'Unseen' News and Views
Canada incarcerates thousands of people, including those with disabilities, on immigration-related grounds every year in often abusive conditions, Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International on 17 June 2021 said in a joint report ahead of World Refugee Day on June 20.
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Addis Ababa, 23 June 2021 – Communities affected and uprooted by the ongoing conflict in Tigray [Ethiopia] continue to experience devastating levels of suffering. Humanitarian agencies urgently require increased resources in order to reach those desperate for relief.
IOM is providing water, sanitation and hygiene services to thousands of IDPs in Shire, Tigray Region, Ethiopia. Photo IOM / Kaye Viray
22 June 2021 (UN News)* — Millions of stateless people around the world could miss out on COVID-19 vaccinations because they lack identity papers and are essentially “invisible to the authorities”.
A recent report from the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) found the world is in the grip of an epidemic of food wastage. In 2019, consumers tossed away nearly a billion tonnes of food, or 17 per cent of all the fare they bought.
All told that costs economiesabout $3 trillion every year. And to top it all off, some farming practices have been linked to the emergence of zoonotic diseases, such as COVID-19.
Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka
The COVID-19 pandemic has strained health systems, widened socio-economic gaps, and shifted strategic, political, and funding priorities, all of which disproportionately affect women and girls, particularly those who are most marginalized.
The doubled risk of death for men from COVID-19 has not only created more widows; the pandemic has in many cases magnified the impact of the challenges they face, for example when confronted by extreme poverty from being disinherited from land and property with no alternative source of support.
22 June 2021 (United Nations)* — For many women around the world, the devastating loss of a partner is magnified by a long-term fight for their basic rights and dignity.
Despite the fact that there are more than 258 million widows around the world, widows have historically been left unseen, unsupported, and unmeasured in our societies.
Today, as armed conflicts, displacement and migration, and the COVID-19 pandemic leave tens of thousands of women newly widowed and many others whose partners are missing or disappeared, the unique experiences and needs of widows must be brought to the forefront, with their voices leading the way.
21 Jun, 2021 (RT)* — The Americans have made a lot of noise about the Uighurs, but given the region’s strategic importance to China and its richness in natural resources, that may be more about geopolitical machinations than human rights.
Last week, China made a significant announcement that went somewhat under the radar. In the Xinjiang autonomous region in the far west, its oil companies have discovered an oil reserve that amounts to nearly one billion tons. This is the largest found in China in decades, and adds to an ever-growing number of discoveries in this region.
HUMAN WRONGS WATCH 