Africa - INTER PRESS SERVICE

Pakistani migrant workers build a skyscraper in Dubai. Credit: S. Irfan Ahmed/IPS

By Joseph Chamie
NEW YORK, Mar 9 2020 (IPS)

The answer to the critical question of how many immigrants will there be in the future is:  far below the number of people wanting to immigrate and far above the number of immigrants wanted. The discrepancy between the two opposing migration “wants” underlies the current divisive migration crisis sweeping the globe.

Surveys report that 15 percent of the world’s population, more than one billion people, would migrate to another country if they could. Moreover, the proportions wanting to move to another country are considerably higher in some developing regions, such as sub-Saharan Africa (33 percent), Latin America (27 percent) and Middle East and North Africa (24 percent).

Some countries in developed regions also have relatively high proportions wanting to immigrate, such as Russia (20 percent).

However, the current annual number of immigrants, about 5 million, is a just small fraction of the billion plus people wanting to immigrate. The total number of immigrants worldwide is also comparatively small, about 275 million or less than a quarter of those wanting to immigrate (Figure 1).

 

Source: Based on United Nations Population Division and Gallup.

 

In addition, right-wing and populist parties and nationalist groups in virtually every region of the world are putting increasing pressure on governments to oppose and resist accepting immigrants, especially those coming from very different cultures. Those parties and groups are also urging authorities to deport those migrants residing unlawfully in the country.

More than one billion people would migrate to another country if they could. The proportions wanting to move to another country are considerably higher in some developing regions, such as sub-Saharan Africa (33 percent), Latin America (27 percent) and Middle East and North Africa (24 percent)

Opinion polls in various migrant-receiving countries show that immigration is a top concern of voters with most having little appetite for more migration, especially illegal immigration. In the European Union, majorities in Greece (82%), Hungary (72%), Italy (71%) and Germany (58%) believe that fewer immigrants or no immigrants should be allowed to move into their countries. Majorities with similar views are also found in Israel (73%), Russia (67%), South Africa (65%) and Argentina (61%).

The anti-immigrant sentiment has also spread to include refugees and asylum seekers. Government policies to stem the tide of illegal immigrants are undermining the established rights and protections granted to refugees and asylum seekers. While in theory refugees have the right to cross borders in search of asylum, in reality countries are trying to prevent them from entering their territories.

Most recently, Greece, Bulgaria and other members of the European Union are alarmed that Turkey, which hosts the largest number of refugees, close to 4.1 million, is not restraining hundreds of thousands asylum seekers in its territory from reaching Europe.

In addition to many EU member countries, many other countries have policies to restrict refugee and asylum access, including Australia, Bangladesh, Canada, India, Israel, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, United Kingdom and the United States.

The number of refugees worldwide in 2019 has more than doubled in the past decade, reaching approximately 26 million. In addition, UNHCR estimates that there are more than 3 million asylum seekers, 4 million stateless people and 41 million internally displaced persons.

While allowing countries to retain control over their borders, international laws, treaties and conventions also aim to protect and assist refugees and asylum seekers. However, the definitions of a refugee and legitimate asylum seeker are open to political interpretation, resulting in ongoing struggles in country capitals over who is covered and who is not.

In addition to those fleeing persecution, growing numbers of people are becoming refugees due to human rights violations and armed conflict. Humanitarian emergencies, widespread poverty and climate change are producing desperate people who have slim chances of migrating to another country other than arriving at its borders seeking asylum.

Also recently, a landmark ruling by the United Nations human rights committee found that it is unlawful for governments to return people to countries where their lives might be threatened by a climate crisis. Under such a judgment, tens of millions of people could be displaced and become refugees in the near future due to life-threatening climate and environmental changes.

However, the definition of climate refugee remains an open issue for governments and international organizations.

Anticipating the future flows of international migration is a challenging undertaking that is affected by economic, political, social and environmental factors in sending, transiting and receiving countries.

Nevertheless, population projections with explicit assumptions on the expected net number of migrants in the future are useful as they provide insight about the effects of future migration on a population’s size, age structure and composition.

The United Nations population projections, for example, provide two scenarios, the medium and zero migration variants, for the future net number of immigrants for all countries and regions. In brief, the future net numbers of immigrants in the medium variant are assumed to remain unchanged at approximately current levels throughout the remainder of the 21st century (Figure 2).

 

Source: United Nations Population Division.

 

For analysts perhaps the safest answer politically is to assume immigration levels in the future will remain about the same as today, which seems to be the practice in most population projections. In the United States, for example, the main case scenario in the Census Bureau’s population projections to 2060 assumes net immigration levels will continue at slightly more than one million per year.

The politically safest answer, however, does not seem the most likely. Given a world approaching 8 billion inhabitants with unbalanced wealth and resources and unbalanced demographic trends compounded by climate change, it appears most likely that migration levels will be substantially higher in the coming decades.

Today more people are immigrants, refugees, asylum seekers and internally displaced persons than ever before. Those numbers have also been increasing, not declining, as more developing countries struggle with armed conflict, corruption, crime, hunger, poverty, unemployment, climate change and fragile governments.

It is therefore understandable that huge numbers of people in developing regions want to move to another country, typically a wealthy more developed country.

If the future is indeed more immigrants, refugees and asylum seekers, what will be the responses of migrant-receiving countries? Their current policies are basically to build walls and fences, tighten borders, institute travel bans, limit refugees, restrict asylum seekers and deport migrants unlawfully resident. Given today’s record-breaking numbers of immigrants, refugees, asylum seekers and others on the move, those policies do not seem to be achieving their intended goals.

Some advocate taking stronger anti-immigrant measures, such as refusing boat migrants ports to land, creating hostile environments for immigrants, using tear gas and water cannons, placing minefields along the border and shooting “infiltrators”.

They contend that if they do not stop the immigrant invasion and gain control over their borders, they will be overwhelmed and loose their culture and way of life as has happened in the past and is happening today in a number of countries.

Others have concluded that it is inevitable that there will be more immigrants, refugees and asylum seekers in the future. Rather than deny this likely trend, they recommend that countries make appropriate plans to deal with the expected migration increases.

While the number of immigrants in the future is a matter of heated debate, nearly all agree:  people on the move – be they immigrants, refugees or asylum seekers – will remain a controversial and divisive political issue for the foreseeable future.

 

*Joseph Chamie, a former director of the United Nations Population Division, is currently an independent consulting demographer.

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By Prof. Dr. Azza Karam and Rev. Kyoichi Sugino
NEW YORK, Mar 9 2020 (IPS)

As a growing public health crisis becomes increasingly urgent, prominent global actors and institutions, including the United Nations, are confronted by the realisation that all hands on deck are required to address the cross-cutting challenges faced by our world today.

Another public health epidemic is but one of the major global challenges demanding coordinated and effective responses from diverse institutions, and civil society networks.

Income inequality continues to grow, with the world’s richest 1% in 2020 having twice as much wealth as 6.9 billion people.

The political and economic will critical to combatting climate change is more needed than ever, with virtually all States behind in their commitments to the Paris Agreement.

With communities ravaged by ongoing conflict, a record 70 million people have fled their homes. As calls for change echo across the globe, the percentage of people living in countries where civic space is considered “repressed” more than doubled in 2019.

Fundamental elements essential to securing human dignity – the opportunity to contribute meaningfully to society, the power to demand change, freedom from any and all forms of discrimination, and the ability to live within and nurture a sustainable environment – are rapidly eroding.

These challenges are striking at a time when multilateralism is threatened, space for civil society is shrinking, and the call for walls of separation are on the rise.

The opportunity to forge ahead as humanity through this turmoil may well exist within the deepest and widest infrastructures ever created and sustained by humankind: the world’s religious communities, to which over 80% of humanity claims some affiliation.

In recent years, international attention has undeniably been focused on the rise in religiously-motivated violence, furthering the focus on religion as (part of) the problem.

However, a relatively lesser known reality in parallel with these trends, may offer insights to solutions: a growing global network of believers working to address these challenges through a unique process of multi-religious peacebuilding.

These religious leaders and constituents hail from an array of religious and spiritual communities as diverse and complex as the world we live in. They are collaborating on, and implementing, development, humanitarian, and peace processes – guiding their societies towards cohesion, respect for differences and cultures of peace.

By convening in interreligious councils, representative of their religious institutions, leadership and communities, at national and regional levels, Religions for Peace – a multi-religious peacebuilding coalition with experienced interreligious platforms in 90 countries across six regions – has a unique and powerful mechanism for multi-religious collaboration and peacebuilding.

The 2020-2025 global Strategic Plan is the culmination of sustained multistakeholder debates and consensus-building, within the vast movement of Religions for Peace.

At the Religions for Peace 10th World Assembly in August 2019, over 1,000 representatives from 125 countries discerned a framework by which to organise their future collaborative action on these global challenges.

Another global consultation in December 2019 convened over 250 religious leaders to do a deep dive, with focused and honest deliberations, ultimately emerging with the consensus to prioritise six strategic goals: peaceful, just and inclusive societies; gender equality; environment; freedom of thought, conscience and religion; interreligious education; and global partnerships.

Uniting religious and indigenous leaders for the protection of tropical forests is a hallmark of the joint prioritisation of nurturing a sustainable environment, believed to be a matter of moral urgency and action.

The religious leaders also agreed to champion safeguarding the universal right to thought, conscience and religion within and beyond their own constituencies, including in this spectrum of commitments coordinating their responses to the rise in attacks on holy sites and places of worship.

They embraced a deeper focus on interreligious education – not to reinvent the wheel, but to collate the existing work and curricula in all corners of the world in an effort to facilitate knowledge and access to dispel ignorance and counter misconceptions at the root of intolerance, hatred and violence.

The Religions for Peace movement leaders also committed to scaling up multi-stakeholder partnerships with businesses, governments and civil society, to develop innovative approaches and seek resolutions together.

These goals and actions correspond to the Sustainable Development Goals Agenda, and the multi-religious efforts will be measured and assessed using the SDG indicators agreed to by all member states of the United Nations.

The strategic priorities identified are built on legacies of powerful and effective interventions. Throughout Religions for Peace’s 50 years, these interreligious platforms have amassed a solid record of multi-religious engagement including mediating conflict and negotiating the release of child hostages in Sierra Leone, providing care and support for orphans and vulnerable children affected by HIV/AIDS, mobilising 21 million multi-religious youth for global disarmament, and forging partnerships between religious and indigenous communities for rainforest protection – to name but a few.

But these priorities also herald a new era of resolve, and courage, among the world’s senior-most religious leaders and institutions, through their interreligious platforms.

To have gender equality as a strategic priority of such a movement, built on and by traditional religious institutions, is historic. After electing the coalition’s first woman Secretary General in 2019, Religions for Peace leadership are sending a clear message of commitment to action which includes increasing women’s leadership and impact within the movement, and beyond.

It is this blend of renewed and courageous resolve, together with skills steeped in decades of experience with multi-religious and multi-cultural engagement in development and human rights, which offers much needed alternative cultures of healing and peace. These interreligious councils not only drive the solution — they are a necessary part of the solution.

On this 75th year of the United Nations system, Religions for Peace – through its global, regional, national and grassroots interreligious council platforms – has been heeding the call for holistic responses to cross-cutting global challenges for 50 of these years.

With its 5-year strategy and actions now co-designed and approved by representatives of all the world’s religious institutions, the movement of Religions for Peace hereby calls on governments, civil societies and multi-lateral institutions to partner with it to create more peaceful, just and inclusive societies – leaving no one behind.

The post The Arc of Justice: The World’s Religions Launch Strategic Priorities for Peace appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Excerpt:

Prof. Dr. Azza Karam is Secretary General-elect of Religions for Peace and Rev. Kyoichi Sugino is Secretary General, a.i. of Religions for Peace

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Colorised scanning electron micrograph of MERS virus particles (yellow) both budding and attached to the surface of infected VERO E6 cells (blue). Credit: NIAID

By Ignacio López-Goñi
Mar 7 2020 (IPS)

Regardless of whether we classify the new coronavirus as a pandemic, it is a serious issue. In less than two months, it has spread over several continents. Pandemic means sustained and continuous transmission of the disease, simultaneously in more than three different geographical regions. Pandemic does not refer to the lethality of a virus but to its transmissibility and geographical extension.

We certainly have a pandemic of fear. The entire planet’s media is gripped by coronavirus. It is right that there is deep concern and mass planning for worst-case scenarios. And, of course, the repercussions move from the global health sphere into business and politics.

But it is also right that we must not panic. It would be wrong to say there is good news coming out of COVID-19, but there are causes for optimism; reasons to think there may be ways to contain and defeat the virus. And lessons to learn for the future.

 

1. We know what it is

The first cases of AIDS were described in June 1981 and it took more than two years to identify the virus (HIV) causing the disease. With COVID-19, the first cases of severe pneumonia were reported in China on December 31, 2019 and by January 7 the virus had already been identified.

