Archive for June, 2018

08/06/2018

From the Field: Plastic Pollution Choking World’s Oceans

Human Wrongs Watch

7 June 2018 — An underwater photographer’s chance encounter with a starving turtle led to a personal “awakening” about the dangers discarded plastic poses to sea life in the world’s oceans.

Saeed Rashid | Plastic pollution in the world’s oceans is threatening marine life. | Photo from UN News Centre
 
In November 2017, Saeed Rashid from the United Kingdom was taking photos during a dive on a reef in the Egyptian Red Sea when he came across a female hawksbill turtle that had swallowed a plastic bag and was, as a result, unable to eat.

The turtle probably mistook the floating plastic bag for a jellyfish which hawksbills typically eat.

read more »

07/06/2018

‘We Must Tackle the Root Causes of Child Labour’ — ILO Director-General

Human Wrongs Watch

ILO Director-General Guy Ryder highlighted the importance of addressing the root causes of child labour, including in unpaid family work in agriculture. He spoke at a panel on child labour held on the sidelines of the International Labour Conference.

Photo: ILO.

.
GENEVA, 4 June 2018 (ILO)*  – ILO Director-General, Guy Ryder, called for urgent action to tackle the economic root causes of child labour, pointing out that attention needs to be paid not only to global supply chains, but also to unpaid family work in agriculture.
07/06/2018

Hunger Surges amid Deadly Conflicts and Adverse Climate Shocks in Many Countries — FAO

Human Wrongs Watch

Despite ample food supplies, persistent conflicts and adverse climate shocks are taking a toll on global food security, according to a new report launched on 7 June 2018 by the United Nation’s agriculture agency.

FAO/Giulio Napolitano | Herders take their animals to drink water in Niger, which FAO says is among the countries currently in need of external food assistance.
 .
The Food and Agriculture Organization’s (FAO) new Crop Prospects and Food Situation reveals that since its last report in March, the number of countries requiring external food assistance has jumped by two, namely Cabo Verde and Senegal, to 39.
07/06/2018

Nameless and Un-Mourned: Identifying Migrant Bodies in the Mediterranean

Human Wrongs Watch

By Ottavia Ampuero Villagran*

Refugees’ life jackets in Parliament Square, London. Howard Lake/Flickr. CC (by-sa)

Have you ever stopped to consider what happens to the bodies of undocumented migrants when they die trying to reach the shores of Europe? Who they are, who mourns their loss, where and how they are buried?

read more »

07/06/2018

46 Migrants Drown on Yemen’s Shores, 16 Still Missing

Yemen, 6 June 2018 (IOM)* – Tragedy struck migrants trying to cross from the Horn of Africa to find employment in Yemen and the Gulf, when their vessel capsized in high waves as it approached its destination in the early hours of 6 June.

06062018-pbnyemen

IOM Yemen staff assist a migrant who survived drowning. Photo: IOM

UN Migration Agency staff were on the scene providing assistance to the traumatized survivors. IOM staff reported that 46 migrants had drowned, 37 men and 9 women. A further 16 remain missing, presumed dead.

At least 100 migrants crammed onto a smuggler’s boat that left the port of Bossaso, Somalia on 5 June.

read more »

07/06/2018

Bangladesh ‘Drug-Offender’ Killings Must Stop — UN Human Rights Chief

Human Wrongs Watch

The alleged extra-judicial killing of suspected drug offenders must be “immediately halted” and their perpetrators brought to justice, UN human rights chief Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein on 6 June 2018 said.

Amid reports that 130 people have been shot dead by security services across the country since the “zero-tolerance” policy began on 15 May, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rightssaid that he was “gravely concerned” that “such a large number of people” have been killed.

In his appeal to the government of Bangladesh, Zeid described official declarations that none of the victims was innocent as “dangerous… and indicative of a total disregard for the rule of law”.

Everyone has the right to life, the High Commissioner continued in his statement, and people “do not lose their human rights, because they sell drugs”. In addition to those allegedly killed in the anti-narcotics drive, 13,000 people have also been reportedly arrested.

read more »

06/06/2018

Almost Legal: Migrant Sex Work in New Zealand

Human Wrongs Watch

A roadside mural in Auckland, New Zealand. Chris Christian/Flickr. CC (by-nc)

New Zealand is a unusual context in which to explore the dynamics of sex worker-led organising against exploitation and the influence and impacts of the anti-trafficking framework on sex workers’ lives.

read more »

06/06/2018

Divide and Rule: Balkanizing the Democratic Republic of Congo

Human Wrongs Watch

By Ann Garrison*

4 Jun 2018 – TRANSCEND Media Service — Syria has long dominated international headlines while the big powers discuss the possibility of dividing it into smaller, more homogeneous states along ethnic or religious lines.

Ann-Garrison-e1524738337587

Ann Garrison

The Democratic Republic of Congo is rarely if ever at the top of the Western headlines, but heads of state and so-called experts have long made similar proposals to carve out new, smaller, more homogeneous nations in Congo’s resource-rich eastern provinces.

I spoke with Congolese scholar and activist Boniface Musavuli about the plans.

Ann Garrison:  Boniface, can you summarize the history of proposals to divide up the eastern provinces of the Democratic Republic of the Congo?

Boniface Musavuli:  Attempts to break up the Congo began as soon as the country became independent in 1960. First there was the Katangese secession, from 1960 to 1963, led by Moïse Tshombe with the support of Belgium, the colonial power that Congo had just freed itself from, in name at least.

read more »

06/06/2018

Weeding Corruption Out of Sport an ‘Investment in Peace and Development’ 

Human Wrongs Watch

Sports scandals, including allegations of endemic corruption and the involvement of organized crime, threaten to undermine the sector’s potential to contribute to peace and global development, a senior United Nations official on 5 June 2018 said.

UNIC Tokyo/Takashi Okano | The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development acknowledges the importance of sports for social progress as well as an important enabler of sustainable development.
Yury Fedetov, Executive Director of the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), was addressing the opening of a two-day conferencein Vienna on safeguarding sport from corruption.

read more »

06/06/2018

‘Spotlight Initiative’ Can Make Violence against Women a Thing of the Past — UN Deputy Chief

Human Wrongs Watch

The launch of a new partnership between the United Nations and European Union, is an essential tool to make violence against women and girls “a thing of the past”, said UN Deputy Secretary-General Amina Mohammed on 5 June 2018.

UNRIC/Christophe Verhellen | UN Deputy Secretary-General Amina Mohammed adds her views to the Human Rights Graffiti Wall at the European Development Days event in Brussels, Belgium, 5 June 2018.
.
Addressing a leading forum on development in Brussels, known as European Development Days, Mohammed said that the joint Spotlight Initiative was a key element for making Global Goal 5 on women’s empowerment, of the 2030 Sustainable Development Agenda, a reality.