Africa - INTER PRESS SERVICE

By WAM
DUBAI, Jul 2 2018 (WAM)

The UAE is ideally positioned to serve as the ‘beating heart’ of a regional innovation hub; according to a new report published by Oliver Wyman in collaboration with Dubai International Financial Centre (DIFC), the leading international financial hub in the Middle East, Africa and South Asia (MEASA) region.

Titled “The Case for an Innovation Hub to Facilitate MEASA Financial Inclusion”, the report reveals how Dubai is strategically positioned to facilitate development of digitally enabled financial solutions for the region.

There has been a significant push for the advancement of financial inclusion globally with 1.7 billion of the world’s global working population still lacking access to formal financial services. Nearly 50 percent of all financially excluded and underserved individuals are currently situated in the MEASA region. An average of 48 percent of the working adult population owns a financial account compared to a global average of 69 percent, and conditions across MEASA continue to constrain access to both traditional and digital financial services for the currently financially excluded population.

“In a financially inclusive environment, individuals and businesses can conveniently access a variety of financial services at low cost and are offered products that are tailored to their specific needs. For a significant share of the population across MEASA this is currently not possible. While many existing efforts are underway across the region, these are often heavily fragmented and make a large-scale advancement challenging,” said Greg Rung, Partner, Financial Services.

“There is an urgent need for reforms to overcome this disparity. This however requires the collaboration of a broad array of stakeholders from across the financial, technology and government sectors. Given their rapid evolution, digital technologies are a critical catalyst in achieving financial inclusion. The proposed hub will support centralisation of efforts and identify opportunities for scalable solutions,” he added.

Dubai combines a unique set of features that ideally position it to become the centre of the innovation hub. It is already recognised as a global and regional economic and financial hub with strong financial expertise. In addition, Dubai’s commitment to financial innovation is embedded in its financial services and national visions, such as Smart Dubai and Dubai Plan 2021.

Arif Amiri, Chief Executive Officer at the DIFC Authority, said, “With an approximate population of 3 billion, the MEASA region sits on a large pool of opportunities that are still untapped for the lack of financial access. Delivering financial services to more people across the region has become a necessity that Dubai, and the UAE as a whole, are perfectly positioned to contribute to. The world-class infrastructure and innovation ecosystem that Dubai has built, and continues to enhance, provide an enabling environment for technology and disruptive businesses to create more inclusive solutions and services for the entire region.”

He added, “At DIFC, financial inclusion remains a key focus for us in our ongoing efforts to shape the future of finance in MEASA. We have already made important strides towards nurturing an integrated ecosystem that can unlock the potential of emerging trends such as FinTech and InsurTech in the region. We believe that this will not only transform the way the financial services industry operates, but will also create a positive wave of social impact and economic gains across the MEASA countries. This is why we remain focused on continuing our efforts to foster financial innovation in the region and lead the necessary evolution for greater financial inclusion for its people.”

DIFC is the leading financial centre and FinTech hub in the MEASA region, with over 1,853 active registered companies and a Fintech community of over 50 firms and numerous FinTech-related clients. DIFC’s FinTech ecosystem comprises FinTech Hive at DIFC, the region’s first accelerator programme, as well as an innovation testing license, a special operating license, an interactive and collaborative workspace, along with access to the largest financial community in the region.

 

WAM/Rasha Abubaker

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Rescued migrants being tended to by IOM staff in Tripoli. Credit: IOM

By International Organization for Migration
GENEVA, Jul 1 2018 (IOM)

This weekend, some 204 migrants have died at sea off Libya, pushing the total number of migrant drownings in the entire Mediterranean so far this year to over 1,000 people.

Today (1/07), a small rubber boat packed with migrants capsized off AlKhums, east of Tripoli, with an estimated 41 people surviving after rescue. On Friday (28/06), three babies were among the 103, who died in a shipwreck similar to Sunday’s incident, also caused by smugglers taking migrants to sea in completely unsafe vessels.

So far this year, the Libyan Coast Guard has returned some 10,000 people to shore from small vessels.

“I am traveling to Tripoli once again this week and will see firsthand the conditions of migrants who have been rescued as well as those returned to shore by the Libya Coast Guard,” said William Lacy Swing, IOM Director General. “IOM is determined to ensure that the human rights of all migrants are respected as together we all make efforts to stop the people smuggling trade, which is so exploitative of migrants,” said Swing.

IOM staff were deployed to provide support and first aid to the the 41 migrants who survived the capsize of their small rubber vessel that capsized off AlKhums. This is the second major shipwreck in as many few days. On Friday, a rubber dinghy capsized north of Tripoli and the 16 survivors (young men from Gambia, Sudan, Yemen, Niger and Guinea) were rescued by the Libyan Cost Guard. However, an estimated 103 people lost their lives.

Adding to grim and tragic scene, the bodies of three babies were taken from the sea by the Libyan Coast Guard. IOM provided assistance at the disembarkation point, including provision of food and water and health assistance. IOM is also in the process of providing psychosocial aid at Tajoura detention centre where the survivors have been transferred. The need for physcosocial support is high as the survivors spent traumatizing time in the water as their engine broke only 30 minutes after departing Garaboli. The survivors have received psychosocial first aid at the detention centre and IOM continues to monitor their condition.

From Friday to Sunday, close to 1,000 migrants were returned to Libyan shore by the Libyan Coast Guard, who intercepted small crafts as they made their way towards the open sea. Upon disembarkation to shore, migrants have received emergency direct assistance, including food and water, health assistance and IOM protection staff has provided vulnerability interviews. Those rescued and returned by the Libyan Coast Guard are transferred by the Libyan authorities to the detention centres where IOM continues humanitarian assistance.

“There is an alarming increase in deaths at sea off Libya Coast,” said IOM Libya Chief of Mission Othman Belbeisi, adding: “Smugglers are exploiting the desperation of migrants to leave before there are further crackdowns on Mediterranean crossings by Europe.”

“Migrants returned by the coast guard should not automatically be transferred to detention and we are deeply concerned that the detention centres will yet again be overcrowded and that living conditions will deteriorate with the recent influx of migrants,” added Belbeisi.

Two other search and rescue operations by the Libyan Coast Guard are currently ongoing.

For more, information please contact:

Christine Petre IOM Libya, Email: CPetre@iom.int Tel + 216 577 9636
Leonard Doyle IOM Spokesperson, Email: ldoyle@iom.int, Tel: +41 792857123

You can view this statement online here.

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By Rashid Amjad
Jun 30 2018 (Dawn, Pakistan)

Do forgive the people of this country if they cannot make sense of our present economic predicament. On one hand, they are told repeatedly (and correctly) that the economy has started reaping the benefits of CPEC — the ‘game changer’ — in the form of significantly reduced load-shedding, an upturn in investment and a not unimpressive recovery in economic growth. At the same time, they are told that the economy is in dire straits!

A severe foreign exchange crisis threatens to reverse significantly the recent economic upturn. Our import bill exceeds our export earnings, including remittances, and if we add to it the repayments due on foreign loans, the gap is immense: $25 billion or over eight per cent of GDP. The country’s foreign exchange reserves are fast running out. We have already reached the critical level of just two months of imports. The alarm bells are ringing as foreign exchange reserves continue to lose almost $1bn a month. We must now wake up to the reality that, unless we can raise $8bn to $10bn in new loans and obtain a roll-over of existing debts, we could well face default on our debt payments — which is a polite way of saying ‘bankruptcy’.

The current state of economic affairs requires that some important decisions be taken.

The economic problem we now face cannot be traced solely to the previous government’s stubborn refusal to adjust the overvalued exchange rate. Our economic managers appear to have lost the plot over the last two years. For one, they were unable to keep track of CPEC-funded investment flows, whose exact form of financing has never been made transparent. The second and perhaps more important reason for our plight is that the federal and some provincial governments decided to go on a spending spree — launching projects, oblivious to their cost and foreign exchange implications. This is not new: the last two governments were equally guilty.

The current state of economic affairs cannot be allowed to continue. Some important decisions may need to be taken in the crunch, even by the interim government in the national interest. The simple reason for this is that, unless some immediate measures are taken to restore business confidence and, most importantly, to calm the foreign exchange market, the exchange rate will continue to fall. In the extreme scenario, we could enter a freefall situation. Given this uncertainty, anybody with some staying power will not be willing to part with their US dollars, betting that the rupee will fall even more. Those wanting foreign exchange will be chasing less and less available in the market.

Yet, nobody will bail us out, whether it is the IMF or anyone else, without imposing ‘conditionalities’ — primarily to ensure that they get their money back. Here, our team of negotiators (from the finance ministry and State Bank) must learn some lessons from the past. The last two governments entered into agreements with the IMF almost immediately upon coming into power. The 2008 agreement with the IMF was an unmitigated disaster in terms of its impact on growth, which fell from near 6pc to less than 1pc. The economy never quite recovered after that. The 2013 agreement, partly due to the groundwork done by the interim finance team, was able to avoid this shock through a more gradual decline in the fiscal deficit. However, agreeing almost immediately to a reforms agenda was unwise. To the extent possible, the new government should seek some time to finalise the content and sequencing of economic reforms, for which it can take full ownership and deliver.

The immediate challenge will be to agree to a stabilisation package, at an appropriate speed and sequencing of adjustment, that protects the country’s economic interests. Despite its weak bargaining position, the government should work towards a stabilisation package in which the burden of adjustment primarily falls in a sequenced way on the fiscal deficit rather than on the exchange rate. This is not to deny that we need to adjust the exchange rate, but we must keep this limited to its current overvaluation. We must remain fully aware that the cost of a very steep devaluation is especially high for our heavily indebted economy. Doing so would also raise the value of imports, especially oil products, fuelling inflation and eroding competitiveness. To that extent, it would neutralise the gains from devaluation. Most importantly, it would increase the cost of our defence preparedness, which in the current volatile situation cannot be compromised at any cost.

Of course, cutting the fiscal deficit is not without cost, even if the decline is made gradual. A 2pc drop in the fiscal deficit would reduce our current GDP growth of around 6pc to near half this amount. Most importantly, to counteract this, we must put in place measures that allow the recent growth momentum to build on the revival of manufacturing and upturn in exports and create the climate to encourage the much-awaited revival in private investment. All this will ensure that the decline in GDP growth is minimised. The emphasis here should be on reversing the anti-export trade and tariff regime and making a serious attempt at cutting down on losses from public-sector enterprises. This should entail including workers and their elected representatives in any restructuring negotiations.

Over the medium to long term, the policy focus must shift to expediting coal mining in Thar (which could finally remove our dependency on imported oil and gas), preserving and supplementing our water resources, and switching the emphasis in education from merely increasing numbers to improving the quality of education imparted and the social skills of our graduates.

If seriously and successfully monitored and implemented, this agenda will likely keep the newly elected government busy through its term in office. Come 2023, it will be judged on these achievements. Inshallah.

The writer is professor at the Lahore School of Economics and former vice chancellor of the Pakistan Institute of Development Economics.

This story was originally published by Dawn, Pakistan

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By Imtiaz A Hussain
Jun 30 2018 (The Daily Star, Bangladesh)

Gideon Rose made an astute observation in editing the May/June 2018 Foreign Affairs cover story on the current “democratic regression”. “We have seen this movie before,” he quoted a Latin friend of his on the concurrent predicament, “just never in English.” That may be the missing element behind this “regression”: populism may be a popular explanation, since it brings to the fore many of the disturbing developments within mature democratic countries; stalled economic growth in these same countries also finds immense currency as a democracy detractor; historically-bent scholars never miss the beat to push the cliché that what goes up (for example, whatever led Francis Fukuyama to proclaim an “end of history” in the early 1990s), must eventually not only come down, but also begin climbing again. And so the story goes.

Yet rarely is the Anglo-Saxon anchor put under the spotlight these days. Even a cursory glance suggests, with a tweak here or a calibration there, democracy may still remain the fairest damsel among governmental types, if, and this is a big if, it is not pitched in a sine qua non mode.

