'Unseen' News and Views
– The construction of a five-star hotel in the Chittagong Hill Tracts, Bangladesh, could lead to the forced eviction of the Mro indigenous community from their ancestral lands and destroy “the social, economic, traditional and cultural fabric of the community”, warns Amnesty International.
25 November 2020 (IWGIA)* — Injustice regarding the validity of ancestral knowledge has been one of the many racist practices established by the colony. For five centuries, a systematic attack has persisted, in a bid to bring an end to the creation, conservation and transmission of the knowledge of native peoples.
The world of the Q’eqchí. Photo: AEPDI – Q’eqchi Ombudsman Office
In recent decades, religious fundamentalism has rebooted this symbolic violence to divide Indigenous communities and benefit from the installation of extractive projects and large-scale agricultural monocultures.
26 November 2020 (UNHCR)* –Over 40,000 Ethiopians have fled the Tigray crisis into eastern Sudan, with no sign of a let-up in new arrivals. Many anxiously hope to be reunited with their families.
An Ethiopian refugee holds a child in a shelter at the Um Rakuba camp in Sudan’s eastern Gedaref province. © UNHCR/Ebrahim Hamid
24 November 2020 (UNHCR)* –The number of Ethiopian refugees streaming into eastern Sudan has now surpassed 40,000 since the crisis began, with more than 5,000 women, children and men fleeing the ongoing fighting in the Tigray region over the weekend.
On November 4, 2020, Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed appeared on state television and acknowledged that he ordered the Ethiopian National Defense Forces (ENDF) to commence operations against the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) in response to what he described as attacks by TPLF forces on Ethiopian military bases and federal forces in the regional capital of Mekelle, and at other camps in the Tigray region.
Covid-19 Pandemic Devastates Mining Communities, Increases Rights Risks
An artisanal miner holds an uncut diamond in her hand in South Africa, October 22, 2019. © 2019 Sumaya Hisham/Reuters20 November 2020 (IWGIA)* — After resisting the policy of forced assimilation enforced during the decades of military rule, today Indigenous peoples of Myanmar are subjected to land dispossession in the name of boosting economic development and implementation of the country’s climate commitments.
Community, part of the Karen people. Photo: Alejandro Parellada
Myanmar, formerly known as Burma, is home to 54 million people, including more than 135 ethnic groups and Indigenous Peoples. Myanmar is thus considered to be one of the most ethnically diverse countries in Southeast Asia.
(UN Women)* — “My indigenous community is hardworking, and a place where women have taken leadership roles in the fight to recover ancestral land,” says Luz Angélica Tarapuez, from the municipality of Cumbal, in the department of Nariño, on the Colombian-Ecuadorian border.
She is among 94 indigenous women and farm workers who have attended the training school, ‘Soy Rosita, soy mujer, soy campesina, soy indígena’ [I am Rosita, I am a woman, I am a farmer, I am indigenous].
24 November 2020 (UN Women)* — The UN Secretary-General’s UNiTE by 2030 to End Violence against Women campaign is marking the 16 Days of Activism against Gender-based Violence (25 November to 10 December 2020) under the global theme, “Orange the World: Fund, Respond, Prevent, Collect!“.
UN Women’s Generation Equality campaign is amplifying the call for global action to bridge funding gaps, ensure essential services for survivors of violence during the COVID-19 crisis, focus on prevention, and collection of data that can improve life-saving services for women and girls.
The campaign is part of UN Women’s efforts for Beijing+25 and building up to launch bold new actions and commitments to end violence against women at the Generation Equality Forum in Mexico and France in 2021.
24 November 2020 (United Nations)* — Since the outbreak of COVID-19, emerging data and reports from those on the front lines, have shown that all types of violence against women and girls, particularly domestic violence, has intensified.
This is the Shadow Pandemic growing amidst the COVID-19 crisis and we need a global collective effort to stop it.
HUMAN WRONGS WATCH 