A new UN report published on Monday [7 January 2019] shows that human trafficking is on the rise and taking on “horrific dimensions”, with sexual exploitation of victims the main driver. Children now account for 30 per cent of those being trafficked, and far more girls are detected than boys.
The study from the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC, draws on information from 142 countries, examining trafficking trends and patterns.
Yury Fedotov, Executive Director of UNODC, said that “human trafficking has taken on horrific dimensions as armed groups and terrorists use it to spread fear and gain victims to offer as incentives to recruit new fighters,” citing child soldiers, forced labour and sexual slavery as examples.
4 January 2019 — A group of deaf and hard-of-hearing Syrian refugee and local Lebanese children have sung in a choir in Beirut giving a performance that was “nothing short of miraculous,” according to conductor Pascal Khairallah.
The children, who practiced for six months for a Christmas carol concert held in the capital Beirut, attend a specialist school for young people with hearing disabilities which is supported by the UN Refugee Agency, UNHCR.
Twenty-four Syrian refugees are enrolled in the school.
4 January 2019 — For students attending schools funded by the UN relief agency for Palestine refugees, (UNRWA), uncertainty over the future has become a constant worry, said the agency’s Director of Operations in Gaza, Matthias Schmale.
UNRWA/Khalil Adwan | UNRWA students from Ar Rimal and A-Zeitoun schools, during an interview with UN News in Gaza.
UNRWA faced an unprecedented financial crisis during 2018 that threatened the provision of essential services to millions of Palestine refugees, including more than 500,000 school students. Although sufficient funds were provided to reopen classrooms in September, there are no guarantees that 2019 will be any easier.
The agency’s 711 schools provide free basic education for Palestinian refugee children in the West Bank – including East Jerusalem – Gaza, Jordan, Lebanon and Syria. But despite reopening after a long summer break, UNRWA was forced to take some difficult decisions which had a direct impact on the students’ daily lives.
In 2005, Myanmar passed an anti-trafficking law, but trafficking is still rampant in the conflict-affected state, especially in the northern region, where it borders China. A UN Women programme is supporting local partner, Htoi Gender and Development Foundation, in providing legal support and vocational training to survivors. According to Htoi, in 8 out of 10 cases, women are trafficked as brides and another 20 per cent are trafficked to birth babies.
Khawng Nu, now 24, was duped by a woman from her rural village in Myanmar, who sent her to a birth trafficking ring in China. Photo: UN Women/Stuart Mannion
3 January 2019 (UN Women)* — Khawng Nu* was 22 years old when she was trafficked from the state of Kachin, northern Myanmar, to China.
4 January 2019 (Norwegian Refugee Council)* — This year the armed conflict in eastern Ukraine will enter its fifth year. So far, the conflict has taken 3,000 civilian lives, displaced 1.5 million people and left 3.5 million in need – over 30 per cent of these are above the age of 60.
.
Iryna, 10, remembers the night their house was hit. Iryna and her siblings suffer from post-traumatic stress. | Photo: Ingebjørg Kårstad/Norwegian Refugee Council
Despite the high numbers of civilians affected, the crisis remains neglected with the humanitarian response plan funded by only 38 per cent so far this year.
Parties to the conflict also continue to disregard the ceasefire agreement.
Critics argue those ideas only risk inflaming Brazil’s violent streets and worsening Brazil’s murder tally, nearly 64,000 people in 2017, a record.
T-shirts of the far-right candidate Jair Bolsonaro on sale in Brasilia, on Oct. 27, 2018. | Photo: Reuters | Phto from teleSUR.
4 January 2019 (teleSUR)* – Brazil President Jair Bolsonaro urged Friday the urgent approval of a bill to protect police officers in the country from being prosecuted over crimes committed while on duty.
The far-right president, elected on a law-and-order platform, warned in a tweet that sky-high violence would only slow if laws were passed to provide police and soldiers freedom from prosecution when on active duty.
4 January 2019 (Wall Street International)* — A comparison of the two men’s views on God may throw some light on how the affirmation of the mystery of existence may lead to a declaration of its meaninglessness.
While Russell rejects all proofs for the existence of God, Voltaire rejects only the ontological argument. He maintains that we know God only by His effects, we cannot know Him by his nature, which is inscrutable to human reason; thus he urges men to adore God without wishing to ‘pierce the obscurity of His mysteries.’
While rejecting revealed religion, he claims that the rational man need only open his eyes to nature to perceive God for ‘all is art in the universe, and art announces an Artisan.’
Minhaj Uddin Ahmed explains how UNHCR has stepped up efforts in Bangladesh to address the massive water and sanitation needs of Rohingya refugees and their hosts.
4 January 2019 (UNHCR)* — More than 900,000 Rohingya refugees live across 36 different locations in Cox’s Bazar area, in south-eastern Bangladesh. Water is scarce in most locations. It is challenging to secure adequate water sources for the whole refugee population – most of whom fled to Bangladesh in late 2017.
This is why UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency and partners have stepped up their efforts throughout 2018 to address the massive water and sanitation needs.
(Greenpeace)* –– Why are global politics so dysfunctional that the UN climate meeting requires a 15-year-old Swedish grade school student to speak the truth? Why does a coalition of youth, outside the COP 24 climate meeting articulate a more comprehensive action plan than the delegates inside the meeting?
The world’s youth have finally seen and heard enough from the deplorable political process, from compromised delegates, corrupted political appointees, and criminal corporations who sabotage these critical international discussions.
4 January 2019 — The UN human rights office, OHCHR, has called for the immediate release of a prominent human rights defender in Bahrain, after the country’s highest court rejected a final appeal for his release on Monday. Nabeel Rajab was jailed in 2016 for tweeting criticism of Saudi Arabia’s airstrikes on Yemen and allegations of torture inside one of Bahrain’s prisons.*
.
UN News/Vibhu Mishra| Manama, the capital of Bahrain. (file)
“We urge the Government of Bahrain to stop criminalizing dissenting voices,” the statement read. Mr. Rajab’s comments online were made in 2015, when Saudi Arabia formed a coalition siding with the pro-Government fight in Yemen against Houthi rebels.
HUMAN WRONGS WATCH 