Samuel P Huntington’s “wave” explanations get us to centre-stage. His first “wave” did not happen in England and the United States by chance from the early 19th Century, nor could it have soared high enough to be noticed anywhere else, give or take fickle France. How the 16th Century enclosure movement evicted tenant farmers and peasants, privatised the commons, and converted society into a cash-economy playground paved the long and tortuous journey towards the individualism democracy demands. Even then it took the entire 19th Century, not to mention the opening quarter of the 20th Century, to build the one-person, one-vote hallmark democratic feature.

Across the Atlantic a “born-free” country (that is, devoid of vested interests, since they promote parochial over national or global interests), was led down a different pathway. Dominated by only a handful of Anglo-Saxons fleeing monarchical abuses in England during the 17th and 18th centuries, the United States was virtually guaranteed nothing but a democratic future. Yet, this did not come automatically. As in Britain, a liberal market demanded a government from outside the prevalent box. Though the US Constitution enshrined democracy by 1787, the country still had to wait until 1964 before all adults could claim the one-person, one-vote privilege.

Both cases depict an ominously protracted journey to a representative government, demanding voluntarily engagements of its proponents/practitioners in exchange for returning as much more back to that society. This blended perfectly well with private enterprise, but it is the innovative capacity of private enterprise that permits democracy to replenish itself until perpetuity. Only by halting the process, or letting impediments intervene can democracy be disrupted. That, unfortunately, must be what has happened to produce infectious populism. Donald J Trump on yonder side of the Atlantic, and the Brexit vote, not to mention Dutch, French, German, Hungarian, and Italian electoral threats on this, portray today perhaps the sickest face of “English” democracy.

British colonies were expected to spearhead democracy. Frankly and fairly, Britain did whatever it could within its capacities; and that was a lot more than those other European countries boasting empires, whether it be Belgium in the African heartland, France across North Africa and Indo-China, Germany in Africa’s south, Italy in Abyssinia, Portugal in Brazil, or Spain across the rest of Latin America. By softening its noblesse oblige imperial approach, “English” democracy had the chance to prevail wherever the British Empire existed were it not for the coincidental emergence of the United States as not only the world leader, but also Cold War participant, after World War II. “English” democracy was hijacked, but only across the friendliest Atlantic waters.

Though still not perfectly democratic by that time (women had only just got the right to vote), the United States continued, for more than a century, to cultivate key institutions (like regular elections, stable parties, and foresighted leadership), just as Britain had done. This is the one area where Rose’s Foreign Affairs reference to “English” matters: the inability or unwillingness to permit new-born countries that same time-frame to sow and reap those very fundamental institutions. Britain may not have been behind the global steering-wheel, but in retrospect it can still boast producing one of the finest democracy-in-transition experiments among former colonies: India (even as the world’s largest democracy today faces one monumental democratic threat: religious fundamentalism).

If “blaming by default” is a lesser evil than “blaming by deliberation”, then the United States must take full responsibility for truncating what it preached: authentic democracy, not one as a tacky alternative to communism, nor as the appropriate outlet for foreign aid and investment. Beginning its world leadership on the wrong foot was enough to prevent fledgling countries from building new institutions upon democratic pillars and principles: instead of promoting the principles of its own Founding Fathers, the United States imposed a sine qua non condition that they reject communism first. A tragedy of errors followed, with dictator opponents of communism (from the Shah of Iran to Ferdinand Marcos, with an Ayub Khan here and Augusto Pinochet there, and gullible tyrants everywhere), quashing their country’s maiden democratic flag-bearers (be they Muhammed Mosaddegh, Benigno Simeon “Ninoy” Aquino, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, or Salvador Allende Gossens). No more fatal a blow could have been inflicted upon democracy and its future than that. No wonder the third and fourth democratic “waves” from the 1980s and late 1990s fell short of delivering: the critical institutions were just not there to absorb the soaring expectations; and it was pathetic to expect them to grow overnight under military command, as in Afghanistan and Iraq, in the 21st Century, as they had done under starkly different circumstances in post-World War II Germany and Japan.

Though this “Third World” or “Fourth World” malaise may not be that far from the heart of the current “democratic regression”, which is the Atlantic seaboard, it did feed western populism after the Cold War atmosphere permitted another opportunity for democratisation: their low-waged or import-substitution policy approaches that were encouraged during the Cold War to prevent communist penetration (as across Latin America), now threatened western economies, particularly driving university-educated students into abysmal unemployment.

It may be far too late to turn back the clock (and the policy approaches) to retrieve democracy; but amid the less liberal democracy sprouting, we should be looking where the sun rises to capture the new democratic contours. They will not be picture perfect until they experience their centuries of institution-building trials and errors, as with the “English”; but that might still be a better alternative to the monarchical/dictatorial impulses that gave birth to democracy in the first place several centuries ago.

Dr Imtiaz A Hussain is the head of Global Studies & Governance Program at Independent University, Bangladesh (IUB).

This story was originally published by The Daily Star, Bangladesh

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By WAM
THE HAGUE, NETHERLANDS, Jun 30 2018 (WAM)

A UAE delegation, led by Dr. Thani bin Ahmed Al-Zeyoudi, Minister of Climate Change and Environment, has concluded a three-day official visit to the Netherlands.

The delegates explored key topics of mutual interest with Dutch officials, including the use of smart technologies, such as artificial intelligence and precision agriculture to improve the quantity and quality of agricultural production and combat plant pests and diseases.

Other members of the delegation comprised Dr. Kaltham Kayaf, Head of the Animal Health Section at the Ministry of Climate Change and Environment; Abdul Nasser Al Shamsi, CEO of Rawafed; Omar Al Jundi, CEO of Badia Farms; and Mohammed Khalfan, General Manager of Al Dahra Holding.

From 26th to 28th June, the delegation met Carola Schouten, Dutch Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Agriculture, Nature and Food Quality; Sigrid Kaag, Minister for Foreign Trade and Development Cooperation; Cora van Nieuwenhuizen, Minister of Infrastructure and Water Management; Marcel Beukeboom, Special Envoy for Climate Change; and Reina Buijs, Deputy Director-General for International Cooperation at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

The delegates explored new areas of cooperation with relevant entities in the Netherlands and exchanged experience in climate change research. Discussions focused on leveraging the latest technologies to collect climate data that can be used to shape strategies and policies.

Dr. Al Zeyoudi highlighted the National Climate Change Plan of the UAE 2017-2050, its vision and project deliverables. The plan garnered high praise from the Dutch officials as an impressive contribution to global efforts in combating the impacts of climate change.

Speaking about the visit, Dr. Al Zeyoudi said, ” The UAE enjoys deep-rooted ties with the Netherlands that bind our two nations on multiple fronts. Our visit aimed to build on our strong bilateral relations and identify new opportunities for collaboration. We also sought to share expertise in relevant areas and lay a solid foundation for future partnerships between the private and public sectors in both countries.”

As part of the agenda, the delegates toured Deltares an institute for applied research in the field of water, subsurface and infrastructure where they learned about climate change, groundwater and salinity modelling methods used in the Netherlands.

During their visit to the Netherlands Organisation for Applied Scientific Research and the Energy Research Centre of the Netherlands, the delegation inspected an integrated system for improving air quality through storing and recycling carbon dioxide for use in diverse sectors.

Moreover, the delegation toured the Wageningen University and Research a world-class educational institution dedicated to life sciences, agriculture and environmental science and received a briefing on the environment-related majors offered at the university.

 

WAM/Hazem Hussein/Tariq alfaham

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In the community of Paropucjio, several women stand next to the solar greenhouse they have just built together on the plot of land belonging to one of them, in the district of Cusipata, more than 3,300 metres above sea level in the Cuzco highlands region in Peru. They get excited when they talk about how the greenhouses will improve their families' lives. Credit: Mariela Jara/IPS

By Mariela Jara
CUSIPATA, Peru, Jun 30 2018 (IPS)

At more than 3,300 m above sea level, in the department of Cuzco, women are beating infertile soil and frost to grow organic food and revive community work practices that date back to the days of the Inca empire in Peru such as the “ayni” and “minka”.

“We grow maize, beans and potatoes, that’s what we eat, and we forget about other vegetables, but now we’re going to be able to naturally grow tomatoes, lettuce, and peas,” María Magdalena Condori told IPS, visibly pleased with the results, while showing her solar greenhouse, built recently in several days of community work.

She lives in the Andes highlands village of Paropucjio, located at more than 3,300 m above sea level, in Cusipata, a small district of less than 5,000 inhabitants."We want to help improve the quality of life of rural women by strengthening their capacities in agriculture. They work the land, they sow and harvest, they take care of their families, they are the mainstay of food security in their homes and their rights are not recognized." -- Elena Villanueva

The local population subsists on small-scale farming and animal husbandry, which is mainly done by women, while most of the men find paid work in districts in the area or even in the faraway city of Cuzco, to complete the family income.

The geographical location of Paropucjio is a factor in the low fertility of the soils, in addition to the cold, with temperatures that drop below freezing. “Here, frost can destroy all our crops overnight and we end up with no food to eat,” says Celia Mamani, one of Condori’s neighbors.

A similar or even worse situation can be found in the other 11 villages that make up Cusipata, most of which are at a higher altitude and are more isolated than Paropucjio, which is near the main population centre in Cusipata and has the largest number of families, about 120.

Climate change has exacerbated the harsh conditions facing women and their families in these rural areas, especially those who are furthest away from the towns, because they have fewer skills training opportunities to face the new challenges and have traditionally been neglected by public policy-makers.

“In Paropucjio there are 14 of us women who are going to have our own greenhouse and drip irrigation module; so far we have built five. This makes us very happy, we are proud of our work because we will be able to make better use of our land,” said Rosa Ysabel Mamani the day that IPS spent visiting the community.

The solar greenhouses will enable each of the beneficiaries to grow organic vegetables for their families and to sell the surplus production in the markets of Cusipata and nearby districts.

Women farmers from Paropucjio, in the district of Cusipata, more than 3,300 metres above sea level, smile as they talk about the wooden structure for a solar greenhouse, which they jokingly refer to as a “skeleton”. The roof will be made of a special microfilm resistant to bad weather, intense ultraviolet radiation and extreme temperatures, and the greenhouses are built collectively, in the Andean region of Cuzco, Peru. Credit: Mariela Jara/IPS

With a broad smile, Mamani points to a 50-sq-m wooden structure that within the next few days will be covered with mesh on the sides and microfilm – a plastic resistant to extreme temperatures and hail – on the roof.

“We will all come with our husbands and children and we will finish building the greenhouse in ‘ayni’ (a Quechua word that means cooperation and solidarity), as our ancestors used to work,” she explains.

The ayni is one of the social forms of work of the Incas still preserved in Peru’s Andes highlands, where the community comes together to build homes, plant, harvest or perform other tasks. At the end of the task, in return, a hearty meal is shared.

The minga, another legacy of the Inca period, is similar but between communities, whose inhabitants go to help those of another community. In this case women from different villages and hamlets get together to build the greenhouses, especially the roofs, the hardest part of the job.

Training in production and rights

A total of 80 women from six rural highlands districts in Cuzco will benefit from the solar greenhouses and drip irrigation modules for their family organic gardens, as part of a project run by the non-governmental Peruvian Flora Tristán Women’s Centre with the support of the Spanish Basque Agency for Development Cooperation.

Women farmers from the community of Huasao, in the Andean highlands region of Cuzco, Peru, stand in front of one of the 50-sq-m solar tents, which has a 750-litre water tank for the drip irrigation module for their vegetables. Credit: Mariela Jara/IPS

“We want to help improve the quality of life of rural women by strengthening their capacities in agriculture. They work the land, they sow and harvest, they take care of their families, they are the mainstay of food security in their homes and their rights are not recognised,” Elena Villanueva, a sociologist with the centre’s rural development programme, told IPS.

