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A man is tested for HIV at a health centre in Odienné, Côte d’Ivoire. Credit: UNICEF/Frank Dejongh

By Suki Beavers
MONTREAL, Aug 2 2022 (IPS)

This week, the global HIV response community is gathering in Montreal to address the crisis of stalling progress that is putting millions of people in danger.

Delegates here are clear on two things: first, the world is not on track to end AIDS, second, the world can still get on track and end AIDS as a public health crisis by 2030, but only if leaders are bold. This includes removing laws which are perpetuating the pandemic.

Punitive and criminalizing approaches to law have been catastrophic for the AIDS response. They need urgently to be repealed.

When people are targeted by punitive laws, they fear the government, and many hide from it. And this lack of trust spills quickly over into responding to a pandemic: a government that proposes to lock a person up one day is unlikely to be trusted when it sends them to an HIV test the next. When people fear public shaming, many try not to be seen. Too often, this means people miss out on HIV prevention, treatment, and care.

The evidence is clear: punitive laws that push people into the shadows are continuing to drive HIV.

In countries that criminalize consensual same-sex sexual activity, the evidence is clear that the risk of acquiring HIV is higher, access to HIV testing is lower and populations remain hidden, underground.

We know that men who have sex with men living in countries where they are not criminalized are half as likely to be living with HIV compared to countries where they are criminalized, and eight times less likely to be living with HIV compared to countries with extreme forms of criminalization.

Gay men and other men who have sex with men are three times more likely to know their HIV status if they live in a country that does not criminalize same-sex sexual behaviour. Population size estimates for gay men and other men who have sex with men are also more likely to be implausibly low where such criminal laws exist.

So too, laws which criminalize gender identity, HIV status, drug use, and sex work, discourage and obstruct people from accessing vital health services: the costs of these laws remaining on statute books would include millions of lives lost and the perpetuation of the AIDS pandemic.

The laws described above that criminalize same-sex sexual conduct have also been utilized to target trans people in many countries, alongside laws prohibiting cross-dressing or “impersonating the opposite sex” as well as petty offence laws.

The use of these criminal laws perpetuates transphobia, discrimination, hate crimes, police abuse, torture, ill-treatment and family and community violence. It obstructs trans people from access to HIV prevention, treatment and care.

In 36% of countries with available data, more than 10% of transgender people reported avoiding healthcare in the last 12 months due to stigma and discrimination. Studies show that transgender people who have experienced stigma in health care settings are three times more likely to avoid health care than transgender people who have not experienced stigma.

Criminalization of HIV non-disclosure, exposure or transmission undermines effective HIV prevention, treatment, care and support because fear of prosecution discourages people from seeking testing and treatment, and deters people living with HIV – and those most at risk of HIV infection – from talking openly to their medical providers, disclosing their HIV status or accessing available treatment services.

Criminalization of drug possession for personal use propels new HIV cases. The presence of criminal laws and associated enforcement has been associated with higher rates of needle sharing, increased HIV risk behaviours, reduced access to HIV services and increased prevalence of HIV.

Where sex work is criminalized, HIV rates are seven times higher than in countries where it is partially legalized. In jurisdictions with enabling legal environments, prevalence of HIV among sex workers is similar to the rest of the population, indicating it is not involvement in sex work that creates HIV risk, but the lack of an environment that enables sex workers to protect their health and wellbeing.

Criminal laws prevent sex workers from being able to screen clients, negotiate condom use, or access the protection of law enforcement if they are in danger of, or experience, physical and sexual violence. Fear of stigma or arrest can also prevent sex workers from being able to access HIV services on an equal basis with others.

Studies have long shown that decriminalization of sex work could avert between 33-46% of new HIV infections among sex workers and their partners.

The criminal law is one of the harshest tools that governments wield, and one of the most blunt. Punitive approaches are harm where help is needed. They ferment stigma, fear and hatred and are perpetuating a health disaster.

We have powerful reasons to hope, however, that with a strong push, punitive approaches to HIV can end.

We have the high-level political declaration agreed last year at the United Nations General Assembly High-Level Meeting on AIDS. One of the critical commitments that countries made was to reform laws that create barriers to accessing HIV services or increase stigma and discrimination, in order to end AIDS as a public health threat by 2030.

We have support available on how to most effectively reform laws so they support rather than undermine the HIV response. The Global Partnership for Action to Eliminate all forms of HIV Related Stigma and Discrimination, is bringing together governments, civil society and the United Nations, to exchange learning on what works.

One key lesson is that for law reform to have maximum success, changes should be shaped by the communities most affected, from the start through to implementation.

We are seeing that law reform is not only possible, it is happening across all continents. In recent years sparked, by court judgements and law reform efforts, punitive laws are continuing to disappear.

Last year the Bhutanese Parliament passed a reform which ended the criminalization of same sex relationships, Botswana’s Court of Appeal upheld a ruling that decriminalized same-sex relationships, and Angola began implementing their new criminal code which no longer criminalizes same-sex relationships.

This year already both Belgium and Victoria, Australia have removed laws criminalizing sex work, and Zimbabwe has decriminalized HIV exposure, non-disclosure and transmission.

We have the evidence of what works. It is no coincidence that the government of New South Wales, Australia, a jurisdiction that does not criminalize sexual orientation, gender identity, HIV status, or sex work, recently announced it is on track to eliminate new HIV infections by 2025.

Decriminalization is happening, but it is too slow. In 2022, of the countries reporting to UNAIDS: 14% criminalize gender expression, 36% criminalize consensual same-sex sexual relations, 62% criminalize HIV exposure, non-disclosure and transmission, 90% criminalize possession of drugs for personal use and all reporting countries criminalize some aspect of sex work.

In 2021, 70% of new HIV infections were among groups who are affected by these laws. Eastern Europe and central Asia, Middle East and North Africa and Latin America have all seen increases in annual HIV infections over several years.

In Asia and the Pacific UNAIDS data now shows new HIV infections are rising where they had been falling. Without movement on societal enablers, and on criminal laws in particular, we will struggle to reverse this trend, let alone end AIDS as a public health threat by 2030.

We can end AIDS, but to do so we must end the punitive laws perpetuating the pandemic. Now.

Suki Beavers is UNAIDS Director of the Equality and Rights for All Global Practice.

IPS UN Bureau

 

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Excerpt:

The 24th International AIDS Conference is taking place in Montreal, July 29 to August 2.

Farmers in Bangladesh would welcome an early warning system that does not rely on smartphones. Authorities and devising an SMS service after devastating floods killed many people and destroyed harvests. Credit: Rafiqul Islam/IPS

By Rafiqul Islam
DHAKA, Aug 1 2022 (IPS)

Ziaur Rahman, a farmer of Pakuar Char under Sariakandi Upazila in Bogura, cultivated jute on a newly emerged river island (char) in the Brahmaputra River, but this year’s flood washed away his crop.

“Flood is very common in the char areas during the monsoon. Despite that, I sowed jute seeds on the char. This year, the flood hit our locality too early, damaging my jute field,” he said.

Ziaur said his jute field was almost mature and could have been harvested within a couple of weeks, but the sudden deluge damaged it.

“I did not get flood forecast in time, and that was why I failed to harvest jutes, incurring a heavy loss this year,” he said.

Like Zillur, many farmers lost their crops to the devastating flood that swept Bangladesh’s northeast and northwestern regions in June this year.

According to Bangladesh Agriculture Minister Dr Abdur Razzaque, floods damaged Aus (a type of rice) paddies of around 56,000 hectares across the country this year.

The Flood Forecasting and Warning Centre (FFWC) under Bangladesh Water Development Board (BWDB) issues daily flood bulletins and warnings, but the people living in remote and vulnerable areas hardly benefit because they do not have the proper technology.

Under the digital flood forecasting and warning system introduced in 2021, the FFWC issues flood warnings to the people living in flood-prone areas through ‘Google push notifications’ three days to three hours before a flood hits.

To receive flood warnings, people need an android mobile phone. The notifications are sent to these devices through a Google alert between three days and three hours before the onset of a flood, depending on the system’s predictive capacity.

BWDB, in collaboration with tech-giant Google and Bangladesh Red Crescent Society, developed the system, which is now functional in the 55 districts of the country.

Sarder Udoy Raihan, an FFWC sub-divisional engineer, said the BWBD has available data on floods and sends those to Google.

Google improved flood mapping using its topographical data and sends ‘push flood notifications’ to those living in flood-prone areas.

While this system has been helpful, many people living in remote chars and flood-prone areas do not have access to smartphones and the internet, so they don’t receive digital flood warnings.

BWDB has decided to launch a toll-free SMS service containing flood-related messages and information, said officials at BWDB.

The BWDB, a2i, Google, International Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies have already started a collaboration to reach the flood warnings and information at the doorsteps of the people living in the country’s flood-prone areas through toll-free mobile SMS service. This will enable them to take measures to protect their properties before a flood hits.

FFWC executive engineer Arifuzzaman Bhuyan said talks continue with the stakeholders concerned, including Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission (BTRC), to introduce the SMS service.

“Introduction of the SMS flood alert service depends on the BTRC as there is an issue of cost involvement,” he said, hoping that the BWDB would be able to launch the SMS service in the next season.

Once the toll-free SMS service is introduced, mobile phone users living in flood zones will be identified using their cellphone tower ping, and SMS will be sent to them containing information on the rise or fall of river water level, severity of flood and details of the nearest shelter.

Raihan said it would be possible to send around 36 million SMS per year through mobile phone operators if flood warnings could be sent to people through SMS.

Sardar Mohammad Shah-Newaz, a former director of Flood Division at Dhaka-based think tank, Institute of Water Modelling (IWM), said if the flood forecast were not appropriately disseminated to those living in flood-prone areas, it wouldn’t help.

“Almost all people of the country use mobile phones. If the flood warnings could reach the people living in flood-prone zones through toll-free mobile SMS, they would be able to take precautionary measures to save their properties and minimise their loss and damage to this end,” he said.

Suggesting automation of the flood forecasting system in Bangladesh, Shah-Newaz said the BWDB could introduce the SMS service, and it should launch the service as soon as possible.

Deluge is a common phenomenon in Bangladesh. During every monsoon, flood hits different parts of the country, causing a huge loss of lives and assets.

Due to heavy precipitation upstream in India’s northeast states, Bangladesh experienced devastating floods in its northwestern districts and Sylhet division, leaving millions of people stranded and triggering a humanitarian crisis.

According to the Directorate General of Health Services (DGHS), the death toll from this year’s floods has reached 123 in the country. The total deaths were recorded from May 17 to July 17 in 2022.

Of the total deceased, 69 people died in Sylhet, while 41 in Mymensingh, 12 in Rangpur and one in Dhaka.

IPS UN Bureau Report

 

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Sir Fazle Hasan Abed, the founder of BRAC and “one of the unsung heroes of modern times,” according to Nicholas Kristof of The New York Times, authorized his own biography before dying of brain cancer in 2019. Author Scott MacMillan wrote Hope Over Fate based on hundreds of hours of interviews with Abed and his friends, family and co-workers. Credit: courtesy of BRAC

By Scott MacMillan
Redding Conn, USA, Aug 1 2022 (IPS)

About seven years ago, I started working on a project with Sir Fazle Hasan Abed, the founder of BRAC. It was originally supposed to be a memoir: the story of Abed, the mild-mannered accountant who would rid the world of poverty, as told by the man himself. I was privileged to be Abed’s speechwriter for the last several years of his life, and I would sit for hours listening to stories from his remarkable life: of his boyhood in British India, his love life in London in the 1960s, his three marriages, and how, in 1972, with a few thousand pounds from the sale of his flat in Camden, he launched a small nonprofit organization to aid refugees, originally called the Bangladesh Rehabilitation Assistance Committee. Many people would go on to call BRAC, which Abed led until his death in 2019, the world’s most effective anti-poverty organization.

That seemed like a story worth telling in full, and after some coaxing, Abed gave me permission to begin ghostwriting his autobiography. He was an exceptionally private person, however, and cringed at anything with a whiff of self-promotion. “You have me pontificating!” he once scolded me after an early draft of one speech.

I was about halfway done with his memoir when he told me to stop. The story, as I had written it, did not feel right coming from him. He much preferred to let BRAC’s work speak for itself—which may explain why so few people outside his native Bangladesh knew who he was or the magnitude of what he had accomplished.

Abed eventually came around to the idea that his story needed to be told by someone, even if it would not ultimately be him. He asked that I use the material I had gathered to write the book myself, in my own words—which I did, even knowing that many of those words would fall short of the task. The book, Hope Over Fate: Fazle Hasan Abed and the Science of Ending Global Poverty, is released today by Rowman & Littlefield.

An accountant’s story

Abed told stories, but he was not a good storyteller in the typical sense. He did not sprinkle his speeches with anecdotes of the “ordinary” people he had met, as politicians sometimes do. He was an accountant, and for him, numbers told stories.

So here is the story he would tell of his native Bangladesh—no names or faces, just a chorus of statistics. At the moment of its independence in 1971, Bangladesh was the world’s second-poorest country, with a per capita GDP of less than $100, a nation of sixty-six million living on a patch of flood-prone land the size of Iowa. One in four children died before their fifth birthday. As late as 1990, the country still had one of the highest maternal mortality rates, at 574 per 100,000.

Sir Fazle Hasan Abed in his later years, visiting a BRAC school. Credit: courtesy of BRAC

In the 1990s, however, things began to change, rapidly and almost miraculously. Quality of life improved at a historically unprecedented rate. By 2013, under-five mortality had plummeted to just 40 per 1,000 live birthdays; maternal mortality had dropped similarly. These and other changes constituted “some of the biggest gains in the basic condition of people’s lives ever seen anywhere,” according to The Economist.

People standing up for themselves

What happened? Abed’s work had much to do with it. BRAC trained and mobilized people, giving them a sense of self-worth that many had never felt before. They began standing up for themselves against landlords, corrupt government officials, and imams opposed to women’s rights. Often, he found what people really needed was hope—a sense that, with a modicum of outside help, their fate could be in their own hands.

