In line with our ongoing campaign tagged #FreedomForTheGirls, we want to highlight progress made thus far. The campaign aims to supply sanitary pads for 450 South African School Girls for one year. This is done in collaboration with PinkKZN South Africa, a for-profit social enterprise that provides eco-friendly menstrual products that are degradable, washable and reusable. As we are gradually moving towards our set goals, this is an appreciation to those that have contributed immensely to this campaign. We are very optimistic that by the end of the campaign we will surpass our goal and would have done our bit to empower the girls. To join the campaign visit the following links:
Three Congolese peacekeepers accused of sex abuse in the Central African Republic have appeared before a tribunal in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
The three men - from the UN's MINUSCA peacekeeping mission - are the first troops to be prosecuted in the scandal, which has seen more than 100 victims come forward with accounts of sexual abuse by UN peacekeepers and French forces.
The tribunal is being held in Ndolo, a military prison north of the capital, Kinshasa.
"We want absolute transparency in this trial," Alexis Thambwe Mwamba, the country's justice minister, told the AFP news agency, adding that "a few individuals cannot discredit our army".
"Sergeant Jackson Kikola is being prosecuted for raping a (young girl) of 17 and for not following orders," said public prosecutor Lieutenant Mposhi Ngoy, reading the indictments.
Sergeant Major Kibeka Mulamba Djuma faces similar charges, while Sergeant Major Nsasi Ndazu was charged with disobeying orders and attempted rape.
All three pleaded not guilty.
'Step to end impunity'
Another 18 soldiers from DR Congo accused of rape - or attempted rape - of the civilians they were meant to be protecting during a peacekeeping mission in CAR were also present in the court.
Three hearings are scheduled each week, meaning the entire process could take months to complete.
Ida Sawyer, an advocate for Human Rights Watch in the DRC, told AFP the trial at Ndolo was "a first, and good, step to end impunity" and called on all countries involved to ensure "real justice".
But Venance Kalenga, who attended the hearing as an observer for Congolese human rights charity ACAJ, said "the absence of victims constitutes a major obstacle in the demonstration of truth".
The UN said last week its investigators had identified 108 new victims, "the vast majority" of them under-age girls who were raped, sexually abused or exploited by foreign troops.
The UN's MINUSCA operation, which counts 12,600 foreign police and soldiers, took over from an African Union force in CAR in September 2014 in an effort to end a year of brutal sectarian violence.
Last week a report by a US-based advocacy group said three girls in CAR told UN staff they were tied up and forced to have sex with a dog by a French military commander in 2014.
UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric called the allegations "shocking to the core" and promised "exemplary disciplinary action" if they're proven to be true.
French prosecutors on Tuesday opened a preliminary investigation into new allegations of sexual abuse against French troops, a judiciary source said.
The prosecutors' office said the alleged acts took place in the eastern town of Dekoa between 2013 and 2015.
Paris has said any French troops convicted would face military discipline and possible criminal penalties.
"We cannot - and I cannot - accept the slightest stain on the reputation of our armed forces or of France," French President Francois Hollande said.
Under UN rules, the responsibility for investigating and prosecuting peacekeeper sexual abuse lies with the countries that contribute the troops and police to the peace missions.
The United Nations has received allegations of two new cases of sexual abuse by U.N. peacekeepers in the Central African Republic.
A U.N. spokesman, Stephane Dujarric, said Monday the latest cases raise the number of reported allegations of sexual abuse by peacekeepers in C.A.R. this year to 25.
He said the new allegations involve Burundian peacekeepers who allegedly raped a 14-year-old girl and a Moroccan soldier who is accused of engaging in "an exploitative sexual relationship" with a local woman. Dujarric said the alleged rape of the girl was first reported to peacekeepers by the United Nations Children's Fund last week.
Morocco and Burundi have been notified of the allegations, Dujarric said. Each country then decides if it wants to investigate the allegations or allow the United Nations to conduct the inquiry.
"Both the national authorities, the Burundians and the Moroccans, have been notified with the request to indicate they will appoint a national investigation officer, and the Moroccans have so far indicated that they will investigate," he said.
The United Nations has faced months of attention over allegations of sexual abuses by its peacekeepers, mostly in the C.A.R. and the Democratic Republic of Congo. Of the 69 alleged sexual abuse cases reported to the United Nations last year, more than half the cases were in those two countries alone.
