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One Year Later; No Justice for Victims of 2020 Mali Protests & Coup

Fri, 04/23/2021 - 08:27

Amnesty International investigations revealed that 18 people were killed and dozens injured, despite military claims that the 2020 coup was bloodless. The organisation has listed several instances of fatal shots being fired by security forces, backed up by witness testimonies and statements from the United Nations Stabilization Mission in Mali (MINUSMA) (pictured here in this file photo). Courtesy: UN Photo/Sylvain Liechti

By Alison Kentish
UNITED NATIONS, Apr 23 2021 (IPS)

It has been about a year since anti-government demonstrations and a coup in Mali, which saw 18 people, including a 12-year-old boy being killed. But there has been no justice for the families of those injured and killed by defence and security forces during last year’s May to August protests.

Today, Apr. 23, Amnesty International released the findings of a report into injuries and fatalities that occurred titled “Killed, wounded, and forgotten? Accountability for the killings during demonstrations and the coup in Mali”.

Following field and remote interviews with victims’ families, civil society representatives, journalists and members of the judiciary, it chronicled the use of deadly force by armed forces in the towns of Kayes and Sikasso, as well as the capital Bamako.

The military seized power in Mali after forcing President Ibrahim Boubacar Keita to resign. It was Mali’s fourth coup since independence in 1960 and its second in a decade. His resignation followed months of opposition protests in the capital and the soldiers who orchestrated the coup stated that it was done to save the country. The international community strongly denounced the ouster, with the soldiers promising to oversee a transition to new elections and elect an interim, civilian leader.

According to Amnesty International, investigations revealed that 18 people were killed and dozens injured, despite military claims that the coup was bloodless. The organisation says the lack of accountability is troubling.

“Many victims were hit or wounded in the chest, sometimes in the back. Many were bystanders or people at work or at home, indicating that security forces were not firing in self-defence or response to an imminent threat of death or serious injury – in contravention of international standards,” Amnesty International said.

The document lists several instances of fatal shots being fired by security forces, backed up by witness testimonies and statements from the United Nations Stabilisation Mission in Mali (MINUSMA). This included the May 6 killing of a man in Sikasso, a city in southern Mali.

“Despite this, the authorities have not investigated the use of firearms by law enforcement against demonstrators in Sikasso leaving the families of those killed without justice, truth and reparation,” the report said.

Five days after the Sikasso incident, violent protests against police deaths resulted in more bloodshed. According to the report, an off-duty police officer shot a 17-year-old who was fleeing detention. It adds that while the officer was suspended, the teen’s death sparked widespread protests, with angry mobs attacking police stations and government buildings. It states that police fired live rounds in the crowds, leaving a 30-year-old man and a 12-year-old boy dead.

The Amnesty report says that a lack of accountability for police deaths triggered uprisings in other areas in Mali, adding that in the capital, protests in July which turned violent were ‘heavily repressed by the authorities,’ adding that armed forces fired into throngs of demonstrators, leaving 4 people dead and dozens injured.

“Although some demonstrators threw stones at security forces, occupied public buildings and at times, refused to comply with orders given by law enforcement officials, it is clear from the cases documented by Amnesty International that most of the killings and serious injuries resulted from the excessive use of force by security forces,” the report said.

Demonstrators took to the streets with numerous grievances. There was anger over the results of the parliamentary elections, stringent measures in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, including restrictions to freedom of movement and peaceful assembly, high unemployment, security and social grievances.

However, among bystanders also became casualties, including Ibrahim Traore’, a 16-year-old boy, whom the report states was shot twice by police. His brother told Amnesty International that he was denied a copy of Traore’s autopsy report.

The rights group says it worked hard to ensure that it could put a name and face to the victims, so that they are not forgotten. It adds despite progress, accountability is lacking. They say that they have been told that investigations into lethal use of force by security forces were opened, but at the time, February 2021, those probes were in the preliminary stages.

Amnesty International says it is time for accuracy and accountability. It is calling on the transitional authorities to ensure impartial and prompt investigations into cases of excessive and lethal use of force by law enforcement officers, protect freedoms of expression and assembly according to international human rights standards and ensure law enforcement authorities respect the United Nations basic principles on the use of force and firearms by law enforcement officials.

“The Malian authorities must show their determination to fight impunity by first acknowledging these killings. Victims of illegal use of force and firearms and their families must be provided with justice, truth and full reparations,” Amnesty International said.

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Categories: Africa

On World Malaria Day, We Must Step Up Efforts to Combat Malaria

Fri, 04/23/2021 - 08:04

Distribution of mosquito nets in Kadiolo, region of Sikasso, Mali June 2020. Credit: PSI, A US based NGO. The UN commemorates World Malaria Day on Sunday April 25.

By Hervé Verhoosel
GENEVA, Apr 23 2021 (IPS)

Despite its 229 million cases and 409,000 deaths in 2019, malaria is an overlooked epidemic. The emergence of COVID-19 has thrown health systems into disarray and forced countries to shift their focus from malaria to the pandemic response, threatening to reverse 20 years of malaria gains.

Now, as we enter the second year of the pandemic, the global response to COVID-19 must not come at the expense of progress against malaria, a preventable and treatable disease. Not only is eliminating malaria possible, but it is also crucial to fighting current and future diseases.

It is vital that the international community remembers that eliminating malaria remains an achievable goal for all countries. Indeed, more countries than ever are either achieving or approaching elimination.

In 2017, as part of the “E-2020 initiative”, the World Health Organization (WHO) identified 21 countries that could defeat malaria by 2020. Spread across five regions of the world, these countries share the ambitious goal of achieving zero indigenous cases of malaria by 2020.

And last year, Algeria, Belize, Cabo Verde, China, El Salvador, the Islamic Republic of Iran, and Malaysia all reported zero indigenous malaria cases, achieving their goal, while others made impressive strides forward.

Ridding the world of malaria is a central component of achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), linking closely to targets on poverty, inequality, and health and well-being. But as long as it persists, malaria will continue to have a devastating impact on the most vulnerable communities.

Innovation plays a vital role in the elimination of this disease. New tools, such as those being developed by Unitaid and partners, are needed in the face of emerging insecticide and drug resistance. These can only be developed with sustained and significant investment in malaria research.

Hervé Verhoosel. during aa press briefing at the UN in Geneva

Global investments to end malaria have an enormous return on investment. In 2018, they saved 600,000 lives and prevented close to 100 million malaria cases compared to 2000 levels.

In the Asia-Pacific region, weighing against the epidemiological and economic costs of inaction, Wellcome Trust researchers estimated that eliminating malaria by 2030 could save over 400,000 lives, prevent 123 million malaria cases, and lead to a 6:1 return on investment.

These investments also strengthen health systems that are vital to responding to threats such as COVID-19, and help address other vector-borne diseases.

Together with partners, global health agency Unitaid has been supporting the evaluation of the performance of new bed nets under real conditions in malaria-endemic countries to guide policy on their use.

This aims to open a market for these new nets and bring about competition among manufacturers, leading to lower prices and a sustainable tool for countries.

Unitaid also invests to accelerate access to next-generation insecticides to reestablish indoor spraying as a malaria-control measure, and to vary new spray formulas to prevent mosquito populations from growing resistant to them.

Unitaid’s work has also resulted in the delivery of seasonal malaria chemoprevention to over six million children across seven countries in the Sahel, fulfilling more than 25% of the region’s need, while monitoring the safety, efficacy, cost, and public health impact of such programmes at scale.

This World Malaria Day, the global health community must reaffirm its commitment to combat malaria by increasing global investments to prevent, control, and ultimately eliminate this disease. COVID-19 has exposed the weaknesses in health systems around the world. Now is the moment to step up efforts against this preventable disease.

About Unitaid
*Unitaid is a global health agency engaged in finding innovative solutions to prevent, diagnose, and treat diseases more quickly, cheaply, and effectively, in low- and middle-income countries. Our work includes funding initiatives to address major diseases such as HIV/AIDS, malaria, and tuberculosis, as well as HIV co-infections and co-morbidities such as cervical cancer and hepatitis C, and cross-cutting areas, such as fever management.

Unitaid is now applying its expertise to address challenges in advancing new therapies and diagnostics for the COVID-19 pandemic, serving as a key member of the Access to COVID Tools Accelerator. Unitaid is hosted by the World Health Organization.

The post On World Malaria Day, We Must Step Up Efforts to Combat Malaria appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Excerpt:

The writer is Spokesperson and Head of Communications at Unitaid*, hosted by the World Health Organization (WHO)

The WHO says Malaria is a life-threatening disease caused by parasites that are transmitted to people through the bites of infected female Anopheles mosquitoes. It is preventable and curable. WHO recommends protection for all people at risk of malaria with effective malaria vector control. Two forms of vector control – insecticide-treated mosquito nets and indoor residual spraying – are effective in a wide range of circumstances.

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Categories: Africa

Towards a More Democratic & Inclusive UN this International Day of Multilateralism

Thu, 04/22/2021 - 19:02

United Nations, Geneva. Credit: Mathias P.R.Reding

By Andreas Bummel, Caroline Vernaillen and Mandeep Tiwana*
BERLIN/COLOGNE/NEW YORK, Apr 22 2021 (IPS)

One of the most recently established international UN days is the day of multilateralism and diplomacy for peace. First observed on 24 April 2019 to promote UN values and to reaffirm the faith of people in the purposes and principles of the UN Charter, the relevance and the irony of this day is obvious.

On the one hand, COVID-19 vaccine nationalism is causing huge inequities in the supply of lifesaving immunization from reaching disadvantaged people, especially those in the Global South who need them the most amid a global pandemic of epic proportions. On the other hand, aggressive militarism and proliferation of weapons of war by the permanent members of the UN Security Council threatens international peace and security, diverting vital resources that could be used to address inequality and exclusion around the globe.

The need for inclusive and democratic global governance to support the three founding pillars of the UN – peace and security, human rights, and development – remains pressing. Yet, major reforms have been elusive despite a wealth of reports and innovative ideas drawn up by experts and activists.

Over the years, geo-political intransigence of powerful actors and entrenched state interests have remained a major stumbling block. However, a potential breakthrough was achieved in 2020 through a UN General Assembly resolution to commemorate the 75th anniversary of the UN.

The resolution includes a commitment to upgrade the world body and tasks Secretary-General Antonio Guterres to compile a report in 2021 on furthering ‘Our Common Agenda’ with a focus on reinvigorating inclusive, networked and effective multilateralism.

The report is supposed to be submitted to the UN General Assembly by September this year. It’s likely that the report will take into account findings from a year-long global listening exercise undertaken by the UN in 2020.

Over 1.5 million people from 195 countries participated in surveys and dialogues on people’s priorities and expectations from international cooperation. Notably, while the overwhelming majority (97%) saw the work of the UN as indispensable, four out of ten also reported that the UN felt remote from their lives.

People across the world support the UN’s mission but want the institution itself to be more transparent, accountable and participatory. In this spirit, over 80 international, regional and national civil society organisations and networks have come together under an initiative titled “We the Peoples,” drawing inspiration from the opening words of the UN Charter.

United Nations Headquarters, New York. Credit: Tomas Eidsvold

Three practical ideas aimed at enhancing the agency of people, elected representatives and organised civil society in global governance lie at the heart of a joint statement on inclusive global governance published by the initiative on 23 April 2021:

First, a citizens’ initiative could be established to mandate key UN bodies including the General Assembly and Security Council to act on matters of global importance following a joint petition signed by a certain number of citizens around the world. Such a mechanism would enable people to have their voices heard and also provide an avenue to shape the agenda of the UN.

Second, people across the world could be given an opportunity for direct representation and voice at the UN through a parliamentary assembly. Deficits in representative democracy that exist in far too many parts of the world are further accentuated at the UN through a state-centric bureaucracy driven model. A parliamentary assembly could help make the UN more accessible to people.

Third, an office of a civil society envoy could be created to identify barriers in participation, spur inclusive convenings and drive the UN’s outreach to the public and civil society organisations. Such a champion could lead the implementation of a broader strategy for opening up the UN to people’s participation and civil society voices while addressing asymmetries in engagement across UN agencies, departments and forums.

Taken together these ideas have game-changing, transformative potential to overcome blockages in the UN system. More than that, they are also supported around the world: both a World Citizens’ Initiative and a UN Parliamentary Assembly were frequently mentioned by people who took part in last year’s UN evaluation exercise, as the UN’s own report testifies.

If implemented in earnest, these three changes will enable the UN to respond more effectively and with greater inclusivity to global challenges such as discrimination, inequality, conflict and climate change. However, their adoption will require visionary leadership and cooperation by political executives and the UN’s top management. The present system is stymied by bureaucratic approaches and a lack of imagination.

There’s clearly an opportunity to strengthen and revitalize multilateralism by enabling input and participation beyond member states. The UN needs to be fit for purpose for our times. However, a new more participatory era will require a leap of faith and courage of conviction.

Andreas Bummel is Executive Director of Democracy Without Borders based in Berlin; Caroline Vernaillen is the Global Manager for PR and Community Building at Democracy International based in Cologne; and Mandeep Tiwana is Chief Programmes Officer at CIVICUS based at their New York office.

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Categories: Africa

Press Freedom under Lockdown Across Two-Thirds of the Globe

Thu, 04/22/2021 - 16:12

Reporters Without Borders said press freedom was restricted either partly or completely in two thirds of the globe. It warned that authoritarian regimes had used the pandemic to “perfect their methods of totalitarian control of information”, and as a pretext for imposing “especially repressive legislation with provisions combining propaganda with suppression of dissent”. (file photo) Credit: Miriam Gathigah/IPS

By Ed Holt
BRATISLAVA, Apr 22 2021 (IPS)

Independent journalism is facing a growing crackdown one year into the COVID-19 pandemic as governments around the world restrict access to information and muzzle critical reporting, media and rights watchdogs have warned.