His methods were varied and novel. Incentive-based training gave health information to mothers so they could save their own children’s lives. Women took small loans from BRAC to buy cows and handlooms, the first time they had owned anything of substance. Since they had nowhere to sell the milk and fabric they produced, Abed built up the dairy and textile industries by launching enterprises that bought the women’s goods. These enterprises, owned by BRAC, turned out to be profitable, so he plowed the money back into the poverty programs. Abed also launched fifty thousand schools, plus a commercial bank and a university. BRAC now likely reaches more than one hundred million people in about a dozen countries in Africa and Asia. No other nonprofit or social enterprise has reached such scale.

Yet Abed was no ascetic, self-abnegating Gandhi. He left the office at a reasonable hour and enjoyed coming home to the comforts of domestic life, to the sound of family and the warm smell of spices from the kitchen. Twice a widower, he told me of his loneliness between his marriages, and how, despite his preoccupation with work, he found it hard to return to an empty house.

The science of hope

How, then, did he do it? Remarkably, Abed would sometimes say that BRAC had done relatively little to help Bangladesh rise from the ranks of one of the poorest nations on earth. It merely created the enabling conditions: it was the poor themselves, especially women, who worked tirelessly, once those conditions were in place, to change the conditions of their lives.

I suspect this is why he thought his own story did not deserve so much attention, especially compared to the millions of women who had long labored on the fringes of society, who would one day, in his words, “be their own actors in history, and write their own stories of triumph over adversity.”

So this is the biography of a man, yes, but it is also the biography of an idea—the idea that hope itself has the power to overcome poverty. Near the end of his life, Abed spoke of “the science of hope”—the study and practice of giving people a sense of control over their own lives. “For too long, people thought poverty was something ordained by a higher power, as immutable as the sun and the moon,” he wrote in 2018. His life’s mission was to put that myth to rest, which is why the story of Abed is the story of the triumph of hope over fate.

Scott MacMillan is the author of the Hope Over Fate: Fazle Hasan Abed and the Science of Ending Global Poverty (Rowman & Littlefield), from which this is adapted.
This excerpt is adapted by permission of the publisher. The book is available now from major retailers.

IPS UN Bureau

 

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Farmer Luis Edgardo Pérez kneels next to a loquat (Eriobotrya japonica) seedling which he just planted using one of the climate-resilient techniques he has learned to retain rainwater and prevent it from being wasted as runoff on his steep terrain in the Hacienda Vieja canton in central El Salvador. CREDIT: Gabriela Carranza/IPS

By Edgardo Ayala
SAN PEDRO NONUALCO, El Salvador , Aug 1 2022 (IPS)

With the satisfaction of knowing he was doing something good for himself and the planet, Salvadoran farmer Luis Edgardo Pérez set out to plant a fruit tree on the steepest part of his plot, applying climate change adaptation techniques to retain water.

This is vital for Pérez because of the steep slope of his land, where rainwater used to be wasted as runoff, as it ran downhill and his crops did not thrive.

Before planting the loquat (Eriobotrya japonica) tree, Pérez had previously cut part of the slope to create a small flat circular space to plant it.

This technique is called “individual terraces” and seeks to retain rainwater at the foot of the tree. He has done the same thing with the new citrus trees planted on his small farm.

He learned this technique since he joined a national effort, promoted by the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), to make farmers resilient to the impacts of climate change.

“In three years this loquat tree will be giving me fruit,” the 50-year-old farmer from the Hacienda Vieja canton in the municipality of San Pedro Nonualco, in the central Salvadoran department of La Paz, told IPS, smiling and perspiring as he stood next to the newly planted tree.

San Pedro Nonualco is one of 114 Salvadoran municipalities located in the so-called Central American Dry Corridor, a strip of land that covers 35 percent of Central America and is home to more than 10.5 million people, whose food security is threatened by inconsistent rainfall cycles that make farming difficult.

The Reclima Project is the name of the program implemented by FAO and financed with 35.8 million dollars from the Green Climate Fund (GCF), which supports climate change mitigation and adaptation in the developing South. The Salvadoran government has also contributed 91.8 million dollars in kind.

The program was launched in August 2019 and in its first phase led to the installation of 639 Field Schools to promote agroecology practices in which 22,732 families are participating in 46 municipalities in the Salvadoran Dry Corridor.

In addition, 352 drip irrigation systems will be installed, and 320 home rainwater harvesting systems have begun to be set up in 12 municipalities in El Salvador.

By the end of the program, it will have reached all 114 municipalities in the Dry Corridor, benefiting some 50,000 families.

Patricia Argueta, 40, plants a green bell pepper (Capsicum annuum) seedling in the community garden of Hoja de Sal, in the municipality of Santiago Nonualco in central El Salvador. She is one of the farmers learning new agroecological techniques as part of a project aimed at helping them combat the impacts of climate change. CREDIT: Gabriela Carranza/IPS

Learning and teaching

Pérez is one of the 639 farmers who, because of their enthusiasm and dedication, have become community promoters of these climate-resilient agricultural practices learned from technicians of the governmental National Center for Agricultural and Forestry Technology.

He meets with them periodically to learn new techniques, and he is responsible for teaching what he learns to a group of 31 other farmers in the Hacienda Vieja canton.

“You’re always learning in this process, you never stop learning. And you have to put it into practice, with other people,” he said.

On his 5.3-hectare plot, he was losing a good part of his citrus crop because the rainwater ran right off the sloping terrain.

“I was losing a lot of my crop, up to 15,000 oranges in one harvest; because of the lack of water, the oranges were falling off the trees,” he said.

On his property he has also followed other methods of rainwater and moisture retention, including living barriers and the conservation of stubble, i.e. leaves, branches and other organic material that cover the soil and help it retain moisture.

Pérez’s citrus production is around 50,000 oranges per harvest, plus some 5,000 lemons. He also grows corn and beans, using a technique that combines these crops with timber and fruit trees. That is why he planted loquat trees.

“I love what I do, I identify with my crops. I like doing it, I’m passionate about it,” he said.

Ruperto Hernández, 72, finishes preparing the organic fertilizer known as bokashi, which he and other families benefiting from a program promoted by FAO in El Salvador use to fertilize their crops in the San Sebastián Arriba canton of the municipality of Santiago Nonualco in central El Salvador. CREDIT: Gabriela Carranza/IPS

Collectively is better

About five kilometers further south down the road, you reach the San Sebastián Arriba canton, in the municipality of Santiago Nonualco, also in the department of La Paz.

Under the harsh midday sun, a group of men and women were planting cucumbers and fertilizing with bokashi, the organic fertilizer that the farmers have learned to produce for use on their crops as part of the FAO program.

“We are tilling the soil really well, we put in a little bit of organic fertilizer, mix it with the soil we tilled and then we put in the cucumber seed,” 72-year-old farmer Ruperto Hernández told IPS.

To make the fertilizer, Hernández explained that they used products such as rice hulls, molasses, charcoal, soil, and chicken and cattle manure.

“The more ingredients the better,” he said.

Hernández also showed the water conservation techniques used on the farm. These included shallow irrigation ditches dug along the hillsides at a specific angle.

The seven-hectare plot is a kind of agroecological school, where they put into practice the knowledge they have learned and then the farmers apply the techniques on their own plots.

Among the women in the group was Leticia Valles, who has been working with a towel over her head to protect herself from the sun.

Valles said this was the first time she was going to try using bokashi to fertilize her milpa – a term that refers to a traditional farming technique that combines staple crops like corn and beans with others, like squash.

“We have always used commercial fertilizer, but now we’re going to try bokashi, and I’m pretty excited, I expect a good harvest,” she said during a break.

They and the other participants in the program have also been taught to produce ecological herbicides and fungicides, which not only benefit the land but also their pocketbooks, as they are cheaper than commercial ones.

Imelda Platero, 54, and Paula Torres, 69, stand in a cornfield in the canton of Hoja de Sal in central El Salvador. They are two of the most active women involved in promoting actions to adapt agriculture to climate change in their village in the Dry Corridor. CREDIT: Gabriela Carranza/IPS

Changing sexist habits

Further south, near the Pacific Ocean, is the village of Hoja de Sal, also in the municipality of Santiago Nonualco, which is taking part in the Reclima Project as well.

The effort in this village is led by Imelda Platero, who coordinates a group of 37 people to whom she teaches climate-resilient practices on the plots of the Hoja de Sal cooperative, created in 1980 as part of the agrarian reform program implemented in El Salvador.

A total of 159 cooperative members collectively farm more than 700 hectares of land, most of which are dedicated to sugarcane production. And the members are entitled to just under one hectare of land to grow grains and vegetables individually.

But she not only teaches them how to plant using agroecological methods to combat the impacts of climate change.

She also teaches the 27 women in the group to become aware of the role they play and to empower them, as part of the program’s focus on gender questions.

“I was outraged when I heard stories about one member putting a padlock on the granary so his wife couldn’t sell corn if he wasn’t there; that is called economic violence,” said Platero, 54.

And she added: “We have been working on this issue, it is a challenge. It is still hard, but the women are more empowered, now they grow their corn and they sell it how they want to.”

Another important aspect is to respect the cosmovision and ancestral knowledge of peasant farmers in the area.

For example, Paula doesn’t plant if she can’t see what phase the moon is in,” said Platero, referring to Paula Torres, a 69-year-old farmer who is one of the most enthusiastic participants in the initiative.

Torres and her husband Felipe de Jesús Mejía, with whom she has raised 15 sons and daughters, are two weeks away from harvesting the first ears of corn from a bright green cornfield that is glowing with life. She is sure that this is due to the organic fertilizer they used.

“I’ve seen the difference, look what a beautiful milpa,” said Torres.

She added that now that she has seen how well the techniques work, she will use them “till I die.” Last year she and her husband produced about 1,133 kilos of corn, and this year they expect to grow more, by the looks of it.

“It’s never too late to learn,” she said, as she bent down and cut zucchini (Cucurbita pepo), which she sells in the community, in addition to cooking them at home.

Credit: UNICEF/Noorani

UN human rights experts are warning of a direct link between the pandemic, socio-economic vulnerability and the risk of exploitation, including forced labour or being sold, trafficked and sexually exploited.

The UN commemorated the World Day Against Trafficking in Persons on July 30.

By Tsitsi Matekaire and Tara Carey
LONDON, Aug 1 2022 (IPS)

It is often those least responsible for causing climate change that suffer the most from the impacts. And such is the case with women and girls in Malawi – one of the world’s poorest and lowest carbon-emitting countries but ranked fifth in the Global Climate Index 2021 list of nations worst affected by climate-related extreme weather.

Climate change exacerbates sexual and gender-based violence in numerous ways, pushing people further into poverty, enflaming conflict over depleting natural resources, forcing migration, and compounding pre-existing gender discrimination. All these and many other forces conspire to put vulnerable women and girls in greater danger of sexual abuse and exploitation.

A recent study by Cambridge University analyzing scientific literature on extreme weather events found that gender-based violence — such as sexual assault, intimate partner violence, or trafficking, both during and after disasters — are recurring issues in studies worldwide.

In Malawi, the climate crisis is already triggering more erratic and extreme weather, resulting in chronic water, food, and financial insecurity for millions. Over the past twenty years, droughts and floods have increased in intensity, frequency, and scale, causing devasting environmental, social, and economic damage.

Around 9 out of 10 people in Malawi depend on rain-fed agriculture, and over half the population is food insecure. Rising temperatures, unreliable rains, and extreme weather events like cyclones influence food production and costs.

The economic downturn triggered by the COVID-19 pandemic and Russia’s war against Ukraine, which has disrupted global supplies of cereals and fertilizers, have pushed prices up further.

According to World Bank data, 82% of Malawi’s population live in rural areas, and women account for 65% of smallholder farmers, making them particularly exposed to food insecurity. Women are often dependent on natural resources, and many earn a living in the informal sector, leaving them less able to withstand economic and environmental shocks.

Climate change is a threat multiplier

Climate change is not just an environmental problem – it acts as a “threat multiplier” interacting with social systems to exacerbate systemic inequalities. So, although everyone is affected by the ravages of the climate crisis, the vulnerability of individuals varies depending on their gender, geography, class, ethnicity, and age.

Global warming and environmental damage are gendered because the ability of women to adapt is hampered by their social status and limited income, education, and resources. Women are more likely to live in poverty than men and commonly have less schooling, decision-making power, and access to finance.

When yields from harvests are reduced, this leaves subsistence farmers with little or no surplus produce to sell to earn money for purchasing basics like medicine, clothes, sanitary products, schooling, and agricultural inputs for bolstering farming production.

Being unable to produce enough food to feed their families or pay for other essentials puts women under intense pressure to find alternative sources of income. This renders them more susceptible to sexual exploitation, which can take various forms such as transactional sex in exchange for goods, and being trafficked into commercial sexual exploitation.

Family financial hardship also disproportionately affects girls, who are frequently pressured to drop out of school to do domestic work and find paid employment. This, in turn, increases their susceptibility to exploitation, including false promises made by traffickers about jobs and education further afield.

In addition, girls experience higher rates of child and forced marriage, as parents may view marriage as a coping strategy to elevate monetary difficulties and shield daughters from sexual violence. It is estimated that around 1.5 million girls in Malawi are at risk of becoming child brides as a direct result of climate change.

There are other ways that existing gender roles interplay with climate change and sexual violence. In Malawi and across sub-Saharan Africa, gathering water and firewood is widely deemed the responsibility of women and girls. A lack of clean water and depletion of natural resources caused by environmental degradation means they often have to travel further to acquire scarce resources.

Not only does this use up precious unpaid time that could be spent on beneficial activities such as income generation or schooling, but it also heightens their exposure to rape and sexual assault. And in some instances, women and girls must contend with sexual exploitation and abuse by those who control access to limited natural resources, such as at water collection points.

