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Excerpt:

In this edition of Voices from the Global South, Sam Olukoya goes to Maiduguri, Borno State in north-eastern Nigeria, and reports on how climate change is fuelling Boko Haram's insurgency.

The post How Climate Change is Fuelling Insurgency of Nigeria’s Militant Boko Haram appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Feroza Begum, Leprosy activist. Credit: Rafiqul Islam / IPS

By Rafiqul Islam
DHAKA, Bangladesh, Dec 12 2019 (IPS)

When Feroza Begum was first diagnosed with leprosy in 2006, it felt as though she had been struck by a thunderbolt due to the deep-seated prejudice in her society that the disease is a curse from Allah (God).

“ I was affected with leprosy disease, nobody accepted me (in the past). They had made me isolated. I cannot forget the plight I suffered at that time. Even my family was broken as I was left by my husband,” she told IPS. The 35-year old says she was ostracized and made to feel like a lesser person.

Feroza travelled about 200 kilometres from Bogura district to Dhaka, the capital city to attend the first-ever Conference of organizations of persons affected by leprosy. Feroza came to listen and talk to other people who had similar stories and also to engage with organizations that are fighting for an end to discrimination of people with leprosy.

“I got married in 2006 and a few days later, I was diagnosed as a leprosy patient’. She says after the diagnosis, members of her husband’s family started ignoring her. ‘They ignored me and did not talk to me and one day sometime in 2007 my husband divorced me and sent me back to my father’s home.”

After returning home, she started treatment with support from a local NGO and she eventually recovered from the Hansen disease. But as a result of the disease, she could not avoid disability.

Leprosy stigma in Communities

Although there is a stigma around leprosy in her society, Feroza is living with a disability and is leading a normal life. “Fighting stigma for a leprosy patient is a hard task in our society and leading a normal life is a challenging task too,” she added.

“Now my mother and I prepare mats and sell them in a local market. This is our only livelihood option but I never bow down to the stigma,” Feroza said.

Dr David Pahan, Country Director of Lepra Bangladesh, said Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s announcement of the ‘Zero Leprosy Initiative’ to eliminate the Hansen disease from the country by 2030 is commendable.

“Bringing leprosy patients into the mainstream of society is big for us as there is a negative perception about leprosy in our society,” he told IPS on the sidelines of the conference.

Now it is time for an Action Plan

Although the Zero Leprosy Initiative was announced, formulation of policies and action plans to eliminate leprosy is also a challenging task which lies ahead, he added.

Dr Pahan, who has been working on leprosy elimination since 1996, said leprosy patients must raise their voice together so that the authorities concerned take proper steps to bring them into the mainstream of society.

Dr David Pahan, Country Director of Lepra Bangladesh. Credit: Rafiqul Islam / IPS

Close to 100 leprosy patients and representatives from several organizations working in the field of leprosy attended the landmark leprosy conference in Dhaka which was organized by members of the Leprosy and TB Coordinating Committee (LTCC) and People Organizations, with support from The Nippon Foundation and Sasakawa Health Foundation.

The conference allowed people from across the country to share their experiences about the long plight in the recovering period of the disease.

Bangladesh is still a high burden leprosy country. The registered prevalence of leprosy was 0.7 percent, 0.27 percent and 0.2 percent in 2000, 2010 and 2016 respectively, and stood at 0.19 per 10,000 population in 2018, according to official data. The data also shows that about 4,000 patients were detected per year in the country over the last few years, with this figure standing at 3,729 in 2018.

Access to resources limited

Sonia Prajapoti of HEED Bangladesh, a local NGO working on leprosy control, said the case of leprosy is highly prevalent among tea workers in Sylhet, Habiganj and Moulvibazar districts as they are not aware of the leprosy disease and have limited access to civic amenities.

She said a social awareness must be created among the tea workers to keep them free from leprosy, while the leprosy patients could be brought into the mainstream of society by increasing their social status, providing proper healthcare and creating working opportunities for them.

“Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s announcement of the ‘Zero Leprosy Initiative, will increase the voice of the people who have been working on leprosy elimination, and this will help them fight leprosy together,” said participant Shandha Mondal, district coordinator of local NGO Shalom (leprosy) in Meherpur.

Speaking as the chief guest at the conference, Chairman of The Nippon Foundation and WHO Goodwill Ambassador for Leprosy Elimination, Yohei Sasakawa, assured Bangladesh of continuing support of the implementation of ‘the Zero Leprosy Initiative’ which was announced by Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina and which aims to eliminate leprosy by 2030.

“The government has already announced the Zero Leprosy Initiative that will help eliminate the discrimination the leprosy patients have been facing,” he said.

“You, the leprosy patients, know better about the disease than doctors…your government is working to eliminate leprosy by 2030. And we are here to know how we can help your government fight leprosy,” Sasakawa said.

The Nippon Foundation and the Sasakawa Health Foundation of Japan organized a national conference on leprosy in Dhaka on December 11 under the theme “ZeRo leprosy initiative”.

The post Mainstreaming Leprosy-affected People a Big Challenge in Bangladesh appeared first on Inter Press Service.

By Crystal Orderson
DHAKA, Dec 12 2019 (IPS)

The Chairman of The Nippon Foundation and Sasakawa Health Foundation, Yohei Sasakawa is passionate about ensuring the world does not forget Leprosy and reminding us of the discrimination that people living with Leprosy still face. Sasakawa who is also a WHO Goodwill Ambassador is in Bangladesh where his Foundation held the first-ever meeting of organizations working in the leprosy field.

Mr Sasakawa, speaking through a translator spoke to IPS’s Crystal Orderson on why he believes Leprosy is such an important health issue that should never be forgotten or ignored.

 

 

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International Court of Justice in The Hague. Credit: United Nations

By Thalif Deen
UNITED NATIONS, Dec 12 2019 (IPS)

Appearing before 17 judges of the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in The Hague, Aung San Suu Kyi, the de facto civilian leader of Myanmar, became a public apologist for the military government of Myanmar which has long been accused of genocide and forcing over 730,000 Rohingya Muslims to flee to neighboring Bangladesh since a 2017 crackdown.

She was now ingloriously reduced to the point where she was defending the same military junta she battled for decades, which helped her win the Nobel Peace Prize back in 1991, while she was campaigning for democracy at the same time.

And her appearance before the ICJ was also meant to boost her popularity at home while plotting a meticulously laid path for re-election in 2020—this time misusing the halls of justice in The Hague?

Dr. Simon Adams, Executive Director of the Global Centre for the Responsibility to Protect, told IPS: “This case marks the final ignoble fall of Aung San Suu Kyi from Nobel Peace Prize winner to genocide denier and defender of Myanmar’s murderous military.”

It is a shocking fall from grace and dignity in the pursuit of domestic political power, he added. He also pointed out that this case is “truly historic”.

“Myanmar’s responsibility for genocide is being discussed in front of the International Court of Justice and the eyes of the world. The Gambia should be congratulated for having the intestinal fortitude to take this case forward when so many states and superpowers did not,” he added.

He said any other signatory to the Genocide Convention could have filed this case but only The Gambia had the courage to do so. This case is about establishing the historical truth of Myanmar’s state responsibility for genocide against the Rohingya.

Dr Adams said the ICJ could issue provisional measures that actually have an impact on the ground inside Myanmar and could help ease the persecution of the Rohingya.

And symbolically this ICJ case is devastating for Myanmar’s military. The whole world is discussing their atrocities. Their sense of impunity is looking a little less flimsy than they hoped, he declared.

Responding to the statement made by Aung San Suu Kyi at the ICJ, Nicholas Bequelin, Amnesty International’s Regional Director, said: “Aung San Suu Kyi tried to downplay the severity of the crimes committed against the Rohingya population. In fact, she wouldn’t even refer to them by name or acknowledge the scale of the abuses. Such denials are deliberate, deceitful and dangerous.”

The exodus of more than three quarters of a million people from their homes and country was nothing but the result of an orchestrated campaign of murder, rape and terror. To suggest that the military ‘did not distinguish clearly enough between fighters and civilians’ defies belief, Bequelin noted.

“Likewise, the suggestion that Myanmar authorities can currently and independently investigate and prosecute those suspected of crimes under international law is nothing but a fantasy, in particular in the case of senior military perpetrators who have enjoyed decades of total impunity,” he declared.

Dr Tawanda Hondora, Executive Director of World Federalist Movement – Institute for Global Policy (WFM-IGP), the organisation that houses and coordinates the work of the Coalition for the International Criminal Court (CICC), told IPS Aung San Suu Kyi’s concession that “…under the circumstances, genocidal intent cannot be the only hypothesis” is reason enough for the ICJ to impose an injunction against Myanmar for the well documented atrocities that have been committed in the country.

He said Aung San Suu Kyi must do the right thing and concede to the imposition by the ICJ of interim measures against Myanmar prohibiting its security forces from persecuting the Rohingya.”

“The Gambia must be applauded for lodging a complaint calling for the protection of the Rohingya in Myanmar.”

“The Rohingya minority in Myanmar have suffered terribly at the hands of the military regime but unlike Aung San Suu Kyi’s they are not in a position of power and have needed the goodwill of The Gambia.”

Referring to the paralysis in the UN Security Council , Dr Hondora said the leaders of the US, Russia, China, the UK and France – countries that constitute the UNSC P5 – should be ashamed that it has fallen on the Gambia a small country struggling with the aftereffects of the rule by a tyrant, Yahya Jammeh, to seek justice for the Rohingya”

The World Federalist Movement – Institute for Global Policy has called on the UN General Assembly to stand as one against states and others that commit offences that shock the conscience of humankind.

“The UN General Assembly must push for real and effective reforms of the UN system so that we can realise our collective ambition for the world to Never Again suffer such unimaginable atrocities,” he said.

Meanwhile, in a statement released here, the Global Centre for the Responsibility to Protect said a decision on the request for provisional measures can be expected within weeks.

According to Article 94 of the UN Charter, judgments of the ICJ are binding and the UN Security Council can take collective action to ensure that they are upheld.

Members of the Security Council should name the crime committed against the Rohingya and actively ensure that any provisional measures imposed by the Court are expeditiously implemented.

