Africa

A Nigerian mother speaks to a police brutality inquiry about her missing son arrested 13 years ago.

By Saeda Bilkis Bani
DHAKA, Bangladesh, Dec 21 2020 (IPS)

I recently visited rural areas of Bangladesh amid the COVID-19 pandemic and returned to Dhaka with a new understanding of the impact that COVID-19 is having on child marriage, a harmful practice that is a global challenge. The fundamental shift that I saw was that child marriage, which has typically been encouraged by struggling parents, is now being encouraged by struggling girls. This worrisome trend underscores a new burden of the pandemic on the poor.

Marriage before the age of 18 is a fundamental violation of human rights. Yet UNICEF reported in April that the number of girls married in childhood stands at 12 million per year worldwide.

According to the United Nations Population Fund’s State of the World Population 2020 report, COVID-19 threatens to make even that stunning number worse. The agency estimates that COVID-19 will disrupt efforts to end child marriage, potentially resulting in an additional 13 million child marriages taking place between 2020 and 2030 that could otherwise have been averted.

The challenge is not only the disease but the response to the disease – especially the impact of school closings, which have been in effect nationally since March. The transition from in-school to online learning can easily seem like a mechanical one, but it creates new challenges for remote and poor communities.

Saeda Bilkis Bani

What I witnessed in visiting rural communities was girls totally bored and home-bound by school closings. They typically lack Internet access, television, and smartphones. Analog phones are the only readily available means of communication, and too often the parents are not able to maintain any sort of schooling at home.

The girls are home-bound because, unlike the boys, they are generally forbidden by their parents from leaving the home unnecessarily. School closings thus become confining as well as limiting.

All too often the girls whom I saw had a glazed look in their eyes. They saw no future for themselves. Without school, they were deprived of possibilities. The daily effect was crushing. The only escape was child marriage.

The shift to girls pursuing child marriage instead of their parents is a devastating one that could drive the numbers even higher. It could limit the prospects and potential of girls worldwide.

School closings also affect boys, but boys have more to do. They are freer, more mobile, outside more. In some areas, that may increase child labor, drug addiction, and gambling, but boys are not confined as girls are.

The situation is also different in urban areas, where there is greater access to the Internet, television, and smartphones. Internet access has its own liabilities, but it is available for educational purposes.

For girls and women, the response to COVID-19 has other implications, too. Lockdowns have left many men out of work and, therefore, at home during the day, often making demands of one kind or another. The burden on women – to prepare more food, do more cleaning, maintain the home life – only increases. Financial stress creates domestic stress, and the potential for violence grows, especially as husbands demand more money from wives’ families – a major cause of domestic violence.

BRAC is working to prevent child marriages and other forms of violence against women and children and to defend victims of such violence. BRAC’s Community Empowerment Programme supports Polli Shomaj, the community-based women’s groups that are active in 54 out of 64 districts in Bangladesh in combating gender-based violence. BRAC also operates 410 Legal Aid Clinics, whose cases typically involve gender-based violence. But for prevention to be maximized a cultural shift is needed.

Men and women are equal in Bangladesh’s Constitution and law, but not in its culture. And with 3 million cases backlogged in the court system, the law has limited effect.

Bringing about that cultural shift requires economic empowerment alongside social empowerment for girls and women. It requires life skills for negotiation, partnering in decision-making, and goal setting, among other things. It necessitates occupational skills training to enable girls and women to connect with the job market and to earn their own income. It also requires microfinance so that women can get loans, and mentoring so that women can see a future that they can impact.

Fortunately, BRAC has those tools in place. BRAC Microfinance has 7.1 million clients, 87% of whom are women. BRAC’s Skills Development Programme has equipped 84,581 people with training and knowledge needed for employment, and 83% of those learners – 50% of whom are women – secured jobs after graduation. Together these tools create a comprehensive package that can enable girls and women to see a vibrant future and escape gender-based violence.

But the scale of the problem is greater still. According to a 2015 survey by the Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics and the United Nations Population Fund, more than 70 percent of married women or girls in Bangladesh have faced some form of intimate partner abuse; about half of whom say their partners have physically assaulted them. And the problem is global.