Authoritarian regimes have used existing and new legislation to attack, intimidate, and jail reporters under the guise of acting to protect public health, they say, and fear the situation is unlikely to improve in many states if and when the pandemic ends.

“Dictators and authoritarian leaders exploited the cover of COVID to crackdown on independent reporting and criticism. Some, instead of battling the virus, turned their attention to fighting the media.

“Countries from Cambodia to Russia, Egypt and Brazil all sought to divert attention from their failures to deal with the health crisis by intimidating or jailing journalists,” Rob Mahoney, Deputy Executive Director of the Committee to Protect Journalists, told IPS.

Recent months have seen a slew of reports highlighting how media freedom in many places has been curbed during the pandemic.

In February, Human Rights Watch released a report COVID-19 Triggers Wave of Free Speech Abuse showing how more than 80 governments had used the COVID-19 pandemic to justify violations of rights to free speech and peaceful assembly with journalists among those affected as authorities attacked, detained, prosecuted, and in some cases killed critics, and closed media outlets, while enacting vague laws criminalising speech that they claim threatens public health.

In April, global press freedom campaigners the International Press Institute (IPI), released a report painting a similarly grim picture and detailing the physical and verbal abuse of journalists reporting on COVID-19 across the world.

And just this week, Reporters Without Borders said journalism was restricted either partly or completely in two thirds of the globe.

It warned that authoritarian regimes had used the pandemic to “perfect their methods of totalitarian control of information”, and as a pretext for imposing “especially repressive legislation with provisions combining propaganda with suppression of dissent”.

It also highlighted how some had developed legislation to criminalise publishing of ‘fake news’ relating to coronavirus reporting, and used COVID-19 as a pretence to deepen existing internet censorship and surveillance.

In some states authorities had banned publication of non-government pandemic numbers and arrested people for disseminating other figures. In others, such as Tanzania, they even went as far as imposing a complete information blackout on the pandemic, the group said.

The problems are not confined to any single area of the world, according to the groups’ reports. However, some of the most severe restrictions have been seen in the Asia-Pacific region and Africa.

Journalists on the ground in these regions have said they have seen a deterioration in press freedom over the last year.

IPS’ own correspondent and an award-winning journalist in Uganda, Michael Wambi, said that the government had used pandemic restrictions introduced for the entire population to deliberately restrict journalists’ reporting.

Presidential elections were held in the country in January and, Wambi told IPS, there were “targeted attacks on journalists in an effort to curtail them from giving coverage to leading opposition candidates” in the run up to them.

Journalists were violently attacked by police at the events, and police later accused reporters of violating COVID-19 restrictions by attending them.

Wambi said Uganda’s Police Chief, Martin Okoth Ochola, made a joke of the situation.

“He joked to journalists that ‘security forces would continue beating them to keep them out of any danger [to their own health]’,” said Wambi.

Stella Paul, IPS’ award-winning journalist in India — which RSF describes as one of the world’s most dangerous countries for journalists — told IPS: “In India, COVID restrictions were basically used as an excuse to intimidate journalists.”

Press freedom groups say the Indian government has taken advantage of the coronavirus crisis to increase its control of news coverage, using legal action against journalists who have reported information about the pandemic which differs from the official position.

Early in the pandemic, the government launched a number of legal cases against journalists for reports about the effects of the government-enforced lockdown on migrant workers while an editor of a local news portal was arrested and charged with sedition for writing about a possible change of state leadership following a rise in coronavirus cases.

“The last year has seen a lot of journalists detained while trying to report the truth about the pandemic, to get to accurate information and find things out,” said Paul.

Paul, who also writes for IPS, co-operates with a number of other journalists across Asia and says the situation for independent media in most other parts of the region is equally perilous.

“It is the same thing in many other countries. What we have seen during COVID is a lot of journalists, not just in India, asking themselves what will happen if I report on something? Will I end up in jail? They are scared of getting arrested,” she said.

One country where media freedom is seen as particularly restricted is Bangladesh. It came in at 152 out of 182 in RSF’s 2021 Press Freedom Index. The group said there had been “an alarming increase in police and civilian violence against reporters” during the pandemic with many journalists arrested and prosecuted for their reporting on it.

This has been made easier by the Digital Security Act (DSA) passed in 2018 under which “negative propaganda” can lead to a 14-year jail sentence, local journalists say.

The DSA was at the centre of the controversial death in police custody of a Bangladeshi writer and commentator earlier this year.

Mushtaq Ahmed, who was detained under the DSA in May last year for allegedly posting criticism of the government’s response to the COVID-19 on Facebook, died in police custody in February. An official investigation found he died of natural causes but others in prison with him at the time claimed he was tortured and some suspect he died of injuries sustained during his incarceration.

Few local journalists were willing to talk about their experiences of working in the country, but one, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said Ahmed’s arrest and death had had a profound effect on the media.

“After what happened to Mushtaq Ahmed, many journalists were immediately less willing to challenge anything the government said about the coronavirus pandemic,” the journalist told IPS.

“The DSA is being used to harass journalists – many have been arrested under the act after publishing news critical of the authorities.

“Doing reporting under the DSA is the main challenge for journalists in Bangladesh right now. News outlets use self-censorship to avoid harassment under the DSA. If anyone sees a single item of news that is negative about them, they can use the DSA to bring legal action against the reporter and the editor,” the journalist added.

But while the COVID-19 pandemic has undoubtedly allowed governments to crack down on critical media, there is no guarantee the situation will improve once the pandemic ends, press freedom watchdogs say.

Scott Griffen, Deputy Director at IPI, told IPS: “Who will decide when the pandemic is over? Governments for whom the pandemic is a useful tool to suppress civil liberties may be tempted to maintain a state of emergency in some form, even after the immediate health threat is ended.”

He added that there were also fears that measures introduced during the pandemic may not be rescinded at all.

“The aftermath of the September 11 attacks in the US brought with it new anti-terrorism measures including unprecedented civil liberties rollbacks. Countries around the world have used anti-terror laws to crack down on critical speech. Similarly, we fear that emergency laws introduced during the coronavirus pandemic may become part of the permanent legal framework in some states, not to mention a culture of tracking and surveillance of citizens that is very unlikely to be rolled back. This has profound implications for journalists’ privacy and their ability to protect their sources,” he said.

However, despite the bleak outlook for press freedom in many states as the pandemic drags on, there is hope that independent media will continue no matter how severely they might be restricted.

“Journalists will still produce independent reporting even in the most hostile of circumstances. That’s their mission. You can have independent journalism without democracy. But you can’t have democracy without independent journalism,” said Mahoney.

The post Press Freedom under Lockdown Across Two-Thirds of the Globe appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Excerpt:

May 3 is World Press Freedom Day. This feature is part of a series highlighting the current state of media freedom globally

The post Press Freedom under Lockdown Across Two-Thirds of the Globe appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Categories: Africa

Pacific Women Triennial – Flashback

Thu, 04/22/2021 - 14:09

By External Source
Apr 22 2021 (IPS-Partners)

SPC hosted the first triennial conference of Pacific women more than 40 years ago with the purpose to create a space where Pacific women could meet, share their experiences and identify measures for the advancement of women.

The Triennial Conference of Pacific Women plays a key role in linking to other intergovernmental fora due to its convening of National Women’s Machineries and women’s rights organizations. In the past, the Triennial has provided space for some preparations for the Commission on the Status of Women, as well as reflecting on progress towards gender equality commitments including the Pacific Leaders Gender Equality Declaration (PLGED) as well as the Beijing Declaration.

Watch the video below for more information about the Triennial Conference of Pacific Women and the journey in progressing gender equality in the region.

The 14th Triennial this year will focus on three key priority areas received from the Pacific Island Countries and Territories including: gender responsive climate justice, women’s economic empowerment and gender-based violence. The conference will take place from 27 – 29 April (Fiji-Time). A few pre-triennial side-events are scheduled to take place from 22-23 April in the lead up to the main conference next week. #PacificWomenTriennial #PacificPeoples

Source: The Pacific Community (SPC)

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Categories: Africa

Disability in Goma. The Power of Staying Together Against Covid-19, War, and Stigma

Thu, 04/22/2021 - 10:41

Credit: Elena L. Pasquini

By Elena L. Pasquini
ROME, Apr 22 2021 (IPS)

Sylvain Kakule Kadjibwami lost the use of his legs during one of those ambushes that bloodlessly bleed North Kivu. “When I was shot, I thought it was the end of my life, but when I shared it with other disabled people, I discovered that life is still possible,” he said. Now it is Covid-19 that risks destroying the dreams of Sylvain, a small trader from Goma, a city whose roads are volcanic rock-ridden screes where pick-ups trudge. Those who walk face the risk of falling at every step. However, for those who cannot, the same roads can become traps where it is not only war that kills but also a stigma fostering misery and disease.

Confined to their homes by poverty, even before the pandemic, people living with disability in the capital of North Kivu, in the East of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, must overcome obstacles higher than those erected by the lava of the Nyiragongo. They are obstacles made even more challenging by the coronavirus containment measures that are severely affecting the fragile local economy, made up of informal activities and community solidarity.

“Since the outbreak of Covid, here, in North Kivu, more than a dozen disabled people have died not because they had Covid: They have died of hunger because they had nothing to eat,” Herman Cirimwami, coordinator of the Paph, a Congolese organization that assists and protects people with disabilities, including promoting their rights and social inclusion, told Degrees of Latitude.

They die because they survive thanks solely to the solidarity of their communities, friends, and families. However, confinement has reduced everyone’s incomes along with the economic capacity of those who took care of people unable to provide for themselves. The disabled live off charity because employment has always been almost inaccessible to them.

“Most of them also beg in the street, because they can’t access employment or get a good job,” said Therese Mabulay, athlete, president of the North Kivu Paralympic Committee, and founder of Asam – Stand up disabled, a small vocational training center for women and young people with disabilities. The reason lies in a rooted prejudice. The disabled are perceived as “useless” or even seen as the “devil,” as Cirimwami said still occurs to those suffering from albinism.

Between Goma and Rwanda, the crisis of small traders

A man who trades food in Goma. Credit: Elena L. Pasquini

The few people disabled who have managed to build a business are struggling to not slip into complete destitution, as is happening to the small traders who transport agricultural products across the border with Rwanda: flourishing commerce in the restless heart of the African Great Lakes region, which, for decades, has been tax-free for people with disabilities.

Corn, flour, bananas, plantains, cabbage, potatoes, beans: They use tricycles or rickshaws adapted for those who cannot walk. Propelled by the strength of arms or by men paid to push, they defy rough terrain, loaded almost to instability. These are small ventures that play a key role in the food market of North Kivu’s capital, providing goods at competitive prices compared to those who use trucks. They are exhausted by the eight-month closure of the border during last year’s lockdown, as well as by the costs of Covid tests and passes introduced after the pandemic began.

Jacques Bisimwa Mitima is president of the Association of People with Physical Disability Tuungane, which means “let’s unite” in Kiswahili. It is composed of two hundred and ten members who trade food across the “petite barrière” between the twin cities of Goma, in the DRC, and Gisenyi, in Rwanda. When we met him, he was coordinating a meeting that was a forest of hand-bikes, raised arms, and determination. Members—who tax themselves to help those in need pay for medical expenses or for funerals for those who cannot afford them—were electing new leadership and discussing financial solutions to the crisis. Their life has been harder after the Covid-19 outbreak.

“We have many difficulties. Some of our members have been evicted because they did not have the money to pay the rent. We spent the little money we had during the period of the border closure,” Mitima said. On his tricycle, the painted word “President” and the flag of the DRC are the graphic representations of the charisma of this man who started to trade almost twenty years ago. He has five children and other young members of the family to feed: thirteen people who live on his income. Before Covid, he told us, you could earn as much as fifteen dollars a day. Today, that amount is perhaps fifty cents: “We are looking for some money just to eat and we eat with difficulty,” he added.

Jacques Bisimwa Mitima, president of TUUNGANE. Credit: Elena L. Pasquini

To cross the border, traders need the CEPGL, an administrative document from the Great Lakes Community that must be renewed every two weeks, as well as a Covid test, to be repeated every two or three weeks as well. Maman Soki, a mother of five, is also in the business: “We pay five dollars for the test and thirteen for the CEPGL … and the rickshaw must have the same documents too. So, you have to invest thirty-six dollars every two weeks. The small gain we might get is spent on customs,” she explained. “We live a really difficult life, but at least they have reopened the border.”

It can happen, however, that the documents necessary to travel must be renewed even before goods are sold. This pushes traders into the grip of debt, as Sylvain Kakule Kadjibwami told us. He was a driver before being wounded. “On April 28, 2009, our vehicle was attacked on our way back from Bunia. Armed bandits shot the car I was driving on the Kiwanja road in Rutshuru territory. Two people died in the cabin and I was injured. Behind us, there were nine other injured but I only know of one person who survived and who is now disabled like me. The bullets hit my legs and I still have metal in [my bones]. These fragments should have been removed for a long time, but I cannot afford to pay for a new operation.”

North Kivu’s war has made Goma a city where disability is a frequent condition. Grief inflicted by a war that has not ceased for decades can be read in the amputated limbs and tortured bodies of its population. “Since 2008, people have started fleeing to the city and have settled in refugee camps. It was difficult then to return to the villages and they remained [here] … I don’t have the exact figures, but I can estimate that fifteen percent of the population of Goma has a disability,” Cirimwami said. Not only is war a cause of injuries and physical and mental traumas but it also makes disabled people more vulnerable. According to Cirimwami, many are left alone when conflicts break out. They manage to escape only with difficulty and when they reach safer places, they often do not have the means to survive.

Kadjibwami thanks God. He is alive. He has a tricycle that can cost almost $400—the investment of a lifetime. If one of those expensive vehicles were to break, for many it would mean no longer being able to work because there is no money for repairs. Now the challenge for Kadjibwami is to imagine the future despite the pandemic. Business was good before the outbreak; he could send his children to school, feed them, and save for future projects. Now, there’s only uncertainty. “I can only dream according to my income and with this one, I cannot plan anything.”