The system is failing victims of sexual and gender-based violence

For the vast majority of victims of trafficking, sexual violence, and exploitation, justice goes unserved. Caleb Ng’ombo runs People Serving Girls at Risk (PSGR), a frontline organization in Malawi that works to end human trafficking for the purpose of sexual exploitation, prostitution, and child marriages.

Caleb explains, “Victims are being failed by Malawi’s criminal justice system. Few cases make it to court. Those that do are plagued by multiple delays, and perpetrators are rarely punished.”

“Child marriage, sexual exploitation, and trafficking have blighted the lives of thousands of women and girls across Malawi, and the worsening climate crisis is putting more at greater risk. The government should not turn a blind eye to gender-based human rights violations. Addressing these problems must be central to climate response, including disaster and adaption planning.”

Malawi is a source, transit, and destination country for sex trafficking, and climate crisis is fueling it. PSGR and international women’s rights organization Equality Now have submitted a joint complaint to the African Committee of Experts on the Rights and Welfare of the Child (ACERWC) highlighting the poor implementation of anti-trafficking legislation by the Government of Malawi is leaving girls unprotected against sex trafficking.

Malawi’s criminal justice system needs to respond better to the realities and needs of survivors, including safeguarding them against further exploitation and ensuring support services are readily available.

Effectively addressing this crisis requires a gender-responsive, human rights-based approach from the state, one that targets the root causes of gender discrimination.

Climate change also demands action from wealthy industrialized nations that bare the largest responsible for global warming due to their high emissions, both historical and current.

Around the world, a growing climate justice movement is calling for Global North governments to provide countries like Malawi with international finance for climate adaption, restitution for damages already caused, and national debt cancellation so money can be redirected towards supporting those in need, in particular women and girls and other marginalized groups.

With global temperatures continuing to rise, it is vital that laws, policies, and funding deliver on the distinct vulnerabilities and requirements of women and girls so they are protected against gender-based violence and better able to cope with future climate shocks.

Tsitsi Matekaire is the Global Lead on End Sexual Exploitation at Equality Now and Tara Carey Head of Media.

IPS UN Bureau

 

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Due to its structure, methane traps more heat in the atmosphere per molecule than carbon dioxide (CO2) making it 80 times more harmful than CO2 during the 20 years after it is released into the atmosphere.. Credit: Bigstock

By Baher Kamal
MADRID, Jul 29 2022 (IPS)

Strangely enough, two major scientific findings, both announced in July, did not attribute the current dangerous world’s disasters to the proxy war unfolding in Ukraine.

One of them, released by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO), warns that the current, unprecedented heat waves hitting the Planet will be more severe, more frequent and more intense, and will last longer over several decades to come.

The other scientific study, launched by the UN Environment Programme (UNEP), focuses on the dangers of what it calls: “secret methane leaks.” Methane is a colourless, odourless gas, responsible for more than 25% of the global warming the Earth is experiencing today.

Being both issues so highly interlinked and relevant to the present and the immediate future of life on Earth, here are some of their related key findings.

 

The “secret leaks”

The methane leaks are an open secret in the oil and gas industry and it is feeding the climate crisis, explains UNEP. Throughout its report, it provides the following information and explanations.

Massive methane leaks, known as super-emitter events, have been taking place at oil and gas fields all over the world, from the United States to Turkmenistan.

The releases, most of which can be traced to equipment failures, can last for weeks.

One outside of a storage facility in Los Angeles in 2015 haemorrhage almost 100,000 tonnes of methane — a potent greenhouse gas — into the atmosphere over the course of four months.

In June this year, researchers at Spain’s Polytechnic University of Valencia, said they uncovered the latest known super-emitter event at an oil and gas platform in the Gulf of Mexico.

The installation discharged 40,000 tonnes of methane during a 17-day spell in December 2021 — equivalent to 3% of Mexico’s total annual oil and gas emissions.

While the discharge was caught, it remains challenging to trace emissions of methane, which is colourless, odourless and responsible for more than 25 percent of the global warming the Earth is experiencing today, explains UNEP.

 

80 times more harmful

The UNEP study also warns that, due to its structure, methane traps more heat in the atmosphere per molecule than carbon dioxide (CO2) making it 80 times more harmful than CO2 during the 20 years after it is released into the atmosphere.

As countries develop plans to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and avoid the worst effects of climate change, experts say it’s vital to have a better handle on how much methane is being released into the atmosphere, including from super-emitter events.

Cutting human-caused methane by 45 per cent this decade would keep warming beneath a threshold outlined by the 2015 Paris Agreement.

 

Who are the “super-emitters”?

To track and measure methane emissions, the United Nations Environment Programme in October 2021 launched the International Methane Emissions Observatory. It catalogues discharges from the fossil fuel sector, and soon waste and agricultural releases as well.

“The oil and gas industries are major producers of methane, emitting the gas during drilling, production, and other parts of their operations. Methane is also sometimes released intentionally from oil and gas facilities for safety reasons.”

The agriculture sector is also “a large emitter of methane,” particularly from livestock and the growing of certain foods, such as rice.

“Waste is the third most common man-made source of methane as bacteria break down organic matter in landfills.”

 

The Planet is baking

One major consequence of the un-wanted-to-be controlled methane leaks, among too many other just profit-making driven activities, is the unrelentless climate emergency.

On this, the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) has also in July launched further scientific findings: heatwaves will be more intense, last longer, and will occur more and more frequently… for decades to come, into the 2060s.

The UN specialised body had earlier alerted on record-high temperatures in India and Pakistan, reaching up to 50 degrees Celsius.

Let alone the over four-long severe drought wave hitting the whole East of Africa, and the record high temperature registered in so many other world’s regions.

The findings take, among others, the case of the United Kingdom, which, with 40 degrees Celsius, has just issued “the first ever Red Warning for exceptional heat.”

In other European countries, such as Portugal and Spain, temperatures have reached highs up to around 46 degrees Celsius.

 

Degradation of air quality

It is worth pointing out that high temperatures are not the only adverse consequence of heat waves, says Lorenzo Labrador, Scientific Officer at WMO’s Global Atmosphere Watch Programme.

“The stable and stagnant atmosphere acts as a lid to trap atmospheric pollutants, including particulate matter, increasing their concentrations closer to the surface.”

Likewise, the abundant sunshine, high concentrations of certain atmospheric pollutants and stable atmosphere is conducive to episodes of ozone formation near the surface, which has detrimental effects on people and plants.

“We have broken an all-time high in the UK”, on 19 July said Petteri Taalas, WMO Secretary-General.

 

The new normal?

“In the future, this kind of heatwave is going to be normal. We will see stronger extremes. We have pumped so much carbon dioxide in the atmosphere that the negative trend will continue for decades. We haven’t been able to reduce our emissions globally” WMO’s chief warned.

“The negative trend in climate will continue at least until the 2060s, independent of our success in climate mitigation.”

 

Harvests at risk

The unduey addressed climate emergency also impacts the present and future of food.

In fact, “we are expecting to see major impacts on agriculture. During the previous heatwaves in Europe, we lost big parts of harvest. And under the current situation, this heatwave is going to have a further negative impact on agricultural activities”, warned Petteri Taalas.

 

Temperatures, higher in Europe than elsewhere

According to the UN body for assessing the science related to climate change: The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) temperatures will rise more quickly in European areas than elsewhere.

In the Mediterranean, a worrisome combination of climatic impact-driver changes (warming; temperature extremes; increase in droughts and aridity; precipitation decrease; wildfires increase; mean and extreme sea levels; snow cover decrease; and wind speed decrease) is expected by mid-century if global warming exceeds 2°C.

 

Respiratory, cardiovascular diseases

Health systems are also challenged by heatwaves.

“When a heatwave goes along with high levels of pollution it exacerbates respiratory, cardiovascular diseases and conditions especially in large urban spaces that are not adapted to cope with these high temperatures,” said Maria Neira, Director of Environment and Health at the World Health Organization (WHO).

“Reliable access to food and water is at stake, as with agricultural production levels at risk”, and there will be water scarcity for sure.”

“99% of the global population is breathing air that does not meet the health standards set by WHO, hugely impacting chronic respiratory and cardiovascular conditions.”

 

Climate chaos

Greenpeace International’s Chris Greenberg is clear: Global heatwaves are fossil fuel-driven climate chaos.

“Unprecedented danger will be the new normal if we don’t take urgent action to stop fossil fuel-driven climate change.”

From Canada and the United States to Russia and even the Arctic, adds Greenberg, record-breaking heat waves are putting lives, livelihoods, and communities at risk, says Greenberg.

“… The entire global community needs to demand that fossil fuel companies and corporate polluters stop accelerating climate change with reckless, profit-hungry drilling and burning of coal, oil, and gas.”

Other than the current dangerous climate crisis, greed and money-making have been pushing humanity towards its collapse.

Heat waves increase the risks of crop failures, threatening food security for billions of people. Credit: Busani Bafana/IPS

By Esther Ngumbi
URBANA, Illinois, USA, Jul 29 2022 (IPS)

Across the U.S., and around the world, particularly Europe, heat records are being shattered. Accompanying these extreme temperatures are fires caused by the heat that are burning both homes and forests. While extreme heat is impacting some areas of the world, flooding is impacting other areas including Colorado and Virginia in the U.S., and in other countries around the world including Brazil and Ecuador.

These climate-linked events that are occurring in regions and areas that have never been impacted before send the signal that no one is immune to climate change. All countries and citizens must act with urgency to mitigate this existential threat.

As countries consider climate mitigation initiatives, they need to be sure to strengthen agricultural crops’ resilience to extreme heat, drought, insect herbivory and flooding, that have become increasingly common

Indeed, these historical catastrophes create an important moment for all of us, including policy makers at both the state and federal level, to roll out bold reforms on many issues, including heat and agriculture.

As countries consider climate mitigation initiatives, they need to be sure to strengthen agricultural crops’ resilience to extreme heat, drought, insect herbivory and flooding, that have become increasingly common. These crops include maize, rice, soybeans, wheat and tomatoes.

Like humans, crops are sensitive to extreme heat. When temperatures increase, crops wither, their health deteriorates, and normal development is affected. Studies have shown that crops and crop varieties that are susceptible to heat stress are impacted the most.

Heat stress causes the deterioration of several important plant physiological processes including photosynthesis, respiration, and transpiration. Further, it causes the accumulation of toxic substances in plant cells including phenolic compounds and reactive oxygen species.

Plants’ ability to grow is affected and their life cycle is shortened. Ultimately, crop yields are reduced with consequences for food supply and agriculture, an important sector of the economies of many countries including the US, the UK, Spain, France and many African countries.

In the US, according to the United States Department of Agriculture, agriculture and related industries contributed $1.055 trillion to the U.S. gross domestic product (GDP) in 2020. In the UK, in 2021, agriculture contributed around 0.5% to the economy.

In China, the agricultural sector contributes 8.9% to China’s GDP.  In African countries and other emerging countries, agriculture can account for more than 25% of GDP according to the World Bank.

Heat waves increase the risks of crop failures, threatening food security for billions of people.

Indeed, scientists around the world have generated evidence of the crop and yield losses associated with heat waves and extreme temperatures. A 2017 study that examined extensive published results showed that temperature increase reduces global yields. Similarly, a 2018 study that examined more than 82,000 yield data from 17 European countries also found the same trend.

Crop failures and productivity losses due to excessive heat, drought and flooding are taking place in many countries.  The magnitude of these crop failures, however, varies enormously depending on the region and its wealth.

African countries, for example, suffer the most. A 2022 report prepared by the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on climate change reported that intense heat waves, frequent droughts and floods have reduced agricultural productivity in African countries by 34 percent.

Worrying is the fact that crop devouring pests such as the fall armyworm and locusts, pests that have emerged to be serious pests also thrive when temperatures exceed the normal. Because insects are poikilothermic (meaning their temperature varies with the environment), elevated temperatures are associated with increased metabolic rate and an increased consumption of plants, leading to greater damage.

Additionally, insects like the fall armyworm can adjust their life-history strategies, further allowing them to thrive across a wide range of stressful temperatures. What’s more is that recent models suggest that each additional degree of warming will increase crop losses to insects by 10-25 percent.

It’s clear that as governments begin to strategize on how to mitigate heat waves, and other climate change brought about extremes, they must not forget agriculture.

Strengthening agricultural resilience can include developing disaster preparedness and response plans, continuing to fund agricultural research and other climate change research and accelerating outreach and education about climate-smart practices.

Climate-smart practices that can alleviate crop failures when extreme temperatures arise are diverse and include:

1. Planting heat and drought tolerant crop varieties that have been bred to enhance their photosynthetic capacities and water use efficiencies when periods of stress occur
2. Applying products such as silicon and silicone nanoparticles,  and
3. Using inoculants made from naturally occurring beneficial soil microbes that can confer tolerance to heat and drought among other stressors.

 

Thankfully science researchers around the world continue to advance our understanding of crops response to climate-linked stresses. We can learn from them.

In the race to mitigate climate change brought about heat waves, we must not forget strengthening agriculture.

 

Dr. Esther Ngumbi is an Assistant Professor at the University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign, and a Senior Food Security Fellow with the Aspen Institute, New Voices.

Credit: EBRD

By Vanora Bennett
LONDON, Jul 29 2022 (IPS)

Until Russia went to war on Ukraine in February, Ukraine was known as the “breadbasket of Europe”. One of the largest grain exporters in the world, it provided about 10 per cent of globally traded wheat and corn and 37 per cent of sunflower oil, United Nations figures show. The yellow and blue of its flag mimic its rolling golden fields under blue summer skies.

The war has darkened this picture beyond recognition.

Despite the conflict, Ukrainian farmers are still growing grain, at levels estimated to be around three-quarters of a normal year. But, with Russia blockading the Black Sea ports through which Ukraine would usually export about 5 million tonnes a month, the country is now struggling to get just 2 million tonnes a month out westward by choked road, rail and river routes.

This is not only an existential problem for Ukraine, whose grain exports are one of the biggest contributors to its economy, but also for the millions of people worldwide who would normally import and eat this grain. The World Food Programme (WFP) says that as many as 47 million people, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa, are at risk of acute hunger.