The genome was available on day 10. We already know that it is a new coronavirus from group 2B, of the same family as the SARS, which we have called SARSCoV2. The disease is called COVID-19. It is thought to be related to coronavirus of bats. Genetic analyses have confirmed that it has a recent natural origin (between the end of November and the beginning of December) and that, although viruses live by mutating, its mutation rate may not be very high.

 

2. We know how to detect the virus

Since January 13, a test to detect the virus has been available.

 

3. The situation is improving in China

The strong control and isolation measures imposed by China are paying off. For several weeks now, the number of cases diagnosed every day is decreasing. A very detailed epidemiological follow-up is being carried out in other countries; outbreaks are very specific to areas, which can allow them to be controlled more easily.

 

4. 80% of cases are mild

The disease causes no symptoms or is mild in 81% of cases. Of course, in the remaining 14%, it can cause severe pneumonia and in 5% it can become critical or even fatal. It is still unclear what the death rate may be. Be it could be lower than some estimates so far.

 

5. People heal

Much of the reported data relates to the increase in the number of confirmed cases and the number of deaths, but most infected people are cured. There are 13 times more cured cases than deaths, and that proportion is increasing.

Coronavirus COVID-19 Global Cases by Johns Hopkins CSSE

 

6. Symptoms appear mild in children

Only 3% of cases occur in people under 20, and mortality under 40 is only 0.2%. Symptoms are so mild in children that it can go unnoticed.

 

7. The virus can be wiped clean

The virus can be effectively inactivated from surfaces with a solution of ethanol (62-71% alcohol), hydrogen peroxide (0.5% hydrogen peroxide) or sodium hypochlorite (0.1% bleach), in just one minute. Frequent handwashing with soap and water is the most effective way to avoid contagion.

 

8. Science is on it, globally

It is the age of international science cooperation. After just over a month, 164 articles could be accessed in PubMed on COVID19 or SARSCov2, as well as many others available in repositories of articles not yet reviewed. They are preliminary works on vaccines, treatments, epidemiology, genetics and phylogeny, diagnosis, clinical aspects, etc. These articles were elaborated by some 700 authors, distributed throughout the planet. It is cooperative science, shared and open. In 2003, with the SARS epidemic, it took more than a year to reach less than half that number of articles. In addition, most scientific journals have left their publications as open access on the subject of coronaviruses.

 

9. There are already vaccine prototypes

Our ability to design new vaccines is spectacular. There are already more than eight projects underway seeking a vaccine against the new coronavirus. There are groups that work on vaccination projects against similar viruses.

The vaccine group of the University of Queensland, in Australia, has announced that it is already working on a prototype using the technique called “molecular clamp”, a novel technology. This is just one example that could allow vaccine production in record time. Prototypes may soon be tested on humans.

 

10. Antiviral trials are underway

Vaccines are preventive. Right now, the treatment of people who are already sick is important. There are already more than 80 clinical trials analysing coronavirus treatments. These are antivirals that have been used for other infections, which are already approved and that we know are safe.

One of those that has already been tested in humans is remdesivir, a broad-spectrum antiviral still under study, which has been tested against Ebola and SARS/MERS.

Another candidate is chloroquine, an antimalarial that has also been seen to have potent antiviral activity. It is known that chloroquine blocks viral infection by increasing the pH of the endosome, which is needed for the fusion of the virus with the cell, thus inhibiting its entry. It has been demonstrated that this compound blocks the new coronavirus in vitro and it is already being used in patients with coronavirus pneumonia.

Other proposed trials are based on the use of oseltamivir (which is used against the influenza virus), interferon-1b (protein with antiviral function), antisera from people who recovered or monoclonal antibodies to neutralise the virus. New therapies have been proposed with inhibitory substances, such as baricitinibine, selected by artificial intelligence.

The 1918 flu pandemic caused more than 25 million deaths in less than 25 weeks. Could something similar happen now? Probably not; we have never been better prepared to fight a pandemic.

 

This article is republished from The Conversation. Read the original article.

The post Coronavirus: Ten Reasons Why You Ought Not to Panic appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Excerpt:

Ignacio López-Goñi is microbiologist and works in University of Navarra (Spain).

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By Laila Malik
Mar 6 2020 (IPS)

In November 2019, thousands of Chileans took to the streets to perform an anti-rape, anti-femicide choreography organized by a small feminist collective called Las Tesis. The group created the choreographed chant in response to an upswing in violence against women and human rights violations in Chile, where 42 cases of sexual abuse are reportedto the police each day, with only around 25% resulting in judicial rulings.

It is a violence faced by women, trans and non-binary people all over the world. And it often results in complex, inconvenient, expensive and exhausting circumnavigations – or avoidance – of public space, even when the reality is that gender-based violence is just as likely to be committed in private as it is in public.

So when, months after the first Chilean feminist flash mobs, women from Nairobi to Karachi, Maputo to Istanbul and beyond, continue to creatively reclaim their own streets with local grievances and demands, they are collectively rewriting the global map. This rewriting is an example of a Feminist Reality – a way in which feminists take action to create, and re-create spaces and communities to be more equitable and just.

 

 

Roaring together in the face of police brutality and complicity 

“The patriarchal behaviour is deep in our society and no one is doing anything,” says Nzira De Deus from Mozambique’s Fórum Mulher, the network of women’s rights and gender equality organizations that organized Chilean-inspired feminist flashmobs in the cities of Maputo and Beira.

“What we are doing with that song is denouncing the impunity we see in our community. We know who the rapist is but the police is doing nothing, and is in complicity with that situation. We need to continue to spread this kind of campaign, adapting an African version, denouncing not just in words, but also with this kind of thing.”

Coming together to address police impunity was also a powerful experience for Hum Aurtein, a group of womxn and non-binary people who advocate for gender justice who performed the choreography in Karachi.

 

 

“It was electric as we yelled “Yeh police, Yeh nizam, Yeh jagirdar, Yeh sarkar [This police, this system, these feudal land-owners, this government]” as men in a police van watched on and we pointed at them. So there was a sense of collective reclamation,” recalls Atiya Abbas, Hum Aurtein organizer.

When women speak truly they speak subversively — they can’t help it: if you’re underneath, if you’re kept down, you break out, you subvert. We are volcanoes. When we women offer our experience as our truth, as human truth, all the maps change. There are new mountains.

Ursula LeGuin

In Nairobi, members of Maisha Girls’ Safe House decided to take the choreography to three locations in Nairobi where rape and other sexual violations are rampant, in slum areas and around local administration offices. The performance allowed girls and young women survivors of sexual violence to directly confront perpetrators, including agents of law enforcement.

“We did it in our small way and the impact it left was amazing,” says Florence Keah from Maisha Girls’ Safe House. “I can walk in the community and l hear the young children (some of whom were conceived from rape) chanting “And the rapist is you!”’

“We hope the message to the police reached home.”

Meanwhile in Istanbul, several hundred women who gathered to perform the choreography were tear gassed, dispersed and arrested by riot police for insulting state institutions. But a week later, eight Turkish women MPs used their parliamentary immunity to perform the chant in Turkish parliament, while colleagues held up some 20 pictures of the faces of women said to be killed in domestic violence.

 

Creating and harnessing the power of new feminist words

If there is one thing the global Las Tesis-inspired tsunami has shown, it’s that feminists are infinitely collaborative, creative, and keenly aware of their specific contexts and needs.

In Karachi, Hum Aurtein added a stanza to their chant about class, religion and labour to speak to forced conversions, honour killings and labour-based discrimination and harassment faced by women in Pakistan.

In Mozambique, Fórum Mulher changed the line “It’s the judges!” to “It’s the MPs!” to reflect their discontent with the ongoing impunity of the MP accused of raping a child. Beirut organizers adapted the chant to Arabic, adding new content around media responsibility and sexual harassment, while maintaining the rhyme. One Beirut organizer described participants as “full of rage”, saying, “They will translate it in every way possible, and the flash mob came out as a beautiful means to do so.”

In other instances, feminists have had to adopt entirely new language to adequately express specific gender injustices.

“The word for rape in Urdu is “ismatdari,”” says Abbas, “which links rape to a woman’s honour. That is not what the violence of rape is. Rape happens because rapists commit these acts of dominance and terror – and not for any other reason.”

To shift this mis-association, Hum Aurtein organizers added new lines to their chant, saying, “Hear this, it is rape [adopting the English word]! Not “female honour”!”

“Language is power, and language is responsibility,” reflects Abbas. “One can hope the reproduction of knowledge through language continues to be feminist in its approach and that a generation from now, our efforts to do that will realize meaningful change.”

Indeed, future humans may reap benefit from the courage, creativity and collaboration of today’s global feminists, but the volcanoes have been simmering for generations. Feminists all over the planet are linking with one another, shedding fear and finding untold strength and collective intelligence in community. The new map is already here, and its seismic energy is palpable.

 

Aurat March (Women’s march) in Pakistan. Credit: Shehzil Malik.

 

The post Feminists Rewrite Their Realities Across the Global Map appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Excerpt:

Laila Malik is Information, Communication and Media Coordinator, Association for Women's Rights in Development (AWID)

The post Feminists Rewrite Their Realities Across the Global Map appeared first on Inter Press Service.

By External Source
Mar 6 2020 (IPS)

The narrative surrounding women’s rights in 2020 carries much hope and possibility. This year’s International Women’s Day, bearing the theme “I am Generation Equality: Realizing Women’s Rights,” falls on the celebration’s 110th anniversary.

The occasion is monumental, and with 10 years remaining to achieve the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals, such milestone moments will be written about, documented in the news, and read by many.

These dates are significant, of course, yet there is an undertone of wishful thinking that events in themselves can ignite powerful change, and a simplicity that disregards the more complex and insidious existence of systematic inequality.

That’s the issue with these occasions fostered by those with access – they create a barrier to understanding for those who aren’t even aware they are occurring. They don’t form part of everyday life for those most actively affected.

 

 

Women denied education, for example, won’t understand what specific legislation means for them. And Women with the privilege of being part of such occasions are likely to have a recognizable level of emancipation from explicit forms of oppression.

Political figures with an unequivocal platform to promote equality are becoming increasingly visible. From Germany’s Angela Merkl to New Zealand’s Jacinda Arden, torch bearers abound. But whilst 2020 could be a landmark year for gender equality, the efforts required to reach our goal have to be deliberate and far reaching. Just the instance of these events happening won’t have any measurable result.

With the SDGs acting as a blueprint for global efforts to eliminate poverty and inequality by 2030, the 10 years we have to achieve this are scarcely enough. More than half of the 129 countries measured in the 2019 SDG Gender Index scored poorly on SDG 5, which calls for international gender equality and the empowerment of all women. As the UN highlights: “The emerging global consensus is that despite some progress, real change has been agonisingly slow for the majority of women and girls in the world.”

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By PRESS RELEASE
Mar 6 2020 (IPS-Partners)

A deep-sea scientific mission to uncharted depths in the Maldives and Seychelles will gather valuable data to support the Commonwealth Blue Charter on ocean action and train local scientists.

The newest Commonwealth member country, Maldives, has joined Seychelles to launch a major joint scientific expedition to investigate unexplored depths of the Indian Ocean.

The ground-breaking multidisciplinary research mission, known as ‘First Descent: Midnight Zone’, was officially launched at the Commonwealth headquarters at Marlborough House.

Led by the UK research institute Nekton, the goal is to boost the sustainable governance of Seychelles and Maldivian waters, including the protection of 629,000 km2 of ocean.

It supports the Commonwealth Blue Charter – a shared commitment by member countries to protect the ocean from the effects of climate change, pollution and overfishing.

Minister for Fisheries, Marine Resources and Agriculture of the Maldives, Zaha Waheed, said: “It is vital to comprehensively understand what lies beneath our waters in order for us to be informed enough to take necessary actions towards a healthy and prosperous ocean.

“This mission will, for the first time, show a glimpse of what the deep sea features and the biodiversity it holds. It will also contribute to the wider goal of marine spatial planning and ocean governance.”

A 50-person crew will set sail on 16 March, using the world’s most advanced deep diving submersible, equipped with a suite of research tools including sensor and mapping technology.

The data they collect will help countries define conservation and management priorities and map out marine protected areas. It will also help measure the impact of climate change and human activity in the area.

Commonwealth Secretary-General Patricia Scotland said: “We cannot protect what we don’t know and we cannot govern what we don’t understand. With 95 per cent of the ocean still unexplored by humans, we are only just beginning to grasp its profound influence on life, including its effect on global climate and ecosystems.

“It is pleasing to see the commitments of our Commonwealth Blue Charter leading to such far-reaching and innovative science-backed ocean action in, with and for our member countries.”