The talent of fighting against prejudice

People with disability at the “petite barrière” want to return to living off their work. They do not ask the government for help, but wish to reduce the costs that weigh too much on their fragile income. “We don’t want to beg for our dignity,” Mitima said. It is a dignity that Congolese society still struggles to recognize at all, beyond the fragility of bodies and mind.

“Towards people with problems of mobility, or people with visual impairments, there is a stigmatization … the social environment thinks those people are useless,” Mabulay explained.

Getting married is still hard for women with disabilities, and they can easily be abandoned by their husbands if they give birth to disabled children. Thus, children are not always accepted at schools and even education is not a guarantee of landing a good job. Isolation is greater for those suffering from deafness or blindness: Without knowledge of sign language or Braille, information technologies remain inaccessible.

Credit: Elena L. Pasquini

“When we try to practice sport, when we get them involved in sports, it is to show the community that people with disability have many talents, that they are persons like them, that they can do more if the society gives them a space which can allow them to be useful. For those who have [psychological] problems because they are neglected, our activity in sport is to show that they can have self-esteem, they can do more in society, they can’t be hidden in the houses but they have to show what they can do, their talents,” she added. “Our athletes feel integrated because they accept their disability, they can travel. The community is astonished when they play—wheelchair basketball, sitting volley—or when they sing. Some are singers too. They are proud.”

Making sport an integration tool, however, is a challenge that can be even harder than those faced by the athletes who brought the colors of the DRC to the Olympics in London and Rio, such as Rosette Luyina Kiese, who competes in shotput. Her right leg was amputated after she stepped on a landmine in the territory of Rushuru. In Goma, there is only an equipped space, built by the International Committee of the Red Cross, and athletes often have no money to buy equipment, or even wheelchairs to leave their houses and reach the Paralympic area. It is more difficult to reach the villages in rural North Kivu, where about one hundred and fifty armed groups are fighting. Yet the members of the Paralympic Committee continue to go to Sake, Rutshuru, Masisi, Lubero, and Beni and Butembo to advocate for practicing sport. “The greatest risk of working in conflict areas is the accessibility, kidnapping, and logistical resources to respond to the people in need,” said Mabulay, whose organization also implements vocation training.

Denied rights and Covid-19 prevention

Credit: Elena L. Pasquini

There are about two hundred and fifty athletes from the Paralympic Committee; about fifty are victims of war, but each awareness campaign reaches at least one thousand disabled people. This is a huge number for a single organization, but perhaps still small for a city that is estimated to have close to one million inhabitants and where the lives of most people with disabilities are consumed by poverty, between walls made of wooden boards and lava, in houses facing roads without asphalt and without light, where the water does not reach the kitchens but digs craters that only a 4 by 4 can wade through. The poor population struggles to eat and take care of themselves, vulnerable to disease and, today, more exposed than others to the risk of contracting Covid-19.

Despite the work of organizations such as those of Mabulay and Cirimwami, which provide sanitation and prevention, the situation is very serious: “In the families of these people there are no handwashers, there are no disinfectants … and thus, they are exposed to contamination from Covid. Similarly, people who go to Rwanda, pushed by others on the tricycle, cannot respect the distances of one meter; equally, the blinds, ”Cirimwami explained.

However, the health risks faced by people with disabilities are the result of longstanding limited access to basic social services and of an expensive health care system with few specialized facilities which leaves families with no other options than to “abandon the disabled at home,” Cirimwami said.

“Covid-19 came with more difficulties. Even to get information about Covid is not easy. [They] didn’t reach all kinds of disabled. People who can’t hear, who can’t move from their home, they have more difficulty being updated on the situation of Covid,” Mabualy explained. “Most of them can’t afford the kits, the safety kits to wash hands, to protect themselves.”

No access to health, education, employment, sport: That’s a question of denied rights.

Although the DRC has ratified the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, the instrument has been neither properly implemented by the institutions nor disseminated to the population. “People do not know the rights of the disabled and so the marginalization continues both in the community and at the political and administrative level,” he explained. But people with disability want to have a voice in that decision-making process where “there is no one to take the disabled out of marginalization,” he added.

Mitima said it clearly when we met him in Goma: “The life of a disabled person is very difficult … We have no help from the government, sometimes we receive a few small sums from people of goodwill … But if we have to say that there is a person or institution that supports us, no, there isn’t. We can only count on ourselves.”

Mama Soki. Credit: Elena L. Pasquini

Elena Pasquini is an Italian journalist who visited DRC recently. She is founder and editor in chief of Degrees of Latitude

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Categories: Africa

This Earth Day, a People’s Perspective is What is Most Needed

Thu, 04/22/2021 - 09:45

Refugees fleeing conflict and climate change conditions in Africa’s Lake Chad basin, north of Diffa, Niger. Credit: Amali Tower

By Amali Tower*
NEW YORK, Apr 22 2021 (IPS)

Today marks Earth Day and all around the globe, advocates and activists, concerned citizens and the like will gather to raise awareness about the climate crisis.

World leaders will be among them, notably U.S. President Joe Biden speaking as his administration kicks off its Leaders Summit on Climate, while a growing number of migrants and asylum-seekers at the U.S. southern border, a vast majority from Central America fleeing compounding crises, continue to have their rights and protection needs unmet.

Today, my organization Climate Refugees will also gather in an Earth Day event, Frontlines: Climate Risks & Migration with US Congressman Joaquin Castro of Texas, and longstanding activists and advocates in immigrant and migrant rights, climate policy, and environmental justice working with frontline communities.

We will look for a reflective conversation on Central American migration to discuss solutions, and what can be done by the Biden administration and the international community to protect the world’s most vulnerable, ahead of climate negotiations at COP26 in Glasgow.

For most of the world, climate change is by no means only an environmental concern. For communities dependent on the land and natural resources for livelihood, even survival, climate change is a socio-economic and political concern as well.

As we shared in a recent report, in response to President Biden’s executive order to better understand the impacts of climate change on migration, a deeper review of Central American migration will reflect the interconnections between climate change impacts, the killing of environmental leaders, historic oppression of Indigenous Peoples, the ways in which people are losing access and being moved off their lands, specific industries, and direct or indirect drivers of conflict and violence by gangs.

Climate change effects in Central America’s Dry Corridor are contributing to pre-existing poverty, underdevelopment, marginalization and historic oppression of populations living in the region’s agricultural backbone.

This is no different to the all-too familiar situations observed in traditional refugee contexts where conflict generally exacerbates underlying poverty, exclusion and marginalization of certain populations that force individuals to flee.

Eastern and southern African nations have faced an increase in floods, droughts and other climate-related events over recent years. The UN says a new bond with nature is the goal of UN’s annual Earth Day celebrations on April 22. Credit: UNDP/Arjen van de Merwe

The Dry Corridor covers nearly 30 percent of the entirety of Central America, home also to the greatest population density where a number of Indigenous groups reside, and where rural poverty rates are higher than the national averages, and food insecurity has soared.

This region is home to another type of convergence as well: extreme climatic events like the recent hurricanes Eta and Iota, tropical storms and drought, which render social, economic, environmental and political vulnerability on the region, its people, and ultimately, its national economies.

The expansion of mega development projects, extractive industries on mostly Indigenous lands and smallholder farmers’ land rights, hand-in-hand with gang violence, can’t be overlooked as contributory forces driving displacement either.

Several migrants we’ve spoken to have included sustained climate changes amongst the reasons for their displacement, and the resulting challenges when crop failures equal sustained losses and adaptation is hindered by ever smaller plots of land.

As much as we know about ‘climate migration’, we still know very little. What we know is that every situation will look different, largely because there is no single driver for movement that can be singularly attributed to ‘climate change.’ Instead, climate change is exacerbating underlying tensions and contributing to social disruptions.

Even in situations of disasters, we can move people out of harm’s way in order to save lives, but it’s their protection needs to the increased frequencies of disasters, as well as before, during and after a disaster that requires cohesive global action.

The Biden administration must realize these changed dynamics in policies both at home and abroad. To do so is to understand that many migrants fleeing Central America’s Dry Corridor are likely both asylum-seekers as defined by international refugee law, as well as individuals displaced by climate change, a category not protected in that area of law.

Climate Justice Meets Social Justice Meets Racial Justice

Central America’s poorest, marginalized and Indigenous are emblematic of a global phenomenon that climate change presents: the intersection of climate change and race.

The climate crisis disproportionately impacts marginalized populations, many of whom may be displaced or forced to migrate because of years of unequal access to opportunities and gaps in human rights, a topic my organization delved into with human rights and environmental justice experts in this event.

Philip Alston, the UN Special Rapporteur on Extreme Poverty and Human Rights’ report on Climate Change and Poverty, revealed developing countries will bear 75 to 80 percent of the financial costs and losses associated with the climate crisis, despite contributing only 10 percent of carbon dioxide emissions, creating a situation in which those in extreme poverty now also live in extreme weather.

He warned of increasing divisions as well, the risk of a ‘climate apartheid’, where the wealthy escape the negative impacts of climate change, leaving impacts to be borne by disproportionate groups ostracized by divisions, including race.

In the U.S., people of color are far more likely to live near pollutants, Black communities face higher risks from air pollution, and Black mothers are most affected by pregnancy risks associated with climate change, linking race, even more than poverty, to environmental pollutants, something long stated by environmental justice and Indigenous rights activists who articulated the systemic nature of environmental racism.

Those same activists were instrumental in bringing to light the interconnectedness of social, economic and environmental factors to the international stage at the 1992 Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, which helped to form the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).

This November, as world leaders gather at yet another UNFCCC Conference of the Parties – COP 26 – in Glasgow, Scotland, world leaders will likely gather to tell us “climate change affects us all”, and risk forgetting, “but not equally.”

They may speak of solutions that provide “dignity” for the world’s impacted, as if dignity were something they never had. They might project images of war-ravaged refugees, as if this is an accurate depiction of the intersection of climate and displacement, failing completely to understand the impacts of climate on entire societies.

They may speak of climate risk populations as poor and destitute, when in fact poor is relative and those with options are exhausted, rapidly running out of fight and solutions.

The poor, the vulnerable, the marginalized are actually the one’s systematically left behind, the oppressed and the disenfranchised.

As the emissions continue to go unchecked, the planet warms and impacts disproportionately punish these groups of people, they know and we know we can no longer be expected to wait for the world’s leaders to get this right.

*Amali Tower previously worked for the UN High Commissioner for Refugees and various NGOs in the humanitarian sector, including the US Refugee Admissions Program administered by the US Department of State’s Bureau of Population, Refugees, and Migration.

The post This Earth Day, a People’s Perspective is What is Most Needed appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Excerpt:

The writer is the Founder and Executive Director of Climate Refugees, a human rights NGO that calls for the protection and rights of those displaced by climate change.

The post This Earth Day, a People’s Perspective is What is Most Needed appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Categories: Africa

Table Mountain Ablaze in Cape Town

Wed, 04/21/2021 - 18:59

For three days from Sunday morning until late on Tuesday night, Cape Town’s firefighters were dispatched to Table Mountain and surrounding areas to battle a blaze that destroyed 600 hectares of land, displaced 4,000 students from the University of Cape Town and left heritage buildings damaged. Credit: Yazeed Kamaldien

By Yazeed Kamaldien
CAPE TOWN, South Africa, Apr 21 2021 (IPS)

Cape Town-based photojournalist Yazeed Kamaldien reported on a massive mountain fire that broke out on Sunday on Table Mountain and near residential areas on its foothills. By this morning, Wednesday 21 April, officials said the fire had been extinguished after three grueling days for firefighters. Firefighters are still monitoring on the ground for any flare-ups.

South African National Parks, which manages the Table Mountain area, estimates that the fire destroyed 600 hectares of land. A total 135 firefighters were dispatched along with 125 mountain rangers and an additional 170 fire and rescue workers.

While there were no deaths in the blaze, at least 4,000 students from the University of Cape Town were evacuated from their university residences. Locals have been assisting students with meals and other necessities.

Residents living on the Table Mountain slopes also had to evacuate their homes as the fire reached closer to their doors. Firefighting teams were deployed to extinguish the flames.
Heritage sites and university buildings were damaged and destroyed. Of the 11 affected buildings, seven are in the University of Cape Town campus.

Among these was the J.W. Jagger Library, which housed special collections that are well over a hundred years old. Other destroyed landmarks are the Mostert Mill and the Rhodes Memorial Restaurant.

Local police have arrested and charge with arson a vagrant while two other suspects are still being sought.

By Wednesday morning, the fire had been contained and firefighters were still out monitoring areas around Table Mountain and areas nearby. The fire had started on Sunday at 9am around the historical Rhodes Memorial site. The fire destroyed the Rhodes Memorial Restaurant, which overlooks the city. Credit: Yazeed Kamaldien

Homeless people living on the slopes of Table Mountain lost their shacks and few possessions. They escaped with their lives to find shelter in safer spaces. Credit: Yazeed Kamaldien

A lone homeless man sits amidst the burnt out grass around him on the slopes of Table Mountain, where Cape Town’s firefighters fought back flames across 600 hectares of land. Local police arrested a vagrant for allegedly starting the fire and charged him with arson. Two more suspects are being sought. Credit: Yazeed Kamaldien

A homeless man pulls his few possessions in a suitcase, leaving an area where firefighters were still battling flames on Tuesday afternoon. Homeless people living on the slopes of Table Mountain, where the fire spread for a few kilometers, fled their shacks for safer spaces. By Wednesday morning, officials had extinguished most of the fire that has left a trail of destruction. Credit: Yazeed Kamaldien

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Categories: Africa

Agro-industry Surrounds Xingu Indigenous Territory in Brazil

Wed, 04/21/2021 - 13:01

The peoples of the Xingu say agricultural activity beyond the borders of their territory has impacted fish populations (image: Alamy).