Addressing this food security risk is a double challenge for the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD), which works both in Ukraine and neighbouring countries affected by the war, and in southern and eastern Mediterranean countries which are struggling to import food.

Vanora Bennet. Credit: EBRD

Inside Ukraine, 18 million tonnes of grain from last year’s crop are waiting in siloes for export. Space is at a premium and the squeeze is getting worse. The figures become still more dizzying once you add in the winter wheat and barley crop now being harvested, and the spring crop including sunflower and corn that will also join the queue in a couple of months’ time.

“The biggest issue is storing the grain. There is some warehouse and silo capacity free, but not enough for the harvest taking place now. We’ve been told they are missing 15 million tonnes of capacity, even before the spring crop harvest that’s coming in in two months’ time,” says Jean-Marc Peterschmitt, EBRD Managing Director for Industry, Commerce and Agribusiness. “It is unclear how it will play out.”

“For now, the only solution is temporary storage – silo bags or floor storage or even storage in the field with some basic covers, which obviously will deteriorate the quality of grain,” says Natalia Zhukova, EBRD Director, Agribusiness. “Silo bags can pretty much preserve the quality for 12 months because they are hermetically sealed so infections or pests cannot develop inside. But simple silos without proper drying or ventilation will obviously have problems.”

“Getting grain out of the country and being able to store the harvest inside the country are the mirror image of each other, because whatever you get out is freeing up storage capacity for the next harvest,” adds Peterschmitt. “Getting it out so far has been not a great experience. But it’s vital to find more ways to do that.”

As the quantity of Ukrainian crops waiting for export and potentially rotting in siloes and fields increases, hopes that Ukraine could soon resume exports in something like their usual quantities rose briefly last week when a tenuous U.N.-brokered deal to lift the blockade on the key Ukrainian port of Odessa was agreed in Turkey on 22 July.

Less than 24 hours later, however, Russian cruise missiles hit Odesa. US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, saying the attack cast serious doubt on the credibility of Russia’s commitment to the deal, accused Russia of “starving Ukraine of its economic vitality and the world of its food supply.”

Yet, by 25 July, Ukraine said it still hoped to start implementing the deal within as little as a week, and was making preparations including demining essential sea areas, and setting up naval corridors for the safe passage of merchant vessels and a coordination centre in Istanbul.

Still, for now, amidst the uncertainty, it’s back to working within the limits of wartime.

Within Ukraine, a significant part of the €1 billion of EBRD investment pledged for this year is earmarked to support domestic food security. As part of the EBRD’s Resilience and Livelihoods Framework (RLF), a €200 million multi-instrument Food Security Guarantee works across the food chain in Ukraine, both helping farmers buy fertiliser and retailers get food into the shops.

And there are other, smaller, freight transport options out of Ukraine for grain export if access to Black Sea ports continues to be blocked. The Danube River, whether in Ukraine or neighbouring Moldova or Romania, could be one option.

Throughput at Moldova’s Giurgiulesti Port on the Danube has already doubled in 2022. Another possibility might be supporting improvements to road and rail exports to help carry more freight overland.

In the southern and eastern Mediterranean (SEMED) region where the EBRD also works, meanwhile, all countries rely on imports to make enough dietary energy available domestically. The level of reliance on Russian and Ukrainian grain is unusually high.

Food prices are currently at an all-time high, making sourcing scarce imports from elsewhere ruinously expensive.

As the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation’s senior economist, Katya Krivonos, told a panel discussion at the EBRD Annual Meeting in May, Egypt, which has 5.4 million undernourished people, usually sources more than 40 per cent of its calorie imports from Russia and Ukraine.

“Climate conditions in SEMED don’t really allow them to grow grain. In arid countries, the question is how in the longer term to become more food secure, in a more sustainable way. We are looking at ways to help these countries find the commodities that they need,” says Iride Ceccacci, the EBRD’s head of Agribusiness Advisory.

In this region, the Bank is looking at expanding its work on agribusiness and food security beyond its current focus on the private sector to support SEMED countries to secure import of grains in this context of unprecedented high prices.

In Tunisia, 50 percent of all food calories are imported. Jordan imports approximately 90 percent of wheat and barley, which are essential staples and water intensive crops to produce. Morocco, which is generally less reliant on imports, is facing one of the worst droughts in decades.

In May, the EBRD joined forces with other international financial institutions – the Asian Development Bank (ADB), the African Development Bank (AfDB), the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank Group – to formulate an IFI Action Plan to Address Food Insecurity.

“People in SEMED are very frustrated that they came out of the COVID-19 pandemic, having coped with it with a lot of resilience, and were looking forward to some positive growth.

But instead, they’re now getting this massive new hit, mainly through high food prices but also through high energy prices, which affect fertiliser prices so will also have an impact on domestic food production,” says Heike Harmgart, Managing Director, SEMED, at the EBRD.

She adds: “Now middle-class people in Egypt are buying less meat because food price inflation has been so high in the supermarket. And governments are worried because high food prices were one of the triggers of the Arab Spring in 2011, and there’s a very clear connection between political unrest and high bread prices”.

“What everyone wants to avoid is social unrest. The EBRD has been working on urgent food security response projects to support SEMED countries, with a first transaction now Board approved for Tunisia. These investments include technical assistance designed to promote sustainable solutions for grain supply chains in the region.”

Gérald Theis, Chairman of CereMed UK Ltd, a big grain trader, vividly describes working first with the supply problems of the Covid era, which raised prices and the threat of protectionism, and then the war on Ukraine, which began on 24 February.

“February 24 was like 9/11, or a tsunami,” he told the EBRD Annual Meeting’s food security panel. “We didn’t sleep much for a while. In eight days, we saw a move of nearly US$ 200 dollars per tonne – a percentage rise of 160 per cent.”

Asked what his sense was of where food security was heading next season, he replied: “I’m sorry to say I don’t know, if we speak about long-term. Today I would say a day is like a month used to be before. Nobody knows when this war will end or how it will end.”

“Even if it stopped tomorrow, we traders don’t think that things will go back to normal – there are too many issues with logistics, broken bridges and railways, silos and sanctions. In this environment, we believe prices will stay at a high level and it’s going to be extremely volatile.”

Source: EBRD

Vanora Bennett is EBRD Green spokeswoman / Ukraine, Moldova, Romania, Georgia and Armenia

IPS UN Bureau

 

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Along a street in the historic center of Lima, 11-year-old Pedro makes chalk drawings on the sidewalk for at least four hours a day to bring some money home. He is one of thousands of children and adolescents in Peru who work as child laborers, which violates their human rights. CREDIT: Mariela Jara/IPS

By Mariela Jara
LIMA, Jul 29 2022 (IPS)

In the afternoons he draws with chalk on the sidewalk of a downtown street in the Peruvian capital. Passersby drop coins into a small blue jar he has set out. He remains silent in response to questions from IPS, but a nearby ice cream vendor says his name is Pedro, he is 11 years old, and he draws every day on the ground for about four hours.

Pedro, too shy or scared to answer, is one of the children and adolescents between the ages of five and 17 engaged in child labor in Peru, a phenomenon that grew during the years of the pandemic due to the rise in poverty, which by 2021 affected a quarter of the population.

According to official figures, children and adolescents involved in child labor number 870,000 nationwide, some 210,000 more than in 2019, Isaac Ruiz, a social worker and director of the non-governmental Centre for Social Studies and Publications (Cesip), told IPS in an interview.

Cesip has been working for 46 years advocating for the rights of children and adolescents."For every year of education that a child loses, he or she also loses between 10 and 20 percent of income in his or her adult life; poverty is reproduced." -- Isaac Ruiz

Ruiz explained that in order to define child labor, two concepts must be separated. The first refers to the economic activities that children between five and 17 years of age perform in support of their families for payment or not, as dependent workers for third parties, or for themselves.

The second is work that violates their rights and must be eradicated, which is addressed by national laws and regulations in accordance with international human rights standards established by the International Labor Organization (ILO) and other agencies.

The ILO classifies child labor as a violation of fundamental human rights, which is detrimental to children’s development and can lead to physical or psychological damage that will last a lifetime. Child labor qualifies as work that is harmful to the physical and mental development of children.

On the contrary, it is not child labor, according to the agency, when children or adolescents participate in stimulating activities, voluntary tasks or occupations that do not affect their health and personal development, nor interfere with their education. For example, helping parents at home or earning money doing a few chores or odd jobs.

The minimum working age in Peru is 14 years old. Work is classified as child labor when it is performed below that age, when it is dangerous by its very nature or because of the conditions in which it is performed, and when the workday exceeds the legally established limit, which is 24 hours per week if the child is 14 years old, and 36 hours per week if the child is between 15 and 17.

The worst forms of child labor are when adults use children and adolescents for criminal activities or exploit them commercially or sexually.

Juan Diego Carayonqui, 15, poses for a photo on the street where his home and the small store on its first floor are located in Huachipa, a low-income neighborhood on the outskirts of Lima. He works 49 hours a week in the small family business, longer than the hours legally stipulated for adolescents in Peru. CREDIT: Mariela Jara/IPS

According to figures from the government’s National Institute of Statistics and Informatics (Inei), 1,752,000 children and adolescents were working in 2021. That number was 2.6 percent higher than the pre-pandemic 25 percent recorded in 2019.

Of this total, 13.7 percent are engaged in hazardous activities, which means that 870,000 minors between the ages of five and 17 engage in work that poses a risk to their physical and mental health and integrity.

In this South American country of around 33,035,000 people, children and adolescents in this age range represent 19 percent, or about 6,400,000, of the population according to INEI data.

“Not all economic activities carried out by children and adolescents must be eradicated. If they have a formative role, for example helping out in a family business for an hour a day or on weekends, and they go to school, have time for their homework, to socialize, and for recreation, they will probably be learning about the business,” said Ruiz.

But, he added, “the situation changes when it becomes child labor, when the activities are hazardous.

“Child labor is when it is beyond their physical, emotional or mental capabilities and when it takes up too much of their time and competes negatively with education, homework and the possibility of recreation,” he explained.

As examples, he cited selling things on the street going from car to car, picking through waste in garbage dumps, carrying packages or crates in markets, doing domestic work, or working in mines or agricultural activities where they are exposed to toxic substances harmful to their health.

The government must accelerate the design and application of public policies for the eradication of child labor, Ruiz said.

“For every year of education that a child loses, he or she also loses between 10 and 20 percent of income in his or her adult life; poverty is reproduced,” he said.

The expert called for measures to correct this situation in order to prevent child workers from continuing to be left behind in terms of opportunities and rights.

“If I had children I wouldn’t make them work,” says Juan Diego Carayonqui, who since the age of seven has spent his afternoons working in their small family store to help his mother, with whom he poses in the shop where he spends a large part of his day. CREDIT: Mariela Jara/IPS

“I would not make my children work”

Juan Daniel Carayonqui is 15 years old and since the age of seven has been working in the small shop that operates out of his home, located in Huachipa, a poor hilly neighborhood on the outskirts of the capital with an estimated population of 32,000 inhabitants, mostly people who have come to the city from other parts of the country.

His mother, María Huamaní, arrived in Lima at the age of 10 from the central Andes highlands department of Ayacucho, fleeing the civil war that killed her mother and father. Orphaned, she was raised by aunts and uncles. Eventually she met the man who would become her husband and together they started a family. In their view, work is the way to progress in life.

In a park near his house, Carayonqui told IPS: “I started working when I was seven years old in the store, with simple tasks, memorizing the prices of the products. Then I gained experience and learned how to deal with customers, and now I work in the afternoons when I get out of school.”

Carayonqui is in his fourth year of high school, which he will finish in 2023, and his goal is to study biology at university. His dream is to travel around the country; he loves nature and dreams of discovering some unknown species and helping to bring new value to Peru’s biodiversity.

He has spent much of eight of his 15 years behind the counter of the store where he sells groceries and stationery products, from 2:00 in the afternoon until closing time, about seven hours a day. This adds up to 49 hours a week, so Carayonqui would officially be considered a victim of child labor.

But in his family’s view, work is the road to progress. His paternal grandmother, who also moved to Huachipa from the highlands, has a garden where she grows vegetables to sell at the wholesale market. Carayonqui helps her out on Wednesdays, carrying the heaviest bundles.

“My grandmother says that through work you overcome poverty and achieve your dreams, but I think it’s better to overcome it by studying,” he said.

Carayonqui knows that as a good son he must help his mother when she asks him to: “I have to help her because she needs me and because I love her.” But he also understands that spending his entire childhood and adolescence working has deprived him of focusing on his homework, of going out to play with his friends, of having fun.

He gets up every day at six in the morning, gets ready to go to school now that classrooms are open again this year post-pandemic, has breakfast and goes to school. He comes home at 1:30 p.m., eats lunch and by 2:00 p.m. he is at the store. His mother often leaves him in charge because she has other work to do.

If he has children, he will not do the same thing, he says. “I would encourage them to be responsible but I would not make them work, I would encourage them to study in order to get out of poverty,” he said.

Margoth Vásquez, a 17-year-old Peruvian teenager, worked 72 hours a week as a nanny and housekeeper during the pandemic to earn an income and cover her needs, she told IPS during an interview in a neighbor’s living room near her home on the outskirts of Lima. Her goal is to finish high school this year and begin to study nursing the following year. CREDIT: Mariela Jara/IPS

Overexploitation

Margoth Vásquez also lives in Huachipa. She is 17 years old and was interviewed by IPS at the home of one of her mother’s friends. She wants to remodel her family home with what she earns as a nurse; her dream is to study nursing.

During the pandemic, she had to work to buy what she needed and pay off a debt. Her father, who doesn’t live with her and doesn’t pay alimony, gave her a chest of drawers for her birthday, which he didn’t pay for: she had to.

She took work caring for an eight-month-old baby and cleaning the family’s home from 6:30 a.m. to 7:00 p.m. Monday through Saturday. In exchange for working as a housekeeper and nanny for more than 72 hours a week she earned about 150 dollars a month.

