MONTEVIDEO, Uruguay, Aug 28 2025 (IPS)** –– On 7 August, the Inter-American Court of Human Rights delivered a groundbreaking decision that could transform women’s lives across the Americas.
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Credit: Corte IDH/Twitter
For the first time in international law, an international tribunal recognised care as an autonomous human right.
Advisory Opinion 31/25, issued in response to a request from Argentina, elevates care – long invisible and relegated to the private sphere – to the level of a universal enforceable entitlement.
BOCAS DEL TORO PROVINCE, Panama (UNFPA)* 29 August 2025 -– “We don’t have special care for women,” said Jakelyn Chiu, a single mother of three from the Bocas del Toro Province in Panama. “Here in the district, we don’t have a permanent gynaecologist. Women have to go to another province for care.”
Ms. Chiu had her first baby at age 17 and now works with UNFPA, the United Nations sexual and reproductive health agency, to empower adolescent girls and prevent unintended pregnancies in her community.
Across Latin America and the Caribbean, a girl becomes a mother every 20 seconds, according to a recent report by UNFPA.
(UN News)* — Climate change could push at least 5.9 million more children and young people in Latin America and the Caribbean into poverty by 2030 unless governments act now.
United Nations/Rodolpho Valente | Children play on the banks of the River Negro, a tributary of the Amazon River in northwestern Brazil.
Even worse, the number could triple if countries do not meet their commitments to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and to ensure that climate financing prioritises social and climate resilience services for children.
The finding comes in a report by the UN Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) and the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF), published on Thursday [28 August 2025] in Panama.
A report ‘Oil and Gas Expansion in the Colombian Amazon: Navigating Risks, Economics, and Pathways to a Sustainable Future, warns oil and gas projects threaten over 483,000 km² of Colombian Amazon forest, home to more than 70 indigenous groups, and risk becoming stranded assets as global fossil fuel demand declines.
BOGOTÁ and SRINAGAR, India, Aug 27 2025 (IPS)* –– A report has warned about the risks of expanding oil and gas exploration in the Colombian Amazon, which may undermine environmental goals, Indigenous rights, and long-term economic stability, unless the government pivots toward sustainable development pathways.
NEW YORK/GENEVA, 26 August 2025 (UNICEF)* -– Despite progress over the last decade, billions of people around the world still lack access to essential water, sanitation, and hygiene services, putting them at risk of disease and deeper social exclusion.
People living in low-income countries, fragile contexts, rural communities, children, and minority ethnic and indigenous groups face the greatest disparities.
(UN News)* — Some 2.2 billion people worldwide still lack access to safely managed drinking water services, according to the World Health Organization (WHO) – an increasingly urgent challenge as demand for safer access to the vital resource grows.
Currently underway in Stockholm from 24 to 28 August, the 35th World Water Week meeting highlights the crucial link between water and global warming, under the theme, Water For Climate Action.
(UN News)* —From Gaza to Sudan, wars are being waged on the very systems set up to protect civilian populations, with health workers, hospitals, health centres and ambulances being targeted in horrifying numbers, according to the UN agency for reproductive health and rights, UNFPA.
Attacks against health facilities doubled between 2023 and 2024, and more than 900 health workers were killed last year, the agency reported.
Humanitarian aid workers were also killed in record numbers in 2024.
Yet, 2025 is outpacing even these dark statistics at a time when funding for humanitarian work is shrinking and support services established over decades are struggling to operate.
(UN News)* — Extreme heat is fast becoming one of the biggest threats to workers’ health and livelihoods, the World Health Organization (WHO) and World Meteorological Organization (WMO) warned on Friday [].
The new joint report, Climate change and workplace heat stress, underscores the mounting risks as climate change fuels longer, more extreme, and more frequent heatwaves.
Stressing that workers in agriculture, construction, and fisheries are already suffering the impacts of dangerous temperatures, the report points out that vulnerable groups in developing countries – includingchildren, older adults, and low-income communities – face increasing dangers.
Christiana, Angélica, and Delza at a UNICEF-assisted organization in Brazil, which empowers black youth to confront racism and advocates for equal education and work opportunities. PHOTO:UNICEF/Alejandro Balaguer
Running from January 1, 2025, to December 31, 2034, this decade embraces the theme “People of African Descent: Recognition, Justice, and Development,” aiming to highlight the importance of acknowledging the rights and contributions of people of African descent.
(UN News)* — Victims of atrocities and freedom fighters across history can inspire future generations to build just societies, the chief of the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) said on the occasion of theInternational Day for the Remembrance of the Slave Trade and its Abolition, commemorated annually on 23 August.
UN News/Eileen Travers | The ‘tronco’ was used to restrain enslaved people in the 18th century, seen here as part of an exhibit at UN Headquarters. (file)
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“It is time to abolish human exploitation once and for all and to recognise the equal and unconditional dignity of each and every individual,” Ms. Azoulay said.
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The Day is intended to inscribe the tragedy of the slave trade in the memory of all peoples.
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