U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has said he would repatriate entire U.N. military units or police forces where there is credible evidence of widespread or systemic sexual exploitation or abuse. The U.N. Security Council passed a resolution this month supporting the secretary-general's plan.
You wouldn’t know it from land, but 45% of the surface of the globe lies outside the control of any government. The high seas (and seabed) are designated as “Areas Beyond National Jurisdiction” by the UN, with little regulation and few environmental safeguards.
Now, after a decade of discussions, a new treaty will be negotiated to ensure the conservation and sustainable use of the biodiversity in these areas.
The United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), adopted in 1982, already provides a “Constitution for the Ocean”, but it doesn’t say much about the high seas or the seabed that lies beyond our borders.
Indeed, we used to believe that these areas were not worth exploiting or protecting, but scientific and technological advancements are opening up a world of possibilities.
What lies beneath
Keep to your lane.www.shutterstock.com
In recent decades, cargo shipping has grown rapidly and industrial fishing has moved into ever deeper and more distant waters. At the same time, a range of novel activities are under development. Contracts have been signed with the International Seabed Authority to mine valuable minerals from the seabed, and scientists and entrepreneurs are dreaming up new ways to use the ocean to mitigate climate change through “geoengineering”. One such idea is to “fertilise” the ocean with iron, stimulating algal blooms that can lock away carbon.
We have also found a wealth of potential uses for the unusual genes contained in unique deep sea organisms. “Marine genetic resources” taken from these organisms are now turning up in everything from anti-cancer drugs to high-end skin creams. The search to find such genes, known as “bioprospecting”, has begun in earnest, with the US, Germany, and Japan, leading the charge.
Marine organism or latest cancer advance?NOAA Ocean Explorer, CC BY-SA
All this activity puts further pressure on already stressed and fragile marine ecosystems, and will only be exacerbated by climate change and ocean acidification.
This is a problem. Though we are not always aware of the vast ocean expanse beyond the horizon, the high seas provide us with a range of invaluable resources, not least seafood, clean air, and the global sea routes that deliver goods from across the globe to our doorstep.
The high seas contain unique habitats - such as huge underwater mountains and vents that spew boiling water into the icy depths - and we are constantly discovering new flora and fauna making their homes in these extreme environments. Just one of the many hydrothermal vents that line the ocean floor.NOAA
At the same time, high seas ecosystems are highly interconnected with the seas and coasts that do happen to fall within national jurisdiction, with species constantly criss-crossing the arbitrary lines we have drawn on the map.
If we fail to to properly manage our global ocean, we have a lot to lose.
Tangled net
Unfortunately the global regulatory framework for these areas is a hodgepodge of different legal instruments and organisations that mostly do not work well together. Even when they do, huge gaps remain.
There is currently no way to create internationally recognised marine protected areas (MPAs) on the high seas, while the exploitation of marine genetic resources has been a thorny issue because their status under international law is unclear. There are no global rules requiring the assessment of the environmental impacts of a range of activities, including bioprospecting.
No-man’s-land.B1mbo, CC BY-SA
Despite a consensus decision to press on with negotiations, states haven’t always seen eye to eye. In particular, there has been intense ideological debate about the status of marine genetic resources: developing countries are concerned that only the wealthiest countries can afford to exploit this common resource, while many developed countries don’t want their potentially profitable activities to be subject to regulation.
States agree on some issues, such as the need to provide developing countries with the know-how and technology to conduct marine scientific research. International guidelines are already in place, but states have been slow to act. Some efforts have been made, such as the provision of training for early career scientists in developing countries and shared scientific cruises, but such efforts are limited, ad hoc, and uncoordinated. It is unclear how a new agreement could kickstart a new era of assistance and cooperation.
Even issues that initially appear easy to address may ultimately prove tough to resolve in the context of charged negotiations. For example, while almost all states have their own environmental impact assessment laws at home, agreeing a similar process for the high seas is likely to be far more complicated.
Stormy weather
The current consensus is already an uneasy one, and this meeting is only the first of four that will take place in 2016 and 2017. It won’t be until 2018 that the UN General Assembly decides on the convening of an intergovernmental conference to adopt a new treaty.