She worked there for a year and a half. But it was stressful because she could not find time to do her homework and turn it in (classes were online because of the pandemic). This year she will finish high school and next year she will apply to study nursing.

“I want to help my grandmother who raised me, take care of her, get married, have children. To have a good life,” she said.

Reki Jimu (51) has lived with HIV for nearly two decades. Here he shows a container of antiretroviral drugs to HIV/AIDS support group members at Chitungwiza government hospital outside Harare, the Zimbabwean capital. Credit: Jeffrey Moyo/IPS.

By Jeffrey Moyo
CHITUNGWIZA, Zimbabwe, Jul 29 2022 (IPS)

In 2001, when Reki Jimu was 30 years old, his wife died aged 27.

The now 51-year-old Jimu said the couple’s two sons died prematurely. Both were underweight and frail, although the couple had been previously blessed with a baby girl, Faith Jimu, who is now a 29-year-old mother of three.

Jimu was born in Zimbabwe’s Mashonaland Central Province in Mazowe Citrus Estate, with his rural home located in the province’s Mukumbura area in Chigawo village.

Two years after his wife, Tendai Goba, died following a very long illness, which he said eroded her weight, Jimu was tested for HIV and found to be positive.

“My wife Tendai died in 2001, succumbing to AIDS, although then we had no proof she suffered from it. She had Kaposi’s sarcoma – a cancer associated with AIDS,” Jimu told IPS.

His diagnosis did not dampen his zeal to live – although he encountered a lot of discouragement from relatives, friends, and colleagues.

“When I started losing weight, people said I was being bewitched by my brother whom they claimed had goblins that were sucking out my blood,” Jimu said.

He said the back-biting started when his wife and two sons were still alive.

“Some naysayers were even blunt in their statements during the early days when my wife was sick, at the time our sons were alive. People said my sons were very thin because they had AIDS. We would hear this and never say anything in return. But of course, our sons died prematurely because they were all underweight (but) before we knew they had HIV,” said Jimu.

But thank God, said Jimu, the couple’s daughter, who was born before the couple contracted HIV/AIDS and has lived on without the disease and is now a parent.

Yet Jimu, even as his first wife kicked the bucket, has never given up on life.

Now residing in Chitungwiza, a town 25 kilometres southeast of Harare, the Zimbabwean capital, in 2003, soon after testing positive for HIV, Jimu immediately started taking antiretroviral treatment, and that has kept him going for almost two decades.

In fact, for close to two decades, 51-year-old Jimu has lived with HIV/AIDS, sticking to his antiretroviral treatment without fail.

Thanks to his belief in ARV treatment, now Jimu looks like any other healthy person.

“Look, I’m looking good. Nobody can tell I’m HIV positive. Nobody can even tell I’m taking ARV drugs unless I tell them myself,” bragged Jimu.

He has soldiered on with life despite being HIV positive.

In 2007, Jimu became the founder, leader and pastor of the Christian Fellowship Network Trust, a support group that he said has become pivotal in supporting people living with HIV and AIDS in Chitungwiza.

He has not stopped embracing life, and through the help of HIV/AIDS support groups, Jimu said he married again a year after he had tested positive.

Francisca Thomson, his second wife of the same age as him, is also living with HIV.

“Francisca is my queen, very beautiful girl, I can tell you, and we are so happy together,” boasted Jimu.

Jimu said he, like any other average person, has become a beacon of hope to many living with HIV.

He said he became open about his HVI/AIDS status at a time when the public loathed people like him and when HIV/AIDS stigma was rife.

“I am one of those people who used to appear on national television on an HIV/AIDS advert clip in which I was saying I didn’t cross the red traffic light… I am a pastor…  I am HIV positive, adverts of which were sponsored by Population Services International,” said Jimu

Now a known fighter against HIV/AIDS in Zimbabwe, Jimu cannot hold back his gratitude for the Chitungwiza General Hospital here, which he said made him what he is today- an epic HIV/AIDS peer educator.

Zimbabwe has about 1,4 million people living with HIV/AIDS.

Living with HIV has not forced Jimu into a cocoon.

Instead, he said the condition has merely turned him into an ardent defender of many others.

“I’m now very active in offering routine counselling services and spiritual guidance to many who newly test positive for HIV and seeing me with the positive mindset I have. Many are adjusting quickly to their HIV-positive status and moving on with their lives,” said Jimu.

Yet, for Jimu, it has not been easy getting where he is now.

He said over the years, he has come face to face with stigma, saying many people around him were disgusted at merely seeing him sick.

Jimu said landlords quickly evicted him when they heard of his status.

“As a tenant at the many houses I have lived in, I would be quickly given notices to leave because people were afraid to live with me thinking I would just one day wake up dead in their homes or infect them with HIV. I would hear people gossiping about my sickness, some saying I was now a moving skeleton, some urging me to visit prophets for healing, some saying I must go back to the village and die there,” said Jimu.

Over the years, however, things have gotten better, with Jimu saying his relatives have begun to embrace him.

Yet, in the past, he had to contend with all the sneering and discrimination from both kith and kin.

“Being loathed and discriminated against were the things I have encountered in church, work and many other places. At many gatherings we would attend with my late wife, we would be made to take back seats as people were ashamed of having us occupying the front seats, obviously ashamed of how we looked because of the signs of sickness on us,” recalled Jimu.

But that is now a thing of the past.

As more and more people living with HIV are beginning to find it easier to live with the disease, Jimu has a message for them.

“I urge people who are HIV positive to take their medication during prescribed times without defaulting even when they feel they are now healthy and fit,” he said.

And he also carries an almost similar message for those on the brink of marriage.

“I urge couples to get tested for HIV before engaging in sex. If one is found positive, they can be assisted by health experts to live healthy lives without infecting each other with the disease,” said Jimu.

IPS UN Bureau Report

 

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By Baher Kamal
MADRID, Jul 28 2022 (IPS)

A wide majority, including the United States, has cheered the 22 July Turkey-brooked agreement between Russia and Ukraine to resumen cereals and fertilisers exports from both countries.

Such exports had been stopped since last February due to the ongoing proxy war in Ukraine, on the one hand, and the successive United States-led Western sanctions imposed on Russia.

The Istanbul agreement is projected to allow both countries to release their cereals and fertilisers exports, under UN and international supervision.

The accord is projected to release around five million tons of Ukrainian cereals per month. Considering this country’s cereals exports used to amount to some 45 million tons a year, the reached agreement would mean that Ukraine will export much more now than before the war: 60 million tons per year.

 

Anyway…

But if you look at the global figures, you may wonder if such agreement suffices to fix up the disproportionate rise of the prices of food products all over the globe. Unless such a rise is also driven by a high-tide of profit-making speculations, the resumed exports do not appear like a miraculous solution.

Ukraine is not the world’s single grain producer. Nor is it the Planet’s largest grain exporter. In fact, Ukraine represents 10% of the global supply.

The same applies to Russia, which will also resume its cereal exports in virtue of the Istanbul agreement. With around 118 million tons a year, Russia ranks fourth in the world’s list of the world’s top producers.

 

The big producers

The largest one, China, with over 620 million tons, generates more than four-fold the total Russian production.

The United States, with 476 million tons, is the world’s second largest cereal producer, nearly three-fold what Russia produces.

Then you have the European Union, with 275 million tons. France alone produces some 63 million tons. Canada produces more than 58 million tons. Other major cereals producers are India, Brazil, Argentina, and Australia.

Are Western politicians and mainstream media really accurate when they continue repeating that the world’s food markets have collapsed just due to the ongoing proxy war in Ukraine?

 

The future is compromised

Meanwhile, a joint study by the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), makes immediate and future projections.

Over the next decade, the study reports, cereal production is expected to increase by 336 million tons, reflecting gains made primarily in major grain-producing countries.

More than 50% of the “global production increase in wheat” will come from India, Russia, and Ukraine. For maize, the United States, China, and Brazil will account for more than half of the expected production growth.

Concerning maize, the United States will remain the leading exporter, followed by Brazil, Ukraine, Argentina, and Russia. The European Union, Australia, and the Black Sea region are expected to continue to be the main exporters of other coarse grains.

Also India, Viet Nam and Thailand will continue to lead global rice trade, while Cambodia and Myanmar are expected to play an increasingly important role in global rice exports.

 

Severe drought in Europe

There are other key facts about the current world food crisis. One of them is the European Commission warning that the European Union’s food production and exports is at risk due to “severe droughts,” “severe precipitation deficit,” “reduced stored water volume,” and “high competition for water resources,” among other facts.

In short, neither Ukraine’s nor Russia’s exports should be blamed for having created such a devastating food shortage all over the whole globe, nor the sharpest rise in food prices, let alone the steady, alarming increase in inflation rates.

And anyway, much earlier than the Ukraine war, the world was already facing an unprecedented crisis. For instance, more than four years ago, climate emergency driven drought has been hitting East African countries, causing a devastating famine.

 

The situation

As defined by a number of international organisations, the world has long been facing a “perfect storm” of climate disasters and conflicts.

 

Here you are some examples:

• The UN Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) warned that billions of people are facing the greatest cost of living crisis in a generation.
• The United Nations has reported that gloobal hunger crisis pushing one child per minute into severe malnutrition
• Forced Displacement Hit Record High in 2021 with Too Few Able to Go Home

• The World Food Programme reported that amidst escalating needs and soaring hunger, refugees caught in the eye of the perfect storm

• Slave Markets Open 24/7: Refugee Babies, Boys, Girls, Women, Men…

• Prolonged and deadly heatwave has hit large swaths of India and Pakistan affecting hundreds of millions of people, sparking food and energy shortages

• The risk of turning planet Earth into a giant desert

• The richest 1% pollute more than the poorest 50%
• Oil Business Burns Enough Gas to Power the Whole Sub-Sahara or Two Thirds of Europe
• More Weapons than Ever. And a Hunger Crisis Like No Other

• Nuclear-armed powers squander $156.000 per minute on their MAD policy

• Meanwhile, there are more weapons than ever. And a hunger crisis like no other

 

The above mentioned ones are just a few indicative examples showing how the world was already broken before the Ukraine war.

It goes without saying that all wars are criminal, all of them, no matter who or on whom.

Meanwhile, the human suicidal war on Nature continues unrelented; the limitless greed and voracious profit-making further go on, as it do the sluagherting of the world’s most vulnebrables’ basic human rights, including the right to stay alive.

One in two First Nations children lives in conditions of poverty (First Nations people account for about half of Canada’s Indigenous population of 1.7 million). Credit: Creative Commons/Qyd

By Marty Logan
KATHMANDU, Jul 28 2022 (IPS)

Canada and its major cities consistently appear in Top 10 lists of best places in the world to live. But delve into figures about children’s lives in the northern nation known for ice hockey heroics and you see a different picture.

For example, one in five children in the North American country of 38 million people lives in conditions of poverty. That rises to one in two for First Nations children (First Nations people account for about half of Canada’s Indigenous population of 1.7 million).

Also, Canada ranks 30th among 38 of the world’s richest countries in the well-being of children and youth under age 18, according to UNICEF. “Canada’s public policies are not bold enough to turn our higher wealth into higher child well-being,” suggests UNICEF to explain the gap.

“Canada is not using its greater wealth for greater childhoods: Canada ranks 23rd in the conditions for good childhood but 30th in children’s outcomes,” adds the United Nations agency, in its 2019 report Worlds Apart, the Canadian companion to a global survey of the world’s richest countries.

One in five children in the North American country of 38 million people lives in conditions of poverty. That rises to one in two for First Nations children

UNICEF suggests that rising inequality might be reflected in the low scores for children’s well-being. “More equal societies tend to report higher overall child well-being and fewer health and social problems, such as mental illness, bullying and teenage pregnancy,” says Worlds Apart.

Activist Leila Sarangi goes a step further to explain the inequality. “Canada is still a colonized nation and that is a strategy for maintaining structure and systems that perpetuate things like poverty,” says Sarangi, National Director of Campaign2000, a non-partisan coalition of 120 organizations.

She refers to a 2016 decision of the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal that found the Canadian Government had discriminated against First Nations children in providing child welfare benefits. It ordered the government to pay each affected child $40,000. Earlier this month the government agreed to total compensation of $20 billion for children and caregivers affected by that discrimination.

On 23 June 2002 the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child wrote that it was “deeply concerned” about “discrimination against children in marginalized and disadvantaged situations in the State party (Canada) such as the structural discrimination against children belonging to indigenous groups and children of African descent, especially with regard to their access to education, health and adequate standards of living.”

In its concluding observations of reports submitted in May, the committee recommended that Canada “put an end to structural discrimination against children belonging to indigenous groups and children of African descent and address disparities in access to services by all children.”

Sarangi says Campaign2000 hoped that the federal government budget in April would act on the government’s post-Covid-19 ‘build back rhetoric’ and provide relief to the poorest Canadians. “We really believe that big spending and big change is possible and we saw that in the pandemic, the way that the government moved really quickly to provide different kinds of support and services,” she added in a Zoom interview.

“Unfortunately the budget missed out. It talks a lot about the deficit and trying to reduce the deficit. One of the things that was really absent from that budget — there was really nothing on income security.”

Instead, poor families have fallen into even deeper poverty says Campaign2000’s 2021 report card on child and family poverty, the first time that has happened since 2012. “When the (monthly, tax-free) Canada Child Benefit was implemented in 2016 and 2017 you can see the rate of child poverty drop pretty significantly — you see a real drop in that rate of child poverty,” says Sarangi. “But in the last two years it’s stalling, and that’s because there’s not been new investment into that benefit… it is frustrating because we know that those kinds of transfers work.”

Non-profit organization Canada Without Poverty (CWP) noted that the budget mentioned poverty 4 times, compared to 90 times for its 2021 counterpart. “It is a policy choice not to invest in social programmes that will serve marginalized communities and alleviate and reduce poverty,” says National Coordinator Emilly Renaud in an email interview. “It is not about less money, it is about a lack of political will to deal with issues of poverty.