COVID-19 has revealed that girls and women need to be able to see a future of opportunity for themselves. In combating COVID-19, the world must awaken to this revelation. COVID-19 should now become the catalyst for the world to make possible a future of opportunity for girls and women – a future without gender-based violence.

The author is a Programme Manager in the Community Empowerment Programme at BRAC, one of the largest nongovernmental organizations in the world.

 

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Credit: IPS

By Rabiya Jaffery
AMMAN, Jordan, Dec 21 2020 (IPS)

Anas Shaikh is a Pakistani farmer on a mission to bring solutions to the many difficulties small and medium-scale farmer’s face in making a sustainable living.

One of the main challenges he observed has been the difficulties for farmers to sell their produce at the right time to avoid post-harvest waste and at prices that were not exploitative due to the large number of middlemen and corporations that are now involved in the agricultural supply chain.

“The agriculture community everywhere but especially in developing countries is loaded with so many difficulties, despite the crucial role farmer’s play in the economy and food security of their countries,” says George Stacey, an analyst working with Norvergence, an environmental advocacy NGO.

“There are a lot of problems contributing to this but one of the biggest is that farmers are exploited and not paid what they deserve for their produce.” Just across the border, in India, tens of thousands of farmers are currently protesting against three new agricultural laws that aim to deregulate Indian agriculture.

Even though the laws say farmers will still have price assurances, but the language is vague, and farmers are nervous about losing government support and having to sell directly to large companies. Farmers are particularly worried that they will not be able to sell their produce and go into debt.

Already, across the region, the increasing number of intermediaries, such as wholesalers and processors – as supply chains become more monopsonistic and monopolistic due to the growing influence and presence of large global companies in markets – continue to lower the returns earned by small scale farmers.

In addition the lack of road and rail connectivity and limited accessible storage or warehouse infrastructures in Pakistan and India also further increase the need to rely on middlemen.

“Lower returns continue to exploit farmers and push many further into poverty,” says Stacey. “This also impacts the quality of produce that is grown as farmers are no longer able to access many resources such as good quality of pesticides.”

Shaikh is now on a mission to use technology to find solutions to the biggest challenges small local farmers face.

He has recently founded Peepu, an easy-to-use mobile application that cuts down on the several middlemen and the time that it takes to sell agricultural products by facilitating direct transactions between farmers and traders.

Shaikh points out that the app’s simplistic interface has been designed to ensure accessibility, keeping into consideration that the target users may not all be tech-savvy.

“I have worked in the field as a small farmer and I know farmers. This is why the app has been deliberately designed in a fashion that the farmers will find it easy to use,” says Shaikh.

Peepu was launched earlier this year on Google Play in March, and is being used by more than 700 Pakistani farmers and aims to expand further in the coming months.

“Farmers are able to sell their products at the earliest possible time and at a competitive price,” says Shaikh.

“What we are trying to do is use the technology to shift the power of negotiations back to small farmers and also allow them the possibility to conduct business with anyone, regardless, without the limitations imposed by geographical proximity.”

Currently, agriculture is one of South Asia’s biggest employers. Nearly 70 percent of the region’s population is employed in agriculture and the majority of people in the region live in rural communities.

And technology, such as Peepu, can drastically help answer many of the difficulties farmers face that also have long-term social and economic impacts.

For instance, a shorter chain of intermediaries can also potentially diminish the post-harvest losses generated due to the degradation in the quality and quantity of the crop products through the stages of the supply chain from harvest to consumer use.

“Farmers directly selling to traders in a way that isn’t exploitative and without the many middlemen involved, also provides a pragmatic solution to the utilization of unavoidable post-harvest food waste which isn’t just beneficial to farmers but also important in reducing food waste and, thus, improving food security,” says Shaikh.

Several reports, such as by The World Bank, warns that ensuring food security in South Asia, as its population continues to exponentially expand, will be one of the main challenges for the region to address in the coming years.

The region is currently home to more than 1.8 billion people — with the majority living in India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh — and has been the fastest-growing region for half a decade. The population of the region is expected to further increase by 40 percent by 2050, according to the UN.

And many experts agree that addressing food insecurity is going to be amongst the top policy agendas to ensure stability in what is the most populous and amongst the poorest regions of the world.

“Food availability and accessibility can be increased by increasing production, improving distribution, and reducing the losses. And the reduction of post-harvest food losses is a critical component of ensuring future global food security,” says Hina Kamal, PhD research scholar at Future Food Beacon Program, University of Nottingham.