During her remarks the Nobel Peace Prize winner acknowledged the disproportionate use of force in the context of an “internal armed conflict,” but denied genocidal intent, the Global Centre said.

Tellingly, Aung San Suu Kyi did not use the word “Rohingya” once during her statement. Human rights specialists have argued that Myanmar’s official denial of Rohingya identity is inextricably linked to their policy of persecution, the denial of universal human rights and ultimately to the genocidal actions of the military in Rakhine State during August-December 2017.

On 9 December Canada and the Netherlands issued a joint statement welcoming the ICJ case and expressing their “intention to jointly explore all options to support and assist The Gambia in these efforts.”

All other parties to the Genocide Convention should also meaningfully support the case through public statements and legal interventions at the ICJ.

The international community failed to prevent a genocide in Myanmar, but it can still act to hold the perpetrators accountable, the statement added.

The writer can be contacted at thalifdeen@ips.org

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Secretary-General of the Commonwealth Patricia Scotland said there is urgent need for higher climate ambition to limit global temperature increase to 1.5 ° Celsius – or risk severe and irreversible impacts. Credit: Desmond Brown/IPS

By Desmond Brown
MADRID, Dec 12 2019 (IPS)

Commonwealth countries, including those in the Caribbean, continue to push for more ambition, following reports that a few very influential parties have stymied efforts to respond to the climate emergency.

The Alliance of Small Island States (AOSIS) has expressed concern that if this persists, the majority’s efforts to create platforms to unleash climate action suitable for averting catastrophic warming will be thwarted.

• World Resources Institute explains that “in the climate negotiations, “ambition” refers to countries’ collective will—through both domestic action and international initiatives—to cut global greenhouse gas emissions enough to meet the 2°C goal”.

As the United Nations climate negotiations, the 25th Conference Of The Parties (COP25), is nearing an end, Secretary-General of the Commonwealth Patricia Scotland said there is urgent need for higher climate ambition to limit the global temperature increase to 1.5 ° Celsius – or risk severe and irreversible impacts.

“We’ve never seen disasters on this scale before – bigger than ever, seas are rising, there’s increased desertification, increase in drought,” Scotland told IPS.

“The fight is on. Nobody ever knows how a COP will go until the end, so there’s a lot of us who are advocating for greater ambition because we have no choice.”

• According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), it is imperative that global warming be held to 1.5 ° C above pre-industrial levels. It also warns that global warming of 2 ° C would have devastating impacts on the planet, including more frequent extreme weather events, flooding and drought.
• A special report from the IPCC defines global warming as “an increase in combined surface air and sea surface temperatures averaged over the globe and over a 30-year period”.
• The report, entitled Global Warming of 1.5 ° C: An IPCC Special Report on the impacts of global warming of 1.5 ° C above pre-industrial levels, uses comparisons to the 1850 to 1900 period as an approximation of pre-industrial temperatures.

Scotland said an ideal outcome from COP 25 would be recognition of the IPCC’s findings.

“A recognition that we have no time. A recognition that the IPCC reports are correct and that we now have an aggressive implementable, action-oriented plan, which every single country is going to be committed to delivering. That would be my dream,” Scotland said.

“If you look through everything the Commonwealth is doing, we too are tired of talk; we want to do. We are committed to doing.”

Scotland said commonwealth countries are living climate change.

• This September, the Bahamas was hit by Hurricane Dorian, resulting in initial damages already totalling $3.4 billion, equal to one-fourth of their Gross Domestic Product (GDP).
• The catastrophic 2017 Atlantic hurricane season affected many Caribbean states, resulting in an estimated 3,300 deaths and damages estimated at $282 billion.
• In Dominica, Hurricane Maria resulted in total damages of $931 million or 236 perecent of their 2016 GDP.

“We are living with the sea rises, we are living with coastal erosion, we are living with the degradation of habitats, we are living with the reality of what climate change means, and we’re fighting,” Scotland said.

“It is not enough for us to talk. All of us need to do constructive things, which will make it incrementally better and more achievable for us to get where we can go. I think we can do it, but we haven’t got a lot of time.

“I’ve said before, human genius got us into this mess, and human genius is going to have to get us out. And I know that the people of the Caribbean and the people of the Commonwealth, we have a lot of genius, so we are going to have to utilise it very quickly,” she added.

Dr. Douglas Slater, Assistant Secretary General at the CARICOM Secretariat, said the expectation coming into COP 25 was that it was all about ambition.

For the Caribbean, he said, ambition is about trying to have member states committing to keeping the global temperature rise to below 1.5 ° C.

“We know that is a big challenge, and the ambition we want is that there will be a recommitment of all, especially the big polluters, with their Nationally Determined Contributions,” Slater told IPS.

“In other words, what will they be doing to decrease greenhouse gasses and therefore keep temperatures down? Quite frankly, we are informed that there was supposed to be what you call a stock taking at this meeting, where we would have an idea of where we are. We’re told that that might now come out. If it doesn’t come out, we still hope that we will be on our way.”

Slater said Caribbean countries will continue to put moral pressure on big polluters as they were causing the problems and should commit to solving them.

“We’re seeing the horrible storms, but it is not just those. There are the slow onset events – that is, as the temperature rises and the level of the sea, we are losing land, we’re losing out mangroves, we are losing out coral reefs,” Slater said.

“We want that reality coming out of this COP, that we send a message strong enough so that the bigger players understand and to put some moral pressure on them to say ‘hey, we are part of the universe. We have a right to be here, and that right we have to be here depends on all of us working together.’”

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Chairman of the Nippon Foundation and Sasakawa Health Foundation in Japan Yohey Sasakawa speaking at the Conference of Organizations of Persons Affected by Leprosy in Dhaka, Bangladesh. Credit: Rafiqul Islam / IPS

By Rafiqul Islam
DHAKA, Bangladesh, Dec 12 2019 (IPS)

Chairman of The Nippon Foundation and Sasakawa Health Foundation, Yohei Sasakawa, has assured Bangladesh of continuing support for the Zero Leprosy Initiative announced by the country’s Prime Minister, Sheikh Hasina, aimed at eliminating leprosy by 2030.

Sasakawa was speaking at the opening of the first ever meeting of organizations working on leprosy in Bangladesh.

“The government has already announced the Zero Leprosy Initiative that will help eliminate the discrimination the leprosy patients have been facing,” he told a conference in the country’s capital. Prime Minister Hasina on Wednesday (December 11) also addressed the conference and Sasakawa reminded activists that the country’s leader expressed her commitment to make Bangladesh free from leprosy in the next decade.

Several organizations working in the field of leprosy, like members from the Leprosy and TB Coordinating Committee (LTCC) and People Organizations with support from The Nippon Foundation and Sasakawa Health Foundation, are attending the gathering.

Bangladesh’s leprosy burden ranks fourth-highest in the world. Four thousand new cases are detected annually – an average of 11 to 12 cases per day over the last 10 years. Every year an estimated 3000 leprosy sufferers are affected by complications that require specialized treatment in hospital.

Although the the number of leprosy cases are declining, more than one-third of leprosy patients are facing the threat of permanent and progressive physical and social disability.

Govenment needs help

Calling upon the leprosy patents to extend their support to the government in this regard, Sasakawa said Bangladesh’s Ministry of Health could not fight leprosy alone.

Sasakawa, also a World Health Organisation (WHO) Goodwill Ambassador, said: “You, the leprosy patents, know better about the disease than doctors. Your government is working to eliminate leprosy by 2030. And we are here to learn how we can help your government fight leprosy.”

He asked the participants to play a strong role in eliminating leprosy in Bangladesh. “I hope you will convey the lessons you learnt from the conference today to your community.

“If you all raise voice together, it would be stronger. So, you have to be stronger to fight leprosy (in Bangladesh). Your support is important to reach the goal,” he said.

About his journey as WHO goodwill ambassador, Sasakawa said he has been working on fighting leprosy around the world for the last 40 years.

“I have been providing assistance to about 120 countries, while I have traveled to different parts of the world 700 times to help (leprosy patients),” he said. “No matter which country I visited, the plight of the leprosy patients is the same.”

Sasakawa said he came here to share his opinion and experiences on leprosy from his journey. “I am very happy seeing the faces of leprosy patients who are participating in the conference, as this is the first time … we have met together,” he added.

Highlighting the nature of leprosy patients, the Nippon Foundation chief said the people who get disabilities suffering from leprosy and those become disabled due to road accidents are not the same, because leprosy is an infectious disease.

“That’s why leprosy patients fear to meet and their communities also do not accept it,” he said.

Role of NGO’s in the fight against Leprosy-free world

Sasakawa also praised the role of the NGOs, including Lepra Bangladesh and the Damien Foundation, in fighting leprosy in the country.

Shandha Mondal, district coordinator of SHALOM (leprosy), a local NGO working in Meherpur, said Prime Minister Hasina’s announcement on the Zero Leprosy Initiative will increase the voice of the people who have been working on leprosy elimination, and this will help them fight leprosy together.

Motiur Rahman, a leprosy patient of Gazipur, said the prime minister always gives priority to leprosy patients. For example, he said he had sought accommodation from the Bangladesh premier and he received a house from the Government.

The participants attending the national conference said that the prime minister’s call to local pharmaceuticals to produce medicines and distribute among leprosy patients free of cost is really commendable.

Speaking at the National conference on Zero Leprosy Initiative 2030, Prime Minister Hasina said many Bangladeshi pharmaceutical companies export medicines, and she called on these companies to produce drugs for leprosy locally and distribute those among leprosy patients free of charge.

But, they said, the PM should also instruct the authorities concerned to launch a new programme and announce a special budget for leprosy. This would be more helpful in fighting leprosy in Bangladesh, they said.

The Nippon Foundation and the Sasakawa Health Foundation of Japan organized a national conference on leprosy in Dhaka on December 11 under the theme “ZeRo leprosy initiative”.

