OCHA cited Israeli media, which reported that as of Monday evening, more than 1,000 Israelis, including foreign nationals, were killed and at least 2,806 people were injured, according to the Ministry of Health.
The Ministry of Health in Gaza said at least 830 Palestinians have been killed and 4,250 injured.
Over a tenth of the population in Gaza, more than 260,000 people, have been displaced since the start of the current conflict on 7 October and the numbers are rising fast.
More than 175,000 people are sheltering in schools operated by UNRWA, the UN agency for Palestine refugees, which has some 13,000 staff in the enclave.
Nine UNRWA staff killed
UNRWA on Wednesday reported that the death toll among its employees had risen to nine. The agency has repeatedly stressed the importance of protecting civilians, including in conflict.
UNRWA is a lifeline for most of the roughly two million Palestine refugees in Gaza, providing essential services such as education and healthcare. The conflict has forced the closure of its 14 food distribution centres as well as a reduction in operations.
Speaking on Tuesday, UNRWA Director of Communications told UN News that many staff are still working.
“We have people who are responding to the needs of the people in the shelters. They’re giving them mattresses, a place to sleep, clean water, some food, in cooperation with the UN World Food Programme (WFP),” she said.
A ‘devastating’ situation
WFP and other UN agencies have been calling for humanitarian corridors and safe and unobstructed passage for their staff.
In the immediate aftermath of the conflict, WFP began distributing fresh bread, canned food and ready-to-eat food to roughly 100,000 people in UNRWA shelters. The goal is to reach over 800,000 people which will require $17.3 million for immediate response and nearly $45 million over the next six months.
“The situation is devastating,” Samer Abdeljaber, Palestine Country Director, said on Wednesday.
“We are on the ground doing everything we can to be sure the people in need – the ones who fled their homes, the ones living in shelters – are getting the food and help they need to survive.”
WFP will be rolling out assistance through electronic vouchers so people can buy food from shops that are still open.
“We are doing everything we can but very soon the food supplies and basic needs in Gaza are going to run out,” he said.
“We need the humanitarian corridor to be able to support the people who are affected and their numbers are rising every day. We need safe and unimpeded access.”
Political engagement continues
Meanwhile, senior UN officials, including the Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process, Tor Wennesland, continue engagement with parties to the conflict and key stakeholders.
Mr. Wennesland held “productive meetings” on Wednesday with Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry and other senior officials, according to a post on his official account on X, formerly Twitter.
He said the priority is to avoid further loss of civilian lives and provide access for humanitarian aid into Gaza.
SAN FRANCISCO, USA, Oct 11 (IPS) – When Israel’s ambassador to the United Nations spoke outside the Security Council on Sunday, he said: “This is Israel’s 9/11. This is Israel’s 9/11.” Meanwhile, in a PBS NewsHour interview, Israel’s ambassador to the United States said: “This is, as someone said, our 9/11.”
While the phrase might seem logical, “Israel’s 9/11” is already being used as a huge propaganda weapon by Israel’s government — now engaged in massive war crimes against civilians in Gaza, after mass murder of Israelis by Hamas last weekend.
On the surface, an analogy between the atrocities just suffered by Israelis and what happened on Sept. 11, 2001 might seem to justify calls for unequivocal solidarity with Israel. But horrific actions are in process from an Israeli government that has long maintained a system of apartheid while crushing basic human rights of Palestinian people.
What is very sinister about trumpeting “Israel’s 9/11” is what happened after America’s 9/11. Wearing the shroud of victim, the United States proceeded to use the horrible tragedy suffered inside its own borders as a license to kill vast numbers of people in the name of retaliation, righteousness and, of course, the “war on terror.”
It’s a playbook that the government of Benjamin Netanyahu is currently adapting and implementing with a vengeance. Now underway, Israel’s collective punishment of 2.3 million people in Gaza is an intensification of what Israel has been doing to Palestinians for decades.
But Israel’s extremism, more than ever touting itself as a matter of self-defense, is at new racist depths of willingness to treat human beings as suitable for extermination.
On Monday, Israel’s Defense Minister Yoav Gallant described Palestinians as “beastly people” and said: “We are fighting animals and are acting accordingly.”