This is undoubtedly an historic and optimistic moment, and an important first step to ensuring that our global ocean gets the protection it so badly needs. Nonetheless it seems likely that there will be many more storms ahead before any heads of state are signing on the dotted line.
A
UN report has pointed the finger at superstition as a force driving
rising attacks on people with albinism. At least 40 people have been
attacked in the last eight months, but that number could well be higher.
The UN report published Tuesday condemned superstitious practises behind the violence.
All the attacks
took place in sub-Saharan Africa and most victims were children,
according to Ikponwosa Ero, the UN's independent expert on human rights
and albinism. The report pointed to 40 attacks as having occurred in the
last eight months across seven countries, but that figure could be
greater, as many happen in secret and are not reported.
In some regions of
the world albinos' body parts are valued in witchcraft and can fetch a
high price. Victims' body parts are sometimes hacked off to create
potions or amulets. Some superstitions believe that such body parts can
bring wealth, luck or political success and prices range from $2,000
(1,780 euros) for an albino limb to $75,000 (66,850 euros) for an entire
corpse, the report said.
Attacks against
people with albinism this year have been reported in Burundi, Malawi and
Mozambique, according to Under the Same Sun, a Canadian advocacy
charity.
"Dangerous myths
motivate and facilitate the hunting and attacks," Ero said. "Many
erroneously believe people with albinism are not human beings but are
ghosts or subhuman and cannot die but only disappear," she added. Albino
children are often perceived as bringing shame to their families and
children are commonly the victims of the attacks, Ero told Reuters.
The report called
for investigations into the attacks and increased prosecutions as well
as public education from a scientific perspective to counteract
dangerous prejudices and traditional practices and beliefs.
"Such
awareness-raising will contribute to fighting myths and stereotypes
about persons with albinism, particularly those that fuel stigma,
discrimination and attacks," the report said.
Albinism is a
congenital disorder affecting about one in 20,000 people worldwide who
lack pigment in their skin, hair and eyes. It is more common in
sub-Saharan Africa.
The United Nations has suspended Maria Sharapova as a goodwill ambassador after she failed a drug test at the Australian Open, the latest fall from grace for the Russian tennis star.
Sharapova had been a goodwill ambassador for the UN Development Programme for the past nine years, and had been active in helping recovery efforts after the 1986 Chernobyl disaster.
“The United Nations Development Programme remains grateful to Maria Sharapova for her support of our work, especially around the Chernobyl nuclear disaster recovery,” said a spokesperson.
“However, in light of Ms. Sharapova’s recent announcement, we last week suspended her role as a Goodwill Ambassador and any planned activities while the investigation continues.”
“We wish Ms. Sharapova the best,” she added.
Former world number one Sharapova announced last week that she failed a drug test at the Australian Open in January.
Sharapova tested positive for meldonium, which was added to the World Anti-Doping Agency’s banned list on January 1.
US sportswear giant Nike, German luxury car maker Porsche and Swiss watchmaker TAG Heuer have all halted their relationship with the former world number one.
Sharapova has made visits to Belarus as goodwill ambassador and donated $100,000 to support youth projects in rural areas that suffer from the after-affects of the Chernobyl nuclear accident.
Sharapova’s family fled the city of Gomel in Belarus in 1987 after the Chernobyl disaster, moving to Siberia where the tennis star was born.
The family lived in Nyagan, Siberia for two years and then moved to Sochi on the Black Sea where Sharapova took her first tennis lessons.
The United Nations Security Council today endorsed special measures recommended by Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon to prevent and combat sexual exploitation and abuse by UN peacekeepers.
Through a resolution adopted by a vote of 14 in favour, with one abstention (Egypt), the Council specifically endorsed the decision of the Secretary-General "to repatriate a particular military unit or formed police unit of a contingent when there is credible evidence of widespread or systemic sexual exploitation and abuse by that unit."
This decision was one of several recommendations in a report presented yesterday by the UN chief to the 15-member body that, for the first time, listed the names of the countries of alleged perpetrators. It also showed an increase in the number of new allegations in 2015, with 69 of the total 99 allegations lodged against UN personnel serving in peace operations.