“The federal government has committed to a 50 percent poverty reduction by 2030, but there is no clear answer as to what that 50 percent will look like, and if it will look equitable,” she added.

CWP’s Just the Facts webpage lists startling statistics such as:

• Between 1980 and 2005, the average earnings among the least wealthy Canadians fell by 20%.
• People living with disabilities (both mental and physical) are twice as likely to live below the poverty line.
• Precarious employment increased by nearly 50 percent over the past two decades.

The situation won’t improve without structural change, says Campaign2000’s 2021 report card: “Dismantling systemic racism, particularly anti-Indigenous and anti-Black racism, is needed to eradicate poverty and inequality. Policies meant to address higher poverty rates in marginalized communities need to be developed with the communities they target and incorporate trauma-informed principles to policymaking.”

 

 

Fishers have been impacted by poor fishing practices, negligent management of fisheries and frequent hurricanes, exacerbated by two years of pandemic-related restrictions. Now it is feared that WTO proposals on subsidies are skewed to benefit the large fishing nations. Credit: Zadie Neufville/IPS

By Zadie Neufville
Kingston, Jul 28 2022 (IPS)

In the 21 years it took the World Trade Organisation (WTO) to agree on a historic deal on fishing subsidies, the lives of fisherfolk in Rocky Point, Clarendon, have seen many ups and downs.

The largest fishing village on Jamaica’s south coast has been battered by nature and economic challenges which have left their mark. The fishing beach signs of frequent run-ins with Mother Nature and economic battles have sent many to ‘greener pastures’.

Rocky Point sits at the edge of the Portland Bight protected area outside the special fisheries management area (a protected zone). It is the country’s largest fishing village which, in its heyday, attracted fishers from up and down the coast. But while the town has grown, taking in surrounding cane fields and wetlands, the trade that built it, fishers say, is dying. In communities like these, subsidies take on a whole new meaning.

Fishermen Face Hardships

Fifty-year-old fisherman Bradley Bent has been supplementing his income as a boat repairman. Credit: Zadie Neufville/IPS

Decades of poor fishing practices, negligent fisheries management and frequent hurricanes, exacerbated by two years of pandemic-related restrictions, have taken their toll. These days, 50-year-old fisherman Bradley Bent has been supplementing his income as a boat repairman. These other skills he honed as a fisherman for more than three decades are helping him through the tough times.

Bent was hunched over, patching his boat with fibreglass under the searing heat of the morning sun. Around him, a group of repair men applied fresh paint to upturned boats. The faint sea breeze is putrid with the smell of chemicals, and the air pulses with the sounds of the buzzing generator and sanders as the men smooth the hull of a nearby boat.

COVID-19 restrictions grounded or reduced the sizes of most fishing crews and slashed their incomes by restricting them to shorter, less profitable distances in a bay virtually depleted of fish. Nowadays, fishermen are gone for days at a time but can’t afford to cover the cost of fuel or pay their bills.

Fishing is no longer an everyday affair at what was once the pride of south coast fishing, where fishermen could pull nets close to breaking with many of 11 species in the island’s waters, including parrotfish, snapper, wench-man, grunt, jack, turbot and butterfish, and seasonal hauls of wahoo, grouper and tuna.

Rocky Point fishers like Bent must now travel up to 70 miles up the coast or to the offshore fishing colony of Pedro Cays to find fish. In the last two years, things have gotten much worse. Some fishermen have left the business, forced out by the rising cost of fuel, equipment and the effort it takes to scrape by. Others, like George Henry, a fidgety forty-something, make do with menial jobs like gutting and scaling fish to make ends meet.

On the beaches around the Kingston Harbour – not so long ago, fertile grounds for shad, sprat, whiting and crabs – fishing is an exercise in futility, said Gladston White. The Jamaican fisherman is chairman of the Caribbean Network of Fisherfolk Organisations (CFNO), an organisation of fishers representing member states of the Caribbean Community (CARICOM).

George Henry has to make do with menial jobs like gutting and scaling fish to make ends meet. Credit: Zadie Neufville/IPS

Fish provide almost half of the world’s 7.75 billion people with about 20 percent of their average daily intake of animal protein and up to 50 percent in some developing and least developed countries (FAO 2020). Providing an estimated 59.51 million jobs worldwide while earning the region small countries, including CARICOM, 60 percent of the 164 billion US dollars in exports.

In theory, fishing should be held in check by its very environment: low fish stocks should mean fishing takes more time and costs more money, but this is not the case in depleted areas where food security depends on a good catch, and there is no other source of income.

Financial Assistance for Fishers

According to the Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries, the fishing community suffered significant losses during the COVID-19 lockdown. Government estimates indicate that the sector lost up to 23.1 million US dollars in earnings in 2020 alone.

So, when the government announced relief for fishers in November 2020, many in the fishing community were overjoyed. Unfortunately, only 4,740 of the 26,000 on the Fishermen’s register, or just over 11 percent of the estimated 40,000 people who identify as fishers, received assistance.

The grant would cover their National Fisheries Authority (NFA) registration and ID cards, roughly 100 US dollars in vouchers to buy mesh for fish pots across the 137 fishing communities. An additional allocation of 200 US dollars each went to members of Parliament whose constituencies include fishing communities. The subsidies were to be paid to those fishermen who had been grounded for two months during COVID-19 lockdowns. These pay-outs or assistance are, in the general scheme of things, subsidies and are among those which the WTO and agencies like the FAO seek to ban.

According to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), fishing subsidies in 39 countries averaged 12 billion US dollars annually between 2012 and 2014. While there was a 20 percent reduction between 2015 and 2018, since 2016, the trend has continued to increase.

In its 2020 The State of World Fisheries and Aquaculture, the FAO identified subsidies as a contributing factor to overfishing, IUU fishing, and the decline of regional fish stocks.

The World Bank’s The Sunken Billions Revisited reported in 2017: “The proportion of fisheries that are fully fished, overfished, depleted, or recovering from overfishing increased from just over 60 percent in the mid-1970s to about 75 percent in 2005 and to almost 90 percent in 2013”.

According to the FAO, subsidies in large fishing nations like the USA, European Union, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, Thailand, Russia, and China, contribute most to the over-exploitation of marine fish stocks.

WTO Proposed Ban On Subsidies

For the most part, Caribbean Community (CARICOM) governments, including Jamaica, believe the “WTO proposals are skewed to benefit the large fishing nations”, while those proposed for small, vulnerable economies were inadequate to address their interests.

In his presentation to Ministers attending the 12th Ministerial Conference (MC12) in Geneva (June 12 to 17, 2022), Prime Minister of Antigua and Barbuda Gaston Brown noted that most of the estimated USD 22 billion that is spent collectively on subsidies that incentivise unsustainable fishing practices each year, comes from the world’s largest economies.

Speaking on behalf of CARICOM, he pointed out that six of the Caribbean’s smallest countries collectively provide roughly “USD 9.7 million in subsidies that are considered harmful or less than one percent of the global total.”

Subsidies for Caribbean fishers are few and far between. In times of crisis, the government steps in to provide much-needed help for the artisans – usually small-scale professional fishers- who account for more than 90 percent of the industry.

Henry was one of those who did not receive a COVID-19 relief grant, and he is bitter. “I have to be doing this because only their friends get the help,” he said, angrily pointing to the bucket of fish he was paid to clean.

On the other hand, Ricky*(last name withheld on request), is grateful for the benefit but says it did not go far enough to offset the losses, especially with the double-whammy from the sargassum seaweed overwhelming their beach.

“The last time we got help, it was 15,000 US dollars, and not everyone got it,” he said adding: “We need help with the seaweed so we can continue to go to sea”, pointing to the huge pile of rotting seaweed covering beach and foreshore (area between the high and low tide marks).

Bent said the equipment cost is far too high for fishers to afford, given their declining incomes. Mesh costs between 100 and 300 US dollars, depending on the gauge (wire size) and does not include the cost of sticks, rope, and binding wire. Engines cost anywhere from 1000 US dollars (150,000 Jamaican dollars) or more, the men say.

The Jamaican government also gives tax exemptions for fishing equipment such as engines, boats and other gear to help ease the burden of a constantly shifting exchange rate. The men also purchase fuel at cost from the NFA, the agency responsible for regulating the island’s fisheries.

Estimates are that the fishing sector lost up to 23.1 million US dollars in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Credit: Zadie Neufville/IPS

Donations categorised as Subsidies 

In the Caribbean, donor agencies like the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA), United Nations Development Programme and the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) occasionally offer funding support to develop fisheries management plans and infrastructure.

Other assistance comes from donor agencies through Environmental NGOs like the Caribbean Coastal Area Management Foundation (C-CAM), a local development organisation operating in and managing one of Jamaica’s largest protected areas on behalf of the government. This ‘assistance’ too would come under the scrutiny of the WTO.

Executive Director Ingrid Parchment explained that CCAM also manages three marine protected areas across the parishes of St Catherine and Clarendon. In the last 10 to 15 years, she said, subsidies have come in the form of help with gear in the aftermath of natural disasters like hurricanes, beach improvement projects and gear distribution.

In the Caribbean, 142,000 mostly rural dwellers are directly and indirectly dependent on fishing. The sector reportedly earns 150 million US dollars and saves the region at least three times that sum. Fisheries account for up to 8 percent of gross domestic product in some CARICOM member countries. Belize at 3.9 percent and Guyana at 8.1 percent, according to data from the Caribbean Regional Fisheries Management (CRFM) Secretariat, the CARICOM body responsible for coordinating regional fisheries.

In Belize, for instance, CRFM reports that the fishing industry is primarily artisanal and directly supports the livelihood of more than 15,000 Belizeans.

Meanwhile, the Jamaican fishing industry provides direct and indirect employment to some 40,000 fishers folk. The sector also contributes to the livelihoods of more than 200,000, the Caribbean Regional Track of the Pilot Programme for Climate Resilience (PCCR) project reported in 2015.

The PCCR report noted that at the end of 2015, 23,631 registered fisher folk and 7,133 registered boats were operating from 187 fishing beaches and two cays located at the Pedro Bank. While fin fish makes up the bulk of marine capture, the export earnings are primarily from the lobster and Queen Conch fisheries.

Small Countries Support Fair and Effective Bans

Some ministers negotiating the deal felt the working draft would leave developing and least developed nations bearing the brunt of cuts to the livelihoods of their small-scale fisherfolk and create loopholes for richer countries to continue subsidising the most harmful fishing activities.

Speaking on behalf of the CARICOM and primarily the Eastern Caribbean nations, ahead of the agreement, Prime Minister Brown argued: “the most beneficial deal would be one that requires large fishing nations to prioritise focus on improving the health and population of the target species that are most impacted by subsidies,” rather than permitting larger nations to go farther to catch more fish.

The FAO has reported that fish stocks are at risk of collapsing in many parts of the world due to overexploitation. The organisation’s data shows that about 34% of global stocks are overfished, compared with 10% in 1974, an indicator that stocks are being exploited faster than the fish population can replenish itself.

In 2005 the WTO initiated a call for the prohibition of subsidies and a mandate for eliminating harmful subsidies to be included in Goal 14 of the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), which aims to address ‘Life Below Water’ through the sustainable management and protection of marine and freshwater resources.

In its December 20, 2021 briefing, the WTO said that a reduction in fishing capacity and effort would contribute to the recovery of stocks. The organisations have also argued that subsidies that “directly increase fishing capacity and may lead to overfishing are estimated at about 22 billion US dollars worldwide.”

If nothing else, the June 17 agreement addresses the SDG 14.6 targets, specifically, the elimination of fisheries subsidies.

“The package of agreements you have reached will make a difference to the lives of people around the world. The outcomes demonstrate that the WTO is, in fact, capable of responding to the emergencies of our time,” said WTO Director-General Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala said, in announcing the historic new deal on fisheries subsidies on June 17, 2022.

While not as ambitious as initially planned, it means that for the first time, a WTO agreement has been established to address environmental issues. The new multilateral treaty includes a set of rules prohibiting subsidies to fishers engaged in illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing, catching overfished stocks and fishing on the high seas outside the control of regional fisheries management authorities.

The agreement includes provisions (Articles 3, 4 and 5) to withhold subsidies from fishing vessels and operators that have engaged in IUU fishing from subsidies, eliminate subsidies in areas where the stocks are overfished and for fishing and fishing-related activities in areas that are outside the control of regional fishing authorities as there are no conservation rules governing these areas. Article 4, however, allows for subsidies to help rebuild overfished stocks.

The agreement also includes oversight of vessels fishing inside foreign waters and for fishing of stocks for which information is limited. In addition, members are required to notify the WTO about the subsidies they provide.

And in response to those members who asked for help, said WTO Director-General, Article 7 includes the creation of “a funding mechanism to provide targeted technical assistance and capacity building to help developing and least-developed country members implement the Agreement.”

On June 17, Chile’s Ambassador Santiago Wills, chairman of the WTO fisheries negotiation committee, noted:

“We have an agreement to eliminate subsidies that contribute to illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing and to prohibit subsidies that contribute to overcapacity and overfishing, with appropriate and effective special and differential treatment.”

They believe the new WTO deal does not accommodate the special and differential treatment for less-developed nations that SDG 14.6 mandates.

The former head of now-defunct Jamaica’s Fisheries Division in the Ministry of Agriculture, Andre Kong, opposes the removal of subsidies as proposed by the World Trade Organisation (WTO) because “it does not take into account the realities in countries such as ours,” he said.

In its December 20, 2021 briefing, the WTO said that a reduction in fishing capacity and effort would contribute to the recovery of stocks. The organisations have also argued that subsidies that “directly increase fishing capacity and may lead to overfishing are estimated at about 22 billion US dollars worldwide.”

In Jamaica, the government teamed up with fishing communities to establish sanctuaries or no-take areas to replenish fish stocks, a combined 9,020 hectares across 18 fish sanctuaries and no-take areas, with another four under assessment. Other measures include a new Fisheries Act, legal and management frameworks and regulations to improve policing.