Kamal is working with sustainable food companies to research approaches to recycling and reutilizing food waste into functional products.

“Reduction and recycling of food waste is the only possible holistic approach towards achieving sustainability for future foods”

Studies have also established the importance of policies that address securing food availability that considers the context and impacts of climate change on agriculture.

A report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), for example, states that while climate change and rising temperatures will affect food production across Asia differently, the most food insecure populations are likely to be in South Asia.

Kamal points out that the urgency of tackling food insecurity issues can led governments of developing countries to launch short term and fast tracked initiatives, without proper co-ordination resulting in slower progress and economic inefficiencies.

“This can be reversed if there is better activation of opportunities and co-ordination amongst research institutes, research and development centers, universities and private and public enterprises and ministries,” she adds. “It is innovation that, after all. increases the scope and number of emerging technological process, logistics, marketing and operating costs.”

Peepu is currently involved with the National Incubation Center (NIC) in Karachi, Pakistan’s economic center, and is seeking funding from external investors.

“While technology can be and exploitative force, it also offers a potential for small farmers to get some of their power back and have more control over how and to who they sell their crops,” says Stacey.

“It doesn’t solve the many problems small farmers experience but it can be a tool to navigate through the challenges until better policies come along that protect them.”

 

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It has deployed what it calls a "protection force" after its peacekeepers there came under attack.

A parent helps his children to go through work received in the study kits distributed by Education Cannot Wait (ECW) implementing partners in Uganda. ECW allocated $1 million in emergency funds to its education partners in Uganda to ensure that refugee children still continued schooling despite the nationwide coronavirus lockdown. Credit: Wambi Michael/IPS

By Wambi Michael
KAMPALA/KIKUBE/RWAMWANJA, Uganda , Dec 21 2020 (IPS)

Thirteen-year-old Wita Kasanganjo is a pupil at Maratatu Primary School in the Kyangwali Refugee Settlement based in Uganda’s Hoima district. But last month, when Uganda’s President Yoweri Museveni ordered the re-opening of schools for the first time since the mid-March nationwide closure, Kasanganjo was not part of the returning group of students. The government, in a cautious lifting of coronavirus lockdown restrictions, has allowed only pupils who are part of the final year or candidate classes to return to their schooling.    

“Not being in class for all this time is not fun. I miss my friends at school and my teachers too,” Kasanganjo tells IPS, saying that she looks forward to the day when the government allows all children to return to school. Kasanganjo has lived as a refugee in Uganda since 2015 when she and her mother fled from armed conflict in neighbouring Democratic Republic of Congo’s Ituri province.

During the coronavirus lockdown and subsequent school closures, close to 15 million girls and boys, including children living in refugee settlements across this East African nation, were affected. And while pupils in their final years of school, estimated at 1.2 million, returned last month, more than 13 million remain at home, with some still unable to access learning materials.

The most vulnerable among these children include refugee children like Kasanganjo. According to international charity, Save the Children, Uganda hosts the largest number of refugees on the continent.

The numbers are sobering. According to the NGO, 57 percent of refugee children in Uganda are out of school, in some cases for several years. “Even for those who are able to attend school, the quality of education is severely compromised by a shortage of classrooms, teachers and materials. Class sizes average more than 150 children, with some squeezing in 250 children or more,” according to Save the Children Uganda.

Kasanganjo is one of the fortunate ones. She was enrolled in Uganda’s Primary Education under the Education Response Plan for Refugees and Host Communities in Uganda (ERP), facilitated by Education Cannot Wait (ECW).

The plan, the first of its kind globally, was launched two years ago by the Ugandan government together with local and international humanitarian and development partners. “It targets children and youth in 12 refugee-hosting districts in Uganda where more than half a million children are currently out of learning and out of school,” according to UNHCR, the United Nations Refugee Agency.

ECW, the first global fund dedicated to education in emergencies and protracted crises, provided the impetus to develop the three and a half year ERP and supports its implementation with a $33 million seed funding allocation. ECW is urgently appealing to new and current donors to step up and cover the full $389 million expected cost of the ERP. So far, an additional $93 million has been mobilised.

