'Unseen' News and Views
Approximately 281 million people were international migrants in 2020, representing 3.6 per cent of the global population.
(UN News)* — The UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) on Tuesday [7 December 2021] launched an appeal for a record $9.4 billion as attacks against children continue to rise. Close to 24,000 grave violations against youngsters were confirmed last year, or 72 violations a day, according to the agency, in its largest ever appeal for funding.
The appeal is 31 per cent larger than last year’s campaign, as humanitarian needs continue to grow globally, exacerbated by conflict, the climate crisis and now the COVID-19 pandemic.
“Millions of children around the world are suffering from the impacts of conflict, extreme weather events and the climate crisis,” said UNICEF Executive Director Henrietta Fore.
(UN News)* — The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Michelle Bachelet, said on Tuesday [7 December 2021] that the human rights situation in the Occupied Palestinian Territory has become “disastrous”, with severe infringements occurring effecting some four million people.
– ”All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights.” These words are a sound introduction to the transcendental issue of human rights and equalities, as stated by the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR).
The Declaration proclaims the “inalienable rights that everyone is entitled to as a human being – regardless of race, colour, religion, sex, language, political or other opinion, national or social origin, property, birth or other status.”
(UN News)* — The UN’s top human rights official on Monday [6 December 2021] condemned the imprisonment of Myanmar’s State Counsellor Aung San Suu Kyi by a military-controlled court, and called for her release. She also faces additional charges of corruption and electoral fraud.
Thanksgiving is the quintessential American holiday, in which exceptionalism and selective amnesia are celebrated. The sick fairy tale obscures the violent foundations of a settler colonial nation.
United American Indians of New England | Photo: Facebook
Tomorrow, in homes across the country, millions of people will cluster around dinner tables and say an obligatory prayer of thanks that they were born free and white in America. They will then stuff their faces with piles of bland food and wash it all down with too much beer and occasional shots of whiskey.
(UN News)* — Lack of opportunities, gangs, organized crime, the ravages of the pandemic and climate change, have triggered the displacement of nearly one million people in Mexico and Central America in recent years.
To deal with the problem more effectively, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees called on Thursday [2 December 2021] for a new mechanism that could operate across the whole region, to deal with what is now an unprecedented displacement crisis.
(UN News)* — Over 700,000 children have been impacted by school closures due to often brutal violence in Cameroon, according to an analysis released by the UN humanitarian arm, OCHA, on Thursday [2 December 2021].
(UN News)* — Women and children are at high risk of being pushed into contemporary forms of slavery, UN-appointed independent rights experts said on Wednesday [1 December 2021].
– No matter what it is called — it is the abhorrent daily life of a billion enslaved humans. The real number of “modern” slaves is understandably unknown. The International Labour Organisation (ILO) estimates that more than 40 million people worldwide are victims of modern slavery.
Teenage girls harvest tomatoes on a farm in the state of Sinaloa, in northern Mexico. Credit: Courtesy of Sinaloa Institute for Adult Education
Although modern slavery is not defined in law, it is used as an umbrella term covering practices such as forced labour, debt bondage, forced marriage, and human trafficking, it says.
HUMAN WRONGS WATCH 