caretakers. But it fails to note the increased threat of violence.¬¬¬¬¬

It is well-documented that temperature extremes lead to an increase in domestic violence cases, with low-income women bearing the brunt. In South Asia, for every degree that the temperature rises, domestic violence increases about 6%.

As India grapples with its large carbon footprint, rising temperatures, and growing population, intimate partner violence can be expected to increase drastically. P¬¬ar¬¬¬ticularly if greenhouse gas emissions aren’t regulated effectively, India could see a spike in domestic violence of more than 20% by the end of the century.

Extreme temperatures are associated with frustration, aggression, and disruptions in people’s daily routines. Researchers theorize this is the reason why heat has a such a strong influence on rates of intimate partner violence.

For low-income daily wage laborers in India, heat may result in loss of livelihood and income. Economic stress and resultant anxiety can significantly increase domestic violence risk.

In addition, women are expected to be caretakers for the family, which gives them little chance of escape from abusers and increases their vulnerability under extreme conditions. This phenomenon was prevalent during Covid-19 pandemic, when the “shadow pandemic” of domestic violence affected women across India.

The pandemic also revealed strong patterns of economic abuse of women due to unequal power dynamics within the family.

Despite research demonstrating this, the spike in domestic violence during heat waves remains hush-hush. New Delhi’s Heat Action Plan (HAP) does not mention gender-based violence even once across its 66 pages.

While it acknowledges women as a vulnerable group and deals with increased risk during pregnancy, other risks to women remain shrouded in the vagueness of “social norms” and “gender discrimination.” Failing to address the threat of intimate partner violence explicitly leaves out a key piece of the puzzle.

The omission has manifold impacts. It lets policymakers shy away from confronting the issue, creating a gap in policy at the highest level. It sets up government workers tasked with implementing the plans such as New Delhi’s HAP on the ground for failure.

With no guidance on how to deal with the predictable increase in domestic violence during extreme heat, government can offer little support for women who need it. Mahila Panchayats (“women’s councils”) and grassroots non-profits often help rural and low-income women find support and community, but extreme weather can cut them off from these resources.

Forced to stay indoors and unable to access help, women have little recourse or respite. In theory, India’s laws protect them. But in practice, implementation is spotty, and they remain vulnerable.

India’s climate policy must not leave women out in the cold. New Delhi’s Heat Action Plan and other policy initiatives must protect women and offer them accessible support. First responders and government workers must be given the tools they need to help support those at risk for domestic violence, not only during heat waves but year-round.

Finally, India’s problem with domestic violence might be exacerbated during the summers but is not unique to them. India needs a suite of policies and concrete actions to contend with rising intimate partner violence, starting at the grassroots level and prioritizing education, employment, economic stability, and family planning for all.

Heat waves and the stressors they bring might be unforeseeable in a sense, but rising temperatures and rising domestic violence are completely predictable effects of climate change. There’s no excuse for failing to redress them.

By leaving women vulnerable year after year, we are doing a disservice, both to women who need help and to the institutions that they place their trust in.

Umang Dhingra is a Duke University undergraduate and a Stanback Fellow at the Population Institute, a Washington D.C.-based nonprofit that supports reproductive health and rights.

IPS UN Bureau

Categories: Africa

Pandemic’s ‘Silver Lining’ for Caribbean Was the Use of Technology

Wed, 07/03/2024 - 20:41

By Jewel Fraser
PORT-of-SPAIN, Trinidad , Jul 3 2024 (IPS)

Global South countries did get one benefit from the COVID-19 pandemic. A professor at St. George’s University in Grenada describes it as the pandemic’s “silver lining.” He was referring to the widespread use of next-generation genomic sequencing technology to identify, track, and trace the numerous variants of the Sars Cov-2 virus. Researchers and scientists in the Caribbean, Africa, and elsewhere have been eagerly harnessing genomic sequencing technology to develop resilience and greater self-sufficiency in numerous fields, ranging from health surveillance to agriculture and beyond.

In this podcast, IPS Caribbean correspondent Jewel Fraser speaks with Professor Dr. Martin Forde at St. George’s University in Grenada about a research paper published in The Lancet that he coauthored looking at the Caribbean’s use of genomic sequencing technology.

To be fully transparent, we recorded this interview in early 2023, and it’s possible that new developments have occurred since then. Also, Forde and his colleagues’ paper relied solely on the data available in the GISAID database.

Music credit: https://www.fesliyanstudios.com/

Categories: Africa

A Bleak Future 50 Years after the New International Economic ‘Non-order’?

Wed, 07/03/2024 - 11:29

By Anis Chowdhury
SYDNEY, Jul 3 2024 (IPS)

Fifty years ago on 1 May 1974, the Sixth Special Session of the General Assembly (April–May) adopted a revolutionary declaration and programme of action on the establishment of a New International Economic Order (NIEO) “based on equity, sovereign equality, interdependence, common interest and cooperation among all States, irrespective of their economic and social systems”. The hope was that a NIEO would “correct inequalities and redress existing injustices, make it possible to eliminate the widening gap between the developed and the developing countries and ensure steadily accelerating economic and social development and peace and justice for present and future generations”. Alas, what evolved is far from what was envisioned or called for.

Anis Chowdhury

Failed aid promise

The NIEO resolution reaffirmed the minimum target – originally defined in the strategy for the second Development Decade – of 1% of the gross national product (GNP) of each developed country to be transferred to developing countries, out of which 0.7% of GNP would be as official development assistance (ODA).

But, ODA steadily declined from around 51% of GNI in the early 1960s to around 32% during 2017-2021. Oxfam estimated that 50 years of broken promises meant a US$5.7 trillion aid shortfall by 2020. Only five countries met the ODA target of 0.7% of GNI: Denmark (0.70%), Germany (0.83%), Luxembourg (1.00%), Norway (0.86%) and Sweden (0.90%).

Unreformed international monetary system and financing of development

The NIEO resolution called for (i) full and effective participation of developing countries in all phases of decision-making at the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank; (ii) adequate and orderly creation of additional liquidity through the additional allocation of special drawing rights (SDRs); and (iii) early establishment of a link between SDRs and additional development financing.

None has materialised. Despite repeated commitments, and notwithstanding some minor improvement between 2005 and 2015, the representation of developing countries in international financial institutions, regional development banks and standard-setting bodies, e.g., OECD’s international taxation, has remained largely unchanged. The governments of the largest developed countries continue to hold veto powers in the decision-making bodies of these institutions.

The unchanged mechanism for allocating SDRs in proportion to countries’ IMF quota shares meant that most of the latest SDRs allocation of (about US$650 billion) in 2021 went to advanced economies; developing countries received only about one third, the most vulnerable countries receiving much less. While both G7 and G20 called for a voluntary rechannelling of US$100 billion worth of unused SDRs, only a fraction has actually been rechannelled to developing countries.

Increased indebtedness

The NIEO resolution envisioned “appropriate urgent measures …to mitigate adverse consequences for … development … arising from the burden of external debt”. These included debt cancellations, moratorium, rescheduling or interest subsidisation, and reorientation of international financial institutions lending policies.

Failure to fulfil aid promises and reform the global financial architecture, including the IMF quota-based SDRs allocations, forced developing countries to borrow from commercial sources at exorbitantly high interest rates with shorter maturity terms and no mechanism for restructuring. This has exacerbated the debt crisis. Almost 40% of all developing countries (52 countries) suffer from severe debt problems and extremely expensive market-based financing.

Only after extensive lobbying by civil society organisations, did the IMF and the World Bank jointly take the Heavily Indebted Poor Countries Initiative in 1996, supplemented by the Multilateral Debt Relief Initiative in 2005. Despite the IMF’s debt service relief, and some limited G20 debt service suspension during the Covid-19 pandemic for low-income countries (LICs), the debt crisis worsened, with 60% LICs already at high risk of or in debt distress.

Rising food insecurity

The NIEO resolution called for the accumulation of buffer stocks of commodities in order to offset market fluctuations, combat inflationary tendencies, and ensure grain and food security.

Developing countries are far from attaining food security. Even before the Ukraine war, food insecurity around the world was rising. The Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) estimated that in 2022 approximately 30% of the global population (2.4 billion people), did not have constant access to food. Among them, around 900 million people faced severe food insecurity, and an additional 122 million people have been pushed into hunger since 2019. World Bank projections show that by 2030, over 600 million people will still struggle to feed their families.

Meanwhile, Africa turned from a net-exporter to a net-importer of food since the adoption of NIEO resolution. While developing countries had an overall annual agricultural trade surplus of almost US$7 billion in the early 1960s, “since the beginning of the 1990s they have generally been net importers of agricultural products, with a deficit in 2001, for example, of US$11 billion.”

Deindustrialisation

The NIEO resolution called for “all efforts … by the international community” for “the industrialization of the developing countries”.

Except for a few countries in Asia, deindustrialisation has become the unfortunate fate for developing countries. For Africa, the GDP share of manufacturing declined from around 17% in 1990 to around 11% in 2019, and Africa remains the least industrialised region in the world. In most central Asian countries, manufacturing’s GDP shares declined from around 20% in the early 1990s to less than 10% in 2015. Large Latin American countries, e.g., Argentina, Brazil, Chile and Mexico also witnessed declines in manufacturing’s GDP shares.

The deindustrialisation has seen increasing specialisation in commodities, resource-based manufactures and low productivity services. Thus, majority of developing countries remain vulnerable to commodity price swings.

Even late-comer Asian developing countries, including China, face the risk of premature deindustrialisation. Some, e.g., Malaysia, the Philippines and Thailand, are already are in a ‘middle-income trap’.

Trade and technology barriers

The NIEO resolution asked for “improved access to markets in developed countries through the progressive removal of tariff and non-tariff barriers and of restrictive business practices”.

Yet, there has been a resurgence of protectionism in OECD countries since the late 1970s. The trade protectionism under different guises, such as health and sanitary standards, persisted even after the establishment of the World Trade Organization (WTO). The World Bank has warned, “protectionist measures are on the rise… [and] detrimental policies have been outpacing trade-liberalizing policies”.

The NIEO resolution also emphasised that developing countries needed to be given “access on improved terms to modern technology and to adapt that technology, as appropriate… and … adapt commercial practices governing transfer of technology to the requirements of the developing countries”.

Still, strengthened intellectual property rights, reinforced in the WTO’s agreement on Trade-Related Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPs), have raised the costs of acquiring technology, reducing technology transfers, raising transnational corporations (TNCs)’ monopoly powers. Developed countries refused to relax TRIPs to allow developing countries’ access to Covid-19 vaccines, drugs and testing technologies.

Unabated power of transnational corporations

The NIEO resolution demanded “permanent sovereignty of States over natural resources”; and “regulation and control over the activities of transnational corporations… to prevent interference in the internal affairs of the countries … to eliminate restrictive business practices…to conform to the national development plans and objectives of developing countries, …to transfer …technology and management skills to developing countries on equitable and favourable terms; to regulate the repatriation of the profits … and to promote reinvestment of their profits in developing countries”.

The UN Commission on TNCs, a body created in 1974 for the purpose, struggled to agree on the draft code of conduct on TNCs, and in 1994 was replaced by a Commission of the Trade and Development Board of UNCTAD.

TNCs continue to influence and mould domestic and international politics to their interests. TNCs have governments at their beck and call – witness their consistent success at dodging tax payments. Stringent WTO’s TRIPS was adopted at the behest of TNCs, especially to protect monopoly profits of big transnational pharmaceutical companies.

TNCs exert political influence to liberalise trade and investment; obtain subsidies; reduce their tax burdens; dilute working conditions; relax environmental protection. As Dani Rodrik noted, the WTO is heavily influenced by major banks and TNCs. Through the World Economic Forum (WEF), the TNCs are now setting global economic agenda.

Diminished States

The NIEO resolution contained the Charter on Economic Rights and Duties of States. However, neo-liberalism promoted by US President Reagan and UK Prime Minister Thatcher sees State as a problem. Privatisation, liberalisation and deregulation have significantly eroded the State from its customary intervention in regulating economic growth and promoting redistribution. The erosion of the State as an institution is visible in underfunded social programmes, a smaller public sector, weakened regulatory structures, foregone infrastructure projects, public assets sales and continued privatisation.

