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The Gaza population is suffering the world’s worst current hunger crisis, which has led to high levels of malnutrition, wasting, stunting and trauma reaching famine thresholds. Credit: World Health Organization (WHO)

By Joseph Chamie
PORTLAND, USA, Mar 12 2024 (IPS)

Estimates of mortality in the Hamas-Israel war after five months of fighting indicate a Palestinian death rate 80 times greater than the Israeli death rate. In absolute terms, the number of Palestinian deaths is 18 times greater than the number of Israeli deaths.

The Palestinian death toll in the Gaza Strip is believed to be the highest such civilian casualty rate in the 21st century. Some have concluded that Israel’s bombing of Gaza is one of the most intense civilian punishment campaigns in history.

Even Israel’s major benefactor and chief ally, the United States, has criticized the bombing of Gaza. President Biden called Israel’s military action “over the top” and warned Israel that it was losing international support because of its “indiscriminate bombing” of Gaza. Secretary of State Blinken has also told Israel that ultimately there is no military solution to Hamas.

Although the numbers of deaths continue to be updated, current reported estimates provide an intelligible picture of the war’s lethal consequences on human life between 7 October 2023 and 7 March 2024, especially for the civilian population in Gaza (Table 1).

Source: Reported figures are from various sources with links provided in the text.

 

According to Israeli officials, the revised number of Israeli deaths resulting from the horrific attack by Hamas-led militants on 7 October 2023 is 1,163. Around 70 percent of the victims identified in the attack were civilians.

Those killed in Israel on October 7 also include foreigners and dual nationals. No less than 31 U.S. citizens, 39 French citizens and 34 Thai citizens were killed, according to country authorities. The Israeli military also said that 1,500 Hamas fighters were killed during the 7 October attack.

Israeli authorities reported that more than 240 individuals from more than 40 countries, including young children and the elderly, were taken hostage on 7 October and are believed to be held by Hamas in Gaza.

An estimated 32 hostages are reported to have subsequently died, 112 hostages have been freed with 70 percent being women and children and about half of the hostages remain in Gaza.

The World Food Programme warned of a “man-made” famine in Gaza with nowhere else in the world with this many people at risk of severe hunger. Refugees International also found in their research that Israel’s blocking of aid is creating apocalyptic conditions inside Gaza

In addition to those deaths, no less than 535 Israeli soldiers have died since the ground invasion began with the vast majority killed on 7 October. Also, at least 12 Israeli deaths occurred in the West Bank and approximately 6,900 Israelis have been injured since 7 October.

In response to the 7 October Hamas attack, the death toll in Gaza from Israeli military operations according to Gaza’s health ministry, which has previously been described as trustworthy by WHO’s regional office, is at least 30,878 Palestinians.

As of 7 March 2024, that mortality figure represents 1.4 percent of the population or more than one in every 70 Palestinians in Gaza killed.

The total number of Palestinian deaths includes both fighters and civilians with approximately two-thirds of the deaths being women and children. Most recently, at least 104 Palestinians waiting to get food from humanitarian aid trucks were reported to be killed by Israeli troops, which the Israeli military denies saying most were killed in a crush or run over trying to escape.

Also, Hamas has reportedly said it has lost about 6,000 of its fighters while Israel has said it killed some 13,000 Hamas members.

The number of deaths in Gaza is likely to be even higher than being reported by Palestinian health officials. The war has brought about a humanitarian catastrophe for the Palestinians with an estimated 8,000 missing with many under the rubble of buildings and others hastily buried, no less than 72,402 injured, or about 10 times the number of injured Israelis, and vital humanitarian assistance limited by Israel’s blockade.

Several months ago, the Israeli military put a complete siege on Gaza, i.e., no electricity, no food, no water and no gas. Gaza’s residents are now facing a serious lack of food, drinking water and medicine and a sanitation crisis with high rates of infectious disease, at least 90 percent among children under five, with nearly no access to medical care. Aid groups have labeled Gaza as the most dangerous place in the world for children.

The Gaza population is suffering the world’s worst current hunger crisis, which has led to high levels of malnutrition, wasting, stunting and trauma reaching famine thresholds. WHO recently reported that no less than 10 children have starved to death in Gaza since the war began.

The World Food Programme warned of a “man-made” famine in Gaza with nowhere else in the world with this many people at risk of severe hunger. Refugees International also found in their research that Israel’s blocking of aid is creating apocalyptic conditions inside Gaza.

International aid agencies have concluded that if nothing is done soon, widespread famine is imminent, especially starvation among young children and infants, with more deaths of Palestinians in Gaza inevitable (Figure 1).

 

Source: Reported percentages are from various sources with links provided in the text.

 

Approximately 70 percent of Gaza’s homes and half of its buildings, which include hospitals, schools, universities, mosques and churches, have been destroyed. The destruction and ruins in Gaza are said to resemble some of the most devastating campaigns in urban warfare in modern history.

According to US intelligence assessments, in the first two months of the war Israel dropped on Gaza more than 29,000 bombs, munitions and shells with 40-45 percent being unguided, including 900-kilogram (2,000 pound) “bunker-busters, and on areas that Israel designated safe for Palestinian civilians. Also, Israel’s heavy bombardment from air, land and sea included dropping 45,000 bombs weighing more than 65,000 tons on Gaza in a period of 89 days.

The war damaged or destroyed water, sanitation and health systems with approximately 1.9 million people, or about 85 percent of the total population of Gaza, displaced. Approximately half of Gaza’s population are sheltering in tent encampments in the southern city of Rafah, which Israel’s military plans to invade.

Besides Israeli and Palestinian deaths in Israel and Gaza since 7 October, others nearby have been killed. Violence in the West Bank has soared with at least 394 Palestinians reported to have been killed amid an increase in Israeli military raids and incursions. Also, 12 Israelis were killed in the West Bank during the five months following the 7 October attack.

In addition, more than 150 employees of the United Nations have been killed since the Israeli-Hamas war began. It is reported to be the deadliest conflict ever for the United Nations in such a short period of time. Moreover, no less than 122 journalists and media workers reporting on the war have been killed.

The high levels of civilian deaths are partly due to failed attempts to reach a cease-fire. Since the start of the Hamas-Israel war, the United Nations Security Council has considered three resolutions calling for an immediate cease-fire. The United States cast the sole “no” vote on each of those resolutions.

Regarding the adoption of the third resolution, the US said it could disrupt and jeopardize its ongoing negotiations to free Israeli hostages, secure a temporary cease-fire and increase desperately needed aid to Gaza. Recently, however, the US is pushing the Security Council to back an immediate cease-fire of roughly six-weeks in Gaza together with the release of all hostages.

The US administration faces serious criticisms internally for its vetoes as well as pressures to back a cease-fire, with some in Congress pushing to limit aid to Israel or impose strict conditions.

A national survey in February found two-thirds of US voters support calling for a permanent ceasefire and a de-escalation of violence in Gaza. The ongoing outrage over the continued support for Israel’s military offensive in Gaza poses a political problem for Biden in an election year.

Vice-President Harris recently bolstered the push for an immediate six-week cease-fire agreement, the release of hostages and increased humanitarian aid to Gaza facilitated by Israel with “no excuses”. She said the conditions in Gaza are inhumane with immense suffering with people starving and criticized Israel for not doing enough to ease a “humanitarian catastrophe”.

In contrast to the Security Council, the UN General Assembly adopted a resolution on 12 December 2023 demanding an immediate humanitarian ceasefire, the immediate and unconditional release of all hostages and ensuring humanitarian aid access. The resolution passed with a large majority of 153 in favor and 10 against, with 23 abstentions.

The global outcry over the breadth of death, devastation and displacement in Gaza has intensified. Growing numbers of countries, including Algeria, Brazil, Colombia, Indonesia, Ireland, Malaysia, Norway, Pakistan, and South Africa, have expressed serious concerns, outrage and condemnation regarding the scope and intensity of Israel’s military campaign and the humanitarian catastrophe created in Gaza.

The high mortality and humanitarian disaster have contributed to the growing isolation of Israel internationally and calls for an immediate humanitarian ceasefire.

Many government leaders have denounced the high number of Palestinian civilian deaths in Gaza. Also, more than 800 officials in the US, the UK and European Union signed a public letter of dissent against their governments’ support of Israel in its war campaign in Gaza.

South Africa appealed to the International Court of Justice, criticizing Israel for committing and failing to prevent genocidal acts. South Africa has also asked the court to issue emergency orders for Israel to stop the “genocidal starvation” of the Palestinian people.

Norway has also condemned Israel’s actions as contravening international law and breaching the principle of self-defense. Brazil’s President Lula da Silva accused Israel of committing genocide against Palestinians in Gaza.

Given Israel’s total population of approximately 9.8 million, the Israeli deaths on 7 October and in the Hamas-Israel war up to 7 March 2024 represent about 0.018 percent of its population, or 18 deaths per 100,000 population.

With an estimated total population of approximately 2.2 million in Gaza, the Palestinian deaths from the Hamas-Israel war up to 7 March 2024 represents about 1.423 percent of its population, or 1,423 deaths per 100,000 population, which is 80 times greater than the Israeli death rate.

When the Palestinian death rate of Gaza is applied to the population of Israel, the resulting hypothetical mortality would be a staggering 139,378 Israeli deaths, which is about 80 times greater than Israel’s actual number. Conversely, applying the Israeli death rate to the population of Gaza would yield a low of 383 Palestinian deaths, or 1.2 percent of Gaza’s actual number (Figure 2).

 

Source: Reported figures are from various sources with links provided in the text.

 

If those hypothetical deaths of 139,378 Israelis and 383 Palestinians had actually occurred, a relevant question to consider is whether the international community with the United States taking the lead would have adopted a ceasefire early on in the war.

The deaths, injuries, displacements and suffering resulting from the Hamas-Israel war after five months continues to be updated with new information from authorities, international organizations, hospitals, mortuaries and families. Additional demographic analyses, studies and surveys will be needed to provide a comprehensive assessment of the war’s mortality and misery.

During this century-long conflict that began with the British Mandate for Palestine and centers principally on religion and demographics, large numbers of deaths and population displacements have occurred. To resolve the conflict and halt the killing and injuries of Israelis, Palestinians and others, various solutions have been proposed.

The two-state solution is the preferred option of many countries, including the United States, other allies of Israel and the UN Security Council, with some countries considering recognizing a Palestinian state. However, many scholars consider the two-state solution to be a mirage or no longer possible.

Israel has expressed its opposition to the creation of a Palestinian state. The government has approved the building of thousands new homes in Israeli settlements in the West Bank. Also, some are calling to rebuild them in an Israeli controlled Gaza, encouraging Palestinians to leave and promoting plans to occupy both the West Bank and Gaza indefinitely.

Given the salient demographics on the ground, i.e., the de facto one-state reality, some anticipate the emergence of the one-state solution. In such an outcome, the Jewish residents would constitute approximately 47 percent of the total population, a fundamental change from the Jewish majority of 74 percent in Israel today. The one-state solution would also need to consider civil rights, justice and equality before the law for all its residents, a fundamental goal of democracies.

Finally, it seems evident, unfortunately, that without a peace resolution to the protracted Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the loss of lives, injuries, displacements and misery will likely continue unabated.

 

Joseph Chamie is a consulting demographer, a former director of the United Nations Population Division and author of numerous publications on population issues, including his recent book, “Population Levels, Trends, and Differentials”.

 

Credit: Pixabay/surajitsinghasisir
 
Source: https://pixabay.com/photos/born-baby-mother-black-and-white-7620488/

By Sayuri Cocco Okada
BANGKOK, Thailand, Mar 12 2024 (IPS)

Maternity protection is a human right enshrined in Article 25 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Income security for newborn mothers ensures their mental and physical wellbeing and contributes to the healthy development of their infants.

Though 41 countries in Asia and the Pacific have instituted statutory maternity leave benefits, just over one in three newborn mothers is actually receiving a maternity benefit. Many countries still fall short of the ILO recommended 18 weeks duration, with only 14 countries meeting this standard.

There persists a vast gap between aspiration and effective protection for newborn mothers.

Almost two-thirds of women of reproductive age in Asia and the Pacific are outside the labour force and thus do not qualify for work-related contributory maternity benefits. Even for working women, social protection remains elusive.

Contributory schemes and their accompanying income security are out of reach for female informal workers, ranging from 97.3 per cent of total female employment in Afghanistan to just over one quarter in Australia (Figure 1).

Figure 1. A large proportion of women are in informal employment in countries across Asia and the Pacific

Source: ESCAP SDG Gateway Data Explorer

Working women who may be eligible often do not meet qualifying criteria for schemes, such as number of years contributing into a scheme, due to breaks taken in their careers to attend to care duties.

There is increasing recognition that the right to minimum income security during maternity should apply to all new parents- not only working mothers- regardless of their employment status. Few countries however provide universal non-contributory maternity benefits to safeguard income security for all newborn mothers.

The newly launched and publicly available maternity module of the ESCAP SPOT Simulator enables policy makers to observe the economic value and price tag of different maternity benefits in 27 countries.

It demonstrates that introducing universal non-contributory maternity benefits at a basic benefit level for a duration of 18 weeks can ensure that a majority of newborn mothers do not have to raise their infants in poverty.

In the Maldives and Uzbekistan, it would lift every newborn mother over the national and respective international poverty lines and reduce poverty by at least half for newborn mothers in 10 countries (See Figure 2).

Figure 2. Universal non-contributory maternity benefits can have a significant poverty reduction impact

Source: ESCAP SPOT Simulator

By making these benefits universal and non-contributory, it would guarantee coverage of the high proportion of female informal worker and other mothers who were hitherto excluded. All for costs ranging between only 0.1 per cent and 0.4 per cent of GDP.