She said the aim was comprehensive training for women farmers, so that they can use agro-ecological techniques for the sustainable use of soil, water and seeds. They will also learn to defend their rights as women, farmers and citizens, in their homes, community spaces and before local authorities.

The expert said the solar greenhouses open up new opportunities for women because they protect crops from adverse weather and from the high levels of ultraviolet radiation in the area, allowing the women to grow crops that could not survive out in the open.

“Now they will have year-round food that is not currently part of their diet, such as cucumbers, peppers, tomatoes and lettuce, that will enrich the nutrition and diets in their families – crops they will be able to plant and harvest with greater security,” she said.

The women have also been trained in the preparation of natural fertilisers and pesticides. “Our soils don’t yield much, they squeeze the roots of the plants, so we have to prepare them very well so that they can receive the seeds and then provide good harvests,” Condori explains.

In the 50 square metres covered by her new greenhouse, the local residents have worked steadily digging the soil to remove the stones, turn the soil and form the seed beds for planting.

Women and men from the community of Paropucjio, in Peru’s Andes highlands region of Cuzco, share lunch after completing the community work of building one of 80 small greenhouses, where women farmers will be able to grow organic vegetables despite the extreme temperatures in the area. Credit: Mariela Jara/IPS

“To do that we have had to fertilise a lot using bocashi (fermented organic fertiliser) that we prepare in groups with the other women, working together in ayni. We brought guinea pig and chicken droppings and cattle manure, leaves, and ground eggshells,” she explains.

This active role in making decisions about the use of their productive resources has helped change the way their husbands see them and has brought a new appreciation for everything they do to support the household and their families.

Honorato Ninantay, from the community of Huasao, located more than 3,100 metres above sea level in the neighbouring district of Oropesa, confesses his surprise and admiration for the way his wife juggles all her responsibilities.

“It seems unbelievable that before, in all this time, I hadn’t noticed. Only when she has gone to the workshops and has been away from home for two days have I understood,” he says.

“I as a man have only one job, I work in construction. But my wife has aahh! (long exclamation). When she left I had to fetch the water, cook the meals, feed the animals, go to the farm and take care of my mother who is sick and lives with us. I couldn’t handle it all,” he adds.

His wife, Josefina Corihuamán, listens to her husband with a smile on her face, and confirms that he is now involved in household chores because he has understood that washing, cleaning and cooking are not just a “woman’s job.”

She also has a solar greenhouse and irrigation module and is confident that she will produce enough to feed her family and sell the surplus in the local market.

“What we will harvest will be healthy, organic, chemical-free food, and that is good for our families, for our children. I feel that I will finally make good use of my land,” she says.

Related Articles

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• Rights of Rural Women Have Seen Uneven Progress in Latin America

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By International Organization for Migration
GENEVA, Jun 29 2018 (IOM)

On Friday 29 June 2018, the member states of the IOM, the United Nations Migration Agency, elected Portugal’s António Manuel de Carvalho Ferreira Vitorino as the International Organization for Migration’s next Director General.

António Manuel de Carvalho Ferreira Vitorino

Mr. Vitorino, 61 (DOB 12 January 1957), succeeds the United States’ William Lacy Swing, who is leaving IOM after serving two five-year terms as Director General. Mr. Vitorino’s directorship begins on 1 October 2018.

The latest IOM director general is a former European Commissioner for Justice and Home Affairs (1999-2004) and former Minister of the Presidency and National Defence (1995-1997). He has also enjoyed a distinguished career in Portugal as a lawyer as well as in electoral politics.

Mr. Vitorino was elected to Portugal’s Parliament in 1980. In 1983 he became Secretary of State for Parliamentary Affairs. He later served as Deputy Secretary for the Governor of Macau until 1989, when he returned to Lisbon to become a judge of the Constitutional Court, a term that ended in 1994. He subsequently served as Minister for National Defence and Deputy Prime Minister within the government of António Guterres, now the United Nations’ Secretary General.

From 1999 to 2004 António Vitorino served as the European Commissioner for Justice and Home Affairs. During his tenure, Mr. Vitorino participated in conversations that led to the drawing of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union and the Convention on the Future of Europe.

Since exiting politics in 2005, Mr. Vitorino has returned to law, serving as a partner with the firm of Cuatrecasas, Gonçalves Pereira & Associados. Vitorino has been President of the think tank Notre Europe since June 2011 and for many years enjoyed an ongoing role as commentator for the leading Portuguese television channel RTP 1.

António Vitorino earned a degree from the University of Lisbon’s School of Law in 1981, as well as a Master’s Degree in Legal and Political Science. Mr. Vitorino has authored works on Constitutional Law, Political Science, European Community Law, and was also a member of the Drafting Committee of the Portuguese White Book on Corporate Governance.

Established in 1951, International Organization for Migration has over 10,000 staff and over 400 offices in more than 150 countries. IOM is the UN Migration Agency and is the leading inter-governmental organisation in the field of migration. It is committed to the principle that humane and orderly migration benefits migrants and society.

IOM works with its partners in the international community to assist in meeting operational challenges of migration, advance understanding of migration issues and to encourage social and economic development through migration while upholding the well-being and human rights of all migrants.

IOM provides services and advice to governments and migrants to help ensure the orderly and humane management of migration, to promote international cooperation on migration issues, to assist in the search for practical solutions to migration problems and to provide humanitarian assistance to migrants in need, including refugees and internally displaced people.

IOM was granted permanent observer status to the UN General Assembly in 1992. A cooperation agreement between IOM and the UN was signed in 1996. IOM joined the UN system as a related organization in September 2016, when the agreement outlined in GA res.70/296 (2016) was signed during the UN Summit for Refugees and Migrants.

For further information please contact Leonard Doyle at IOM HQ, Tel: +41 792857123, Email: ldoyle@iom.int

You can view this statement online here.

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Credit: iStockphoto.com/ peepo

By Pablo Alabarces
BUENOS AIRES, Jun 29 2018 (IPS)

Football tells us a great deal about identity. Even a budding sports journalist knows that. And it has come to be a meeting point and even an advertising theme. But what we never discuss is the varying forms of this identity that are possible, let alone the consequences, which are sometimes ill-fated.

Saying that football is tied to identity is comforting because it places higher status on it than just a triviality: it allows us to emphatically claim that “soccer is the most important of the least important things” (another triviality).

Of course, this importance is derived precisely from the fact that it comprises a series of memories and stories in which very diverse identities are invented and adopted and from the fact that its effectiveness is based on its emotional warmth (the apparent “passion”), the potential beauty of the game (although rare, to be honest), and the unpredictability of the outcome.

But the comfort of identity overlooks—or conceals—that we have not explained anything with this; that we need to add another dimension that is indispensable (and generally covert): the dimension of power.

The dimensions of identity involved are not just the two most visible ones: identity at the micro or tribal level (the club, the team, the colors) and national identity (national team, country, homeland), although these also require our attention before we start celebrating.

The stories of identity that football involves—or has involved in Latin America in the past—have been centered on a wide variety of themes. At least in broad terms, these have included ethnicity, race, class, territory, and country—all of which were triggered by stories that—in some cases—labeled themselves as “playing styles”.

Ethnicity stems from the actual roots and conflicts among Europeans (not only the English), criollos and mestizos; class, from the sport’s popularization and the disputes over professionalization; race, from the appearance of those of African descent; territory, from the close relationship between teams and cities or towns (or neighborhoods in major cities).

And finally country, which found the ideal channel to popularize narratives of identity in soccer in 1916 and the appearance of international competitions. At the same time, however, there is something major missing – and not just in Latin America: the dimension of gender was silenced (as well as banned) in this discovery and in these stories.

Let us pause here and use this missing component to better illustrate the dimension of power. The commonality of identity sometimes overlooks the fact that these are essentially male identities and stories, that they were imposed as universal at the expense of censorship and the exclusion of football and female fandom.

To top it off, the culture of sports does not allow women to be a channel for identity narratives, since this is impossible based on a broader principle that is not just Latin American. According to this principle, the narrative of one’s homeland cannot be told from a female perspective and women cannot be the heroes in a nationalist story.

On the contrary, the excess of narratives—the effective excess of narratives—in male football ruled out the possibility of having a female story altogether, and even excluded it, as we have already noted.

Thus the aim here is not to celebrate identities, but to assess who creates them, who adopts them, and how they are narrated. And fundamentally, who they are narrated against. Because, as we know, every story of identity is also a story of otherness: what someone is and what someone isn’t.

In football, the prevailing story is that the one telling it is masculine: but the “other” is gay—not a woman—which doubles the exclusion of women in one fell swoop. It is a matter entirely for men, which in turn creates space for a homoerotic story and—paradoxically—a homophobic one.

This is an initial common ground for discrimination that was recently used in an unsuccessful ad by television broadcaster Torneos y Competencias [Latin American sports and entertainment service]: disguised as alleged criticism of Russia’s repression of homosexuality, the ad revealed the persistent anti-feminine discrimination established by football culture.

Racism and xenophobia

The same holds true for the concepts of ethnicity and race. Latin American soccer was built on top of an ethnic dispute (at times disguised as anti-imperialism) during the process of making a European-invented game more criollo. Once this initial stage was over, however, it gave rise to two conflicting junctures:

1. The national narratives of differentiation—Buenos Aires against provincial Argentina, Santiago against Valparaíso, Rio de Janeiro against São Paulo, coastal areas against the mountainside in Colombia, Ecuador, and to a lesser extent in Peru, and
2. The racialization of African-descendant ethnicity, a key concept that was crucial to the invention of “popular” soccer in Brazil, Uruguay, and Peru.

These concepts started to come into play at the international level in 1916: the Chilean league demanded that the points achieved by the Uruguayan team in the first South American Championship not be counted because they had “African players” on their roster.

At the 1921 South American Championship in Buenos Aires, Brazilian President Epitácio Pessoa stated his desire to have the Brazilian team made up of only white players since the year before, the Argentine press had called the Brazilians “little monkeys” when they passed through Buenos Aires on their way to the South American Championship in Chile.

This was not the first presence of racism in “white” Latin American societies; we are simply pointing out that football allowed this racism to establish itself from then on and gave it a competitive advantage.

Since the 1930s, all these concepts were primarily narrated by the mass media, with the resulting prevalence of stereotyping. The media uses stereotypes to create and tell narratives, simply because this is the method it has to readily put a chaotic world in order.

The problem comes when a stereotype also dictates our understanding of the world since no other story lines can be found. Here we see the problem of power once again: the narrators were—and mostly still are—white and middle class, so all their narratives were created from these perspectives.

The prevailing voice and practically the only perspective throughout the Americas is still white, urban, and middle class. The best example of this in football is in Brazil, where it was revealed that an apparent racial democracy was achieved starting in 1958, with its first World Cup title in Sweden, led by its star players Vavá, Didí, Pelé, and Garrincha. Three black men and a mulatto. But this revelation was made and publicized by educated white men: Gilberto Freyre and Mário Filho.

A discriminatory celebration

The aim here is not to attribute the homophobic, xenophobic, and racist excesses of Latin American fans to mass culture, however. Mass culture simply sets the stage for the prevailing stories such that broadly homophobic, xenophobic, and racist societies cannot avoid having these characteristics in their mass culture, and thus in their soccer.

Due to its massiveness, soccer provides greater visibility of these narratives and sets the stage for the masses. These are not every day racist acts. Instead, it is a crowd berating the blackness of a particular soccer player in mostly white societies. The xenophobic narrative, in turn, is disguised as a joke.

Sports journalists think very highly of their own humor and believe mutual bashing between Chileans and Peruvians, Argentines and Brazilians, or Colombians and Venezuelans can be adopted based on the argument of tradition (“that the way it’s always been”) and humor (“not seriously”).

The outlook is thus dreadful. FIFA regulations appear to have achieved few results in the world of UEFA, let alone in the world of CONMEBOL. It is possible that this relative lack of success is due to an issue of power.