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Fall Armyworm larva feeding and damaging maize plant. Credit: FAO

By Rémi Nono Womdim
ROME, Dec 11 2019 (IPS)

Dealing with transboundary pests is tricky at the best of times. Standards, practices, capacity levels and engagement vary across countries and regions, and responses are often ad hoc and ineffective. However, matters become even more complex when the pest in question flies over borders, threatens the food security and livelihoods of millions, and causes severe environmental and economic damage along the way. Fall Armyworm is such a pest.

Step forward the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) with the “Global Action for Fall Armyworm Control”, a pioneering initiative that aims to mobilize USD 500 million over 2020–22 to take radical, direct and coordinated measures to fight Fall Armyworm at a global level.

A brief introduction to Fall Armyworm

Fall Armyworm is an invasive moth originating in the Americas. It prefers to eat maize but also feeds on 80 or more other crops, including rice, sorghum, millet, sugarcane, vegetable crops and cotton. Once established in an area, Fall Armyworm is almost impossible to eradicate and very difficult to stop spreading – a sprightly adult can fly up to several hundred kilometres! Indeed, since its arrival in West Africa nearly four years ago, Fall Armyworm has already spread across the African continent; and beyond Africa, to more than a dozen Asian countries, including China and India. Europe could be next.

It’s hard to calculate the global extent of Fall Armyworm damage but, based on 2018 estimates from 12 countries, maize yield losses in Africa could be as high as 17.7 million tonnes annually. This equates to 40 percent of Africa’s annual maize yield or USD 4.6 billion. The most direct impact is on the continent’s smallholder maize farmers, most of whom rely on the crop to stave off hunger and poverty.

What is the Global Action?

FAO’s new Global Action for Fall Armyworm Control will massively scale up FAO projects and activities to reach out to hundreds of millions of affected farmers. The Global Action has three key objectives: i) establish global coordination and regional collaboration on monitoring, early warning, and Integrated Pest Management of Fall Armyworm; ii) reduce associated crop losses; and iii) lower the risk of further spread.

Rémi Nono Womdim

The Global Action will target the three regions that have experienced a Fall Armyworm invasion in recent years – Africa, the Near East and Asia – and align with FAO’s new data-driven Hand-in-Hand Initiative, which aims to support achievement of the UN Sustainable Development Goals by pairing the most developed countries with those with the highest poverty and hunger rates.

Knowledge sharing, innovation and research

Paramount in the Global Action will be coordinated efforts to spread knowledge and information to smallholders affected by Fall Armyworm, especially through the establishment or scaling up of dedicated national task forces. These task forces will both bolster and go beyond current FAO initiatives, such as the Farmer Field School programme, reaching into the most isolated communities.

The Global Action will also promote biological pest control and other innovative field practices, as well as technologies such as the open source Fall Armyworm Monitoring and Early Warning System (FAMEWS) tool, which uses artificial intelligence to help farmers with smartphones detect Fall Armyworm damage and choose appropriate response actions. As a near real-time data centre, FAMEWS allows for better estimates on pest spread and crop damage, which helps in targeting interventions.

There is no one-size-fits-all remedy. Combating Fall Armyworm will require bespoke, science-based solutions that take account of the specific context of each infested area. However, knowing what works best, and where, will require further research. Local knowledge and the decades’ worth of experience of dealing with Fall Armyworm in the Americas will also be important guides.

An auspicious beginning

It is fitting that the launch of the Global Action came just two days after the official opening of the FAO-led United Nations International Year of Plant Health 2020 (IYPH). The IYPH underlines the importance of plant health to both planetary and human health, and urges action against the further spread of pests and diseases, particularly due to climate change, trade and other factors.

Ultimately, the success of the Global Action, IYPH 2020 and other plant health initiatives will be determined by the ability of a broad range of stakeholders to work together for a common goal. FAO will play a lead role in driving this partnership model and, in the words of FAO Director-General, Qu Dongyu, commit “to putting the knowledge, experience and lessons learned from stakeholders and partners at the service of farmers throughout the world to stem the global threat of this pest”.

For more information: http://www.fao.org/news/story/en/item/1253916/icode/

The post Coordinated Global Action Is the Best Way to Control the Fall Armyworm Pest appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Excerpt:

Rémi Nono Womdim, Deputy Director, FAO Plant Production and Protection Division

 
A new USD 500 million initiative by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations is leading the way.

The post Coordinated Global Action Is the Best Way to Control the Fall Armyworm Pest appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Sandhya Mandal - a community health worker working on leprosy in Meherpur district of Bangladesh. Credit: Stella Paul / IPS

By Stella Paul
DHAKA, Bangladesh, Dec 11 2019 (IPS)

Sandhya Mandal has never felt so vindicated. For the past four years, the 36-year-old community health worker from Meherpur – a rural district bordering India – has been traveling 50 km every day along dusty roads on an old motorbike, searching for leprosy patients who needed urgent treatment. But in her community, instead of compliments, neighbours and relatives raised questions about her work and her character. “They ask why I come home so late and what is this ‘work’ that I really do. Some even imply that I might be doing something like prostitution,” Mandal tells IPS.

However, Mandal – project manager at an NGO called Shalom, which works with the government to end leprosy, sat in an audience of diplomats, ministers and health experts from all over the country, listening to Sheikh Hasina – the prime minister of Bangladesh – at a national conference on leprosy. “Nobody can doubt me or my work now,” she says, proudly clutching the yellow invitation card she received from the organizers of the conference – her first to a national-level event.

Mandal has every reason to be in the conference: since 2015 she has searched and found over 300 new leprosy cases. In fact, in November this year, she found 10 new cases on a single day – the result of an intense door-to-door search in Gangni, a small town with a high rate of leprosy. “We opened our database of old patients and contacted each one of them individually. We asked them if they knew anyone around them who had leprosy. Nobody could give us any concrete information, so I went from one house to other and from morning to evening I covered 40 families,” she recalls the drill. It was hard and Mandal did not have any time to eat or drink. But by day-end, she had found eight adults and two children who had visible signs of leprosy. She arranged for all of them to visit the TB and Leprosy Clinic (TLC) in Meherpur, a facility run by the government.

Early detection in leprosy key

Early detection and early treatment are the key to complete cure for anyone affected by leprosy, tells Mujibur Rahaman – a doctor at the TLC Meherpur. “The treatment is free. We have enough medicines. But bringing the affected ones to the treatment facility remains the biggest challenge,” Rahman tells IPS. Bangladesh eliminated leprosy in 1998, but new cases continued to be detected. In 2018, 3 729 new leprosy cases were detected.

Earlier this week, in her opening speech at the national conference, Prime Minister Hasina asserted that Bangladesh was committed to become leprosy-free by 2030. According to Rahman, dedicated community workers like Sandhya Mandal are the key to realizing the zero-leprosy status.

“Identifying a new patient is one thing; convincing them to see a doctor is entirely different. It takes very different level of skills,” he adds.

Providing counseling services

Mandal throws a little light on that skill: every time she finds a villager with a suspicious white patch with numbness, she tells him that it is a skin disease that needs urgent medical attention. “I never tell him it’s leprosy because, only a doctor can declare that after a test and also, if I spoke of leprosy, it would shock the person as everyone is still afraid of the disease,” Mandal reveals.

Mandal also counsels and provides emotional support to the person after a doctor has confirmed his or her leprosy. “Women are more scared than men because they feel their husbands will abandon them if they find out about their sickness. They are also scared of how their community would react. I tell them that they must tell their husbands but explain that its curable. To the neighbours, they can say it is a skin disease. I hold their hands, spend time with them. It calms them and it also makes them feel confident,” she tells IPS.

Listening to the prime minister has been an inspiring experience, Mandal says. At present there are not enough community health workers on leprosy. For example, in her own NGO, there are just two health workers. So, to achieve zero-leprosy in the next 10 years, Bangladesh would need many more community health workers, she says. Equipping the field workers at the rural NGOs with a motorbike would also help, as transportation remains a huge challenge in the villages. If these gaps are plugged, there is no reason why Bangladesh could not be leprosy-free, she says.
For those doubting her work, Mandal now has an answer: “Even the prime minister has shown an interest in leprosy, in our collective work. If anyone still doesn’t know why I work on leprosy for such long hours, they can ask the prime minister!”

The Nippon Foundation and the Sasakawa Health Foundation of Japan organized a national conference on leprosy in Dhaka on December 11 under the theme “ZeRo leprosy initiative”.

The post Taking Bangladesh to Zero-Leprosy, One New Case at a Time appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Chairman of The Nippon Foundation Yohei Sasakawa and BRAC Executive Director Asif Saleh announcing $2 million partnership. Credit: Rafiqul Islam / IPS

By Rafiqul Islam
DHAKA, Bangladesh, Dec 11 2019 (IPS)

In the light of limited access to education for displaced Rohingya children, the Nippon Foundation has announced US$ 2 million support to BRAC to launch a project to ensure educational facilities to both Rohingya and local community children.

The Nippon Foundation made the announcement at a press conference at the BRAC Centre in Dhaka, which was attended by Nippon Foundation chairman Yohei Sasakawa and BRAC Executive Director Asif Saleh.

Under the US$ two million project, BRAC will build 50 steel-structured two-storey learning centres at Rohingya camps in Cox’s Bazar to provide an educational facility for Rohingya children. This project aims to provide educational access to 8,000 Rohingya children aged between 4 and 14 years. The Nippon Foundation is also supporting BRAC to open and operationalize 100 pre-primary centres for 3,000 host community children aged between 5 and 6 years through this funding.

Learning centres will educate Rohingya children

The project will ensure education access of Rohingya children to incoming children and existing children at the newly constructed learning centres.

As the host community in Ukhya, Teknaf and Ramuupazila of Cox’s Bazar are under significant stress. The project targets 3,000 host community children aged 5-6 years to get pre-primary education from BRAC-operated learning centres to prepare them for primary education. Engagement with parents, as well as the broader community, will be prioritised to select the location of centres, which will be established on the community premises.

Providing humanitarian support

The chairman of The Nippon Foundation Yohei Sasakawa said he visited the Rohingya camps in Cox’s Bazar to personally witness the reality there. “When I was there, I found the situation is much more serious.

“I have seen the refugee camps from the Myanmar side and Bangladesh side as well. And as a result of that, I actually saw, on my own eyes, how difficult the situation is. And under such a different situation, the Bangladesh government is trying to provide humanitarian aid (to the displaced Rohingyas),” he said.

