'Unseen' News and Views
The two main routes of smuggling of migrants to Europe and North America generate nearly $7 billion a year to the smuggling networks, according to an estimate on 6 October 2014 released by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC).
Asylum-seekers and economic migrants take to the seas, waiting out the dangerous journey in the boat’s cramped cargo space. Photo: UNHCR/A. D’Amato
The horrors of sexual violence in South Sudan did not end with the ceasefire agreement, a senior United Nations official on 6 October 2014 said calling on citizens of the world’s youngest country to stand together and say “enough is enough.”
A volunteer in the South Sudanese town of Bor arranges corpses, victims of repeated clashes between government forces and rebels. Photo: Hannah McNeish/IRIN
Speaking at a press conference on her first visit to the country, the Special Representative of the Secretary-General on sexual violence in conflict, Zainab Bangura, said that armed men – civilians and soldiers from all parties to the conflict – are responsible, and some carry on the acts.
“If allowed to continue, these rapes will haunt South Sudan for generations to come,” she said, adding that they will also “undermine the peace that South Sudan has fought for.” “I have come to South Sudan to demand that all parties of conflict end the raping and the violence,” Bangura underscored.
Urgent action is needed to refocus urban planning and to provide safe, affordable housing that is appropriate and adequate for our citizens’ growing needs, senior United Nations officials on 6 October 2014 said marking World Habitat Day, which is observed annually on the first Monday of October. There are an estimated 863 million people living in slums, according to 2012 figures from UN-Habitat report, in contrast to 760 million in 2000 and 650 million in 1990.
Urban sprawl – a view of old Lijian city in China. Photo: UN-HABITAT
“Let us hear from people who live in slums what has worked and what has not — and what we need to do,” Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said in his message for the Day.
This year’s theme is “Voices from the Slums” – an effort to highlight the hardships of slum living through the voices of the urban poor while also giving rise to their experiences and ideas about improving their living conditions.
The knowledge and traditional practices of indigenous people and local communities are key to halting biodiversity loss and achieving sustainable development, a United Nations official on 7 October 2014 stressed at a major meeting on biological diversity in Pyeongchang, Republic of Korea.
Indigenous forest-dwelling people of the Republic of Congo. Photo: UNFPA
“The collective work conducted by indigenous groups and local communities represents a major contributor to achieving the CBD’s main objectives and the Aichi biodiversity targets,” said the Executive Director of the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), Braulio Souza de Dias.*
“Indigenous people and local communities have been for millennia the custodians of biodiversity but their rights have not always been recognized,” Dias said in a press briefing at the 12th meeting of the Conference of the Parties to the Convention, known as COP-12. “We need to urge governments to recognize this as well as their exclusive rights to land and natural resources.”
HUMAN WRONGS WATCH 