'Unseen' News and Views
(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.”
(UN News)* — The UN’s top human rights official urged respect for religious tolerance on Tuesday [] as Member States gathered in Geneva in response to the recent burning of the holy Quran in the Swedish capital.
Addressing the Human Rights Council, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk noted that the tome was the “core of faith” for well over one billion Muslims.
Those who had burned the Quran most likely did so “to express contempt and inflame anger”, Mr. Türk said, as he warned that these acts also aimed “to drive wedges between people”, to provoke and transform differences into hatred.
(UN News)* — As conflict continues to rage in Sudan, UN humanitarians expressed alarm on Tuesday [] at a surge in the number of people fleeing across the border to Chad.
Speaking to journalists via Zoom from the Zabout refugee camp in Goz Beida, Mr. Honnorat described desperate scenes: “We can see that they have suffered, many lost family members, and we don’t even dare ask them, ‘Where are the men?’ The answer from the mothers is often that they were killed. So, you just see many women, many children.”
(UN NEWS)* — Global sea surface temperatures reached a record high in May, June, and July – and the warming El Niño weather pattern is only just getting started – experts at the UN World Meteorological Organization (WMO) said on Monday [].
Alarm bells have been rung at the UN agency in particular because of an “unprecedented peak” in sea surface temperatures in the North Atlantic.
Credit: United Nations
According to the Napoleonic French Revolution’s three pillars, Liberty means freedom for an individual to do what he/she wants to do without harming others’ Liberty. Equality means equal opportunity to all the citizens irrespective of their caste, religion, race, gender.
Fraternity means an environment of brotherhood among the citizens of a nation.
“Not true” that “all humans are equal”
DUDUMACAD, Ethiopia, 7 July 2023 (UNFPA)* – “Saving the life of this baby was a miracle and a blessing for my family. I am immensely grateful,” said Amino Bashir, 25, as she held her newborn.
In Ethiopia’s Somali region, a camp in the village of Gabi’as shelters hundreds of households displaced by drought. Over 260,000 women are currently pregnant in the Somali region alone, many of them internally displaced from recurrent, multiple crises and at dire risk of acute undernourishment, without access to even the most basic health care. © UNFPA Ethiopia/Paula Seijo
Ms. Bashir lives in Dudumacad in the Somali region of Ethiopia – one of the areas devastated by a gruelling drought across the Horn of Africa that has affected more than 36 million people so far.
Geneva/Cairo/Port Sudan, 6 July 2023 (IOM)* – Nearly 3 million people have been displaced internally and across borders by the conflict in Sudan, in less than three months.
In addition to the more than 2.2 million internally displaced persons (IDPs), nearly 700,000 others have fled into neighbouring countries, according to the latest figures by the International Organization for Migration’s (IOM) Displacement Tracking Matrix (DTM).
She heaves a sigh of relief. With her national identity and ration cards in hand, she hurries to the distribution point for World Food Programme (WFP) cash. She already knows what she’ll spend it on.
(UN NEWS)* — With over 18,000 near-Earth objects (NEOs) lurking beyond the stratosphere, 2,000 of which are classified as potentially hazardous, the UN Office for Outer Space Affairs (UNOOSA) is using Friday’s International Asteroid Dayto raise awareness across the planet.
HUMAN WRONGS WATCH 