Chairman of The Nippon Foundation Yohei Sasakawa and BRAC Executive Director Asif Saleh. Credit: Rafiqul Islam / IPS

Sasakawa, who is also a World Health Organization (WHO) Goodwill Ambassador, said given the circumstances, women and children are the most vulnerable in conflict-prone areas across the world and “that is why we need to provide support to women and children”. “With the partnership with BRAC, we will be able to provide more humanitarian support,” he added.

Regarding the long-standing Rohingya crisis, he said: “I hope the Rohingya problem will be resolved soon and the refugee camps (set up in Bangladesh) will not be permanent”. Bangladesh is hosting more than one million Rohingya refugees.

In August of 2017, a small group of Rohingya militants launched an attack against local police forces in Myanmar. This led to clashes between the Rohingya and the non-Rohingya population, Buddhist monks and police. This led to mass killings, abuses and abductions and s ost of the Rohingya fled to Bangladesh where the refugees now live in camps where they receive essential assistance and basic medical care

(http://www.ipsnews.net/2019/01/the-rohingya-the-forgotten-genocide-of-our-time/.

Promoting education to local and Rohingya children

BRAC Executive Director Asif Saleh said about 55 percent of the displaced Rohingya people staying in Cox’s Bazar are children and they have very limited access to education.

Apart from facilitating education to the Rohingya children, he said this project will provide support to 3,000 children of the host community as they are also very vulnerable and have limited access to education. “Our vision is to promote the facility to the poor and those who are still lagging behind,” he added.

Saleh said the support of the Nippon Foundation and the Japanese government are very important for Bangladesh, stating: “We always welcome such support”.

The Nippon Foundation has been working in Bangladesh since 1971. Its activities were focused on supporting health, education, human resource development and support for people with disabilities. These include, for example, supporting flood or cyclone victims, providing anti-leprosy drugs, scholarship programs, prevention of the cholera epidemic and supporting projects for relief and the rehabilitation of refugees in Bangladesh.

The Nippon Foundation, a Japanese private, non-profit grant-making organisation established in 1962, has decided to further support those projects in Bangladesh for basic human needs, including education and learning opportunities.

BRAC is a leading development organisation in Bangladesh dedicated to alleviating poverty by empowering the poor to bring about change in their own lives in Bangladesh.

The Nippon Foundation and the Sasakawa Health Foundation of Japan organized a national conference on leprosy in Dhaka on December 11 under the theme “ZeRo leprosy initiative”.

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Aung San Suu Kyi appears at the UN International Court of Justice (ICJ) on 11 December 2019. Credit: ICJ/Frank van Beek

By External Source
UNITED NATIONS, Dec 11 2019 (IPS)

Myanmar will have “no tolerance” for human rights abuses committed in Rakhine state and will prosecute the military, if war crimes have been committed there, Aung San Suu Kyi told the International Court of Justice (ICJ), the UN’s main judicial body, on Wednesday.

Ms. Suu Kyi was testifying in defence of her country, which is facing charges of genocide committed against the mainly-Muslim Rohingya minority group, brought by The Gambia, on behalf of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation.

The de-facto leader of Myanmar, who was placed under house arrest by the country’s then military rulers off and on over more than 20 years, is not on trial at the ICJ, which settles disputes between countries. The International Criminal Court (ICC) has the responsibility of trying individuals, and in November, the ICC authorized its own investigation into alleged crimes against humanity, namely deportation, committed against the Rohingya.

“If war crimes have been committed, they will be prosecuted within our military justice system”, the Nobel peace laureate Ms. Suu Kyi said in court, during the second day of preliminary proceedings at the ICJ.

Ms. Suu Kyi regretted that the case brought against her country by The Gambia was “an incomplete and misleading factual picture in Rakhine state and Myanmar”

In her opening statement in front of judges in The Hague, Ms. Suu Kyi outlined decades of tensions between Rakhine’s mainly Rohingya Muslim community and their Buddhist neighbours.

 These boiled over on 25 August 2017, when the country’s military – often referred to as the Tatmadaw – carried out a sweeping crackdown against Rohingya communities, in response to deadly attacks on police and security posts by separatists known as the Arakan Army.

The result was the exodus of more than 700,000 people to neighbouring Bangladesh, many of whom told UN-appointed independent investigators that they had witnessed targeted violence of extreme brutality.

Numerous alleged human rights abuses took place, with the then UN human rights chief describing it as bearing all the hallmarks of a “textbook example of ethnic cleansing”.

 

Genocidal intent ‘cannot be only possibility’: Suu Kyi

It could not be ruled out that the Tatmadaw had used disproportionate force, Ms. Suu Kyi told the Netherlands-based court, while also suggesting that “surely, under the circumstances, genocidal intent cannot be the only hypothesis” – the same phraseology used around a 2019 UN report by independent experts on the circumstances leading up to the Rakhine mass exodus.

According to the report by the UN Fact-Finding Mission on Myanmar, the country’s military were responsible for the “widespread and systematic killing of women and girls, the systematic selection of women and girls of reproductive ages for rape, attacks on pregnant women and on babies, the mutilation and other injuries to their reproductive organs, the physical branding of their bodies by bite marks on their cheeks, neck, breast and thigh, and so severely injuring victims that they may be unable to have sexual intercourse with their husbands or to conceive and leaving them concerned that they would no longer be able to have children.”

Highlighting that Myanmar’s own military justice system “must” be responsible for investigating and prosecuting allegations of possible war crimes by soldiers or officers in Rakhine, Ms. Suu Kyi regretted that the case brought against her country by The Gambia was “an incomplete and misleading factual picture in Rakhine state and Myanmar”.

 

Tatmadaw military ‘will be put on trial in Myanmar if guilty’

If war crimes have been committed by members of Myanmar’s defence services, Ms Suu Kyi added, “they will be prosecuted through our military justice system, in accordance with Myanmar’s constitution”.

In addition, she said that “it would not be helpful” for the international legal order if the impression takes hold that only resource-rich countries can conduct adequate domestic investigations and prosecutions”.

The Myanmar representative also insisted that it was of the utmost importance that the ICJ also assess the situation “on the ground in Rakhine dispassionately and accurately”.

The hearing, brought by The Gambia with the backing of the 57 members of the  Organization of Islamic Cooperation, alleges that “…against the backdrop of longstanding persecution and discrimination, from around October 2016 the Myanmar military (the “Tatmadaw”) and other Myanmar security forces began widespread and systematic ‘clearance operations’ – the term that Myanmar itself uses – against the Rohingya group”.

The “genocidal acts” that followed “were intended to destroy the Rohingya as a group – in whole or in part”, The Gambia’s submission states, detailing mass murder, rape and other sexual violence against the Rohingya and the “systematic destruction by fire” of villages, “often with inhabitants locked inside burning houses”.

From August 2017 onwards, such genocidal acts continued with Myanmar’s resumption of “clearance operations” on a more massive and wider geographical scale”, it continued.

This story was originally published by UN News

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Children pan for gold along the Bosigon River in Malaya, Camarines Norte, the Philippines. © 2015 Mark Z. Saludes for Human Rights Watch

By Komala Ramachandra and Juliane Kippenberg
WASHINGTON DC, Dec 11 2019 (IPS)

Millions of adults and children around the world suffer abuses as workers who obtain raw materials, toil on farms, and make products for the global market. They are at the bottom of global supply chains, for everything from everyday goods like vegetables and seafood to luxury items like jewelry and designer clothing that end up on store shelves worldwide.

“Ruth,” age 13, is one of them. We met her processing gold by mixing toxic mercury with her bare hands into ground-up gold ore near a mine, during our research in the Philippines. She told us that she had  been working since she was 9, after dropping out of school, though she often doesn’t get paid by the man who gave her bags of gold ore to process.

It’s dangerous being on the lowest rung of this global ladder. In 2013, over 1,100 workers died and 2,000 were injured when the Rana Plaza building, which housed five garment factories, collapsed in Dhaka, Bangladesh.

Since then, some progress has been made in making factories safer in Bangladesh, but there have not yet been sustainable reforms there or in other countries. To keep up with the demands of consumers, women experience a range of labor abuses in Bangladesh and elsewhere.

Multinational corporations, some of the wealthiest and most powerful entities in the world— 69 of the richest 100 entities in the world are corporations, not countries—have often escaped accountability when their operations have hurt workers, the surrounding communities, or the environment

In January 2019, the Brumadinho tailings dam in Brazil collapsed, killing at least 250 people—mostly workers—and unleashed a wave of toxic sludge. The dam had collected waste from a mine extracting iron ore, which is used globally in construction, engineering, automotive, and other industries.

In December 2019, more than 40 people, mostly workers, died in a factory fire in India’s capital, Delhi. Workers were asleep inside the factory, which makes school bags, when the fire erupted.

The era in which voluntary initiatives were the only way to encourage companies to respect human rights is starting to give way to the recognition that new, legally enforceable laws are needed. Although the debates vary by country, the overall trend is promising for the workers and communities that are part of multinational corporate supply chains.

Increasingly, lawmakers are acknowledging that companies need to take human rights—including freedom from unsafe working conditions, forced labor, and wage theft—into account, and are writing laws that require them to do so.

Multinational corporations, some of the wealthiest and most powerful entities in the world— 69 of the richest 100 entities in the world are corporations, not countries—have often escaped accountability when their operations have hurt workers, the surrounding communities, or the environment.

And governments aligned with powerful companies have frequently failed to regulate corporate activity, or have not enforced and even eliminated existing protections for workers, consumers, and the environment.

The UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights provide voluntary guidelines for companies on their human rights responsibilities, but they aren’t enforceable. Industry-driven voluntary standards and certification schemes, which have grown rapidly in recent years, can be useful, but are not sufficient: many companies will only act when they are required to do so by law.

These standards also don’t cover key human rights and environmental issues in companies’ supply chains, and the systems for monitoring compliance with the standards haven’t always been able to catch and rectify problems.

Both the Rana Plaza factory and the Brumadinho dam had been inspected by auditors hired by the companies just months before disaster struck.