As outlined in the ESCAP-ILO primer on how to design maternity and paternity leave policies, three features underscore the capacity of governments to realise the right to maternity protection and achieve its full potential.

Benefits should be collectively financed, such as through social insurance or taxes, rather than employer liability; of an adequate duration to enable mothers to recover from pregnancy and birth as well as care for their infants, without negatively impacting on their return to work; and at a minimum, provide a level of benefit to ensure that mother and their newborn child can stay healthy and out of poverty.

Extending maternity benefits of an adequate level and duration to all newborn mothers is a first step. We would do well to remember that maternity does not operate in a vacuum. Caring for an infant is not only the domain of mothers and it is vital to promote the participation of fathers in childcare to bond and co-parent their newborn.

The incremental rise in paid paternity leave and duration in the region signal that countries are increasingly acknowledging the need to balance care responsibilities and increase engagement of fathers. Promoting the role of fathers in childcare helps to normalise this shared responsibility, although uptake is still low.

Raising a child entails a continuum of care that spans pre-pregnancy, antenatal care, birth and breastfeeding to early childhood, universal childcare and universal primary education. Maternity benefits are at the initial stage in this continuum of care and should be coordinated to ensure seamless social protection is afforded to parents and families throughout this period.

This week, governments and stakeholders are gathering in New York for the 68th session of the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women to reflect on pathways to women’s empowerment by addressing poverty and advancing more gender-responsive social protection systems.

Investments in maternity benefits are fundamental to safeguard the wellbeing of mothers and support a continuum of care for parents and children. At a fraction of GDP, universal tax financed maternity benefits are an effective instrument to guarantee all mothers are free from poverty at this critical stage of motherhood and infant

Sayuri Cocco Okada is Social Affairs Officer, ESCAP

Footnote:
Maternity protection is a human right enshrined in Article 25 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Income security for newborn mothers ensures their mental and physical wellbeing and contributes to the healthy development of their infants. Though 41 countries in Asia and the Pacific have instituted statutory maternity leave benefits, just over one in three newborn mothers is actually receiving a maternity benefit. Many countries still fall short of the ILO recommended 18 weeks duration, with only 14 countries meeting this standard. There persists a vast gap between aspiration and effective protection for newborn mothers.

This article addresses the theme which will be discussed at the 68th Session of the Commission on the Status of Women (https://www.unwomen.org/en/how-we-work/commission-on-the-status-of-women).

IPS UN Bureau

 

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Joshua Peter and his friend Salama Ogboshun were kidnapped last year while on their way to the farm in Kaduna. Credit: Promise Eze/IPS

By Promise Eze
ABUJA, Mar 12 2024 (IPS)

Lilian Eze still shivers when she recalls the frequent attacks by kidnappers in the Kaduna community she once lived in, in north-central Nigeria. In February 2022, she fled with her children to Abuja, the nation’s capital, to ensure their safety.

In an interview with IPS, she explained that the kidnappers would invade the community on foot and with a horde of motorbikes in the evenings with little or no resistance from security agencies.

They would indiscriminately fire gunshots into the air, instilling fear among residents, before forcibly taking their victims to remote areas in the forest, where they would be held captive until ransom was paid. But not all victims make it out alive.

“When it started, sometime around 2017, we thought it would subside but it became extremely frequent. The gunshots were terrifying; most nights, we could not sleep. After my neighbour was kidnapped, I stopped sleeping at my house. My children and I would go to a nearby community to spend the night,” Eze said.

Nigeria is currently bedeviled with a widespread kidnapping for ransom crisis. It is among the highest globally. Armed gunmen snatch their victims from highways, schools, and even their homes. According to a report from Lagos-based risk consultancy SBM Intelligence spanning from July 2022 to June 2023, 3,495 individuals were abducted in 582 incidents, with over USD 18 million paid as ransom between 2011 and 2020.

The Nigerian Financial Intelligence Unit says kidnapping for ransom is one of the major sources of terrorism financing in the country. Despite several pledges by the government to bring an end to the crisis, it has continued to fester.

While the payment of ransom has been criminalised, Nigerians have no choice but to crowdfund for ransom to secure the release of their family members and relatives, as in most cases, the kidnappers would not release their victims until ransom was paid.

Trapped in Kidnappers’ Den

While Eze and her family were lucky to have escaped to a relatively safer location, others have not been so lucky.

Joshua Peter, 30, along with his friend Salama Ogboshun, were kidnapped last year while on their way to the farm in Kaduna. He said heavily armed men ambushed and bundled them into a bush, from where they were taken to a forest. He added that the trauma of his experience in the forest may never fade away.

“Many kidnapped victims were killed before my eyes. Women and young girls were frequently raped in the open. I was beaten and received death threats every day,” he said.

Peter said he was released after two weeks only after the ransom was paid but for days he could eat just a little food and did not talk to anyone as a result of the trauma he battled with. He wondered why the Nigerian security forces were unable to rescue them and track the location of the kidnappers despite negotiations for their release on the phone.

Nigerians have frequently raised concerns about the efficiency of the country’s intelligence gathering and have voiced criticism regarding the perceived shortcomings of different security agencies in employing technology to address insecurity. Critics argue that, despite security agencies effectively monitoring and suppressing opposition activities, they have consistently fallen short in tracking down criminals. The police attribute delays in addressing kidnapping cases to a “shortage of tracking machines.”

Nigeria’s Failing Technological Infrastructure

For Sadiq Abdulahi, a tech expert with Fozy Global Concept based in Abuja, there is sparse collaboration between security agencies, which hampers the fight against insecurity.

“There should be synergy among the various security agencies regarding data sharing,” he added, emphasizing the lack of awareness about the potential use of technology to combat crime in the country.

In 2022, the Nigerian government mandated residents of the country to synchronize their Subscriber Identification Modules (SIMs) with their National Identification Numbers (NINs) to bolster security. However, despite the policy, kidnappers continue to place untraceable calls to the families of their victims. Isa Pantami, the former Nigerian Minister of Communications and Digital Economy who spearheaded the initiative, faced criticism for seeking funds to pay ransom for certain kidnapped victims earlier this year. Pantami, however, shifted blame to security agencies, accusing them of not efficiently utilizing the policy to trace criminals.

Zainab Dabo, a Nigerian political analyst, argues that a lack of commitment and political will by the government is contributing to the crisis. According to her, the Nigerian security forces are under-equipped to confront rogue non-state actors.

“Security operatives have arms that are not as sophisticated as those of the kidnappers. While our security forces are well-trained, the lack of proper armament turns confronting terrorists into a perilous mission,” she told IPS.

Dabo also alleged that there are insiders within the Nigerian security infrastructure who are aiding terrorists. “For insecurity to persist for this long, it indicates elite connivance not only among security operatives but also among politicians and traditional rulers,” she added.

Joshua Madaki, a Kaduna resident kidnapped from his home by armed gangs on the evening of December 21, 2021, shares the same view as Dabo. Madaki, who said he spent 17 days in captivity, was abducted alongside 36 others from his community. He disclosed that while ransom negotiations were ongoing, the criminals killed six of the victims as a warning to their families.

“Insecurity in Nigeria is very complicated, but it seems the government is not ready to take action to tackle it,” said Badasi Bello, whose younger sister was kidnapped in Sokoto State, northwest Nigeria, in 2023.

Amnesty International has advised the Nigerian government to regard the kidnapping crisis in the country as an emergency and to take measures to solve the problem.

However, kidnapping continues, including the mass kidnapping of schoolchildren. Last week (Thursday, August 7, 2024), 287 children were abducted from two schools in Kaduna State. UNICEF Representative in Nigeria, Cristian Munduate, said in a statement that the act was “part of a worrying trend of attacks on educational institutions in Nigeria, particularly in the northwest, where armed groups have intensified their campaign of violence and kidnappings.”

Then, on March 10, 15 pupils were abducted from the Islamic seminary in Gidan Bakuso, Sokoto State, while they slept, according to the Associated Press.

Munduate said UNICEF was coordinating with local officials and assisting parents and families with psychological support services.

“Every child deserves to grow up in an environment of peace, away from the looming shadows of threats and insecurity. Unfortunately, we are currently facing a significant deterioration in community safety, with children disproportionately suffering the consequences of this decline in security,” Munduate said.

IPS UN Bureau Report

 

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Economic Commission for Africa’s Executive Secretary, Claver Gatete. Credit: ECA

By Busani Bafana
VICTORIA FALLS, Zimbabwe, Mar 11 2024 (IPS)

With 20 percent of the global population and vast untapped natural resources, not forgetting its human capital, it is time Africa had its rightful seat at the global table, the United Nations Under Secretary and Executive Secretary of the Economic Commission for Africa (ECA), Claver Gatete, has called.

Decrying that Africa has been on the back foot on the global stage when key political and economic decisions are made, Gatete says it is time Africa claimed its voice. Gatete told a recent conference of African finance ministers in Victoria Falls, Zimbabwe, that Africa is in a financial and fiscal crisis because a global financial system does not have the interests of the continent at heart.

Africa Must Be Heard

“So, what will it take for African countries to really feel heard? Gatete asked.

“It is okay for us to say that 80 years ago, Africa was not at the table. It is probably acceptable to say that when the Millennium Development Goals were adopted, we were also at the periphery,” he said, adding, “But we will not be forgiven today if we do not occupy center stage as architects of a new global financial architecture that works for us.”

Africa, he noted, was facing multiple crises that it was not directly responsible for but bore the worst impacts from the Ukraine-Russia war, COVID-19, and high indebtedness to climate change.

The financial difficulties that Africa is currently facing are not solely the result of COVID-19 or recent conflicts but also have their roots in an inadequate global financial architecture and a multilateral financial system that does not adequately serve Africa’s needs, Gatete told IPS.

The African Union is pushing for Africa to have a permanent seat in the UN Security Council. Credit: Busani Bafana/IPS

Referring to the creation of the UN in 1945, Gatate pointed out that the five permanent members of the Security Council—China, the United States, the United Kingdom, France, and Russia—made up almost 50 percent of the world’s population then, but today that figure is just 26 percent.

“While Africa now represents nearly 20 percent of the global population, it is not represented at the G7, whose proportion of the global population is only 9.7 percent. So how do you solve today’s problems with outdated 80-year old structures that do not reflect the global shifts that have occurred?”

Africa has long pushed for a seat on the UN Security Council, calling for the reform of the United Nations in line with the Ezulwini Consensus, agreed in 2022. The Ezulwini Consensus is a position on international relations and UN reform agreed upon by the African Union. Africa wants at least two permanent seats and five non-permanent Security Council seats chosen by the African Union. 

Addressing the third summit of a group of developing countries (G77) in Uganda in January this year, UN Secretary General, Antonio Guterres said there is agreement for Africa’s representation on the Security Council.

“So for the first time, I’m hopeful that at least a partial reform of the UN Security Council could be possible for this flagrant injustice to be corrected and for Africa to have at least one permanent member in the Security Council,” Guterres said.

A Green Transition Good for Africa

Highlighting that a productive green finance system in Africa has the potential to generate USD 3 trillion by 2030, Gatete urged that Africa needs to move from ‘potential’ to tangible actions with bankable regional projects.

Innovative instruments like debt-for-nature swaps, regional blue bonds, natural capital accounting, and regional carbon markets can provide financing that addresses debt issues and fosters environmental action, he noted, emphasizing that Africa wants a fair price for carbon trading.

“It does not make sense for African countries to earn less than USD 10 per ton of carbon while countries in Europe earn over USD 100.”

A Call to Change the Global Financial Architecture

It is estimated that Africa spends nearly USD 100 billion on debt repayments annually, forcing many governments to defer investments in social spending on health, education, and food security.

ECA Deputy Executive Secretary and Chief Economist, Hanan Morsy, weighed in, saying there is a need to reduce the debt burden on African countries to enable them to allocate more resources to critical sectors like healthcare and education instead of high debt service costs.

“It is imperative to enhance Africa’s voice and representation, shifting from being rule takers to rule makers,” said Morsy, adding, “This involves bolstering international cooperation on taxation and combating IFFs, including reducing tax evasion and profit shifting.”

Deputy Chairperson of the African Union Commission, Monique Nsanzabaganwa, said Africa’s potential to reclaim its long-overdue rightful treatment was materializing as the global landscape took multi-polar shapes and the African Union became a full member of the G20.

“Africa is stronger together,” Nsanzabaganwa said, adding, “I will argue that the value proposition of the African Union is indeed to foster coherence in our strategies and amplify our common voice.”

IPS UN Bureau Report

 

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Whole neighborhoods have been wiped-out in northern Gaza. Credit: 2024 UNRWA Photo by Abdallah El Hajj

By Alon Ben-Meir
NEW YORK, Mar 11 2024 (IPS)

Israel must uphold its moral values and make every effort to spare the lives of innocent Palestinians as it pursues Hamas’ destruction.

The unfathomable massacre of Israeli Jews by Hamas and its insatiable thirst for Jewish blood has rightfully evoked the most virulent condemnation from many corners of the world, including many Arab states. The call for revenge and retribution by many Israelis was an instinctive human reaction that can be justified in a moment of incomparable rage and devastation.

In this case, the Israelis’ reaction transcended Hamas’ massacre because it brought to life memories from the Holocaust that the Jews foresworn to never let happen again. But it happened, though on a much smaller scale; the savagery and the cold-bloodedness that characterized Hamas’ attack was reminiscent of the Holocaust, which is etched in the mind and soul of the Jews.

Israel’s decision to crush Hamas as a political movement, destroy its infrastructure, and prevent it from reconstituting itself is necessary, and it should relentlessly be pursued with vigor. Under no circumstances and regardless of what the Jews have experienced, however, can the Israeli military justify any acts of revenge against innocent Palestinian men, women, and children who have nothing to do with Hamas’ evil act.