The ones who make these rules—for the sake of political correctness—are members of the same groups that can and do discriminate on multiple bases (white, urban, and rich, if possible). In the case of Argentina, no one seriously believes that it is that bad to call a rival “black,” “Bolivian,” or “fag”—it’s a “guy thing,” said in the heat of the moment during the game. It is certainly not possible to find fault with tens of thousands of fans who are simply adopting the ethics of their dominant classes, either.

It will take far more than a few well-written disciplinary rules to potentially undo this process. Last August, Frank Fabra—a Colombian player of African descent, who plays for Argentina’s Boca Juniors—was insulted by rival fans of “Estudiantes de la Plata” [Argentine professional sports club based in La Plata] with predictable shouts of “black,” “fag,” and “Colombian.” The referee decided not to interrupt the game, claiming that the shouting did not come from the entire stadium.

So, as we said: it was just a joke.

The link to the original article: https://www.fes-connect.org/trending/football-xenophobia-racism-discrimination-and-a-few-more-things/

The post Football, Xenophobia, Racism, Discrimination– & a Few More Things appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Excerpt:

Pablo Alabarces holds a PhD in Sociology from the University of Brighton, England. He is Professor of Popular Culture at the Faculty of Social Sciences of the University of Buenos Aires and has published several books on football and popular culture.

The post Football, Xenophobia, Racism, Discrimination– & a Few More Things appeared first on Inter Press Service.

By MA. Isabel Ongpin
Jun 29 2018 (Manila Times)

One of the most nightmarish experiences that any Filipino or foreigner can experience in this country (if they survive) is to spend time in our prisons. Thus, every kind of maneuver is made by those who manage to avoid incarceration — be it suddenly getting sick after years of carrying on healthily and checking into a hospital with a convenient serious diagnosis of illness from a compliant doctor, to effectively running away from the law and becoming a fugitive. Other variations of escaping the brutish conditions that our prisons have been allowed to come to, is to ask a judge to order confinement at the NBI or the PNP temporary incarceration places where the public is on view and vice versa. Then perhaps the conditions are less obviously dreadful, the bullies or other evil denizens that prisons have within their bowels are on public view, a minority, and therefore controllable.

Ma. Isabel Ongpin

High-profile convicts of means who finally cannot avoid being incarcerated in the national penitentiary, are somehow able to make arrangements through money or influence to be given accommodations such as a kubo (hut) outside the main buildings, where the privileged prisoner is relatively alone or with chosen companions and in possession of amenities like airconditioning, appliances and other comforts not inherent in prisons. If there is a sudden inspection or stricter implementation of rules, the convict may temporarily have to be present for the roll call in the morning and at night the main prison building from where he goes back to his kubo. But at least he gets a good night’s sleep.

Uncomfortable to dreadful to horrible as conditions are in the national penitentiaries, far worse are the city jails where prisoners who have not been tried, have no date for their trials, are seemingly forgotten by the authorities, are packed without any concern to the conditions of overcrowding, the resulting heat from too many bodies in one place and the unsupervised behavior of one to another. The lack of fresh air, the inability to lie down or sit down, maybe having to keep standing for lack of space, brings out the worst in those who have to endure it. Here sleep is impossible except in relays. These are the ultimate hellholes of prisons that we have allowed to degenerate far below humane standards of confinement.

Our prisons are grossly and dangerously overcrowded. Under these conditions, bullies and their supporters (for self-defense and for whatever reason) proliferate, cannot be controlled and cause mayhem, havoc and murder. The weak, the inexperienced, the young become victims.

Police authorities or prison custodians are few and the prisoners are many. That is one reason why these custodians are apt to be distant, even afraid of the mass of prisoners so that they are allowed to rampage. Some authorities prefer to let the toughies persecute the meek, a sin of omission that brings on dire consequences.

No need to tally here the kind of food given from the miserable budget allowed, beside the number of prisoners to be fed.

Human dignity and humanitarian conditions are not in the universe of these prisoners. These prison conditions have been here for decades. Why is there no attempt at reform, no compassion for the locked-up? And what about practical steps like building better, more humane prisons?

Only private do-gooders, religious members, some educational institutions who concern themselves with prisoners mitigate the conditions but only in penitentiaries. And as outsiders, they cannot quite reach everyone or do enough. City and town jails are usually overlooked because of the idea that prisoners are there temporarily which is far from true. Many stay for years, even decades without being tried.

In the last administration there was a public/private project to build a large, modern (presumably humane) prison facility in Nueva Ecija. It was about to be bid out, but for whatever reason the project fell through. This administration seems to have put it on hold, which perpetuates, if not worsens, the already dreadful prison conditions. In the Build Build Build world, is there no room for a humanitarian priority like new facilities for prisoners?

Aside from better physical facilities, there is a need for more professional rehabilitation procedures like education, livelihood activities, psychological help, spiritual guidance and a general acceptance that prisoners are human beings that can be rehabilitated. Only private parties seem to be aware of these needs. Government policy seems to be indifferent.

Unfortunately, our prison officials are not trained custodians but retired personnel from other careers, mostly military, thrust into being prison managers. They see their positions as temporary, tolerate the onerous conditions in jails, are passive to the need for reform or make an overall judgment that criminals do not deserve compassion or assistance.

Considering our slow and inefficient justice system, the inequality in our society, and the poor quality of police crime investigation work, as well the latest draconian treatment of loiterers and street habitués who are willy-nilly incarcerated, injustice is rampant. A good number of prisoners who are convicted are fall guys, convicted of crimes that they were not masterminds of but were paid accomplices or maybe even innocent bystanders. Drug addicts in jail are mostly poverty-stricken users, not the big-time drug lords. And if there are big-time drug lords, check out the kubos, the amenities and luxuries that they somehow continue to enjoy while incarcerated. They are so much more important than others that their testimonies are given worth.

The above presents a slew of social problems in the justice system of our society. How to solve them will be a herculean task of delivering equal justice for all. One little first step, perhaps seemingly inconsequential, would be to have a more humane incarceration of our fellow human beings, in equality and justice, and with concern and compassion.

This story was originally published by The Manila Times, Philippines

The post Our prisons are hellholes appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Bamboo is stronger than concrete or steel but is a renewable resource, providing refuge and food for wildlife as well as biomass. Credit: CC by 2.0

By Ed Holt
VIENNA, Jun 29 2018 (IPS)

A landmark conference bringing more than 1,200 people from across the world together to promote and explain the importance of bamboo and rattan to global sustainable development and tackling climate change has ended with a raft of agreements and project launches.

The three-day Global Bamboo and Rattan Congress in Beijing this week, organised by multilateral development group the International Bamboo and Rattan Organisation (INBAR) and China’s National Forestry and Grassland Administration (NFGA), was the first international, policy-focused conference on the use of bamboo and rattan to help sustainable development.“Bamboo is not a climate change silver bullet, but we want people to realise that it is a ‘forgotten opportunity’ in helping mitigate the effects of climate change." --INBAR Director General Dr Hans Friedrich

Organisers had pledged to ensure that the event would not be “simply a talking shop”, instead making real progress on raising awareness of the potential role of bamboo and rattan in helping solve major global problems.

As it closed, it appeared that goal had been met with the announcement of a number of agreements, including a major project to develop bamboo sectors across Africa and an agreement between INBAR members to further develop bamboo and rattan sectors in other parts of the world.

Speaking at the end of the conference, INBAR Director General Dr Hans Friedrich said: “We have made some real steps forward for the development of bamboo and rattan.”

Bamboo and rattan have long been championed by environmental organisations and groups promoting sustainable development, especially in the world’s poorest countries.

A grass, bamboo is a native plant on all continents except Antarctica and Europe, although the majority of its natural habitat is in the tropical belts.

It is stronger than concrete or steel but is a renewable resource, providing refuge and food for wildlife as well as biomass. It captures higher amounts of CO2 than most other plants and can be harvested significantly faster than wood – over a period of 20 years it can produce almost 12 times as much material as wood.

It can be used for shelter as well as, in some cases, transport, and provides sustainable, ecologically-friendly economic and commercial opportunities to people, especially in poorer communities.

Groups like INBAR point out that bamboo use can play a significant part in helping countries meet many of the UN’s sustainable development goals.

But awareness of the potential of bamboo and rattan is generally low in many countries, especially in the more developed world and particularly at senior levels of government and industry.

Dr Friedrich told IPS: “A large part of the reason for this conference is about awareness. We want to tell people who don’t yet realise it that bamboo and rattan can help them reach their sustainable development goals.

“The potential is immense. It is understood by people in, for example, the forestry industry, and others, but not really by politicians. At this conference we want to help them realise this by giving them examples.”

Bringing together ministers, industry leaders, scientists and entrepreneurs, the conference used examples of innovative bamboo use – from a thirty-foot bamboo wind turbine blade to bamboo diapers – and real-life stories from individuals of bamboo and rattan helping create sustainable livelihoods to underline to decision-makers and senior industry figures the potential.

One of the key aims of the meeting, said organisers, was to try and push those decision-makers into setting up the institutional, regulatory, policy, and business frameworks necessary to kick-start a new sustainable development paradigm.

“In the last few years I have met a number of ministers and they always start off being sceptical about bamboo but after they see everything they realise its potential.

“We want governments to think about bamboo when they think about their plans for climate change, sustainable development and green policies,” Dr Friedrich told IPS.

INBAR also used the conference to talk to representatives from large private sector firms about how to build global value chains, as well as how to set up international standards which support international bamboo and rattan trade.

Its proponents have pointed out the economic potential, particularly in poorer countries, of the bamboo industry. In China, which Dr Friedrich says has until now been the “only country taking bamboo really seriously [as an industry]”, the bamboo industry employs 10 million people and is valued at USD 30 billion per year.

“People are beginning to realise the economic potential and opportunities for bamboo,” Friedrich told IPS.

The conference also highlighted the impact bamboo and rattan could have on climate change.

Speakers from various countries, including politicians, spoke about how bamboo and rattan was being used to help combat the effects of climate change and help the environment.

Experts outlined its potential and current use in areas like forest protection, restoration of degraded land, and carbon capture as well as a replacement for more carbon-intensive materials such as cement and steel in construction and industry.

An INBAR report released ahead of the conference gave an analysis of the carbon which is saved by substituting more emissions-intensive products for bamboo. It found the carbon emissions reduction potential of a managed giant bamboo species forest is potentially significantly higher than for certain types of trees under the same conditions.

Combining bamboo’s potential displacement factor with bamboo’s carbon storage rate, bamboo can sequester enormous sums of CO2 – from 200 to almost 400 tonnes of carbon per hectare. In China alone, the plant is projected to store more than one million tons of carbon by 2050.

Bamboo can also be used in durable products, including furniture, flooring, housing and pipes, replacing emissions-intensive materials including timber, plastics, cement and metals.
It can also be used as a substitute for fossil fuel-based energy sources – research by INBAR has shown that substituting electricity from the Chinese grid with electricity from bamboo gasification would reduce CO2 emissions by almost 7 tonnes of CO2 per year.

Bamboo can also help communities adapt to the effects of climate change, serving as a strong but flexible building material for shelter, as well as helping restore degraded land and combat desertification.

Patricia Espinosa, the Executive Secretary of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), said at the conference: “In short, bamboo and rattan represent an important part of reducing net emissions. And this is exactly what the world needs right now.”

Speaking to IPS on the eve of the conference, Dr Friedrich said he hoped that policymakers would realise the potential for bamboo as part of solutions for dealing with climate change.

“Bamboo is not a climate change silver bullet, but we want people to realise that it is a ‘forgotten opportunity’ in helping mitigate the effects of climate change,” he said.

INBAR officials readily admit that it is likely to take time to raise awareness of the potential of bamboo and rattan, but they are encouraged by the fact that more countries are starting to look at it seriously as an industry, including in Africa and South America.

But Dr Friedrich was keen to stress that the conference was just a beginning and that, with international agreements on important projects being signed, he was hopeful of real change in the future use and awareness of the potential of bamboo and rattan.