In recent years, France, the Netherlands, Australia, and the UK have passed laws on corporate human rights abuses. But some of the existing laws don’t have any teeth. Australia and the UK, for example, merely require companies to be transparent about their supply chains and report any actions they may have taken to address issues like forced or child labor, but do not actually require them to prevent or remedy these issues. Furthermore, neither country has penalties  for companies that don’t comply with the law.

France’s 2017 law is the broadest and most rigorous regulation currently in effect, requiring companies to identify and prevent both human rights and environmental impacts in their supply chains, including the companies they control directly and those with which they work.

Companies in France published the first “vigilance plans” under this law in 2018. Failure to comply can result in lawsuits, and the first legal action under the duty of vigilance law was filed in October 2019.

Laws like the one in France, with requirements for company action, consequences when they fail to follow through, and a way for workers to hold companies accountable, open the door for greater protections for workers around the world.

The year 2020 promises more progress for more people. Parliaments in Germany, Switzerland, Denmark, Canada, Norway, Finland, and Austria are considering laws that would change the way that companies deal with human rights in their global operations, going beyond transparency and reporting to requirements to identify human rights risks in corporate supply chains and to take steps to prevent them.

In a related development, the International Labour Organization is considering whether a new binding global convention on “decent work in global supply chains” is needed, and will hold a meeting with government, trade union, and employer representatives in 2020 to explore this question.

By adopting robust supply chain regulation, countries will create a new international expectation for responsible behavior for businesses, and more rigorous human rights safeguards for millions of workers, like Ruth, who struggle to survive in their mines, factories, and fields.

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Excerpt:

Komala Ramachandra is a senior business and human rights researcher and Juliane Kippenberg is associate children’s rights director, both at Human Rights Watch

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Credit: UN University

By Thalif Deen
UNITED NATIONS, Dec 11 2019 (IPS)

The successful battle against climate change – which has triggered a rash of natural disasters, including floods, droughts and rising sea levels— will be predicated largely on the availability of financing.

The World Bank last year pledged $200 billion to finance the fight against climate change, between 2021 and 2025.

In October, the US offered $1.21 billion to support Blue Economy—an offer described as a proverbial drop in the world’s besieged oceans.

But Secretary-General Antonio Guterres is aiming high.

Last week, at the Conference of Parties (COP25) climate change conference in Madrid, he said: “We should ensure that at least $100 billion dollars a year, is available to developing countries for mitigation and adaptation taking into account their legitimate expectations to have the resources necessary to build resilience and for disaster response and recovery.”

Guterres said there was a need to replenish the Green Climate Fund (GCF) to meet the commitment to mobilize the estimated $100 billion per year for climate action.

But at the GCF Pledging Conference in Paris last October, rich nations pledged only $9.8 billion to the Fund leaving a yawning gap.

But not surprisingly, climate financing was one of the key issues at the two week long COP25 meeting which concludes December 13.

A coalition of over 150 non-governmental organizations ( NGOs) and climate change activists has called on developed countries “to stop using bullying tactics to block funding for climate disasters”.

“But developed countries – those most responsible for the climate crisis – including the UK, US, EU, Australia and Japan, have spent years blocking concrete progress to create funding and debt relief for countries in the global South most affected by rising global temperatures”, said the coalition in its letter*.

Credit: United Nations

Tim Jones, Head of Policy, Jubilee Debt Campaign and a signatory to the letter, told IPS that a new fund has to be agreed; otherwise countries suffering from the impacts of climate change will be pushed into taking on ever higher unjust debts.

“There are multiple sources of finance from taxes on financial transactions to international air travel. All developing countries hit be disasters should get moratoriums on debt payments so vital funds stay in the country for rebuilding in the immediate aftermath,” he pointed out.

Furthermore, said Jones, funds should stop being wasted on expensive private schemes such as climate insurance, which lead to public money being wasted on private sector profit.

For example, he said, one climate insurance scheme in the Caribbean has received $293 million in premium payments and grants from donors since it began in 2007 but has paid out just $131 million in claims.

In contrast, $105 million from the scheme has gone to private insurance companies as profit, he added.

https://jubileedebt.org.uk/report/dont-owe-shouldnt-pay-the-impact-of-climate-change-on-debt-in-vulnerable-countries

The open letter from the NGO coalition says: “The under-signed organisations, recognizing that the UN finds that climate disasters are now occurring at the rate of one per week and are set to cost at least $300 billion per year by 2030, call for an end to the stalemate in negotiations and the creation of a comprehensive financing facility, including debt relief, for developing countries experiencing such disasters.

“Without finance to help countries cope with climate-induced loss and damage, the most vulnerable parts of the world will sink deeper into debt and poverty every time they are hit by climate disasters they did not cause.”

The Warsaw International Mechanism for Loss and Damage (WIM), which is being reviewed at COP25, was established in 2013 to support vulnerable countries already experiencing extreme and slow onset climate disasters, such as flooding, droughts and rising sea levels.

Six years on, the WIM has failed in its main purpose – to propose concrete, rights-based financing solutions for communities being hit by climate disasters, the letter adds.

Cameron Diver, Deputy Director-General, the Pacific Community (PC), who is at the COP25 in Madrid, told IPS sea-level rise is already underway.

“We have seen its effects in the islands of the Blue Pacific continent, as we have in countries and communities around the globe. If we truly want to limit the impact on our populations, what we need, to paraphrase Secretary-General Antonio Guterres at the opening of COP 25, is ambition in mitigation, ambition in adaptation and ambition in finance”.

He said ambition in mitigation is to ensure that “we limit levels of greenhouse gas emissions to levels compatible with the Paris Agreement and that contribute to the transformative approach necessary for our economies and societies to make the low carbon transition.”

Without enhanced mitigation actions, global warming will continue, the climate emergency will become ever more dire and our communities will suffer the consequences, he warned.

“This must be accompanied in equal measure by increased ambition in adaptation, so that we accompany the most vulnerable countries and communities in their efforts to adapt to a changing environment and, for coastal communities, to increased salinization of soils and groundwater, to ocean acidification and coral bleaching that destroys coastal ecosystems and livelihoods, to an ocean that encroaches on sometimes already limited land masses,” he noted.

Without adaptation and mitigation working hand in hand, we will not get the full benefit of concentrated climate action to stem sea-level rise and its effects.

“And the achieve all of this, we need ambition in finance”, said Diver.

“We need to unlock and increase existing international and national climate funds to transform promises on the paper into outcomes in the field and we need public and private finance to accompany the low carbon transition, invest in the green and blue economies, divest investment portfolios of non-Paris Agreement compatible assets and provide the level of funding required to meet global climate ambition,” he argued.

Harjeet Singh, ActionAid’s global lead on climate change, told IPS: “Concrete financing solutions are urgently needed to repair the devastation already being caused by climate change and to prepare for an uncertain future.”

“Our analysis shows that ending state subsidies for fossil fuels and a progressive tax on the oil and gas industry would raise the billions needed to adapt to and repair the harmful impacts of global warming. These solutions put the onus on those responsible for the climate crisis and protect the rights of those most at risk,” he added.

ActionAid’s report, Market solution to help climate victims fail human rights test, looks at the various financing options that help survivors of climate disasters and protect their human rights.

https://actionaid.org/publications/2019/market-solutions-help-climate-victims-fail-human-rights-test

The report examined the current options for market, state and ‘innovative’ funding mechanisms available to cover the soaring costs of loss and damage related to rising global temperatures, reviewing their effectiveness against key human rights principles.

Singh said most market solutions put the financial burden back on developing countries, who are least responsible for causing the climate crisis. These mechanisms also fail against transparency and accountability measures and do not involve the people most at risk in decision making to protect their rights.

The analysis identified clear winners:

• • Progressive taxes such as a Climate Damages Tax on oil, gas and coal extraction and the Financial Transaction Tax, a small levy to raise revenue from the trading of financial instruments.

• Shifting state subsidies away from fossil fuels and towards addressing the impacts of climate change and funding a ‘Just Transition’ to a low-carbon global economy.

On the GCF, he said: “We expect rich countries to at least double their previous commitments to the Green Climate Fund, recognising that this remains inadequate to address the full scale of the crisis.

“To effectively tackle the climate crisis, we need to see a massive shift in financial flows, far greater than countries have pledged to the fund so far. Helping the world’s most marginalised people in developing countries tackle climate impacts requires grant-based public finance, not loans or private investments.”

*The NGO letter, which was sent to environment ministers, heads of delegation and COP25 President Carolina Schmidt, can be read here: https://actionaid.org/news/2019/more-150-ngos-sign-open-letter-calling-loss-and-damage-fund-debt-relief

The writer can be contacted at thalifdeen@ips.org

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By Crystal Orderson
DHAKA, Bangladesh, Dec 11 2019 (IPS)

Despite its efforts to eliminate leprosy as a public health threat, Bangladesh’s leprosy burden ranks fourth-highest in the world. Four thousand new cases are detected annually – an average of 11 to 12 cases per day over the last 10 years.

Leprosy issues have taken centre stage at the National Conference 2019 on Zero Leprosy Initiatives by 2030 in Dhaka Bangladesh. The country’s National Leprosy Programme, in collaboration with the Nippon Foundation and Sasakawa Health Foundation in Japan believes its key that every person with leprosy has access to the right medicines, diagnosed and treated in a timely fashion.

Akthar Ali is the Project Co-ordinator of the Missionary Sisters of Mary Immaculate (with the Pontifical Institute for Foreign Missions (PIME) Sisters) in Khulna in the south of Bangladesh and believes the country can be leprosy-free by 2030.

Crystal Orderson spoke Ali on the sidelines of the National Conference in Dhaka, Bangladesh.

 

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Mr Yohei Sasakawa, chairman of the Nippon Foundation and Sasakawa Health Foundation and WHO Goodwill ambassador. Credit : Crystal Orderson / IPS

By Rafiqul Islam and Crystal Orderson
DHAKA, Bangladesh, Dec 11 2019 (IPS)

Leprosy is not a curse but should be detected and treated early, Bangladeshi Prime Minister, Sheikh Hasina, has told delegates at a gathering in her country’s capital to discuss the elimination of the disease.