Questionable legitimacy of global economic governance

The NIEO resolution demanded that the United Nations, in particular the Economic and Social Council, be entrusted with the responsibility of setting global economic agenda and coordinating it as the most inclusive organisation with legitimacy. Besides the TNC takeover of global economic agenda setting through WEF, non-inclusive informal country groupings, e.g., G7 and G20, with questionable legitimacy and formal bodies, e.g., OECD and Bank for International Settlements, are acting as norm-setters. Thus, developing countries remain unpresented and disadvantaged.

Opportunity lost

The NIEO resolution was initiated in the wake of the collapse of the post-World War II Bretton Woods System in 1971, aimed at supporting development aspirations of developing and newly decolonised countries. However, the developed world failed to see that more orderly world growth and prosperity of developing countries would have benefited them too.

Instead, they engaged in protected negotiations dragging on for about two years. The resolution was adopted by a divisive majority vote (123 for, 50 against and 1 abstention) amidst fierce opposition from developed countries.

The United States took the position that “it cannot and does not accept any implication that the world is now embarked on the establishment of something called the New International Economic Order”. The NIEO effectively went into oblivion after President Reagan declared in 1981, “We should not seek to create new institutions”.

Thus, the developed world ensured NIEO’s failure while the global economy continues to struggle under a “non-system”. The world economy has also become more crisis prone; we had the Latin American debt crisis in the 1980s, the 1997-98 Asian financial crisis, the 1998 Russian financial crisis, the 2000 Turkish lira crisis and the 2002 Argentine crisis within a short span of two decades. And the global financial and economic crisis showed, a crisis originating in one corner of the globe can quickly engulf the whole world.

Yet, we still do not have a global financial governance mechanism to deal with such crises fairly. What is most disappointing may not be the failure of the NIEO as such, but the hope that it inspired.

A bleak future?

Initiated by Progressive International, delegates from over 25 countries of the Global South assembled in Havana on 27 January 2023 to declare their intent to build a NIEO fit for the 21st century, countering the TNCs’ global economic agenda setting behind the WEF. The signatories of NIEO-Mark II seek to rebuild the collective power of emerging and developing countries for fundamentally transforming the international system, and for alternative ways to respond to global crises.

NIEO-Mark II is essentially, a call for shared and differentiated responsibilities for equitable development. Developed countries acknowledge the principle of ‘common but differentiated responsibilities’, formalised at the 1992 Rio Earth Summit. But they have failed to meet their financing commitments and reneged on various targets to address global warming.

Amidst ongoing global challenges, including the climate emergency geopolitical conflicts, public health crisis, global food insecurity, outstripping the response capacity of the UN, the UN Secretary-General has called for a Summit of the Future – Our Common Agenda to be held on 22-23 September 2024.

The Summit of the Future is expected to find multilateral solutions for better tomorrow; resulting in an inter-governmentally agreed “Pact for the Future” to tackle emerging threats and opportunities.

What is the chance that the nations would agree to the “Pact for the Future”? To what extent the Pact will accommodate NIEO-Mark II?

The world now is more divided than it was in the 1970s when NIEO-Mark I was first proposed. Yet, plagued by ideological conflicts, NIEO-Mark I failed, making the world more crisis prone. One can only hope that the rising ideological and geo-political tensions do not lead to a bleak future.

Anis Chowdhury, Emeritus Professor, Western Sydney University (Australia). Served as a senior official at the UN Department of Economic Social Affairs (UN-DESA, New York) and UN Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (UN-ESCAP, Bangkok) between 2008-2016.

IPS UN Bureau

Categories: Africa

Myanmar: International Action Urgently Needed

Wed, 07/03/2024 - 11:08

Crerdit: STR/AFP via Getty Images

By Andrew Firmin
LONDON, Jul 3 2024 (IPS)

Myanmar’s army, at war with pro-democracy forces and ethnic militias, must know it’s nowhere near victory. It recently came close to losing control of Myawaddy, one of the country’s biggest cities, at a key location on the border with Thailand. Many areas are outside its control.

The army surely expected an easier ride when it ousted the elected government in a coup on 1 February 2021. It had ruled Myanmar for decades before democracy returned in 2015. But many democracy supporters took up arms, and in several parts of the country they’ve allied with militia groups from Myanmar’s ethnic minorities, with a long history of resisting military oppression.

Setbacks and violence

Army morale has collapsed. Thousands of soldiers are reported to have surrendered, including complete battalions – some out of moral objections to the junta’s violence and others because they saw defeat as inevitable. There have also been many defections, with defectors reporting they’d been ordered to kill unarmed civilians. Forces fighting the junta’s troops are encouraging defectors to join their ranks.

In response to reversals, in February the junta announced it would introduce compulsory conscription for young people, demanding up to five years of military service. An estimated 60,000 men are expected to be called up in the first round. The announcement prompted many young people to flee the country if they could, and if not, seek refuge in parts of Myanmar free from military control.

There have also been reports of army squads kidnapping people and forcing them to serve. Given minimal training, they’re cannon fodder and human shields. Rohingya people – an officially stateless Muslim minority – are among those reportedly being forcibly enlisted. They’re being pressed into service by the same military that committed genocide against them.

People who manage to cross into Thailand face hostility from Thai authorities and risk being returned against their will. Even after leaving Myanmar, refugees face the danger of transnational repression, as government intelligence agents reportedly operate in neighbouring countries and the authorities are freezing bank accounts, seizing assets and cancelling passports.

Conscription isn’t just about giving the junta more personnel to compensate for its losses – it’s also part of a sustained campaign of terror intended to subdue civilians and suppress activism. Neighbourhoods are being burned to the ground and hundreds have died in the flames. The air force is targeting unarmed towns and villages. The junta enjoys total impunity for these and many other vile acts.

The authorities hold thousands of political prisoners on fabricated charges and subject them to systematic torture. The UN independent fact-finding mission reports that at least 1,703 people have died in custody since the coup, likely an underestimate. Many have been convicted in secret military trials and some sentenced to death.

There’s also a growing humanitarian crisis, with many hospitals destroyed, acute food shortages in Rakhine state, where many Rohingya people live, and an estimated three million displaced. Voluntary groups are doing their best to help communities, but the situation is made much worse by the military obstructing access for aid workers.

International neglect

In March, UN human rights chief Volker Türk described the situation in Myanmar as ‘a never-ending nightmare’. It’s up to the international community to exert the pressure needed to end it.

It’s by no means certain the military will be defeated. Adversity could lead to infighting and the rise of even more vicious leaders. One thing that could make a decisive difference is disruption of the supply chain, particularly the jet fuel that enables lethal airstrikes on civilians. In April, the UN Human Rights Council passed a resolution calling on states to stop supplying the military with jet fuel. States should implement it.

Repressive states such as China, India and Russia have been happy enough to keep supplying the junta with weapons. But democratic states must take the lead and apply more concerted pressure. Some, including Australia, the UK and USA, have imposed new sanctions on junta members this year, but these have been slow in coming and fall short of the approach the Human Rights Council resolution demands.

But the worst response has come from the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN). Ignoring reality and civil society’s proposals, ASEAN has stuck to a plan it developed in April 2021 that simply hasn’t worked. The junta takes advantage of ASEAN’s weakness. It announced compulsory conscription shortly after a visit by ASEAN’s Special Envoy for Myanmar.

ASEAN’s neglect has allowed human rights violations and, increasingly, transnational organised crime to flourish. The junta is involved in crimes such as drug trafficking, illegal gambling and online fraud. It uses the proceeds of these, often carried out with the help of Chinese gangs, to finance its war on its people. As a result, Myanmar now ranks number one on the Global Organized Crime Index. This is a regional problem, affecting people in Myanmar’s neighbouring countries as well.

ASEAN members also have an obligation to accept refugees from Myanmar, including those fleeing conscription. They should commit to protecting them and not forcing them back, particularly when they’re democracy and human rights activists whose lives would be at risk.

Forced conscription must be the tipping point for international action. This must include international justice, since there’s none in Myanmar. The junta has ignored an order from the International Court of Justice to protect Rohingya people and prevent actions that could violate the Genocide Convention, following a case brought by the government of The Gambia alleging genocide against the Rohingya. The UN Security Council should now use its power to refer Myanmar to the International Criminal Court so prosecutions of military leaders can begin.

China and Russia, which have so far refused to back calls for action, should end their block on Security Council action, in the interests of human rights and to prevent growing regional instability.

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

Categories: Africa

Zionism is Broken

Wed, 07/03/2024 - 09:08

A child waits to fill water containers in Gaza. Credit: UNRWA

In its latest update last week. the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, reported “especially intense” airstrikes in central Gaza in recent days, particularly in Bureij, Maghazi and Nuseirat refugee camps and eastern Deir Al-Balah.

Meanwhile, the Israeli military’s ground offensive “continues to expand”, UNRWA noted, particularly in the southern regions of Gaza City and eastern Rafah, causing further suffering and further “destabilising” humanitarian aid flows.

By James E. Jennings
ATLANTA, Georgia, Jul 3 2024 (IPS)

Zionism is broken. It is finished as a political philosophy and cannot long survive. Having earned the visceral opposition of multitudes of people and countries around the world for engaging in vast overkill in Gaza, that historical reality will likely become clear to the Israeli people over time.

Still, how could the most powerful state in the Middle East, the most flourishing economically, with the strongest superpower backing, become defunct? It cannot—unless somehow its chief raison d’etrê, its founding philosophy, collapses. That has already happened.

In the wake of the October 7 attack by Hamas, the visceral racist core of Zionism has become evident in the indiscriminate slaughter of tens of thousands of innocent Palestinian civilians, including many thousands of children.

No reason of state can ever excuse that. Israel’s righteous anger against HAMAS for its obscene October 7 attack transitioned quickly into racial hatred, ending in, if not genocide, then certainly war crimes and crimes against humanity. Netanyahu and his Likud allies have not hidden their racism for decades. Now it is explicit in full view of the world.

The Zionism of Netanyahu and his supporters must be repudiated by the Israelis themselves. Israel’s leaders from Menachem Begin to today have long endorsed statements lauding Israel uber alles.

Zionism can only be rehabilitated if it separates its reason for existing from the current triumphalist military identity that is determined to kill, kill, and kill again until the utter destruction and suppression of all every tangible and ideological enemy.

In a recent CNN interview, former Shin Beth Director Ami Ayalon, was very explicit: he said “The toxic leadership of Prime Minister Netanyahu” [in pursuing an endless war] will “lead to the end of Zionism.” In that case, he said, “We cannot be secure and we shall lose our identity.”

Ayalon was preceded by a number of courageous Israeli thinkers and writers who warned of the same outcome—Israel was founded in 1948 but in their opinion, Zionism had already failed ideologically by the mid-1960s. They included Hebrew University professor Israel Shahak (1933-2001), who wrote, “It is my considered opinion that the State of Israel is a racist state in the full meaning of the term.”

He insisted that, “You cannot have humane Zionism. It (too) is a contradiction in terms.” Uri Avnery (1923-2018), a decorated Israeli soldier and later a publisher and politician, published a book in 1968 titled Israel without Zionists.

Many of the original Jewish colonists had utopian dreams, but their leaders would probably not recognize the grim, revengeful militarism of today’s Israel. A few tiny orthodox religious parties in Israel have never bought into the military machine that is the Likud Party’s pride and joy.

Some have steadfastly refused even to serve in the Israeli army because they don’t believe in the Israeli state. Now even they are being conscripted.

The original dream of Zionism from Theodore Herzl to Chaim Weizmann to David Ben Gurion, although containing seeds of a today’s hob-booted military identity, nevertheless also expressed a grandiosely humane, even a universal, goal—to become a “light to the nations.” In that, Israel has signally failed.

Like HAMAS and most Palestinians, Israel’s people—and Israel as a country—has become increasingly and deeply racist. Now racism—hatred of others for their differences—has become racial-ism, which is even worse, a doctrine of race superiority, which was the Nazi credo.

The Israel of Benjamin Netanyahu and his thuggish coalition has succumbed to such race hatred that Zionists from pre-1948 Palestine would not recognize it. A Jan. 6, 2024 opinion article in the Jerusalem Post urges Israel to reform its politics along better Zionist lines and take power away from the extremists now in charge. Commendable, but not nearly enough.