In the Caribbean, 142,000 mostly rural dwellers are directly and indirectly dependent on fishing. Credit: Zadie Neufville/IPS

Across the Caribbean and Latin America, authorities are coordinating through the CRFM, the Organisation of the Fisheries and Aquaculture Sector of the Central American Isthmus (OSPESCA) and others to implement environmental, livelihood projects and social programmes that aim to support the vulnerable populations that depend on fishing. In Clarendon and St Catherine, Parchment and her C-CAM Foundation continue to roll out donor-funded projects to ease the way for stakeholders.

Once negotiations are complete, countries like Jamaica will have up to two years to minimise the impact of their sector. Caribbean nations and their counterparts in Africa and the Pacific are looking to eliminate fuel and vessel construction subsidies that make distant-water fleets viable and support IUU fishing. So far, the deal has targeted high-seas fishing, which falls outside national jurisdictions.

Ministers from “African, Caribbean and Pacific countries kept their promise to continue negations for a “fair and effective WTO agreement” that would help to minimise the effects of harmful subsidies.

“Year after year, giant, foreign-flagged vessels encroach on Caribbean waters, competing with our local fishing fleets. In 2018, the most recent year for which data are available, six unique foreign distant-water fishing vessels were observed in OECS waters, propped up by over 99 million US dollars in state-sponsored subsidies,” the Prime Minister said.

The six are Organisation of Eastern Caribbean States (OECS) – Antigua and Barbuda, Dominica, Grenada, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Saint Lucia, and Saint Vincent and the Grenadines.

In Jamaica, the Ministry of Agriculture estimates that intercepted IUU vessels account for only 14 percent of the IUU fishing. Between January 2011 and March 2019, ten foreign vessels were caught fishing illegally in Jamaican waters.

So even as the world celebrates the WTO deal on subsidies, the spectre of unfinished business hangs over the Caribbean. Governments have said that they will “keep negotiating”, but as long as the trade of high-value protected species like conch remains critical to the livelihoods of regional fishers, uncertainty persists.

 

This story was produced with the support of Internews’ Earth Journalism Network (EJN)

Read more about this topic here.  (link to booklet)

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It’s nice getting old, being young is far too horrible
                                             Hjalmar Söderbergh

By Jan Lundius
STOCKHOLM, Jul 28 2022 (IPS)

Many of us assume that an identification with a certain gender, race, nation or even age makes us particularly knowledgeable. When it comes to age, it is in most cultures of the world assumed that age and experience favour wisdom. I am not entirely sure about that, though I am convinced that as we grow older we tend to overestimate our own knowledge and importance. An arrogance that might burden and even marginalize the youth.

In several European cities you may nowadays come across store windows displaying various types of walkers, adjustable beds and other aids for the elderly. Such stores are becoming more common, maybe even replacing shops offering cribs and baby carriages. A phenomenon that might be interpreted as a sign of the fact that Europe’s population is ageing at an increasing speed.

However, is our culture actually built for and adapted to young people? To catch up with changes that are much faster and radical than they have ever been we are forced to address the increasing gap between young and elderly. In spite of this urgency, juvenility appears to be prolonged in the sense that several young people are becoming trapped in a state of marginalization that denies them an early and stable access to a profitable labour market.

A recent issue of the Italian daily La Repubblica was commenting upon a yearly report from Istat, The Italian Institute of Statistics, stating that one Italian out of four is now above sixty-five years old. There are more than double so many Italians above sixty-five years of age as there are children under fifteen. The headline was This is not a Country for Children.

One article described the situation as “a river drying up due to fading springs.” Close to a third of Italian couples living together are childless, this in a country where, like in so many other European nations, politics are currently centred around a debate dominated by the perceived misgivings of immigration. Despite this, Istat found that immigration is decreasing, even when it appears to be necessary for maintaining the well-being of the Italian nation.

Within a global context, the youth population is dwindling in all wealthy nations, while it is increasing in the poorer regions of the world. In a majority of the world’s countries, children up to 15 years constitute more than 50 percent of their “working population”, i.e. people between 15 and 65 years of age. Across several countries in Sub-Saharan Africa this ratio is much higher. In countries like Niger, Nigeria and Mali the population up to 15 years of age is approximately 75 percent of these countries’ inhabitants. Like most phenomena, global demography is characterized by imbalances, inequality and injustices.

The Istat-report also stated that two out of three Italians under thirty-four years of age are still living with their parents, while the average wages of this age group are constantly decreasing. More and more youngsters are dependent on insecure, temporary and poorly paid work. At the same time, higher education is becoming less attractive, due to the great effort and lack of income it involves, as well as an unstable labour market awaiting newly graduated students. It is also generally considered to be unattractive and badly remunerated to work as care giver for the elderly. More than 13 percent of the Italian population is above eighty-five years of age, a group that is increasingly dependent on the help and care of others. Italy is far from being a unique case – the number of dependent elderly persons is steadily on the rise in the entire “Western World”.

Although elderly people tend to remember their youth with nostalgia and often want to appear as younger than they actually are, many do nevertheless mistrust the abilities of young people. Youngsters are recurrently accused of being idle and listless, spending too much of their time “doing nothing”, or within a digital world, while not reading any books or newspapers, nor watching movies, or TV.

That youngsters demonstrate a crippling lack of interest and are apt to expose bad behaviour have for millennia been a common complaint among older generations. In the 4th century BCE Socrates stated:

The children now love luxury; they have bad manners, contempt for authority; they show
disrespect for elders and love to chatter instead of doing exercise. Children are now
tyrants, not the servants of their households. They no longer rise when elders enter the
room. They contradict their parents, babble instead of listen, gobble up dainties at the table, and tyrannize their teachers.

Older, “experienced” people might argue that new information does not have to replace previous knowledge. New insights might modify and supplement what we already know from books, education, and above all – from life. Experience is an important, though tough teacher. Nevertheless, my years as a teacher to young people have taught me that I have learned more from them, than they from me.

Older men and women might be reluctant to leave their positions of power and hand over leadership to younger persons. There is a general disinclination to vacate more and better positions to youngsters. Accordingly, many societies run the risk of fomenting a kind of gerontocracy, hindering the social mobility and advancement of young people.

More and efficient efforts are needed to invest in young people, to train and prepare them for the social, economic and environmental challenges awaiting them. To take over and care for an increasingly old and often incapacitated generation. To take care of a natural environment which that very old generation, to an alarming extent, has exploited and destroyed. Among other endeavours this means that we all, young and old alike, must contribute to the establishment of a free of charge, obligatory education and health care for all, regardless of age and income. Various disasters are now threatening the survival and well-being of the entire humanity. It is the arduous task of new generations to cope with the unpleasant consequences of the legacy that older people are leaving behind. Thus, it is time to start compensating the youth for the burden our generation has put on them, by reorienting investments towards the creation of a new world order where the needs and aspirations of young people are met.

Main source: Serra, Michele (2022) “La Societa stagnante che i numeri non sanno descrivere,” in La Repubblica, 9 July.

IPS UN Bureau

 

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Excerpt:

It’s nice getting old, being young is far too horrible
                                             Hjalmar Söderbergh

The Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator, Martin Griffiths, speaks with internally displaced people in North East Nigeria. January 2022. Credit: UNOCHA/Christina Powell

By Matthias Schmale
ABUJA, Nigeria, Jul 28 2022 (IPS)

Today in north-east Nigeria, millions of people are facing the painful consequences of a deteriorating food security and nutrition crisis. Food insecurity means not knowing when or where your next meal will come from.

It means, in essence, not being able to meet the basic needs for yourself or your family. As a result, countless families are forced to make alarming sacrifices to survive. Many, particularly children, are at risk of not making it through the lean season.

According to the latest food security assessments, 4.1 million people in Borno, Adamawa and Yobe States – three of the states in north-eastern Nigeria, are at risk of severe food insecurity in this lean season. People’s resilience and coping mechanisms have been devastated by more than a decade of conflict.

As food insecurity worsens, so does the risk of malnutrition. In 2022, 1.74 million children under five are expected to suffer from acute malnutrition across the north-east. Mothers who have lost their children to malnutrition can testify to the danger it poses and the sorrow and despair it brings.

While visiting a nutrition stabilization center in the north-east I saw the haunting sight of a child on the brink of death, and it is a memory that continues to leave me troubled.

The food security situation is impacted by many factors, such as insecurity due to ongoing conflict, rising food prices and climate change. This is taking place in a region where people are already facing extreme vulnerabilities.

North-east Nigeria has struggled through 12 years of conflict and instability due to the violence of non-State armed groups like Boko Haram. This year, 8.4 million people need humanitarian assistance, of which about 80 per cent are women and children.

The violence has displaced more than 2.2 million people from their homes. Livelihoods, health services, education and other essential areas have been devastated, depriving millions of people of critical support and the capacity to provide for themselves and their families.

People displaced by violence have few options. Many fled to garrison towns for safety, where going beyond the towns’ protective ditches to practice agriculture or collect firewood puts their lives at risk.

Many vulnerable people have little choice but to resort to negative coping mechanisms to obtain food, such as survival sex, child marriages, begging, child labor or recruitment into armed groups.

Hauwa, a mother in Rann, Borno State, has no access to food and must beg on the street to feed herself and her two children. But it is not nearly enough, and hunger has turned her body into something she no longer recognizes. She says, “This is not my body.” Her story is just one of countless stories of suffering that we hear every day.

The humanitarian community is gravely concerned about the millions of people facing the risk of hunger this lean season and the sacrifices they will make to survive. Every effort must be made to ensure that life-saving programmes continue to deliver food security assistance and respond to acute malnutrition.

Humanitarian and government actors are ready to scale up interventions, but funding is urgently needed.

As part of the USD$1.1 billion required for the 2022 Humanitarian Response Plan for Nigeria, a $351 million multisector response has been developed to save lives and protect the most vulnerable.

Funds are immediately needed, and every contribution can make a difference. You can help get life-saving assistance to the people of north-east Nigeria by donating at: https://crisisrelief.un.org/nigeria-crisis. We need your support now, tomorrow may be too late for Hauwa and countless others.

IPS UN Bureau

 

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View of a demonstration by social organizations in a Buenos Aires square in July. The scene occurs almost every day in the capital of Argentina, a country where poverty has held steady at around 40 percent of the population since before the COVID-19 pandemic. The possibility of a social uprising is one of the fears in the face of the deepening socioeconomic crisis. CREDIT: Daniel Gutman/IPS

By Daniel Gutman
BUENOS AIRES, Jul 27 2022 (IPS)

Darío is a locksmith in Flores, a traditional middle-class neighborhood in the Argentine capital, who will have to stop working in the next few days. “Suppliers have suspended the delivery of locks, due to a lack of merchandise or because of prices,” he laments. His case is an illustration of an economy gone mad in a country that once again finds itself on the brink of the abyss.

The problems that have been dragging on in this South American country, where the vast majority of the population has become poorer over the last four years and social unrest is on the rise, exploded this month with an exchange and financial crisis that created enormous uncertainty about what lies ahead.

The Central Bank ran out of dollars, and imports, which in large part are a source of inputs for domestic production, were restricted to the maximum. The result is fear, speculation, increased social unrest and out-of-control inflation, which is causing price references to be lost and some companies and businesses are hedging their bets with preventive increases, or they even decide not to sell.

Today, in the streets and in the media, the questions raised are whether the country is on the eve of a social outbreak and whether President Alberto Fernández, so politically isolated that he is questioned by his own government coalition, will reach the end of his term in December 2023.

At that time, Argentina will be celebrating 40 years of democracy, marked by a succession of economic crises that have left an aftermath of growing inequality and have caused distrust to spread easily in society at the first signs that things are not going well.

The crisis deepened at the beginning of the month, when the Jul. 2 resignation of then Economy Minister Martín Guzmán triggered a 50 percent drop in the parallel exchange rate — known locally as the dollar blue — the only one that can be freely acquired in a country with exchange controls, and this, in turn, further fuelled inflation, which in 2021 stood at 50 percent and this year is already expected to end above 90 percent.

“There has been a series of imbalances in Argentina’s macroeconomy for years, which means that today the government does not have the tools to deal with exchange rate and financial pressures,” Sergio Chouza, an economist who teaches at the public University of Buenos Aires (UBA), told IPS.

“In this country the value of the dollar dominates expectations about prices and as a result it is increasingly difficult to avoid a ‘spiral’ of inflation. At the same time, government bonds have collapsed and are already yielding less than those of Ukraine,” he adds.

Chouza says that the COVID-19 pandemic was one of the major contributing factors in triggering a situation that seems to have gotten out of control.

“There was an expansion of public spending, as in most of the world. But the problem is that while most countries financed it with credit, Argentina could not do so because it was already over-indebted,” the expert explains.

Homeless people who survive by picking through garbage in Buenos Aires sleep on the corner of a central street in Argentina’s capital. In 2021 the country experienced an economic recovery after the first year of the pandemic, but a rise in inflation in 2022 has aggravated the crisis once again. CREDIT: Daniel Gutman/IPS

Social protests

The square in front of the Palacio de Tribunales, in the heart of downtown Buenos Aires, is overflowing with people. The youngest protesters hold banners from social movements from poor outlying neighborhoods, but there are also entire families with small children in their arms. Traffic in the surrounding area is completely cut off as the columns of marchers continue to pour in.

It is a Thursday in July, but this is an image that can be seen practically every day in the Argentine capital, where the most vulnerable social sectors are staging a series of protests because, in the midst of the crisis, the government has suspended the expansion of the Potenciar Trabajo program.

This is the name of the National Program for Socio-productive Inclusion and Local Development, which offers a stipend from the government in exchange for four hours of work in social enterprises, such as soup kitchens or urban waste recyclers’ cooperatives.

“In our neighborhoods things have been very hard for many years, but now it’s getting worse because we can no longer afford to put food on the table,” Fernando, who preferred not to give his last name, told IPS. He is a young man from Laferrere, one of the poorest localities on the outskirts of Buenos Aires, who was a waiter in a bar before becoming unemployed in 2021. Today he does occasional construction work.