The expedition will focus on undersea mountains or ‘seamounts’ in the Midnight Zone – depths from 1,000 to 4,000 metres, where biodiversity peaks. This zone holds critical indicators to measure the impact of the climate crisis, fisheries management, heat absorption, acidification, ocean carbon cycle, and plastic, agricultural and industrial pollution.

The damage or overexploitation of seamounts can have widespread consequences on ocean health, food security, and other benefits the ocean provides, such as the discovery of new medicines.

Principal Secretary at the Ministry of Environment, Energy and Climate Change of Seychelles, Alain Decormamond said: “Seamounts form some of the most fascinating and richest locations in our waters and beyond in the wider Indian Ocean. We are therefore looking forward to exploring even deeper depths of our ocean to have a better understanding of natural characteristics and richness of these locations.”

The mission’s principal scientist Lucy Woodall from the University of Oxford added: “We find the greatest biomass in the upper few hundred metres of the ocean, but the peak of biodiversity is in the greater depths, in the Midnight Zone, from 1,000 to 4,000 metres. That said, less than 300 of 170,000 known major seamounts found in this zone have been researched to date, and they remain one of the least researched parts of the ocean.”

Nekton is also working with Commonwealth countries to develop the tools, skills, knowledge and networks to sustainably manage the ocean. Seychellois and Maldivian scientists will join the expedition to conduct pioneering research into their national waters. This is supported by training programmes, research grants and fellowships with the University of Oxford.

Seychelles champions the Commonwealth Blue Charter action group on marine protected areas. To date, 13 countries have stepped forward to lead on 10 topics they identified as priorities.

For updates on the expedition, visit nektonmission.org

For more information about the Commonwealth Blue Charter, visit bluecharter.thecommonwealth.org

Notes to Editor

The Commonwealth Blue Charter
The Commonwealth covers a third of the world’s coastal oceans, 45% of coral reefs and the majority of the world’s big ocean states and territories. Forty-seven out of our 54 countries have a coastline, and three of the remaining landlocked states border great lakes. The Commonwealth Blue Charter is a landmark agreement that engages all 54 Commonwealth countries to commit to actively co-operating to solve ocean-related problems and meet commitments for sustainable ocean development. Visit our website to learn how to join action groups.

Seychelles
The Seychelles Blue Economy Strategic Roadmap and Plan has been developed and implemented by the Government of Seychelles in partnership with the Commonwealth Secretariat. A key component of this, the Seychelles’ Marine Spatial Plan, is being undertaken in partnership with The Nature Conservancy. By March 2020 this will result in the sustainable management of all the Exclusive Economic Zone including 30% within the newly formed Marine Protected Areas (445,000 km2 of 1,336,559 km2). The implementing partner for the expedition is the Ministry for Environment, Energy and Climate Change. Seychelles champions the Commonwealth Blue Charter Action Group on Marine Protected Areas.

Maldives
Maldives Blue Prosperity Programme is being undertaken by the Government of the Maldives in partnership with the Blue Prosperity Coalition and the Waitt Institute. The Programme begins in 2020 with a goal of the sustainable management of the Maldivian Exclusive Economic Zone including a spatial target of at least 20% within newly formed Marine Protected Areas (184,000km2 of 923,000km2). The implementation partner for the expedition is the Ministries of Fisheries, Marine Resources and Agriculture. First Descent: Midnight Zone is the third of four expeditions being undertaken in Maldives in support of Maldives Blue Prosperity. #KanduFalhuDhiraasaa and #NooRaajje

First Descent: Midnight Zone
First Descent is a series of missions undertaken by Nekton in partnership with Governments in the Indian Ocean region. Beginning in Seychelles in 2019, the Mission concludes with a State of the Indian Ocean Summit in October 2022 to deliver scientific consensus on the state of the Indian Ocean and to galvanise 30% protection by 2030. Each mission combines national commitments to ocean protection, marine spatial planning, applied research to inform ocean policy, inspirational communications to strengthen the public support for political action and investments in capacity development to create a legacy of long-term sustainable ocean governance. #MidnightZone #First Descent

Seamounts
Seamounts are undersea mountains formed by volcanic activity. Scientists estimate there are at least 100,000 seamounts higher than 1,000 meters around the world. Recent estimates suggest that, taken together, seamounts encompass about 28.8 million square kilometres – a surface area larger than deserts, tundra, or any other single land-based global habitat on the planet. Seamounts attract an abundance of marine life, many of which are endemic to individual locations. Seamounts are productive fishing grounds for more than 80 commercial species worldwide.

Nekton
Nekton is an independent not-for-profit research institute working in collaboration with the University of Oxford and is a UK registered charity. Nekton’s purpose is to explore and protect the ocean. Nekton’s missions are supported by a unique alliance of 40 business, government, academia and civil society partners uniting behind a common purpose to explore and conserve the ocean. They include:

• Mission Partners (2): Omega, Kensington Tours
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The post Landmark deep-sea mission to boost ocean action appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Scene from the event, “Gender equality: From the Biarritz Partnership to the Beijing+25 Generation Equality Forum”, hosted by France and Mexico ahead of the 74th session of the UN General Assembly, 2019. Credit: UN Women/Ryan Brown

By Pedro Conceição
UNITED NATIONS, Mar 6 2020 (IPS)

Architectural metaphors are a popular way to think about inequality between men and women.

When it comes to the fundamentals, we often talk about whether there is a “sticky floor” that is holding women and girls back. And the good news is that, for billions around the world, the floor is a lot less sticky than it used to be.

Maternal mortality significantly reduced since 1990, and boys and girls now have equal access to primary school education in most countries.

But pull away from the sticky floor and many women will hit a glass ceiling. Or rather glass ceilings. Though the term was originally used to talk about women’s prospects for advancing in the workplace, other invisible barriers are a factor in many areas of life.

And here there is much less progress to celebrate. Consider politics. Men and women may share the same right to vote in most countries for example. But under a quarter of parliamentarians are women. Only one in ten heads of government is female.

But this doesn’t go anywhere near telling the whole story. In fact, many women face layers of glass – at home, work, education and beyond – which prevent them from reaching their full potential.

Break through one ceiling and they invariably find another, more impenetrable, waiting just above them.

Why is this still happening in 2020?

Part of the answer lies in barriers thrown up by the perceptions and biases of both women and men around the world. Progress towards genuine gender inequality will never succeed if people don’t believe in it.

UNDP’s gender social norms index which uses data from the World Values Survey and covers 81 percent of the world’s population, shows clearly that the great majority of citizens in almost every country – both men and women – do not believe women and men should enjoy equal opportunities in key areas like politics or work.

About 50 percent of men and women interviewed across 75 countries, say they think men make better political leaders than women. More than 40 percent felt that men made better business executives. And in some countries these attitudes seem to be deteriorating over time.

Credit: UN Women

Much of this bias seems to be directed at giving women more power. And indeed, the data shows, time and time again, the greater the power the greater the bias. Although women work more hours than men, they are much less likely to be paid for that work.

Women on average do three time more unpaid care work than men. When they are paid, they earn less than men and they are less likely to be in management positions – only 6 percent of CEOS in S&P 500 companies are female.

At the very time when progress is meant to be accelerating to reach global goals on gender by 2030, it is slowing down in some areas. The massive improvements in many aspects of gender equality in recent years show what is possible.

But we now need new approaches to get to grips with the architecture of inequality. Investing in education, raising awareness and encouraging women and girls into traditionally male dominated jobs all have a role to play.

Tackling the invisible barriers of bias could be the game changer.

The post Sticky Floors, Glass Ceilings & Biased Barriers: the Architecture of Gender Inequality appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Excerpt:

This article is part of special IPS coverage of International Women’s Day on March 8 2020

 

Pedro Conceição is Director of the Human Development Report Office, UNDP

The post Sticky Floors, Glass Ceilings & Biased Barriers: the Architecture of Gender Inequality appeared first on Inter Press Service.

The economic inequalities plaguing much of the world today are reinforced by many other forms of inequality, including inequalities in sexual and reproductive health-Dr. Natalia Kanem, ED UNFPA. Credit: UNFPA Kenya / Douglas Waudo

By Prof. Margaret Kobia, Amb. Aline Kuster-Ménager, Amb. Erasmo Martinez Martine and Siddharth Chatterjee
NAIROBI, Kenya, Mar 6 2020 (IPS)

Development efforts over the past two decades have seen millions of people freed from poverty and hunger, and inequalities reduced worldwide. This is an undoubted achievement, but is no reason for complacency. The fact is that inequality between men and women, between boys and girls, remains not only a social justice concern, but one of the impediments on development in countries across Africa and beyond. Addressing such inequalities is a duty for all of us, and one which is at the heart of the theme of this year’s International Women’s Day on 8th March: Each for Equal.

Facing reality, then act accordingly

Gender inequality is so deeply ingrained in many societies that simply being born female can have a deleterious impact on a girl’s life chances. Too often, girls are still viewed as a drain on their families’ resources, kept out of school in favour of their brothers when money is tight, married off as children to older men, and condemned to a lifetime of poor health, unwanted large families and poverty. Too often, they are also condemned to illiteracy and economic dependence on men.

The effort towards achieving gender equality is not only the business of women. It is the business of each of us. Male champions have a critical role to play when it comes to challenging stereotypes, fighting bias and standing up against discriminations and violence against their mothers, sisters, wives and daughters. In this regard, H.E President Uhuru Kenyatta, as a gender champion, has set a path by taking personal commitments to End Female Genital Mutilations (FGM) by the year 2022.

Globally, Kenya has demonstrated its engagement against gender-based violence through the development or enactment of the following: a National Policy on Gender and Development (2019), a National Policy for the Eradication of FGM (2019), the Sexual Offences Act (2006), the Counter-Trafficking Act (2011), the Children’s Act (2001), the Prevention against violence Act (2015), and the Prohibition of Female Genital Mutilation Act (2011). The wins for gender equality and women empowerment will also be achieved through the implementation of the ‘Big Four’ Agenda which focuses on Universal Health Care, Food Security and Nutrition, Affordable Housing and Manufacturing.

Win-Win

The irony is that gender equality would benefit all and make no losers. In its 2016 Africa Human Development Report, the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) pointed out the clear intersections and interdependencies between gender equality and human development. Improving women’s capabilities and opportunities improves in return their ability to contribute better economically, as employers, employees and entrepreneurs, to the common wealth; it brings social and environmental benefits in terms of better health and education, changes the attitudes that enable the scourge of physical and sexual violence against women, and works to improve sustainable resource use. Additionally, the report argues, women’s political involvement leads to fairer and more representative decision-making and resource allocation, to the benefit of all and that of the environment too. Actually, none of the UN-sponsored Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) will be achieved if girls and women are institutionally and systematically discriminated against and left behind. Hence, these complex issues must be worked on at all levels at a time.

While much of the gender equality debate globally focuses on income disparities, it is crucial to look beyond. Upstream, achieving equality at work is hampered by unequal access to education. Our daughters are profoundly unlikely to earn as much as our sons, or even to be able to compete for their jobs, if they have not been educated, or if societal attitudes to women allow employers to dismiss their applications out of hand. To accelerate the achievement of SDGs and in particular SDG 5 on Gender equality will help, among others, ensure universal access to sexual and reproductive health and reproductive rights. And it happens that healthiest women with fewer chores at home can spend more time prospecting on the job market, and ultimately secure higher revenues to sustain their families.

For these virtuous circles to become our everyday reality, we need to go deeper, to challenge the social and political norms and entrenched interests that prevail in many nations, communities and families.

A mission for each of us

But what can we, as individuals, do? How can we help shape a world where your gender does not dictate your future? Each of us needs to understand how his/her own thoughts and actions shape society.

The Each for Equal campaign urges each of us to challenge our deeply-held assumptions about girls and women, about their abilities and rights. Silence always benefits the status quo and perpetuates situations of oppression. Conversely, speaking up takes courage, determination, and a willingness to stand out from the crowd. Our thoughts and actions are powerful. Our voices are powerful when we use them to speak up against the injustice we testify, or to celebrate women’s aspirations and achievements. It is both an individual and collective responsibility to achieve justice, opportunity and equality for half the world’s population.

The reasoning is valid both nationally and worldwide. 25 years after the 1995 Fourth World Conference on Women held in Beijing, the 2020 Generation Equality Forum will gather governments, the United Nations, civil society, feminist groups and other stakeholders to call for action and accountability for the full realization of the gender equality agenda. Priority issues and structural obstacles to progress on gender equality will be put at the center of the agenda, and stakeholders will make commitments along six thematic coalitions of action: Gender-Based violence, Economic justice and rights, Bodily autonomy and sexual and reproductive health and rights, Feminist action for climate justice, Technology and innovation for gender equality, Feminist movements and leadership. An outcome of the Forum will be the establishment of a mobilization strategy to make concrete progress on gender equality. Convened by UN-Women, co-hosted by Mexico (Mexico City, 7-8 May) and France (Paris, 7-10 July), and organized in partnership with civil society, the Forum is animated by a single, overarching ambition: streamline gender equality as an asset – and a prerequisite – to achieve any political objective, anywhere in the world.

