Armed conflict puts children at an increased risk of grave violations while their risk of being trafficked similarly increases, including in transitional periods, a new UN study has revealed.
The report – the first of its kind – analyses the links between child trafficking and the six grave violations against children caught up in war.
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They are recruitment and use, killing and maiming, rape and other forms of sexual violence, abduction, attacks on schools and hospitals, and denial of humanitarian access.
UNITED NATIONS, Oct 4 2024 (IPS)* –Over the past few months, the escalation of gang violence and mass displacement in Haiti have been of great concern for humanitarian organizations.
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Severe levels of armed violence have resulted in significant instability, with food insecurity, sexual violence, civilian casualities, and restricted freedom of movement plaguing the nation.
A recently displaced mother holds her child in a makeshift displacement shelter in Haiti. Credit: UNICEF/Maxime Le Lijour
Displacement in Haiti increased 22 per cent over the past three months. In Port-au-Prince, many Haitians displaced find shelter in the playgrounds of schools in the city centre. Credit: IOM Haiti
Geneva/ Port-au-Prince, 02 October 2024 (IOM)* –Over 700,000 people, more than half of whom are children, are now internally displaced across Haiti, according to a new report by the International Organization for Migration (IOM).
These latest figures show a 22 per cent increase in the number of internally displaced people since June, highlighting the worsening humanitarian situation.
(UN News)* —Action is needed now to stop the Sahara Desert and Mediterranean Sea from “becoming mass graves for migrants”, two UN agencies on warned the Security Council.
“The scale of this tragedy, its impact on survivors, families and communities and the frequency with which we witness deaths in transit constitute an intolerable and utterly soluble, humanitarian crisis,” said Pär Liljert, director of the International Organization for Migration (IOM) Office to the UN, referring to one of the world’s most deadly routes for migrants and refugees, as they attempt to reach countries of the European Union.
Children amid the devastation in Khan Younis, in southern Gaza, where the war has destroyed hundreds of schools. Photo: WFP/Ali Jadallah
In her village in Sudan’s West Darfur region, Samar once eagerly attended class, especially math, her favorite. Today, she lives in a teeming refugee site just across the border in Chad, fetching water and milling sorghum so her family can survive.
NEW YORK, Sep 30 2024 (IPS)** –The world is standing at a critical juncture. Climate change is not just a future threat—it’s here, and it’s already devastating lives. From record-breaking heat waves to floods and landslides, the planet is sending us clear signals that we cannot afford to ignore.
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Nakabuye speaks to a crowd of over one thousand at the Youth Climate Strike rally in New York City on September 20, 2024.
But for many of us in the Global South, this crisis is not new. It is a daily reality that we have been living with for years, despite contributing almost nothing to the problem.
27 September 2024 (UNEP)* — Record-setting wildfires tearing through South America are likely to become the new normal unless the region makes dramatic investments in fire prevention and limits slash-and-burn agriculture in places like the Amazon, experts are cautioning.
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Since May, blazes have ravaged forests and savannahs across Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Paraguay and Peru as drought has created tinderbox-like conditions in many places.
Even the world’s largest tropical wetland, the wildlife-rich Pantanal, has been smouldering for months.
ROME, 25 September 2024 – The Italian authorities imposed yet another punitive measure on the Geo Barents, the search and rescue vessel operated by Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), for performing its legal and humanitarian duty to save lives at sea.
This time, the vessel received two separate detention orders, immediately after the Geo Barents had finished disembarking 206 survivors in Genoa, in northern Italy.
26 September 2024 —There is a stand-alone article in the European Union’s founding Treaty that puts human rights at the core of EU foreign policy.
There are authoritative guidelines and a comprehensive action plan on human rights and democracy, adopted by EU governments, to guide the bloc’s external actions.
MVOMERO, Tanzania, Sep 24 2024 (IPS)* – In the scorching sun of Mikese village in Tanzania’s eastern Mvomero district, 31-year-old Maria Naeku tirelessly tends to her small vegetable patch. Each time she pulls a weed, the red soil stains her hands as she guides the trickle of water from a maze of pipes through an elevated bed to nurture her plants. In a drought-stricken area, Naeku’s small garden is a lifeline for her family, giving them food and income.
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Maria Naeku, a Maasaiwoman in Mikese village in Mvomero district tends to her vegetable garden.Credit: Kizito Makoye Shigela/IPS
HUMAN WRONGS WATCH 