“I hope this conference is going to be a landmark moment. I want it to be the catalyst and inspiration for real change,” he told IPS.

Related Articles

• When a Grass Towers over the Trees
• Bamboo Could Be a Savior for Climate Change, Biodiversity
• FEATURED VIDEO: Harnessing the Eco Superpowers of Bamboo

The post Bamboo, A Sustainability Powerhouse appeared first on Inter Press Service.

By Carmen Arroyo and Emily Thampoe
UNITED NATIONS, Jun 29 2018 (IPS)

The World Drug Report 2018, launched this week by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), highlighted the importance of gender in drug consumption and behaviour, suggesting it is essential to provide different types of health-care and legal solutions.

Only one in five women addicts seeks treatment for drug abuse, the president of the International Narcotics Board (INCB) has warned. Credit: UN Photo/D. Gair

As Marie Nougier, Head of Research and Communications at the International Drug Policy Consortium (IDPC) told IPS: “There is certainly no one-size-fits-all strategy towards drug use – there should be a range of evidence-based prevention, harm reduction, treatment and other health and social support services that are able to respond to the many problems women may face when using drugs”.

About 5.6% of the global population between 15 and 64 years old -275 million people- used drugs during 2016, according to the report. From those, 31 million suffer from drug disorders, which means that they need treatment.

However, drug treatments are only reaching one sixth of drug consumers. The consequences are terrible, with 450,000 people dying in 2015 due to drug consumption. What’s more, global opium production increased by 65% from 2016 to 2017, which is the highest estimate so far.

The report has been separated into five sections, the fifth being about the effect that gender has on drug usage, especially in terms of women. The others include information such as an executive summary, drug demand and supply, drug markets, and drugs and age.

The fifth report states that while women consume opioids and tranquilizers more often than men, they use more cannabis and cocaine. Despite women starting to consume substances later in life than men, they increase their intake of related drugs -alcohol, opioids and cocaine- faster than them.

Whereas women mostly associate drug consumption with an intimate partner, men tend to consume substances with other male friends. And while women tend to suffer more from depression, anxiety, or other mental health conditions, men suffer from externalized problems like conduct disorder, such as “attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder and antisocial personality disorder”.

These are some of the gender-based differences in drug consumption that the report points out, but what stands out most in terms of finding long-term solutions is that women “may also have experienced childhood adversity such as physical neglect, abuse or sexual abuse”.

When this is coupled with strong drug policies, the result is a higher proportion of women sentenced for drug-related offences. Women are also shown to be more affected by post traumatic stress disorder.

Nougier from IDPC told IPS: “Drug policies focusing on punishing people for drug use have greatly contributed to drug-related health issues, including the spread of HIV and hepatitis C and overdose deaths, as the fear of arrest and punishment deters people from accessing the harm reduction and treatment services they may need”.

She added: “Punitive approaches have also increased the levels of stigma and discrimination against people who use drugs”.

Additionally, according Nougier, punitive approaches tend to affect women more, as there are no treatment programs that include a gender approach. Their needs -due to their background and consumption behavior- are different.

Also “because of the gender inequalities that continue to prevail in our societies, with women facing significant stigma for breaking with the role of the ‘good woman’ or the ‘good mother’ for using drugs. In some countries, using drugs during pregnancy is a criminal offence, which acts as a serious barrier for women to seek prenatal healthcare support or drug services”.

Kamran Niaz, epidemiologist at the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, told IPS that “women have better long-term outcomes when they receive treatments that focus on the issues more commonly found in women with drug use disorders compared to treatments that lack such a women-centred focus”.

Gender specific treatments

Asked about gender-specific treatments, Niaz added: “Prevention of drug use among girls/women requires investing in family-based prevention addressing vulnerabilities that appear to be unique to girls”. He continued: “in order to address the issues of drug use disorders among women, treatment services and programmes should be tailored to the needs of women and pregnant women”.

Some of the programmes that Niaz found specific for girls included: “dealing with stress, depression, social assertiveness, body image and improving relations and communication with parents and other significant others”.

Pamela Kent, Associate Director of Research at the Canadian Centre on Substance Use and Addiction (CCSA), told IPS: “A more informed and empathetic approach to women’s substance use is required—one that also considers various aspects such as reproductive health, perinatal service and child welfare. It’s important to note that not a one-size fits all—society needs to provide women-centered prevention and treatment resources and responses”.

Regarding the relation between drug use and abuse, Niaz said: “As women with drug use disorders are more vulnerable to domestic violence and sexual abuse, and their children may also be at risk of abuse, a liaison with social agencies protecting women and children is helpful”.

He added: “In addition in the case of child abuse we need programmes to prevent such abuse and, particularly, to support the victims and to address post-traumatic stress disorders among them”.

Kent agreed that abuse is a primary concern: “[The 2017 Life in Recovery from Addiction in Canada survey] showed that females reported greater family violence and untreated mental health concerns during addiction compared to males. In additional, for informal support, females more likely to use technology, connect with an animal, or use art, poetry, writing and yoga compared to males”.

However, not many programs have been implemented that include this gender-based approach. The report adds that the criminal justice system is designed for male offenders and thus forgets any nuances that relate to women.

Nougier said: “We continue to see a concerning lack of access to treatment by women dependent on drugs, both in the community and in prison. Available services are generally designed by and for men, and are often unable to tailor to the specific needs faced by women. In closed settings, most harm reduction and treatment services are only available in male prisons”.

Some facilities are starting to adapt themselves to these proven needs, according to Nougier. “Dome harm reduction and treatment facilities have adapted their services to better engage with women with specific opening hours for women only, a space for children while women come to the centre, and the provision gender-specific services (e.g. legal aid or support to respond to domestic violence, sexual and reproductive health support, etc.)”, she said.

Niaz agreed that “the programmes need to manage the myriad of issues such patients face, and should encompass broader health, learning, and social welfare context in collaboration with family, schools and social services”.

The post Fight Against Drug Consumption Needs Gender Specific Treatments appeared first on Inter Press Service.

By Geneva Centre
GENEVA, Jun 29 2018 (Geneva Centre)

On 25 June 2018, the Geneva Centre for Human Rights Advancement and Global Dialogue organized a World Conference on the theme of “Religions, Creeds and Value Systems: Joining Forces to Enhance Equal Citizenship Rights” at the United Nations Office at Geneva in collaboration with the International Catholic Migration Commission, the World Council of Churches, the Arab Thought Forum, the World Council of Religious Leaders, Bridges to Common Ground and the European Centre for Peace and Development.

The World Conference – held under the patronage of His Royal Highness Prince El Hassan bin Talal of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan – was addressed by more than 35 world-renowned religious, political and lay leaders from the major regions of the world.

Dr Farhan Nizami, Director of the Oxford Centre for Islamic Studies, discussed in his statement some of the underlying ideas behind religious beliefs and citizenship, highlighting the disconnects between religious sentiments and the expectations of mundane citizenship.

He emphasized the issue of belonging in relation to equality of citizenship rights, pointing out the importance of belonging based on belief, rather than belonging taking over belief.

In this regard, he remarked that “What is however a problem is belonging, because sometimes belief can lead to rather divisive belonging, whereas when belonging is based on belief it can be sustainable, durable and withstand challenges. But sometimes when belonging takes over belief it can be divisive and tribal. I would suggest that some of these nationalist, chauvinistic and xenophobic trends we see are sometimes belonging taking over belief.”

Dr Nizami also added that believers, regardless of their religion, were required to demonstrate that their beliefs were “adaptable to universal rights.” However, there exists a wide gap between the political ideal of equality and the religious ideal of equality of God.

“Within religions, the emphasis is not so much on rights but on obligations. In this religious perspective, rights emerge from people learning to live their obligations to their human and natural environments,” the Director of the Oxford Centre for Islamic Studies said in his statement.

About the Geneva Centre for Human Rights Advancement and Global Dialogue

The Geneva Centre for Human Rights Advancement and Global Dialogue, an organization with special consultative status with the United Nations Economic and Social Council, is a think tank dedicated to the promotion of human rights through cross-cultural, religious and civilizational dialogue between the Global North and Global South, and through training of the upcoming generations of stakeholders in the Arab region. Its aim is to act as a platform for dialogue between a variety of stakeholders involved in the promotion and protection of human rights.

CONTACTS MEDIA:
Blerim Mustafa
Junior project and communications officer
Email: bmustafa@gchragd.org
Phone number: +41 (0) 22 748 27 95

Teodora Popa
Project officer
Email: tpopa@gchragd.org
Phone number: +41 (0) 22 748 27 86

The post Director of the Oxford Centre for Islamic Studies: “Let us be wary of the abuse of human rights to legitimize the attainment of political and other objectives through coercion” appeared first on Inter Press Service.

By Geneva Centre
GENEVA, Jun 28 2018 (Geneva Centre)

On 25 June 2018, the Geneva Centre for Human Rights Advancement and Global Dialogue organized a World Conference on the theme of “Religions, Creeds and Value Systems: Joining Forces to Enhance Equal Citizenship Rights” at the United Nations Office at Geneva in collaboration with the International Catholic Migration Commission, the Arab Thought Forum, the World Council of Churches, the World Council of Religious Leaders, Bridges to Common Ground and the European Centre for Peace and Development.

The World Conference – held under the patronage of His Royal Highness Prince El Hassan bin Talal of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan – was addressed by more than 35 world-renowned religious, political and lay leaders from the major regions of the world.

In his statement, HE Amr Moussa – former Foreign Minister of Egypt and former Secretary General of the Arab League – called for ‘dialogue with honesty’ between religions leaders and politicians so as to address today’s challenges related to the enjoyment of equal citizenship rights.

According to HE Moussa, political trends and negative connotations, related to the biases of different parties, impede efficient policy-making. Identifying solutions to enhance the effective enjoyment of equal citizenship rights should be based on the spirit of good faith, cooperation and interactive dialogue between various parties. He said:

“The issue of crisis of religions is suffering from the currents and under-currents going in different ways, or at cross-purposes. Currents are clearly working together trying to find a way out of the crisis we have. Under-currents are perhaps encouraging or financing the negative activities that are producing the problem. The problem is not in the streets between simple people or between the Quran, the Bible and Torah or between any other philosophies: the problem is between the practitioners.

“That’s why we need dialogue with honesty because the situation is really going from bad to worse: the lack of truth, honesty and not reaching the people at grassroots level.”

HE Moussa concluded his statement underlining that it is “our common responsibility to harness the collective energy of religions, creeds and value systems” to promote their authentic meanings and address the instrumentalisation of religions. “All human beings belong to one family,” he asserted.

—-ENDS—-

About the Geneva Centre for Human Rights Advancement and Global Dialogue

The Geneva Centre for Human Rights Advancement and Global Dialogue, an organization with special consultative status with the United Nations Economic and Social Council, is a think tank dedicated to the promotion of human rights through cross-cultural, religious and civilizational dialogue between the Global North and Global South, and through training of the upcoming generations of stakeholders in the Arab region. Its aim is to act as a platform for dialogue between a variety of stakeholders involved in the promotion and protection of human rights.

CONTACTS MEDIA:
Blerim Mustafa
Junior project and communications officer
Email: bmustafa@gchragd.org
Phone number: +41 (0) 22 748 27 95

Teodora Popa
Project officer
Email: tpopa@gchragd.org
Phone number: +41 (0) 22 748 27 86

The post HE Amr Moussa: “It is our common responsibility to harness the collective energy of religions, creeds and value systems” appeared first on Inter Press Service.

By International Organization for Migration
Jun 28 2018 (IOM)

Migration is one of the major defining factors of our time.

Today, one billion people – one out of seven people in the world – are migrants, including over 250 million people living outside their home country and an estimated 750 million domestic migrants.

According to a new World Bank report, “Moving for Prosperity: Global Migration and Labor Markets,” some of the biggest gains in global welfare and economic development come from the movement of people between countries.