By Flávia Milhorance
RIO DE JANEIRO, Apr 21 2021 (IPS)

Watatakalu Yawalapiti is 40 years old. She was born in the Amakapuku village, surrounded by a large preserved forest in the heart of Brazil. She spent part of her childhood on the white sands and clear waters of the Tuatuari river. At other times, she would sit in a circle listening to her great-grandfather telling stories, like the one about how the white man would arrive with a huge blade and cut down the trees as one shaves one’s body hair.

“Everyone laughed because no one thought it was true,” she said, then immediately remembers a song in the Yawalapiti language that her great-grandfather used to sing to narrate the legend.

Yawalapiti, today a local indigenous leader, grew up protected by the borders of the Xingu indigenous territory (TIX), between the states of Mato Grosso and Pará. The Xingu was the first indigenous reserve created by Brazil’s government, established 60 years ago to preserve the biodiversity and the 16 ethnic groups living there.

Inside an area larger than Israel, Yawalapiti has experienced the calmness of time marked by the rainy and dry seasons. Outside, however, things were moving fast. Every time she crossed the 290 kilometres from the village to Canarana, the nearest town, the forest had decreased. More fields had replaced it. Her great-grandfather’s fable began to take a more realistic quality.

While the agricultural frontier advances through the Xingu basin, exports continue to break records. At the same time, this is where the largest deforestation in the Amazon is happening.

Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro supports opening up the forest to mining and agriculture, sparking protests from tribes in the Xingu who feel they are under threat.

Xingu’s indigenous people: “We no longer drink the water”

The 13 municipalities around the Xingu, including Canarana, exported 8.7 million tonnes of soy in 2020, more than half to China, according to foreign trade (Comex) data.

The same municipalities also exported 8.5 million tonnes of corn — which is intercropped with soy — which represents a quarter of last year’s shipments.

“On the east side, where Querência is, and south, with Canarana, there is an advanced consolidation of agribusiness, with multinational groups and their huge silos investing heavily,” explained Ivã Bocchini, from the Socio-Environmental Institute’s Xingu Programme.

Multinational companies such as Bunge and Cargill from the US, the Chinese Cofco and Brazil’s Amaggi have major operations in the region, according to data from the Trase platform, which tracks deforestation risk in supply chains.

As there are few unoccupied areas left, farms and reserves are now much closer together. They are like the edges of two worlds. But the consequences of deforestation and monoculture go beyond their borders.

In the last 20 years, the region around the land of Yawalapiti has been transformed into a production hub for soybeans, corn, cotton and meat, connected by highways and railways. Today, the Xingu area produces 10% of Brazil's soybean exports

Watatakalu Yawalapiti says that her people, who share the reserve with 15 other ethnic groups, have noticed the climate changing. The sun became hotter, the dry season longer, the river shallower and more turbid. Fish are more scarce. They lived through years of hunger and saw artesian wells appear: “We no longer drink river water, it is no longer clean.”

Other disturbances come from the increase in bush pigs, which feed on corn and soy from the plantations and invade the fields of small farmers and indigenous people.

Studies confirm the Yawalapiti experience. Research shows that the rains are decreasing in the municipalities surrounding the Xingu territory where deforestation is growing. With less rainfall, drought is more intense and bush fires more frequent.

The construction of thousands of dams and reservoirs for livestock, agriculture and electricity generation also alters the flow of the waterways of the Xingu basin. The Belo Monte hydroelectric dam in Altamira threatens the very survival of the Xingu River.

This basin begins in the Cerrado biome, in Mato Grosso state, and runs for 770 thousand kilometres towards the Amazon, in Pará. More than half of it is sheltered by preservation areas, but the river headwaters are impacted by deforestation and pesticides.

“Pesticides are the worst threat, because they are silent, and the TIX is like a drain into which the rivers flow,” said Bocchini, who advises indigenous organisations in the Xingu region.

In a decade, the area planted with grain crops around the Xingu territory grew 135%, and the use of pesticides, 130%. More recently, cotton, a major consumer of pesticides, began to emerge as a crop. Municipalities of the Xingu more than doubled their cotton exports in the last decade. By the end of 2020, 31,000 tonnes were exported, Comex shows. China is the main importer.

Three brothers and their campaign to protect the Xingu

Landscape in the Xingu basin started to change following the exploration of the interior of Brazil, sponsored by the 1937-1945 Getúlio Vargas government. In 1943, the Roncador-Xingu expedition left Leopoldina, in Minas Gerais, and headed northwest, cutting through central Brazil.

The expedition, made up mostly of “lawless” prospectors, opened up 1,500 kilometres of roads and erected airfields and military bases. Towns sprang up along the way.

But the expedition did not only serve to map Brazil. Due to lack of funding, it stalled in the Upper Xingu, in Mato Grosso, where the leaders, the now celebrated Villas Bôas brothers, established contact with indigenous peoples.

“The purpose of our expedition had nothing to do with Indians, this was an accident,” Orlando, the older brother, said in an interview in 2000.

The risk of the agro-industry threatening the indigenous way of life was already becoming clear. The Villas Bôas brothers allied themselves with local leaders, including Paru Yawalapiti, Watatakalu’s grandfather, in a near decade-long campaign to create the reserve.

“My grandfather was part of the expedition together with the Villas Bôas [brothers], my father learned to read with their sister, Maria de Lourdes,” Watatakalu remembered.

Orlando, Cláudio and Leonardo left their “mediocre bureaucratic lives” in search of adventure after the death of their parents, as described in the book The March Westwards.

Their chosen cause, to protect the Xingu, eventually resulted in the establishment of a protected territory in 1961. Two of the brothers earned Nobel peace prize nominations for their efforts. When Orlando died in 2002 he was given a tribal funeral, a mark of respect.

Another bid to colonise the forest

With a new government push by the military dictators to colonise central Brazil in the 1970s, large-scale deforestation began to skirt the Xingu territories. From the 2000s onwards, the international demand for commodities injected further impetus.

Following pressure to conserve the Amazon, measures including fines, the suspension of agricultural credit and pacts with companies operating in the agriculture sector have helped curb deforestation over the last decade. But a recent wave of destruction has awakened long-standing fears.

Logging, ranching and soy cultivation influence the expansion of the agricultural frontier in the Amazon. In the Xingu basin, the pattern of each industry’s growth is becoming clear. Soy is already consolidated in the south, while timber and cattle ranching are more commonplace from the middle to the north of the basin.

Data from Comex shows that 18 municipalities in the Xingu region exported 18,300 tonnes of wood in 2020, mainly from Pará. Also, 14,800 thousand tonnes of beef were exported, 40% to China.

Infrastructure works to make mass exporting easier are major incentives for the opening of forest areas.

Edeon Vaz was a soy producer in Mato Grosso. But he decided to develop the sector in a different way. He moved to Brasília with the mission of improving infrastructure to reduce the cost of agricultural production.

“We participate in the creation of regulatory frameworks to negotiate parliamentary amendments, and we charge for the progress of the works, all of which takes a lot of time and we have to stay on top of the government,” said Vaz, who is now executive director of the Mato Grosso Pro-Logistics Movement, a lobby group.

The stretch of national highway BR-163 between Cuiabá and Santarém, is on the list of his accomplishments. The Ferrogrão railway and the dozens of industrial ports on the rivers of the Amazon from part of the same corridor.

But people from the indigenous lands of Baú, Menkragnoti and Panará say that paving the highway has created all sorts of problems, boosting land grabbing, deforestation and forest fires in the northern portion of the Xingu basin.

The highway began to be built by the military government in the 1970s and left its mark on the history of the Panará.

“It was a disaster,” said Paulo Junqueira, who advises the peoples of the region for the Socioambiental Institute. “BR-163 passed over their territory and brought infectious diseases that killed hundreds of people.”

These people were moved to the Xingu and only managed to return to their original territory two decades later, in 1996.

A village on the move

Winti Khĩsêtjê, 47, was born and raised in the indigenous land of Wawi, part of the municipality of Querência, in Mato Grosso. Less than five years ago it saw the arrival of agribusiness.

“Soy is already right at our border,” said the indigenous leader. “And the population has already been suffering the deterioration of the water, which created skin problems and diarrhea.”

Concerned about the organic production of honey and pequi, a native fruit, her community this year moved the village 20 kilometres into the forest. “We were afraid that the agrotoxins, which are sprayed from planes, would hit our production,” he said.

“We dropped everything to make everything again: housing, school, a health centre,” said Khĩsêtjê. “But we are afraid of how it will be in the future, whether the situation will stabilise or get even worse.”

Rising land prices

Farmer Acrísio Luiz dos Reis lives in Canabrava do Norte, a municipality in the south of the Xingu region, which faced a recent wave of deforestation.

“The soy industry is moving very fast, and these people, if they can, won’t even leave a tree standing,” said the farmer. “I think this is too bad, because, with the knowledge that we have, the more we deforest, the worse it gets; less water, more heat.”

He is also concerned about the real estate speculation that usually accompanies the entry of new neighbours. It is already a reality in Canabrava: “Four years ago, there was land for ten thousand reals US$1,770], or even less, per bushel; now it’s 150 thousand reals [$26,560],” he said.

The Minas Gerais native arrived in Canabrava in 1985 and today lives on a 50-hectare plot in the Manah settlement, granted by the agrarian reform programme. “I will only leave here in a wooden box now. I like it here too much, my dream came true,” said the 70-year-old farmer. “I have a small herd, I work with milk, I plant a vegetable garden and some fruit trees.”

Growing the seed network

In areas of the Xingu basin where deforestation is advancing, local indigenous and environmental groups fight to slow it. But where the damage has already been done years ago, land restoration is underway.

Since 2008, Reis has supplemented his income by collecting native seeds, including angico, cajazinha, jatobá and guaritá, found in the transition area between the Cerrado and Amazônia. He is one of the pioneers of the Xingu Seed Network, a project that promotes the planting of seedlings to restore areas degraded by agribusiness.

The initiative, which emerged after local groups noticed deteriorating water quality and scarcity of fish and turtles, ended up promoting an unusual dialogue.

On one side, farmers whose activities incur an impact on the environment promote the network. On the other, small farmers and indigenous people collect seeds. Today, there are 600 collectors from 16 municipalities of the Xingu basin.

“In the planted areas, we notice the fauna returning and the water becoming more abundant,” said Bruna Ferreira, director of the Xingu Seed Network Association.

But the work is tiny in the great scheme of what is happening. In 13 years of the initiative, the network has restored 6,000 of the more than 200,000 hectares degraded in the region. “The obstacle is not financial, because there are several organisations wanting to support restoration initiatives,” said Ferreira.

Today, the biggest problem is the lack of enforcement and the lack of interest by large deforesters in participating. “We are sought out by farmers who need to restore and want to be partners, but it’s far less than the size of the damage,” he said.

This article was originally published by ChinaDialogue

The post Agro-industry Surrounds Xingu Indigenous Territory in Brazil appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Categories: Africa

Earth Day 2021: Passing On a Cleaner World

Wed, 04/21/2021 - 07:51

A woman with an umbrella walks in the rain in a field. To the left is a rainbow. The UN says a new bond with nature is the goal of UN’s annual Mother Earth Day celebrations on April 22. Credit: World Meteorological Organization (WMO)

By Bill Pekny*
MIDWAY, Utah USA, Apr 21 2021 (IPS)

Preserving the beauty and wonder of our natural world for future generations should certainly be a goal everyone can get behind. While progress is often stymied by polarizing debates, clean air and water should be a priority for everyone.

We all want to pass on a clean and healthy world, But the science is confusing to the average person, and it can be easy to get lost in the details. Meanwhile, instead of focusing on the fruit closest to the ground we waste our energy trying to convince “the other side” to see things our way.

What we need is to focus on combatting pollution in meaningful ways that are right in front of us instead of getting lost in debate that often just produces gridlock. And Earth Day, coming up on April 22, is the perfect time to start working together for solutions.

Small, incremental changes can get us moving toward bigger changes in the future. People will start seeing the benefits right away. These little victories can generate some real momentum and get people excited about working toward a cleaner world.

With that in mind, here are nine ways to fight pollution that we can all get behind. These ideas could pack a big punch in our quest for clean air, land, and water.

1. Focus our efforts on pollution mitigation. All too often we get caught up on reducing carbon emissions in the abstract, and it can distract from other more meaningful ways to fight air pollution. Plus, getting rid of CO2 won’t help one iota to reduce toxic pollutants such as smoke, dust, soot, carbon monoxide (CO), ammonium nitrates, and sulfur and nitrogen oxides.

2. Manage forests better to minimize wildfires and resultant smoke (PM2.5) pollution. This includes carefully controlled burns, well managed logging operations, and preemptive thinning and removal of underbrush that fuel wildfires. This is a wise step, since trees usually leave the forest in only two ways—lumber or smoke!

3. Place more emphasis on walking trails, biking trails, car-pooling, and public transportation in order to reduce vehicle pollutant emissions wherever possible, affordable, and realistic.

4. Insist that policy decisions be based on thorough life-cycle (aka cradle-to-grave) cost-benefit analyses. This will help in making wise decisions about what to do, and how to spend, our nation’s precious money. We must resist the tendency to narrowly focus just on dazzling technologies without assessing their upfront environmental impacts such as mining and toxicity of materials or end-of-life disposal problems.

5. Build more dams and reservoirs, especially in drought and fire prone areas. Find ways to trap seasonal floodwater for drought mitigation and hydroelectric power. Hydropower has been around for a long time and is perfectly clean but widely underused. Its gravity-based advantage comes from rainfall being retained by dams/reservoirs, and later released to a lower level to turn a turbine that generates electricity.