What if Abraham Lincoln had countenanced America’s original sin of slavery by merely taking half steps? We might still have “slavery lite.” No, Israel’s race-based philosophy must change to the democratic ideal: a single state in Israel and the occupied territories for Muslims, Christians, and Jews. One person, one vote.

When Palestinians are treated as human beings—as real people instead of enemies to be eradicated en masse—people everywhere would soon see how quickly peace would come to the Middle East.

James E. Jennings, PhD, is President, Conscience International
www.conscienceinternational.org
conscience@earthlink.net

IPS UN Bureau

Categories: Africa

US Arms Suppliers in Gaza Killings Should be “Named, Shamed & Boycotted”

Wed, 07/03/2024 - 08:54

A child watches as bodies are recovered from under the rubble of a house in the Al-Nasr neighborhood, east of the city of Rafah, in the southern Gaza Strip. Credit: UN News/Ziad Taleb

By Thalif Deen
UNITED NATIONS, Jul 3 2024 (IPS)

The US gun lobby justifies the unfettered American gun ownership in the US on a misguided premise: Guns don’t kill people, it’s bullets that kill people.

The accusations of genocide and war crimes in Gaza have been directed firstly, at Israel, for the killings of more than 37,700, mostly civilians, and over 86,000 injured, in retaliation for the 1,200 killed by Hamas last October, according to estimates from Gaza health officials, as cited by Cable News Network (CNN) last week.

And secondly, the blame is also squarely on the United States, the unrestrained supplier of arms, including the devastating 2,000-pound unguided bombs, to the Netanyahu government.

But a group of UN human rights experts is now blaming a third force: US arms manufacturers who are accused of implicitly killing people, along with financial institutions that fund most of these weapons suppliers.

“The transfer of weapons and ammunition to Israel may constitute serious violations of human rights and international humanitarian laws and risk State complicity in international crimes, possibly including genocide, the UN experts said last week, reiterating their demand to stop transfers immediately.”

In line with recent calls from the Human Rights Council, the UN experts are calling for halt to the sale, transfer and diversion of arms, munitions and other military equipment to Israel by US arms manufacturers – including BAE Systems, Boeing, Caterpillar, General Dynamics, Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, Oshkosh, Rheinmetall AG, Rolls-Royce Power Systems, RTX, and ThyssenKrupp.

The experts say these defense contractors should also end transfers, even if they are executed under existing export licenses.

“These companies, by sending weapons, parts, components, and ammunition to Israeli forces, risk being complicit in serious violations of international human rights and international humanitarian laws,” the experts said.

This risk is heightened by the recent decision from the International Court of Justice (ICJ) ordering Israel to immediately halt its military offensive in Rafah, having recognised genocide as a plausible risk, as well as the request filed by the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC) seeking arrest warrants for Israeli leaders on allegations of war crimes and crimes against humanity.

“In this context, continuing arms transfers to Israel may be seen as knowingly providing assistance for operations that contravene international human rights and international humanitarian laws and may result in profit from such assistance.”

Dr Ramzy Baroud, a journalist and Editor of The Palestine Chronicle, told IPS the UN experts’ statement is important, as it highlights the complex role of the US in supporting, sustaining, and benefiting from the Israeli genocide in Gaza.

“Quite often we call on, demand and implore the US to end its support of Israel, so that the genocide may come to an end. The experts, however, are reminding us that the US involvement is not confined to that of the White House, and direct or indirect US military and logistical support to Israel”, he pointed out.

Indeed, he said, US support is channeled through multiple players, those who manufacture, transport, assemble and maintain the weapons and munition — a multi-billion-dollar military machine that has harvested the lives of tens of thousands of Palestinians.

These companies must be named, shamed, boycotted and held accountable in every possible way. They must understand that there are legal repercussions to their action, as they are complicit in the Israeli crimes against the Palestinians, said Dr Baroud, a Non-resident Senior Research Fellow at the Center for Islam and Global Affairs (CIGA).

These companies are, as the experts said, ‘knowingly’ providing direct assistance to Israel in its genocidal war. They are fully aware of the extent of these crimes as articulated in the South African case against Israel at the ICJ, and the call for arrest warrants by the chief prosecutor of the ICC.

The next rational step is for these companies to be taken to task. They seem to have no moral threshold. Their quest for profits by far exceeds their concern that their weapons are killing thousands of children, women and civilians in Gaza, and throughout occupied Palestine. They must face justice as participants in the Israeli genocide in Gaza, declared Dr Baroud.

Norman Solomon, executive director, Institute for Public Accuracy, told IPS it’s difficult to draw any clear distinction between the U.S. government and the arms makers that sell to it.

“The two are so intertwined that differentiating between them is often a distinction without a difference. The revolving door for individuals, in both directions, places weapons executives in pivotal government positions and vice versa”.

The magnitude of the military profits, he pointed out, is overwhelming in the nation’s political economy and culture. The multibillion-dollar corporations that depend on selling weaponry to the government are directly participating in a routine process of literally making a killing on behalf of massive profit-taking.

To call these firms “defense contractors” is a misnomer, since what they sell has little to do with defense in any meaningful sense, he argued.

“The stepped-up weapons sales and gifts to Israel are continuations of a partnership between the U.S. government and arms suppliers with the purpose of aiding an ally and reaping still more massive profits. In tandem, the U.S. government and the companies are providing Israel with the means to continue mass murder of Palestinian civilians in Gaza. The core of the problem is lack of democracy and vastly excessive corporate power”.

In moral terms, the culpability is far-reaching. Yet, in a sinister way, he said, the military contractors are doing what capitalism provides for them to do — seek to maximize profits regardless of the consequences for human beings and the natural environment.

In contrast, within a democratic system, government is supposed to be responsive to the informed consent of the governed — conditions that certainly do not exist in the United States.

Meanwhile, in terms of international law and human decency, the U.S. government and its arms suppliers are guilty of horrendous crimes, which assist and compound those of Israel, declared Solomon, who is also national director, RootsAction.org and author of, “War Made Invisible: How America Hides the Human Toll of Its Military Machine”

A report from the Human Rights Council in mid-June details six emblematic attacks involving the suspected use of GBU-31 (2,0000 lbs), GBU-32 (1,000 lbs) and GBU-39 (250 lbs) bombs from 9 October to 2 December 2023 on residential buildings, a school, refugee camps and a market.

The UN Human Rights Office verified 218 deaths from these six attacks, and said information received indicated the number of fatalities could be much higher.

“The requirement to select means and methods of warfare that avoid or at the very least minimise to every extent civilian harm appears to have been consistently violated in Israel’s bombing campaign,” said High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk.

The report says the series of Israeli strikes, exemplified by the six incidents, indicates that the IDF may have repeatedly violated fundamental principles of the laws of war. In this connection, it notes that unlawful targeting when committed as part of a widespread or systematic attack against a civilian population, in line with a State or organisational policy, may also implicate the commission of crimes against humanity.

Financial institutions investing in these arms companies are also called to account. Investors such as Alfried Krupp von Bohlen und Halbach-Stiftung, Amundi Asset Management, Bank of America, BlackRock, Capital Group, Causeway Capital Management, Citigroup, Fidelity Management & Research, INVESCO Ltd, JP Morgan Chase, Harris Associates, Morgan Stanley, Norges Bank Investment Management, Newport Group, Raven’swing Asset Management, State Farm Mutual Automobile Insurance, State Street Corporation, Union Investment Privatfonds, The Vanguard Group, Wellington and Wells Fargo & Company, are urged to take action.

Failure to prevent or mitigate their business relationships with these arms manufacturers transferring arms to Israel could move from being directly linked to human rights abuses to contributing to them, with repercussions for complicity in potential atrocity crimes, the experts said.

“Arms initiate, sustain, exacerbate, and prolong armed conflicts, as well as other forms of oppression, hence the availability of arms is an essential precondition for the commission of war crimes and violations of human rights, including by private armament companies,” said the experts.

The experts paid tribute to the sustained work of journalists who have been documenting and reporting on the devastating impact of these weapons systems on civilians in Gaza, and human rights defenders and lawyers, among other stakeholders, who are dedicated to holding States and companies accountable for the transfer of weapons to Israel.

IPS UN Bureau Report

Categories: Africa

Education Cannot Wait Interviews The Sunday Times Chief Foreign Correspondent, Best-Selling Author and ECW Global Champion, Christina Lamb

Tue, 07/02/2024 - 20:32

By External Source
Jul 2 2024 (IPS-Partners)

Christina Lamb is Chief Foreign Correspondent at The Sunday Times and one of Britain’s leading foreign journalists as well as a bestselling author. She has been awarded Foreign Correspondent of the Year six times as well as Europe’s top war reporting prize, the Prix Bayeux, and was recently given the prestigious Lifetime Achievement Award by the British Society of Editors and the Outstanding Impact Award by Amnesty International.

She is the best-selling author of ten books including Farewell Kabul, The Africa House, and The Sewing Circles of Herat and co-wrote the international bestseller I am Malala with Malala Yousafzai and The Girl from Aleppo with Nujeen Mustafa. Her book Our Bodies, Their Battlefields about sexual violence in conflict won the first Pilecki Institute award for war reporting and was shortlisted for Britain’s top non-fiction award, the Baillie Gifford Prize, as well as the Orwell Prize, the Kapuscinski Prize and the New York Public Library Bernstein award.

She is a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society, an Honorary Fellow of University College Oxford, an International Board member of the Institute for War and Peace Reporting, an Associate of the Imperial War Museum, and was made an OBE by the Queen in 2013.

Christina was a key-note moderator and participant during Education Cannot Wait’s “Spotlight on Afghanistan” session at last year’s High-Level Financing Conference in Geneva. In June 2023, Christina Lamb was appointed as an ECW Global Champion.

ECW: The 14th of June 2024 marked 1,000 days since the ban of girls’ secondary education in Afghanistan. On that tragic milestone, ECW launched phase two of its global #AfghanGirlsVoices advocacy campaign. In addition to the campaign, how can the world further activate political leadership and how can global partners – UN, CSOs, Governments and the public – help support a return to schooling for all girls in Afghanistan?

Christina Lamb: We should all feel ashamed that there is a country on the planet in 2024 where girls are not allowed to go to school. Yet, three years after the Taliban takeover, sometimes it feels as if the world has just moved on. Meanwhile girls in Afghanistan are losing hope. Unfortunately, the Taliban is a reality, but no one I know in Afghanistan wants their daughters imprisoned at home. This needs to be called out as what it is – gender apartheid. I think any engagement with the Taliban by the international community should be conditional and all global partners should be doing everything to put pressure on them, if not directly, then through others that the Taliban listen to, such as leaders from the Islamic world and influential clerics. Personally, I raise the issue at every platform I can. In the meantime, we should do everything we can to support girls through online learning, by providing books and materials to the brave activists running home schools, and by sharing #AfghanGirlsVoices.

ECW: You are a leading, credible and authentic voice on girls’ and women’s rights, a best-selling author, and a tireless advocate for the world’s most vulnerable people. Why do you do what you do, what stories of girls caught in crisis and denied their right to education have inspired you most, and why did you decide to become an ECW Global Champion?

Christina Lamb: I started my career really wanting to be a novelist, but found real life stories so compelling, perhaps particularly as the first place I went to as a foreign correspondent was Afghanistan, a land of oral tradition and great storytellers. I see my job as telling stories for those who have no platform and have always been motivated by exposing injustice.

I have now been a foreign correspondent for 36 years and wherever I have worked – from Afghanistan to Zimbabwe – it has always seemed clear to me that the single biggest thing that changes people’s lives is education, and particularly girls’ education. Teaching girls leads to improved health and raises family income – statistics bear out what I have seen for myself.

As a mother, it also makes me so sad that there are millions of children out of school. Education is a right, not a privilege – yet, shockingly, there are currently more than 224 million crisis-affected children and adolescents who urgently need education support, so anything we can do to raise awareness and change that, we should. For all these reasons, I am very happy to be an ECW Global Champion.

