'Unseen' News and Views
“Standing army?”, the diplomat asked with mock surprise, and remarked perhaps half-jokingly, “We don’t even have a sitting army.”
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“In our times simple colonialism has been replaced by neo-colonialism.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.
(UN News)* — The international community must act now to protect future generations from the scourge of conflict-related sexual violence, the UN’s advocate on the issue, Pramila Patten, told the Security Council on Friday [
“Every new wave of warfare brings with it a rising tide of human tragedy, including new waves of war’s oldest, most silenced and least condemned crime,” she said.
The Council meeting to examine implementation of its resolutions on conflict-related sexual violence was convened by the United Kingdom, which holds the rotating presidency this month.
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.”
(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.
HUMAN WRONGS WATCH 