There are far-ranging possibilities, here. We should build more dams/reservoirs to capture and utilize the potential energy of rainwater, rather than let water simply wash away into the oceans, unused. For example, the last dam built in California with a reservoir capacity exceeding one million acre-feet was in 1979.

6. Build more firebreak and logging roads. These roads improve accessibility to fire prone areas and gives give us greater ability to inspect remote power lines (a frequent source of wildfires).

7. Fight poverty. While it might seem counterintuitive, poverty is a major driver of pollution. When people are struggling just to get by, they can’t focus on their impact on the environment. As a result, they tend to ignore more environmentally friendly alternatives in favor of whatever is convenient.

For example, burning dung and wood for heat releases far more pollutants compared to more modern fuel sources, but this practice persists in less developed parts of the world. If we invest in raising the standard of living all around the world, then we can help guide these populations towards more sustainable long-term practices, while also greatly improving their day to day lives.

8. Continue to fund life-cycle research and development of flexible, reliable, and continuous sources of clean energy, such as advanced modular nuclear reactors and the geothermal fracking process. Advanced reactors offer many advantages, such as perfectly clean energy, relatively small physical footprints, as well as reduced capital investment, the ability to be sited in locations not possible for larger nuclear plants, and provisions for incremental power additions. Most importantly, they also offer distinct safeguards, security, and nonproliferation advantages.

Geothermal energy has been around for a long time, but its availability is spotty and its cost expensive—until now. Hydraulic geothermal fracking is an up-and-coming, perfectly clean energy revolution, and is a boundless source, as long as the Earth keeps spinning about its axis.

9. Last, but certainly not least: Keep learning and having productive civil conversations. Teach our children the scientific method, logic, and history. These skills are fundamental to accurate information gathering, critical thinking, and understanding truth, and will help inform the next generation of scientists and activists.

Further, we must learn to have productive conversations about keeping our air and water clean. We can’t afford for this to be a politicized topic and digging in to one side or another prevents us from finding the best solutions. We have to listen to each other and be willing to change our minds if we learn something new. Without real communication we’re not brainstorming—we are just storming.

The good news is, more people than ever are recognizing the need to preserve the Earth’s resources. One of the unintended consequences of COVID-19 has been the rise in people getting outdoors and enjoying our world—and seeing firsthand the importance of protecting it.

Another encouraging factor is that young people today love spending time in the great outdoors and being active in nature with friends and family. For example, millennials are bringing back camping. Meanwhile, Generation Z cares deeply about protecting our environment. Our young people will help lead the charge in finding more solutions in the future, as they are smart and incredibly resourceful. I can certainly relate to their passion.

As a young radar meteorologist with the U.S. Navy Weather Research Facility, I flew with the famous Hurricane Hunters into the eye of storms. This experience awakened my fascination with weather and sparked my lifelong commitment to preserving the environment. I am excited to see how our younger generations will make a positive impact.

The natural beauty of our planet is incredible. My hope is that everyone will gain and enjoy a greater understanding of how we can work together to preserve this natural beauty for ourselves and future generations. Earth Day is a great time to begin this conversation.

*Bill Pekny’s academic credentials include graduate study in physical meteorology and numerical analysis at Florida State University and the University of Utah. He is also a visiting scholar appointment at the Ginzton Laboratory of Applied Physics at Stanford University.

About the Book:
A Tale of Two Climates: One Real, One Imaginary (Two Climates LLC, 2020, ISBN: 978-1-73493-960-6, $34.59) is available from major online booksellers.

The post Earth Day 2021: Passing On a Cleaner World appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Excerpt:

The writer holds physics M.S. and B.S. degrees from Georgia Tech and DePaul University and is the author of A Tale of Two Climates: One Real, One Imaginary.

The post Earth Day 2021: Passing On a Cleaner World appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Categories: Africa

Rights Group Calls for Overhaul of Criminal Justice Systems’ Response to Sexual Violence Across South Asia

Wed, 04/21/2021 - 07:38

According to a new report, ‘burdensome’ evidence requirements in sexual violence cases are impeding access to justice for survivors across South Asia. Credit: Stella Paul/IPS

By Alison Kentish
UNITED NATIONS, Apr 21 2021 (IPS)

Gaps in laws, illegal out-of-court settlements, rape survivor intimidation and law enforcement failure to adequately respond to sexual violence reports are hindering women from seeking justice and maintaining impunity for perpetrators of rape in South Asia.

This is according to the women and girls rights group Equality Now which, along with Dignity Alliance International, released a report titled “Sexual Violence in South Asia: Legal and Other Barriers to Justice for Survivors” today, Apr. 21.

The report focused on six countries; Bangladesh, Bhutan, Nepal, the Maldives, India and Sri Lanka. It follows focus group discussions with survivors in four of the countries, as well as stakeholder interviews with lawyers and activists working on sexual violence. It unveiled protection gaps in the laws across the countries.

“It is just the text of the law is contributing to impunity for perpetrators and preventing survivors from getting justice. One of the major gaps that we found is that in four out of the six countries, there is no criminalisation of marital rape,” Equality Now’s legal advisor Divya Srinivasan told IPS.

According to the report, ‘burdensome’ evidence requirements in rape cases are impeding access to justice for survivors. It states that five out of the six countries, India being the exception, allow evidence on the past sexual history of a rape victim.

The report also highlights the prevalence of extra-legal settlements, or compromises, across the region. To arrive at these pay-outs, survivors are sometimes pressured by their families, relatives of the accused or community members.

“Even though such settlements are illegal, they are still happening in large numbers. Often, they are done between the families without even asking the survivor or getting her consent. Even when she consents, it is because she’s put under enormous pressure and even threatened with violence and other threats and this is one of the reasons that cases are dropping out of the system,” Srinivasan said.

The report contains survivor stories, sobering first-person accounts that include protracted trials, members of caste systems who refused to listen to pleas for redress and protection following marital rape and one survivor from India whose husband blamed her for disgracing the home by being raped. Apart from being ostracised, survivors also reported that the courage to file an official police report was often met with disbelief and refusals to record statements.

“Failures include inadequacies in the way justice system officials are responding to sexual violence, including the refusal of police to register cases or even filing wrong information in the police report and victim-blaming attitudes. We saw a lot of that across the board from police, medical professionals and even from judges,” Srinivasan said.

The report notes that many of the survivor stories were told by women in the six countries who are marginalised based on caste, ethnicity and religion, noting that they face intersectional forms of discrimination when trying to access justice.

“Women and girls from socially excluded communities are often at higher risk of being subjected to sexual violence as compared to other communities, due to the use of rape as a weapon of suppression, accompanied by a general culture of impunity for sexual violence and particular impunity for those from dominant classes, castes or religions, which often leads to a denial of justice,” it states.

“Further, lack of social, political and economic clout often hinders reporting of cases by these communities or increases their vulnerability to threats and pressure from perpetrators. Survivors are further subjected to discrimination when dealing with the criminal justice system. Survivors of sexual violence from socially excluded communities thus face severe obstacles to accessing justice.”

The report makes comprehensive recommendations to all sectors of the government, listing what must change to ensure access to justice for survivors.

It calls on authorities to rectify the protection gaps in the law. It zeroes in on policing, asking South Asian governments to put measures in place to improve police response to cases of sexual violence, including educating and training officers in gender sensitisation. It also demands action against police officers who refuse to file cases or actively obstruct justice in rape cases.

The authors are also asking for more humane medical examinations in rape cases, denouncing the continued use of the two-finger or virginity tests in some countries, despite this being a human rights violation

Our fourth recommendation is to improve prosecution procedures and trials of sexual offences to ensure that there is quality prosecution that leads to increased conviction rates, along with speedy trials.

The fifth point calls for designing and funding holistic interventions to improve access to justice for survivors. It notes that while convictions are needed, there are not enough and should be accompanied by support for survivors including psychosocial care and access to compensation, measures that can help them get their lives back on track.

“What we have seen across South Asia is that there are lots of very high-profile rape cases and following public protests, the government comes out with a superficial response to pacify the public sentiment,” said Srinivasan. “Really, there needs to be systemic changes, every aspect of the system needs to improve access to justice for survivors.”

The post Rights Group Calls for Overhaul of Criminal Justice Systems’ Response to Sexual Violence Across South Asia appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Excerpt:

A new report on sexual violence in South Asia by women and girls rights group Equality Now has found that survivors face threats, pressure to settle out of court and obstacles to justice from systems rife with implementation failures.

The post Rights Group Calls for Overhaul of Criminal Justice Systems’ Response to Sexual Violence Across South Asia appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Categories: Africa

GGGI appoints Kyung Hee University Professor, Mr. Kyung Nam Shin, as Assistant Director-General and Head of Investment and Policy Solutions

Tue, 04/20/2021 - 19:43

By External Source
SEOUL, Republic of Korea, Apr 20 2021 (IPS-Partners)

The Global Green Growth Institute (GGGI) has officially appointed Professor Kyung Nam Shin as Assistant Director-General and Head of Investment and Policy Solutions. He will assume his duties at the GGGI Seoul headquarters on May 1, 2021, to further the organization’s aim to catalyze green investments and policies for its Members.

“Considering all that has happened over the past year with the COVID pandemic, now is a crucial time for countries to integrate green policies and projects into their national priorities in order to regain economic stability for the long-term. To this end, GGGI has a lot of potential to greatly aid its Members to achieve impactful results and catalyze the investments necessary for this transition,” explains Prof. Shin.

Prof. Shin serves as a Committee Member for International Development Cooperation under the Prime Minister’s Office in Korea and is a Professor at the esteemed Kyung Hee University in Seoul. He holds a BA in Economics and an MA in Public Policy, from Seoul National University, as well as a Juris Doctor from Colombia University School of Law.

He has diverse background and professional experience of working to accelerate green growth development across Asia.

“Prof. Shin’s deep and broad expertise in the development of green investment projects and the mobilization of green and climate finance will be a great asset for GGGI to further its initiative to catalyze green investments and policies for its Members,” shared Dr. Frank Rijsberman, Director-General of GGGI.

Prof. Shin has over 30 years of international development experience throughout Asia, working with the Ministry of Economy and Finance of the Republic of Korea and the Asian Development Bank in Manilla, Philippines, as well as serving as the Director-General of the Green Technology Center Korea.

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Categories: Africa

COVID-19 Locks Down Therapy Support for Zimbabwe’s Trafficking Survivors

Tue, 04/20/2021 - 12:26

The ability of trafficked persons to access services has greatly reduced. In many countries, resources that had been set aside for legal, physiological and police support for trafficked persons have been diverted to deal with the effects of the pandemic. Credit: Miriam Gathigah/IPS

By Ignatius Banda
BULAWAYO, Zimbabwe, Apr 20 2021 (IPS)

Before Zimbabwe imposed lockdown measures last March as part of global efforts to curb the coronavirus pandemic, Grace Mashingaidze* would attend workshops in Harare arranged by a nongovernmental organisation assisting trafficked women who had safely made it back home.

A survivor of trafficking, the 27 year-old Mashingaidze told IPS she joined a group of other young female survivors and had received assistance that ranged from counselling, psychosocial support and self-sufficiency skills. The latter was important as many of the young women struggled to earn an income in a country already suffocated by high levels of unemployment.

“It has been tough ever since we were told we could not attend the workshops and trainings because of the coronavirus. But you come to understand that safety first is a priority for everyone,” Mashingaidze told IPS.

The coronavirus lockdown has meant her life is at a standstill when ideally she and other young women who are part of support group ought to be accessing much-needed help to deal with the trauma of human trafficking and also fend for themselves.

Mashingaidze, who said her ordeal took her as far Mozambique, has ambitions to educate herself and “do a course” that will help her provide for her three-year-old son.

“Up to now, I do not know how I have managed,” she said.

Her story is a microcosm of disruptions brought by the coronavirus in virtually all sectors of human existence in this southern African nation. Non-governmental organisations working with trafficked women have conceded that while there remains a huge need to assist survivors, they cannot risk violate government-imposed public health restrictions for a greater good.

“The immediate impact (of the coronavirus) that raised an immediate outcry from victims of human trafficking was the lack of personalised face-to-face counselling and also loss of livelihoods,” said Dadirai Chikwekwete, who served as coordinator African Forum for Catholic Teaching (AFCAST) at Arrupe Jesuit University where she worked with trafficking survivors until September.

“The therapeutic weekly sessions enabled them to have a “me time” away from their homes and families. They were also engaged in various economic activities ranging from buying and selling groceries, small business entrepreneurship, cake making among other things,” she told IPS.

The experiences of the trafficked women are part of broader interruptions that hit other sectors of the economy such as informal traders who have been forced to stay home as government enforced measures to stem the spread of the coronavirus.

Previously thriving home-based businesses which trafficked women started have suffered because of restrictions.

“Some of the women lost their incomes during the lockdown. Those who had spent their incomes sewing school uniforms ended up with piles of them since schools were closed,” Chikwekwete told IPS.

“Tailors had spent sleepless nights making garments for which they were unable to receive payment for since clients want to first fit the garment before making payment,” Chikwekwete explained.

Schools only reopened in Zimbabwe last month.

The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) says the COVID-19 pandemic has had “a major impact on the support provided to victims of human trafficking as services are reduced, postponed and in some cases halted”.

In February, UNODC’s Global Report on Trafficking in Persons noted that while COVID-19 had exposed more people to trafficking, there was a need for governments to “support victims as part of integrated efforts to build forward from the pandemic”.

It’s a sentiment shared by Tsitsi Matekaire, the global lead for Equality Now’s End Sex Trafficking campaign.

“The ability of trafficked persons to access services has greatly reduced. In many countries, resources that had been set aside for legal, physiological and police support for trafficked persons have been diverted to deal with the effects of the pandemic,” Matekaire told IPS.

“It is imperative that governments recognise the gendered impact of the pandemic and also build in to their COVID responses measures to increase identification of victims of human trafficking,” she said.