Indiscriminate bombing is now happening along with a cutoff of food, water, electricity and fuel. Noting that “even before the latest restrictions, residents of Gaza already faced widespread food insecurity, restrictions on movement and water shortages,” the BBC reported that a UN official said people in Gaza “were ‘terrified’ by the current situation and worried for their safety — as well as that of their children and families.”
This is a terrible echo from the post-9/11 approach of the U.S. government, which from the outset after Sept. 11, 2001 conferred advance absolution on itself for any and all of its future crimes against humanity.
In the name of fighting terrorism, the United States inflicted collective punishment on huge numbers of people who had absolutely nothing to do with 9/11. The Costs of War project at Brown University calculates more than 400,000 direct civilian deaths “in the violence of the U.S. post-9/11 wars in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq, Syria, Yemen and elsewhere.”
Early in the “war on terror,” Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld had fashioned a template to provide approval for virtually any killing by the U.S. military. “We did not start this war,” he said at a news briefing in December 2001, two months into the Afghanistan war. “So, understand, responsibility for every single casualty in this war, whether they’re innocent Afghans or innocent Americans, rests at the feet of the al Qaeda and the Taliban.”
Rumsfeld was showered with acclaim from the U.S. media establishment, while he not only insisted that the U.S. government had no responsibility for the deaths caused by its armed forces; he also attested to the American military’s notable decency.
“The targeting capabilities, and the care that goes into targeting, to see that the precise targets are struck, and that other targets are not struck, is as impressive as anything anyone could see,” Rumsfeld said. He lauded “the care that goes into it, the humanity that goes into it.”
Even before its current high-tech attack on Gaza, Israel had amassed a long track record of killing civilians there, while denying it every step of the way. For instance, the United Nations found that during Israel’s 2014 “Operation Protective Edge” assault, 1,462 Palestinian civilians died, including 495 children.
There’s no reason to doubt that the civilian death toll from the present Israeli military actions in Gaza will soon climb far above the number of people killed by the Hamas assault days ago. As in the aftermath of 9/11, official claims to be only fighting terrorism will continue to serve as PR smokescreens for a government terrorizing and inflicting mass carnage on Palestinians.
Deserving only unequivocal condemnation, Hamas’s killing and abduction of civilians set the stage for Israel’s slaughter of civilians now underway in Gaza.
Absent from the New York Times home page Monday night and relegated to page 9 of the newspaper’s print edition on Tuesday, a grisly news story began this way: “Israeli airstrikes pounded Gaza on Monday, flattening mosques over the heads of worshipers, wiping away a busy marketplace full of shoppers and killing entire families, witnesses and authorities in Gaza said.”
“Five Israeli airstrikes ripped through the marketplace in the Jabaliya refugee camp, reducing it to rubble and killing dozens, the authorities said. Other strikes hit four mosques in the Shati refugee camp and killed people worshiping inside, they said. Witnesses said boys had been playing soccer outside one of the mosques when it was struck.”
Along with releasing a statement about the latest tragic turn of events, at RootsAction.org we’ve offered supporters of a just peace a quick way to email their members of Congress and President Biden. The gist of the message is that “the horrific cycle of violence in the Middle East will not end until the Israeli occupation ends — and a huge obstacle to ending the occupation has been the U.S. government.”
Farmer Gustavo Panameño stands in the middle of what is left of his cornfield, hit hard by drought and windstorms, near Santa María Ostuma, in central El Salvador. Many Salvadoran small farmers are feeling the impact of El Niño, as are many others in Central America and the rest of the world. CREDIT: Edgardo Ayala / IPS
by Edgardo Ayala (santa marÃa ostuma, el salvador)
Inter Press Service
SANTA MARÃA OSTUMA, El Salvador, Oct 10 (IPS) – The effects of El Niño on agriculture in Central America are once again putting pressure on thousands of small farmer families who are feeling more vulnerable economically and in terms of food, as they lose their crops, due to climate change.
But that is not all. In addition to the obvious fact that poor harvests lead to higher food prices and food insecurity, they also generate a lack of employment in the countryside, further driving migration flows, said several experts interviewed by IPS.
The El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO) weather phenomenon had not been felt in the area since 2016. But now it has reappeared with stronger impacts. Meteorologists define ENSO as having three phases, and the one whose consequences are currently being felt on the ground is the third, the strongest.