None of the dead or injured Palestinian women and children were asked by Hamas’ leaders whether they should go and massacre innocent Israelis at an unprecedented scale. Although Hamas knew full well the unimaginable price these ordinary Palestinians would end up paying, Hamas was more than willing let them die by the tens of thousands as the sacrificial lamb on the altar of the most vicious beasts that roam the earth.

After more than six months of fighting that inflicted horrific death and destruction on Gaza and claimed the lives of more than 30,000, two-thirds of them women and children, while laying half of Gaza in utter ruin, one must ask the question: was there a strong element of revenge that contributed to this colossal human disaster? Tragically, the answer is YES.

The role of the victim is deeply ingrained in the Jewish psyche, and the leap from being victim to victimizer is subconscious; acting on it is spontaneous. That said, the extent and the scope of the Israeli reaction calls into question whether or not Israeli soldiers have been engaged in acts of revenge beyond their legitimate right to self-defense while pursuing Hamas’ operatives.

When we see in real-time the destruction of one neighborhood after another, horrendously transcending any proportionality of collateral damage which is often unavoidable in a state of war, we see revenge and retribution.

When soldiers boast of serving in the most moral military force in the world but laugh and dance following the explosion and leveling of a residential building to the ground, killing dozens of civilians among one or two suspected Hamas fighters, it is not an act of self-defense, it is an act of vengeance that defies the logic of what’s moral.

When the entire population of Gaza is facing “catastrophic levels of acute food insecurity” and hundreds of children are dying from curable illnesses because they could not receive the medical treatment and the medicine they need, it is an unforgivable crime the whole world is watching in real-time with revulsion and disdain.

When a majority of the Palestinians are forced to evacuate their homes with women and children, and the sick are forced to walk for miles with little or no rations, not knowing where they will sleep and where the next meal will come from, it is cruel and devoid of any moral culpability.

When an entire family is buried alive under the rubble of their building that collapsed over their heads, and they die a slow death before the rescuers and medical teams can save anyone, it is inhuman and severely damages the high moral ground the Israeli army has proudly claimed.

More than 25,000 women and children have been killed in Gaza, including 258 babies who never had the chance to celebrate their first birthday. Infants and toddlers are children just beginning to discover the world. Can the barbaric and utterly condemnable attack by Hamas on October 7 justify or explain the horrific killing of innocents on this scale?

How can any people who claim to cherish life, steal it away from so many completely innocent children, who had their entire lives ahead of them? This not collateral damage, as some Israeli cynics try to explain it. This is revenge – and the cycle of revenge will continue indefinitely.

Shortly after October 7, I recall an interview with an Israeli soldier who said outright that he ‘needs his revenge.’ Does not that soldier, and everyone who thinks like him, realize that this is precisely how Hamas was operating on October 7? Is it not obvious that revenge, by its very nature, has no end?

It is a mechanical and thoughtless response to injury that repeats itself until one party has the moral strength and courage to say enough is enough: we will not go on slaughtering each other wholesale, exacting retribution on individuals who have committed no wrong, whose deaths are meant only to maximize the suffering of those who loved and cherished them.

Does not every Israeli mother realize that every Palestinian mother cares for their children with the same boundless love that they have for their own? Does Israel truly believe that a Palestinian infant has less value than an Israeli babe-in-arms? Can anyone truthfully believe that the moral response to having one’s innocent loved ones killed is to kill more innocents? And on what scale?

How many dead Palestinian children will it take to satiate the desire for revenge? There is no end, because no matter how many Palestinian children Israel kills, it will not bring back to life a single one of those Israeli younglings that were killed on October 7.

Israel is not honoring its dead by this slaughter and devastation, but just the opposite. It is disgracing the dead and themselves. Israel appears bent on demonstrating before the whole world that it has lost all sense of moral compass, proportionality, pity, and compassion. The Jewish people are better than this: it is they who taught us that to save one human life is to save the world.

The deliberate shedding of innocent blood is and will always be an atrocious act of evil that can never be morally justified. And the time has come for Israel to bring an end to this retribution before it loses its soul and whatever moral sympathy the world had for the wrong it suffered over six months ago.

Prime Minister Netanyahu is justifying this collective punishment by dehumanizing the Palestinians, deeming them unworthy of humane treatment. He is waging a merciless campaign against innocent Palestinians who had nothing to do with Hamas’ acts of terror. For Netanyahu, there is simply no moral equivalence. For him and many of his deplorable followers, the Palestinians are sub-humans, and their lives are unequal to those of Israeli Jews.

Israel will win this war; the question is, will it win it while adhering to Jewish moral values that have guided and ensured their survival throughout the centuries, or win it by leaving behind deep moral wounds that will be etched in memory and history books as one of Israel’s darkest chapters?

They must remember that just about every Arab country will quietly (and some even overtly) cheer the demise of Hamas, but they are and will continue to speak ever louder and clearer about their objection to the killing of innocent Palestinians, especially women and children, and they will scuttle any future prospect of normalization of relations between Israel and other Arab states.

The dehumanization of Palestinians will come back to haunt the Israelis simply because the Palestinians have no other place to go. And whether they are ordinary human beings with hopes and aspirations or subhuman, Israel is stuck with them. And regardless of how the war will end, Israel will have to address the conflict with the Palestinians. The depth of the scars of the war will define the relationship for years to come.

As the death toll and destruction rise in Gaza by the minute, the initial overwhelming sympathy toward Israel’s tragic losses has waned even among many of its friends. Indeed, once Israel loses its moral compass in dealing with the crisis, it will no longer be seen as the victim who rose from the ashes of the Holocaust and has every right to defend itself but the victimizer whose survival rests on the ashes of the Palestinians.

Israel’s ultimate triumph rests on its ability to rise above the fray and adhere to the moral values on which the country was founded and which are the only pillars that can sustain it.

Dr. Alon Ben-Meir is a retired professor of international relations, most recently at the Center for Global Affairs at NYU. He taught courses on international negotiation and Middle Eastern studies.

This article is a selection from Dr Ben-Meir’s upcoming book, A Historic Point of Departure: Bringing the Israeli-Palestinian conflict to a close and creating a new regional geopolitical order, set to be published in April 2024.

IPS UN Bureau

 

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Seaweed farming using the off-bottom seaweed farming approach—tying algal fonds or seaweed seeds to ropes attached between wooden pegs driven into the ocean sediment. Credit: Joyce Chimbi/IPS

By Joyce Chimbi
MWAZARO BEACH, Kenya, Mar 8 2024 (IPS)

Nearly two kilometers into the Indian Ocean from the Mwazaro beach coastline in Lunga Lunga Sub-County, Kwale County, women can be spotted seated in the shallow ocean waters or tying strings to erected poles parallel to the waves. It is a captivating sight to see rows of seaweed farms in the Indian Ocean.

Seaweeds are a group of algae found in seawater and come in green, red, and brown species. The seaweed farms are a predominantly female-dominated form of aquaculture and their owners can only be spotted during low tide, especially in the morning. Once the tide comes in, the women will begin their journey back to the shores as the waters slowly rise.

Saumu Hamadi tells IPS that in 2016, residents of Mwambao village along the Mwazaro beach coastline started a community-led, community-driven initiative to conserve mangroves, protect the environment, and restore their fisheries, which had been destroyed by significant mangrove forest degradation.

“We realized that the more our mangroves disappeared, the fish ran away and so did the fishermen. We rely on fish for food and money. Men sell the big fish, such as the kingfish, shark, and rayfish, to the beach hotels, and women sell crabs and prawns by the roadside or in small village markets. The situation was threatening our daily bread and we decided to volunteer as a community to restore and protect our mangroves,” Hamadi explains.

Rehema Abdalla walking to her seaweed farm, located nearly 1.7 km away from the Mwazaro Beach coastline. Seaward farming is conducted in the ocean during low tides. Credit: Joyce Chimbi/IPS

 

Rehema Abdalla and Saumu Hamadi walking to their seaweed farms, where other women are already hard at work, sorting and packing their harvests. Credit: Joyce Chimbi/IPS

 

Rehema Abdalla and Saumu Hamadi weigh seaweed using a home scale. Credit: Joyce Chimbi/IPS

 

Women at work at the seaweed farm. Credit: Joyce Chimbi/IPS

“There were too many people cutting down mangrove trees, destroying the places that the fish we depend on call home. There was also a lot of soil erosion and the water flowing along the River Hamisi that pours into the Indian Ocean within this village’s coastline carried the soil into the ocean, polluting it. We formed two community groups: Mwambao Mkuyuni Youth and Bati Beach Mwambao. Women make up 80 percent of the members in both groups.”

Abdalla Bidii Lewa, a community coordinator on mangrove restoration in Pongwe Kikoneni ward where Mwambao village is located and chair of Bati Seaweed Farmers, tells IPS, “Mangroves have protected our villages and surrounding areas from extreme weather and disasters such as those that affected large parts of the coastal region during the heavy floods in November and early December 2023. Where houses were swept away and farmlands destroyed, we were safe from the disaster.”

Seaweed farming. Credit: Joyce Chimbi and Cecilia Russell/IPS

Research shows mangroves significantly prevent the progression of climate change while also playing a major role in limiting its impact. This is critical as temperatures rise dangerously, sea level shoots to alarming levels, and coastal climate-induced disasters become frequent, intense, and severe, with catastrophic results.

To avert coastal climate hazards and secure mangrove-related benefits for present and future generations, the community undertook mangrove conservation and restoration activities in earnest.

Then, in 2017, a scientist conducting research into seaweed farming using the off-bottom seaweed farming method—tying algal fonds or seaweed seeds to ropes attached between wooden pegs driven into the ocean sediment—approached women in the community.

“Of the two seaweed strains that grow on Kenya’s south coast, cottonii and spinosum, the scientist recommended that we plant spinosum and gave us the seeds. Seaweeds do not need something to grow on. We erect sticks into the ground inside the ocean water during low tides and plant seaweed seeds by tying them to strings fastened on these sticks. We harvest every 45 days. We have to tie the strings and place the sticks properly so that they are not swept away during high tides,” says Rehema Abdalla, a seaweed farmer in Mwambao village.

On concerns that aquaculture could form the entry point for mangrove degradation, Hamadi says, “It is not the case with seaweed. The mangroves are important to the survival of our seaweeds by ensuring that we have normal, safe tides and waves. When seaweeds are swept away, they stay trapped within the roots of the mangroves and we collect them from there. It is rare, but once in a while, the tides can be very strong.”

Lewa says seaweed farming is emerging as a new and sustainable climate change mitigation strategy while offering communities adjacent to mangroves and coastlines an alternative livelihood, reducing dependency on fishing and natural resources inside mangrove forests and the oceans. Seaweeds are superfoods, highly nutritious, can be used in sushi, soups, salads, and smoothies, and are an asset in the feed industry, cosmetics, and pharmaceuticals.

“The amount of seaweed harvested depends on the amount planted and every 45 days, you will get a harvest. At the moment, one kilogram of seaweed goes for USD 0.22 (Ksh 35). I am currently targeting making USD 467 (Ksh 75,000) every 45 days from seaweed. We also sell seaweed seeds to other women doing mangrove conservation, such as Imani Gazi and the Gazi Women Mangrove Restoration Group, from within Kwale County,” Hamadi says.

Seaweeds compliment mangroves by absorbing nutrients such as nitrogen, phosphorous, and carbon dioxide. They do not require soil, fertilizer, freshwater, or pesticides, and they significantly improve the environment in which they grow. Seaweeds efficiently absorb carbon dioxide, using it to grow and even when harvested, the carbon remains in the ocean.

Research shows that seaweed can pull more greenhouse gases from the water compared to seagrass, salt marshes, and mangroves based on biomass. Mwazaro’s beach community is on track to add seaweed as part of their blue carbon sink, setting the pace for other coastal communities.

All the same, the women are facing challenges such as a lack of mortar boats to help transport their harvest to the shore. Currently, they use a tedious process whereby they tie sacks of seaweed on their waste and wait for the onset of high tide in the early afternoon to push them from the seaweed farms to the shore. They are also struggling to access a larger market, currently relying on one major large-scale buyer and small buyers within the village and other mangrove conservation groups from neighboring villages.

IPS UN Bureau Report

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

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Excerpt:

As the world celebrates International Women’s Day, IPS brings a story of women who are both creating economic opportunities for themselves and helping to reduce the impact of climate change.

Credit: WFP/Arete/Siegfried Modola

By Olivier De Schutter and Luis Felipe López-Calva
WASHINGTON DC, Mar 8 2024 (IPS)

Poverty is multidimensional. If we think of classical thinkers, Adam Smith referred to the basis of self-respect and the importance of being able to “appear in public without shame,” while John Rawls wrote about “primary goods,” which included rights and liberties as well as income and wealth.

Amartya Sen, advancing in formalization, brought the notion of “functionings” as the “beings and doings” effectively available to people in their capability set, so they can “pursue the life plans they have reasons to value.”

It is mainstream today to argue that poverty is multidimensional, moving beyond just access to goods and services. But exploring which dimensions are “appropriate” in each context has been a fundamental pursuit of development analysts and practitioners in recent decades.

It has been almost 30 years since Sabina Alkire devoted her work to the understanding, classification, and measurement of the many dimensions of poverty, particularly those that are “hidden” in our concepts and indicators.

Indeed, there are some dimensions associated with experiencing the condition of poverty that cannot be so easily observed and have not been properly measured yet are very important when it comes to policy effectiveness.

Those dimensions include aspects related to emotions that trigger behavioural responses: feelings of isolation, discrimination, effects on the sense of dignity and self-respect, and disempowerment. We have come a long way in our thinking about poverty, but our actions to tackle it and to understand the complex interactions between dimensions remains underdeveloped.