In the absence of such interventions, the most visible COVID-19 response for low-income countries like Zimbabwe has been to enforce lockdown restrictions that have, in many instances, been routinely violated as people seek ways and means to survive.

According to the Zimbabwe Republic Police, by July 2020 over 100,000 people had been arrested for violating the restrictions in the four months since the March 2020 lockdown. Of these, the bulk were informal traders – most of whom are women who survive by street vending.

But it was a risk Mashingaidze said she had not been willing to take.

“I have already been through a lot already with my experience being trafficked I do not want any brushes with the law,” Mashingaidze told IPS, expressing a desperation that has only been heightened by the government’s failure to provide coronavirus stipends for informal traders.

A UN Zimbabwe report on the effects of COVID-19 noted that the country still needs to do more for victims of human trafficking and “support for women-owned enterprises and social innovations that can lead to self-employment,” something that has been lacking in young women such as Mashingaidze in their efforts to pick up the pieces and lead productive lives.

The southern African country remains a favourite target for human traffickers as desperate young women attempt to escape the economic hardships that have stalked the country for more than two decades.

However, as Mashingaidze explained, being back home has not been without its headaches as COVID-19 added more difficulties to her already desperate situation.

“My prayer is that the pandemic ends soon so that we can get on with our lives,” she said, echoing what has become a global sentiment.

*Name changed to protect source’s identity

This is part of a series of features from across the globe on human trafficking. IPS coverage is supported by the Airways Aviation Group.

The Global Sustainability Network ( GSN ) is pursuing the United Nations Sustainable Development Goal number 8 with a special emphasis on Goal 8.7 which ‘takes immediate and effective measures to eradicate forced labour, end modern slavery and human trafficking and secure the prohibition and elimination of the worst forms of child labour, including recruitment and use of child soldiers, and by 2025 end child labour in all its forms’.

The origins of the GSN come from the endeavours of the Joint Declaration of Religious Leaders signed on 2 December 2014. Religious leaders of various faiths, gathered to work together “to defend the dignity and freedom of the human being against the extreme forms of the globalisation of indifference, such us exploitation, forced labour, prostitution, human trafficking” and so forth.

The post COVID-19 Locks Down Therapy Support for Zimbabwe’s Trafficking Survivors appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Categories: Africa

Child Trafficking in South Asia Facilitated by Open Borders

Tue, 04/20/2021 - 08:39

Thousands of men, women and children fall victim each year to human trafficking, a serious crime and a grave violation of human rights. The 18-year-old girl (pictured) was taken to Almaty, Kazakhstan, and promised work as a housekeeper but forced to become a sex worker. Credit: UNICEF/UN045727/Pirozzi

By Simone Galimberti
KATHMANDU, Nepal, Apr 20 2021 (IPS)

The numbers are so staggering that is hardly imaginable striking a positive tone about the situation of child trafficking in Nepal and yet some positive developments are occurring here in a country that soon could be set to graduate from the group of least developing countries.

Only last week a story was published about seven girls aged between 10-18 from a district neighboring India that had gone missing but luckily were found safe by the Indian police and returned back to their families.

The existence of an open border between the two countries poses one of the greatest challenge in fighting child trafficking as also explained by Nobel Peace Laureate Kailash Satyarthi in a program held in December 2020. This is just one episode amid an ongoing crisis that is affecting thousands of children every single year.

For example, on the 2nd of April, the national police arrested five men accused of trafficking and forcing to prostitution underage teenage girls.

Unbelievably as it might seem, according to the official data from the Government of Nepal, around 300 children, with girls being in the majority, go missing because of child trafficking.

Those ending up in India, deceived and entrapped without apparent escape, are forced into a circle of exploitation and abuse that will mark their lives, while for others their subjugation means a new life characterized by misuse and ill treatment in the Gulf countries.

At the same time, we should not forget the heinous patterns of enslavement within Nepal that feed many industries, from entertainment to construction to public transportation. While boys are also victimized, it is clear that child trafficking is particularly hard on underage girls that become objectified as domestic and sexual workers.

In all the cases, none of the children dragged into these abuses know if one day will be able to be rescued, rehabilitated and have a chance to start their lives anew.

#EndHumanTrafficking visual. According to the UNODC Global Report on Trafficking in Persons, 30% of human trafficking victims are children. Credit: UNODC

A recent report published by the Ministry of Women, Children, and Senior Citizens portrays the situation even in starker terms with estimates that 2,729 children, including 831 boys and 1,898 girls, were reported missing in fiscal 2019- 20, a stunning number but still a reduction in comparison to the previous year when 3,422 had been missing.

Probably the only factor that contributed to the slowdown was the closing of the international borders due to the pandemic but with the lockdown that followed hitting the poorest the most and with a second wave of the virus now reaching the country, it is very realistic to imagine a much worse scenario in the months ahead with more and more children finishing in the networks of unscrupulous traffickers, many of which are relatives or known people.

The economic boom that followed the signing of the peace agreements and the abolition of the monarchy did not materialize in positive advantages for the most vulnerable segments of the population, another evidence that trickle down economy only works to help the middle class move on the social economic ladder.

Despite the gloomy scenario, we are witnessing some positive developments that might help revert the trend and constitute important steps towards ending child exploitation in the country.

The Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons of the US State Department in the latest edition of its annual Trafficking in Persons Report published in 2020 highlights the challenges faced by the country but also recognizes some important improvement, especially in terms of the Government’s commitment to eradicate the problem.

First of all, Nepal ratified the United Nations Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons also known as Palermo Protocol that came into force in the country on the 16th of June 2020.

It is an important legislative milestone that is now prompting the Government to amend the Human Trafficking and Transportation (Control) Act, making it a more robust legislation able to better deter and punish those engaging in acts of children’s trafficking.

Due to the complexity of the issue, other legislations have to be amended including the Foreign Employment Act but also The Immigration Act, exposing the links between child trafficking, force labor and abuses in foreign employment.

The National Child Rights Council is a new institution that builds on the legacy of the Central Child Welfare Board and was born out of Section 59 of the Children’s Act 2018, the recent piece of legislation aimed at modernizing the entire approach to child protection in the country.

Just recently the Council was able to rescue 53 children in Nepal involved in street vending selling items like water and food through local contractors that have been recommended to the Labor Office for prosecution.

Now these children are being protected, thanks to the Council, in safe shelters with the goal of having them reunified with their families as soon as the conditions will allow.

“We are expanding in, cooperation with the Provincial Governments, our outreach in all the seven provinces and soon we will be able to have a stronger presence throughout the nation” says Milan Raj Dharel who has been involved in the field of child protection for his entire life, first working with established civil society organizations and now as founding executive director of the Council.

In order to better intervene in the incidents of child trafficking like the one involving the seven girls, the Council, explains Dharel, is working to systematize cross border rescue protocols so that it will be easier for children rescued in India to be repatriated back to Nepal.

Moreover, some improvements have been also made in the sensitive process of de-institutionalization, closing many faked orphanages that have been taking advantage of and profiting out of the hosted children.

It is still a serious problem, said Dharel, but important achievements have been taken in this regard but at least stronger regulations are in place and very importantly, these are now being enforced.

“Another area we are working with is the upcoming entering in force of new Child’s Rights Rules” that we expect to be endorsed within the end of the May this year”.

According to Dharel, with the new Children’s Act in place, it is now imperative to have the new rules endorsed that will better reflect the transformation of the country in a federal republic where many powers are enshrined with locally elected governments and provinces.

The new regulations will also codify the existence of two child help lines, the 104 being managed by the central police with technical support of the Council and the 1098 that instead is managed, always with Council’s help, by CWIN, a leading civil society organization working in the area of child protection.

According to its official data, only in 2021, 492 case were registered by the 1098 help line, the majority of which were made by female with abuse and child marriage resulting as the two main causes for the requests of help, reinforcing the rationale that only long term solutions encompassing a full spectrum of support, including better social protection schemes directly reaching out the most vulnerable families, are the answers to the complex factors underpinning child abuses, including trafficking.

According to Dharel, the Ministry of Women, Children and Social Affairs, is working to ensure that the amendments to the Human Trafficking and Transportation (Control) Act will be tabled in the next winter session if the situation allows as Nepal is undergoing a delicate situation politically and fresh elections might be called soon.

Despite the objective difficulties of the problem itself and the instability that the country faces, the fact that in this particular sphere of governance, focused on ensuring better life prospects for the most vulnerable children, there is a political will to act and improve the existing legislations whereas needed and finally enforcing them is definitely encouraging.

Partnerships with civil society organizations remain indispensable as they play a big role in stopping and rescuing many minors as well more efforts are required to ensure intra-institutional collaborations within the organs of the State, including with the National Human Rights Commission that since 2005 has been publishing the flagship annual National Report on Trafficking In Persons in Nepal.

Will the country be able to do more, leveraging its “whole of system” approach, mobilizing more partnerships and innovative social programs to root out the causes of child trafficking and finally shut down this dark business that still enriches many and victimizes many more innocent minors?

*Simone Galimberti writes on volunteerism, social inclusion, youth development and regional integration as an engine to improve people’s lives.

The post Child Trafficking in South Asia Facilitated by Open Borders appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Excerpt:

The writer* is Co-Founder, ENGAGE, Inclusive Change Through Volunteering, a not-for-profit in Nepal.

The post Child Trafficking in South Asia Facilitated by Open Borders appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Categories: Africa

Another False Start in Africa Sold with Green Revolution Myths

Tue, 04/20/2021 - 08:09

By Timothy A. Wise and Jomo Kwame Sundaram
BOSTON and KUALA LUMPUR, Apr 20 2021 (IPS)

Since the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA) was launched in 2006, yields have barely risen, while rural poverty remains endemic, and would have increased more if not for out-migration.

AGRA was started, with funding from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and the Rockefeller Foundation, to double yields and incomes for 30 million smallholder farm households while halving food insecurity by 2020.

Timothy A. Wise

There are no signs of significant productivity and income boosts from promoted commercial seeds and agrochemicals in AGRA’s 13 focus countries. Meanwhile, the number of undernourished in these nations increased by 30%!

When will we ever learn?
What went wrong? The continuing Indian farmer protests, despite the COVID-19 resurgence, highlight the problematic legacy of its Green Revolution (GR) in frustrating progress to sustainable food security.

Many studies have already punctured some myths of India’s GR. Looking back, its flaws and their dire consequences should have warned policymakers of the likely disappointing results of the GR in Africa.

Hagiographic accounts of the GR cite ‘high‐yielding’ and ‘fast-growing’ dwarf wheat and rice spreading through Asia, particularly India, saving lives, modernising agriculture, and ‘freeing’ labour for better off-farm employment.

Many recent historical studies challenge key claims of this supposed success, including allegedly widespread yield improvements and even the number of lives actually saved by increased food production.

Environmental degradation and other public health threats due to the toxic chemicals used are now widely recognized. Meanwhile, water management has become increasingly challenging and unreliable due to global warming and other factors.

Ersatz GR2.0 for Africa
Half a century later, the technology fetishizing, even deifying AGRA initiative seemed oblivious of Asian lessons as if there is nothing to learn from actual experiences, research and analyses.

Worse, AGRA has ignored many crucial features of India’s GR. Importantly, the post-colonial Indian government had quickly developed capacities to promote economic development.

Jomo Kwame Sundaram

Few African countries have such ‘developmental’ capacities, let alone comparable capabilities. Their already modest government capacities were decimated from the 1980s by structural adjustment programmes demanded by international financial institutions and bilateral ‘donors’.

Ignoring lessons of history
India’s ten-point Intensive Agricultural Development Programme was more than just about seed, fertilizer and pesticide inputs. Its GR also provided credit, assured prices, improved marketing, extension services, village-level planning, analysis and evaluation.

These and other crucial elements are missing or not developed appropriately in recent AGRA initiatives. Sponsors of the ersatz GR in Africa have largely ignored such requirements.

Instead, the technophile AGRA initiative has been enamoured with novel technical innovations while not sufficiently appreciating indigenous and other ‘old’ knowledge, science and technology, or even basic infrastructure.

The Asian GR relied crucially on improving cultivation conditions, including better water management. There has been little such investment by AGRA or others, even when the crop promoted requires such improvements.

From tragedy to farce
Unsurprisingly, Africa’s GR has reproduced many of India’s problems:

• Higher input costs often exceed additional earnings from modest yield increases using new seeds and agrochemicals, increasing farmer debt.

Paths not taken
AGRA and other African GR proponents have had 14 years, plus billions of dollars, to show that input-intensive agriculture can raise productivity, net incomes and food security. They have clearly failed.

Africans — farmers, consumers and governments — have many good reasons to be wary, especially considering AGRA’s track record after a decade and a half. India’s experience and the ongoing farmer protests there should make them more so.

Selling Africa’s GR as innovation requiring unavoidable ‘creative destruction’ is grossly misleading. Alternatively, many agroecology initiatives, which technophiles decry as backward, are bringing cutting-edge science and technology to farmers, with impressive results.

A 2006 University of Essex survey, of nearly 300 large ecological agriculture projects in more than fifty poor countries, documented an average 79% productivity increase, with declining costs and rising incomes.

Published when AGRA was launched, these results far surpass those of GRs thus far. Sadly, they remind us of the high opportunity costs of paths not taken due to well-financed technophile dogma.

Timothy A. Wise is senior advisor at the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy and author of Eating Tomorrow: Agribusiness, Family Farmers, and the Battle for the Future of Food.

The post Another False Start in Africa Sold with Green Revolution Myths appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Categories: Africa

Kenya’s Poor Need Different Lockdown Restrictions to Survive, Scientists Urge

Mon, 04/19/2021 - 17:17

Joseph Lowasa Baraka at his vegetable and fruit kiosk in Nairobi. During Kenya’s coronavirus lockdowns traders opted to stay away from congested market places and prioritised more secure digital platforms. Credit: Isaiah Esipisu/IPS

By Isaiah Esipisu
NAIROBI, Apr 19 2021 (IPS)

After Joseph Mandu lost his job because of the country’s coronavirus lockdown, he would still wake every morning and leave his home in the City Carton slum in Kenya’s capital, Nairobi. But instead of heading to the restaurant he worked at as a pool-table attendant, he would walk around City Carton searching for odd jobs to earn an income so he could pay for the food his family needed to survive.