The United States-sponsored text, adopted as resolution 2272, further requested that the Secretary-General replace all units of the troop- or police-contributing country from which the perpetrator is from if appropriate steps have not been taken by the country to investigate the allegation, and/or when the perpetrators have not been held accountable, and/or when there has been failure to inform the Secretary-General of the progress of its investigation or actions taken.
The resolution also highlighted the Council's deep concern over the "continuing and serious allegations" of sexual exploitation and abuse by UN peacekeepers in the UN Multidimensional Integrated Stabilisation Mission in the Central African Republic (CAR), as well as in other UN peacekeeping operations and by non-UN forces.
Ongoing efforts by Member States to strengthen sexual exploitation and abuse pre-deployment training was also welcomed by the Council, which urged further efforts to be taken in this regard.
In addition, the resolution underscored the critical importance that civilians, in particular women and children sites for internally displaced persons and refugees, are protected from any form of abuse or exploitation. It also encouraged the appropriate UN mechanisms, including the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), to continue to include allegations of sexual exploitation and abuse in their regular reporting.
A new United Nations report on the human rights situation in South Sudan published today describes a multitude of horrendous violations in "searing detail," in particular by Government forces, including cases of civilians burned alive or cut to pieces and a teenage girl being raped by ten soldiers.
Although all parties to the conflict have committed patterns of serious and systematic violence against civilians since fighting broke out in December 2013, the report says State actors bore the greatest responsibility during 2015, given the weakening of opposition forces.
The scale of sexual violence is particularly shocking, the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) notes in a news release. In five months last year, from April to September, the UN recorded more than 1,300 reports of rape in just one of South Sudan's ten states, namely oil-rich Unity.
"The scale and types of sexual violence - primarily by Government SPLA forces and affiliated militia - are described in searing, devastating detail, as is the almost casual, yet calculated, attitude of those slaughtering civilians and destroying property and livelihoods," said UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Ra'ad Al Hussein.
Women and girls are 'commodity'
He said the quantity of rapes and gang-rapes described in the report must only be "a snapshot" of the real total, with women and girls being considered "a commodity" as soldiers moved through the villages. Although this is one of the most horrendous human rights situations in the world, it has been more or less "off the international radar," he added.
The new report is the work of an assessment team sent by the High Commissioner to the world's youngest country from October 2015 to January 2016.
Since 2013, all parties to the conflict have conducted, "attacks against civilians, rape and other crimes of sexual violence, arbitrary arrest and detention, abduction and deprivation of liberty, disappearance, including enforced disappearance, and attacks on UN personnel and peacekeeping facilities," the report says.
Given the breadth and depth of the allegations, their gravity, consistency and recurrence and the similarities in their modus operandi, the report concludes there are reasonable grounds to believe the violations may amount to war crimes and/or crimes against humanity. Each time an area changed hands those in charge would try and kill or displace as many civilians as they could, based on their ethnic identity.
The report contains harrowing accounts of pro-opposition civilians killed by being burned alive, suffocated in containers, shot, hanged from trees or cut to pieces. One woman had been stripped naked and raped by five soldiers in front of her children on the roadside and then raped by more men in the bushes, only to return and find her children missing; another was tied to a tree after her husband was killed and had to watch her 15-year-old daughter being raped by ten soldiers.
Children have borne the brunt of the violence, being maimed, raped, recruited for hostilities and killed throughout this conflict, but there was a sharp increase in reported violations in 2015.
Also in 2015, at least seven journalists were killed and many activists arrested. "Civil society activists, human rights defenders, humanitarian actors, journalists and print media and even UN staff members have been the subject of threats, intimidation, harassment, detention and in some instances death by the Government," the report says.
The report also highlights the considerable challenges to administering justice in South Sudan, citing "a chronic failure to ensure a modicum of accountability... with grants of amnesty or immunity being the norm."
Burkina Faso is making a solid comeback, United
Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said today in the country's capital,
Ouagadougou, where he praised the Burkinabe Government and people for their
perseverance during a series of tests in recent years, and who with UN support,
are firmly on a path to consolidated democratic gains and ensure sustainable
development.
"I just talked with
President [Roch Marc Christian] Kaboré. I gave him my admiration for the
courage of the people of Burkina Faso, who have gone through very painful
moments - from the insurrection of October 2014, the coup of September 2015 and
the deadly attacks of 15 January," said Mr. Ban at a joint press
conference with the Burkinabe leader.