At the World Bank, the project on “Voices of the Poor,” started almost 30 years ago, strove to think differently about poverty. It drew on the views of 60,000 people living in poverty across 60 countries to better understand the challenges they faced, helping expand our understanding of poverty to include not only income and consumption but also lack of access to education and health, powerlessness, voicelessness, vulnerability, and fear.

Later, in 2012, the Social Observatory project used a broader view of poverty dimensions to make anti-poverty projects more adaptive—and ultimately more effective. Since 2018, the World Bank’s multidimensional poverty measure has gone beyond monetary deprivation to include other dimensions such as access to education, health, nutritional, and basic infrastructure services.

And in 2023, the World Bank began publishing the multidimensional poverty index—an effort by the Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative and the United Nations Development Programme—which is especially pertinent for low-income countries.

More recently, researchers from the University of Oxford and the global anti-poverty movement ATD Fourth World uncovered a set of “hidden dimensions of poverty” through a three-year participatory research project in six countries (Bangladesh, Bolivia, France, Tanzania, the United Kingdom, and the United States) that sought to further refine our understanding of poverty.

The teams identified nine dimensions of poverty that were common across all countries, despite the vastly different circumstances in each, using the “merging of knowledge” methodology. This approach brings together people in poverty (with their knowledge of the reality of poverty), academics (with their scientific knowledge), and practitioners (with their action-based knowledge).

The identified dimensions included a lack of decent work or income, of course, but also feelings of powerlessness, lacking control, and experiencing “povertyism” (negative attitudes and behaviours toward people living in poverty).

These lesser-recognized and lesser-visible dimensions of poverty are no less important for policies designed to combat poverty than a person’s income or access to employment. Escaping poverty will be far more difficult if you don’t also address the discrimination people in poverty face, the shame they experience, or the “aspirations gap” that results from being raised in a low-income household.

But until now, policy makers have lacked the practical tools they need to properly capture and combat these hidden, and thus largely ignored, dimensions of poverty.

The Inclusive and Deliberative Elaboration and Evaluation of Policies (IDEEP) tool, which was presented at the ATD Fourth World, International Monetary Fund, and World Bank conference on Addressing the Hidden Dimensions of Poverty in Knowledge and Policies, is the first of its kind to help policy makers transform the findings of this research into action.

Created in partnership between the UN Special Rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights and ATD Fourth World, the IDEEP tool supports policy makers in designing, implementing, and evaluating anti-poverty policies in direct partnership with people in poverty, ensuring all its dimensions, including those that are “hidden,” are taken into account.

This is crucial, given that policies that do not account for the views and lived experiences of people in poverty tend to be riddled with blind spots, particularly around these hidden dimensions.

The IDEEP tool identified social isolation among disadvantaged communities as an unintended result of a housing project in Mauritius, for example, and institutional maltreatment resulting in fewer people accessing social protection benefits in France.

The right to participation is a human right. Only by upholding it will we achieve better informed, more effective, and more imaginative policy making. Yet the record of participatory processes in anti-poverty policy making is mixed, with policy makers often simply “informing” or “consulting” people in poverty, rather than recognizing them as the real experts about the obstacles they face.

To combat this, we need to go one step further in our efforts to fulfil the right to participation by introducing the idea of “deliberation,” which is defined in the IDEEP tool as bringing together different groups, including people in poverty, who meet, present arguments based on their unique insights, weigh them up, and propose actionable solutions.

The IDEEP tool offers a new, deliberative approach to anti-poverty policy making, one that recognizes the power imbalances inherent in traditional participatory processes and brings together different groups as equals to debate potential solutions before arriving at a consensus. This is a true merging of knowledge.

This approach is especially urgent as we rapidly head towards 2030, the target year for achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), including the goal of eradicating extreme poverty for all people everywhere (SDG1). If we continue on a path of business as usual, we will not achieve this ambitious goal.

We need to widen our perspective and rethink how we can jumpstart a process of inclusive and sustainable growth for all; this includes engaging with those with lived experiences in poverty in the search for meaningful, holistic policy solutions. Without embracing this, efforts to combat poverty—and its hidden dimensions—will fall flat.

Olivier De Schutter is UN Special Rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights, Human Rights Council; Luis Felipe Lopez-Calva is Global Director, Poverty and Equity Global Practice.

Source: World Bank

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Credit: UNESCO

By Thalif Deen
UNITED NATIONS, Mar 8 2024 (IPS)

The Paris-based UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), whose mandate includes promoting the safety of journalists and ensuring press freedom worldwide, has pointed out that 2023 has been a particularly deadly year for journalists who work in conflict zones.

Audrey Azoulay, UNESCO Director-General, said at least 38 journalists and media workers were killed in the line of work in countries in conflict in 2023, compared to 28 in 2022 and 20 in 2021.

The ongoing hostilities in the Middle East were responsible for a large majority of conflict-related killings, with UNESCO having so far reported 19 killings in Palestine, 3 in Lebanon and 2 in Israel since 7 October.

The killings of journalists also took place in conflict zones and civil wars in Afghanistan, Cameroon, Syria and Ukraine.

“This is a dramatic toll. Never in a recent conflict has the profession had to pay such a heavy price in such a short space of time”.

“I call on regional and international actors to take immediate action to ensure that international law is respected. Journalists should never, under any circumstances, be targeted. And it is the responsibility of all actors to ensure that they can continue to exercise their profession safely and independently,” she said.

Jodie Ginsberg, CEO of Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), told IPS “the near-record high number of journalist killings in 2023 clearly indicates that we must work collectively to ensure that journalist killers are brought to justice, that a culture of safety prevails in newsrooms, and that the public’s right to be informed is protected from those whose power is threatened by the scrutiny of reporting.”

UNESCO said the figures do not include deaths of journalists and media workers in circumstances unrelated to their profession, which have also been reported in significant numbers in 2023.

And these tragedies are only the tip of the iceberg, with widespread damage and destruction of media infrastructure and offices and many other kinds of threats such as physical attack, detention, the confiscation of equipment or denial of access to reporting sites. Large numbers of journalists have also fled or stopped working.

Such a climate contributes to what UNESCO is describing as “zones of silence” opening up in many conflict zones, with severe consequences for access to information, both for local populations and the world at large.

This global trend can be explained by a significant decline in killings outside of conflict zones, which have reached their lowest total for at least fifteen years – especially in Latin America and the Caribbean, where 15 killings were reported, compared with 43 in 2022, according to UNESCO.

In a March 7 report, CPJ provided its most recent and preliminary account of journalist deaths in the war. “Our database will not include all of these casualties until we have completed further investigations into the circumstances surrounding them.”

“The Israel-Gaza war has taken a severe toll on journalists since Hamas launched its unprecedented attack against Israel on October 7 and Israel declared war on the militant Palestinian group, launching strikes on the blockaded Gaza Strip”.

CPJ said it is investigating all reports of journalists and media workers killed, injured, or missing in the war, which has led to the deadliest period for journalists since CPJ began gathering data in 1992.

As of March 7, CPJ’s preliminary investigations showed at least 95 journalists and media workers – higher than the UNESCO figures– were among the more than 31,000 killed since the war began on October 7—with more than 30,000 Palestinian deaths in Gaza and the West Bank and 1,200 deaths in Israel.

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) told Reuters and Agence France Press news agencies last October that it could not guarantee the safety of their journalists operating in the Gaza Strip, after they had sought assurances that their journalists would not be targeted by Israeli strikes, according to a Reuters report.

Journalists in Gaza face particularly high risks as they try to cover the conflict during the Israeli ground assault, including devastating Israeli airstrikes, disrupted communications, supply shortages, and extensive power outages.

CPJ said reporting from the front lines of a conflict is one of the most challenging assignments a journalist can undertake.

“It is important that journalists prepare before an assignment to understand the environment they are entering –and the deadly threats they may face”.

Striking a more personal note, the CPJ said it is deeply saddened by the killing of Al-Jazeera Arabic camera operator Samer Abu Daqqa and the injuries suffered by his colleague, Al-Jazeera Gaza bureau chief Wael Dahdouh who was injured in what was believed to be an Israeli drone strike in Khan Yunis, southern Gaza, on December 15.

The CPJ called on international authorities to conduct an independent investigation into the attack to hold the perpetrators to account.

The wife, son, daughter and grandson of Wael Dahdouh, were also killed in an Israeli air raid.

IPS UN Bureau Report

 

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Women's demonstrations to demand respect for their rights are held in Latin American cities on Mar. 8, International Women's Day, calling on governments in the region to invest in promoting gender equality. The photo shows a march in Lima on Mar. 8, 2023. CREDIT: Walter Hupiú / IPS

By Mariela Jara
LIMA, Mar 7 2024 (IPS)

Time is running out to achieve gender equality in Latin America and the Caribbean by 2030. The autonomy of women and girls in the region is threatened by hunger, poverty and violence, and countries must urgently step on the gas.

For Mar. 8, International Women’s Day, United Nations agencies have focused on progress made towards the gender targets of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) of the 2030 Agenda approved in 2015."In the context of low and volatile economic growth in the region, it is necessary to invest in women, because there is a historical debt to their rights and because this kind of spending has the potential to accelerate sustainable development." -- Ana Güezmes

“In our region, only 25 percent of the targets for which information is available in the SDG monitoring indicators allow us to foresee their fulfillment by 2030,” said Ana Güezmes, chief of the Division for Gender Affairs of the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC).

From ECLAC headquarters in Santiago, Chile she told IPS that 48 percent of the goals have seen progress, albeit insufficient, in the right direction, while there has been backsliding on 27 percent.

The slogan set by the United Nations for this Mar. 8 is “Invest in Women: Accelerate Progress”, calling for greater spending by governments to achieve SDG 5, which has a global deficit of 360 billion dollars per year.

In the region, there are both progress and concerns regarding SDG 5, which refers to achieving gender equality and empowering women and girls.

Güezmes said the region is moving ahead in terms of strengthening policies and laws, but that the challenge is to accelerate the implementation and enforcement of government measures in order to increase the rate of progress towards substantive equality.

Ana Güezmes, chief of the Gender Affairs Division of the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC), stressed to IPS the need to ensure investment in women to achieve gender equality. CREDIT: ECLAC

She said improvement has been slow towards other SDG 5 targets, such as the elimination of violence against women and girls, the eradication of child marriage, and the recognition and valuation of unpaid domestic and care work. And she added that the region continues to lag behind in technology for the empowerment of women.

Güezmes, a physician by profession, and an advocate for women’s human rights, a care society and gender equality, has held senior positions in the region at UN Women, the UN Population Fund (UNFPA), the World Health Organization (WHO) and the Pan-American Health Organization (PAHO) over the past 30 years.

 

Greater inequality among poor, indigenous and rural populations

Latin America and the Caribbean, which in 2022 was home to 334.627 million girls and women, 50.8 percent of the regional population according to the World Bank, are facing several crises.

The region was one of the hardest hit by the Covid-19 pandemic and for the last 10 years has averaged a meager 0.8 percent annual economic growth rate, affecting its population, which is suffering from poverty, food insecurity and lack of employment, all of which hit girls and women harder.

In Latin America, only 27 percent of the targets of Goal 5 of the Sustainable Development Goals, which promotes gender equality and the empowerment of women and girls, have been met. In this context, rural women – like this Quechua mother from the Peruvian Andes – are part of the most unequal female population in the region, affected by poverty, food insecurity and violence. CREDIT: Mariela Jara / IPS

On Feb. 28, ECLAC, in partnership with UN Women, presented a study on the state of progress towards gender equality in the region, which highlighted the gaps that hinder the rights of women, girls and adolescents.

Three out of 10 girls and women live in poverty and one out of 10 in extreme poverty, with higher rates among indigenous, black and rural women. Likewise, four out of 10 women suffer some level of food insecurity and hunger.

Of those over 15 years of age, 25 percent have no income of their own, a proportion that rises to 40 percent among those in the lowest socioeconomic quintile.

Nayda Quispe, from the Peruvian department of Cuzco, is one of the 3.4 million rural women in the Andean country. She has dedicated her life to agriculture and, at 62 years of age, is well aware of the harsh reality of rural life for women.

“We constantly experience inequality here. Women work all day, but are not paid or recognized for their efforts, continue to be pushed to the back burner, and because of economic dependence stay in violent relationships,” she told IPS during a meeting ahead of Mar. 8 in Cuzco, the capital of the southern Andean department.

Nayda Quispe, a Peruvian farmer from the department of Cuzco, pointed out the state of the soil as a result of the 2023 drought. She regretted that the authorities do not invest in the development of rural women who need access to education and technical training to be able to work and generate their own income. CREDIT: Mariela Jara / IPS

Quispe is one of the few women in her rural environment who managed to continue her studies, graduating as a biologist and working for a few years in her profession without losing her link with agroecology, to which she is now fully dedicated.

She criticized governments for building cement works instead of investing in education and training for women that would allow them to have decent jobs and earn their own money. “As long as this does not change, we will continue to be the forgotten ones as always,” she complained.

The ECLAC study shows that in Guatemala and Honduras, more than 50 percent and 43 percent of women, respectively, have no income of their own – among the highest levels in the region.

Güezmes stressed the impact this has on women’s economic independence, a necessary condition for physical autonomy and a life free of violence.

“Gender-based violence against women and girls occurs systematically and persistently in the region, in both the domestic and public spheres,” she said.

She highlighted the problem of early and forced child marriages and unions, which affect one out of every five girls in the region. Suriname, Nicaragua, Honduras, Belize, the Dominican Republic and Guyana lead with percentages above 30 percent. Only four countries have percentages below 20 percent: Costa Rica, Argentina, Peru and Jamaica.

In addition, the ECLAC study reports that in this region, considered to have the highest levels of gender-based violence, an average of 338 women per month and 11 per day are victims of gender-based homicide, or femicide. In 2022 at least 4050 women fell victim to this crime, 70 percent of whom were of reproductive age between 15 and 44 years.