At the end of the day, gender equality is not ‘merely’ an agenda item for the UN and the development sector. It is rather a necessity for human society to thrive – and perhaps even to survive – in a future of diminishing resources and mounting global challenges such as climate change. All of us must be #EachforEqual.

H.E. Prof. Margaret KOBIA, Cabinet Secretary for the Public service and Gender Affairs
H.E. Aline KUSTER-MENAGER, Ambassador of France to Kenya
H.E. Erasmo Roberto MARTINEZ MARTINEZ, Ambassador of Mexico to Kenya
Siddharth CHATTERJEE, United Nations Resident Coordinator to Kenya

The post On 8th March – and All the Other Days: Each for Equal appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Excerpt:

This article is part of special IPS coverage of International Women’s Day on March 8 2020

 

Gender equality is a basic human right and a prerequisite for sustainable development, so why does inequality persist in so many countries, and what can we all do to address it?

The post On 8th March – and All the Other Days: Each for Equal appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Credit: We Can International

By Verania Chao and Koh Miyaoi
UNITED NATIONS, Mar 6 2020 (IPS)

Gender equality and women’s rights have progressed immensely since the adoption of the most visionary agenda on women’s empowerment, the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action, 25 years ago.

However, gender equality experts across the world are signaling that we need to identify additional paths for a sustainable world, including in our response to climate change.

This year, we have the opportunity to make a real difference in our climate response and to recognize its critical links to gender equality.

In addition to the 25th anniversary of the Beijing Declaration this year, 2020 is also the year when countries are requested to deliver stronger climate action plans to adapt and cut their emissions further and faster under the global Paris Climate Accord.

As UNDP plays a central role in strengthening countries’ capacity to plan and implement their climate targets, the organization has worked with countries on gender-responsive climate action and climate finance.

UNDP’s Strengthening Governance of Climate Change Finance Programme (GCCF), supported by the Government of Sweden, has worked with countries to include gender in climate change policies and budgets in Asia and the Pacific since 2012.

Meanwhile, the Governments of Germany, Spain and the European Union have joined forces to support a pilot on integrating gender equality and women’s empowerment in 17 countries through UNDP’s NDC Support Programme.

With a focus on national climate plans as an entry point, the pilot is elevating the integration of gender aspects from the project or programme-level to a more systemic, sectoral level.

As countries are approaching the deadline to deliver more ambitious, gender-responsive climate plans later this year, UNDP has also stepped up its efforts by offering additional support to 100 countries through the Climate Promise, a global initiative aimed to enhance NDCs and raise ambition.

This also offers an opportunity to improve and embed the integration of gender into the next generation of national climate plans.

To make this a reality, however, we must better integrate gender into the various areas of climate financing – public, private and multilateral.

Climate action is attracting a large volume of funding through increasingly diverse funding streams, but often ignores its impacts on gender equality and misses to benefit from women’s leadership and expertise on climate-related issues.

If countries’ climate actions are to involve the whole population, climate finance needs to become gender-responsive. So, what does it mean to integrate gender into climate finance?

Many countries trying to implement gender-responsive climate action have found that even if capacities are in place, data has been collected and analyzed, and policies have been formulated, implementation bottlenecks remain.

One such bottleneck is the lack of an effective system to ensure planned actions are budgeted for and implemented on the ground.

Therefore, a robust and compelling framework for the integration of gender into climate finance streams is needed. In particular, there is a need to better understand how these different funding streams complement and reinforce each other, and how the experiences of gender integration in one funding stream can be leveraged for scaling up gender equality outcomes in the others so that broader development priorities can be more effectively addressed.

Budgeting can be a powerful tool to advance the implementation of gender-responsive climate actions. While ministries of finance can directly advance this goal through by preparing the budget and proposing financial policy, they alone cannot ensure the embedding of gender-responsive climate actions in the policy and budget cycle.

Key ministries, such as Gender Equality, Women’s Empowerment, Energy, Transport, Planning, and Environment, have a vital collective role to play through integration processes in their respective sectors.

By the end of 2020, UNDP will not only have supported 100 countries on preparing more ambitious climate plans, but also with the embedding of gender-responsive climate measures.

To make a transformative change in a world that is being increasingly marked by deepening inequalities, climate change and natural disasters, it is also time to recognize the vital link between gender equality and financing for climate change to accelerate progress on our climate response.

In 2020, we have a real opportunity to make this happen.

The post Want to Go for Inclusive Climate Action? Then Start with Integrating Gender Equality into Climate Finance appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Excerpt:

This article is part of special IPS coverage of International Women’s Day on March 8 2020

 

Verania Chao is Programme Specialist, Climate Change and Gender Equality/Inclusion, UNDP and Koh Miyaoi is UNDP Asia-Pacific Gender Team Leader/Regional Gender Advisor

The post Want to Go for Inclusive Climate Action? Then Start with Integrating Gender Equality into Climate Finance appeared first on Inter Press Service.

As a Pokot girl in Kenya undergoes Female Genital Mutilation (FGM), her father stands guard with spear at hand to ensure that the ritual goes as planned. FGM was outlawed in Kenya in 2011 but is still practiced among pastoralist communities. Credit: Miriam Gathigah/IPS

By Miriam Gathigah
NAIROBI, Mar 6 2020 (IPS)

Pokot girls are expected to face the knife stark naked and with courage. To inspire confidence, their fathers sit a few metres away from them with a spear in hand.

“If a girl screams or shows even the slightest resistance, the father is allowed to throw the spear at her for bringing shame to the family. The men can also throw the spear at me if I do not circumcise fast enough,” Chepocheu Lotiamak, a circumciser, tells IPS.

It defies belief that young girls between the ages of nine and 15 could sit side by side, legs spread apart as one after the other their external genitalia is chopped off by an elderly female circumciser.

Lotiamak says that when it comes to payment of a bride price, a Pokot girl who has undergone FGM receives 60 to 100 cows, or on the lower side, 25 to 40 cows. Those not ‘cut’, even if university graduates, receive four to eight cows. But then again, very few make it to university.

Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) was outlawed in Kenya in 2011.

But the situation of women and girls in Kenya’s expansive West Pokot County, approximately 380 kilometres from the capital, Nairobi, is characterised by FGM, child marriages, and high maternal and child mortality rates.

Apakamoi Psinon Reson, a conflict mitigation expert based in West Pokot, says that FGM is closely linked to conflict and pastoralist communities, as those communities that enjoy relative peace have all but abandoned FGM.

Even as the world marks International Women’s Day on Mar. 8 under the theme I am Generation Equality: Realizing Women’s Rights, it is a long road ahead for Pokot girls and women.

“Whether in West Pokot, Baringo, Kerio Valley in the Rift Valley region or the northern parts of Kenya experiencing conflict over natural resources, livestock and poor leadership, women have no rights and are living very difficult lives,” Mary Kuket, the chairperson of the Baringo County chapter of Maendeleo ya Wanawake (Development of Women), a national women’s movement, tells IPS.

Northern Kenya has a long history of ethnic conflict and marginalisation, and now terrorism spilling over from neighbouring Somalia has intensified conflict in this region.

Reason argues that it is difficult to protect women and girls, and to enforce the law in these conflict situations.

“We have many pockets of heavily armed bandits in pastoralist communities who are happy to maintain a situation of lawlessness in these regions,” he tells IPS, adding that even after years of disarmament missions communities have not been fully disarmed.

Kenya, recognised as East Africa’s largest economy by the World Bank, is not among the top 10 Sub-Saharan African countries lauded for promoting gender equality, according to the Global Gender Gap Report 2020. 

It ranks 109 out of 153 countries by the World Economic Forum based on progress made towards gender parity.

Human Rights Watch (HRW) cites a lack of accountability for serious human rights violations, including rape perpetrated largely by security forces in the 2017 elections.

Kenya is outperformed by much smaller economies such as Rwanda, Uganda, Namibia, Zambia and Madagascar, all of which made it on the list of top 10 countries in sub-Saharan Africa for their notable steps towards gender equality.

But with the current pace of transformation, gender gaps in sub-Saharan Africa can only be closed in 95 years, according to the World Economic Forum.

South Sudan remains on the radar of human rights organisations since December 2013 when a fresh round of conflict began. The World Report 2019 released by HRW estimates that more than four million people have fled their homes.

Gender champion and executive director of the non-governmental Coalition of State Women’s and Youth Organisation in South Sudan, Dina Disan Olweny, explains the harmful and retrogressive traditions that prevail, particularly in some of the country’s more fragile states.

Olweny tells IPS that South Sudan’s Eastern Equatorial state is particularly notorious for the abhorrent practice of blood money.

Regional clashes between the government and rebel forces resulted in crimes committed against civilians, including sexual violence.

“There is frequent conflict here over livestock and grazing fields. When a family loses a loved one, they expect to be compensated with livestock by the family that killed their loved one,” says Olweny.

“This compensation is called blood money because the affected family receives something for life lost. Those too poor to afford livestock usually give away one of their young girls,” she says. She says that at least five of the 12 tribes in this state continue to give away young girls as blood money.

• Other frail states across Africa, including Chad, Sierra Leone, Liberia, Mali, Mauritania, Central African Republic, Somalia, Niger, Congo and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) have the worst gender indexes, according to a 2019 global report by Equal Measures 2030, a civil society and private-led partnership that connects data and evidence with advocacy and action.
• Throughout 2018, HRW reported that DRC’s government officials and security forces carried out widespread repression and serious human rights violations.
• The World Report 2019  further documents that “government officials and security forces carried out widespread repression and serious human rights violations. In central and eastern DRC for instance, the situation reached alarming levels as an estimated 4.5 million were displaced from their homes, and that more than 130,000 refugees fled to neighbouring countries”.

The Central African Republic (CAR) remains a particularly fragile state as armed groups, which have expanded control to at least 70 percent of the country, continue to perpetrate serious human rights abuses — killing civilians, raping and sexually assaulting women and girls.

• The African Union has entered into a political dialogue with the armed groups towards ending the fighting in the country.

Similarly, Somalia is now defined by fighting and lack of state protection. Currently, at least 2.7 million people are internally displaced, many of them at risk of abuse such as sexual violence.

Women in Mauritania are not sufficiently protected by the law. According to the World Report 2019 “a variety of state policies and laws that criminalise adultery and morality offences renders women vulnerable to gender-based violence, making it difficult and risky for them to report sexual assault to the police”.

HRW has raised concerns that Mauritanian law does not adequately define the crime of rape and other forms of sexual assault. Nonetheless, a more comprehensive draft law exists.

Despite ongoing conflict, across Africa, women have made significant effort to participate in the labour force nearly on par with men. However, gender experts such as Olweny raise concerns over the wide gap between male and female professionals and technical workers.

She says that women remain marginalised and excluded from the economy because they are confined to unskilled work, and are working out of necessity to put food on the table.

The Global Gender Gap Report 2020 concludes that this is an indication that a vast majority of women are in poorly paying jobs within the informal sector.

• For instance, in the DRC about 62 percent of women and 67 percent of men participate in the labour force. However, only about 25 percent of women are employed in professional and technical work.
• Similarly, only 23 percent of women in Cote d’Ivor’s labour force are professionals. The numbers are similar in Mali and Togo, coming in at 21 percent and 20 percent respectively. 

“Across Africa, although in varying degrees, we are experiencing prevailing levels of discriminatory gender norms and practices. We still have alarming levels of violence towards women, and institutions that are too weak to address the plight of women,” Fihima Mohamed, the founder of the Women Initiative, a local social movement for the empowerment of women and girls in the republic of Djibouti, tells IPS.

She says that while more girls are enrolled in school, they are not staying long enough to acquire technical skills to engage in professional work.

“Our women therefore remain excluded from political and economic decision making. It is very unfortunate that, as a collective society, we are yet to realise that more gender-equal countries such as Norway, Finland and Sweden are also global economic powerhouses,” says Mohamed.

• A Foresight Africa 2020 report shows that Africa will not overcome many of the economic challenges facing it, until it narrows existing wide gender gaps in its labour force.
• According to the report, if African countries with lower relative female-to-male participation rates in 2018 had the same rates as advanced countries, “the continent would have gained an additional 44 million women actively participating in its labour markets”.
• Further, the report emphasises that “by increasing gender equality in the labour market, the gain in Gross Domestic Product (GDP) ranges from 1 percent in Senegal to 50 percent in Niger”.
• Meanwhile, the Global Gender Gap Report 2020 shows that Nigeria, Lesotho, Namibia, Eswatini and South Africa are among the very few African countries where women outpace men as professionals or technical workers.
• Other countries where the percentage of women professionals has not outpaced men but impressively ranges from 40 to 46 percent are Uganda, Zambia, Zimbabwe and Tanzania.