Santiago Poy, a researcher at the Observatory of Social Debt at the private Argentine Catholic University (UCA) tells IPS that, with the combination of currency devaluation and inflation since 2018, wages have lost around 20 percent of their purchasing power.

“Poverty stood at around 25 percent in 2017, climbed to 40 percent in 2019 and remained steady after that. Today there is a feeling of widespread impoverishment, despite the fact that the unemployment rate is only seven percent, because 28 percent of workers are poor,” says Poy, describing the situation in this Southern Cone country of 47.3 million people.

After the height of the pandemic in 2020, social indicators improved in 2021 but are worsening again this year and the vast social assistance network does not seem to be sufficient to curb the decline.

“Social aid is not going to solve things in Argentina, because the macroeconomy is a permanent factory of poverty,” says Poy.

One of the operations carried out last weekend by Economy Ministry personnel in supermarkets in Buenos Aires, in order to control price hikes on basic products and “dismantle speculative maneuvers,” as reported. CREDIT: Economy Ministry

The price race

“I am ashamed to set some prices at which I have to sell such basic things as bread, flour or sugar,” Fernando Savore, president of the Federation of Grocery Stores of the province of Buenos Aires, which groups 26,000 businesses in the country’s most populous region, tells IPS.

Savore says that since the beginning of the year the price hikes by suppliers have been constant, but that they skyrocketed in the first week of July, after the economy minister resigned.

“We have seen increases of more than 10 percent in food and more than 20 percent in cleaning products. I don’t think they are justified, but every time the dollar goes up, prices go up,” says Savore, who adds that grocers are hesitant to sell some products because of uncertainty about the costs of restocking them.

And in a context of overall jitters, the government unofficially leaks rumors about economic measures, which do not then materialize but fuel the sense of uncertainty.

President Fernández said that the lack of dollars would be solved if agricultural producers sold a good part of their soybean harvest, which they are currently withholding, worth 20 billion dollars.

They are obliged to export at the official exchange rate, whose gap with the parallel dollar has reached a record level of more than 150 percent, and they are apparently waiting for a devaluation.

On Jul. 25, the new economy minister, Silvina Batakis, met in Washington with the managing director of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), Kristalina Georgieva, to assure her that this country will comply with the agreement signed with the multilateral lender this year, which includes goals to reduce the fiscal deficit and increase the Central Bank’s reserves.

But in Argentina, few people dare to predict where the crisis is heading, and how quickly it will evolve.

The confluence of the waters with the distinct colors of the pollution of each one: darker waters reflect the urban sewage of the Arrudas River, while brown reflects erosion coming from the upper Velhas River, a natural effect or product of mining visible in the city of Belo Horizonte, in southern Brazil. CREDIT: Mario Osava/IPS

By Mario Osava
BELO HORIZONTE, Brazil, Jul 27 2022 (IPS)

Torrential water in the streets and none coming out of the taps are two disasters that plague Brazil’s metropolises, especially those located along the upper stretches of rivers, such as Belo Horizonte, capital of the southeastern state of Minas Gerais.

Floods have become routine, fuelled by the hilly topography, paved-over streams and land-surface impermeabilization in this city of 2.5 million people.

In January and February, as happens every year, torrential rains flooded the roads and swept away cars, furniture, sometimes people, and flooded houses on the valley bottoms, where the streams used to flow freely but are now buried and running in culverts under streets and avenues.

The drinking water supply has remained steady overall, but in 2015 and 2021 the city was on the verge of water rationing due to droughts that began in the previous year. However, some neighborhoods have complained about dry water taps.

About 70 percent of the water consumed in Belo Horizonte comes from the Velhas River basin, whose headwaters are some 100 kilometers south of the city. The supply depends on rainfall upstream and there are no reservoirs to accumulate water.

That is why caring for the headwaters of the rivers and streams, located in the surroundings of Ouro Preto, a historical city that was at the center of Brazil’s 18th century gold rush, and of neighboring Itabirito, is vital for Belo Horizonte.

These cities are still involved in mining, although the industry there is now dominated by iron ore. They are part of the so-called Iron Quadrangle, made up of 25 municipalities that account for the production of almost half of Brazil’s iron ore.

Iron ore mining, in addition to consuming abundant water and polluting rivers, poses a threat of major environmental and human disasters. Two tailings dams collapsed in the Quadrangle, in Mariana in 2015 and in Brumadinho in 2019, killing 19 and 270 people, respectively.

In Brumadinho, the toxic mudflow reached the Paraopeba River, which supplied 15 percent of the inhabitants of Belo Horizonte. Fortunately, three reservoirs on tributaries of the Paraopeba that were not affected are the source of water for most of the metropolitan region, comprising 34 municipalities with a total combined population of six million.

Frederico Leite, Itabirito’s environmental secretary, and his deputy Julio Carvalho, a forestry engineer, in addition to negotiating environmental measures with the mining companies, have been working on cleaning up the Itabirito River, which crosses the city, and on creating a number of small catchments disseminated around the countryside aimed at reducing erosion and retaining water in the soil.

These micro-catchments are “barraginhas” or wide pits dug on gently sloping land to slow down the runoff of rainwater that causes erosion, and “caixas secas,” smaller but deeper pits dug next to roads to collect runoff that damages roadways and clogs up streams with sediment.

Sedimentation is a major problem in the Velhas River, reducing the depth of the river and the quality of its earth-colored waters.

In Ouro Preto, Ronald Guerra, a former secretary of the environment who is an activist in the basin committees, proposes the construction of a succession of small dams to retain water and revitalize forests.

In Belo Horizonte, the battle is against floodwaters and sewage that pollute the watercourses.

“The goal is to once again be able to swim, fish and play in the Onça River by 2025,” like people did 70 years ago, dreams Itamar de Paula Santos, a community leader in the Ribeiro de Abreu neighborhood, one of the most affected by the river’s floods, since it is located on its lowest stretch.

The construction of riverside linear parks and the resettling of residents in nearby areas safe from floods are among the actions that united the city government and community leaders such as Santos and, in other neighborhoods, Maria José Zeferino and Paulo de Freitas. In addition to the environmental benefits, the parks are recreational areas and allow people healthy access to the river.

Apolo Heringer, a physician and university professor, has been fighting since the 1990s to “renaturalize” the Velhas River basin. To this end, he created the Manuelzão Project, a university project inspired by a well-known local literary character.

Its strategy is to concentrate efforts on a 30-kilometer stretch of the Arrudas and Onça streams, which cross Belo Horizonte, and the Velhas River between the mouths of the two streams.

Eighty percent of the urban pollution in the basin is concentrated there and eliminating it would allow “bringing back the fish and swimming” in the 800 kilometers of its waters.

When hurricanes Opal and Roxanne both hit the Mexican state of Yucatán in a ten-day period in 1995, they destroyed much of the mangrove forest in the small coastal community of San Crisanto. The local people responded by replanting mangroves and clearing channels among the trees to allow water to flow freely. They committed to […]

Activists have asked for gender sensitizing of the police, rather than the so-called Romeo squad. Source: Twitter

By Mehru Jaffer
Lucknow, Jul 27 2022 (IPS)

Romeo is a bad word in Uttar Pradesh (UP), India’s largest province with nearly 25 million people.

While the name symbolises love, various shows of affection and love between women and men can be seen as a criminal offence in UP. For their safety, women are advised not to be seen cosying up with their lovers, especially in public places – because the state police department’s anti-Romeo squads could arrest them.

“The Indian Penal Code (IPC) has sufficient sections to arrest and prosecute men harassing women. The anti-Romeo squad has become a tool to harass and embarrass young men and women. It has no place in a civilised democracy,” Bobby Naqvi, senior journalist and former editor of Gulf News, told the IPS. “Disturbing images of these squads harassing youngsters spoil India’s reputation as the largest democracy and a nation where almost 230 million people fall between the age group of 15 years and 24 years.”

Soon after the government was installed in office on March 25, an order was passed reviving the anti-Romeo squads. The squads were first launched in 2017 to safeguard women in public places.

Advocates of women’s rights, including activists Aruna Roy, Kavita Srivastava, Kalyani Menon Sen and lawyers Indira Jaising and Vrinda Grover, had released a joint statement in 2017 demanding that anti-Romeo squads in UP be disbanded immediately and replaced by long-term legal and institutional measures to ensure women’s safety. However, the unpopular squad is now back in action.

Renu Mishra, executive director of the Association for Advocacy and Legal Initiatives (AALI), a Lucknow-based non-profit organisation, sees the anti-Romeo squad as another way to keep women in check.

Women activists say that gender-sensitising of the police, an increase in the number of policewomen, an enabling environment for women to file FIRs, and more frequent convictions are needed.

They argue that the anti-Romeo squads are a physical manifestation of patriarchy that views women as helpless creatures to be protected rather than empowered.

According to Namita Bhandare, a writer on social and gender issues, there is no need for a squad.

In their previous incarnation, stories abounded of the excesses of the squad. Several young men accused of allegedly harassing girls were forced to shave their heads. A female police officer asked a young man to do sit-ups for being in the company of a female friend. A video of the same incident went viral and led to anger against similar excesses.

While crimes against women are high in Uttar Pradesh, activists fear squads like the so-called Romeo Squad will not resolve the issues. Source: Twitter

The Romeo hunters were disbanded, but now that the same government has returned to office for another five years and they are back. In the eyes of the ruling party, the name Romeo conjures up images of an ‘Eve’ teaser, a female harasser and a stalker. The anti-Romeo squads are expected to perform the role of gallant knights who help women safeguard their purity and honour. The UP Police says that they are trying to book as many roadside Romeos as possible to put an end to the harassment of women.

The squads are viewed with fear by many in the community, and when IPS tried to talk to former victims of the anti-Romeo squads, they declined for fear of retaliation.

Despite the squad’s return, there is no indication that crimes against women have decreased. In statistics released earlier year by the National Commission for Women (NCW) more than 31,000 crimes against women were reported, and over half were from Uttar Pradesh.

The anti-Romeo squad seems helpless before politically powerful men who claim to be religious and dress in flowing saffron robes but threaten to rape women.

In April, a video emerged on social media showing a clean-shaven man in saffron robes speaking on a megaphone from inside an automobile. He threatened to kidnap and rape Muslim women.

The speaker was identified as Mahant Bajrang Muni Das of the Maharishi Sri Laxman Das Udasin Ashram in the Khairabad area of Sitapur, some 80 km from Lucknow.

“I am saying this with love for you that I will publicly drag your daughters-in-law and daughters out of your homes and rape them if any Hindu girl is molested in Khairabad. Muslims will be killed if any Hindu is killed here.”

NCW chairperson Rekha Sharma wrote to the state police chief to register an FIR and arrest the accused. Opposition party spokesperson of the Congress party Supriya Shrinate said that Bajrang Muni is an insult to the Hindu religion and his rape threat mocks law and order in UP.

Shrinate told the Chief Minister that he should act against anyone threatening to rape women.

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Supporters of a Pakistani political party gather to welcome the party leader for a corner meeting at a village in the Punjab province.

By Nadeem Qureshi
KARACHI, Pakistan, Jul 27 2022 (IPS)

In recent days, as Pakistan’s economic woes have intensified, a veritable cottage industry has developed to suggest ways of putting the country back on track.

The latest entrant in this field is the eminent Harvard Economics professor Asim Khwaja. In a long and widely circulated tweet he outlines his analysis of the problem. He argues that the way out is to work to increase productivity. He is not wrong. Indeed, increased productivity is a useful and necessary objective.

The problem however, is that Dr.Khawja and all the other illustrious academics who have contributed to the debate of what has to be done, are missing the point. There is really no dispute about what has to be done. It has been clear for some time.

I outlined the main elements some three years ago in a piece for Daily Times: “Slash imports, boost exports, invest in vital infrastructure, rejuvenate local industry by sharply raising tariff barriers, work on aligning the education system with the job market, the list goes on and on.” This prescription is just as valid, possibly more so, today than it was three years ago.

The point that the academics are missing is not “what has to be done” rather it is “who will do it”. In normal countries, the responsibility would fall on the elected representative of those countries. But in our case, the people who sit in our assemblies simply do not have the ability or desire to do what is necessary.

Sadly, our problem is that whenever there are elections, we succeed brilliantly in putting the worst of our people in parliament. This is the exact opposite of what successful democracies do, or at least endeavour to do, which is to send the best of their people to parliament. And this is why they are successful.

So, why do we in Pakistan get this so wrong? Genuine democracy is conditioned on two important precepts. One, that voters understand the issues. And two, that they are free to vote for the candidates of their choosing. Neither condition obtains in Pakistan.

Feudal control of the levers of power has ensured widespread illiteracy. And vast swathes of the population are obliged to vote the way they are told to vote by their feudal lords. So, voters do not understand the issues and they cannot vote the way they want to.

What we have is not democracy. It is feudalism camouflaged as democracy. This is why the same people or their ilk – the feudal lords and their families – always get elected. And by and large they tend to be corrupt and incompetent. They get elected to parliament to plunder the state not to build it.

And until such time as we replace these “representatives” arguably the worst of our people, with the best nothing, in terms of our economic reality will change. We will continue to decline rather than progress.

So, the challenge for all the well-meaning people, academics and others, is to shift their focus from what needs to be done to the central issue of how do we get genuine democracy in the country.

In previous articles I have suggested a possible solution: Limit the vote to those who have had at least 10 years of schooling. People who are educated have minds of their own. They understand the issues. And they are usually, in my experience, not slave to the feudals.

This is a simple change. It will lead to genuine democracy. And, if enacted, it will change our destiny by truly empowering people and opening the doors of parliament to those who have the competence, energy, desire and will to build the country.

Nadeem Qureshi is founding chairman of the political party Mustaqbil Pakistan and has had a long career in business, mainly in the Middle East. He studied engineering at MIT, and business at Harvard Business School, is fluent in classical Arabic and has published a translation from Arabic to English of a book entitled: Why Muslims Lagged Behind and Others Progressed.

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