María Eugenia Sarrias, head of Lxs Safinas, a lesbian feminist organization in Argentina, complained about the setbacks in the rights of women and minorities under the administration of far-right President Javier Milei. CREDIT: Lxs Safinas

Achievements at risk

The weakening of democracies in the region has had a direct impact on women’s rights. Achievements in gender institutionality in Argentina, for example, are in marked decline, including the right to abortion, under the government of far-right President Javier Milei, thus affecting progress towards the SDGs.

“Under Milei, women and minorities are heavily harassed. The era of rights is over; the right wing has arrived to cut back on the advances we had made in sexual and reproductive rights, gender equality and LGTBIQ+ rights,” María Eugenia Sarrias, president of Lxs Safinas, a lesbian feminist organization based in the Argentine city of Rosario, told IPS.

She added from that city that the setbacks in social policies have caused shortages in soup kitchens and school lunches. “They’re trying to pay the debt with the hunger of the people. The freedom they talk about is only for those who hold power and have money. We, women and minorities, are facing a very big risk,” she warned.

In El Salvador, President Nayib Bukele announced this month, as his first measure after his landslide reelection, the elimination of all vestiges of the gender perspective in public education, shortly after participating in a gathering of far-right leaders with former U.S. president and candidate Donald Trump.

There is also great concern in Ecuador, where emergency measures are in place to deal with organized crime.

“There are many more women who are impoverished, migrants and victims of violence not only from their partners but also from groups linked to crime,” Clara Merino, coordinator of the Luna Creciente National Movement of Women from Popular Sectors, told IPS.

She argued from Quito that if things continue the way they are going, it will not be possible to achieve gender equality by 2030. “The budget for education, health, human rights and women has been cut. It is impossible for government action to reach the territories where indigenous and black women live, where hunger, child malnutrition and migration of young people are on the rise,” she stressed.

The decriminalization of abortion is one of the demands of Latin American women. In the picture, a sign warns about the danger of clandestine abortions, at a demonstration during a meeting of the Organization of American States in the Dominican Republic, which criminalizes abortion in all circumstances, despite having the highest teenage pregnancy rate in the region. CREDIT: Mariela Jara / IPS

Investing in care

Güezmes said that “in the context of low and volatile economic growth in the region, it is necessary to invest in women, because there is a historical debt to their rights and because this kind of spending has the potential to accelerate sustainable development.”

She gave as an example investment in the care system to break the vicious circle of exclusion and transform it into a virtuous one with multiple positive social and economic effects such as generating employment, higher income and well-being.

“We are the only region in the last 45 years that has promoted an ambitious and comprehensive Regional Gender Agenda that, through the Buenos Aires Commitment, says care should be seen as a right, a need and a job. Addressing it in these three dimensions is essential to achieve the profound change that our societies need,” she underlined.

Excerpt:

This feature is part of a series to mark International Women’s Day, March 8.

By James A Michel
VICTORIA, Republic of Seychelles, Mar 7 2024 (IPS)

Beneath the vast expanse of the ocean surface lies another world. At first, around the shores, the continental shelf is little more than an extension of the adjoining landmass. But then one reaches the edge of the abyss and, with the sudden drop that follows, everything changes. Remarkably, in view of what is known about the rest of the planet, and even outer space, most of the ocean floor remains largely a mystery. The scientific consensus is that only 5% of the deep sea has been explored in any detail. When a passenger jet was lost somewhere in the Indian Ocean in 2014, rescuers floundered without definitive maps of the maritime space and its currents at different depths that might have helped in their search.

James A Michel

At least we have a broad impression of what lies there. There is an average depth of some 3800 metres before one reaches the ocean floor, a surface every bit as diverse as the terrestrial landscape. Here, one finds mountain ranges and peaks that match and even surpass the height of those on land; a mid-ocean ridge that wends its way over a length of 40,000 kilometres between continents around the globe; seemingly endless plains and deep ravines; unexpected gradient falls that plunge in one location to more than 11,000 metres below the surface; scattered eruptions of warm waters (known as hydrothermal vents) emanating from the earth’s interior, which create their own ecosystems; as well as much larger, active volcanoes capable of upsetting the rhythms of the sea far beyond their own points of turbulence; and, in contrast with hydrothermal vents, cold methane seeps which also give rise to their own (albeit very different) micro life systems. Underlying these individual features is a dynamic platform of tectonic plates, responsible for varied geological formations in the past and still capable of causing further movement.

Such is the remarkable physical backcloth for a new era of underwater activity – mining for an array of metals – that is currently high on the commercial and political agenda for ocean development. There is growing pressure from multi-national consortia working with individual countries, small as well as large, to go beyond the present limits of exploration, with a view to widespread excavation. On the basis of a series of targeted explorations, the list of minerals to be found in the deepest parts of the ocean is becoming irresistible for countries and corporations alike. The potential costs of extraction will be enormous but so, too, the returns. Gold, platinum, copper, cobalt, nickel, manganese, lead, lithium, titanium and zinc are amongst the treasures that might soon be brought to the surface. Reserves include rare earth elements that are used in products such as memory chips, batteries for electric vehicles and solar panels. Paradoxically, some of these seabed minerals can help to reduce dependence on fossil fuels.

There is, however, a very high price to pay in terms of ocean sustainability. What is already known about the seabed reveals a unique ecosystem that has been intact throughout human history. In the deepest reaches, myriad creatures have adapted to an inhospitable world without sunlight. Some have developed their own forms of illumination, others survive in total darkness. They are extraordinary creatures, most of which we still know little about. Yet this fragile environment that has taken millions of years to evolve could be devastated in a short burst of mining, where science-fiction machines are lowered to scrape and collect for a new generation of mobile phones and smart gadgets in the home. In the words of David Attenborough:

The rush to mine this pristine and unexplored environment risks creating terrible impacts that cannot be reversed. We need to be guided by science when faced with decisions of such great environmental consequence.

The United Nations’ agency, the International Seabed Authority, has granted exploration licences but has so far been constrained by international pressure from going to the next stage of allowing excavation. A moratorium is urged, at least until we understand the implications of what is proposed, and so far the agreement is just about holding.

My own view is that it would be tragic to destroy such an enthralling wilderness, containing so many unique features and on this vast scale. There are too few undeveloped areas of the world and this of one of the last. Surely we have a responsibility to do what is right for the planet, putting ethics before raw profits. Options need to be properly explored, asking if we really need these metals and whether the price can be justified. There is still time to pull back, but only just.

It is humanity itself which is now on the edge of the abyss.

James A Michel is Former President of the Republic of Seychelles.

IPS UN Bureau

 

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Agathe and her two children cleaning the harvest of groundnuts produced from her 3 hectare plot. Credit: SADC-GMI

By Thokozani Dlamini
PRETORIA, South Africa, Mar 7 2024 (IPS)

International Women’s Day 2024 serves not only as a celebration of women’s achievements across different sectors but also as a reminder of the persistent obstacles hindering gender equality. In line with the 2024 theme, “Inspire Inclusion,” it is imperative for every individual and organization to actively engage in promoting inclusive environments. The adoption of such initiatives fosters safe and respectful spaces where women’s contributions are valued and celebrated.

This International Women’s Day, we shine a light on Agathe, a 25-year-old smallholder farmer from the outskirts of Kilimwandu, in the Democratic Republic of Congo who was introduced to farming at the tender age of 15.

Agathe epitomizes the diligence and resilience of women who are at the forefront of ensuring regional food security and driving socio-economic transformation.

Smallholder women farmers like Agathe make up an estimated 60-80% of the agricultural labour force in Africa, highlighting the significant reliance on their effort for the continent’s sustenance.

Tackling critical barriers, such as secure land ownership, access to finance, comprehensive training, and robust market connections, is fundamental. Such support would not only empower women farmers, increasing their productivity but would also contribute to heightened food security and improved household incomes

Batanayi Gwangwawa, SADC-GMI
It’s widely recognized that about 80% of the poorest people in the world live in rural areas, with agriculture being their primary means of livelihood. These farmers, mostly women, sustain their families by cultivating crops and rearing animals on small plots of land.

For millions of women, particularly in rural Southern Africa, Groundwater remains a lifeline, underscoring its importance not just for consumption, but as a critical resource for food production and community stability.

On a recent field visit to Kimpangu, the team from SADC-GMI gained firsthand insights into the pivotal role women play in agriculture and the myriad of challenges they confront, as related by Agathe herself.

Today, we honour Agathe and countless other women like her who are the unsung heroes of the agricultural sector, sustaining economies and nurturing communities with their toil and passion.

Agathe dedicates herself to the three-hectare plot of land entrusted to her by her family, nurturing groundnuts, and diverse crops to support herself and her two young children. “As a devoted mother, my day starts early ensuring that my two children have breakfast and well taken care of, after which I head to my farm. On the field, I invest approximately seven hours each day, toiling to ensure a stable livelihood for my family”, she continued.

Despite her dedication, the income she derives from her small-scale farm is insufficient to afford education expenses, leaving her children’s future uncertain.

“My story is exemplary of the challenges faced by numerous women farmers: I lack ownership of the land I farm, have no direct access to markets to sell my produce, and endure the absence of reliable transportation means” she highlighted as she was narrating her story.

This predicament is compounded by the lack of an alternative water source for irrigation, forcing her to depend solely on natural rainfall, which is increasingly unpredictable. Her resilience in the face of these adversities is a testament to the strength and tenacity of countless women who persist in smallholder agriculture under similar constraints.

Climate change threatens the already erratic rainfall that Agathe relies on, endangering her livelihood and regional food security.

This makes groundwater a more sustainable option for smallholder farmers like Agathe and Southern Africa region. SADC-GMI’s mandate is to promote the conjunctive use and management of surface and groundwater through developing water infrastructure and services, such as wells, and solar pumped irrigation systems.

Supported by the Global Environment Facility (GEF) and the Cooperation in International Waters in Africa (CIWA) through the World Bank, SADC-GMI has been able to and continues to establish community groundwater supply schemes which are contributing to regional food security, access to potable water and climate resilience and adaptation for the vulnerable. Women became an integral part and main beneficiaries of these projects.

Ms. Batanayi Gwangwawa –Environmental and Social Management Specialist for SADC-GMI believes that as a collective we can reinforce the essential role of women by championing sustainable groundwater management, implementing policies and initiatives sensitive to gender needs, and enhancing women’s skills in agriculture.

She continues to say that tackling critical barriers, such as secure land ownership, access to finance, comprehensive training, and robust market connections, is fundamental. Such support would not only empower women farmers, increasing their productivity but would also contribute to heightened food security and improved household incomes.

Acknowledging the progress made in women’s empowerment is vital. However, it’s clear that gender parity, particularly in leadership and decision-making roles, remains an area where further effort is necessary.

In the groundwater sector, for example, the representation of women in decision-making positions is disproportionately low, with only one in five roles occupied by females.

This highlights the ongoing need to promote equal opportunities for women and create systemic changes that enable them to participate fully and equally in sectors that are essential for community development and resource management.

SADC-GMI is steadfast in advancing the implementation of its Gender Equality and Social Inclusion strategy (2021- 2025) , which is built on the fundamental goal of amplifying women’s participation across all our projects to maximize impact.

Empowerment of women is not just about equity—it’s about enabling them as powerful agents of socio-economic change, critical for the sustainable transformation of our communities.

 

Thokozani Dlamini is SADC-GMI Communication and Knowledge Management Specialist

Africa has recently displayed unapologetic intentionality about its rising emergence from a historically marginalized position in international politics. Credit: United Nations

By Stephanie Musho
NAIROBI, Mar 7 2024 (IPS)

The United Nations Commission on the Status of Women will this month bring together government, civil society, and the private sector to strategize on the acceleration of gender equality, through strengthening institutions and financing from a gender perspective.

This comes a few months after a UN report indicated that it will take almost 300 years to attain gender equality. There is however renewed hope emanating from the efforts of African states – who just like women and girls around the world, have for years been working tirelessly to overhaul an unfair international system and bring down depressing statistics that have become synonymous with them.

Africa has recently displayed unapologetic intentionality about its rising emergence from a historically marginalized position in international politics.

African governments can bolster the acceleration of the attainment of gender equality through the mainstreaming of intersectional feminist values in their evolving yet gallant foreign policy positions

Recently, Egypt and Ethiopia joined South Africa as the only African countries in the BRICS – a geopolitical bloc set up to counter the political and economic dominance of the wealthier nations of North America and Western Europe.

In 2023, the African Union also successfully negotiated its permanent position as a member of the G20 – a leading intergovernmental platform on economic stability and cooperation. Collectively, the G20 controls more than 85% of global gross domestic product, around 75% of global exports, and about 80% of the world’s population.

In this sense, after a 7-year lobbying mission, Africa engineered an overdue shift from a tokenistic and extractive model of engagement that was in operation prior to its recent ascension to meaningful engagement at the decision-making table on a wide range of fiscal and economic issues.

This however remains the reality for women and gender minorities who are habitually included not to contribute to strategy formulation towards solving problems which they experience first-hand, but for the implementation of pre-determined activities often for the compliance with ‘standard form’ gender checklists for the sole purpose of fulfilling diversity quotas.

African Finance Ministers and Central Bank Governors have also been putting up a united front in global financial architecture reform efforts, towards new sources of development financing while deconstructing existing exploitative structures that have the continent in perpetual debt traps.

Parallels could be drawn with discriminatory labor practices and unequal pay, further compounded by unequal education opportunities and harmful traditional practices which push women and girls into vicious poverty and dependency cycles, ultimately cutting off their prospects of self-actualization.

African heads of state and government have reiterated the African position that calls for at least two permanent representative seats on the United Nations Security Council that is mandated to maintain international peace, globally.