While other refugee children may not be attending school during the lockdown, Kasanganjo is able to continue learning from home as she has been supplied with reading material distributed by the ERP partners working in Kyangwali Refugee Settlement.

When the COVID-19 pandemic erupted, ECW immediately released additional funds through its first emergency response funding window for its partners to quickly set up relevant remote learning solutions and safe and protective learning environments, and to raise awareness of barrier gestures for children and youth and their communities to prevent the spread of the virus.

“In times of crisis, support to continuous learning opportunities is crucial to help protect vulnerable girls and boys who face high risks of permanently dropping out in case of a prolonged interruption to their education. Girls are particularly at risk of child marriage and early pregnancies,” said Yasmine Sherif, director of ECW. “In the face of COVID-19, rapid emergency interventions have been key to protect refugee children and youth and other vulnerable and marginalised girls and boys from an uncertain future and to preserve the gains of ECW’s longer-term multi-year investments in quality education outcomes.”

In total, ECW allocated $1 million in emergency funds to its education partners in Uganda. This includes $475,000 implemented by UNHCR and $525,000 implemented by Save the Children as part of a consortium of civil society organisations, including War Child Holland and ZOA Uganda. The consortium distributed 38,000 home learning kits and more than 900 solar-powered radios that were given to some of the poorest households to ensure children in refugee hosting communities were able to listen to lessons over the radio. The funding also supported classes to be conducted over local radio stations. 

“I have I read all the reading materials and answer all the questions. Sometimes I have challenges because I cannot get ready answers, but my mother allows me to visit some of my friends in the community so that we can do the work together. That has really worked for me,” says Kasanganjo.

Geatano Apamaku, a radio manager at Radio Pacis in Uganda’s West Nile region – which lies along the border with the Democratic Republic of the Congo, where Uganda’s largest concentration of refugees, numbering 750,000, are based – believes that radio classes are more effective compared to distributing the study material and having students learn by themselves.

“We have had children call in asking teachers questions. I think this was more effective because most refugee parents are illiterate. So, they could not help their children learn,” Apamaku tells IPS. 

Dugale Severy, a teacher and refugee from South Sudan who lives and teaches in the Nyumanzi Refugee Settlement in Adjumani District, tells IPS that without education programmes for refugee children, many would never have entered a classroom after fleeing their countries. And despite the COVID-19 lockdown, he says that South Sudanese refugee children are receiving a good education.

“Because you cannot learn when you are hearing gunshots. Just like you cannot teach at your best when you are hearing bombshells. I pray that this type of education is extended to other refugee children all over the world,” explains Dugale.

Uganda’s National Commissioner for Basic and Primary Education Dr. Cleophus Mugenyi tells IPS that without funding from ECW, children in refugee settlements would not have been able to continue their education.

“It would be horrible. The children would be denied the right to education, and you know that education is a basic human right for all and it is important for everyone to make the most of their lives. So, children in refugee settlements deserve education, too,” says Mugenyi.

According to Mugenyi, funding from ECW has benefitted refugees and their host communities to improve learning facilities, construct classrooms and pit latrines, and train teachers, among others.

In fact, ECW reports that the primary gross enrolment ratio for refugee children improved from 53 percent in 2017 to 75 percent in 2019, following the Fund’s support to the ERP.

Despite this progress, more is needed as refugees are faced with precarious situations.

“Our appeal to partners is to continue mobilising resources towards this kind of education because from Uganda’s perspective, we have demonstrated that the Education Response Plan for Refugees and Host Communities in Uganda can help children to access education,” says Mugenyi.

But Uganda has done more for refugees than most countries by granting them access to land and services, freedom of movement, and the right to work. According to Save the Children, the Ugandan government has shown “global leadership in refugee policy and how we respond to refugee crises”.

According to the NGO, what happens in Uganda will determine an international framework for the refugee crisis.

“Uganda and the ERP is a test case for the willingness of the international community to back their commitments with practical actions, and ensure that the responsibility of responding to the refugee crisis is shared fairly,” Save the Children states. 

ECW is appealing to public and private donors to urgently mobilise $400 million globally. With these resources, ECW will continue to fund emergency education support during the COVID-19 pandemic and in other sudden onset crises, and help develop and roll out multi-year response plans for refugees and other children and youth in a total of 25 protracted crises around the globe.   