To realise gender equality in this generation, Mohamed called for a total outlawing of retrogressive traditions such as FGM, a renewal of efforts to keep girls attending school to the highest level, and incentives — such as tax exemptions — to support women in business.

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The post Realising Women’s Rights Difficult for Africa’s Fragile States appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Excerpt:

This article is part of special IPS coverage of International Women’s Day on March 8 2020

 

The world marks International Women’s Day on Mar. 8 under the theme I am Generation Equality: Realizing Women’s Rights. IPS takes a look at the complex challenges facing African women.

The post Realising Women’s Rights Difficult for Africa’s Fragile States appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Ambassador Kshenuka Senewiratne from Sri Lanka says much of the parameters around diplomacy are endless because there’s also so many dimensions, especially with the Sustainable Development Goals. Courtesy: Permanent Mission of Sri Lanka to the United Nations

By Samira Sadeque
UNITED NATIONS, Mar 6 2020 (IPS)

It’s a rainy February morning in New York, but inside the walls of her room, it might as well be summer — bright and warm, much in contrast to the drizzles reluctantly crawling on the window panes of Ambassador Kshenuka Senewiratne’s office overlooking Manhattan. 

Senewiratne, Permanent Representative of Sri Lanka to the United Nations, welcomes IPS with a smile and the world famous Ceylon tea. This is her sixth month here, and she says it has passed by in the blink of an eye. 

“Six months in another posting to me would be very new but here the number of permanent representatives that keep coming in after you just pushes you up,” she says with a laugh. 

From hamburgers to diplomacy 

This is not her first time with the U.N. Between 1988 and 1990, she served as First Secretary in the Permanent Mission to the U.N. in New York. But for Senewiratne, her journey started more than three decades ago as she was walking down the streets in London, where her parents had just moved from Sri Lanka to provide her and her brother with high quality education. 

Having just completed her high school board exams from Sri Lanka, she wasn’t sure what was ahead of her. 

“I was walking down High Street, and  saw ‘Help Wanted,’” she recalls of a sign she saw at a McDonald’s. So she figured she would give it a try. 

Soon after she joined the cafe, she heard back from the University of Salford that she had been accepted into their programme for the next academic year. 

She decided to continue working for McDonald’s in order to earn some money until her school began. 

“And that was a time when they thought I had some amount of potential and they wanted to send me on training for floor management,” she recalls. 

When she declined the offer citing her university admission, they were even more moved by her honesty. They still decided to send her to the training and told her they’d have an open space for her whenever she wanted to return. 

She did return once after she joined university. Even though the McDonald’s experience came far before her expansive career in foreign diplomacy — spanning from London to Brussels to Geneva – she still holds her lessons from the McDonald’s store in her work today. 

Because of the nature of the work pressure on workers at a fast-food joint such as McDonald’s, Senewiratne says it taught her the importance of being punctual and to think quick on her feet — which she says are key requirements in diplomacy. 

“You have to learn everything around the store — from cleaning the toilets to the lobby area, the dining area, [or] how you would put the milkshake machine together — all those technical things,” she says of her time there. “If something happens you must know which button to pull.”

She recalls a particularly funny memory with the milkshake machine where she pulled the wrong button, and was drenched in chocolate syrup. Today, decades later, she laughs as she re-tells the story. But back then, it was a major cog in the wheel of what would become her career. 

“That’s where you learnt the essence of time that is inculcated into you,” she says, “whether be it flipping the hamburger, whether it is putting french fries, getting it and bagging it, [or] serving customers — it is all on timing.”

The experience of addressing a crisis situation such as a disappointed customer whose fries were cold, or has something missing in their burger, or doesn’t like their milkshake further taught her to address criticism with calm.  

“It’s a case of how you prioritise,” she says, “in diplomacy it’s a situation of prioritising what you need to get done and what you want to achieve.” 

Bringing own causes to the world 

Her ability to prioritise and negotiate paved the path for her to many governments and international diplomacy efforts. Soon after completing her education, she would go on to become Sri Lanka’s deputy High Commissioner to the United Kingdom, then High Commissioner, then to Geneva as Ambassador and Permanent Representative of Sri Lanka to the United Nations. 

In 2014, she was made foreign secretary in Sri Lanka, before she moved back to New York as Permanent Representative. In between, she also served as Ambassador of Sri Lanka to Thailand. She was the only woman in her batch when she joined the foreign service of Sri Lanka in 1984. She was also the first female High Commissioner in London, as well as the first female Permanent Secretary of Foreign Affairs and Permanent Representative to the U.N. in New York. 

Her journey is as extensive as it’s glorious but it didn’t come without challenges. 

“Especially in my position here I’ve been so idealistic at the beginning,” she says. Often, she would come into the office with a plan to do certain chores in certain order, but once she arrived at work, just by sheer nature of the work itself, that order would be reoriented. 

“This is the way it is,” she says, “but that’s something that’s also the challenge of issues and situations and trying to negotiate positions. And it has not been easy in the international arena for Sri Lanka.” 

As someone who joined the table while Sri Lanka was still in the middle of its civil war, Senewiratne says sometimes it was difficult to push her country’s issues at the forefront against other international concerns. 

But with her persistence, she was able to push forth those stories. Today, she feels at home with the sense of camaraderie she feels with other Permanent Representatives here. There is even an app that brings all the ambassadors together, and another app for female ambassadors. 

“Diplomacy is a very interesting field and now the parameters are endless because there’s also so many dimensions, especially with the Sustainable Development Goals being sort of at the end of the rainbow,” she says. 

And that, she says, is what makes a career in diplomacy accessible to anyone who wants to work in the field of serving their country, as well as the international community. 

At the end of our chat, the New York sky outside remains gloomy. 

“The world is a global village in the end and this village is open to anybody,” she says in her message to anyone around the world — perhaps someone in a McDonald’s kitchen who someday hopes to enter the field. “Be a part of the development of your country, and you can go global after that.” 

 

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The post Q&A: Learning Diplomacy From Flipping Burgers at McDonald’s appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Excerpt:

For International Women’s Day, IPS UN is featuring female permanent representatives who to share about their work, inspiration and challenges in an otherwise male-dominated field. This profile is part of the series.

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By Webster Mavhu
HARARE, Mar 5 2020 (IPS)

Women are the face of HIV in Africa, yet four of every 10 persons living with HIV in East and Southern Africa are men. Despite higher rates of HIV infection among women, more men living with HIV are dying.

Men are often left behind by programs that aim to reduce HIV rates as well as those providing HIV treatment.

Global HIV targets are that by December 2020, 90% of all people living with HIV will know their status, 90% of those HIV positive are on treatment and, 90% of those on treatment have reduced replication of the virus in their body.

Some African countries are on track to achieve these targets because programs for women are doing so well. Unfortunately, men in many settings are far from achieving these targets.

The Joint United Nations Programme on HIV and AIDS (UNAIDS) report shows that globally, less than half of men living with HIV are on treatment, compared to 60% of women. Data from 30 African countries also show that, across all age groups except 45-49 years, men are much less likely than women to have ever taken an HIV test.

In response to HIV testing and treatment gaps between men and women, the U.S. President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief emphasizes the need for an acceleration of strategies to reach men under 35 years.

Webster Mavhu. Credit: Natasha Sweeney.

For more than a decade, I have been researching why men in sub-Saharan Africa do not take up HIV services even though they are aware that they need to take the necessary steps to either prevent HIV or ensure it does not eventually kill them. I recently visited four African countries – Lesotho, Malawi, Tanzania, Zimbabwe – to explore why men act against their own best interests.

One issue that came out in all countries is that men believe that the body and mind ought to be resilient. They consider ‘submission’ to the healthcare system as necessary only when the body can no longer hold out, or when men are certain they are no longer in control of their health and fate. A fisherman in Tanzania summed it up as: “A man is like a car which only goes to the garage when it has broken down.”

Men want to be seen as being in control, but HIV – considered a serious, life-long condition – undermines this image, with the result that men want to avoid knowing they have it.

HIV programs therefore need to change the narrative around HIV for example by repositioning HIV testing and treatment as acts that allow men to regain control of their health and fate more broadly.

Another concern voiced by men is that programs are largely based at clinics, but men rarely visit clinics. Programs need to take services to where men are.

We implemented HIV self-testing in three African countries and found that it increased HIV testing among men. Men liked that they were in ‘control’ of the testing process and that they were the first to know the result, which is different from when a health worker does the testing.

Global HIV targets are that by December 2020, 90% of all people living with HIV will know their status, 90% of those HIV positive are on treatment and, 90% of those on treatment have reduced replication of the virus in their body

But self-testing requires a second test to confirm a possible positive result, so programs need to consider how to make confirmatory testing easily accessible for men who self-test positive. 

It is also important to ensure that men who test HIV-positive access treatment. Large numbers of HIV-positive men choose not to seek treatment nor stick to treatment plans once started. An innovative way to address barriers to treatment access has been the use of community medication refill groups, where groups of individuals who are doing well on HIV treatment take turns to collect medication for each other, reducing the need to go to the clinic regularly.

Another barrier for some men is fear that others may learn their HIV status, which can mean they prefer to collect medication from male community health workers, and in secret. 

While some argue that too many resources have been channeled to HIV and it is now time to focus on other conditions, HIV has provided huge learning which can be adapted by other programs. Better still, health systems (including community-based approaches) developed for HIV prevention and care can be combined with those for non-communicable diseases (e.g. diabetes, hypertension) and implemented alongside each other.

I am not arguing for less focus on women. But all that focus and hard work will be undone if we do not also focus on men. To do that, we need to use targeted approaches that take into account men’s particular concerns about privacy, self-determination (control) and need for flexibility.

At stake is more than simply reaching global goals. At stake is the health and well-being of millions of African men.

 

Webster Mavhu is a linguist-turned social scientist and public health practitioner who has been conducting research to inform programming for the past 15 years. He is an @aspennewvoices fellow. Follow him on twitter @webstermavhu

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Workers produce charcoal in Andrequice, a town in the state of Minas Gerais in southeastern Brazil. The activity employs large numbers of workers who are subjected to modern slavery, in addition to damaging the environment by deforesting large areas. It was a frequent target of inspections carried out by the Mobile Inspection Team for Combating Slave Labour, especially during the first decade of this century. Credit: Courtesy of João Zinclar/CPT

By Mario Osava
RIO DE JANEIRO, Mar 5 2020 (IPS)

“Slave labour is not declining; it has taken on new forms and is growing; it expanded to new sectors where it did not previously exist,” said Ivanete da Silva Sousa, an activist in the fight against modern-day slavery in northern Brazil.

This scourge expanded from livestock farming, charcoal and sugar production and other rural activities to urban areas: the construction and textile industries, among other sectors, she told IPS.

As one of the founders of the Centre for the Defence of Life and Human Rights (CDVDH), created in 1996, Sousa has monitored the evolution of contemporary slavery, characterised by forced labour, excessive working hours, degrading conditions, and restrictions on freedom of movement, as typified by the Brazilian Penal Code.

The Centre was born in Açailandia, in the west of the state of Maranhão, because this municipality of 112,000 inhabitants was a hub of slave labour to produce the charcoal consumed by the local iron and steel industry, which exports pig iron, a product of smelting iron ore that is used in the production of steel."The discovery of slave labour in new parts of Brazil and new branches of activity revealed situations that probably existed already, but which until then no one had reported or which had not been sufficiently or properly investigated.” -- Xavier Plassat

It was also a hotbed of trafficking of virtually captive workers, as it was located on the border of Maranhão, the largest supplier of labour for degrading and illegal work, together with Pará, the Amazon jungle state where slavery conditions are rife.

For these reasons Carmen Bascarán, a Catholic lay missionary from Spain, chose Açailandia as the headquarters of the CDVDH, to put into practice her ideas to help the poor. She was the soul and leader of the Centre, which added her name to its own when she returned to her home country in 2011.

Street vendors of hammocks made in Ceará, another neighbouring state to the east, are recent examples of workers in slavery-like conditions identified in Maranhão, Sousa said from Açailandia in her dialogue with IPS.

Stores are also taking advantage of the new facilities provided by the use of the “hour bank”, adopted in the 2017 reform of the labour laws, to force their employees to work many extra hours and give up their weekly day off, without the obligatory compensation.

“Hours worked accumulate,” but the compensation in hours off in later days, as stipulated by the law, “never arrives,” said the activist, the administrative secretary of the CDVDH for the past six years.

The 2017 reform, defended as an adaptation to the current conditions in the economy and labour relations, offered new opportunities for the “modernisation” of slave labour: “It became more difficult for people to detect slave labour,” Sousa said.