Presently, Africa only holds temporary rotational membership despite decades of advocating for meaningful inclusion in this powerful decision-making UN organ. Albeit, given that historically the continent has been used as a battlefield for proxy wars by western states.

Moreover, African nations are increasingly taking up bold foreign policy positions. For example, South Africa recently brought Israel to the International Court of Justice for violation of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, against Palestinians in Gaza.

While it could take years for a final ruling from the Court – and with others arguing that the move was merely symbolic; preliminary orders which stopped short of a ceasefire were in favor of South Africa.

Not only does this set precedent in a longer judicial process as it contributes to the jurisprudence of international criminal law. It also establishes the rising influence of the BRICS member-African state in the global political landscape.

There is then opportunity for more African states to follow this lead on the over 110 active conflicts classified under international humanitarian law, towards accountability for violations occurring in wartime.

These have often been found to disproportionately affect women, girls and non-binary persons including by way of their sexual brutalization.

African governments can bolster the acceleration of the attainment of gender equality through the mainstreaming of intersectional feminist values in their evolving yet gallant foreign policy positions.

This is certain to encompass and integrate all their diversities and tailor suitable and sustainable interventions for their different contexts. Herein lies the promise of feminist foreign policy.

The same exclusive and abusive colonial structures that have for years sidelined the continent in global governance structures including international finance institutions, are the same ones upon which patriarchal structures are founded upon.

Hence, a cross-learning opportunity for civil society and the African bloc of states towards the pursuit of feminist foreign policy with sovereign states and multilateral organizations towards sustainable development. Without this, women, girls and gender minorities will continue suffering systemic inequalities that violate their human rights and freedoms for at least, three centuries.

Stephanie Musho is a human rights lawyer and a Senior New Voices Fellow at the Aspen Institute. 

Takhmina Haidarova, Tajik advocate for the rights of women living with HIV.

By Ed Holt
BRATISLAVA, Mar 7 2024 (IPS)

Born and raised in a rural area in a traditional Tajik family, Takhmina Haidarova managed to finish high school with excellent grades and wanted to go to university.

“[But] it was compulsory for my family to give higher education to boys, and girls were trained to be housewives,” she says. Her dream of higher education was instead replaced by an arranged marriage to a cousin.

“I was strongly against this wedding, but my father decided for me and married me to him. I hadn’t even seen him before the wedding,” she tells IPS.

She became pregnant soon after the wedding, but her husband, who had worked in Russia before he wed her, left to return to his work there two months into the pregnancy. She gave birth to a daughter, who, however, died after falling ill a year later.

Haidarova was referred to doctors, who ran tests and discovered she had HIV.

“When I told my husband about it, it turned out he had known he had HIV for a long time and had hidden it from me,” she says.

Not long after, her husband returned to Tajikistan. He was seriously ill and was admitted to the hospital. When he died soon after, both his and Haidarova’s families found out they both had the disease, and the stigma and discrimination she has faced for many years since then began.

“None of my relatives communicated with me; they all avoided meeting with me,” she tells IPS. “Society in general refuses to recognize people with HIV,” she says.

But Haidarova decided to take a stand against it.

“When I found out I was HIV positive, my life changed dramatically. I lost my family support, my home, my health, and my sense of peace. It was very difficult and painful. But I decided that I would not let this virus define my life or the lives of other women.

“My husband died, and I started to work at an NGO while at the same time pursuing my higher education. Right from the start, I was open about my HIV status and never hid it,” she says.

“I started helping women with HIV because of my own experience of living with the virus. I know how difficult it is to deal with this diagnosis, especially when resources and support are limited,” she adds.

Today, Haidarova is a prominent advocate for the rights of women living with HIV (WLHIV) in Tajikistan, heading the Tajik Network of Women Living with HIV, based in the capital, Dushanbe. The organisation conducts information campaigns, organizes group sessions, and provides psychological and other support services to WLHIV.

“Starting an organization to support women with HIV was a natural step for me. Together with other women, we started to fight for our rights, for access to quality health care, for public education about HIV, and for support for those in the same situation. My goal is to make life easier for women and girls with HIV,” she says.

So far, she says, the work of her organization and others is making some progress. Through years of determined lobbying and cooperation with the government, official policy on HIV/AIDS has moved towards a greater recognition of the need to ensure rights for people living with HIV (PLHIV)—this is specifically set out in the country’s National HIV/AIDS Plan.

One of the most obvious signs of this, HIV advocates say, is a recent ruling by the Supreme Court.

Article 125 of Tajikistan’s Criminal Code currently criminalizes HIV transmission and exposure, carrying a two-year prison sentence, which rises to up to five years for transmission by someone aware of their status, and as much as ten years when committed against multiple people or a minor. Prosecutions can be brought against PLHIV on the basis of just a potential threat of HIV transmission. In some cases, this can be simply the fact that someone is HIV positive.

Women living with HIV make up 70 percent of all convictions under Article 125, according to UNAIDS.

“WLHIV are more often prosecuted [under Article 125]. As a rule, they do not have money for a lawyer [to defend themselves against the charge],” Larisa Alexandrova, an expert on HIV and human rights at the Centre for Human Rights, told IPS.

However, at the end of December last year, the Supreme Court issued a ruling on Article 125 under which the judicial system should in the future take into account other factors apart from simply HIV status, such as whether someone is on antiretroviral treatment and has an undetectable viral load, condom use, and if both parties are fully aware of the other’s HIV status.

Haidarova is optimistic that the ruling will bring positive change and believes it is an important first step towards decriminalizing the disease, which should help WLHIV.

But as some HIV activists in Tajikistan told IPS, what is written on law books is one thing, and what actually happens in practice is another.

“There are laws on paper that guarantee human rights equality for people in marginalized communities, including women. But the public, the police and judiciary, and even wider society break these laws on a regular basis,” one HIV activist who works with marginalized communities in Tajikistan told IPS.

People living with HIV, especially women, routinely report discrimination in the healthcare sector. Haidarova says she is no stranger to such experiences.

“In 2019, doctors told me the baby I was carrying was dead, and I urgently needed to terminate the pregnancy, but the doctors at the polyclinic kept me in the hallway for two hours and eventually said they would not perform the procedure because I had HIV and they wanted to refer me to another facility. I eventually managed to call a doctor who knew me, and she came and performed the procedure herself.

“Then, when I gave birth to a child last year, when it was time for delivery, I came to the maternity hospital, and they took me from the general maternity ward to the isolation ward. None of the doctors would come to me, and I had to call a doctor I knew who was on vacation at the time and explain the situation. She came to deliver the baby herself.  We live in the 21st century, when medicine is so advanced, but despite all this, women’s rights are violated at vulnerable moments when they are powerless,” she said.

Takhmina Haidarova is hopeful that changes to the law that criminalize HIV exposure and transmission in Tajikistan will ensure women living with HIV are not unfairly targeted.

Meanwhile, in wider society, issues around stereotypes and prejudices about gender-based violence (GBV), in part related to religious beliefs among the majority Muslim population, deepen stigma and discrimination, she says, warning that these are having a dangerous impact on the spread of the disease.

“People who are at risk and in need of HIV information, counseling, and testing face barriers to accessing appropriate health care and services. Many of them fear discrimination and negative attitudes from doctors and other health care providers, so they prefer to go without the help they need,” she says.

Law enforcement is another area where WLHIV faces disproportionate discrimination. Activists say that many women living with HIV are victims of GBV but fear reporting the assault to the police or will often withdraw an allegation not just out of fear of finding themselves without economic support—the overwhelming majority of women in Tajikistan are economically dependent on their husbands—but also because of concerns that their HIV status may be disclosed.

Activists say that in some cases, when police attend incidents of GBV and find the woman involved is living with HIV, they will look to take action against her under Article 125 rather than investigate the assault.

The discrimination and stigma women and others living with HIV face is deterring them from accessing prevention, testing, and treatment services and impacting efforts to tackle the disease, activists say.

Tajikistan has over 15,000 people living with HIV, but the number of new HIV infections has increased by 20% over the past 10 years, and the percentage of new HIV cases among women has risen from 31% in 2011 to 36% in 2022, according to UNAIDS.

Haidarova says the government is committed to strengthening rights for people living with HIV, but that more needs to be done to educate people about it and protect vulnerable groups from discrimination.

As she is keen to stress, her own experience shows that stigma and discrimination around HIV can be overcome.

“My story is a painful one, but  everything is slowly getting better for me now. I started a family of love—my husband is HIV negative, and we have two beautiful, healthy children.

“I proved to my family that people with HIV can live a full life, be happy, start a family, and give birth to healthy children. When they found out I wasn’t dead and that everything was fine with me, they quietly began to communicate with me and invite me to their events. It took some time, but they understood that while HIV is scary, you can live with it,” she says.

IPS UN Bureau Report

 

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Excerpt:

This feature is part of a series to mark International Women’s Day, March 8.

Credit: Equality Now, Tara Carey

By Antonia Kirkland and Bryna Subherwal
NEW YORK, Mar 7 2024 (IPS)

Women’s economic opportunities, rights, and well-being are being denied worldwide by sex-discriminatory laws and policies that curtail women’s access to employment, equal pay, property ownership, and inheritance.

Governments need to take urgent action to repeal or amend sex-discriminatory legislation that is hampering not only the socio-economic progress of women and their families but also of their countries.

The World Bank’s Women, Business, and the Law 2024 report, released this week, finds that none of the 190 countries surveyed has achieved legal equality for women, not even in the wealthiest economies. Women have only 64% of the legal rights that men enjoy, and globally, they earn just 77 cents of each dollar a man earns.

Closing the gap could raise global gross domestic product (GDP) by over 20%, the report says. But at the current pace of reform, the UN estimates it will take until 2310 to remove discriminatory laws against women and close the gender gaps in legal protection.

Sex Discrimination in Economic Status Laws

The 68th Commission on the Status of Women (CSW) provides an important opportunity to hold governments to account for their effectiveness in protecting and advancing women’s rights, including economic rights.

CSW is held annually in March at the UN in New York, and the theme for 2024 focuses on accelerating the achievement of gender equality and empowerment of women and girls through addressing poverty.

To shed further light on discriminatory laws that impinge on women’s economic choices and financial independence, a policy brief by Equality Now, Words & Deeds: Sex Discrimination in Economic Status Laws – 2024 Update, highlights examples of economic status laws that governments promptly need to reform or remove. These laws are found around the world – including in countries considered to be progressive. A few of the many examples are:

In Brazil, women are required by law to retire earlier than men.

• In Cameroon, a husband can legally administer and dispose of his wife’s property.

• In Chile, there is a legal presumption that a husband will have full control of all marital property, as well as any property owned by their wives.

In China, women are legally prohibited from engaging in certain trades, including any which the State specifies female workers “should avoid.”

• In Ireland, fathers can only access 2 weeks of paternity leave, considerably less than mothers. Although an improvement from the law prior to 2016, which stipulated that the mother had to die before a father could obtain benefits, all parents should be treated equally.

• In Madagascar, women are forbidden by law from undertaking any form of night work, except in family establishments.

• In Sri Lanka, a married woman is restricted from disposing of and dealing with property, such as land, without the written consent of her husband.

In Tunisia, laws exist that limit women’s inheritance rights and stipulate sons inherit twice as much as daughters.

Sex-discriminatory laws disadvantage women in many ways

By restricting women’s full economic and social participation, sex-discriminatory laws trap many in poverty and dependence, making them more vulnerable to exploitation and mistreatment by relatives, partners, employers, and the wider society.

Discriminatory family laws can limit women’s ability to consent to marriage and divorce, retain custody of their children following divorce, and access their fair share of wealth in matrimony and inheritance. For example, 43 countries do not grant widows the same inheritance rights as widowers, and 41 prevent daughters from inheriting the same proportion of assets as sons.

Equitable ownership promotes wealth creation and provides economic stability, but 77 countries have at least one constraint on women’s property rights.

In some countries, the law stipulates women must “obey” their husbands and/or male guardians. This puts them at greater risk of domestic abuse, including marital rape, and makes it harder to access justice when their human rights are violated.

A lack of constitutional equality also harms women. In the United States, the US Constitution does not explicitly prohibit discrimination against women. Supporters are calling for the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) to be incorporated, as this would effectively categorize sex as a “protected class” alongside race, religion, and national origin, giving women greater economic rights.

Impacting women’s career and earning potential

Occupational freedom is associated with better job opportunities, earning potential, and professional advancement. Yet 59 countries have laws preventing women from working in specific jobs, and 19 countries allow husbands to legally prevent their wives from working.

Stereotyped traditional gender roles can also leave women shouldering the burden of unpaid domestic labor. Childcare falls almost exclusively on mothers, with women performing 2.8x more unpaid care and domestic work than men. And only 55 countries have paid parental leave laws available to either parent.

Care responsibilities can prevent women from engaging in paid work, limit their career progression, and reduce their income. Additionally, it can make it harder for women to enter or re-enter the labor force, start or run a business, or access retirement funds.

All this contributes to women being overrepresented in insecure, low-paid, and unregulated jobs. It also fuels the gender pay gap, with women often earning less than men for equivalent work. Deplorably, 92 countries fail to guarantee equal pay for equal work. This inequity is compounded when women are denied equal access to pensions on the same basis as men.

Meanwhile, legal systems and social norms frequently undervalue non-financial contributions to family welfare. This is particularly common when marital assets are divided upon divorce oror death, as family laws in many countries only take account of monetary contributions by each spouse.

These obstacles are exacerbated when women’s reproductive rights are curtailed through measures such as abortion bans. Countries like France, which just this week enshrined guaranteed access to abortion in its Constitution, will be better able to leverage women’s economic participation by ensuring their right to bodily autonomy.

Investing in women’s rights benefits everyone

Economic and gender inequalities are intimately linked, and it’s not an exaggeration to say inequality kills. The relationship between gender inequality in the law and peace and economic prosperity is well documented.

