'Unseen' News and Views
Photo: WFP/Badre Bahaji
The refugees, who are mainly from the Great Lakes region, receive monthly WFP cash assistance at the camp – where they face several challenges, including insufficient shelter and inadequate health, water, and sanitation services.
The United Kingdom parliament has passed a bill inconsistent with the country’s obligations under international human rights and refugee law that could have profound consequences for people seeking international protection, warned the UN rights chief and the head of refugee agency UNHCR on Tuesday [17 July 2023].
Havana, Cuba, 5 July 2023 (WMO)* – Extreme weather and climate shocks are becoming more acute in Latin America and the Caribbean, as the long-term warming trend and sea level rise accelerate, according to a new report from the World Meteorological Organization (WMO).
Temperatures over the past 30 years have warmed an average 0.2° Celsius per decade – the highest rate on record, according to the State of the Climate in Latin America and the Caribbean 2022 report. It highlights a vicious cycle of of spiraling impacts on countries and local communities.
(UN News)* — Indigenous Peoples have the ancestral wisdom to guide humanity towards a more sustainable use of the Earth’s resources, yet they are systematically discriminated against and excluded, UN rights chief Volker Türk warned on Monday [17 July 2023].
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© UNDP Peru | Indigenous communities in Peru are growing organic coffee to boost their livelihoods.
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He was speaking in Geneva at the annual meeting on the rights of Indigenous Peoples, referencing in-depth conversations he had had in recent months with Indigenous representatives during missions to Colombia, Ecuador, Venezuela and Kenya.
6 Jul 2023 – Among the comments concerning the previous blog, some readers have questioned the following statement:
“In our times simple colonialism has been replaced by neo-colonialism. . . . economic sanctions and unbridled exploitation carried out by Europe and North America against the countries of the Global South.”
Dr. David Adams
The question of sanctions was dealt with in the blog published the preceding month: “The Hypocrisy of Economic Sanctions”.
This month I will deal with the question of “unbridled exploitation.”
You are probably aware of the fact that the mineral and agricultural resources of the countries of Africa and Latin America are exploited by big corporations based in Europe and North America.
You may believe that the profits extracted from the South are balanced by humanitarian aid that is given to these countries by the North.
(UN News)* — During the first half of the year, 289 boys and girls died while crossing the Mediterranean Sea to reach Europe, or double the number compared to the same period in 2022, the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) reported on Friday [].
The figure is equivalent to about 11 children dying each week, “far beyond what we hear in news headlines,” Vera Knaus, the agency’s Global Lead on Migration and Displacement, told journalists attending the biweekly UN humanitarian briefing in Geneva.
Geneva/ Washington, 5 July 2023 (IOM)* – More than half of child trafficking victims are trafficked within their own country according to new report by the International Organization for Migration (IOM) and François-Xavier Bagnoud Center for Health and Human Rights at Harvard University (FXB).
The report further reveals that in cases of international trafficking children are mostly trafficked to neighbouring, wealthier countries.
Abel* is a 16-year-old migrant boy who decided to take the Eastern Route for economic reasons. Photo: IOM 2023/Eva Sibanda
“My family has problems with money. I had a plan to go to school but I could not,” he explains.
One month ago, he left home with his peers and friends to look for work, having heard of stories from family members who managed to succeed in finding work in Yemen.
A study by the International Organization for Migration (IOM) reveals that children from Habru, Dire Dawa, Bedeno and Sigmo parts of Oromia in Ethiopia reported having been subjected to forms of child labour, including hazardous work in farms in Yemen.
(UN News)* — Women and girls of African descent face a “systemic and historical pattern” of racial abuse in the health sector in countries across the world, leaving them at increased risk of death during childbirth, the UN’s sexual and reproductive health agency said on Wednesday [].
“The scourge of racism continues for Black women and girls in the Americas, many of whom are descendants of the victims of enslavement,” Natalia Kanem, Executive Director of the UN Population Fund (UNFPA), said in a news release.
“Too often, Afrodescendent women and girls are abused and mistreated, their needs are not taken seriously, and their families are shattered by the preventable death of a loved one during childbirth. “Justice and equality will only be possible when our healthcare systems see these women and provide them with respectful, compassionate care.”
HUMAN WRONGS WATCH 