However, migration is often an overlooked piece of the globalization mosaic. Rapid urbanization adds to the complex picture of migration – and poses a challenge to the host communities and migrants alike.

What can be done to improve governance of global migration and encourage actions on urban expansion?

As part of our Spring Meetings 2018 Interview Series, we spoke with Ambassador William L. Swing, Director General of the International Organization for Migration (IOM). Watch the interview to learn more.

The post Global migration and urban expansion: an interview with Ambassador William L. Swing appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Fred Carver is Head of Policy & Ben Donaldson, Head of Campaigns, United Nations Association – UK

By Fred Carver and Ben Donaldson
LONDON, Jun 28 2018 (IPS)

UN Secretary-General António Guterres is about to make one of the most important decisions of his tenure – one that will directly impact communities worldwide: the appointment of the next High Commissioner for Human Rights.

The role is formidable. She or he is tasked with promoting and protecting all human rights for everyone, everywhere. This is an immensely challenging mandate in itself.

Prince Zeid bin Ra’ad Al Hussein, the outgoing UN High Commissioner for Human Rights. Credit: UN

At a time when fundamental human rights are in retreat across the world, including in established democracies, it is even more crucial that a talented and effective individual is appointed, who can rise to the occasion.

The Secretary-General cannot afford to get this wrong. The world is watching.

Since the current post holder – Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein – announced last December that he will not be standing for re-appointment, UNA-UK has worked with partners to encourage a robust, transparent and inclusive process.

We were delighted that the Secretary-General issued a public call for nominations to governments, as well as an explicit invitation to civil society and national human rights institutions to put forward candidates.

We are also pleased that he has committed to advertising widely, to involving external experts in the recruitment process, and that he has encouraged female nominees.

But the Secretary-General is leaving things very late. While we have no doubt there have been vigorous efforts behind the scene, the public call for nominations was only issued on 11 June, with a deadline of one month.

That will leave a mere 51 days between the closing date and the new High Commissioner’s first day in the job. In that time, the candidate will need to be pre-vetted, interviewed, vetted again more rigorously, nominated by the Secretary-General, approved by the UN General Assembly, serve out any notice they have in their current role, move to Geneva and prepare for one of the toughest positions on the planet.

The Secretary-General’s own appointment process benefitted greatly from reforms which brought inclusivity and transparency triggered by pressure from member states and civil society, including the ‘1 for 7 Billion’ campaign of our organisation – UNA-UK.

Technically, the HCHR’s appointment is different – it’s an internal concern for the Secretary-General without meaningful involvement of the Security Council or the General Assembly – but that does not mean the process should be less robust, or that there is no room for public consultation. After all, this is the UN’s principal human rights official.

UNA-UK is therefore pushing to use the limited time available to ensure the call for nominations reaches the widest possible audience, and to campaign for a fair and transparent process.

Our “transparency checklist” shines a light on the process, using metrics such as “are the terms of reference for the interview panel disclosed”, “do women make up at least half the shortlist”, “is a clear timetable for the appointment published” and “are human rights defenders and civil society consulted during the process?”

The future postholder’s mandate will be strengthened if they are seen to have come through a thorough, meritocratic recruitment process. At present, our checklist identifies significant room for improvement on this front.

A lack of transparency will feed the speculation that a small group of powerful states could have undue influence on the process raising the spectre of a compromised appointee.

A robust process, meanwhile, would make the General Assembly’s approval a mandate, rather than a rubberstamp. Including civil society would send a strong message about the UN’s openness to the public, as well as a signal to member states that they are not the organisation’s only stakeholders.

The UN is on its knees financially. The US is looking for cuts and Russia and China calling for those cuts to fall on the UN’s already underfunded human rights mechanisms. This is happening already in peacekeeping, but is unlikely to stop there.

Security Council gridlock between the big powers has resulted in conflicts in Syria, Yemen and elsewhere turning into quagmires. The US has pulled out of the Human Rights Council, which will not make joined up work on human rights across the UN any easier. Now more than ever the UN needs to inspire faith in its representatives from the public and the wider UN membership.

The incumbent high commissioner voiced an ominous rationale for not seeking a second term – that he fears his voice will be silenced and his independence and integrity compromised. The next postholder will need to rise to this formidable challenge – being seen to come through a rigorous and fair recruitment process will help.

The post New Human Rights Chief? UN Secretary-General Cannot Afford to Get It Wrong appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Excerpt:

Fred Carver is Head of Policy & Ben Donaldson, Head of Campaigns, United Nations Association – UK

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By Maged Srour
ROME, Jun 28 2018 (IPS)

As Yemen’s people struggle to survive amid what has been described as the world’s worst humanitarian crisis, the stranglehold by both government coalition forces and rebels over the country’s main ports of entry and distribution is cutting off a lifeline of support to 22 million people.

Amnesty International, in a report published on Jun. 22 after seven months of extensive research, said that the Saudi-led government coalition are blocking the entrance of essential humanitarian aid, including food, fuel and medicines. And any distribution of this aid is slowed by Houthi rebels within the country.

“The core aspect highlighted by the report is that humanitarian aid finds it extremely difficult to reach destinations inside the country,” Riccardo Noury, communications director and spokesperson for Amnesty International in Italy, told IPS.

Aid workers described to Amnesty International the extent of delays, with one saying that it took up to two months to move supplies out of Sana’a, the country’s capital.

“The most difficult part was getting the aid out of the warehouse once it is in Yemen,” the aid worker was quoted as saying.

World’s worst humanitarian crisis

Yemen’s war began after Houthi rebels took control of the country’s capital at the end of 2014, forcing the government to flee. In support of the government a coalition of states, led by Saudi Arabia, launched an offensive against the rebels. At least 10,000 Yemenis have been killed in almost three years of fighting, with the overall injured numbering 40,000.

The conflict has pushed Yemen, which was already known as the Middle East’s poorest country before 2014, to the verge of a total human, economic and social collapse.

Save the Children, an international non-governmental organisation that promotes human rights, estimates that 130 children in Yemen die every day from extreme hunger and disease.

It is estimated that three quarters of Yemen’s 27 million people are in need of assistance.
A third require immediate relief to survive and more than half are food insecure – with almost 2 million children and one million pregnant or lactating women being acutely malnourished, the Amnesty International report said. About 8.4 million people face severe insecurity and are at risk of starvation, the report noted quoting figures from the World Food Programme and the United Nations Office of Humanitarian Affairs (UNOCHA).

 


 


 
Overly bureaucratic procedures and long waits for clearance

Amnesty International examined the role of the two major parties in the conflict. On the one hand there is a blockade imposed by the Saudi-led coalition on the country’s air, road and harbour ports, while and on the other hand the slow bureaucracy and corruption of Houthi rebels compromises the flow of aid within Yemen.

Last November, the Saudi-led coalition blocked all Yemen’s ports after rebels fired missiles on neighbouring Saudi Arabia. The ports where opened weeks later but only to allow humanitarian aid into the country.

“However, humanitarian aid alone is not sufficient to meet the needs of the Yemeni population, who also rely on commercial imports of essential goods such as fuel, food and medical supplies,” the Amnesty International report said. It noted the restriction on commercial imports “impacted Yemenis’ access to food and exacerbated existing food insecurity.”

Whereas prior to the blockade more than 96 percent of the country’s food requirements were being met, as of April, “food imports were half (51 percent) of the monthly national requirement.”

Exacerbating the matter is the fact that this year Yemen only received 53 percent of required aid funding. According to the Financial Tracking Service database, which tracks humanitarian aid flows in areas of crisis, in 2018 Yemen received only USD1.6 billion against a request of USD2.9 billion. According to UNOCHA, Saudi Arabia has donated over half a billion dollars towards this aid.

While humanitarian aid is allowed into the country, the government coalition forces are accused of forcing aid vessels to wait for coalition clearance before being allowed to proceed to anchorage. This leads “to excessive delays and unpredictability that have served to obstruct the delivery of essential goods and humanitarian aid.”

However, even when aid eventually enters Yemen, its distribution is hindered by rebel forces.

Houthi rebels have to approve authorisation of movement of aid in the country. It is meant to take, at the most, two days. But sometimes it can take up to five days because of a shortage of officials.

“However, [aid workers] complained that overly bureaucratic procedures have caused excessive delays. They gave the example of the fact that permits provided to humanitarian organisations confine authorisation for movement to the specific day, time, and geographic location that was mentioned in the application.”

The consequence is that if aid workers “are not able for some reason to proceed to the operation on that day [they] have to put a request for a new permit and wait again,” the report said.

Houthi forces have been accused of extortion and interference in the distribution of aid and of “using their influence to control the delivery of aid, to influence who receives aid, and in which areas, and which organisations deliver it.”

One aid official told Amnesty International that they were “often told by Houthi forces to hand over the aid and that they [Houthi forces] would distribute it.”

The delays by both sides is against international humanitarian law, said Noury.

“All warring parties must facilitate the rapid distribution of impartial humanitarian assistance to all civilians in need. They also must ensure freedom of movement for all humanitarian personnel,” he added.

Human rights in Yemen

Noury expressed deep concern for the human rights situation in the country.

“First of all, you have all this situation linked to violations of international humanitarian law, that deals with the conflict itself. This is a very dirty conflict, in which warring parties have used arms that are forbidden by international law, such as cluster bombs. Then, you have the countless attacks against civilians that were committed by the Saudi-led coalition, and then, obviously the issue of humanitarian aid flows,” he said.

Noury stated his concern over the freedom of expression in Yemen as activists from local NGO, Mwatana for Human Rights, are being arrested by both Houthi rebels or Saudi forces as they attempt to impartially report on crimes perpetrated by both warring parties.

Amnesty International have called for the U.N. to “impose targeted sanctions against those responsible for obstructing humanitarian assistance and for committing other violations of international humanitarian law.”

It’s called on the government coalition forces and rebel forces to end delays and allow prompt delivery of aid and the allowance of commercial flights into the country.

Additional reporting by Nalisha Adams

The post Overly Bureaucratic Procedures and Long Waits Cuts off Support to 22 Million Yemenis appeared first on Inter Press Service.

The brick site where children toil away, just down the road from the classroom. Credit: Andrea Vale/IPS

By Andrea Vale
LIMA, Jun 28 2018 (IPS)

Most laborers in Peru are forced into a vicious cycle by circumstance. Faced with low-paying, high-intensity work, they have no choice but to make their children work as well. Having spent their lives neglecting education for labor, those children in turn grow up with no options for income besides low-paying, high-intensity positions  – and so on. But in classrooms across one region, a handful of teachers are trying to break that cycle while the children are still young.

Passing out books every week in a tiny classroom that lies on the side of a dirt road, high up in the Andes overlooking the city of Cajamarca, volunteers are met with a crime that teachers would usually welcome – the children are trying to sneak out extra books so that they can read more.When they first begin coming to classes, virtually all of the children have self-esteem so low that they are cripplingly shy and can barely speak to others.

Once each has a book the air is filled with high voices while they excitedly compare with one another, sometimes swapping between friends, exclaiming in thrill.

Each one of them is a child laborer.

The overwhelming majority work in brick yards, although some in nearby towns work loading and unloading carts of fruit from trucks in the crowded mercado; as construction workers helping to build houses by carrying cement and heavy tools; farm hands; maids; or simply wandering the streets for hours picking up bottles for recycling departments.

The miniature brick workers – all aged around six years old – rise at six in the morning and walk for several hours to get to their work sites. They spend all day in the mud, molding dirt into bricks; carrying loads into large, industrial ovens; hauling piles of finished bricks into trucks; and unloading the same loads in construction sites and crowded mercados.

It’s a job that consumes a child’s daily life, taking up any time that he or she is not in school.  The work gradually eats in to school hours themselves more and more until the children eventually drop out completely around age 12, to allow themselves to spend more time working and earn a larger income. Unsurprisingly, almost all of them are constantly ill and malnourished.

