(UN News)*, —Efforts are being made in the south of Madagascar to end a traditional but illegal practice in which girls are promised as a wife to older men, sometimes even before they are born.
UN News/Daniel Dickinson | Nodely Lehilaly regularly attends positive masculinity group sessions in his village in southern Madagascar.
The arranged marriage typically involves the exchange of a highly prized and culturally important Zebu cow for teenage girls as young as 13 years old.
Now two UN agencies UNICEF and the UN Population Fund (UNFPA) are working together with the local authorities to educate women and also men, through sessions focusing on positive masculinity, about the dangers of the practice and how to treat women as equals.
(UN News)* — Amid a rising tide of anti-Muslim hate, top UN officials condemned the scourge on Friday [] as the General Assembly adopted a resolution to push back against it during commemorations marking the International Day to Combat Islamophobia.
The new resolution, tabled by Pakistan, calls for, among other things, concerted action to fight ongoing violence against Muslims and requests the UN Secretary-General to appoint a special envoy to combat Islamophobia.
The world body created the International Day through a resolution adopted following attacks on two mosques Christchurch, New Zealand, that left 51 people dead on this day in 2019.
Prior to adopting the new resolution, by a vote of 113 in favour to none against, with 44 abstentions, a divided Assembly rejected by a close margin two amendments proposed by a group of European nations.
KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia, Mar 13 2024 (IPS)* – Much higher interest rates – due to Western central banks – are suffocating developing nations, especially the poorest, causing prolonged debt distress and economic stagnation.
US Fed-induced stagnation
After the greatest US Fed-led surge in international interest rates in more than four decades, developing countries spent $443.5 billion to service their external government and government-guaranteed debt in 2022.
Jomo Kwame Sundaram
The World Bank’s last International Debt Report showed most of the poorest countries in debt distress as borrowing costs began to surge.
The increase has cut into scarce fiscal resources, reducing social spending on health and education.
Debt-servicing costs for all developing countries in 2022 increased by 5% over 2021. The US Fed continued to raise interest rates through 2023, compounding debt distress, while the European Central Bank warns against ‘prematurely’ lowering interest rates.
Megaruma Displacement Site hosts some of those who have been displaced. Photo: IOM 2024/María Toro
Geneva/ Maputo, 8 March2024 (IOM)* -–More than 110,000 people have been displaced since end of last year (December 22) by the resurgence of attacks by non-state armed groups in a distressing escalation of violence in Cabo Delgado Province.
This alarming figure represents the second-largest wave of displacement in Cabo Delgado since the onset of the conflict in 2017, underscoring the deepening humanitarian crisis in the area. The violence has seen a horrifying increase, with affected communities bearing the brunt of these relentless attacks.
(UN News)* —The plan by Israel’s Government to build more than 3,400 housing units in illegal settlements in the occupied West Bank was condemned on Thursday [] by the UN Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process.
(UN News)* —At the current rate of investment, more than 340 million women and girls will still live in extreme poverty by 2030, according to UN Women.
As the world celebrates International Women’s Day on 8 March by investing in women, we look at what needs to be done to improve the economic situation of women around the world.
“This year’s theme – invest in women – reminds us that ending the patriarchy requires money on the table,” UN Secretary-General António Guterres said in a statement for the International Day.
RIO DE JANEIRO, Mar 6 2024 (IPS)* – Brazil is beginning to test the effectiveness of a gender pay equality law passed in July 2023, a new attempt to reduce inequality for women in the world of work. | En español
Women march for their rights on Mar. 8, 2023, in Brasília. Every International Women’s Day, Brazilian women take to the streets in towns and cities to protest against sexism, racism and other factors of gender inequality. CREDIT: Lula Marques / Agência Brasil
This Friday, Mar. 8, International Women’s Day, is the deadline for companies with more than 100 employees to publish their first half-yearly salary transparency reports, with comparative data on remuneration and the distribution of hierarchical functions between men and women, and between different ethnic groups, nationalities and ages.
warned as she concluded a visit to South Sudan, where she met families fleeing violence and an escalating hunger emergency in Sudan.
Photo: WFP/Hugh-Rutherford families board boats which will take them to their final destination. Many of those crossing the border are South Sudanese returnees.
“The war in Sudan risks triggering the world’s largest hunger crisis,” warned the Executive Director.
Geneva/ Berlin, 6 March 2024 (IOM)* -– At least 8,565 people died on migration routes worldwide in 2023, making it the deadliest year on record, according to data collected by IOM’s Missing Migrants Project.
In the ten years since the Missing Migrants Project was established, more than 63,000 deaths and disappearances have been documented worldwide. Illustration: Roberta Aita, IOM GMDAC
The 2023 death toll represents a tragic increase of 20 per cent compared to 2022, highlighting the urgent need for action to prevent further loss of life.
“As we mark the Missing Migrants Project’s ten years, we first remember all these lives lost. Every single one of them is a terrible human tragedy that reverberates through families and communities for years to come,” said IOM Deputy Director General Ugochi Daniels.
KWARA, Nigeria, Mar 1 2024 (IPS)* –One sunny mid-morning in Omu-Aran village, a community in Kwara State, North Central Nigeria, Iyabo Sunday sat beside a firewood stand observing her pot of beans with rice (a combination enjoyed by many in Nigeria).
Nigerian women returning from the forest with firewood. Credit: Peace Oladipo/IPS
The 52-year-old widow used her plastic dirt parker to fan the flames, occasionally blowing air through her mouth for speed and frantically shielding her face from the wisps of smoke that curled from the firewood.
HUMAN WRONGS WATCH 