Impact on the families
“The lack of water made us plant later, in June, when a drought hit us and ruined our corn and beans,” Gustavo Panameño, 46, told IPS as he looked disconsolately at the few plants still standing in his cornfield.
The plot Gustavo leases to farm, less than one hectare in size, is located in Lomas de Apancinte, a hill in the vicinity of Santa María Ostuma, in the central Salvadoran department of La Paz.
“The beans were completely lost, I expected to harvest about 300 pounds,” he said.
The corn and bean harvest “was for the consumption of the family, close relatives, and from time to time to sell,” said Gustavo.
A large part of Héctor Panameño’s corn crop in central El Salvador was destroyed by strong winds during a period when rain was scarce as a result of the El Niño phenomenon. The small farmer also lost his bean crop, making it a challenge to feed his family of nine. CREDIT: Edgardo Ayala / IPS
Nearby is the plot leased by Héctor Panameño, who almost completely lost his corn crop and the few beans he had planted.
Corn and beans form the basis of the diet of the Salvadoran population of 6.7 million people and of the rest of the Central American countries, which have a total combined population of just over 48 million.
This subtropical region has two seasons: the wet season, from November to April, and the dry season the rest of the year. Agriculture contributes seven percent of GDP and accounts for 20 percent of employment, according to data from the Central American Integration System (SICA).
“I lost practically all the corn, and the beans too, they couldn’t be used, they started to grow but were stunted,” said Héctor, 66, a distant relative of Gustavo.
At this stage, the stalks of the corn plants have already been “bent”, a small-farming practice that helps dry the cobs, the final stage of the process before harvesting.
And what should be a cornfield full of dried plants, lined up in furrows, now holds barely a handful here and there, sadly for Héctor.
Both farmers said that in addition to the droughts, the crops were also hit by several storms that brought with them violent gusts of wind, which ended up knocking down the corn plants.
“The plants were already big, 45 days old, about to flower, but a windstorm came and knocked them down,” recalled Héctor, sadly.
“After that, there were a few plants left standing, and when the cobs were beginning to fill up with kernels another strong wind came and finished knocking down the entire crop.”
A few weeks ago both Gustavo and Héctor replanted corn and beans, trying to recover some of their losses. Now their hopes are on the “postrera”, as the second planting cycle is called in Central America, which starts in late August and ends with the harvest in November.
The windstorms mentioned by both farmers are apparently part of the extreme climate variability brought by climate change and El Niño.
The photo shows a parched ear of corn in a small cornfield that was destroyed in central El Salvador. It is estimated that losses of the staple crops corn and beans in the country, as a result of the impacts of extreme weather events, such as El Niño and the historical shortage of rainfall, on local production, will lead to a grain deficit of about 6.8 million quintals (100-kg). CREDIT: Edgardo Ayala / IPS
Guatemala is also experiencing what experts have noted in the rest of the region: because El Niño has arrived in the “strong phase”, in which climate variability is even more pronounced, there are periods of longer droughts as well as more intense rains.
That puts the “postrera” harvest in danger, said the experts interviewed.
This means that whereas El Niño would bring drought in the first few months of the agricultural cycle, now it is hitting harder during the second period, in August, when the postrera planting is in full swing.
“For the farmers it was clear since April that it was raining less, compared to other years,” Sigüenza told IPS from Guatemala City.
“Then, in August, we had the first warnings from the highlands and the southern coast that the plants were not growing well, that they were suffering from water stress,” he said.
The most affected region, he said, is the Dry Corridor, which in Guatemala includes the departments of Jalapa, Chiquimula, Zacapa, El Progreso, part of Chimaltenango and Alta Verapaz, in the central part of the country.
The Dry Corridor is a 1,600 kilometer-long strip of land that runs north-south through portions of Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador, Nicaragua and Costa Rica.
It is an area highly vulnerable to extreme weather events, where long periods of drought are followed by heavy rains that have a major effect on the livelihoods and food security of local populations, as described by the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO).
Sigüenza said that food security due to lack of basic grains is expected to affect some 4.6 million people in Guatemala, a country of 17.4 million.