Though I spend much of my time in dark places, it’s in those places I often find inspiring people. Perhaps because I am a woman, they mostly seem to be women. I was lucky enough to work with Malala, who was shot by the Taliban simply for wanting to go to school and helped write her book I Am Malala. And Nujeen Mustafa, a girl from Aleppo who never went to school in Syria because she has cerebral palsy and couldn’t walk yet taught herself fluent English from watching the American soap opera Days of Our Lives and can recite all the kings and queens of England, not to mention the Romanovs.

ECW: We live in challenging times. Overseas development assistance is shrinking, while armed conflicts hit inflection points in Gaza, Ukraine, Sudan and beyond, and climate change impacts continue to increase – all impacting vulnerable children’s right to education. Why should public and private sector donors provide increased funding for education in emergencies and protracted crises?

Christina Lamb: We certainly do live in challenging times and my job as a war correspondent has never been so busy, for we have fewer correspondents yet more conflicts than at any time since World War II. Sadly, we don’t seem very good at focusing on more than one or two issues at a time, so conflicts like Afghanistan, Sudan and Ethiopia are being forgotten. Moreover, many people in developed nations are suffering cost of living crises, seeing their own healthcare systems unable to cope, and want to close their borders to desperate people coming in. That’s exactly why we should help people in their countries, to help them find employment and their rights be protected at home. Public and private sector donors can play an important role by increasing their funding for education in emergencies.

ECW: Your book Our Bodies, Their Battlefields, takes us closer than ever to the stark reality facing girls and women during armed conflicts. How can access to the safety, hope and opportunity of quality education safeguard human rights and provide new opportunities for girls and women everywhere?

Christina Lamb: As a female war correspondent, I’ve always been most interested in what happens to women in war, a story that long went untold. To me, women are the real heroes of the war as they are the ones keeping life together, educating and protecting children and the elderly. But there is also a dark side – the use of sexual violence and rape against women and girls, something that seems to be happening more and more, most recently in Ukraine and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Yet the use of sexual violence is the world’s most neglected war crime, where accountability is the exception, not the rule. Access to quality education teaches girls about their rights – but also the boys. From what I have seen, there is very little point of making women aware of their rights if you don’t do anything to change the male mindset.

ECW: Millions have read your best-selling books I Am Malala, Nujeen, Our Bodies, Their Battlefield and The Prince Rupert Hotel for the Homeless. We all know that ‘readers are leaders’ and that reading skills are key to every child’s education. What are three books that have most influenced you personally and/or professionally, and why would you recommend them to others?

Christina Lamb: I read all the time – non-fiction about issues I am covering, but also novels for enjoyment and to switch off in traumatic situations. Usually my favourite book is the one I have just read. But three books that stand out for me are: A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini; The Unwomanly Face of War by Svetlana Alexeivich; and The Picnic by Matthew Longo.

Categories: Africa

Mayurbhanj Kai Chutney: From Forests to Global Food Tables

Tue, 07/02/2024 - 12:02

Green chillies, salt and ants on a stone mortar pestle depicts the process of how the chutney is prepared. Photo courtesy: Rajesh Padhial

By Diwash Gahatraj
UDULA, India, Jul 2 2024 (IPS)

On a scorching May morning, Gajendra Madhei, a farmer from Mamudiya village, arrives at the local bazaar in Udula, a town in Odisha’s Mayurbhanj district. He displays freshly caught red weaver ants, known locally as kai pimpudi, in the bustling tribal market.

Thanks to the recent recognition of Mayurbhanj’s Kai chutney, or red weaver ant chutney, with a Geographical Indication (GI) tag awarded in January, his business of selling the raw ants has seen a significant surge in profitability.

“Previously, a kilo of ants would fetch me around Rs 100, but now prices have skyrocketed. I sell a kilo for Rs. 600–Rs. 700,” he shares. The GI tag recognition has fueled the demand for the ants and highlighted their nutritional importance, previously overlooked as a tribal dish.

Chutney is a savory Indian condiment eaten with rice or chapati (wheat bread). Kai chutney is prepared by grinding red weaver ants with green chilies and salt on a stone mortar and pestle.

“For generations, many indigenous people in the district have been consuming kai chutney as a remedial cure for colds and fevers,” explains thirty-year-old Madhei, who belongs to the Bathudi tribe. In the landscape near the Simlipal Tiger Reserve in Mayurbhanj district, various tribes such as Kolha, Santal, Bhumija, Gond, Ho, Khadia, Mankidia, and Lodhas cherish this unique dish.

This year, the granting of a GI tag to Mayurbhanj Kai Chutney signifies a significant milestone in its journey from remote tribal villages to global food tables. This recognition acknowledges and safeguards the traditional knowledge, reputation, and distinctiveness associated with the chutney. It serves to preserve the cultural heritage and economic value of the dish while also preventing unauthorized use or imitation of its name and production methods.

Red weaver ants, scientifically known as Oecophylla smaragdina, thrive abundantly in Mayurbhanj district of Odisha year-round and are commonly available in local bazaars. Residing in trees, these ants exhibit a distinctive nesting behavior, weaving nests using leaves from their host trees. Due to their potent sting, which causes sharp pain and reddish bumps on the skin, people often maintain a safe distance from red weaver ants. However, in Mayurbhanj, where there is a significant Adivasi population, these ants are considered a delicacy. Whether consumed raw or in the form of chutney, they hold a significant place in the culinary traditions of the locals.

Nests of red weaver ants on trees. Photo courtesy: Rajesh Padhial

No More Tribal Delight

The traditional practice of consuming red weaver ants in Mayurbhanj has gained wider recognition beyond tribal communities after the GI tag.

“People across the State of Odisha knew about the ant-eating Adivasi tradition of Mayurbhanj, but the GI tag has helped to promote its nutritional values across all communities. This has created a high demand for the ants in the local market,” says Dr. Subhrakanta Jena from the Department of Microbiology at Fakir Mohan University in Odisha.

Jena highlights the nutritional value of red weaver ants, noting their richness in valuable proteins, calcium, zinc, vitamin B-12, iron, magnesium, potassium, sodium, copper, amino acids, and other nutrients. He suggests that consuming these ants can boost the immune system and help prevent diseases. Scientific studies have also indicated the dish’s nutritional value, emphasizing its high protein content and immunity-boosting qualities.

Traditionally, it goes to a dish for a common cold, fever, or body ache. The weaver ant, touted as a superfood, is known to enhance immunity due to its high protein and vitamin content.

“The tangy chutney, celebrated in the region for its healing properties, is considered vital for the nutritional security of the tribal people. Tribal healers also create a medicinal oil by soaking ants in pure mustard oil. After a month, it’s used as body oil for babies and to treat rheumatism, gout, ringworm, and more. Local residents also consume it for health and vitality,” says Nayadhar Padhial, a resident of Mayurbhanj.

Padhial, a member of the tribal community belonging to Particularly Vulnerable Tribal Groups (PVTGs), emphasizes the community’s heavy reliance on forest-based livelihoods. For generations, indigenous communities from the Mayurbhanj district have ventured into nearby forests to collect kai pimpudi (red weaver ants). Approximately 500 tribal families sustain themselves by gathering and selling these insects, along with the chutney made from them. Padhial, also a member of the tribe, filed the GI registration in 2022.

Sellers venture into the Simlipal Tiger Reserve and its surrounding areas to collect red weaver ants, which nest in tall trees with large leaves.

“It is a laborious process to collect ants from trees,” Madhei explains. Ant collectors use axes to cut the branches where ants make their nests. “We have to be quick to keep the ants in plastic jars after they fall on the ground from trees because they bite hard, which might cause extreme pain,” he adds.

The kai chutney of Mayurbhanj is renowned among the indigenous communities residing in the neighboring states of Chhattisgarh and Jharkhand. In the Bastar region of Chhattisgarh, it is known as ‘Caprah’, while in the Chaibasa area of Jharkhand, it transforms into ‘demta’, cherished as a tribal delicacy.

Growing Love for Bugs

Insects like ants serve as a rich source of both fiber and protein, and according to the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), they offer significant benefits for human and planetary health. Entomophagy, the practice of consuming insects as food, has been ingrained in various cultures throughout history and remains prevalent in many parts of the world, particularly in Asian and African cultures.

The perception of eating insects, once considered taboo or repulsive in the Western world, is gradually shifting. Reports indicate that the European Union is investing over $4 million in researching entomophagy as a viable human protein source.

Internationally, entomophagy has transcended its initial “eww factor,” with some food entrepreneurs elevating it to the gourmet food category. Examples include protein pasta made from cricket flour and cricket chips, which are gaining traction in Western food markets.

Throughout history, humans have relied on harvesting various insect life stages from forests for sustenance. While Asia has a long tradition of farming and consuming edible insects, this practice has now become widespread globally. “With an increase in human population and increasing demand for meat, edible ants have the potential to emerge as a mainstream protein source,” Padhial suggests.

This shift could yield significant environmental benefits, including lower emissions, reduced water pollution, and decreased land use. Embracing insects as a dietary staple offers a promising alternative for obtaining rich fiber and protein in our diets.

IPS UN Bureau Report

Categories: Africa

Argentina: Civil Society’s Urgent Call to Protect Rights

Tue, 07/02/2024 - 06:34

First Round of the elections in Argentina in 2023. Credit: Midia Ninja

By Rolando Kandel, Bruno Baldo, Marie L’Hostis and Bibbi Abruzzini
BUENOS AIRES, Argentina, Jul 2 2024 (IPS)

Between the Mafia and the State, I prefer the Mafia. The mafia has codes, it keeps its promises, it doesn’t lie, it’s competitive. If a company pollutes a river, where is the damage? The sale of organs is a market like any other. Abortion should be considered “aggravated murder”.

These are just a couple of quotes from former TV pundit Javier Milei, now president of Argentina, as he makes anti-progressism his trademark, borrowying from the ready-made discourse of the globalalt-right. He claims that global warming is “another lie of socialism”.

In recent months, Argentina has witnessed a significant shift under his new administration that threatens to undermine the very fabric of its civil society and democratic governance.

On June 12th, there was a violent crackdown on protesters outside the National Congress, involving the use of batons, tear gas, and rubber bullets. Several individuals were arrested arbitrarily and subsequently labeled as “terrorists” by the government, a move clearly intended to intimidate civil society and criminalize protest. These detainees have been transferred to federal prisons, where reports indicate continued abuse, including the use of pepper spray, physical violence, and denial of basic rights.

Last Friday, the government sent another controversial bill to Congress looking to lower the age of criminal responsibility from 16 to 13, even though minors commit less than 1% of serious crimes in Argentina. A proposal that was labelled by opposers as “pure smoke and mirrors.”

Since taking office, President Javier Milei’s administration has received significant international criticism, including from UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk and the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights which has scheduled a hearing on July 11th to address the situation.

“A President proud to repress”, this is what various media across Argentina wrote as Milei went as far as accusing protesters of being “terrorists” and said police violence prevented a “coup d’état”.

These alarming development mark a stark contrast to the country’s long-standing commitment to democracy and human rights, a commitment that has been painstakingly nurtured since the end of its brutal military dictatorship in 1983.

Moreover, this change of administration has been accompanied by an abrupt “retreat” of the state from its historic role as guarantor of the rights of its citizens. This abdication by the State of its essential responsibilities adds even more concerns to the already alarming measures explicitly restricting civic space.

Javier Milei’s aggressive and theatrical style – from superhero costumes to wielding a chainsaw to illustrate his plans to cut down the size of the state – has led some to compare him to Donald Trump in the US or Jair Bolsonaro of Brazil. This shift, alongside the blurring of ideological lines between the Peronist and Together for Change coalitions, has implications for Argentina’s political landscape and on civic space.

Argentina’s civil society organizations, long the backbone of its democratic resilience and human rights advocacy, face unprecedented challenges.

Legislative proposals aimed at restricting their activities, coupled with limitations on freedom of expression and the right to protest, have sent shockwaves through the community. The administration’s policies include drastic public spending cuts, the closure of state institutions dedicated to women’s rights and access to justice, and a suspension of participation in international events related to the 2030 Agenda.

A recent protocol, announced by Security Minister Patricia Bullrich, involves identifying protesters through various means and then billing them for the costs incurred by deploying security forces to police the demonstrations. Human rights activists, opposition legislators, and organizations like the Centre of Legal Studies (CELS) argue that these measures effectively criminalize legitimate protests and violate constitutional rights. The government’s allies, such as legislator José Luis Espert, have responded with aggressive rhetoric: “Prison or bullet”.