Meanwhile Gladys Nayema, just like Kasanganjo, is one of the many girls who will continue their home learning. “Some of our colleagues were happy when the schools were closed. They thought it was an early holiday. I didn’t. I have continued to learn from those materials from Save the Children and the government. I urge other boys and girls to read them because they are useful,” she tells IPS.

 

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By Julie Posetti
WASHINGTON, Dec 18 2020 (IPS)

An alarmingly high number of women journalists are now targets of online attacks associated with orchestrated digital disinformation campaigns. The impacts include self-censorship, retreat from visibility, an increased risk of physical injury, and a serious mental health toll. The main perpetrators? Anonymous trolls and political actors.

These findings are among the first released in a survey conducted by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) and the International Center for Journalists (ICFJ) on online violence against women journalists. They paint a global picture of the deeply entrenched nature of gendered abuse, harassment and sexualized attacks against women journalists, along with the obstacles to effective solutions.

The survey, which is the most comprehensive and geographically diverse survey ever undertaken on the theme of online violence, was offered in five languages and received responses from 714 women journalists across 113 countries. It is part of a broader UNESCO-commissioned study to examine online violence in 15 countries, with an emphasis on intersectional experiences and the Global South.

The women journalists surveyed said they had been subjected to a wide range of online violence, including threats of sexual assault and physical violence, abusive language, harassing private messages, threats to damage their professional or personal reputations, digital security attacks, misrepresentation via manipulated images and financial threats.

These methods of attack are growing more sophisticated and evolving with technology. They are also increasingly associated with orchestrated attacks fueled by disinformation tactics designed to silence journalists. This points to the need for responses to online violence to grow equally in technological sophistication and collaborative coordination.

Here are the top 12 findings from the report, which was published by UNESCO to mark International Human Rights Day:

(1) Nearly three in four women respondents (73%) said they had experienced online violence.

Online attacks against women journalists have been a pernicious problem for many years. Now, these appear to be increasing dramatically and uncontrollably around the world, as our respondents illustrated.

(2) Threats of physical (25%) and sexual violence (18%) plagued the women journalists surveyed.
But these threats aren’t just directed at the women being targeted — they radiate. Thirteen percent of respondents said they had received threats of violence against those close to them.

(3) One in five women respondents (20%) said they had been attacked or abused offline in incidents seeded online.

This finding is particularly disturbing given the emerging correlation between online attacks and the murder of journalists with impunity. In related findings, 13% said they increased their physical security in response to online violence, and 4% said that they had missed work due to concerns about the attacks jumping offline. This highlights both their sense of vulnerability and their awareness of the potential offline consequences of digital attacks.

(4) The mental health impacts of online violence were the most frequently identified (26%) consequence. Twelve percent of respondents said they had sought medical or psychological help due to the effects of online violence, and 11% said they had taken days off work as a result.

Online violence against women journalists causes significant psychological harm, especially when it is prolific and sustained. But our survey also demonstrated that media employers need to do much more to support the mental health and well-being of those targeted. Only 11% of our respondents said their employer provided access to a counselling service if they were attacked.

(5) Almost half (48%) of the women reported being harassed with unwanted private messages.
This highlights the fact that much online violence targeting women journalists occurs in the shadows of the internet, away from public view where dealing with the problem can be even more difficult.

(6) The story theme most often identified in association with increased attacks was gender (47%), followed by politics and elections (44%), and human rights and social policy (31%).

This data underlines the function of misogyny in online violence against women journalists. It also spotlights the role of political attacks on the press, connected to populist politics in particular, exacerbating threats to journalism safety.

(7) Forty-one percent women respondents said they had been the targets of online attacks that appeared to be linked to orchestrated disinformation campaigns.

Women journalists increasingly find themselves in the crosshairs of digital disinformation campaigns which leverage misogyny and other forms of hate speech to chill critical reporting.

(8) Political actors were the second most frequently noted sources (37%) of attacks and abuse after “anonymous or unknown attackers” (57%).

The role of political actors as top sources and primary perpetrators of online violence against women journalists is an alarming trend confirmed by this survey. Meanwhile, the proliferation of anonymous and pseudonymous “troll” accounts complicates the process of both investigating the perpetrators and efforts to hold them to account. A lack of transparency and limited responsiveness by the platforms, especially those where attacks are prolific, compounds this problem.

