Ensuring that Member States and their military commanders on the ground remain accountable for any violent actions targeting children is key to preventing atrocities against minors affected by armed conflict, the United Nations Special Representative for Children and Armed Conflict, Leila Zerrougui, has affirmed.
Children sit in a UNICEF-supported centre for vulnerable children, in the conflict-affected Hajjah Governorate, Yemen. Photo: UNICEF/Brent Stirton
In an interview with UN Radio, scheduled just days before she is due to present the Secretary-General’s latestreporton the issue to the Security Council, Zerrougui described a grim scenario for the world’s conflict-stranded children in 2014 – the period covered by her report – and warned that the situation had not improved.
Although the empowerment of women has been among the most significant achievements of the past century, the international community must “push further” in its struggle to ensure the right to education for all girls, the top UN human rights official on 16 June 2015 declared.
Girls play in the schoolyard at Santo Niño Elementary School in the town of Tanauan, Philippines. Photo: UNICEF/Giacomo Pirozzi
“Investing in girls’ education is not only the right thing to do, it is also the smart thing to do,” Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, said as he addressed a panel discussion on realizing the equal enjoyment of the right to education by every girl held at the UN Office at Geneva, Switzerland.
The African Union announced the organization of and African Girl’s Summit on Ending Child Marriage in the continent on 27 – 28 November 2015 in Niamey, Niger. “Child marriage is a human rights violation that robs girls of their rights to health, to live in security, and to choose if, when and whom to marry, says the African Union. It is a harmful practice which severely affects the rights of a child and further deprives the child from attaining other aspirations like education.”*
Image: African Union
Every year, about 14 million adolescent and teen girls are married, almost always forced into the arrangement by their parents.
Although the proportion of child brides has generally decreased over the last 30 years, in some regions child marriage remains common, even among the youngest generations, particularly in rural areas and among the poorest.
Among young women worldwide aged 20-24, around 1 in 3 (or 70 million) was married as children and around 1 in 9 (or 23 million) entered into marriage or union before they reached age 15. The largest numbers of child brides are concentrated in Africa.
**Orthographic map of the Americas | Author: Martin23230 : Wikimedia Commons
The purpose of the Convention -the first regional instrument of its kind in the world-is to promote, protect and ensure the recognition and the full enjoyment and exercise, on an equal basis, of all human rights and fundamental freedoms of older persons, in order to contribute to their full inclusion, integration and participation in society.
The starting point of the Convention is the recognition that all existing human rights and fundamental freedoms apply to older people, and that they should fully enjoy them on an equal basis with other segments of the population.
The distressing crime of elder abuse often occurs in quiet, private settings, United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on 15 June 2015 said on World Elder Abuse Awareness Day, as he reminded people around the world of the importance of making “a vocal, public response” to support the rights of older persons to a life free of violence and abuse.
Photo: World Bank/Celine Ferre | Source: UN
“It is a disturbing and tragic fact in our world that members of the older generations are too often neglected and abused,” the UN chief said in amessage. “This painful reality generally goes ignored by mainstream society.”
“At the same time,” Ban said, “the ageing of the world’s population has added urgency to promoting and defending the rights of older persons, who are expected to make up more than 20 per cent of the global population by 2050.”
15 June 2015 (RT)*– Rome has warned of retaliatory measures unless the EU changes its asylum policies to make them more in “solidarity” with Italy, which continues to struggle with an enormous inflow of mostly North African migrants.
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
“If the European Council chooses solidarity, then good. If it doesn’t, we have a Plan B ready but that would be a wound inflicted on Europe,” Prime Minister Matteo Renzi said, without elaborating on the details.
Italy which has been bearing the brunt of North African refugees is calling on Brussels to amend the Dublin regulations, which assign most asylum seekers to their port of entry in the EU. The states have yet to reach a consensus on a migrant distribution plan, which seeks to relocate some 24,000 refugees across the 28-member countries.
15 June 2015 (Pressenza)– Changing the name of an unpopular brand is nothing new. Windscale, a UK nuclear power station, was the scene of a major fire in 1957 spreading radioactivity across the surrounding countryside in what is generally thought to have been the world’s worst nuclear accident before Three Mile Island in the US in 1979. Following a long campaign by those opposed to nuclear power its management decided in 1981 to change the plant’s name to Sellafield.
.
(Image by Keven Law for Wikimedia Commons. Amur Leopard in the Colchester Zoo) | Source: Pressenza
In 2003 Philip Morris changed the company’s name to Altria Group, Inc. It was accused of trying to hide the link between cancer and tobacco, ironically exemplified by Marlboro Man.
On World Blood Donor Day -14 June 2015- the UN World Health Organization (WHO) called for increased regular blood donations from voluntary, unpaid donors in order to save millions of lives globally each year. Per example, nearly 800 women die every day from causes related to complications of pregnancy and childbirth. Access to safe blood supplies and blood transfusions are essential to save their lives
Medical technicians organize and process donated blood at Hanoi Blood Transfusion Center in Viet Nam. Photo: World Bank/Dominic Chavez | Source: UN
“The best way to guarantee a safe and adequate supply of blood and blood products for transfusion is to have a good supply of regular donations by voluntary unpaid blood donors,” said WHO Director-General Dr. Margaret Chan in the agency’s press release on the Day, which is marked every year on 14 June.*
The theme of this year’s campaign is Thank You for Saving My Life, with the slogan, ‘Give freely, give often. Blood donation matters.’
12 June 2015 (RT)* – What’s the connection between the G7 summit in Germany, President Putin’s visit to Italy, the Bilderberg club meeting in Austria, and the TTIP – the US-EU free trade deal – negotiations in Washington?
Photo: President George W. Bush and President-elect Barack Obama meet in the Oval Office of the White House Monday, November 10, 2008. Author: White House photo by Eric Draper
We start at the G7 in the Bavarian Alps – rather G1 with an added bunch of “junior partners” – as US President Barack Obama gloated about his neo-con induced feat; regiment the EU to soon extend sanctions on Russia even as the austerity-ravaged EU is arguably hurting even more than Russia.
13 June 2015 (Middle East Eye)*– Israel’s high court recently upheld a law making boycotts of Israeli businesses a civil crime. Within weeks, US Congress introduced a trade measure to “discourage politically motivated actions to boycott, divest from, or sanction Israel”. Now the Illinois state legislature has voted to withdraw state funds from companies boycotting Israel.
.
Palestinian Christians carry a cross (MEE/Ryan Rodrick Beiler)
But despite attempts to curtail the boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) movement that is putting pressure on Israel, grassroots efforts including those by US churches are gaining momentum.
With faith in the official peace process flagging, these Christian activists are choosing to ignore the politicians and pursue BDS tactics.
HUMAN WRONGS WATCH 