'Unseen' News and Views
Tenkodogo (IOM)* – “I have suffered a lot during my journey and I do not wish that on anyone else. That’s why I joined a theatre group to raise awareness among my brothers and sisters about the dangers of irregular migration. And to help them make informed decisions,” says Abdoul Balima.
Community leaders participate in an awareness raising workshop in Burkina Faso. Photo: IOM/François-Xavier Ada-Affana
When the drums of war start beating, can cooler heads prevail and negotiations in good faith start?
René Wadlow
Vijay Mehta has written a useful overview of efforts to create a Department of Peace within governments so that there would be an institutionalized official voice proposing other avenues than war. (1)
Such proposals are not new. In 1943, Alexander Wiley, a liberal Republican senator had proposed to President Franklin Roosevelt that he establish a cabinet-level post of Secretary of Peace as there was already a Secretary of War.
The Secretary of War has now been renamed Secretary of Defense, but the function has not radically changed.
A Secretary of Peace in Wiley’s vision would be charged with preempting conflicts before they exploded into violence and proposing peaceful resolutions.
In the U.S.A. after the end of the Second World War, in a “never again” atmosphere, other members of Congress suggested the creation of such a Department of Peace.
However, such a vision was never transformed into a reality.
1 March 2019 (UN Women)* — From the women who came together in Seneca Falls for the United States first women’s conference, to the Mirabal sisters who protested dictatorship in the Dominican Republic and everyone who has shared their #MeToo story on social media, the women who’ve risen up to claim their rights and to protect the rights of others, have changed the world as we know.
MARADI, Niger (UNFPA)* – The preacher Malama Ouani may seem like an unlikely advocate of sexual and reproductive health and rights. She teaches women about Islam and family welfare during study groups, known as “madrassas,” in her conservative community in southern Niger.
But her lessons explore aspects of family that are seldom discussed in religious circles – including domestic violence, family planning and visits to the gynaecologist.
1 March 2019 (United Nations)* — The animals and plants that live in the wild have an intrinsic value and contributes to the ecological, genetic, social, economic, scientific, educational, cultural, recreational and aesthetic aspects of human well-being and sustainable development.
World Wildlife Day is an opportunity to celebrate the many beautiful and varied forms of wild fauna and flora and to raise awareness of the multitude of benefits that conservation provides to people.
At the same time, the Day reminds us of the urgent need to step up the fight against wildlife crime and human induced reduction of species, which have wide-ranging economic, environmental and social impacts.
1 March 2019 (UN Environment)* — Did you know that the giant manta ray—up to nine metres across—has the largest brain of all the world’s fish? Or that dugongs, sometimes referred to as sea cows due to their shallow water grazing (and perhaps looks), are more closely related to elephants than to whales or dolphins? Or that thresher sharks use their super-long caudal fin to whack shoals of fish, stunning or killing their prey in a process known as tail-smacking?
The manta ray is among the threatened species that are part of the Wild for Life campaign to protect marine life on World Wildlife Day. Photo by UN Environment
© UNHCR/Xavier Bourgois | Cameroon. Minawao, the green refugee camp. (January 2019)
HUMAN WRONGS WATCH 