(9) Facebook was rated the least safe of the top five platforms or apps used by participants, with nearly double the number of respondents rating Facebook “very unsafe” compared to Twitter. It also attracted disproportionately higher rates of incident reporting among the respondents (39% compared to Twitter’s 26%).

Considering the role of Facebook and Twitter as major vectors of online attacks against women journalists, the levels of reporting to the social media companies demonstrated by the survey respondents appear relatively low. This likely reflects both a sense of futility frequently associated with such efforts, as well as a general reluctance among the women surveyed to raise these issues externally. In addition, the finding underscores the urgent need for major internet companies to fulfill their duty of care and more effectively tackle online violence against journalists.

(10) Only 25% of respondents reported incidents of online violence to their employers. The top responses they said they received were: no response (10%) and advice like “grow a thicker skin” or “toughen up” (9%). Two percent said they were asked what they did to provoke the attack.

The respondents demonstrated the existence of a double impediment to effective action to deal with online violence experienced in the course of their employment: low levels of access to systems and support mechanisms for targeted journalists, and low levels of awareness about the existence of measures, policies and guidelines for addressing the problem.

(11) The women journalists surveyed most frequently indicated (30%) that they respond to the online violence they experience by self-censoring on social media. Twenty percent described how they withdrew from all online interaction, and 18% specifically avoided audience engagement.

Such acts, which could be considered defensive measures employed by women to preserve their safety, demonstrate the effectiveness of online attack tactics: They are designed to chill critical reporting, silence women and muzzle truth-telling.

(12) Online violence significantly impacts the employment and productivity of the women respondents. In particular, 11% reported missing work, 38% retreated from visibility (e.g. by asking to be taken off air and retreating behind pseudonyms online), 4% quit their jobs, and 2% even abandoned journalism altogether.

While some of these numbers might appear small, this is a significant indicator of the perniciousness of the problem. This data also demonstrates the negative implications of online violence for gender diversity in (and through) the news media.

Ultimately, this survey’s first results illustrate that online violence against women journalists is a global phenomenon that demands urgent action. For freedom of expression to be sustained, for diversity in journalism to flourish, and for access to information to be equal, women journalists must be seen and heard.

The climate of impunity surrounding online attacks raises questions that demand answers. Impunity emboldens the perpetrators, demoralizes the victim, erodes the foundations of journalism, exacerbates risks to journalism safety and undermines democracy.

Based on these disturbing findings, nine recommendations for action are offered in the full report, targeting governments, the social media platforms and media industry employers.

 

This story was originally published by IJNET, International Journalists’ Network

 

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Shkula Zadran, Afghanistan’s Youth Representative to the United Nations, addresses U.N. Security Council. She said her generation have been the main victims of the war in Afghanistan. “We are being killed, our dreams are being buried everyday,” she told the Security Council. Courtesy: UN Photo/Loey Felipe

By Nalisha Adams
BONN, Germany, Dec 18 2020 (IPS)

While Afghanistan ends a historic year, filled with the hope for peace as the government and Taliban sat down for almost three months of consecutive peace talks for the first time in 19 years, it was also a year filled with violence with provisional statistics by the United Nations showing casualties for this year being higher than 2019.

Yesterday, Dec. 17, in a virtual meeting of the U.N. Security Council, Deborah Lyons, the Special Representative of the Secretary-General for Afghanistan and head of the U.N. Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA), praised the peace efforts on the close of “one of the most momentous years that Afghans have endured”, while also highlighting the causalities of the year.

She said that the Afghanistan government and the Taliban had “made incremental but genuine progress in their peace talks”. They agreed on a preliminary deal, reportedly the first written agreement after 19 years of conflict.

“These developments are an early but a positive sign that both sides are willing and able to compromise when needed,” Lyons said.

Talks continued uninterrupted in host country Qatar for almost three months, but are currently in a three week recess.

However, despite the talks, the Taliban has refused to a ceasefire and continued its war on the Afghanistan government.

It was, however, reported this week that a top U.S. general held recent talks with the Taliban in Doha, urging a reduction in violence as this risked the peace process. 

Lyons also raised the issue, stating that the “unrelenting violence remains a serious obstacle to peace and a threat to the region.” She added that one Afghan official had told her recently, “the sense and perception of violence and insecurity is higher now that ever”.