Recently, a violent attack against a member of the organization H.I.J.O.S., known for its fight against impunity for the crimes of the last civil-military dictatorship and for the defense of human rights, has been denounced. This attack, characterized by its brutality and strong political message, reflects an alarming increase in violence against activists and civil society organizations. The attackers, by leaving the acronym VLLC (“Viva la libertad, carajo!”), associated with President Javier Milei, insinuate a disturbing link between government rhetoric and violent actions directed against “dissidents”.

These proposals, exacerbated by the country’s ongoing economic and social crises, pose new hurdles for civil society’s ability to operate and advocate for public interests.

Argentina’s history, marked by the dark years of dictatorship between 1976 and 1983, serves as a reminder of the cost of silence and inaction. The country’s journey to reclaim democracy and human rights was arduous, characterized by relentless efforts to acknowledge and compensate the victims of past repression. The current administration’s move to revise policies related to memory, truth, and human rights threatens to undo decades of progress, challenging the very essence of Argentina’s democratic sphere.

The international community, particularly organizations dedicated to the promotion of human rights and the preservation of historical memory, such as UNESCO, must heed this call to action.

The situation in Argentina requires a collective effort to support its civil society, advocate for the protection of civic space, and ensure that the lessons of the past are not forgotten.

This article was written by the Entidades no Gubernamentales para el Desarrollo (EENGD) – Red Encuentro, the national NGO platform of Argentina, in collaboration with the global civil society network Forus.

IPS UN Bureau

Categories: Africa

A Warming Planet is Global, Adaptation is Local & Resilience People-Specific

Tue, 07/02/2024 - 06:00

Men riding on tricycle rickshaws amidst the scorching sun in a street in New Delhi, India. Credit: Pexels/Soubhagya Maharana

By Sanjay Srivastava, T N Singh, Praveen Kumar and Naina Tanwar
BANGKOK, Thailand, Jul 2 2024 (IPS)

The summer of 2024 has shattered heat records, starkly illustrating the harsh realities of our warming planet. In India alone, the heatwave has claimed over 100 lives and caused more than 40,000 cases of heatstroke in recent months, according to data from India’s Health Ministry. This extreme weather event has further burdened the poor and vulnerable, exacerbating the social and economic toll of disasters.

‘A just transition’ in climate adaptation

While risk emanating from warming planet is global, adaptation is always local, and resilience is specific to the people, community and ecosystem. In the vulnerable context, an inclusive approach to climate change adaptation, emphasizing ‘a just transition’ is the way forward. India’s National Adaptation Communication to the United Nations Framework Convention to Climate Change (2023) underscores this strategic focus.

This commitment was further reflected by the significant increase in adaptation finance, with total adaptation expenditure reaching 5.6 per cent of the GDP in 2021-2022 growing from a share of 3.7 per cent in 2015-16.

Bihar case: Intersection of multi-dimensional poverty and climate risk

When extreme weather events intersect with multi-dimensional poverty, vulnerabilities already on threshold of tipping points reach closer to their limit. The state of Bihar in India exemplifies this challenge. NITI Aayog’s 2021 National Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI) baseline report identifies Bihar as having the highest proportion of people who are multidimensionally poor.

The state also ranks lowest in India’s NITI Aayog’s SDG Index Report, with over 60 per cent of the districts classified as highly vulnerable. This disproportionate impact of disasters on the poor is evident in eastern parts of India, where the lowest MPI values of Bihar coincide with districts which are perennially prone to floods.

Bihar’s draft report on climate-resilient and low carbon development pathway (2024) emphasizes the need for resilient communities. Building resilient communities in vulnerable context requires adopting adaptation technologies backed by grassroots innovations and risk informed policy interventions.

Indian Institute of Technology Patna located in Bihar can play a crucial role in closing the state’s adaptation gap with advance technology, leading a just transition in adaptation and fostering collaborative solutions for equitable climate resilience A just transition approach built on adaptation tech applications in the multi-dimensional poverty context is key to its successful implementation.

Multi-pronged adaptation strategies

Adaptation strategies demand a convergence of diverse approaches ranging from economic incentives and robust policy frameworks to locally driven interventions. Understanding the context of risk and vulnerabilities is fundamental to any policy response. Monitoring and mapping are key to target at risk vulnerable communities to embark upon ‘a just transition’ adaptation policy.

The strategy has to move from sector to nexus approach to capitalize on inter- and cross sectoral linkages and synergies. This is important to avoid compound and cascading impacts across the sectors when disaster strikes. Adaptation technologies enable a ‘just transition’ pathways while addressing risk mapping and resilience building and responding to the climate extreme (Figure 1).

Key enablers: An adaptation technology cluster

Adaptation technologies comprise three clusters: (i) science-intensive, (ii) engineering-based and (iii) data science and risk analytics (Figure 2). Challenges lie in its customization and scaling up in specific context of vulnerabilities. ESCAP’s Risk and Resilience Portal, for example, synthesizes all three clusters and offers a unique capability to visualize current and future climate scenarios at baseline, 1.5 and 2 degrees.

This foresight is crucial for understanding the evolving risks of floods, droughts, heatwaves and tropical cyclones, allowing for anticipatory actions for early warning for the changing hazard landscape.

Opportunity for action: Operationalize adaptation technology cluster

At scale, India is operationalizing adaptation technologies to support ‘a just transition’ in vulnerable context. The Mahatma Gandhi National Employment Guarantee Act (MNREGA) with an annual budget of $13 billion (2020) addresses locale specific adaptation priorities.

Under MNREGA, assets are created across the country related to water harvesting, drought relief, flood control activities, and sanitation. Satellite derived Location based services are being utilized for planning and monitoring of nearly 7-8 million assets annually using mobile-based geo-tagging. The Online Geo-spatial maps with more than 30 million assets geotagged for all MGNREGA works across the country has been a game changer.

Scaling adaptation technology cluster has helped in policy execution for social empowerment of poor and vulnerable population with leak-proof public delivery systems. Utilizing the JAM Trinity (Jan Dhan, Aadhaar, Mobile), over $406.9 billion has been transferred to 11.67 billion beneficiaries. Real-time monitoring via geo-tagging enhances transparency and financial inclusion of poor and vulnerable through targeted policy schemes.

Further, start-up ecosystems are helping to scale adaptation technologies. For example, there are more than 2800 AgriTech start-ups in India driving innovation and transforming agriculture to adapt to climate risk situation. Having embraced Internet of Things (IoT) -enabled agricultural practices to now AI-enabled machines and tech, this burgeoning start-up ecosystem is quite promising. It is important to seize the moment of taking forward technological innovations to benefit India’s most vulnerable.

A dedicated centre for climate change adaptation technology is important to promote research, knowledge generation and capacity building in India’s most vulnerable context with focus on inclusion and climate justice.

Sanjay Srivastava is Chief of Disaster Risk Reduction Section, ESCAP; Professor T N Singh is Director, Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Patna/India; Praveen Kumar is CEO (FIST-TBI), IIT Patna/India and Naina Tanwar is Consultant, Disaster Risk Reduction Section, ESCAP.

IPS UN Bureau

Categories: Africa

Mexico Struggles to Cut Emissions from its Ports

Mon, 07/01/2024 - 15:48

The port of Manzanillo, in the western state of Colima, lying on the Pacific coast, receives the largest amount of maritime cargo in Mexico and emits the highest volume of polluting gases, despite environmental measures introduced in recent years. Credit: IDB

By Emilio Godoy
LA PAZ, Mexico, Jul 1 2024 (IPS)

The port of Pichilingue, in northwestern Mexico, faces challenges in decarbonising its activities, as do other maritime infrastructures in the country, while its polluting emissions are increasing.

The port, on the Pacific coast, has docks for ferries and merchant ships, and offers services such as drinking water, food, fuel, electricity and garbage collection, to serve ships arriving from other parts of Mexico, the United States and Asia.

This facility, owned by the Administración Portuaria Integral (API) of Baja California Sur, a peninsular state in the northwestern corner of the country, is expanding to accommodate more ships, passengers and cargo, as are other Mexican ports along the Pacific and Atlantic coasts.

Also, La Paz, the state capital, is under pressure to control its port activity, so the regional API is transferring to Pichilingue what it can no longer do in La Paz, such as cruise ship arrivals. Its location also facilitates its integration into a northwest circuit in the transport between Mexico and neighbouring United States.

The environmental situation of the ports requires measures, while Mexico is barely on the way to reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, generated by human activities and causing global warming."Small efforts are being made in the right direction. There are initial actions that can help, such as energy efficiency measures and changing light bulbs. But a port cannot be separated from shipping": Kristina Abhold

Experts consulted by IPS acknowledged progress in containing these emissions, but warned of the need to design comprehensive policies that include ports and maritime transport.

“Small efforts are being made in the right direction. There are initial actions that can help, such as energy efficiency measures and changing light bulbs. But a port cannot be separated from shipping,” Kristina Abhold, an expert with the non-governmental Global Maritime Forum, told IPS at a port forum in La Paz.

The 36 ports of the 17 administrations of the National Port System, administered by the Ministry of the Navy (Semar), emitted 1.33 million tonnes of carbon dioxide (CO2) equivalent in 2022, almost double the level of 2021.

This is detailed in Semar’s Port Decarbonisation Strategy, which IPS obtained through a public information request and which only has the consolidated data up to that year.

A ferry unloads goods at the port of Pichilingue, in the municipality of La Paz, in the northwestern state of Baja California Sur, on Mexico’s Pacific coast. The maritime sector, which includes ports and ships, faces significant challenges in reducing its polluting emissions. Credit: Emilio Godoy / IPS

More ships, more CO2

Maritime trade has grown in Mexico since then, and probably so have GHG emissions.

Emissions from its customers’ activities, known as Scope 3 (A3), doubled in 2022 compared to the previous year.

The Greenhouse Gas Protocol standards, the most widely used in the world, classify emissions coming from energy an industry consumes (A1) and from energy it purchases from others (A2).

A1 emissions rose 38 %, while A2 emissions rose 12 %.

As for cargo, the port of Manzanillo, located in the western state of Colima, the largest in the country and a leader in container movement, received the most between January and April this year and released 30 % more emissions into the atmosphere in 2022.

The measurements involve the activity of cargo ships, vessels parked at the port, cargo handling equipment, locomotives and cargo trucks, as well as the operation of terminals, operators, service providers, shipping lines, shipping and customs agents, and road and rail transport companies.

Port sustainability includes consideration of environmental, economic and social aspects, such as pollution, dredging of nearby areas, return on investment and job creation.

Shipping represents the second mode of transport for foreign trade in Mexico. The National Port System, with 103 ports, handled 90.86 million tonnes of cargo in the first four months of this year, almost 3 % less than in the same period of 2023.

In the opinion of Tania Miranda, Director of Environment and Climate Change Programme of the non-governmental Institute of the Americas (IOA), the steps taken are still incipient.

“We are in our infancy. It’s a process that has been going on for a short time in one of the industries that is most behind in the process, and it’s a difficult sector to do it. Investing in this type of project has been difficult,” she told IPS from the U.S. city of San Diego, which borders Mexico’s northern border.

Even so, “in the last two years efforts have been made, there was progress in inventories, there were investments in digitalisation of operations, which can lead to a reduction in emissions,” she emphasized.

With more than 100 ports and more than 11.000 square kilometres of coastline on the Atlantic and Pacific oceans, Mexico’s trade is one of the busiest in Latin America, facing major challenges to decarbonise port operations and shipping. Infographic: Semar

Beginners

The largest Mexican ports have taken environmental measures, but they are insufficient to address the problem.

Manzanillo and Ensenada, the fifth largest port but the second busiest, located in Baja California and a logistics hub between Asia and the United States, have master port development programmes where environmental impact is not mentioned.

Moreover, no Mexican – or Latin American – port appears on the project map of the World Ports Sustainability Programme that covers the largest such facilities on the planet. The country also lacks a clean marine fuel refining project.

For Carlos Martner, coordinator of Integrated Transport and Logistics of the governmental Mexican Institute of Transport, some ports, especially the larger ones, have made more progress.