The first week spent in the classroom, one volunteer picked up an unsuspecting-looking crossword puzzle and examined it off-handedly. What she found was a startling unintentional statement on the reality of child labor, a first-grader’s scrawl answering as casual vocab terms the names of laws and legal rights that ensured that his right to protect his body, and for adults to care for him and other children.

That disquieting intermingling of childish innocence alongside more menacing undertones characterized the classroom. Posters on the wall displayed ‘My Rights Are: A Family;” “My Rights Are: An Education;” and “My Rights Are: A Home,” with the same bright colors and cartoons that exhibited the ABCs in elementary school classrooms.

A child laborer’s crossword puzzle. Credit: Andrea Vale/IPS

Antonieta, the teacher, smiled over them all from her place at the front of the classroom. She augmented to the atmosphere of cheeriness, taking time to sit with the children at their tables to ask them, “What story are you writing in your journal?”; “What do you think the moral of the book you’re reading is?”

When interviewed sitting on a log by the outhouse behind the classroom without any children around, however, her demeanor is notably more sober.

“Going to school is the most expensive right in Peru,” Antonieta said in Spanish, “According to the laws, they say, ‘No, school doesn’t cost anything,’ but in reality, they ask for money for everything.”

Antonieta told me that child laborers come from illiterate parents, ones without stable jobs. At best, mothers find occasional work as housekeepers, clothes washers and nannies, earning a salary of 100 soles a month (30 dollars), 200 if they’re lucky. Fathers are blue-collar workers, resigned by their lack of education to low salaries and career instability.

To earn an income even close to what it takes to keep a family surviving, everyone has to work – including the smallest members. An average income for a family in which mothers, fathers and children all contribute is about 400 to 600 soles a month – the equivalent of about 120 to 180 U.S. dollars.

And what does 400 to 600 soles a month look like? A house comprised of one room, at most two. Mothers, fathers, children, aunts and uncles, and grandparents all live together in their simultaneous bedroom, dining room and kitchen. And housed inside with them are farm animals and pets. As a result, these children grow up without independence, constantly stricken with stomach infections, colds and other detrimental diseases. The Cajamarca region holds the second-most place in Peru for youth malnourishment.

According to the International Labor Organization, there are 3.3 million child laborers in Peru, and a third of them are under 12 years old. 26.5% – almost 1/3 – of the Peruvian population between the ages of six and 17 are currently working, and those numbers are projected to increase greatly over the next few years. Though most of the younger half of child laborers attempts to attend school alongside their labor, children seem to drop out of school completely around age 12. For instance, among children who labor as domestic workers, only 2.3% of those aged 6-11 don’t attend school at all – as compared to 97.7% of those aged 12-17.

One brick site sits just down the road from the classroom. Unshielded from the sharp Peruvian sun beating down is a field of meticulously organized piles of industrial-sized bricks, intercepted in places by mounds of dirt and one massive brick oven. It isn’t hard to picture the ghosts of activity that had filled it only hours before – little hands straightening those piles of bricks; tiny bodies stumbling inside that oven carrying loads of mud stacked higher than their heads.

“Last week we gave dolls to the children,” Antonieta said. “They identify certain parts of the body where emotion is connected, where they feel happy or sad. Many of them couldn’t.”

When they first begin coming to classes, virtually all of the children have self-esteem so low that they are cripplingly shy and can barely speak to others. They are totally unable and fearful of expressing their thoughts and feelings.

“The children don’t have places for recreation. They don’t have places to be together with their friends, they don’t have places to do homework, they don’t have places to have conversations with their parents,” Antonieta said, “After coming to a few classes, they are more expressive. They are able to communicate their feelings, they communicate more with their families. They are improving in their studies. We have them write in journals. There was a little boy who brought his in and had written, ‘If (class) didn’t exist anymore, my dreams would be broken. My dreams would be dead.’ “

Antonieta began to quietly weep.

“A lot of children have written very good things, beautiful things,” she persisted, “‘There is so much hope with these children, that they’ll be able to learn and grow, and they come here and they get that hope.”

She says that reading “will help tremendously with their knowledge, increase their abilities, and they will not be taken advantage of so easily. They will be able to defend their own rights.”

Antonieta says that of the 250 children enrolled this year, 200 have left work, and the rest have reduced their hours at work.

“There is still a lot of work to do,” Antonieta says. “We’ve made progress, but there’s still a lot of work to do.”

The post Breaking the Cycle of Child Labor in Peru appeared first on Inter Press Service.

By WAM
JEDDAH, Jun 28 2018 (WAM)

The General Secretariat of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation, OIC, and its specialised institutions and the UN General Secretariat will hold a general meeting to enhance cooperation in political, economic, scientific, cultural, social and humanitarian fields between the two organisations, from 3rd to 5th July 2018, at the headquarters of the Islamic Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation, ISESCO, in Rabat, Kingdom of Morocco.

This biennial meeting will examine the continued political cooperation in terms of comprehensive consultations and capacity-building, as well as address conflicts, their means of resolution, peace-making and security.

It will also review counter-terrorism, combating violent extremism, promoting democracy, good governance, human rights and the rule of law. Furthermore, it will discuss issues such as the Middle East peace process, the situation in Syria, Libya, Yemen, Iraq, Somalia, Afghanistan, Mali, the Central African Republic and Myanmar.

On economic issues, the OIC and the UN officials will discuss the OIC trade preferential system, agriculture, food security and rural development, as well as transport and tourism issues.

The meeting will also discuss cooperation in science and technology, research and higher education, technical and vocational training, environment, climate change and water issues.

During the meeting, the two organisations will seek to promote cooperation in the area of intercultural dialogue and the promotion of a culture of dialogue for peace and reconciliation, combating incitement to discrimination based on religion or belief, social issues related to the interests of women, children and youth and the preservation of the cultural heritage of mankind.

Important topics to be discussed by the two organisations at the forthcoming meeting include the humanitarian landscape in the OIC countries like delivery of humanitarian aid and the mobilisation of support during humanitarian crises, particularly in Bangladesh, the Lake Chad Basin, the Central African Republic and Somalia.

 

WAM/Hazem Hussein/MOHD AAMIR/Hassan Bashir

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By PRESS RELEASE
Jun 27 2018 (Amnesty International)

• Report names 13 officials with a key role in murder, rape and deportation of Rohingya
• Myanmar’s security forces committed nine distinct types of crimes against humanity; responsibility goes to the top of the chain of command
• Calls for accountability, including a UN Security Council referral to the ICC

Amnesty International has gathered extensive, credible evidence implicating Myanmar’s military Commander-in-Chief, Senior General Min Aung Hlaing, and 12 other named individuals in crimes against humanity committed during the ethnic cleansing of the Rohingya population in northern Rakhine State.

The comprehensive report, “We Will Destroy Everything”: Military Responsibility for Crimes against Humanity in Rakhine State, Myanmar, calls for the situation in Myanmar to be referred to the International Criminal Court (ICC) for investigation and prosecution.

“The explosion of violence – including murder, rape, torture, burning and forced starvation – perpetrated by Myanmar’s security forces in villages across northern Rakhine State was not the action of rogue soldiers or units. There is a mountain of evidence that this was part of a highly orchestrated, systematic attack on the Rohingya population,” said Matthew Wells, Senior Crisis Adviser at Amnesty International.

“Those with blood on their hands – right up the chain of command to Senior General Min Aung Hlaing – must be held to account for their role in overseeing or carrying out crimes against humanity and other serious human rights violations under international law.”

Amassing the evidence

In the report, Amnesty International also names nine of the Commander-in-Chief’s subordinates in the Tatmadaw – Myanmar’s armed forces – and three in the Border Guard Police (BGP) for their roles in the ethnic cleansing campaign.

The culmination of nine months of intensive research, including in Myanmar and Bangladesh, the report is Amnesty International’s most comprehensive account yet of how the Myanmar military forced more than 702,000 women, men and children – more than 80% of northern Rakhine State’s Rohingya population when the crisis started – to flee to Bangladesh after 25 August 2017.

The report provides new details about the Myanmar military’s command structure and troop deployments, as well as the security forces’ arrests, enforced disappearances and torture of Rohingya men and boys in the weeks directly before the current crisis unfolded.

It also provides the most detailed information to date about abuses by the armed group the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army (ARSA), before and after it launched coordinated attacks on security posts on 25 August 2017. This includes killings of people from different ethnic and religious communities in northern Rakhine State, as well as the targeted killings and abductions of suspected Rohingya informants to the authorities.

Amnesty International has already documented in detail how the Myanmar military’s vicious response to the ARSA attacks came in the context of long-standing institutionalized discrimination and segregation amounting to apartheid and was marked by crimes under international law including murder, rape, torture, targeted large-scale burning of villages, the use of landmines, forced starvation, mass deportation and other serious human rights violations.

Based on more than 400 interviews – as well as reams of corroborating evidence, including satellite imagery, verified photographs and videos, and expert forensic and weapons analysis – the new report goes into harrowing detail about the patterns of violations committed in the military’s “clearance operations” following the ARSA attacks. It also identifies the specific military divisions or battalions involved in many of the worst atrocities. Amnesty International has documented the security forces committing nine out of the 11 types of crimes against humanity listed in the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court.

Combat troops deployed to ‘destroy everything’

The report documents how the military’s senior command put some of its fiercest fighting battalions, infamous for violations elsewhere in the country, front and centre in the operations in northern Rakhine State. This had disastrous consequences for the Rohingya population.

In the weeks leading up to 25 August, the Tatmadaw brought in battalions from the 33rd and 99th Light Infantry Divisions (LIDs), two combat divisions that Amnesty International had implicated in war crimes in Kachin and northern Shan State in late 2016 and mid-2017, as part of the ongoing internal armed conflicts there.

In some Rohingya villages, the incoming military commanders made their intentions clear from the start. Around 20 August 2017, five days before the bulk of the violence erupted, a field commander from the 33rd LID met in Chut Pyin, Rathedaung Township, with Rohingya leaders from nearby villages. According to seven people present interviewed separately by Amnesty International, the field commander threatened that if there was ARSA activity in the area, or if villagers did any “wrong,” his soldiers would shoot at the Rohingya directly, without any distinction.

Amnesty International likewise obtained an audio recording in Burmese, which it believes to be authentic, of a telephone call between a Rohingya resident of Inn Din, Maungdaw Township, and a Myanmar military officer based in the area. In the recording, the officer says, “We got an order to burn down the entire village if there is any disturbance. If you villagers aren’t living peacefully, we will destroy everything.”

The ensuing wave of violence, in which the security forces completely or partially burned several hundred Rohingya villages across northern Rakhine State, including almost every Rohingya village in Maungdaw Township, has been well documented by Amnesty International and others. The report goes into additional detail about the widespread as well as systematic attack on the Rohingya population, including in large-scale massacres in each of the three townships – in the villages of Chut Pyin, Min Gyi and Maung Nu. Thousands of Rohingya women, men and children were murdered – bound and summarily executed; shot and killed while running away; or burned to death inside their homes – though it may never be known exactly how many lost their lives as a result of the military operation.

The security forces also raped Rohingya women and girls, both in their villages and as they fled to Bangladesh. Amnesty International interviewed 20 women and two girls who were survivors of rape, 11 of whom were gang raped. The organization documented rape and sexual violence in 16 different locations in all three townships of northern Rakhine State. The practice was widespread and terrorized Rohingya communities, contributing to the campaign to force them out of northern Rakhine State. Some rape victims also had their family members killed in front of them. In at least one village, security forces left rape survivors inside buildings and set them on fire.

Border Guard Police arrests and torture

Amid growing tensions ahead of the 25 August attacks and in the days that followed, Myanmar security forces arrested and arbitrarily detained hundreds of Rohingya men and boys from villages across northern Rakhine State. Amnesty International interviewed 23 men and two boys whom the security forces arrested and tortured or otherwise ill-treated during this period.

The Rohingya men and boys were often severely beaten during the arrest and then taken to Border Guard Police (BGP) bases, where they were held incommunicado for days or even weeks.