A poster from the latest gathering of workers rescued from neo-slavery conditions. Since 2014, the Centre for the Defence of Life and Human Rights has been organising these annual meetings, which are held in different locations in the state of Maranhão every year on May 13, the day the abolition of slavery in Brazil (in 1888) is commemorated. In the gatherings, workers discuss their experiences and how to overcome poverty and inequality in order to eradicate slave labour. Credit: Courtesy of CDVDH

The statistics collected by different government agencies engaged in the fight against slave labour also point to a complex picture which has evolved over time.

The Catholic Church’s Pastoral Land Commission (CPT) processed the data gathered from 1995 – when Brazil acknowledged the problem and began to combat it systematically – to 2019.In Brazil, 369,000 victims of slave labour

The Walk Free initiative of the Australia-based Minderoo Foundation has conducted a study on modern-day slavery, which states that there are 40.3 million victims of this practice worldwide. Of that total, 24.9 million are victims of forced labour and 15.4 million are victims of forced marriage.

In the case of Brazil, a country of continental dimensions and with 220 million inhabitants, there are an estimated 369,000 workers in slavery conditions, according to a study based on data from 2016 and conduced in conjunction with the International Labour Organisation (ILO) and the International Organisation for Migration (IOM).

In the past 25 years, a total of 54,778 workers were rescued from slavery or degrading conditions by the authorities, especially the Mobile Inspection Team, which brings together people from the ministry of labour, the labour prosecutors office, and the police.

The crackdown on modern-day slavery intensified in the 2003-2010 period, when more than 3,000 workers were freed each year, with a record 6,001 rescued in 2007. Since then the number has dropped steadily, to 1,050 last year.

In this process, the rescue operations that were concentrated in the agricultural frontiers of the Amazon jungle states of Pará, Mato Grosso and Maranhão spread throughout the country, to the wealthier and more industrialised southern and southeastern regions as well.

Since 2006, the phenomenon has been expanding in urban areas, especially the construction and textile industries.

“The discovery of slave labour in new parts of Brazil and new branches of activity revealed situations that probably existed already, but which until then no one had reported or which had not been sufficiently or properly investigated,” Xavier Plassat, who coordinates the CPT’s campaign against contemporary slavery, told IPS.

“These statistics have to be analysed carefully”, because they can lead to misleading conclusions, Plassat, a Dominican friar, warned in an interview.

Xavier Plassat, a French friar of the Dominican Catholic order, who has lived in Brazil since 1989, gives Pope Francis, during an audience at the Vatican in April 2019, a booklet from the Brazilian Pastoral Land Commission’s campaign against slave labour, which he coordinates. Credit: Courtesy of the Pastoral Land Commission

The large number of workers rescued in the first decade of this century, for example, was due to inspections in the sugar industry, which identified in one fell swoop hundreds of workers subjected to abusive conditions during the sugarcane harvest, he pointed out.

That situation changed quickly with the mechanisation of cane cutting, imposed by local governments in response to air pollution in nearby cities, created by the practice of pre-harvest sugar cane field burning.SDG goal against trafficking

One of the 169 targets of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) calls for “immediate and effective measures to eradicate forced labour, end modern slavery and human trafficking and secure the prohibition and elimination of the worst forms of child labour”.
Dominican friar Xavier Plassat said the target, number 7 of SDG 8 on decent work, "has a concrete positive effect, but the governments of the last three years have forgotten the commitments" of the SDGs.
"What helps to promote the targets of SDG 8 in Brazil is the presence of the International Labour Organisation with a well-designed programme to combat slave labour that outlines what to do after the rescue" of the victims, said Plassat, who coordinates the Catholic Pastoral Land Commission’s efforts against slave labour in Brazil, in reference to the Integrated Action designed to keep workers from falling back into the trap.
At the international level, the Global Sustainability Network (GSN), which emerged in 2014 as a result of an international meeting of religious leaders of different faiths and denominations, also fights forced labour and other forms of human trafficking, especially promoting target 7 of SDG 8, by pushing for national legislation to combat new forms of forced labour slavery.

In the sectors of cattle breeding and farming, where some employers are abusive, there was a similar attempt to reduce the workforce by means of mechanisation, and to reduce the use of agrochemicals as well, said Plassat, who is from France and has lived in Brazil for 31 years.

In the charcoal industry, modern-day slavery was reduced by the heavy scrutiny and inspections triggered by multiple complaints, as well as by the loss of a large part of its market due to the crisis in the pig iron trade.

Finally, Plassat added, the economic recession in Brazil, which began in 2015, led to high unemployment, which made it less likely for workers afraid of losing their incomes – even when earned in terrible conditions in poor-paying jobs – to report abuses.

Complaints, and thus inspections and rescue operations, also fell off, possibly because employers resorted to different tactics to circumvent the crackdown on this form of trafficking in persons.

“They started to use smaller groups of workers, in short-term tasks, to avoid the risk” of being caught, said the friar, who also explained that employers abandoned the practice of transporting workers in large groups over long distances, to escape detection.

In the Amazon, “there is ‘surgical’ deforestation, which is on a smaller-scale and takes place in protected areas, where satellite images reveal nothing,” he said.

The result is that fewer workers in slavery conditions are detected, even though inspection operations have not been reduced.

Efforts to combat the phenomenon now require “more intelligence in the inspections, examining the companies’ books,” for example, he said.

The central government reduced the budget for the agencies fighting slave labour. However, the rescue operations continue because local authorities in some states are making a great effort, albeit with limited resources, to fight the problem.

Minas Gerais, Bahia, São Paulo and Goiás are the states that presented the best results in recent years, said Plassat from Araguaina, the city of 180,000 inhabitants where he lives in the central state of Tocantins, near Maranhão and Pará, the areas where the most numerous rescue operations were carried out in the first decade of the century.

The CPT and the CDVDH, which form part of the Integrated Action Network to Combat Slavery (Raice) that promotes initiatives aimed at “breaking the cycle of slave labour” in the heavily affected states of Maranhão, Pará, Tocantins and Piauí, stress the need for prevention rather than merely repression.

Addressing the vulnerabilities and lack of local alternatives that drive people into migration and forced labour, and training rescued victims to keep them from falling back into the trap, are necessary measures to effectively eradicate the new types of slavery.

The post Slavery Modernises, Adapts to Stay Alive in Brazil appeared first on Inter Press Service.

This article is part of special IPS coverage of International Women’s Day on March 8 2020
 

Farhana Haque Rahman is Senior Vice President of IPS Inter Press Service; a journalist and communications expert, she is a former senior official of the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization and the International Fund for Agricultural Development.

By Farhana Haque Rahman
ROME, Mar 5 2020 (IPS)

The narrative surrounding women’s rights in 2020 carries much hope and possibility. A new decade is ushering in important anniversaries and milestones: 25 years since the Beijing Platform for Action, 110 years since the birth of International Women’s Day and the 10-year countdown to achieve the UN Sustainable Development Goals.

Farhana Haque Rahman

These dates are all significant of course, and their impact is sure to be positive to an extent, yet there is an undertone of wishful thinking that events in themselves can ignite powerful change, and a simplicity that disregards the more complex and insidious existence of systematic inequality.

These milestone moments will be written about, documented in the news, and read by many. But the opportunity for real tangible change gets diluted as we forget that actions perpetuating gender inequality are often normalised, taken for granted, and occur in social strata globally where the news of such events seldom reaches. International Women’s Day,for example, perceived by some as an unmissable opportunity to celebrate, campaign for, and protect women’s rights, is simply ignored elsewhere.

That’s the issue with these occasions and high-level discussions attended by those with access – they create a barrier to understanding for those who aren’t even aware they are occurring. They don’t form part of everyday life for those most actively affected. Women denied education won’t understand what specific legislation means for them, and women denied the opportunity to take autonomy in their lives are not going to be the ones in attendance, or those given access to the results. Women with the privilege of being part of such occasions are likely to have already a recognisable level of emancipation from explicit forms of oppression.

Campaigns for women’s suffrage began over a century ago and the first IWD has its roots in a 1910 session of the International Socialist Congress, although March 8 became accepted as the common date some years later, and was adopted by the feminist movement in 1967. The UN designated 1975 as International Women’s Year and has consistently recognised the annual honoring of women as a call for change and celebration of progress.

Political figures with an unequivocal platform to promote equality are becoming evermore visible. Germany’s Angela Merkel is widely respected for her strong opposition to nationalist and populist movements; Jacinda Ardern of New Zealand is hailed for her stand against hate and discrimination; Bangladesh has been praised for its assistance to one million Rohingya refugees driven out of Myanmar and Sheikh Hasina has been prominent on the international stage in seeking to resolve the humanitarian crisis. All women, all leading purposefully in situations that could easily perpetuate discrimination against so many. Barack Obama’s comments on women making “indisputably” better leaders are clearly justified by these game-changers.

The point here is that while 2020 could be a landmark year for gender equality, the efforts required to reach our goal have to be deliberate and far reaching. Just the instance of these events happening won’t have any measurable result.

Positive reinforcements of achievements do plant the seeds of change. The celebration of role models who represent shattered glass ceilings, the publicised calls for action, and the spotlight on game-changers all bring this possibility of change where women and girls can access conclusions to be reached this year. Having solidarity and a purposeful connection can nurture the strength to fight for the elimination of gender inequality. The girl in Nepalforced to sleep in a tiny hut during her period should hear about the government minister’s wife who became the first menstruating women in her district to spend a night in her own house. The woman who is reluctant to demand that she be paid equal to her male counterpart should hear about other women doing that. The girl consistently told that she is bossy when trying to take initiative should hear about female politicians and businesswomen who are widely respected for their leadership styles. The list goes on.

Access to the knowledge of a possibility of change is crucial. Giving those most affected by gender inequality the solidarity of a community which knows that change is possible will have a significant effect on igniting the shift in gendered practices.

With the SDGs acting as a blueprint for global efforts to eliminate poverty and inequality by 2030, the 10 years we have to achieve this are scarcely enough. More than half of the 129 countries measured in the 2019 SDG Gender Index scored poorly on SDG 5, which calls for international gender equality and the empowerment of all women. There is a serious question to be asked whether setting such goals are operationally viable. As the UN highlights: “The emerging global consensus is that despite some progress, real change has been agonisinglyslow for the majority of women and girls in the world.”

Complete elimination of gender inequality, and the genuine expectation for this to have been met in the 25 years since the Beijing Platform for Action, may be too far-reaching to even aspire to. It risks creating a defeatist mentality, a sense we just don’t have the means to get there. At what point can we confidently say that a country has achieved full equality?

Smaller, more manageable goals with a clearer path for completion, should be adopted instead. In this context it is also important to recognise the shortcomings of setting an absolute in the first place. Such is the volatility of human behavior that there will never be ‘complete’ equality, but there is much that can be done to make the situation better for all.

One of the arguments for the SDGs is that they provide a strong framework for action to be implemented by those in a position of power, such as equal pay for the same job, and access to reproductive health facilities. While these are crucial steps in giving women equality of opportunity, identifying legislative acts as indication of progress towards equality can givethe illusion that further action is unnecessary. This in turn drives more subtle and clandestine forms of gender inequality further away from public recognition.

Yes we should be celebrating these monumental events that bring to light incredibly important issues. IWD 2020, aptly named “I am Generation Equality: Realizing Women’s Rights” which aligns with the UN Women’s Generation Equality campaign, carries this torch. But do not let such moments obscure the painfully slow pace of progress and theinsidious existence of systemic inequality.

However the coronavirus outbreak means that these landmark events are likely to be much curtailed. The first major event to be knocked off course is a March 9-20 meeting in New York of the Commission on the Status of Women. It had been expected to draw more than 7,000 attendees, but will be shortened and scaled down after the UN urged capital-based ministers and diplomats not to travel. But instead of treating this as a setback, we should seize the opportunity to really push the agenda ahead without being bogged down in the usual meaningless formalities and empty platitudes.

The post Many Milestones but Painfully Slow Progress Towards Gender Equality appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Excerpt:

This article is part of special IPS coverage of International Women’s Day on March 8 2020

 

Farhana Haque Rahman is Senior Vice President of IPS Inter Press Service; a journalist and communications expert, she is a former senior official of the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization and the International Fund for Agricultural Development.

The post Many Milestones but Painfully Slow Progress Towards Gender Equality appeared first on Inter Press Service.

By Jennifer Morgan
AMSTERDAM, the Netherlands, Mar 5 2020 (IPS)

Gender inequality – like the climate emergency – is not inevitable, but is kept in place by the poor choices too many cis men make on a daily basis. And it is not just womxn who are hurt and trapped by this patriarchal problem, but girls and non-binary people too, as well as many boys and men.

For millennia, gender inequality has been working very well for the majority of men. Globally, men hold 85% of senior leadership roles in companies, for example, while the 22 richest men in the world have more wealth than all of the womxn in Africa. None of this is by accident and many men are reluctant to change a system they think benefits them.