“I tried to find something to do because my wife could not understand a fact that I was totally not able to provide for the family.

“With schools closed, all our five children were there in our single room and they needed food, water – which can only be bought – and soap, among other things, that were beyond my affordability,” Mandu told IPS, noting that he also owed his landlord Sh2000 ($18) in monthly rent.

Mandu is not alone in the need to provide for his family.

Blanket containment measures imposed by Kenya’s government to control the coronavirus pandemic have denied poor slum dwellers access to sufficient nutritious food and livelihoods, according to early findings from an ongoing evidence-based study to assess the impact of COVID-19 on dietary patterns among households in Nairobi’s informal settlements.

The study noted that urban slum and non-slum households are impacted differently by the COVID-19 pandemic, and therefore differentiated policies and solutions are needed to address food security, nutrition and the livelihoods of these two consumer groups.

The researchers, led by scientists from the Alliance of Biodiversity International and the International Centre for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT), are now calling on the Kenyan government to consider the unique challenges that people living in urban slums face before imposing blanket measures to curb the spread of the disease.

“Through this study, we have seen that about 90 percent of households in the slums reported dire food insecurity situations, and are not able to eat the kinds of foods they prefer such as indigenous vegetables and animal sourced foods like milk and eggs, which had been more affordable and accessible before the pandemic,” Dr. Christine Chege, the lead researcher on the project, told IPS. The Alliance provides research-based solutions to harness agricultural biodiversity and sustainably transform food systems to improve people’s lives in a climate crisis.

The study found that more than 40 percent of slum households lack employment and their average monthly household income is $78.

Scientists collected primary data from 2,465 households in the Kibera and Mathare slums, as well as from middle-income residents within Nairobi city.
Household dietary diversity scores were calculated based on 7-day food consumption recalls.

The City Carton slum in Nairobi, Kenya. An ongoing study by scientists from the Alliance of Biodiversity International and the International Centre for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT) has found that more than 40 percent of slum households lack employment and their average monthly household income is $78. Credit: Isaiah Esipisu/IPS

So far, the government has turned to policies such as curfews, social distancing and closure of eateries, bars, churches to contain the spread of the virus. As of today, Apr. 19, Kenya has reported over 151,000 COVID-19 cases.

But the current measures to restrict spread of the virus has had a direct negative impact on livelihoods of tens of thousands of urban slum dwellers across the country.

Generally, slum dwellers live in crowded single-roomed, shanties where a number of households share bathrooms, sinks, and water points. There is little or no space for children to play and social distancing is impossible.

They also do not have personal means of transport and so many have to use crowded public transport, which includes the use of motor bikes that sometimes carry up to three passengers on a single bike.

For these communities sanitisers remain a luxury. And some people use one disposable mask for more than a week — not for protection against COVID-19 infection, but to avoid the wrath of law enforcers who are reportedly using it as an excuse to distort money, particularly from the poor.

One respondent from Kibera slum told researchers that she was on antiretroviral therapy for HIV but she was not able to eat a balanced diet, as advised by her medic.

These are just some of the reasons why slum dwellers, according to the study, need differentiated containment measures that will not completely deny them access to food and livelihoods.

While the findings note that non-slum households may benefit from a decrease or cap on rising food prices to improve their food security and nutrition, for slum dwellers the solution is different and perhaps more complicated.

Researchers instead recommend strategies and interventions to assist slum dwellers in earning an income as a solution, first giving them economic empowerment in order to access nutritious foods.

“Once they are empowered economically, a second intervention would be towards lowering food prices,” said Chege.

According to Joram Kabach of Twiga Foods, a company that currently supplies fresh fruits and vegetables from over 20,800 farmers across this East African nation straight to more than 30,000 small-scale vendors via mobile technology, there is need for the government to partner with the private sector to bridge the gap between food and nutrition security for slum dwellers, and containment measures for the COVID-19 pandemic.

“During the pandemic period, we observed a sharp increase in our daily turnover from Sh13 million ($18,200) to Sh35 million ($318,200),” said Kabach.

“This means that in line with the government guidelines for social distancing, traders opted to stay away from congested market places and prioritised more secure digital platforms, where orders are made via mobile phones and products delivered at doorsteps with much reduced human interactions,” he told IPS.

In that regard, he observed that the government could cushion slum dwellers by offering them food vouchers, which can be redeemed from structured vendors who belong to structured platforms such as Twiga Foods. The company is also participating in the ongoing study.

Chege said she hoped that the research would influence policy design and implementation to include vulnerable poor consumers in the slums.

The post Kenya’s Poor Need Different Lockdown Restrictions to Survive, Scientists Urge appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Categories: Africa

Challenges with Skill Development Programmes During the Pandemic

Mon, 04/19/2021 - 14:05

Skilling programmes already face issues with the delivery of training and achieving the desired learning outcomes. Moving them online may in fact worsen learning outcomes. | Picture courtesy: Flickr

By External Source
HYDERABAD, Telangana, India, Apr 19 2021 (IPS)

India’s evolving Technical and Vocational Education and Training ecosystem (TVET) faced many challenges during the COVID-19 pandemic. Because of the national lockdown, organisations had to remain shut for 7-8 months, until September 2020.

This ecosystem is made up of a range of players, including vocational education providers such as schools and higher education institutions; short-term skill development programmes supported by corporate philanthropy and National Skill Development Corporation (NSDC); public and private Industrial Training Institutes (ITI), among many others.

Though internet accessibility has increased from 27 percent to 50 percent in the past five years in India, a majority of the youth who attend skill development programmes have very limited access to smartphones and data connectivity

All of these have faced an uphill task in reaching their customers, ensuring quality delivery of training, and connecting trained youth with jobs. And there have also been many lessons along the way, with different entities experimenting and adapting to the constraints posed by the pandemic.

How the pandemic impacted the skill development ecosystem

Delivery of training went online, widening the digital divide

Most skill development programmes in the country follow a classroom-led delivery model. Because of this, many faced huge infrastructure and human resource-related challenges while moving their operating models online overnight.

On the one hand, participants from low-income families didn’t have access to digital infrastructure. On the other, trainers were not equipped enough to deliver virtual training, particularly while doing so from home.

Though internet accessibility has increased from 27 percent to 50 percent in the past five years in India, a majority of the youth who attend skill development programmes have very limited access to smartphones and data connectivity. At Dr. Reddy’s Foundation (DRF), our skilling programmes are primarily designed for unemployed youth from low-income families, with schooling until the 10th or 12th grade.

We have found that prior to the national lockdown being announced last year, 25-30 percent of our students did not own smartphones. The pandemic has widened the digital divide between these students, and those who have access to resources. Reaching them through any kind of online programme was difficult.

Few jobs, and the challenges of commuting

Job placements—a key indicator of success for all short-term training programmes—were adversely impacted when the lockdown began to be eased across the country. This was mainly due to a few things.

First, there was a negative impact on the demand-supply chain, which meant there were few job openings.

Sectors such as retail, hospitality, and tourism, for instance, were severely affected and had fewer job openings compared to healthcare, banking and financial services, information technology-enabled services, e-commerce, and logistics.

Second, the fear of getting infected with COVID-19 forced some students and their parents to defer placements.

Third, a lack of transport facilities, especially public transport, which is the preferred mode for a majority of Indians, made commuting to workplaces difficult for even those students who had received a job offer.

When cities started opening up, the local transportation cost (such as shared auto fare) tripled, creating further difficulties for students, especially in entry-level jobs which pay between INR 10,000-15,000. In our programmes, many youth who were in dire need of employment, preferred to join hyperlocal jobs, rather than travelling long distances in the absence of affordable transportation.

Funding ran dry

The funding sources for all government-sponsored programmes were largely unavailable during September-October 2020, when the lockdown was extended. This created a lot of stress on small skill development organisations and as a result, they were forced to downsize their project staff.

Many of the Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) foundations I know of have provided a lot of flexibility to their nonprofit partners to try new approaches, including virtual delivery and extending digital infrastructure support during this time.

This is so they can ensure that the impact of the lockdown on their skilling programmes is minimised.

As we are still in the midst of the pandemic, it seems that re-building the government funding pipeline may take some more time.

The phase one launch of Pradhan Mantri Kaushal Vikas Yojana 3.0 in January 2021 is a welcome change as it will revitalise government-sponsored skilling programmes to some extent. But the pandemic has also created an opportunity for CSR and private foundations, for industry (through apprenticeship programmes), and for employers to play a bigger role in creating a skilled workforce for the country.

What’s next? Virtual, blended, or self-learning?

The COVID-19 pandemic saw a surge in self-learning apps and virtually delivered programmes. But maintaining the same quality of training with a digital delivery model is a challenge. There are logistical issues, then there are issues with the trainers’ approach to engaging students digitally, and of course the commitment of participants to learn online.

Skilling programmes already face issues with the delivery of training and achieving the desired learning outcomes. Moving those same solutions online may in fact worsen learning outcomes. Additionally, we saw that during the lockdown, the impact of the training course varied based on the nature of the course that was delivered online.

It is easy to delivery theoretical concepts online, but practical sessions still require classroom support. So, ‘foundational’ courses might see better outcomes than those that teach ‘technical’ skills online. Based on our virtual programme learning, we think there is a huge opportunity to create quality digital training solutions for this segment of youth, with a trainer-assisted programme that can be delivered in a local language.

What we did, and what we learnt

Agility, using digital technology more, diversifying our funding portfolio, and investing in a Training of Trainers (ToT) course, helped us survive the crisis as well as create something new.

At DRF, we were able to quickly transition to and manage all key processes of our ‘core employability skills’ training programme online. However, in case of our healthcare skilling programmes it was difficult for trainers to deliver classes online due to the ‘technical’ nature of the courses and the practical elements involved.

We changed our outreach strategy while on-boarding students for virtual classes by clearly explaining to them how a virtual class will be delivered, through videos. We also encouraged students and their parents to arrange for smartphones at least on a temporary basis. We made training available at a discounted fee, which enabled them to buy required data packs to avail of the virtual training.

Investing in a ToT course was very helpful. We trained our trainers to deliver virtual training effectively; we developed short videos on core modules in vernacular languages; we delivered training virtually through Zoom in the first half of the day, and utilised the second half to keep students engaged through WhatsApp.

We also used our learning management system to administer assessments and share videos of core modules that students used for self-learning. Additionally, we held online meetings with parents and conducted extra sessions every Friday, which also contributed to achieving good learning outcomes.

On the funding side, having a diversified funding portfolio helped us to survive. Our long-term CSR partners supported us to manage our ‘core employability skills’ programme online, however, our healthcare skilling programme, which is supported by the government, was completely shut until the end of September.

In a recent study we conducted with the participants who were attending our virtually-delivered training, we found that 40 percent were comfortable attending the programme online (despite being given the option of in-person training).

This insight helped us design a digital delivery model, which has now been tested at scale with more than 10,000 participants. We have been able to do this without deprioritising our classroom-led model, which is still very relevant for a sizeable portion of the youth we work with.

Pranav Kumar Choudhary is the director of operations at Dr. Reddy’s Foundation.

This story was originally published by India Development Review (IDR)

The post Challenges with Skill Development Programmes During the Pandemic appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Categories: Africa

A Growing New Health Crisis Focusing on Emergency Rooms, Medical History & Vaccines

Mon, 04/19/2021 - 11:22

Samah Ghalloussi, one of the entrepreneurs interviewed for the article with a worker of the French Red Cross. Credit: French Red Cross

By Angel Mendoza
PARIS, Apr 19 2021 (IPS)

This year’s World Health Day on 7 April was an opportunity for three entrepreneurs to share their insights and reflections on a rather complex year due to the health crisis and comment on their experiences developing impactful products and services in this sector.

Emeric Lemaire, co-founder of Arkhn, Samah Ghallousi, CEO of AALIA.tech and Antoine Noel, co-founder and director of Japet, are all either associates of Liberté Living-Lab, (a tech for good innovation space hosting a multi-actor collective) or members of Tekhné, a start-up acceleration programme.

The annual World Health Days help to raise public awareness of a wide range of topics, and thus provide an opportunity to highlight three health issues, whether they concern professionals or the general public: medical data management, inclusion in the health sector, or the challenges of back health.

The health crisis has highlighted the problems of accessing and managing data in the health system. Some of the most striking examples of these problems include the poor management of the number of patients attending emergency rooms, limited access to medical history and therefore the risk factors linked to patients, as well as the recent administration of vaccines.

Emeric Lemaire, co-founder of Arkhn, whose mission is to enable more efficient and ethical access to hospital data, shares some lessons learned during this pandemic.

“Even if the past year has been very hard for our society because of the health crisis, there are some positive realizations for the future of the health system. In particular, some governments have taken measures to increase the resilience of hospitals, including investment in research and in their information systems: this is one of the main missions of the Segur (consultation of French healthcare system stakeholders), ” said Emeric.

According to Emeric, proper data management would help to better control the Covid-19 pandemic. Firstly, because access to medical information is vital for understanding the Covid-19 virus and the development of treatments/vaccines.

Secondly, this would greatly benefit research, which requires rapid data access in order to recruit patients for clinical trials.

Finally, from an organisational point of view, efficient and accessible data management allows for better monitoring of bed distribution and the construction of efficient propagation models.

Credit: French Red Cross & Aalia tech

Despite the pandemic, Arkhn has grown and is now supporting around ten hospitals. The teams are developing a digital platform that facilitates access to all the data collected in health care institutions.