The COVID-19 pandemic caused skyrocketing rates of unemployment and damaged the global economy. Although the shock reverberated across industries and communities, women bore the brunt. Preventing future global crises and recessions requires prioritizing changes now to achieve legal equality for women.

Investing in this isn’t just the right thing to do, it’s smart economically. Full legal equality would maximize economic participation by women, adding up to $28 trillion of wealth into the worldwide economy every year, McKinsey estimates.

Holding countries to account for advancing women’s rights

The CSW is a space for governments, civil society, UN bodies, and other stakeholders to discuss challenges and formulate strategies and policies that set best practice global standards on gender equality.

Part of this entails reviewing the implementation of commitments made by countries in various international agreements, such as the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action, which was agreed by 189 UN member states in 1995. The Platform for Action clearly outlines what governments must do to guarantee equality and non-discrimination under the law and promote women’s economic rights.

As governments come together once again at CSW, it’s time to tell them: unlock women’s potential by investing in legal equality. Governments need to address the whole ecosystem of laws and policies to ensure women are not concentrated in the lowest-paid or unregulated jobs and aren’t effectively forced to leave the workforce to take up (unpaid) care responsibilities. And once progressive laws – such as equal pay for equal work – are adopted, governments must robustly implement them.

Ending legal discrimination will enable women to flourish and communities to thrive, boosting global productivity and stimulating economic prosperity across all nations, and for the benefit of all.

Antonia Kirkland is Global Lead, Legal Equality & Access to Justice at Equality Now; Bryna K. Subherwal is Global Head of Advocacy Communications at Equality Now.

Equality Now is a feminist organization using the law to protect and promote the human rights of all women and girls. Since 1992, it’s international network of lawyers, activists, and supporters have held governments responsible for achieving legal equality and ending sexual exploitation, sexual violence, and harmful practices.

IPS UN Bureau

 

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Excerpt:

The following opinion piece is part of series to mark International Women’s Day, March 8.

Women march for their rights on Mar. 8, 2023, in Brasília. Every International Women's Day, Brazilian women take to the streets in towns and cities to protest against sexism, racism and other factors of gender inequality. CREDIT: Lula Marques / Agência Brasil

By Mario Osava
RIO DE JANEIRO, Mar 6 2024 (IPS)

Brazil is beginning to test the effectiveness of a gender pay equality law passed in July 2023, a new attempt to reduce inequality for women in the world of work.

This Friday, Mar. 8, International Women’s Day, is the deadline for companies with more than 100 employees to publish their first half-yearly salary transparency reports, with comparative data on remuneration and the distribution of hierarchical functions between men and women, and between different ethnic groups, nationalities and ages."If you are a black woman, your chances of suffering inequality increase. Restrictions pile up for women who are black and poor from the outlying urban neighborhoods, who are over 40 years old and have had little to no education." -- Marilane Teixeira

To break down the inertia of gender inequality, the United Nations agency that promotes women’s rights, UN Women, decided that this year’s theme for International Women’s Day would be “‘Invest in Women: Accelerate Progress”, which the global community has pledged to achieve by 2030.

The wage equality law “is a measure that just remains on paper, not a practical one,” said Hildete Pereira de Melo, an economist who has been studying gender inequality for more than 40 years and doubts the effectiveness of the new legislation.

Equal pay has been legally established in Brazil since 1943, when the Consolidation of Labor Laws was approved, but it is not enforced, she argued. Even in the courts, women accept any agreement as “the weaker party,” she told IPS in an interview in Rio de Janeiro.

Wage inequality is now punished

But now it is different: a penalty will be imposed on companies that do not publish their semi-annual report, a fine of up to 100 minimum wages, totaling 141,200 reais this year (28,500 dollars), argued Marilane Teixeira, a researcher at the Center for Trade Union and Labor Economics Studies (Cesit) of the University of Campinas.

With the reports from the companies and the data it obtains through other means, the Ministry of Labor and Employment will be able to publish the first results, with an overview of how the more than 50,000 large companies in Brazil deal with the issue of gender- and race-neutral wages.

Previously a company was subject to penalties in the case of “inequalities motivated by segregation,” identified through inspection by the authorities. But now there is a new requirement of a public report, Teixeira told IPS from Brasilia.

The new exposure of companies triggered widespread complaints and arguments that improper data would be revealed, but the report does not include “any stealth data, just averages and percentages of women employees and their positions” in the corporate hierarchy, she explained.

Reactions from businesspersons and repercussions in the media reflect “the impact of the measure” and the changes it will foment, said the economist, who helped the government draft the new law.

“It is a step forward and we hope that it sticks” and is effective, unlike many laws that remain only on paper, said Isabel Freitas, a social worker and technical advisor of the Feminist Center for Studies and Advice (Cfemea).

 

In a Jul. 30, 2023 demonstration, black women in Rio de Janeiro protest against racism, violence and inequalities of which they are the main victims. CREDIT: Tania Rêgo / Agência Brasil

 

Legislative advances

Her positive assessment is based on the “two novelties”: the requirement of the half-yearly report, which constitutes a “public transparency tool” and fosters equality, and the fine imposed on companies that do not comply, of three percent of the total wages and salaries paid by the company.

But the law has limits. It only applies to companies with more than one hundred employees, which means its effect does not reach the small and micro businesses that provide 70 percent of formal sector jobs nor the informal ones that account for about 40 percent of the total number of workers. And the fine cannot exceed the equivalent of 100 minimum wages.

It does not benefit, for example, domestic workers, who number six million in Brazil, mainly black women, who suffer the worst discrimination, Freitas lamented.

But the law is “one more step” that could help in the fight against “the basket of inequalities” affecting Brazilian society, especially women, she told IPS by telephone from Brasilia.

“If you are a black woman, your chances of suffering inequality increase. Restrictions pile up for women who are black and poor from the outlying urban neighborhoods, who are over 40 years old and have had little to no education,” she said.

Inequality suffered by women is not just a matter of wages. They are concentrated in lower paid activities, such as domestic work, basic education and the poorest paid parts of the health care system.

The scarce representation of women at all levels of power is a major obstacle. There are only 91 women in a lower house of 513 deputies and 15 women senators out of a total of 81. In other words, they make up only 17.8 percent of the current Congress (2023-2026) dominated by conservative legislators.

One of the main causes of these inequalities is the sexual division of labor, which assigns to women practically all the work of social reproduction and care tasks, the three interviewees concurred.

A meeting of women ministers of the current Brazilian government with 42 female mayors of large towns and cities to discuss women’s participation in politics and the Brazilian economy. CREDIT: Ministry of Health

 

Cultural hurdles

Added to this is a cultural heritage that uses promotion evaluation criteria that favor male workers, said Teixeira.

When it comes to promotions, companies generally take into account activities “that exclude women, such as weekend courses, trips and dinners with clients,” which are unfeasible for those who have to take care of the house, the children and sick members of the family, she said.

“In Brazil 42 percent of women are solely homemakers, and the other half who are in the labor market are also homemakers,” said Pereira de Melo.

The basic solution to the tangle of factors leading to inequality against women are full-time basic education schools and day care centers providing care for 10 hours a day, with universal coverage for all children in order to neutralize disadvantages for women in the workplace, she said.

The ideal would be full-time school for adolescents as well, but it should be available at least in the first stage, until students are 14 or 15 years old and the absolute need for maternal care is reduced, she said.

In addition, a broad cultural transformation of society would be necessary, especially in relation to the role of women, but culture is something that changes very slowly, she acknowledged.

Initiatives on several fronts are underway in Brazil to drive these changes.

On Mar. 5 the   launched, for example, the campaign “Justice for all women”, to highlight women’s rights in general, including girls, adolescents, pregnant and disabled women, and to promote a gender perspective in all the country’s courts.

Violence against women, reflected in the increase in rape, domestic violence and femicides – gender-related murders of girls and women – is currently a priority of the campaign and the judicial system.

The Articulação das Mulheres Negras do Brasil (Network of Black Women of Brazil) is working to coordinate the action of 45 organizations distributed throughout the country that in the month of March this year are planning 140 demonstrations.

For November 2025, it is preparing a “March against racism, violence and for the good life”, a national mobilization that will culminate in Brasilia, repeating the first march of its kind that took place in 2015, with about 100,000 participants, to demand the rights of 49 million women, that is, a quarter of Brazil’s population of 203 million.

It is a global struggle. “The global economy is based on the systematic exploitation of women,” concludes a study by Oxfam, a confederation of 21 social organizations around the world.

According to its data, women earn only 51 percent of what men earn, as they are concentrated in precarious and poorly paid jobs.

Related Articles

• Black Women, the Most Oppressed and Exploited in Brazil

Excerpt:

This feature is part of a series to mark International Women’s Day, March 8.

By External Source
Mar 6 2024 (IPS-Partners)

 

On March 8th, we celebrate International Women’s Day.

A day to honour the resilience, achievements, and potential of women worldwide.

The world faces crises—geopolitical conflicts, poverty, and climate change.

These exacerbate the global plight of women everywhere.

Furthermore, the global economic and financial systems perpetuate gender inequality.

Less than 50% of working-age women are in the global labour force.

Women spend about three times as many hours on unpaid domestic work as men.

Globally, women in the paid workforce earn 20% less than men on average.

In some countries, this gap jumps to 35%.

More than half of women in the workforce are in the informal economy, often vulnerable in precarious situations.

Unpaid care work by women accounts for over 40% of GDP if valued.

If current trends continue, more than 342 million women and girls could be living in extreme poverty by 2030.

Ironically, there’s a powerful solution: investing in women.

Recognizing women’s rights as an investment issue is critical for creating transformative solutions.

Investing in women enables them to escape a systemic cycle of poverty and truly thrive.

An additional $360 billion is needed per year to achieve gender equality.

But closing gender gaps in employment could boost GDP per capita by 20 per cent.

Closing gaps in care and expanding services with decent jobs could spark almost 300 million jobs by 2035.

This International Women’s Day let’s champion gender equality. “Invest in Women: Accelerate Progress.”

IPS UN Bureau

 

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Philippe Lazzarini, Commissioner-General of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA), briefs reporters at UN Headquarters.

By Naureen Hossain
UNITED NATIONS, Mar 6 2024 (IPS)

UNRWA Commissioner-General Philippe Lazzarini asked the UN General Assembly to urge member states to support the organization’s mandate during this period of unprecedented crisis for the region and the agency. He also called for member states to facilitate a “long-overdue political process” for the two-state solution for Israel and Palestine. Only then, in this context, should UNRWA be allowed to transition.

He was speaking at an informal session of the General Assembly on the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA). This was convened to discuss the ongoing situation with UNRWA’s capacity as a humanitarian and human development agency in Gaza.

Despite its existence for 75 years, UNRWA’s presence was always intended to be temporary. “It is a stain on our collective conscience that for 75 years, UNRWA has had to fill a vacuum left by the lack of a political solution and genuine peace,” said Lazzarini.

The ongoing hostilities in the Gaza Strip and the resulting destruction of UNRWA facilities, which have disrupted humanitarian services in the region, have led to calls to seek alternatives that can deliver on the scale of the agency or to raise concern about whether other agencies can deliver the necessary humanitarian aid.

“UNRWA is facing a deliberate and concerted campaign to undermine its operations and ultimately end them,” said Lazzarini.

Lazzarini argued that dismantling UNRWA during the current crisis would be shortsighted, given that the agency was designed to provide public services such as education and primary healthcare in a region without state authority. “The notion that the Agency can be dismantled without violating a host of human rights and jeopardizing international peace and security is naïve at best,” he said.

Speaking at a press briefing that same day, Lazzarini told reporters, “We can only feel that the worst is yet to come.” He remarked that since January, aid delivery to Gaza has decreased by 50 percent. Since then, famine has become all but inevitable.

Remarking on the dual investigations into UNRWA’s operations, Lazzarini stated that the investigations were necessary as an accountability measure. These investigations were announced after it was revealed that he had terminated the contracts of 12 staff members who were allegedly involved in the October 7 attacks. Lazzarini added that the “swift decision” to terminate the contracts, as well as the investigations, would likely reflect the agency’s ability to follow through on recommendations from a risk management review.

Lazzarini admitted, however, that he had not anticipated the swift action that 16 donor countries took to suspend their funding in the wake of the allegations, which he revealed were conveyed to him in an oral manner.  “I have no regret,” he said, referring to his response to the allegations, “but to be honest, I did not expect that… over the weekend, 16 countries would take that decision.”

The UNRWA chief also indicated that most donor countries would consider resuming their support. For those donor countries, the pressure to pull support came from domestic or public opinion that seems divided over UNRWA rather than foreign policy considerations.

There is some promise that UNRWA will continue to deliver on its mandate with the help of donor states, as was seen with the European Commission’s decision to continue funding the agency, starting with a pledge of 50 million euros. However, this will only go partway into filling the gap of 450 million USD left by the 16 donor countries. Lazzarini warned that without additional funding, the agency would be in “uncharted territory” and would have “serious implications for global peace and security.”

The atrocities that were committed on and since October 7 have only resulted in increasing devastation and tragedy. The international community, as embodied by the General Assembly on Monday, seems largely united in their calls for a humanitarian ceasefire in Gaza and for the safe release of all hostages.

Yet the ongoing hostilities in the region have prevented the UN and its agencies from fulfilling their mandate to safely provide critical emergency aid. Five months on, there is a seeming lack of forward momentum within the Security Council to deliver a ceasefire resolution. UNRWA has been contending with compounding existential questions about its survival as an agency from hostile forces in the Gaza Strip and beyond who call for its dissolution.

IPS UN Bureau Report

 

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By Dana Abed
BEIRUT, Lebanon, Mar 6 2024 (IPS)

Marking International Women’s Day as a mere day of celebration is to strip it of its true meaning, a stab in the back of the generations of feminists who fought to make it a cornerstone for gender justice.