“The issue is coming on strong and there will be more and more demands to improve processes. But a comprehensive policy is needed that encompasses the ports,” he told IPS in La Paz.

The national strategy sees a 25 % reduction of emissions by 2030 and of 45 % by 2050, but only proposes general measures, such as planning resilient infrastructure, harmonising management and planning instruments like concession titles, master development programmes and operating rules, as well as identifying, describing and programming the application of low-emission energy policies.

Semar has also identified and is to implement measures such as the development of green shipping corridors, energy efficiency, resilient infrastructure planning, and optimisation of traceability and waste utilisation.

Manoeuvres in the port of Veracruz, in the south-eastern state of the same name and Mexico’s third largest. Large port facilities in the country have taken some measures to reduce pollution from their activities, but they are not enough to have clean and sustainable ports. Credit: Emilio Godoy / IPS

However, Mexico did not sign up to the Clydebank Declaration for Green Shipping Corridors in November 2021 during the Glasgow climate summit, which aims to create at least six low-emission corridors by 2025 and which only 24 countries have signed.

Mexico must also meet the goals of the International Maritime Organisation (IMO) to lower CO2 emissions for all international shipping by at least 40 % by 2030, compared to 2008 levels.

The IMO also sets the adoption of zero or near-zero emission energy sources, fuels and/or technologies at 5 %, with a target of 10 %, of the energy used by international shipping by 2030.

Abhold, from the Global Maritime Forum, proposed electric shipping to reduce emissions. “This decarbonises both sides of the chain and a port fee including externalities can be charged, as other ports do. But a comprehensive policy with clear goals is needed. There is a lack of signals from the government and incentives,” she stressed.

Miranda, from the IOA, said that substantial investment and coordination between government agencies in the sector at all port levels is necessary.

“The document will not achieve anything by itself. There are legal, fiscal and operational issues. I would love to see transversality with the treasury, the environmental sector. Without including ships, Mexico’s progress will be very poor. There is a dissociation between port management and maritime transport,” she stressed.

The expert Martner foresaw international pressure for the creation of green shipping corridors.

“They can be developed in the ports bordering the United States. For example, cruise ships can transit that lane. There is great pressure there to improve water quality, emissions, waste treatment. It’s a long road, but action has already been taken,” he said.

Categories: Africa

Special Report: Exposing Afghanistan’s Pervasive, Methodical System of Gender Oppression

Mon, 07/01/2024 - 10:38

Richard Bennett during his oral statement at the Human Rights Council on June 18, 2024. Credit: Anne-Marie Colombet/Human Rights Council

By Joyce Chimbi
NAIROBI , Jul 1 2024 (IPS)

The UN Special Rapporteur’s annual report on human rights in Afghanistan lays bare the alarming phenomenon of an institutionalized system of discrimination, segregation, disrespect for human dignity and exclusion of women and girls.

In the new report, Richard Bennett, the UN’s Special Rapporteur, provides an intersectional analysis of the establishment and enforcement of this institutionalized system of unparalleled gender oppression. It paints a picture of a worsening situation for women and girls.

“The situation is that the de facto authorities, who control the country but are not yet recognized as a government, are not just failing to implement their obligations to human rights under the human rights treaties that they’ve signed. They are deliberately implementing policies and practices that flout those policies to create a society where women are permanently inferior to men,” says Bennett in an exclusive interview with IPS.

Education Cannot Wait’s #AfghanGirlsVoices global campaign highlights real-life testimonies of hope, courage and resilience by Afghan girls denied their right to education. Credit: ECW

“Of course, there is sexism in every country, some worse than others, but this is very different from any other country.”

Bennett is referring to the distressing pattern of large-scale systematic violations and subjugation of women’s and girls’ fundamental rights that is unfolding, abetted by the Taliban’s discriminatory and misogynist policies and harsh enforcement methods such as gender apartheid and persecution.

“Only in Afghanistan has a government shut schools for girls above the age of 13, above the sixth grade, and does not allow women to go to universities. And this, combined with segregation, means that women are really suffering. For example, women can only get treatment from doctors who are women and the same applies to teaching. It is a very segregated society as a whole. Just today, a businesswoman told me that she could only do business with female customers. This is affecting not just the current situation and the current generation, but the future as well.”

The Special Rapporteur finds that the Taliban’s institutionalized system of discrimination is most visible through its relentless issuance and enforcement of edicts, decrees, declarations and orders that in and of themselves constitute severe deprivations of human rights and violations of international law.

Between June 2023 and March 2024, they issued an estimated 52 edicts. These include banning foreign non-governmental organizations from providing educational programmes, including community-based education. The Taliban banned women from participating in radio and television shows alongside male presenters.

In July 2023, female beauty salons were forced to close. In August 2023, women were prohibited from entering Band-e Amir National Park. In October 2023, women were excluded from holding directorships within non-governmental organizations. In February 2024, women on television were required to wear a black hijab, with their faces covered, leaving only their eyes visible.

“We are concerned about intergenerational issues, but also intersectional issues. There is discrimination against women and girls who are of an ethnic or religious or linguistic marginalized groups, or persons with disabilities, or a woman heading a household. Travel requires accompaniment by a close male relative and some women do not have such a person available. All of this is extremely restrictive and will also affect future generations as it will lead to a lack of education and professions,” Bennett says.

The report finds that “women and girls are being maneuvered into increasingly narrow roles where the deep-rooted patriarchy, bolstered and legitimized by Taliban ideology, deems them to belong: as bearers and rearers of children, and as objects available for exploitation, including debt bondage, domestic servitude, sexual exploitation and other forms of unremunerated or poorly remunerated labor.”

The UN Special Rapporteur stresses that there was progress in Afghanistan before the return of the Taliban.

“It was not perfect, but for 20 years there was notable progress. As a result, there are very many professional women in Afghanistan, and women who head households as the main income earners—the main breadwinners for their families. The restrictions are having very serious negative effects.”

Richard Bennett, UN Special Rapporteur for Afghanistan, advocates for the rights of every girl to education in Afghanistan. Credit: ECW

Bennett is among the prominent supporters of the global #AfghanGirlsVoices campaign launched by Education Cannot Wait (ECW), the global fund for education in emergencies and protracted crises within the United Nations. Now in its second phase, the campaign aims to ensure unrestricted access to education for Afghan girls and young women.

After seizing power in 2021, the Taliban swiftly imposed a ban on secondary education for girls, subsequently expanding this restriction to encompass universities and, more recently, private learning centers. Young women have also been prevented from leaving Afghanistan to pursue tertiary education.

“There has never been universal education in Afghanistan, even in the 20 years preceding the return of the Taliban. However, the education system gradually improved, although not as much in remote or rural areas. Part of this was due to a lack of resources, as well as an ongoing internal conflict. So, it was insecure and difficult to maintain schools. But once the Taliban came back into power after August 2021, an education system built over two decades was quickly unraveling,” he says.

In addition to the school closures, he speaks of concerns about the quality of education from two perspectives. One is the alarm over an ongoing brain drain in Afghanistan since the Taliban took over. Many teachers and university lecturers have left the country.

The other concerns are changes to the curriculum and especially a notable increase in madrasa education. Madrasa education has always been a feature of life in Afghanistan. “But now there seems to be at least anecdotal information that the teaching is much more religious-based than a broad education. Girls can go to madrasas,” he says.

On recommendations and urgent solutions moving forward, Bennett stresses that “no country should ban schools. We therefore continue to call for the reversal of this policy and the reopening of schools with a good quality education. My recommendations are what I call an all-tools approach, as only one approach or any one tool will not work.”

Overall, he says the report calls for justice and accountability, incorporating human rights and women’s voices in political processes and diplomatic engagement. Emphasizing that bolstering documentation of human rights abuses and violations is critical, as is reinforcing protection and solidarity for Afghan women, girls and human rights defenders.

Bennett has a direct message to the current rulers in Afghanistan, the Taliban, to reverse their policies and to comply with human rights. The second message is to the international community, urging them not to normalize or recognize Afghanistan’s unacceptable and worsening human rights situation.

Further stressing that the global community should strongly resist normalizing diplomatic relations or accepting the Taliban into the UN unless and until they meet concrete, measurable, verifiable benchmarks on human rights and the rights of women and girls.

IPS UN Bureau Report

Categories: Africa

IRAQ: ‘Tolerance for Abuses Against LGBTQI+ People Has Now Been Made Explicit Through Legislation’

Mon, 07/01/2024 - 07:02

By CIVICUS
Jul 1 2024 (IPS)

CIVICUS discusses the criminalisation of same-sex relations in Iraq with Sarah Sanbar, researcher at Human Rights Watch’s Middle East and North Africa division.

Sarah Sanbar

The Iraqi parliament recently passed a law criminalising LGBTQI+ people, punishing same-sex relations with between 10 and 15 years in prison and transgender identities with sentences of one to three years. The original proposal included even harsher penalties, but lawmakers introduced amendments in response to strong criticism. Supporters claim the law upholds deeply held religious values, while critics condemn it for institutionalising discrimination and enabling serious human rights abuses.

What led to recent legislative changes criminalising LGBTQI+ people?

On 27 April 2024, the Iraqi parliament passed an amendment to the country’s 1988 anti-prostitution law, effectively criminalising same-sex relations and transgender identities. The amendment states that same-sex relations are punishable with between 10 and 15 years in prison, and provides for one to three years’ imprisonment for those who undergo or perform gender-affirming medical procedures.

The law also punishes those who ‘imitate women’ with a seven-year prison sentence and a fine of between 10 and 15 million Iraqi dinars (approx. US$7,700 to US$11,500) and criminalises the ‘promotion of homosexuality’, a vague and undefined expression.

The passing of this law follows years of steadily increasing hostile rhetoric against LGBTQI+ people. Prominent politicians and media personalities have consistently spread harmful stereotypes, tropes and disinformation. They often claim homosexuality is a western import that goes against traditional Iraqi values.

This rhetoric has increasingly translated into government action. For example, on 8 August 2023, the Communications and Media Commission issued a directive ordering all media outlets to replace the term ‘homosexuality’ with ‘sexual deviance’ in all published and broadcast language. The directive also banned the use of the word ‘gender’, which shows how the crackdown on LGBTQI+ rights is intertwined with broader issues, and is also used to target and silence women’s rights organisations working on gender-based violence.

Sadly, as in many other countries, LGBTQI+ people in Iraq are being used as political pawns and scapegoats to distract from the government’s failure to provide for its people. Tensions are growing between the more conservative and religious groups in society and government and those that take a more secular approach to governance. The fact that conservatives have gained increasing support in successive elections allows laws like this to be passed. Such a law probably wouldn’t have been passed even a few years ago.

What’s the situation of LGBTQI+ people in Iraq, and how do you expect it to change?

The situation of LGBTQI+ people is extremely unsafe. Threats to their physical safety, including harassment, assault, arbitrary detention, kidnappings and killings, come from society at large – including family and community members as well as strangers – and from armed groups and state personnel. Human Rights Watch has documented cases of abductions, rape, torture and killings by armed groups. Impunity is widespread, and the government’s failure to hold perpetrators accountable sends the message that this violence is acceptable.

With the passage of the new law, the already dire situation is expected to worsen. Tolerance for abuses has now been made explicit through legislation. As a result, an increase in violence is to be expected, along with an increase in the number of LGBTQI+ Iraqis fleeing the country to seek safety elsewhere. Unfortunately, it is becoming even harder for LGBTQI+ Iraqis to ensure their physical safety in the country, let alone lead fulfilling lives, find love, make friends and build links with others in their community.

What are the challenges facing Iraqi LGBTQI+ rights organisations?

The space for LGBTQI+ organisations in Iraq has long been extremely limited. For example, in May 2023, a court in the Kurdistan Region ordered the closure of Rasan, one of the few groups willing to publicly advocate for LGBTQI+ rights in the region. The reason the court gave for its closure was its activities ‘in the field of homosexuality’, and one piece of evidence cited was its use of rainbow colours in its logo.

Organisations such as Rasan have previously been targeted under vaguely worded morality and public indecency laws that restrict freedom of expression. By criminalising the ‘promotion of homosexuality’, the new law makes the work of LGBTQI+ organisations even more dangerous. Any action in support of LGBTQI+ rights could be perceived as ‘promoting homosexuality’, which could lead to activities being banned or organisations being shut down. It will be almost impossible for LGBTQI+ rights organisations to operate openly.