“In the past, it was thought that leprosy was a curse. But it was not a curse at all. The disease is caused by bacteria (Mycobacterium Leprae). We should fight it through research,” Hasina said, adding that the discrimination against leprosy sufferers should end. She called upon all concerned to work together so that Bangladesh could be leprosy-free before 2030.

Prime Minister Hasina, who spoke in Bengali at the National Conference 2019 on Zero Leprosy Initiatives by 2030, also committed her government to proper treatment for leprosy sufferers.

To achieve these targets, the country’s National Leprosy Programme, in collaboration with the Nippon Foundation and Sasakawa Health Foundation in Japan, has worked tirelessly to convene the conference, bringing together hundreds of health workers, medical professionals and district officers to discuss the issue under the theme “Zero Leprosy Initiatives”.

Certain areas in Bangladesh are particularly leprosy-prone, including its northern region and the Chittagong Hill Tracts, Prime Minister Hasina said.

Sheikh Hasina, Prime Minister of Bangladesh.

“If we can give special focus to these areas, I do believe it would be quite possible to declare Bangladesh a leprosy-free country before 2030,” she added.

“Leprosy patients must be considered on humanitarian grounds. If we all take a little responsibility in this regard, they will get recovery from this disease … I think we can do so,” Prime Minister Hasina said.

Distribute drugs free of cost

The prime minister said many Bangladeshi pharmaceutical companies export medicines, and she called upon these companies to produce drugs for leprosy locally and distribute those among leprosy patients free of charge.

The prime minister also warned that no-one could fire leprosy patients from their jobs but rather should arrange treatment for them.

End stigma and discrimination

The Chairman of the Nippon Foundation and World Health Organization (WHO) Goodwill Ambassador for Leprosy Elimination, Yohei Sasakawa, says leprosy is not only a medical issue but also a social issue “because of the stigma and discrimination that the disease attracts”.

He said: “We have an effective cure for leprosy, and it is essential that every person with the disease has access to the cure and is diagnosed and treated in a timely fashion. With timely diagnosis and treatment, a patient can be cured without disability.

“This conference presents us with an opportunity to re-focus efforts on leprosy and aim at an ambitious target: zero leprosy by 2030,” Mr Sasakawa added.

The WHO Representative to Bangladesh, Dr Bardan Jung Rana, told delegates that leprosy has caused immense human suffering when those affected remained untreated.

“With the aim of a leprosy-free world, WHO is committed to providing technical and strategic guidance, strengthening country-level capacity and delivering interventions through appropriate technology at affordable costs,” said Dr Jung Rana.

Leprosy a treatable disease

Leprosy is a chronic infectious disease affecting mainly the skin, the peripheral nerves, the mucosa of the upper respiratory tract, and the eyes. Leprosy is curable and treatment has been available through the WHO free of charge to all patients worldwide since 1995.

The history of leprosy dates back centuries in Bangladesh. Different Christian missionary organizations used to provide leprosy services in various high endemic areas in the country. In 1965 the government sector implemented leprosy services through three public hospitals.

Eliminating leprosy in Bangladesh

Despite its efforts to eliminate leprosy as a public health threat, Bangladesh’s leprosy burden ranks fourth-highest in the world. Four thousand new cases are detected annually – an average of 11 to 12 cases per day over the last 10 years. Every year an estimated 3000 leprosy sufferers are affected by complications that require specialized treatment in hospital.

Although the the number of leprosy cases are declining, more than one-third of leprosy patients are facing the threat of permanent and progressive physical and social disability. The human suffering resulting from the physical deformities and related social problems are immense.

Activists and community workers in Bangladesh welcomed the government’s commitment to ensure proper treatment for leprosy sufferers.

Delegates at National Conference 2019 Zero Leprosy Initiative by 2030, Dr Sr Roberta Pignone, PIME sisters (middle). Credit : Crystal Orderson / IPS

Stop pushing Leprosy in a corner

Dr Sr Roberta Pignone, Project Director of the Missionary Sisters of Mary Immaculate (with the Pontifical Institute for Foreign Missions (PIME) Sisters) in Khulna in the south of Bangladesh, told IPS: “It is good to listen to the prime minister and health officials and hear what they say they will do in the future to eliminate leprosy.” She added: “Leprosy is always pushed in a corner. It is good to hear that the government is aware of the disease. If the prime minister speaks to the nation, they will listen.”

The PIME Sisters have been working with leprosy since the mission opened its doors in 1986. “Sometimes leprosy is neglected and this conference shows that the government is committed to deal with leprosy,” says Dr Sr Pignone. “It is time to accept that leprosy is in the country and to deal with the situation.”

The Nippon Foundation and the Sasakawa Health Foundation of Japan organized a national conference on leprosy in Dhaka on December 11 under the theme “ZeRo leprosy initiative”.

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From left to right: Augustine Njamnshi an environmental legal expert, Tosi Mpanu Mpanu, a negotiator from the Democratic Republic of Congo, and Mohammed Nasr, the the African Group of Negotiators (AGN) Chair. Credit: Isaiah Esipisu/IPS

By Isaiah Esipisu
MADRID, Dec 11 2019 (IPS)

As the 25th session of climate negotiations draw to an end this week, the African Group of Negotiators (AGN) have been calling on the world to consider the continent as a special case in terms of implementation of the Paris Agreement and climate finance.

• The Paris Agreement is an agreement reached at the 21st Conference of the Parties (COP 21) in Paris, France, where the world’s nations undertook a determined course to reduce climate change. Among the commitments was to reduce the increase in global temperatures.

“We have been pushing for Africa to be given special considerations given the climate-related calamities already bedevilling the continent vis-à-vis the negligible amount of greenhouse gases emitted,” Ambassador Mohamed Nasr, the AGN chair and the Head of Environmental Affairs at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Egypt, told journalists at COP25 in Madrid.

He said that that the Paris Agreement, which was passed in 2015, had little understanding or acknowledgement for Africa’s special circumstances.

• The argument is that the African continent emits a mere 4 percent of the total greenhouse gases emitted globally, yet climate-related impacts are enormous, and science has shown that the situation is only going to worsen in the near future.

“This discussion has taken some time from 2015 until last year when it became clear that the issue has to be taken forward in a more constructive approach,” said Nasr.

Natural disasters

• In 2011, for example, the Horn of Africa region experienced a severe drought that claimed over 260,000 lives, making it one of the worst mass atrocities ever experienced in the region, according to the United Nations Dispatch.
• Another drought followed five years later in 2017, and in the first six months of 2019 there was another devastating drought in the region affecting more than 15.3 million people according to the United Nations.

Immediately after the drought, the Horn of Africa region expected a short rainy season, which usually begins in April. But this didn’t occur and instead the entire region is currently experiencing heavy downpours, which meteorological experts say is due to the warming of the Indian Ocean.

• So far, the region has had more than 300 percent above average rainfall, and this has resulted in floods, mudslides, and the collapse of buildings – which has caused the deaths to hundreds of people, while displacing thousands of households in the region.
• And when the floods eventually end, the region is expected to become a hotspot of waterborne diseases and other climate-related diseases such as malaria.
• At the same time the southern part of the continent is experiencing what farmers say is the worst drought they can remember.
• And earlier this year, Cyclones Idai and Kenneth, whose intensity and occurrence was attributed to  climate change, swept through Southern Africa affecting more than 2.2 million people in Mozambique, Zimbabwe and Malawi.

“Science has already warned that Africa was going to be the most impacted by climate change, and some of the disasters we are witnessing are just but a tip of the iceberg,” Augustine Njamnshi, a Cameroonian environmental legal expert, told IPS.

“We need funds to help our people develop resilience to these disasters, we need to give them appropriate technologies to enable them adapt, and we also need to consider that some of the problems they are experiencing are not their own making, and therefore it is injustice for them,” Njamnshi said.

A U.N. report indicates that African countries are paying between 2 to 9 percent of their GDP on adapting to climate change, a phenomenon caused by the developed world and Asian Tigers. And according to Dr James Murombedzi, a policy expert at the U.N., most of these expenditures are never budgeted for.

Climate Science

According to Nasr, AGN recognises last year’s scientific report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), which warned that on average Africa will be impacted at least 2° Celsius more than the rest of the world.

“This means that if the global temperatures rise by 1.5° Celsius, then Africa will experience 3.5, and this is a clear reason why the continent must never be treated the same way as the rest of the world,” said Nasr.

Africa Commitment to Paris Agreement

Nasr points out that despite the calamities, Africa has been at the forefront of combatting climate change, noting that African countries have submitted some of the most ambitious Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs).

• Under the Paris Agreement, all parties were supposed to submit their NDCs, which are a set of interventions prepared by countries to contribute to the reduction of Green House Gas (GHG) emissions and adapt to the impacts of climate change.

“We need special financial and technical support and motivation so as to implement the NDCs in a more sustainable manner,” he said.

Africa’s Natural Resources dilemma

The experts noted that Africa is endowed with natural resources in relation to oil, gas, coal among other minerals.

“We know that the mining is one of the highly emitting industries. But at the same time we know that oil and gas are very important resources for wealth. Yet, there is a call from the international community that we should not invest in such resources,” said Nasr.

“This puts Africa in a huge dilemma because as much as we are ambitious, the socio economic indicator on the continent is very low, hence the need for special supports so as to develop in a sustainable manner,” he said.

According to Tosi Mpanu Mpanu, a senior negotiator for the Democratic Republic of Congo, it becomes an emotional issue because the continent is suffering the impacts of climate change, which it has not contributed to, and yet it has natural resources which countries are being asked not to use.

“But it is important that we put our emotions aside and instead use objective tools, and those tools are what science says. All we need is to receive means of implementation such as financial resources, technology transfer and capacity building – which are contained in the convection,” said Mpanu Mpanu, the former AGN chair.

Recommendations from last week’s technical sessions are already being presented to high-level government decision makers. Once approved, they will form a basis for climate action for the continent.