They are deploying a standard data warehouse in each health care institution which is accessible through a universal interface (an API – Application Programming Interface – using the FHIR standard, an international reference for medical IT). This centralises data from existing software, which is difficult to access at present.

Enabling data access in this way has a number of advantages namely for research purposes (setting up cohorts, conducting clinical research), for improving the capacity of care teams and maximising their efficiency (monitoring patients’ progress, rapidly searching for medical information) and also for promoting the shared access of the data by the hospital’s partners (software publishers, pharmaceutical companies, etc.).

This year’s challenges? “To learn the lessons of this health crisis in order to build a health system more efficient for everyone and better able to respond to such pandemics.”

For Samah Ghallousi, Managing Director of AALIA.tech, there remains a major challenge in health care: inclusion. A real public health problem exists, on which AALIA.tech is working, which involves accessibility through language.

During the pandemic in France, an issue transpired whereby a whole population that did not speak French well enough struggled to understand prevention messages and even access health care.

“There are already often basic communication problems between doctors and patients, which means that some patients do not always understand their treatments and how to take them correctly. When a patient does not speak French or does not speak it well, the problem is even more complex.”

“If we are unable to translate messages into their own language, they will be less likely to manage their health correctly, which could lead to their condition becoming more aggravated or even worsened without the proper care and attention.” said Samah

AALIA.tech has therefore launched its product, currently in beta testing, to help emergency services by offering a voice assistant via an application that translates the health professional’s questions into the patient’s native language.

This technology takes into account the medical and cultural context of the patient, and allows for a fine-tuned understanding by not restricting the doctor to a list of questions, and not limiting them to a pre-established artificial language. The assistant has also been developed into an audio version to also help those who cannot read.

Back problems, common among workers, are even more likely to develop among the large number of home-based workers, who are often poorly equipped at home for extended periods of sitting. According to the medical journal The Lancet, an estimated 540 million people worldwide are affected by lower-back pain.

“The annual cost of back pain is more than €1.4 billion each year for the social security system. It is therefore essential to find solutions for people who suffer chronically from back pain as they represent 80% of the expenses. It is also essential to take preventative action to avoid entering this vicious circle,” said Antoine, co-founder and director of Japet.

One of the main themes of the last World Health Day is the “Mobilisation of all public health actors”, especially those who are not necessarily considered. According to Antoine, the mobilisation of companies is essential, as many risk factors are linked to professional activity.

To combat musculoskeletal disorders (MSD), Japet has designed exoskeletons for the labour market. This “Wearable Medicine” is defined as the combination of medical science and modern robotics.

The start-up markets its exoskeletons in France, Germany, South Korea and Hong Kong, and this year Japet intends to multiply its partnerships in Italy, as well as in several Asian and South American countries.

In addition, in the specific context of the epidemic, Japet is one of the many players who have mobilised. In 2020 they joined the French Red Cross accelerator to promote the integration of new occupational health solutions, and in particular to help staff working on the front line against the pandemic.

The post A Growing New Health Crisis Focusing on Emergency Rooms, Medical History & Vaccines appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Excerpt:

The writer is Communication Officer at Liberté Living-Lab, Paris France

The post A Growing New Health Crisis Focusing on Emergency Rooms, Medical History & Vaccines appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Categories: Africa

Colombia Gives Nearly 1 Million Venezuelan Migrants Legal Status and Right to Work

Sat, 04/17/2021 - 00:06

Colombia hosts the highest number of migrants and refugees from Venezuela. Credit: Tomer Urwicz.

By External Source
Apr 16 2021 (IPS)

Colombia will grant legal status to all Venezuelan migrants who fled there since 2016 to escape their country’s economic collapse and political crisis.

The bold new policy – which will give nearly 1 million undocumented migrants rights to legal employment, health care, education and Colombian banking services for 10 years – is driven by both empathy and pragmatism, says Colombian president Ivan Duque.

“They’ll likely stay for more than a decade,” Duque told NPR on March 3, 2021. “So it’s better to…open them the opportunity to contribute also to the Colombian economy.”

Documenting and absorbing so many migrants – who often arrive on foot, with only a handful of personal belongings and no valid ID – has been a challenge. Even rich countries like the U.S. struggle to handle mass migration

Venezuelan arrivals to Colombia are not confined to refugee camps, so they live scattered across the country. Documenting and absorbing so many migrants – who often arrive on foot, with only a handful of personal belongings and no valid ID – has been a challenge. Even rich countries like the U.S. struggle to handle mass migration.

But in some ways Colombia – itself no stranger to political strife and displacement – is uniquely prepared for this migration crisis.

History of conflict

Colombia has received the brunt of the exodus from neighboring Venezuela since 2015.

When many other South American countries closed their borders with Venezuela, Colombia offered a series of two-year permits giving about 700,000 Venezuelans the right to work and access to health care between 2017 and 2020.

Together with the new legalization plan covering 1 million additional migrants, nearly all the roughly 1.7 million Venezuelans who have come to Colombia since 2015 will have some form of legal status. New arrivals who are legally processed in the next two years will also be covered.

Colombia is not wealthy. But Colombians understand better than many what it means to be driven from your home.

Over 8 million of Colombia’s 50 million people have been displaced by ongoing civil conflict since the 1990s. At least 1 million moved into neighboring Venezuela, seeking safety and opportunity. A government peace agreement with the FARC guerrilla group in 2016 quelled but did not end violence in Colombia.

Because of this history, international organizations such as the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees and World Food Program have worked in Colombia for decades. Today, the U.N.‘s refugee agency and International Organization for Migration are leading a group of 73 international organizations and agencies to align their work with Colombia’s national humanitarian efforts. The group works in 14 states across Colombia, providing assistance that ranges from distributing COVID-19 hygiene kits to enrolling migrant children in school.

Humanitarian networks adapt

The Colombian government also has some 50 agencies dedicated to helping Colombians displaced by armed conflict. Now many are adapting that experience to help Venezuelan migrants.

Since 2019 we have interviewed over a dozen government officials, lawyers and civil society representatives in two Colombian “departments,” or states, that have received high numbers of Venezuelan migrants: Atlántico and Norte de Santander. This work was part of a broader study on how countries manage mass migration.

At the religious charity Secretariado de Pastoral Social-Cáritas, part of the Catholic Archdiocese of the city of Barranquilla, in Atlántico, the longtime director said the migrant situation today looks a lot like it did decades ago when Colombia’s civil conflict peaked in the Atlántico region, with people wandering around, not knowing anyone and not sure what to do or where to go. Then as now, they slept in the parks and on the streets.

“We already lived it in the ’90s,” said the director of Pastoral Social.

Back then, the group helped the Colombians displaced by fighting to find food and shelter. Now many of its clients are Venezuelan.

The nonprofit Opción Legal – an umbrella organization that manages refugee programs for the U.N. – has a similar origin story.

At its start 21 years ago, staffers worked in some of the most difficult conflict regions in Colombia, training the nonprofits that help displaced Colombians in accounting and legal processes, among other technical functions.

Now Opción Legal offers Venezuelan migrants free legal advice about getting Colombian health care and education, among other services. Using a nationwide network of 22 Colombian universities developed over many years, it trains students and professors to extend the reach of its legal support programs to Venezuelan migrants.

Troubles ahead

In 2019, nearly 80 million people across the globe – mostly Syrians, Venezuelans, Afghans and South Sudanese – were driven from their homes by crime, climate change, chronic poverty, war, political instability and disaster, according to the U.N. – an all-time high. Many will spend years or decades waiting for a permanent solution, whether that be settling locally, returning home or finding a new country to make a life.

Colombia’s new legalization plan reflects an assessment that Venezuela’s collapse is a long-term challenge and that integrating migrants is a better solution, economically and socially, than trying to keep out or expel them.

Colombia is being internationally applauded for its humanitarianism. But equipping hospitals and schools to handle the needs of this rapidly growing and often very needy population will require a lot of money. And most of it will have to come from the international community, because Colombia does not have the money to do it single-handedly. Yet the Venezuelan migrant crisis is a chronically underfunded area of humanitarian work.

The legalization plan also risks inflaming anti-migrant sentiments in Colombia. Particularly in border areas, some blame rising violence on migration – though evidence shows Venezuelan migrants are more likely to be crime victims than perpetrators.

And Colombia still has domestic migration problems of its own. Dissident FARC members, other guerrilla groups, drug cartels and insurgencies continue to battle over territory and resources, displacing 70,865 more Colombians last year alone.

The Colombian government is betting that the U.N. and international agencies will help it fulfill its ambitious goal of welcoming 1.7 million Venezuelan refugees and migrants.

If it works, that money would improve government services for all Colombians, too.

Lia Castillo, Liss Romero and Lydia Sa conducted research, documentation and analysis for this story.

Erika Frydenlund, Research Assistant Professor, Old Dominion University; Jose J. Padilla, Research Associate Professor, Old Dominion University, and Katherine Palacio, Assistant professor and data analyst, Universidad del Norte

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

The post Colombia Gives Nearly 1 Million Venezuelan Migrants Legal Status and Right to Work appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Categories: Africa

Covid-19: The Makings of a Third World War

Fri, 04/16/2021 - 19:02

By Selim Jahan
Apr 16 2021 (IPS-Partners)

When we were growing up in the sixties during the time of the Cold War between the USA and the then Soviet Union, we would often hear about a possible Third World War. Sometimes, the situation would get so heated that people would fear the Third World War might not be far away. I still remember the events in 1961, when the threats and counter-threats between President John Kennedy and Prime Minister Nikita Khrushchev over the Bay of Pigs reached such an extreme level that a Third World War seemed imminent.

Sixty years have passed since then—and no, there hasn’t been a Third World War in all those years. At the beginning of last year, such a war seemed to be a far-fetched possibility, rooted only in imaginations. But in the aftermath of the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic, it doesn’t seem to be so anymore. In fact, I’m willing to argue that a Third World War has already started last year and we have been fighting it ever since.

Make no mistake, Covid-19 has imposed a war and there is no getting away from it. The whole world has been trying to fight back against this invisible, common enemy of humankind. Just like the waves, this war has been splashing on the shores of country after country. The enemy has also been changing its traits and tactics. It doesn’t spare anyone—big or small, rich or poor, male or female.

So far, globally 221 countries and territories have been affected by Covid-19, more than 138 million people have been infected, and nearly 3 million people have died. I am aware that in terms of numbers, this is quite small compared to the death tolls of the First and Second World Wars. But in an advanced world dominated by science and technology, this is quite a high number. And all these lives were lost or ravaged not because of the use of weapons, but because of a virus. We have seen the destructive power of this enemy in countries like the USA, the UK, Brazil and India.

This war has rattled human lives and livings, destroyed economies, and changed day-to-day human relations and interactions. We are locked inside the house. The modus operandi of work has changed dramatically. Children are no longer going to school. People have been losing jobs, shops and businesses have closed down, and the economies have become stagnant. The ways of human greetings have also changed. People are not touching each other, and are refraining from going to each other’s house. The world is fighting this enemy using two weapons—first, by following health protocols, for example, regularly washing hands, wearing masks and maintaining social distance; and second, by taking vaccine which, although necessary, is not a sufficient instrument by itself to overcome Covid-19.

But it is important to recognise that with the Covid-19 vaccines, a new threat in the form of “vaccine nationalism” is also emerging, which is detrimental to the fight against Covid-19. This would have implications on global political economy in terms of power shifts and power relations among countries, as well as the power structure of the system. Because of a mismatch between the global demand for Covid-19 vaccines and their global supply, three trends are quite clear: First, every country is looking at its own interest and trying to protect its own people with the vaccines. As a result, every country is trying to get as many vaccine doses as it can. Second, the demand for Covid-19 vaccines is global but the vaccines are produced by a few countries. So, these vaccine-producing countries are also pursuing a policy of trade protectionism as far as the distribution of vaccines is concerned. Third, the vaccines are being used in power diplomacies by the rich countries.

Remember that with the advent of various vaccines, some countries moved fast to secure vaccines from various production points. Some countries were successful and some were not. Canada is an example where lack of access to vaccines in the global market delayed its whole inoculation programme at home. US President Joe Biden, after being elected, warned that vaccines produced by US firms would first be used to meet domestic demand before exporting them to other countries.

Given the context of European Union (EU) and Brexit, the situation in Europe has been much more complex. Since its birth, the UK-produced AstraZeneca vaccine faced criticism not from the scientific community but from the political leaders of the EU, including the French president and the German chancellor. The relentless efforts by the EU political leadership to discredit AstraZeneca were, according to some analysts, a backlash to the UK’s decision to leave the EU. Over the months, a number of EU countries abandoned the AstraZeneca vaccine and as a result, their vaccination programmes suffered a severe blow. The EU also put conditions that no EU country can export Covid-19 vaccines to non-EU countries and the export must be confined to EU members if there is a need by another EU country. Last week, the UK has also announced similar restrictive measures.

Because of all the dynamics of political economy of rich countries, the availability of such vaccines to the developing world would suffer. Already, some developing countries have run out of their initial supplies and are now turning to China and Russia, the efficacy of whose vaccines is often questioned. In this new world with new realities, in the coming days, the power of a rich country would be determined to a large extent by the stock of vaccine it has and its production capacity. That country will use its vaccine power to extend its geopolitical strength. Among the developing countries, there will be those preferred by the developed countries as far as the supply of vaccines to those countries is concerned. Covid vaccine may be a crucial determinant in informing and influencing the future global system.

Clearly, we are in the midst of a very different kind of a global war. And people are dying in great numbers every day. The First and Second World Wars lasted for about five years, and the 1918 Spanish Flu pandemic lasted for about two years. How long would the present Covid-19 war continue?

Selim Jahan is a former Director, Human Development Report Office, UNDP.

This story was originally published by The Daily Star, Bangladesh

The post Covid-19: The Makings of a Third World War appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Categories: Africa

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