BGP officers tortured the detainees to extract information or to force them to confess to involvement with ARSA. Amnesty International documented in detail torture that occurred in two specific BGP bases: one in Taung Bazar, in northern Buthidaung Township; and another in Zay Di Pyin village, in Rathedaung Township. Multiple survivors of torture named BGP officers responsible for the torture at these bases.

Released detainees described torture methods that included severe beatings, burning, waterboarding and rape and other sexual violence. Several Rohingya men who were held at the Taung Bazar BGP base described having their beards burned. Rohingya men and two boys who were detained at the Zay Di Pyin BGP base described being denied food and water; beaten to the point of death; and, in many cases, having their genitals burned until they blistered.

A farmer from a village in Rathedaung Township told Amnesty International: “I was standing with my hands tied behind my head, then they pulled off my longyi [a sarong-like garment] and put a [lit] candle under my penis. [A BGP officer] was holding the candle and [his superior] was giving orders… They were saying, ‘Tell the truth or you will die’.”

Some detainees did die from torture in custody, including a 20-year-old man who was beaten to death with a wooden plank after he asked for water.

To secure their release, detainees were made to pay large bribes and to sign a document stating they had never been abused. Ten months later, the Myanmar authorities have yet to provide information about who remains in detention, where they are being held, and under what charges, if any. These detentions amount to arbitrary detention under international law.

Command responsibility

Amnesty International reviewed confidential documents about the Myanmar military indicating that, during military operations like those in northern Rakhine State, forces on the ground normally operate under the tight control of senior commanders. Combat division units – which committed the vast majority of crimes against the Rohingya – have strict reporting requirements as to their movements, engagements and weapons use, information that senior commanders knew or should have known.

Further, top military commanders, including Senior General Min Aung Hlaing, actually travelled to northern Rakhine State directly before or during the ethnic cleansing campaign, to oversee parts of the operation.

Senior military officials knew – or should have known – that crimes against humanity were being committed, yet failed to use their command authority to prevent, stop or punish those crimes, and even attempted to whitewash the overwhelming majority of them in the aftermath. Moreover, there is sufficient evidence to require an investigation into whether some or all may have been directly involved in planning, ordering or committing murder, rape, torture and the burning of villages.

Amnesty International’s research identifies 13 individuals with key roles in crimes against humanity. The organization is calling for all those responsible to face justice. [The names will be released following an embargoed press conference in New York on 26 June.]

Time for accountability

Faced with mounting international pressure, last month the Myanmar authorities announced the establishment of an “Independent Commission of Enquiry” to investigate allegations of human rights violations. Previous government and military-led investigations into abuses in Rakhine State have only served to whitewash military atrocities.

“The international community should not be fooled by this latest attempt to shield perpetrators from accountability. Instead, it must finally put an end to the years of impunity and ensure that this dark chapter in Myanmar’s recent history is never repeated,” said Matthew Wells.

“The United Nations Security Council must stop playing politics and urgently refer the situation in Myanmar to the International Criminal Court, impose a comprehensive arms embargo on Myanmar and impose targeted financial sanctions against senior officials responsible for serious violations and crimes.

“While building international consensus and support for an ICC referral, the international community should use the UN Human Rights Council to set up a mechanism to collect and preserve evidence for use in future criminal proceedings.

“A failure to act now in light of the overwhelming body of evidence begs the question: what will it take for the international community to take justice seriously?”

NOTES TO EDITORS:
1. The report, including the list of 13 names, will be made available at an embargoed press conference in New York on 26 June. Contact conor.fortune@amnesty.org for details.

2. Alongside the report, Amnesty International and SITU Research have created a new platform visualizing how Myanmar’s military committed crimes against humanity against the Rohingya population in northern Rakhine State since 25 August 2017. The map-based narrative takes users on an interactive journey through the weeks leading up to the violence, the military’s deployment and commission of atrocities, the flight en masse of Rohingya villagers to Bangladesh, and the recent construction on top of destroyed Rohingya villages. It calls for accountability for Myanmar officials with a key role in atrocities including murder, rape and deportation of the Rohingya.
Enter the site here (after 00:01 GMT on 27 June): https://mapping-crimes-against-rohingya.amnesty.org/

Public Document
****************************************
For more information or to arrange an interview, please call:
Conor Fortune (in London until 23 June, and New York from 24-28 June) on:
+44 74 3263 3678 or
email: conor.fortune@amnesty.org
twitter: @writesrights
Amnesty International’s press office in London, UK, on:
+44 20 7413 5566 or
email: press@amnesty.org
twitter: @amnestypress

International Secretariat, Amnesty International, 1 Easton St., London WC1X 0DW, UK

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Pele (standing, back row right) at the UNICEF signing ceremony. Credit: UNICEF

By Kul Chandra Gautam
KATHMANDU, Nepal, Jun 27 2018 (IPS)

Pele’s example has inspired millions of young people to join the ‘beautiful game’ and contribute to building a peaceful and prosperous world fit for all our children.

As billions of people around the world—including millions of Nepalis—are glued to their televisions watching the 2018 World Cup, I wish to reminisce about the humanitarian dimension of a great football star who is currently not in the pitch. Pelé.

Everybody knows Pelé as probably the best football player in the world in history. But few people know about his important contribution to other great social causes. Unbeknownst to many of his fans, Pelé helped save the lives and improve the health of millions of children in Brazil.

He also helped promote such worthy global causes as ecology and environment, sports and development and peaceful resolution of conflicts as goodwill ambassador for the UN, UNESCO and UNICEF.

Pelé and breastfeeding

In the 1980s and 90s, UNICEF was involved in promoting many innovative methods of social mobilization to influence child-friendly public policies in Brazil. One example was promotion of breastfeeding to enhance child health and to reduce the high rates of infant mortality and malnutrition.

Due to the aggressive marketing of baby milk formulas by private multinational companies, breastfeeding had declined dramatically to the point that in the 1980s only eight percent of Brazilian mothers exclusively breastfed their babies during the first six months. UNICEF explored how best it could help reverse this dangerous trend.

Efforts to promote breastfeeding by the Ministry of Health and by concerned pediatricians were not producing the desired results in the face of very aggressive and deceptive advertising by the infant formula companies. In its search for who might be the most respected and credible messenger whose advice mothers would pay attention to, UNICEF came up with the most unusual yet obvious choice: Pelé—Brazil’s most popular and the world’s best football player.

It did not take much effort for UNICEF to convince Pelé to lend his name to this worthy mission of saving the lives and protecting the health of millions of Brazilian children. Decline in breastfeeding affected all segments of Brazil’s population but the worst consequences were among the poorest.

Many poor women were influenced by formula advertisers who presented bottle-feeding as the healthy and glamourous alternative to breastfeeding. Rich and beautiful women were shown as preferring bottle-feeding over breastfeeding. Even doctors and nurses in hospitals were enlisted by infant formula companies to influence new mothers to switch to bottle-feeding.

As the world’s leading child health organizations, UNICEF, WHO and the International Pediatric Association, had uncontested scientific evidence that breastfeeding was the best nutrient for infants, and that exclusive breastfeeding for the first six months and continued breastfeeding for up to two years with gradual introduction of healthy weaning foods protected children from infection, malnutrition and common childhood diseases.

With rare exceptions, all mothers are capable of breastfeeding which has many lifelong advantages for infants as well as for their mothers and society as a whole.

With such arguments UNICEF convinced Pelé to be its champion for breastfeeding. It helped prepare an attractive poster that was plastered all over the country in which Pelé’s mother was shown patting her famous son on the shoulder and saying: “Of course, he is the best football player in the world. I breastfed him!”

This poster became the centre-piece of a breastfeeding promotion campaign that led to a dramatic increase in exclusive breastfeeding to almost 40 percent within a few years. The lives of thousands of Brazilian children were saved and health of millions improved as a result of this campaign.

As UNICEF’s Chief for Latin America and the Caribbean in the 1980s, and later as its global Program Director, I had the opportunity to visit Brazil many times and witness the impact of Pelé’s contribution—along with that of the Catholic church and Brazil’s vibrant media—in that country’s impressive progress in child survival and development.

Childhood in poverty

Pelé was receptive to UNICEF’s message partly because of his own personal experience of growing up as a poor child. Born in 1940 in a poor community in the state of São Paulo in southern Brazil, Pelé’s real family name was Edson Arantes do Nascimento. He grew up in poverty earning money by working in tea shops as a servant.

Taught to play football by his father, he could not afford a proper football. He often played with either a grapefruit or an improvised ball made of old socks stuffed with newspapers and tied with a string. Given this personal experience, Pelé is very sensitive to the plight of children suffering from poverty. He has been a strong supporter of UNICEF and the UN’s anti-poverty development goals.

In Brazil, Pelé’s name is also associated with anti-corruption activism. In 1995, Brazilian President Fernando Henrique Cardoso, who had once been a UNICEF consultant on social policy, appointed Pelé to the position of Extraordinary Minister for Sport. During his tenure, Pelé proposed legislation to reduce corruption in Brazilian football, which came to be known as “Pelé law.”

‘Say yes for children’

I had the opportunity to meet and interact with Pelé in 2001 when I was leading UNICEF’s plans for organizing a Global Summit at the UN General Assembly Special Session on Children. To build momentum for the Summit to come up with ambitious goals and strong commitment, UNICEF had launched a “Say Yes for Children” campaign with active support of luminaries like Nelson Mandela, UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan and dozens of world leaders.

One of the highlights of the campaign was a special partnership with FIFA. We invited FIFA President Sepp Blatter and several famous football stars and UNICEF Goodwill Ambassadors to join. The most prominent among them was Pelé, who signed the “Say Yes…” campaign as part of “UNICEF-FIFA Global Alliance for Children”.

I was happy to be part of that memorable ceremony at which I asked Pelé to sign a football jersey for my son Biplav Gautam, a sports enthusiast, who treasures that jersey as one of his proud possessions.

In another memorable event, Pelé helped UNICEF and FIFA to kick off the 2006 World Cup in Germany as part of a campaign to utilize the power of football to create self-esteem, mutual respect and fair play among children, and to spread the message of peace.

Pelé carried the World Cup trophy onto the pitch in Munich alongside supermodel and UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador Claudia Schiffer. Around 150 former World Cup winners also took part in the spectacular opening ceremony watched by more than a billion people around the world.

A special World Cup website created by UNICEF in Arabic, English, French and Spanish invited fans to join a virtual team of UNICEF supporters around the world captained by England star and UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador David Beckham and joined by other soccer heroes like Didier Drogba (Côte d’Ivoire), Lionel Messi (Argentina), Francesco Totti (Italy) and many others.

All of these players appeared in a series of TV spots produced by MTV for UNICEF and FIFA, which were broadcast around the world and in every stadium before each match. The spots ended by asking viewers to ‘UNITE FOR CHILDREN, UNITE FOR PEACE’.

Maestro of ‘beautiful game’

During his illustrious career, Pelé won three FIFA World Cups in 1958, 1962 and 1970, and broke many international records as the greatest football player of all time. His extraordinary skills—such as his ability to strike powerful and accurate shots with both feet and the elegance with which he maneuvered the ball and out-maneuvered his competitors—are legendary. More than anyone else, Pelé is credited for popularizing football as “the beautiful game.”

Due to ill health Pelé was unable to join in the opening of the 2018 World Cup in Russia. But his example has inspired millions of young people to join the ‘beautiful game’ and contribute to building a peaceful and prosperous world fit for all our children.

The link to the original article published in The Republica, a daily newspaper in Kathmandu :
http://republica.nagariknetwork.com/news/pele-beyond-football/

The post Pelé Beyond Football appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Excerpt:

Kul Chandra Gautam, a former Deputy Executive Director of UNICEF and Assistant Secretary-General of the United Nations, is author of a forthcoming memoir: “Global Citizen from Gulmi: My Journey from the Hills of Nepal to the Halls of United Nations”

The post Pelé Beyond Football appeared first on Inter Press Service.