Related Articles

• African Politicians Asked to Develop Legal Instruments to Fight Climate Change
• Climate Summit Kicks Off, Caught Between Realism and Hope

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A Rohingya woman and her child at a refugee camp in Bangladesh. Credit: Kamrul Hasan/IPS

By IPS UN Bureau
NEW YORK, Dec 11 2019 (IPS)

Nobel peace laureate Aung San Suu Kyi has arrived at the Hague to defend Myanmar at the International Court of Justice, against charges of genocide of the Rohingya people, as brought on by the Gambia.

Gambia’s Minister of Justice Abubacarr Tambadou on Tuesday said in his opening remarks: “All that the Gambia asks is that you tell Myanmar to stop these senseless killings.”

As the world awaits Suu Kyi’s moment of facing ICJ on Wednesday to “defend the national interest” of Myanmar, IPS’ exclusive reporting over the past several months from the frontlines of one of the gravest genocides of the decade is available here:

• 1.

Rohingyas: Lurching from Crisis to Crisis

• Rohingya refugees aren’t just suffering from effects of the violence, but also health implications that the crisis has led them to

2. Q&A: An Uncertain Future Ahead for Rohingya in Bangladesh
Masud Bin Momen, permanent representative of Bangladesh to the U.N. talks about challenges of addressing the Rohingya refugee crisis in the host country

3. Marooned in Bangladesh, Rohingya Face Uncertain Future
Women face the gravest brunt of the crisis, with their maternal and reproductive health facing issues, and many trafficked into sex-work

4. Myanmar Rohingya Face “Textbook Example of Ethnic Cleansing”
Rohingya refugees share accounts of horrific violence they faced that experts say are hallmarks of a genocide, and should be addressed accoridnlgy

5. Refugee Camps “bursting at the seams” in Bangladesh
As the crisis unfolded, authorities struggled to place the refugees in proper homes, and many lived in makeshift camps

6. Rohingya Crisis Stokes Fears of Myanmar’s Muslims
How the Rohingya Muslims live their lives in Myanmar, and are often failed by authorities there when facing racial discrimination

The reporting has been made possible with the support of UNESCO.

Rohingya women line up for aid. Credit: Sohara Mehroze Shachi/IPS

A Rohingya refugee woman carries relief supplies to her makeshift shelter. Credit: Umer Aiman Khan/IPS

Girls taking religious education lessons at a Madrasah in the camps. Credit: Kamrul Hasan/IPS

A group of Rohingya children emerge from a nearby religious school in Kutupalong camp. Credit: Naimul Haq/IPS

Rohingya people alight from a boat as they arrive at Shahparir Dip in Teknaf, Bangladesh. Credit: IPS

The post A Reflect on Why the Current Case Against Myanmar in ICJ Is Crucial appeared first on Inter Press Service.

By Kaveh Zahedi and Van Nguyen
BANGKOK, Thailand, Dec 10 2019 (IPS)

“The 2030 Agenda is coming to life”, declared the Secretary General at the opening of the first SDG Summit, a quadrennial event for the follow up and review of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. As leaders from Asia – Pacific took the floor, they highlighted country progress of SDG implementation and reaffirmed commitment to achieve the 2030 Agenda. Statements reflected different approaches across the region. Yet all converged on one priority: accelerated actions and transformative pathways.

Kaveh Zahedi

Because we are not on track.

Earlier this year, our Asia Pacific SDG Progress Report emphasized the region will not achieve any of the 17 SDGs by 2030 at the current pace of progress. While less people in Asia and the Pacific are living in extreme poverty (Goal 1), the poorest are harder to reach. They are more vulnerable to stresses and shocks as progress in reducing inequality has stagnated (Goal 10). Our region’s stubborn reliance on fossil fuels (Goal 7) continues to anchor countries to the grey economy of the past, shroud crowded cities with smog (Goal 11), and put millions of lives at risk (Goal 3). Communities living in low lying coastal areas are seeing their homes being swept away by rising sea levels (Goal 11) as climate actions have yet to take effect (Goal 13).

Business as usual is simply not an option.

Accelerating progress is essentially not about advancing on a single or a cluster of goals. Transformations are needed in the underlying systems behind the 17 Goals. Six entry points identified in the Global Sustainable Development Report 2019 offer a clear pathway to trigger change and multiply the impacts of our actions.

They resonate greatly with the development challenges of Asia – Pacific.

Investing in human well-being and capabilities such as increased public spending in Asia – Pacific to match the global average in the area of education, health and social protection, can lift over 328 million out of extreme poverty by 2030. It will also allow us to build resilience of the most vulnerable populations against external shocks, as revealed in ESCAP’s 2018 Social Outlook for Asia Pacific.

Increased investment to achieve energy decarbonization and universal access to energy would allow our region to reduce energy-related carbon dioxide emission by almost 30%; and avoid nearly 2 million premature deaths by 2030, as shown in ESCAP’s Economic and Social Survey of Asia and the Pacific 2019.

The entry point of promoting sustainable urban and peri-urban development is ever more critical as our region became majority urban for the first time in human history in 2019. The Future of Asian & Pacific cities Report 2019 shows that 1.2 billion new residents will move to Asian-Pacific cities by 2050. They will all need decent jobs, affordable housing, transportation, and clean water and sanitation.

Van Nguyen

We have the tools to support this transformation, with the four levers identified in the Global Sustainable Development Report 2019.

Governance, particularly effective, transparent, accessible and inclusive institutions, is fundamental to drive the implementation of the Goals. Countries gathering at the 6th Asia-Pacific Forum for Sustainable Development declared that the delivery of the SDGs relies on the whole-of-society approach.

Multi-stakeholder partnerships and participation are key success factors.

Sound economic policies and finance are key to fast track progress. ESCAP’s Economic and Social Survey of Asia and the Pacific 2019 estimates that the annual additional investment of 1.5 trillion to achieve the SDGs by 2030 in Asia-Pacific is affordable if countries develop sound tax policy, efficient public spending and private sector engagement.

Empowerment and inclusion, the epicenter of individual and collective action, was found to contribute to reducing inequality and accelerating the progress towards a broad array of the SDGs, according to the 2019 research Accelerating progress: An empowered, inclusive and equal Asia Pacific.

Emerging technologies and innovations have the potential to change lives on an unprecedented scale. One such example is the use of big data applications in forecasting and early warning of extreme weather events, such as during the super typhoon Mangkhut in 2018, documented in the ESCAP’s Asia-Pacific Disaster Report 2019. Such good practices need to be scaled up.

The SDG Summit concluded with a political declaration which calls for a “decade of action and delivery for sustainable development”. Since then, we have seen over twenty commitments for actions for Asia-Pacific by Governments, civil society organisations and the private sector across the 17 Goals registered on the SDG Acceleration Platform. This has given us hope as we move into the year of 2020. The region is arriving at this critical juncture in the path towards sustainable development. We know where we want to be. It is time to deliver on our pledge.

Kaveh Zahedi, Deputy Executive Secretary for Sustainable Development, United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP)

Van Nguyen, Sustainable Development Officer, United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP)

The post Accelerating SDG Progress in Asia – Pacific appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Credit: WaterAid

By Andrés Hueso
LONDON, Dec 10 2019 (IPS)

This year’s Human Rights Day advocates for everyone to stand up for their rights and those of others.

Yet this will feel like a distant reality for the millions of sanitation workers in developing countries who are forced to work in conditions that endanger their health and even their lives.

“The human rights of millions of sanitation workers, in particular informal workers, have been violated for a long time, despite the critical importance of their role,” Léo Heller, the Special Rapporteur on the human rights to safe drinking water and sanitation, said in his World Toilet Day statement last month.

“Amid stigma, low pay, informality and hazardous working conditions, many of them lose their lives while they are at work and very often, it is the omission of governments to comply with their human rights obligations that gives room for those unacceptable situations.”

There is particular concern over the discrimination against manual scavengers, people that are socially (and sometimes institutionally) designated to do sanitation work because they belong to the lowest rungs of the caste hierarchies in South Asian countries.

They clean latrines, empty septic tanks and unblock sewers by hand, and sometimes have to immerse themselves in human waste. In India, despite the fact that manual scavenging was outlawed in 1993, hundreds of thousands of families are still trapped in it.

Meenadevi, a woman from the state of Bihar, started working as a manual scavenger 25 years ago with her mother-in-law, who died on the job. “Initially, I used to feel nauseated, but now I am used to the foul smells,” she says. “Poverty leaves you no option.”

The stigma and risks facing sanitation workers is also prevalent in many parts of the world, as a recent report by International Labour Organisation, WaterAid, World Bank and World Health Organisation shows.

Few developing countries have policies, guidelines and enforcement mechanisms to protect the health, safety and dignity of sanitation workers; especially when their work is informal, they lack recognition and social protection.

In Burkina Faso in West Africa, where only 22.6 per cent of the population have access to basic sanitation, there is little regulation, particularly for the manual emptiers, who use ropes to lower themselves into pits and septic tanks, usually with no protective equipment, and are exposed to deadly asphyxiating gases.

Wendgoundi Sawadogo works as a manual emptier in the capital city, Ouagadougou, for local households who contact him directly for his services.

“You have no paper to show that this is your profession,” he says. “When you die, you die. You go with your bucket and your hoe without recognition, without leaving a trace anywhere or a document that shows your offspring that you have practised such a job. When I think of that, I’m sad. I do not wish any of my children to do this work I do.”

Credit: WaterAid

Sanitation and decent work are both human rights, and one human right cannot come at the expense of another. In the push towards achieving Sustainable Development Goal 6 and bringing sanitation services to everyone by 2030, we cannot neglect Sustainable Development Goal 8, which requires decent conditions for all workers, including sanitation workers.

They are central to solving the sanitation puzzle and protecting their rights is not just a moral imperative, but also the only way to build up a workforce that is able to deliver sanitation services at the scale required.

National and municipal governments need to take decisive action and put in place urgent measures to protect the human rights of sanitation workers, including laws and regulation to eliminate manual scavenging, recognise sanitation work and gradually formalise it, increasing the protection of the workers.

For example, municipalities can increase the use of machines and protective equipment so that workers are not directly exposed to human waste, ensure that subcontractors keep similar standards, and celebrate their contribution to society.