Assuring the President that
the United Nations remained committed to the country, Mr. Ban said the
Organization is proud of its partnership with Burkina Faso and the United
Nations will support the National Development Plan the Government would present
in a few weeks.
"The stakes are high: the
country is on the path of prosperity and long-term reforms, including that of
the security sector," he stressed.
The
UN chief also welcomed the willingness of Burkina Faso to align its national
actions with the aims of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and,
particularly the landmark Paris Agreement on climate change.
"The World Humanitarian
Summit, to be held in Istanbul in May, will be another opportunity to promote
international solidarity. It will help to mobilize assistance to the most
vulnerable populations of this region and the rest of the world, and can allow
us to move from the era of aid delivery to that of the late needs," Mr.
Ban explained.
He went on to welcome the
active role played by Burkina Faso in the Sahel region, particularly in the
context of the UN Mission in Mali (MINUSMA). The Secretary-general said he was
deeply concerned about the terrorist attacks in the region and noted that the
response to terrorism must be comprehensive and conducted in strict compliance
with human rights and international humanitarian law.
"The President and I both
believe that while addressing security issues, the Sahel countries need to
focus on the root causes of instability: poverty, unemployment, social
exclusion, discrimination and impunity," Mr. Ban underscored, adding that
he would continue to call on the wider international community to keep up its
support to the Sahel region.
During his trip
to Burkina Faso, which began Wednesday, the Secretary General also visited a
paediatric unit of nutritional recovery in Shifra Medical Center.
He welcomed the efforts of the
Burkinabe authorities to reduce malnutrition as part of the 'Scaling Up
Nutrition' initiative.
"The number of children
suffering from acute malnutrition which benefit from treatment has tripled
[rising] from 40,000 in 2011 to 120,000 last year. Thousands of lives are being
saved each year. This avoids the terrible human suffering and ensure the future
of this great country," he noted.
Agriculture extension officers in the Western Division can expect immediate assistance to enable them to undertake urgent recovery work in farming communities severely affected by Tropical Cyclone Winston.
The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), working through the food security cluster, are providing support through projects already ongoing on the ground. These include the DFAT-funded Pacific Risk Resilience Programme (PRRP), alongside other projects focussed on improving livelihoods at the community level.
This assistance is crucial to enable agriculture extension officers, whose homes, offices, and equipment were destroyed or heavily damaged by the cyclone, to resume urgent work to assess and prioritise response and recovery work.
“We are very grateful to the UNDP and its projects for their quick response in assisting the Ministry of Agriculture to respond to the needs of farming communities who are struggling to recover following the devastation of TC Winston”, said Permanent Secretary for Agriculture, Uraia Waibuta.
“This assistance, including the provision of temporary office space, will allow the extension workers to focus on data collection and other urgent tasks, which the Government requires as an immediate step to inform effective and well targeted response to the needs of the farmers.”
Based on the initial needs assessments, an amount of FJD$249, 260 will be needed to rehabilitate agriculture extension services across seven severely affected provinces.
“At this time of emergency, it is crucial to prioritise help to those who themselves are essential aides in the humanitarian response, so that they can turn in to assist those communities affected by Cyclone Winston,” said UNDP Resident Representative Osnat Lubrani.
“UNDP is pleased to reorient ongoing projects to provide immediate support through the Government-led food security cluster which will facilitate urgent humanitarian activities that must follow.”
“In our first wave of assistance, we were able to support Cluster Coordination through the establishment of a full time senior agriculture CCDRM project officer.”
Lubrani added, “We have also reprogrammed resources within UNDP to respond to urgent needs identified by the Government.”
“Through this assistance Agriculture Extension Officers should then be better placed with the appropriate tools to better assist farming communities immediately as well as for longer term recovery.”
The UNDP’s support to the Fiji Government through the food security cluster is complemented with support from other development partners in this sector.
UNDP staff and their families have also complemented the efforts of the organisation and contributed to the needs of affected families, in terms of sanitary items, food items and clothing. The Local Staff Association is also donating FJD$1,000 to the ‘Prime Minister’s National Disaster Relief and Rehabilitation: Cyclone Winston’ fund.