Meanwhile womxn remain on the frontlines of gender inequality and the climate emergency. And due to the patriarchy, unsurprisingly they are rarely heard on issues that deeply impact them, which as a result, affects society as a whole.

A great number of men do believe in gender equality and this needs to be acknowledged. But it is easy for men to merely ‘believe’ in something they subsequently reap social rewards for. Accepting that gender inequality exists – as much as the climate emergency – and taking positive action is crucial if we are to achieve a more equitable, peaceful and green planet.

Because the fact is equity across the world and spectrum would lead to more life satisfaction, better security and economies, and more sustainable solutions to climate change.

That’s why this International Women’s Day, I call on men to be more than feminist; to do more than just celebrate womxn.

For a start, we need men to be anti-patriarchal and anti-misogynist, and to be actively campaigning against climate denial, for the benefit of all. Only then would we begin to get closer to the #IWD2020 theme of equality.

Jennifer Morgan

What I am calling for may sound overwhelming, but small individual changes in attitude can lead to huge progressive shifts in the stale social norms that are damaging too many people at our collective detriment.

“We are all parts of a whole. Our individual actions, conversations, behaviors and mindsets can have an impact on our larger society,” as the IWD organizers say.

Men can proactively start to promote gender equality in the spaces they dominate in many straightforward ways: by listening to womxn and not talking over them; crediting them for their ideas; rejecting male only settings; ensuring womxn are included on panels and sports teams; refusing to play into stereotypes, and calling out others who are being anti-womxn, anti-diversity and anti-science.

In my privileged position as a white Western female leading a global and diverse environmental organization, I strive to use my leadership to empower and protect, and include people of all backgrounds.

It often strikes me how I have more access to the halls of power than those with the experience of living on the frontlines of the climate emergency. Those dealing with the devastating droughts, floods and fires linked to climate change, who predominantly are womxn who are Black, Indigenous, of color, from the Global South.

They are truly powerful people, from whom I get much inspiration, and yet their voices remain too often unheard by decision-makers, policymakers, the media, and beyond, due to the patriarchy. Amplifying these womxn’s voices and increasing their access to opportunities and platforms is central to my mission, and the mission of Greenpeace.

For there can be no green peace without gender equality. At Greenpeace, we aspire to become a leader in building and supporting a workforce that more accurately reflects the diversity of the global community Greenpeace serves, as well as the values the organization espouses, and have initiatives on harassment prevention, unconscious bias and structural power.

We take a zero-tolerance position on sexual, verbal, or physical harassment, bullying and any kind of discrimination based on gender, race, sexual orientation, gender identity, disability, faith, or any other aspect of our beings.

We will continue to examine how systematic marginalization and issues of equity intersect with our core mission and values as Greenpeace. We do this work readily because people power is linked to virtually everything Greenpeace does, from the impact we can make in the world to our ability to thrive as part of a movement.

We must always try to act in a way that sees, values, and embraces people in all their diversity. Boosting the voices of those the patriarchy actively tries to silence will lead to greater equity and better climate solutions.

Remarkable womxn are already leading the charge from Autumn Peltier and Brianna Fruean, the matriarchs of Wet’suwet’en fighting the Coastal Gas Link pipeline, to Vanessa Nakata and Winona LaDuke, among the many others.

But the patriarchy is man-made, much like climate change. It is more than time for cis men to combat gender inequality and the climate emergency alongside womxn, whom they should truly accept as their equals.

The post There Can Be No Green Peace Without Gender Equality appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Excerpt:

This article is part of special IPS coverage of International Women’s Day on March 8 2020

 

Jennifer Morgan is the Executive Director of Greenpeace International

The post There Can Be No Green Peace Without Gender Equality appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Teenager Karen Semens, from the Federated States of Micronesia, says her main challenge growing up is being a girl. She says that her culture doesn’t afford girls the same rights and opportunities of boys. Photo supplied.

By Neena Bhandari
SYDNEY, Australia, Mar 5 2020 (IPS)

For 13-year-old Karen Semens, growing up on Pohnpei — one of the four main island states in the Federated States of Micronesia, which comprises of more than 600 islands in the western Pacific Ocean — the main challenge is being a girl.

“In our culture, girls don’t have the same rights and opportunities nor do they get credit and recognition for their achievements as boys do. This prevents us from speaking our minds. For example in family meetings, only men make the decisions. I would like all girls to be treated as equals and have a say in decision making,” the 8th grade pupil from the Ohmine Public Elementary school in Pohnpei, tells IPS.

Equal rights for the girl child, climate change, access to healthcare and education are some of the issues Pacific island children are raising at the 84th extraordinary outreach session of the Committee on the 1989 United Nations (U.N.) Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) being held in Samoa’s capital, Apia, from Mar. 2 to 6.

Over 100 children from Pacific Island nations are having the opportunity to highlight the issues impacting them and their hopes for the future to the Committee on CRC. In a historic first, a U.N. human rights treaty body is meeting outside the U.N. headquarters of New York or Geneva, offering more governments, civil society organisations, regional agencies, and national human rights and academic institutions a chance to directly interact with the CRC and learn about its work. Having the session in Samoa is also providing the Committee with new insights and understanding of local and regional issues of the Pacific.

On the Mwokilloa atoll, where 13-year-old Austin Ladore’s mother grew up and where he spends his summer holidays, rising sea levels and coastal erosion are threatening the very existence of this low lying island and its people.

“We want action on climate change so our islands are protected and we, the children, can have a sustainable future,” Austin, Semens’s classmate, tells IPS.

“We are at the frontline, facing the consequences of climate change,” Ladore says. 

Austin Ladore (13), who is in 8th grade at the Ohmine Public Elementary school in Pohnpei, one of the four main island states in The Federated States of Micronesia, says children on his island are on the frontline of climate change. Photo supplied.

These children would also like access to proper healthcare, drinking water, good quality education, and affordable nutritious food.

“There aren’t enough qualified doctors and our hospitals aren’t equipped to treat some of the chronic diseases. Many of us eat unhealthy instant noodles as fruits and vegetables are very expensive. Every day, it is getting hotter. It makes us dehydrated, but there is scarcity of drinking water. Most of the schools on the islands have outdated books. We want a solution to all these problems,” Semens tells IPS.

The Committee consists of 18 Independent experts that monitor implementation of the CRC, the most widely ratified human rights treaty in history, by its 196 States parties. During this session, the Committee will review the Federated States of Micronesia, the Cook Islands and Tuvalu on how their countries are protecting, promoting and can further improve the rights of children under the CRC. It will also prepare Lists of Issues on the Republic of Kiribati.

Acting chief justice Vui Clarence Nelson of Samoa, who is the vice-chair of the CRC and the only Pacific Islander to ever sit on any of the U.N. treaty bodies tells IPS: “The Pacific is a strategic choice by the Committee as it is a region with big potential for improved treaty body effectiveness where: reporting rates and civil society engagement levels are generally low; treaty body engagement and implementation is impeded by geographical and resource constraints – in Kiribati, the Federated States of Micronesia and the Cook Islands, it takes three days to travel by boat to the more remote outlying islands; and representation on the treaty bodies is extremely low, further reducing the likelihood of effective engagement and implementation.”

The Session is ‘extraordinary’ in nature because of being held in Samoa and is one week in length as opposed to three.

“By ‘bringing the treaty body system to the regions and rights holders in their backyard’ it is believed that the following impacts will be achieved: Increased ratification of human rights instruments; increased engagement of the States, national human rights institutions, and the civil society with the treaty body system in particular with the Committee on the Rights of the Child; and raising global awareness of regional issues – especially the effects of climate change in the Pacific. To this end a special part of the Session is being devoted to climate change and the right to a healthy environment,” Nelson tells IPS.

The principal intergovernmental organisation in the region, the Pacific Community’s (SPC – Sustainable Pacific Development) human rights division Regional Rights Resource Team (RRRT) has partnered with the U.N. to bring this extraordinary session to Samoa.

SPC RRRT director Miles Young tells IPS: “It is an excellent example of collaboration amongst many parties with a common interest in bringing the treaty body system closer to its stakeholders – in this case, the children, people and countries of the Pacific. This level of interaction with Pacific Islanders would not have occurred had the hearing been held in Geneva or New York.  The effect will be to make the treaty body system – and therefore human rights – more tangible to Pacific Islanders.”

Fourteen Pacific Island Countries (Cook Islands, Fiji, Kiribati, Marshall Islands, Federated States of Micronesia, Nauru, Niue, Palau, Papua New Guinea, Samoa, Solomon Islands, Tonga, Tuvalu, Vanuatu) have ratified the CRC.

While progress has been made in implementing the CRC, especially in enacting child protection laws, reducing child poverty, child marriages and mortality rates for children under five years of age, many challenges persist.

Besides climate change, children are suffering from economic inequalities, food and water insecurity, poverty, epidemics and outbreaks of diseases, domestic violence, sexual abuse and neglect, absence of child protection laws and mechanisms, high levels of corporal punishment in the family and domestic setting, outdated child rights legislation in some of the jurisdictions, and in some States an inadequate child justice system.

“The event has raised the profile of the CRC in the Pacific and we can build on this to generate greater momentum for human rights. We, in the Pacific, are almost always the ‘forgotten’ region when it comes to global affairs.  This is an opportunity to raise a key issue for the region – climate change in the context of Pacific children and the region more generally,” Young says.

In June 2019 the annual meeting of chairpersons of the treaty bodies stated its support for conducting dialogues with States Parties at a regional level. The U.N.’s Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) has organised the Samoa session with assistance and advocacy of SPC RRRT. The governments of the United Kingdom, New Zealand, Australia and Sweden are sponsoring the session and the Government of Samoa is hosting the event.

“RRRT will be assessing the pros and cons of the sitting – this analysis will feed into the U.N.’s review of the treaty body system, which the U.N. is currently undertaking, and help inform decisions on how and where it holds future treaty body hearings,” Young adds.   

Speaking at the opening ceremony of the session on 2nd March, SPC’s deputy director general, Dr A Aumua said: “In the Pacific, there is a saying that ‘it takes a village to raise a child’. The meaningful participation of children is essential to the fulfilment of their rights, aspirations and full human potential. I’m confident that we can show the leadership needed to build a sustainable future for the children of this region.”

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The post The Future Pacific Island Children Want appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Permanent Representative of Norway to the United Nations, Ambassador Mona Juul, is also president of the U.N.Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC). Courtesy: Monica Hellman/Permanent Mission of Norway to the United Nations

By Samira Sadeque
UNITED NATIONS, Mar 5 2020 (IPS)

Ambassador Mona Juul started her role as the Permanent Representative of Norway to the United Nations in January 2019, and is also the president of the United Nations Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC). 

Prior to joining as the Permanent Representative, Juul had an extensive career where she played key roles in major foreign diplomacy efforts. Soon after starting her career in 1986, she was a part of the Cabinet of the Minister for Foreign Affairs team from 1992 to 1993 that worked on secret negotiations between Israel and Palestine Liberation Organisation that culminated in the 1993 Oslo Accords. 

With a Master’s degree in political science from University of Oslo, Juul went on to embrace numerous other roles including the Special Advisor, Ambassador and Middle East Coordinator in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. In July 2019, just within a few months of joining as the Permanent Representative to the U.N., she also became the president of ECOSOC. 

Her role in Norway’s foreign relations, as well as in diplomacy efforts in the Middle East is one that is of inspiration to anyone who dreams of being in the field — more so for women. We caught up with Ambassador Juul on her journey: 

Inter Press Service (IPS): As the U.N. Permanent Representative for Norway, what is your key message for this year’s International Women’s Day (IWD)?

Mona Juul (MJ): My message to women and men, girls and boys is to speak up in favor of women and girls, and protect those who defend their rights. 

IPS: As president of ECOSOC, you have expressed your concern about “a new generation of global inequalities – fuelled by climate change, technological change” – can you share how these inequalities affect women specifically? And how do we address that?

MJ: Norway fights for women’s rights and opportunities every day. In the U.N. and all over the world, we are continuously working to increase girl’s access to education, to decide over their own bodies and to have fundamental human rights. Norway is a consistent partner for women’s rights. We will keep our promise to work tirelessly to promote gender equality for all.

IPS: As the U.N. Permanent Representative as well as president of ECOSOC, what does this year’s IWD theme #EachforEqual mean to you?

MJ: We must place gender equality at the heart of our work. The rights of women and gender equality remains a reform priority and a cross-cutting issue for me as president of ECOSOC. This year, we celebrate 25 years of championing women’s rights since we adopted the Beijing Platform for Action. It is a vision of a more prosperous, peaceful and fair world, that is better for women and men, girls and boys. Women’s participation is a prerequisite and a key factor for economic growth.

IPS: What is your message to young women who would like to one day work in this field? 

MJ: Stand up against inequalities. Fight for what you believe in. Each one of us can make a difference. Today and every day, I am reminded of Nelson Mandela’s words: ‘The best weapon is to sit down and talk’. I hope that if we all followed that advice, we would each be equal.