In addition, all civil society organisations in Iraq must register with the Directorate of NGOs, a process that includes submitting bylaws, lists of activities and sources of funding. But now, it is essentially impossible for LGBTQI+ organisations to operate transparently, because they can’t openly state their intention to support LGBTQI+ people without risking closure or prosecution. This leaves two options: stop working, or operate clandestinely with the risk of arrest hanging over them.

Given the restrictive legal and social environment, many organisations operate from abroad. IraQueer, one of the most prominent LGBTQI+ advocacy groups, is based in Sweden.

But despite the challenges, LGBTQI+ organisations continue to advocate for LGBTQI+ rights, help people fleeing persecution and work with foreign governments to put pressure on Iraq to roll back discriminatory policies. And they have made significant achievements, facilitating the safe passage of people fleeing persecution and broadening coalitions to advocate for LGBTQI+ rights internationally. Their perseverance in the face of adversity is inspiring.

What international support do local LGBTQI+ groups need?

Global organisations should use their capacity to sound the alarm and advocate for the repeal of the new law and the reversal of other discriminatory measures, and for impunity for violence against LGBTQI+ people in Iraq to be addressed.

An effective strategy could be to focus on human rights violations. Equal protection from violence and equal access to justice are required under international law, including the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the Arab Charter on Human Rights, both of which Iraq has signed. Advocacy for LGBTQI+ rights as human rights can put greater pressure on the Iraqi government to fulfil its obligations.

It’s also essential to provide resources and support to local organisations in Iraq and in host countries where LGBTQI+ Iraqis seek refuge, to ensure people have access to basic needs and community support, and can live full lives without fear.

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

Get in touch with Human Rights Watch through its website, and follow @hrw and @SarahSanbar on Twitter.

Categories: Africa

Pottery Barn Rules for Gaza

Mon, 07/01/2024 - 06:21

People search for water in Khan Younis city in the southern Gaza Strip. Credit: UNICEF/Eyad El Baba

By James E. Jennings
ATLANTA, Georgia, Jul 1 2024 (IPS)

The rule at Pottery Barn is “You break it, you bought it.” It should be for Israel as well. The Netanyahu government’s eight-month long bombing campaign in Gaza, nearly half of the strikes by 2,000 lb. “dumb” or unguided bombs, has destroyed a high percentage of housing units in the territory.

Hospitals, universities, schools, vocational training centers, mosques, and one church and a Christian hospital were bombed deliberately. If—and when—the war is over, who will pay for the damage to Gaza’s infrastructure? The answer is that Israel must pay.

The death toll among Palestinian civilians is horrific—as everybody knows—over 37,000 by now according to UN data, one third of them children, with many corpses still under the rubble. None of the children killed in the Netanyahu war cabinet’s genocidal attacks ever voted for HAMAS or had anything to do with the October 7th bloody razzia by Yahya Sinwar’s minions.

Long after the hated name HAMAS is expunged from history, Israel’s far greater barbarity will remain, having stained the nation forever.

This war needs to stop. If the word “inhumane” no longer has meaning, we are all in trouble. Despite warnings by President Biden and Secretary of State Blinken not to give way to rage and keep killing civilians unnecessarily, US funding for the war has continued and even increased by lopsided congressional votes.

While the nearly 1.5 million displaced Palestinians in Rafah huddle in their tents waiting the bombing that is sure to come, the hypocrisy of US leaders is transparent and galling—“Don’t kill civilians—but here’s plenty of money and bombs to do it with.”

Most commentators say Netanyahu is headed for the political scrap heap and possibly to jail when this war is over. He therefore has an incentive to keep the war going as long as possible. And Biden’s “pause” in sending more 2,000 lb. bombs to Israel is a joke—everybody knows they will get there eventually.

What will even be left of Gaza’s infrastructure in another few months? Looking forward, who will build homes for the more than half of Gaza’s 2.3 million dispossessed people who are now living on the streets or under plastic sheets with summer’s raging heat continuing?

Why should US taxpayers pay for Israel’s ammunition that is even now killing multitudes of innocent people, and then pay to rebuild their homes? Why should the Arab Gulf states, as they have been doing for decades. pay for the damage?

No–Israel must pay. They broke it and they must fix it. That does not mean that they can colonize and keep it to compensate themselves. Expulsion of the Arab citizens and annexation and colonization of the territory would be another international war crime on top of the ones already committed.

It’s true that HAMAS started the war with its obscene killing and capturing of civilians. But nobody alive on planet earth for the last 75 years really believes that the clock started Oct. 7. The fact is that this mad and bloody Arab-Israeli conflict began over a century ago. Over half of the families now in Gaza were forcibly evicted from their homes and villages in southern Palestine in the 1948 Nakba (disaster).

The tragedy is that two of the world’s most high-sounding religions, Judaism and Islam, have stooped to such inhumanity and have belied their principles, making both HAMAS and hyper-Zionist Israel global bywords of scorn for their inhumane actions.

Netanyahu and the Israeli leadership have for decades put into effect a very clever plan: transfer the costs of operating the West Bank to Arab allies, the US and the international community, and the eternally hopeful PLO-led Palestinians—and, after 2007, to HAMAS in Gaza, but never with any intention of allowing anything near full statehood to develop.

The Palestinians, the UN, the Arab States, and the world community have been duped for decades, paying for maintenance of the West Bank quasi-government and the reconstruction of South Lebanon and Gaza following the many wars with Israel. Who paid for all those Israeli jet fighters, tanks, and bombs? The ever-gullible US voters.

The Arab World, the US taxpayers, and especially the Palestinians national leaders, were suckers, paying for false Israeli promises of Palestinian independence, only to be occupied militarily, while being continuously and intermittently bombed into submission. American politicians are just waking up to this reality.

Israel—especially the Netanyahu government—has never had any intention of allowing a truly independent state on the West Bank and in Gaza. The US and the Gulf States, along with numerous international organizations, have supported Palestinian life and livelihood for decades, but that should end. Israel should either put up or shut up.

Is the “Two-State Solution” a chimera or a mirage? Will Israel assume its full obligations under international law? What is the point of creating a Bantustan on the West Bank, and possibly another one in Gaza, as if they represent real countries with genuine statehood, borders, and independence?

As the occupying power controlling life on the West Bank for 56 years ever since the 1967 War–and now for Gaza as the blockading power and besieging entity, Israel is legally responsible under international law.

Both areas are the responsibility of Israel. It’s time they started paying their own bills and not looking to US citizens or the Arab States to pick up the check. Israel must pay. You broke it—you fix it.

James E. Jennings, PhD, is an advocate for Palestinian Human and Civil Rights and for greater understanding of the Middle East by Americans. He has delivered humanitarian aid in Palestine, Gaza, Iraq, Syria, Turkey, and Iran for over half a century, receiving among others, an award from the Union of Palestinian Medical Relief Committees. Jennings has appeared on CNN, FOX, al-Jazeera, and other media in the US and abroad. He is president of the aid organization Conscience International www.conscienceinternational.org and director of its US Academics for Peace program.

IPS UN Bureau

Categories: Africa

Cambodia at a Tipping Point: Authenticity Makes Way for Progress

Fri, 06/28/2024 - 20:19

Seayeen Aum promotes ecotourism in the remote province of Ratanakiri, in Cambodia’s northeast. Credit: Kris Janssens/ IPS

By Kris Janssens
PHNOM PENH, Jun 28 2024 (IPS)

Modernity is arriving rapidly in Cambodia, observes journalist Kris Janssens (48), who has lived and worked in the country since 2016. The predominantly young population is eager to move forward, embracing technology over traditional agriculture or fishing. Can Cambodians unite their country’s authentic soul with their aspirations for progress?

Enormous changes throughout the years

I arrived in Cambodia in the winter of 2015, on January 7 to be precise. At the time, I was unaware of the significance of this date in Cambodian history, marking the official end of the Khmer Rouge regime in 1979. To be honest, I knew very little about Cambodia.

Today, half of the Cambodians are under 25 years old. This is the first generation of twenty-year-olds to grow up without war or violence. These youngsters want to move forward with their lives. And that usually means moving away from the countryside

I planned to stay here briefly before returning to India, where I had just finished a series of radio reports. The unique Cambodian spirit changed my decision and my life course. This country immediately felt so familiar to me that I decided to move here permanently, about eighteen months later, in the fall of 2016. I’m still very happy that I can live in this magical kingdom.

But throughout the years, Cambodia has changed enormously. In the capital city of Phnom Penh, small shops and cozy coffee bars make way for tall bank buildings. And the picturesque airport will soon be replaced by a huge terminal, further away from the city center, and out of proportion compared to the human-scaled city that I love so much.

I have the feeling that the country is losing a part of its soul, and I want to try to capture and document this authentic spirit before it is too late.

Very young population

The fact that Cambodia is at a tipping point is primarily due to demography and history. More than one and a half million Cambodians died during the brutal Khmer Rouge era in the 1970s. The Pol Pot era was followed by a power vacuum and it took until the 1990s before peace and stability could return.

According to demographic forecasts, Phnom Penh will have more than 3 million inhabitants by 2035. More and more young Cambodians want to study in the city and switch from agriculture or fishing to technology or tourism.

Harsh economic reality

This shift is clearly visible in Kampong Khleang, a stilt village on the shore of the great Tonle Sap Lake, close to Siem Reap and the famous temples of Angkor Wat. Early in the morning, a rickety canoe takes me out to the open water, heading towards the rising sun. But what appears idyllic to me represents a harsh economic reality for the fishermen here. The catch is meager, and life is difficult.

“My son is going to work in the city, away from the water,” says Borei. It is the end of a tradition because his ancestors have lived as fishermen for generations. “But living along the water has become difficult, there are too many fishermen.” His shy ten-year-old son gazes ahead quietly. I ask him where he would like to work. After some hesitation, he responds “with the police”.

“That is a typical answer,” says Chhay Doeb. He is the Executive director of Cambodia Rural Students Trust, an NGO that provides scholarships to students from impoverished rural families.

“When young people arrive in the city, they want to become police officers, soldiers, doctors or teachers,” he says. “But they gradually discover that they can also work in the real estate sector or as a lawyer, for example.”

Noticeable distrust among parents

Doeb believes that the Cambodian economy will evolve and diversify even further. “But the economic level of neighboring countries like Thailand or Vietnam is not yet within reach,” he says.

At its founding in 2011, the organization had to go to villages and convince students of the NGO’s good intentions. Today, there are almost a thousand applications for twenty new places every year. The money for the scholarships comes from Australia.

Doeb still notices distrust among parents, wondering what their offspring is doing in the city.

I also experience this suspicion in Kratie, a small town on the bank of the Mekong River in the rural interior of Cambodia. The typical rural villagers look like characters sculpted from clay, with heads weathered by the sun and bodies wrinkled from hard work.

I meet Proum Veasna, who is about to take his cows back to the stable at dusk. During our conversation, his close neighbor passes by on his moped. He teasingly squeezes Veasna’s bare stomach. “We are friends, we all know each other here,” he says. His son works as a construction worker in Phnom Penh, but he has never been there himself. “It’s polluted, I would immediately get sick.”

Veasna has always worked as a farmer. “I had no choice because I have no education.” He wants a different future for his four children. “My daughter is learning English and Chinese.” The girl cycles by as we talk about her. “She can grow up to be whatever she wants, she is so smart,” says the proud dad.

Boosting economy

Upstream the Mekong River, in the neighboring province of Stung Treng, I meet Teap Chueng and Kom Leang, a retired couple living in a lonely house in a vast wooded landscape. “Covid never happened here”, they tell me with a big smile, “because we are never in touch with city dwellers”.

They do not need to go to the nearby town, as they are completely self-sufficient. “We have four hectares of land”, says Teap Chueng, while his wife proudly shows home-grown winter melon, a mild-tasting fruit related to the cucumber.

The region is also known for cashew nuts. “As we speak, new factories are being built, so the farmers will be able to scale up the production”. Although they realize that industrialization will change the landscape of their beloved home, the couple can’t wait for this development to happen. “It will boost our economy, which will benefit our children and grandchildren”.