This day is a call to action, a collective demand for substantive change. It must insist on our deepest reflection about how the patriarchy creeps into every aspect of our lives, including into the policies that govern our macroeconomics.

Beyond the flowers and tokenism of celebrating International Women’s Day lies a stark reality, which is the persistent struggle that women face within the confines of a neoliberal economic system. Recent statistics paint a grim picture of the dwindling financial flows that aim to advance gender justice.

According to the latest data, rich governments allocate only 4% of their Official Development Assistance to programs that have “gender equality” centered as their principle objective, with less and less of those funds going directly to the local feminist movements at the forefront of the fight towards gender justice.

There is a continuing alarming trend of governments privatizing public services and cutting away social protection. Along with their dwindling support for feminist and women’s rights organizations, this poses a direct threat to the lives and well-being of women, girls, and non-binary individuals.

The capitalist system is perfectly geared to funnel all the money into men’s pockets. Globally, men own $105 trillion more wealth than women. This is equivalent to four times the size of the entire US economy. The regional differences also showcase how women from the majority world are the most impacted under these exploitative neoliberal systems.

Women make up 75% of the global workforce, particularly in essential health care services, yet it would take 1,200 years for a female worker in the health and social sector to earn what a CEO in the biggest Fortune 100 companies earns on average in one year.

Meanwhile, of course, the sheer amount of unpaid care work that falls upon women’s shoulders hinder their engagement in paid work, and education, among many other spheres. Compared to men, who spend on average around 90 minutes a day on unpaid care work, women spend three times that, on average 4.5 hours.

Our governments around the world urgently need to build a feminist economy and invest in national care systems to address the disproportionate responsibility for care work done by women and girls and ensure access to public services and living wages for carers.

The system we live under is engineered by colonialism, run by capitalism, and supported by the patriarchy. And when those three actors conspire together, it is women in all their diversities, especially women of color who pay the highest prices.

On this International Women’s Day, we demand concrete actions to dismantle and reconfigure the economic structures that are perpetuating gender-based inequalities. It is time to pivot our advocacy towards three crucial asks that can drive substantive change.

First and foremost, international financing institutions and governments must shift power to centre feminist movements and promote the advancement of gender justice. We can do that by decolonizing aid and unconditionally supporting local grassroots feminist and queer movements.

Their voices, often marginalized, deserve amplified recognition and unwavering backing. Funding for these movements needs to be flexible and sustainable to ensure their continued leadership.

Secondly, we need a gender-transformative approach to how we fund the crucial areas of social protection and public services. These are incredibly important in the struggle for women’s equality.

The implementation of progressive taxation, including a substantial wealth tax, is key to funding universal public services that cater specifically to the needs of women, girls, and gender non-binary individuals. This would be a game-changer.

Lastly, we need to guarantee living wages and protection across all sectors, particularly in the care economy. This too is a non-negotiable. This entails introducing fair taxes, including wealth taxes on those who made fortunes on the backs of the rest of us, and legislate them in favor of fair compensation for care work, prioritizing the well-being of communities within and beyond professional spheres.

This International Women’s Day, let us rally for these essential shifts, advocating not only for a day of celebration but one of tangible and equitable progress, too.

Dana Abed, Oxfam, Lebanon’s Influencing Lead in Beirut

IPS UN Bureau

 

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Excerpt:

The following opinion piece is part of series to mark International Women’s Day, March 8.

By Shihana Mohamed
NEW YORK, Mar 6 2024 (IPS)

Recently “Days of Our Lives” star Arianne Zucker sued former co-executive producer Albert Alarr, accusing him of sexual harassment on the set of the long-running daytime show.

The complaint, filed 7th February 2024 in California Superior Court, alleges Alarr repeatedly subjected Zucker and other “Days” employees to “severe and pervasive harassment and discrimination, including sexual harassment, based upon their female gender.”

Since the #MeToo movement began in 2017, workplace sexual harassment has received a great deal of media attention, but attention towards the diversity of the women victimized by sexual harassment is greatly lacking.

Sexual harassment survivors most often sourced in #MeToo-related stories by the media are wealthy white (Caucasian) women who made complaints against senior male executives in the entertainment industry or in politics—think of high profile coverage of Harvey Weinstein’s long history of sexual assault and harassment of women, including actresses Rose McGowan, Ashley Judd, Angelina Jolie, and Gwyneth Paltrow, as well as the news about Gretchen Carlson’s sexual harassment claim against Fox News.

However, these cases are neither relatable to the average American woman’s experience of workplace sexual harassment nor representative of the reality and the severity of sexual harassment as a widespread social problem.

In contrast, the women of color sexually assaulted by Weinstein, including Kenyan-Mexican actress Lupita Nyong’o and Mexican-American actress Salma Hayek, did not receive the same media coverage or public response as white women who made similar allegations. The result is that the public perception of sexual harassment is predominantly associated with white women from middle- and upper-class identities.

This perception was mainly created by the media with its focus on stories of white women, in addition to the lack of diversity in the movement.

Approximately 81% of women have faced sexual harassment in their lives. Despite these high numbers, the overwhelming majority (99.8%) of people who experience sexual harassment at work never file formal charges. Women of color are more likely to experience sexual harassment, yet less likely to report it.

There’s a long way to go until women feel comfortable reporting sexual harassment in the workplace and feel confident in their employers that repercussions will occur.

Historically, the media stereotyped women of color and created a public perception that the impact of sexual harassment on them was not as severe as on white women. To some extent, this perception has to do with the historical context of how women of color endured through slavery, colonization, world wars and conflicts throughout history and how they were portrayed by the media.

During the period of slavery in America, white society overtly believed black women to be innately lustful beings. After the Philippine-American War, World War II, and the Korean and Vietnam Wars, the US occupation of Asian countries propelled local sex industries and sex trafficking rings to serve soldiers.

The media has repeatedly represented East Asian women in a harmful way through its exaggerated portrayal of the China Doll and Dragon Lady to further exoticize and dehumanize East Asian women, ensuring the dominance of the West. Latinas historically endured rape as part of European colonialization of Latin American countries by Spaniards.

The stereotypical depictions of hyper-sexual Latinas in the media suggest that Latinas have a higher tolerance for sexual advances in the workplace. Meanwhile, historically, white women were portrayed as models of self-respect, self-control, modesty, and even sexual purity.

Media stereotypes have a direct impact on cultural perceptions of women of color. This aspect is further aggravated by how the media objectifies women of color in TV shows, movies, and advertisements. These stereotypes tend to justify sexual harassment of women of color in real life.

Racial bias in the media attention on sexual harassment is very harmful to women of color and women from minority groups. The US media’s lack of committed reporting on sexual harassment cases of women of color contributes to the silencing of its existence as well as preventing from tackling it.

This biased, non-inclusive approach of the media creates an environment that is conducive to continuing sexual harassment of women of color. It also silences those affected women of color and discourages them from reporting sexual harassment or asking for support through any available mechanisms.

During the period from 2018 to 2021, women filed 78.2% of the 27,291 sexual harassment charges received by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC). Of the 1,945 sexual harassment charges filed concurrently with a race charge, 71.2% designated Black/African American and another 4.8% designated Asian as the relevant race. Data from the EEOC reflects that 56% of sexual harassment charges are filed by women of color; yet women of color only make 37 percent of women in the workforce.

According to the survey by the National Asian Pacific American Women’s Forum (NAPAWF) in 2022, overall, in the last 12 months, a staggering 74% of AAPI women personally experienced racism and/or discrimination, 38% experienced sexual harassment, and 12% reported experiencing gender and/or race-based physical violence.

There is also another factor why the media is paying more attention to white women through #MeToo movement. This is because white women (and men) are far better represented in the US media than women (and men) of color. For instance, the proportion of all journalists who are white men and white women is 52.12% and 31.04%, respectively.

The comparable figure for black men and black women, respectively, is 3.02% and 2.62%, while the overall figure for non-white men and women (i.e. Black, Hispanic, American Indian, Asian, Hawaiian Pacific Islanders and others), is 8.58% and 7.95%, respectively.

One in five people in the US is a woman of color (i.e. women who identify as non-white) as women of color were 20.3% of the US population in 2021. However, their stories are rarely told in the media while women of color are underrepresented in the media.

It is now more than thirty years since Kimberlé Crenshaw critiqued anti-discrimination law for its failure to recognize intersectionality, the compounding nature of race and gender subordination. Despite this, the US media still considers the issue of sexual harassment as an individualized problem of inappropriate behaviour rather than a systemic issue of inequalities of gender, race, and power.

This is why the media sees that the sexual harassment cases of white women survivors are more newsworthy than those of women of color.

The media should be part of the solution rather than a problem in addressing and preventing sexual harassment in the workplace. The combined influences of race and gender on sexual harassment should be identified and addressed immediately by the media with greater attention to the experiences of women of color and women from minority groups.

The media has the power to implement changes in whose stories are told. The US media should demonstrate a conscious and continued effort to provide equal representation in covering sexual harassment cases that is inclusive of all types of survivors, including women of color.

Shihana Mohamed is one of the Coordinators of the United Nations Asia Network for Diversity and Inclusion and a Public Voices Fellow with The OpEd Project and Equality Now on Advancing the Rights of Women and Girls.
https://www.linkedin.com/in/shihana-mohamed-68556b15/

IPS UN Bureau

 

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Excerpt:

The following opinion piece is part of series to mark International Women’s Day, March 8.

By Jomo Kwame Sundaram
KATHMANDU, Nepal, Mar 6 2024 (IPS)

Viable, popular national economic alternatives require conditions to help build and sustain them. An independent, accountable government can ensure supportive institutions, including laws.

National economies
For the Global South, globalisation has often meant renewed foreign domination. While dating back to the age of empire, foreign domination is less evident in post-colonial times, making it more difficult to organise against it.

Jomo Kwame Sundaram

National sovereignty and independence are necessary to develop and sustain viable popular economic alternatives. This requires addressing contemporary realities. Some unexpected opportunities may even emerge from the new challenges faced.

Cooperation among significant national social forces must be maintained for an alternative to be popular and sustainable. Negotiating, preserving, strengthening and ‘updating’ such collaboration is necessary to advance popular national interests.

This becomes challenging when those involved are not on a level playing field. After all, we live in a world dominated by powerful private interests, typically working through corporations, with transnational ones being the most influential.

Most people know that such domination is exercised via economic assets. But it has increasingly also involved control of the main means of communication. Global public discourses have thus been reshaped, even in multilateral institutions.

Thus, for example, the unrepresentative corporate-dominated Davos World Economic Forum sets agendas for multilateral conferences in the interest of the ‘lords of the universe’. More than seventy heads of government and state attended the last Davos event, many more than the UN General Debate.

Can developing alternative means of communication better shape our discourses, as our interests rarely coincide with those effectively in control?

Rule by law
Katarina Pistor has shown how law is hardly neutral but instead crucial to capitalism’s functioning. Thus, setting and enforcing rules privileges the interests shaping them.

Law is made by the powerful to legitimise their interests and practices, e.g., by enforcing contracts, property rights, etc. The legal framework defines how we operate, what is considered legal and illegal, and what is licit and illicit.

The African Union-Economic Commission for Africa study, chaired by former South African President Thabo Mbeki, recognised that many illicit practices are not illegal. Such massive illicit financial outflows characterise most of the Global South.

Such haemorrhage has worsened in recent decades as developing countries competed to attract foreign investments. In recent decades, they opened their capital accounts, believing economists who claimed finance would then flow ‘downhill’ into them. Instead, it flows ‘uphill’ from ‘capital-poor’ to ‘capital-rich’ nations.

Finance has transformed economies and communities in recent decades. The growing influence of such interests has increasingly constrained national monetary and financial authorities’ ability to manage interest and exchange rates.

Hence, only governments and multilateral financial institutions can create arrangements enabling preferential access to concessional finance. Inclusion and accountability can help ensure governments better serve the public interest.

Taxation
The Independent Commission for the Reform of International Corporate Taxation recommended a minimum universal corporate income tax rate of 25%.

US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen later proposed 21%, the current US rate, to minimise political opposition in Washington. However, UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson cut this to 15% at the G7 meeting he hosted.

The OECD-G20 Inclusive Framework for Base Erosion and Profit Shifting (BEPS) seems to share the OECD view that such tax revenue be distributed by the country of sale, not production.

Developing countries lose out as they generally produce much more than they can afford to consume. With foreign advice shaping developing countries’ policies, their tax rates and revenue shares of output have fallen for decades. Hence, indebted nations believe they have to cut government spending.

Unsurprisingly, most developing countries have supported the African group’s resolution to make the UN the sole legitimate body for international tax cooperation, thus undermining the Inclusive Framework’s pretensions.

Trade liberalisation bias
Trade liberalisation is a double-edged sword. It can enhance exports to earn more foreign exchange but also destroys economic capacities, e.g., for industrialisation and food security.

Rich countries – including the US, the world’s biggest agricultural exporter – have sustained food production with government support using protection and subsidies. But while such subsidies are allowed, developing countries have been stopped from using tariffs for food security.

The US subsidises maize production for corn oil to make bioethanol. Corn syrup and chicken feed also get subsidised in the process. Consequently, US chicken exports have wiped out many poultry farmers worldwide.

Food prices increased sharply for some months after the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Jayati Ghosh showed these food price spikes were mainly due to speculation and price manipulation rather than wartime supply disruptions.

Futures markets once reduced commodity price fluctuations but have had significant disruptive effects more recently. This is mainly due to the changed nature of commodity spot, futures and options markets, especially with massive programmed financial speculation using algorithms and artificial intelligence.

* Edited remarks to the World People’s Economic Forum at the World Social Forum in Kathmandu on February 18, 2024.

IPS UN Bureau

 

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