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The post Q&A: ‘Place Gender Equality at the Heart of our Work’ appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Excerpt:

This article is part of special IPS coverage of International Women’s Day on March 8 2020

 

For International Women’s Day, IPS United Nations is featuring female permanent representatives who to share about their work, inspiration and challenges in an otherwise male-dominated field. This is the first in the series.

The post Q&A: ‘Place Gender Equality at the Heart of our Work’ appeared first on Inter Press Service.

By Anis Chowdhury and Jomo Kwame Sundaram
SYDNEY and KUALA LUMPUR, Mar 4 2020 (IPS)

As the outbreak of the novel coronavirus COVID-19 threatens a global pandemic, major stock markets around the world have suffered their worst performance since the 2008 financial crush.

Growth disruption
The OECD has warned that the coronavirus outbreak could halve global economic growth this year to 1.5%, the slowest rate since 2009. It has cut its 2020 growth forecast for China to a 30-year low of 4.9%, down from 5.7% in November.

Anis Chowdhury

The IMF downgraded its growth forecast for China to 5.6% in 2020, its lowest since 1990. Economists, polled by Reuters during 7-13 February, expected China’s economic growth to slump to 4.5% in the first quarter of 2020, down from 6% in the previous quarter, the slowest since the financial crisis.

Meanwhile, China’s manufacturing sector tumbled in February, as many factories remained closed after the annual lunar new year break. The Manufacturing Purchasing Managers Index (PMI), a widely used measure of factory activity, plunged to a record low in February, reflecting the sharp contraction.

The World Trade Organization (WTO) head expects the coronavirus epidemic to greatly slow the global economy, as China accounts for 19.1% of global GDP using purchasing power parity (PPP), or 17% at current exchange rates, 13% of global trade, and 28% of global manufacturing output in 2018.

Impact on developing economies
Developing countries, especially those dependent on commodity exports and global supply chains, are particularly vulnerable.

The impact is expected to be more severe for the 21 African countries the IMF sees as ‘resource-intensive’, where growth had already slowed to about 2.5%. Trade between Africa and China grew 2.2% in 2019 to US$208.7bn, compared with a 20% rise the year before.

Jomo Kwame Sundaram

Even Latin America counts China as its largest overall trade partner. The key downside risk is further deterioration of the commodity terms of trade. The most exposed economies are Chile, Peru and, to some extent, Brazil.

Asian developing countries linked to China through supply chains, raw material exports, investment and tourism are especially vulnerable, while other Asian giants, Japan and South Korea, have also been hit by the virus.

Global supply chain disruptions
The virtual shutdown of the ‘factory of the world’ has slowed the supply of products and parts from China, disrupting production the world over. Apple’s manufacturing partner in China, Foxconn, is experiencing production delays, while a Lombardy electronics factory was forced to close by the Italian authorities due to an outbreak.

Some carmakers, including Nissan and Hyundai, have temporarily closed factories outside China due to parts supply shortages. European manufacturing could suffer considerably due to its extensive links with China through supply chains. Already, four of the world’s biggest carmakers are expected to shut down European production.

Meanwhile, 94% of Fortune 1000 companies are facing supply chain disruptions due to the coronavirus. Even the pharmaceutical industry is expected to face disruption.

For the Harvard Business Review, “the worst is yet to come”, expecting the Covid-19 impact on global supply chains to peak in mid-March, “forcing thousands of companies to throttle down or temporarily shut assembly and manufacturing plants in the U.S. and Europe”.

Commodity prices plunge
Prices for commodities, from natural rubber to coal, plunged in February as Chinese companies cancelled orders, dragging down prices.

The Wall Street Journal reports one of the worst routs in commodity prices in years due to the coronavirus outbreak as prices for some natural resources plunged to new lows.

With the outbreak spreading to more countries, the oil price has been dropping precipitously as global demand weakens further. US and Brent crude benchmark prices fell 16% and 14% respectively during the past week, to its lowest levels since July 2017.

Meanwhile, iron ore prices dropped to US$81.35 per tonne during the first week of February from around US$90 throughout January.

Perfect storm?
Years of spending cuts due to fiscal austerity policies have undermined public health provisioning, not only in developing countries, but also in developed economies.

Various countries are bracing for economic fall outs from the COVID-19 virus outbreak, but have very limited policy space after eschewing sustained fiscal recovery efforts following the 2008-2009 global financial crisis.

Instead, monetary policies, including unconventional ones, with historically low interest rates and central bank balance sheets, are still being relied upon.

China’s central bank has already cut the country’s benchmark lending rate in February. The US Federal Reserve has recently further loosened monetary policy, with others quickly following or expected to follow. However, while rate cuts may temporarily boost financial market indicators, they are unlikely to be of much help.

Despite rejecting sustained fiscal efforts to revive economic growth in favour of austerity for a decade, debt levels continued to rise as revenue declined due to tax breaks. Scope for a ‘big boost’ fiscal package is also limited by public perceptions of the record global debt level—estimated at US$253tn, more than three times global GDP.

Although the economic consequences of the COVID-19 outbreak require a global response, multilateralism is in disarray. As if to underscore its growing irrelevance, the G20 missed an important opportunity to provide leadership at its 22-23 February finance ministers’ meeting in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.

The post Coronavirus Exposes Global Economic Vulnerability appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Patrícia Campos Mello. Credit: Marcos Villas Boas

By Natalie Southwick and Renata Neder
NEW YORK, Mar 4 2020 (IPS)

Brazilian journalist Patrícia Campos Mello made her career reporting from conflict zones around the world — but lately, the greatest threats to her security are coming from closer to home.

In recent weeks, Campos Mello has faced a violent onslaught of crude threats and personal attacks, after a witness in a Congressional hearing suggested she had offered to trade sexual favors for information.

The unfounded allegations spread on WhatsApp and Twitter, fed by trolls and politicians sharing memes calling her a “prostitute,” and spilled over into the public conversation, with President Jair Bolsonaro repeating the claims in a February 18 interview.

“It’s an attempt to discredit the work of us female journalists,” says political journalist Juliana Dal Piva, who has also been harassed for reporting on the president and his family. “When the articles are critical of Bolsonaro, this is the attack. They imply that journalists are willing to trade sex for information.”

From denied opportunities to workplace harassment, attacks by troll armies, sexual violence and even femicide, the job description for female journalists in Latin America has some horrifying drawbacks.

Most governments and workplaces still lack proper mechanisms to respond to these threats, leaving female reporters to come up with survival tactics on their own.

For most male journalists, danger lies in the field — but for women, the office can pose a threat, too. In 2017, Bolivian television journalist Yadira Peláez was fired from a state TV station after reporting her boss for sexual harassment — then the station sued her for “economic damage.”

A 2017 survey of almost 400 women journalists in 50 countries found that 38 percent of incidents of gender-based violence against women journalists came from a boss or supervisor.

The lurid attacks on women like Campos Mello play on an old sexist trope: the glamorous journalist who, in the process of reporting a big scoop, falls in love — or at least into bed — with her source.

The reality is closer to the opposite. In a 2017 survey of nearly 500 female journalists in Brazil, 10 percent said they had received offers of exclusive information or materials in exchange for sex.

Although sources are more likely to try to negotiate a date in exchange for an interview, female journalists are the ones who face professional consequences for any rumor of impropriety.

They are the ones whose social media profiles are scoured, private information shared, personal photos downloaded and turned into memes, who open their email to a deluge of violent threats — stalking, rape, murder, photos of dismembered bodies — and who must keep doing their job.

To attack a male journalist’s credibility, go after his work or objectivity. To attack a female journalist’s credibility, go after her body.

For women in the public eye, their physical appearance, personal relationships, professional histories and families all become fair game. Dal Piva says her greatest fear is that the campaigns against her might expose her family members to similar harassment.

The attacks are even harsher against women of color and queer women, like Brazil’s Maria Júlia Coutinho, or sports reporter Fernanda Gentil, who has talked openly about the homophobia she faced in 2016 when her relationship with another woman became public.

While threats against female reporters are a universal truth, they have frightening implications in Latin America, a region with some of the world’s highest violent death rates for women.

Since 1992, 96 women journalists have been killed in connection with their work. Eleven of those were in Latin America — all but two in either Mexico or Colombia.

Yet despite institutional barriers, threats and sexist smear campaigns, Latin America’s female reporters continue setting the standard, leading newsrooms, developing innovative projects and pushing the envelope on what journalism can — and should — do.

And they are fighting back. As the #MeToo movement has rippled through offices and newsrooms, its effects appear in coordinated efforts among female journalists to support and protect one another.

After Bolsonaro’s comments on Campos Mello, nearly 850 women journalists published an open letter protesting the “sordid and false attacks.”

In 2018, after a series of on-camera assaults targeted female soccer reporters, a group of Brazilian journalists launched the #DeixaElaTrabalhar (#LetHerWork) campaign, pressuring authorities to take action against sexual harassment on and off the field.

A year earlier, a group in Mexico launched an NGO, Versus, to combat “abuse, violence and discrimination” against women reporters. Colombian journalist Jineth Bedoya, herself a survivor of sexual violence, has for decades been an outspoken advocate for safety for women journalists and justice for survivors.

CPJ and other organizations, including the International Federation of Journalists and the International Association of Women in Radio and TV, have resources on how to protect accounts from hacks or doxing, responding to online harassment, and preventing sexual violence.

While preventative steps and advice are useful in the moment, they don’t address the source of the problem: a professional and societal context that devalues the work and presence of women, and often pressures women to simply be quiet — something out of character for successful journalists.

Fighting those norms will be a long-term battle, but Latin America’s women journalists are ready.

*The Committee to Protect Journalists is an independent, nonprofit organization that promotes press freedom worldwide. Press inquiries: press@cpj.org +1-212-300-9032

Latest Data:
250 journalists imprisoned as of Dec 1, 2019
Journalists killed globally (updated regularly)

The post To Attack a Female Journalist’s Credibility, Go After Her Body appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Excerpt:

This article is part of special IPS coverage of International Women’s Day on March 8 2020

 

Natalie Southwick is Program Coordinator/Coordinadora del Programa, Central and South America & the Caribbean, The Committee to Protect Journalists* (CPJ) & Renata Neder is CPJ's Brazil Correspondent

The post To Attack a Female Journalist’s Credibility, Go After Her Body appeared first on Inter Press Service.

By External Source
Mar 4 2020 (IPS-Partners)

The International Rescue Committee (IRC) and the Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC) call upon all parties to the conflict in the North-West and South-West regions of Cameroon to uphold international human rights and international humanitarian law and cease all attacks on civilians without delay.

The crisis destabilizing the English speaking parts of Cameroon has taken a worrying turn, with an increasing number of reports of targeted attacks against civilians, property and violations of the humanitarian space. More than 700,000 people are displaced, nearly 1 million children are out of school, and the humanitarian needs are mounting.

Survivors have shared testimonies of gruesome attacks that have left children orphaned, people homeless, and limited or cut off access to public facilities such as hospitals and schools. “I have been out of school for two years. The boys stopped us from going to school. They would beat you if you tried,” said Charlene, a 23 year-old single mother. “My teacher wanted to give us private classes so we could sit our exams, but they took and tortured him”.

The conflict would take even more from Charlene when her home was burned down by the military. “There was fighting and the boys hid in our corridor. The military set fire to the house to catch them. We became homeless. We lost everything.”

Reports indicate that an incident on February 14 in Ngarbuh Village, North-West Cameroon, left 24 killed, most of whom were women and children. This is only one of several incidences of disturbing attacks, many of which remain undocumented and impact directly the civilian population.

NRC, the IRC and partners have also witnessed attacks on civilians during humanitarian distributions. “We cannot silently witness defenceless civilians, who are already suffering from extreme deprivation, being attacked while seeking lifesaving assistance,” said Maureen Magee, NRC Regional Director for Central and West Africa. “People in need of humanitarian assistance must be allowed to access necessary support, without having to fear for their lives.”

“This crisis needs more attention,” said Paul Taylor, IRC Regional Vice President for West Africa. “People have been forced to flee and sleep in open air without adequate food or clean water. Aid agencies need additional resources to meet the needs of those displaced by this crisis, and all parties need to ensure that aid agencies are able to access those who are in desperate need of basic services.”

The IRC and NRC call for the immediate cessation of attacks against civilians, the respect of humanitarian space, and that parties to the conflict allow unimpeded access for humanitarian organizations, in accordance with the law, to conduct a coordinated response to reach the people most in need.

For interviews or more information, please contact:

NRC: media@nrc.no, +4790562329

IRC: Kellie Ryan, kellie.ryan@rescue.org or communications@rescue.org, +254758710198

The post Joint statement on attacks on civilians in the North-West and South-West regions of Cameroon appeared first on Inter Press Service.