A country with a lot of energy

Seayeen Aum is a typical example of someone who managed to work his way up. As a child, he learned how to survive in nature. “We didn’t always have enough money”, he says. “But if you know and understand the forest, you will always find something to eat.”

Today he promotes ecotourism in the remote province of Ratanakiri, in Cambodia’s northeast. And with success. During our trek through the jungle, he constantly receives calls and orders on one of his two mobile phones. “We are a country with a lot of energy,” he says, laughing.

This entrepreneur succeeded in marketing this region, with traditional ethnic minority groups, in a respectful manner to a Western audience. Authenticity and progress do go hand in hand here for the time being.

This is a country with a lot of challenges, providing all these graduating students with satisfying employment, to say the least. The drive for stability is important to Cambodians, but I also see ambitious people like Seayeen, who have a plan and are progressively working towards the result. In another five to eight years from now, this country will look completely different.

Categories: Africa

UNICEF Director of Global Communication and Advocacy Naysán Sahba visits Zambia

Fri, 06/28/2024 - 14:25

By External Source
Jun 28 2024 (IPS-Partners)

In Zambia, over 6.5 million people need humanitarian assistance because of the drought. 3.5 million of them are children.

The impacts of El Niño and climate change have been devastating for children.

Categories: Africa

UN Climate Talks: Setting Sail to Plunder the Ocean

Fri, 06/28/2024 - 11:32

The 60th session of the Subsidiary Bodies of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (SB 60, UNFCCC), took place in Bonn June 3-13, with the issue of climate finance high on the agenda. Credit: UN Climate Change Lucia Vasquez Tumi

By Mary Church
BONN, Germany, Jun 28 2024 (IPS)

Despite the evident and increasing urgency of the climate crisis, the June intersessional meeting of the UNFCCC closed with little to show for two full weeks of negotiation.

With COP29 being cited as ‘the Finance COP’, much of the focus across various agenda items was on ever contested questions of who owes what to whom. Crucially, the meeting was supposed to advance negotiations on a New Collective Quantified Goal (NCQG) on climate finance for the post 2025 period, due to be agreed in Baku.

However, despite ‘quantified’ being in the very name of the goal, developed countries refused to be drawn on the critical matter of how much is owed and needed.

The 2020 goal of $100bn per year (stretched to 2025) remains unfilled, with the vast majority of what the Global North claims to have contributed in the form of loans, or money redirected from other overseas budgets.

Likewise, despite the long fought battle which secured a new loss and damage finance mechanism at COP27, that pot too remains as good as empty, with current pledges equating to less than 0.2% of the climate change related losses faced by Global South countries each year.

Climate finance is key. Intimately related to the core UNFCCC principles of equity and Common but Differentiated Responsibility (CBDR), it is central to unlocking the stalemate that has plagued negotiations since they began.

But instead of concrete finance commitments and delivery, carbon markets are increasingly being spun as climate finance, with some increasingly desperate nations on the frontlines of the climate crisis grasping wishfully at the idea that a 5% share of proceeds from markets under the Paris Agreement will plug the longstanding gap on adaptation funding, and others preparing to sell off their rich ecosystems as some form or other of carbon credits.

As the practical limitations, to say nothing of the social and environmental harms, of novel land based Carbon Dioxide Removal (CDR) schemes are increasingly exposed at a scale to impact the climate, Bioenergy Carbon Capture and Storage (BECCS), one of the most widely touted CDR technologies, would require twice the entire global land area currently under cultivation, oceans are being sized up as the next frontier for such exploitation.

Oceans cover over 70% of the Earth’s surface, and are already our greatest ally in the fight against climate change. Alarmingly, however, highly speculative and risky theories about engineering them at will to sequester and store ever more carbon are increasingly being incorporated into the climate policy landscape.

We see this in the opaque language that invites parties to scale up ‘ocean-based mitigation action’ that found its way into the Global Stocktake decision text last year in Dubai, and more clearly in the explicit inclusion of dangerous ocean CDR methods in the ongoing wrangling over Article 6 guidelines, which in various iterations identify ocean fertilisation, ocean alkalinity enhancement and algae cultivation / biomass sinking for potential inclusion.

And concerningly, we also saw it in this year’s Ocean and Climate Change Dialogue held in Bonn. Pitched as a “[recognition of] the need to strengthen the understanding of, and action on, ocean and climate change”, the Dialogue, now in its 4th year, saw a push for research and development of marine CDR under its theme on ‘Technology Needs for Ocean Climate Action, including Finance Links’.

The problem for those who would financialise and plunder the oceans under the guise of climate mitigation is that there are of course other UN Conventions of equal importance to the UNFCCC that have for good reason imposed restrictive regulations on these activities.

The Convention on Biological Diversity has had a de facto moratorium in place on all geoengineering since 2010, while the London Convention / London Protocol, which regulates pollution at sea, has made clear its intention to add potentially a further four categories of marine geoengineering to its 2008 prohibition on ocean fertilisation.

Crucially, a commercial factor is a key element under both regimes in restricting outdoor experiments – which of course is inherent in any ocean-based CDR envisaged under carbon markets, voluntary or otherwise.

The fact is, however, that none of the marine geoengineering approaches increasingly referred to as CDR do anything to tackle the root causes of climate change, and none have been able to demonstrate that they can effectively capture or store carbon with any permanence.

They are an extremely dangerous distraction from the real action we know is needed to rapidly bring down greenhouse gasses, starting with an urgent and just phase out of fossil fuels. Furthermore they are likely to cause great harm to the delicate equilibrium of the oceans – already severely stressed by over-exploitation, pollution and global heating – with potentially grave consequences for ocean biodiversity, food chains, fisheries, and even the oceans’ natural capacity to sequester carbon.

At least 40 open-water marine geoengineering experiments are currently underway or in planning, across a variety of theories and technologies, many of which have a clear commercial element and are likely in violation of international agreements. Some of these are already running into very practical challenges, such as the postponement of Planetary Technologies’ planned ocean alkalinity enhancement trial in Cornwall, where community resistance led to an independent assessment which exposed serious flaws in the plan, while biomass cultivation and sinking start-up Running Tide announced the closure of its fairly advanced operations only this last week, citing lack of demand for carbon credits from the voluntary market.

Ultimately however, as a broad spectrum of civil society organisations made clear in several interventions at the Ocean and Climate Dialogue, and in a statement endorsed by over 100 organisations as of last month, Paris Agreement carbon markets, which are so very clearly legitimising these highly speculative and risky approaches, cannot ignore international agreements restricting them and must uphold the precautionary principle.

As we head to COP29 in Baku and as IPCC kicks off its work on the 7th Assessment Cycle later this year, the voices of civil society across the globe, Indigenous Peoples, coastal communities and fisherfolk must be heard as they reiterate the risk of undermining the vital role oceans play in sustaining life on earth. It is unquestionably clear that our oceans cannot be for sale.

Mary Church is Geoengineering Campaign Manager, Center for International Environmental Law (CIEL) and member of Hands-Off Mother Earth! (HOME) Alliance.

IPS UN Bureau

Categories: Africa

Nuclear Coercion: Dangerous and Illegal

Fri, 06/28/2024 - 10:52

Aftermath of attack in the city center of Kharkiv, Ukraine. June 2024. Credit: IOM

By Andrew Lichterman, Alyn Ware and Yosuke Watanabe
OAKLAND, California / PRAGUE, Czech Republic / YOKOHAMA, Japan, Jun 28 2024 (IPS)

Our three organizations– Western States Legal Foundation, Peace Depot, and Basel Peace Office– all dedicated to the elimination of nuclear weapons, have consistently expressed our concern about the risk of nuclear war escalating during armed conflicts and times of high tension, when nuclear-armed states often make veiled or even explicit threats to use nuclear weapons and prepare for such use.

This has happened, for example, with the governments of India and Pakistan trading nuclear threats during their 2001 stand-off, the U.S. government making veiled nuclear threats against Iraq in 1991 and 2003, and the U.S. and North Korean leaders threatening to strike each other with nuclear weapons in 2017.

We speak out now against the series of coercive nuclear threats that have been made by the Russian government since 2022 in conjunction with its invasion of Ukraine and occupation of Ukrainian territory.

From the start of the full-scale invasion and war in 2022, the government of the Russian Federation has made a series of threats to use nuclear weapons against countries that provide Ukraine with weapons and other military assistance.

Russian officials also have claimed the right to use nuclear weapons to defend territories they have occupied and illegally annexed in the course of the war. These threats have been accompanied by such posturing as the announced deployment of Russian nuclear weapons to Belarus and the highlighting of exercises of Russian nuclear forces in a military district on Ukraine’s borders.

These threats make clear once more a key role of the nuclear weapons possessed by the world’s most powerful states: to make it easier for their governments to pursue aggressive wars and to coerce countries to accept this aggression by exponentially increasing the danger to all who might oppose them.

In 1996, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) found that the threat or use of nuclear weapons is generally illegal, but did not reach a conclusion, one way or the other, regarding an extreme circumstance of self-defense when the very survival of a state is at stake.

This approach was controversial at the time in the international legal community, with considerable opinion that the threat or use of nuclear arms is illegal in all circumstances. That view has only strengthened in the nearly three decades since then.

Among other developments, the UN Human Rights Committee found in 2018 that threat or use of nuclear weapons is contrary to the human right to life; the 2017 Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons declared in its preamble that use of nuclear weapons is contrary to international humanitarian law (IHL) governing the conduct of warfare; and a 2011 International Red Cross and Red Cross Movement resolution stated that it is “difficult to envisage how any use of nuclear weapons could be compatible with” IHL.

Regardless of one’s view of the current state of the law, the population of the Russian Federation faces no threat to its “very survival”. Their government could end its war on Ukraine tomorrow and the Russian Federation would remain a large and powerful state with an immense resource and industrial base, its internationally recognized borders intact.

There is no rationale for the brandishing of nuclear weapons by the government of the Russian Federation other than to leverage their terrible destructive power to advance its war of aggression and conquest in Ukraine.

In January 2022, less than two months before the government of the Russian Federation launched its invasion, that government, together with those of the United States, France, the United Kingdom, and China issued a statement affirming that “a nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought.”

Then in November 2022, at the G20 Summit in Bali, and again at the September 2023 G20 Summit in Delhi, the leaders and/or foreign ministers of China, France, India, Russia, UK, and USA declared that the “use or threat of use of nuclear weapons is inadmissible.” Yet, the nuclear threats continue.

Amidst a war already involving extensive air bombardment and missile warfare, together with the use of new kinds of electronic warfare that intensifies the fog of war, a nuclear crisis would pose extraordinary dangers. No one should have any illusions that such a crisis could be easily controlled.

The government of the Russian Federation should cease its threats of nuclear use, and issue assurances that it will not use nuclear weapons in the conflict with Ukraine. The United States, France, the United Kingdom, and NATO should issue such assurances as well.

Andrew Lichterman is Senior Research Analyst, Western States Legal Foundation, Oakland, California, USA; Alyn Ware is Global Coordinator, Parliamentarians for Nuclear Nonproliferation and Disarmament, Director, Basel Peace Office, Prague, Czech Republic; Yosuke Watanabe is Research Fellow, Peace Depot, Japan Coordinator, Parliamentarians for Nuclear Nonproliferation and Disarmament, Yokohama, Japan.

The Western States Legal Foundation, based in Oakland, California, seeks to abolish nuclear weapons as an essential step in making possible a more secure, just, and environmentally sustainable world; Peace Depot is a non-profit, independent think tank based in Yokohama, Japan. It supports civil society’s peace movements, particularly in the area of nuclear disarmament and military base issues; Basel Peace Office is a coalition of four Swiss organizations and three international organizations advancing effective policies and proposals to achieve a nuclear-weapon-free world.

IPS UN Bureau

Categories: Africa

Kashmir Frontier Woman Leads the Way in Breaking Down Patriarchy

Fri, 06/28/2024 - 09:41

Smelling the toxic smoke coming from burned powder kegs and helplessly watching fields turn into smoke and ash is traumatic. Rushing to the government’s safe houses and leaving your homes, belongings and cattle behind whenever the armies of India and Pakistan trade fire is inexplicable. Then came climate-change-induced weather unpredictability. But the inhabitants of this […]

Categories: Africa

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