It is also important that the workers access training and support to organise themselves so that they are able to claim their rights in a balance dialogue with authorities.

Finally, every citizen has some degree of responsibility over other citizens’ rights. The plight of sanitation workers is in large part due to the fact that many consider them second-class citizens, and many others ‘flush and forget’ what happens down the (sewer) line.

We all need to both acknowledge and feel outraged by the injustice committed against sanitation workers – and hold to account those with the power to address it.

The post Human Rights? But Not for Sanitation Workers appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Excerpt:

Andrés Hueso is Senior Policy Analyst – Sanitation, WaterAid.

The post Human Rights? But Not for Sanitation Workers appeared first on Inter Press Service.

By Geneva Centre
GENEVA, Dec 10 2019 (IPS-Partners)

“All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights“: the words of the first Article of the Universal Declaration on Human Rights are perhaps the most resonant and cited of all international agreements ever signed. Year after year, we commemorate the Human Rights Day, celebrating human rights, insisting that they are inalienable entitlements to all people, not gender nor age-specific, not particular to any ethnic or religious group. And yet, the Geneva Centre’s Chairman Ambassador Ghazi Jomaa underlines, the international community is still confronted with its chronic problems and human rights abuses, oftentimes aggravated by protracted conflicts, expanding poverty, accelerating climate change impacts and beyond. Furthermore, he observes that ideologies anchored in hate and prejudice continue to undermine human rights worldwide and attack our shared humanity. In such times, it has become vital to promote mutual understanding, tolerance and compassion, leading to empathy and celebration of diversity, which are the true gateways to lasting peace.

The theme of this year’s Human Rights Day is Youth Standing Up for Human Rights, a tribute to the 30th Anniversary of the Convention on the Rights of a Child – and a further occasion to defend all these boys and girls that keep falling victims of conflicts and wars, forced labour and trafficking, homicide and abuse. The Geneva Centre’s Chairman insists: violations of children’s rights and human rights are more than personal tragedies. They are alarm bells warning of a much bigger crisis, a crisis that threatens the future of the world’s largest ever seen generation of children and adolescents.

In this regard, the Geneva Centre continues to stress the need to empower children and youth, to ensure equal access to education, to justice, to employment opportunities and, above all, to full participation in society, with the young voices being heard at all levels. In the recent panel debate “Enhancing Access to Justice for Children” held by the Centre in September 2019 at the UN, it was reiterated that if young age is no barrier to experiencing the worst disregards of human rights, then young age should never be seen as an obstacle for obtaining justice and reparation.

Chairman Ghazi Jomaa reaffirms that as adults, we imperatively need to listen to youth with due respect, value their experiences, encourage them to fully participate in the various domains of society. For, inevitably, it will be in their trajectory to see human progress over the next years rise or fall.

As it was observed during the World Conference “Religions, Creeds and Value Systems: Joining Forces to Enhance Equal Citizenship Rights” organized by the Geneva Centre on 25 June 2018 at the UN in Geneva, youth have to be empowered to shape their own futures and mitigate a perceived sense of powerlessness, to fill the vacuity in their lives wherever it exits.

The Geneva Centre is proud to announce the upcoming launch of an eponymous two-volume publication on the World Conference, which compiles the words of wisdom of 35 eminent personalities, including world religious leaders, visionary statesmen and prominent academic experts. Moreover, in his message to the World Conference, the United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres appealed to the participants “let us defend our common humanity. Let us unite for equal rights for all without discrimination”. On this Human Rights Day, the Geneva Centre’s Chairman echoes these inspiring words, and underlines that the continuous work towards respect for all human rights should always involve the young generation. After all, youth is the hope and the key to a more just and peaceful world.

The post The Chairman of the Geneva Centre, Ambassador Ghazi Jomaa, calls upon Empowering the Youth to Stand Up for Human Rights appeared first on Inter Press Service.

In Ecuador, indigenous-led protests compelled the government to reconsider an austerity package agreed with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) that included public sector wage cuts and fuel price hikes. Credit: Conaie.

By Ignacio Saiz
NEW YORK, Dec 10 2019 (IPS)

Human rights advocates should be as concerned with the economic injustices giving rise to recent worldwide demonstrations as with the repressive responses to them. 

In recent weeks, an extraordinary wave of mass protests has swept the globe. While their specific causes and contexts vary, many can be seen as part of a worldwide revolt against extreme inequality and the unjust economic and political systems driving it.

A common weave running through many of the protests is widespread indignation against austerity – the package of debt-reduction policies that scores of governments are now implementing.

In Ecuador, indigenous-led protests compelled the government to reconsider an austerity package agreed with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) that included public sector wage cuts and fuel price hikes.

Chile has seen million-strong protests against low wages, costly social services and the most extreme levels of economic inequality of any OECD country.

In Lebanon, a third of the population is estimated to have taken to the streets since the latest round of austerity; while Iraq has been rocked by mass protests against high unemployment, ailing public services and economic mismanagement.

These events follow large-scale demonstrations earlier this year against austerity in countries including Argentina, Honduras, Egypt, Sudan and Zimbabwe.

What has often begun as a spontaneous stand against fiscal injustice has burgeoned into a mass mobilization against the structural inequities underpinning it: political systems seen as corrupt, captured and unaccountable, and economic systems seen as generating inequality by privileging private profit over the public good

Many of the protests have been triggered by a specific fiscal measure–a tax on messaging apps in Lebanon or an increase in Santiago metro fares–perceived as emblematic of attempts by governing elites to foist the burden of national belt-tightening on ordinary working people and the already disadvantaged.

But what has often begun as a spontaneous stand against fiscal injustice has burgeoned into a mass mobilization against the structural inequities underpinning it: political systems seen as corrupt, captured and unaccountable, and economic systems seen as generating inequality by privileging private profit over the public good.

Demonstrations in Chile and Lebanon, for example, have continued far beyond the repeal of the offending measures or even the resignation of senior government figures, insisting on a more fundamental economic and political overhaul.

Another alarmingly common feature has been the repressive response of the authorities, who in most cases have addressed the protests as a threat to public security rather than a clamor for social justice.

From Quito to Cairo and from Santiago to Baghdad, security forces stand accused of excessive use of force, killings, ill-treatment and arbitrary arrest of demonstrators.

It is somewhat understandable, then, that where prominent international human rights actors have spoken up about these protests, it has largely been with respect to these abuses. The Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, for example, has sent a team to Chile to investigate breaches of international standards related to the use of force by security personnel.

A recently-concluded Inter-American Commission on Human Rights mission has gathered numerous testimonies of similar alleged abuses in Ecuador. Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch have done important work documenting excessive force against protestors in Baghdad, Beirut and elsewhere.

Abuses by the security forces have also been the primary if not sole focus of investigations by national human rights institutions such as the Instituto Nacional de Derechos Humanos in Chile or the Ecuadorian Defensoría del Pueblo.

Each of these organizations has, to different degrees, acknowledged that the protestors’ socio-economic grievances are also human rights concerns. But the economic and social rights dimensions of these crises have generally been relegated to the background and are yet to meaningfully inform their analysis and recommendations.

While the acute repression of civil and political rights in the wake of these protests clearly merits urgent scrutiny, the chronic denial of social and economic rights motivating them must also be addressed as a central human rights concern.

International human rights standards apply equally to governments’ use of fiscal policy as to their use of force.  Where austerity policies result in widening gender or racial disparities, push people into poverty or lead to avoidable backsliding in access to health or housing, they also breach international legal obligations on economic, social and cultural rights.

To relegate these violations to the margins of human rights concerns serves only to perpetuate the lack of accountability that has brought millions out on the streets.

The mass mobilizations against extreme inequality, like those against the closely-related crisis of climate change, beg a holistic approach to the human rights claims underpinning them. They should also prompt human rights actors to rethink their traditional agnosticism with regard to economic systems, and adopt a more frontal critique of neoliberal economic orthodoxy.

The protests demand that we call out the ravages of neoliberalism as human rights deprivations, challenge the fallacies sustaining this ideology and envision rights-centered alternatives.

Recent developments have consolidated the normative and methodological foundations for such a critique. For example, earlier this year the UN Human Rights Council adopted Guiding Principles for Human Rights Impact Assessments for Economic Reform Policies, which set out the human rights standards that should anchor economic policymaking, including fiscal adjustment.

These are informed by the practical experience of civil society organizations such as CESR in assessing austerity and its human rights impacts in numerous countries, as well the work of progressive economists bringing a human rights lens to challenge dominant economic paradigms.

Such efforts have focused on fiscal policy as a critical entry point for addressing structural injustice, as reducing inequality and fulfilling human rights are simply not possible without a radical redistribution of resources, wealth and power.

Systemic approaches to economic and social rights accountability are also targeting the responsibilities of international financial institutions and corporate actors in maintaining the unjust economic status quo. CESR’s efforts have been aimed at the IMF, whose complicity in prescribing austerity has fanned the flames of crises in many of the countries where protests have erupted.

For example, just last month the IMF pressed Lebanon to apply even more regressive adjustment measures, minimizing concerns about the potential for social tensions. Ongoing initiatives to codify the binding human rights obligations of business actors and overhaul the rules of international corporate taxation are equally critical fronts for systemically hard-wiring corporate accountability.

Of course, a truly “eco-systemic” human rights practice needs to go beyond normative elaboration and international policy reform. A challenge for those working internationally is to build stronger links between norm development, policy critique, context-specific advocacy and movement building, supporting the efforts of national human rights activists who are drawing attention to the structural and social rights dimensions of the crises.

We can likely expect more protests of this kind in 2020, as fiscal contraction spikes, the global economy slackens, and traditional spaces for civic engagement shrink.

There is a clear message emerging from the streets that human rights actors should get behind: there can be no democracy without economic and social justice. For this reason, any durable resolution to the current unrest must have economic and social rights accountability at its core.

The post Human Rights and the Global Protests: Addressing Systems as Well as Symptoms appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Excerpt:

Ignacio Saiz is Executive Director, The Center for Economic and Social Rights

The post Human Rights and the Global Protests: Addressing Systems as Well as Symptoms appeared first on Inter Press Service.