While UNAMA is still compiling this year’s data, Lyons provided some provisional statistic on the impact of the violence.

“In October and November, improvised explosive devices (IEDs) caused over 60 percent more civilian casualties than in the same period last year. In the third quarter of 2020, child casualties rose 25 percent over the previous three months; while attacks against schools in this same period increased fourfold.

“In the first 11 months of 2020, targeted killings by anti-government elements rose by nearly 40 percent compared to the same period in 2019,” she said, adding that it was no surprise that the Global Peace Index for 2020 listed Afghanistan as the least peaceful nation in the world for a second year in a row.

She highlighted some of the conflicts experienced over recent months — two separate rocket attacks in Kabul, an attack on Kabul University, and the increased conflict in some areas — and said these served to heighten fears around the emergence of new terrorists threats.

She called for all countries to continue to pressure all parities to the conflict to bring about a sustained reduction in violence. “I except this will be a top priority when the negotiations resume,” she said.

Meanwhile, Shkula Zadran, Afghanistan’s Youth Representative to the U.N. also briefed the Security Council.

She said that “while it is very difficult to represent a generation born and raised in violence and conflict,” she was honoured to speak on behalf of Afghan youth, including those who were killed in the terror attack on Kabul University and other education centres.

“I have met their families. Their pain is beyond our imagination. I have promised them that I will be their voice and I am fulfilling my promise,” Zadran, who spent her childhood as a refugee in Pakistan, told the Security Council.

“I’m representing a generation who have been the main victims of this proxy war. We are being killed, our dreams are being buried everyday.”

She called for the end to the daily killings of Afghan youth who are a majority of the country’s population as two thirds of citizens are under the age of 25.

“Terrorists are afraid of Afghan youth. And that is why they are targeting our education institutions.

“They know that an educated and informed generation will never allow terrorism and extremism to grown in their country,” Zadran said.

Zadran said that as an Afghan youth representative, her message to terrorists and their supporters was clear and obvious.

“You tried to bury us. You didn’t know that we were seeds.”

Zadran said that the youth supported the end of the conflict through the peace negotiations.

Lyons said Afghanistan’s youth were a key constituency, and were also the most educated generation of youth in the country’s history.

“Young Afghan’s have clear views on the future of their country, and we must do all we can to amplify their voices.”

“Through our youth-focused local, peace initiatives, which are conducted throughout Afghanistan, UNAMA has provided a platform for the youth of Afghanistan to have their say on peace,” Lyons noted.

“Most recently, in the rural province of Faryab, young participants issued their own declaration with strong recommendations, specifying an immediate ceasefire, setting out the role of Islam under Afghanistan’s constitution, identifying the all-important sustainable development goals and emphasising the need for transitional justice.

“These are the young people of Afghanistan, their voices deserve to be heard,” Lyons said, adding that cooperation throughout the region of Central and South Asia will be essential for enduring peace.

Lyons also noted an increasing commitment among regional players for peace in Afghanistan as this was linked to attaining peace within the region.

“Increased trade and connectivity will build the foundation for peace and regional prosperity,” Lyons said, adding it was important to support regional efforts, including the regional efforts on drug trafficking and transnational organised crime as these were considered two serious threats to peace.

Lyons said that any sustainable peace needed to be owned by Afghan’s diverse society. “This is only possible if the process is inclusive from the outset, with meaningful participation by all constituencies, including women, youth, minorities, victims of conflict, and religious leaders,” Lyons said.

She added that the ongoing security transition, with the international troop withdrawal, added to the anxiety of the Afghan population. She said in the coming months this larger security transition will become a central topic in the dialogue among Afghan officials, regional countries and the international community.

She, however, pointed out that the $3 billion raised in financial support for the country during a donor conference in Geneva was remarkable within the context of the current financial environment.

Lyons said that the full security transition, peace negotiations, the health and socio-economic challenges of COVID, the ongoing commitment of the international donors and the expected results of even more regional cooperation meant that Afghanistan would continue to move forward in this new year.

“By all accounts this was a big year. But a bigger year lies ahead,” she said.

 

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The post Afghanistan’s Historic Year: Peace Talks, Security Transition but Higher Levels of Violence appeared first on Inter Press Service.

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