Even the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) “predicted that August, September and October would be the months with the greatest presence of El Niño,” said Luis Treminio, president of the Salvadoran Chamber of Small and Medium Agricultural Producers.
Treminio said that 75 percent of bean production is currently planted, and because it is less resistant to drought and rain than corn and sorghum, there is a greater possibility of losses.
“So the risk now is to the postrera, because if this scenario is fulfilled, we will have a very low postrera production,” he said.
Treminio’s estimate is that El Salvador will have a basic grains deficit of 6.8 million quintals, which the country will have to cover, as always, with imports.
This bean plant growing on a Salvadoran farm may or may not make it to harvest. The El Niño phenomenon has begun to hit hard the “postrera” or second harvest in Central America, in which farmers hope to recover some of the losses suffered in the first harvest, in May and June. CREDIT: Edgardo Ayala / IPS
As in other countries in the region, Nicaraguan farmers suffered losses in the first planting, in May, and again in the second, the postrera, “and all of this leads to a strong imbalance in the small farmer economy,” the FAO official said from Panama City.
Sanches said that El Niño will be felt in 93 percent of the region until March 2024 and, in addition, 71 percent is in the “strong phase”.
He added that in the Dry Corridor 64 percent of the farms are less than two hectares in size. In other words, there are many families involved in subsistence agriculture, and with fewer harvests, they would face unemployment and would look for escape valves, such as migration.
“All this would then trigger an explosion of migration,” said Sanches.
With regard to the impacts in Nicaragua, researcher Abdel Garcia, an expert in climate, environment and disasters, said that, in effect, the country is receiving “the negative backlash” of El Niño, that is, less rain in the months that should have more copious rainfall, such as September.
García said that the effects of the climate are not only being felt in agriculture, and therefore in the economy, but also in the environment.
“The ecosystem is already suffering: we see dried up rivers and surface water sources, and also the reservoirs, which are at their lowest levels right now,” García told IPS from Managua.
García said that some farmers in the department of Estelí, in northwestern Nicaragua, are already talking about a plan B, that is, to engage in other economic activities outside of agriculture, given the harsh situation in farming.
In late August, FAO announced the launch of a humanitarian aid plan aimed at mobilizing some 37 million dollars to assist vulnerable communities in Latin America in the face of the impact of the El Niño phenomenon.
Specifically, the objective was to support 1.1 million people in El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru and Venezuela.
Even more ambitious is an initiative in which FAO will participate as a liaison between the governments of 30 countries around the world and investors, multilateral development banks, the private sector and international donors, so that these nations can access and allocate resources to agriculture.
At the meeting, which will take place Oct. 7-20 in Rome, FAO’s world headquarters, governments will present projects totaling 268 million dollars to investors.
Among the nations submitting proposals are 10 from Latin America and the Caribbean, including Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador and Nicaragua.
Meanwhile, despite the gloomy forecasts for farming families, who are taking a direct hit from El Niño, both Gustavo and Héctor remain hopeful that it is worth a second try now that the postrera harvest is underway.
“We have no choice but to keep working, we can’t just sit back and do nothing,” said Héctor, with a smile that was more encouraging than resigned.
Atashi Kitchen in Karuizawa operates a children’s cafeteria (Kodomo-Shokudo), providing free or low-cost meals and distributing food to those in need.
Opinion by Karuta Yamamoto – Seiji Takano – Shun Shikii – Sota Yoshihar (tokyo)
Inter Press Service
TOKYO, Oct 10 (IPS) – In the third in our series by Youth Thought Leaders, the students write about the impact of human activity, including food waste, on the environment. They are positive that with incremental changes a sustainable and humane world is possible.Have you ever seen a dried frog? We have, and it’s making us rethink our impact on the environment. Frogs are incredibly sensitive to dry conditions, and they are facing the threat of extinction due to global warming. Amphibians, like frogs, make up a significant portion of endangered species, with 41 percent vulnerable compared to only 25 percent for mammals like polar bears.
Frogs, as amphibians, require both land and water habitats, and their thin, specialized skin makes them highly susceptible to changes in humidity and temperature. Climate shifts can disrupt their breeding patterns, leading to population declines.
This sensitivity to heat and drought means that frogs can easily die on scorching days. What’s more, a decrease in the frog population can trigger a chain reaction in the ecosystem, affecting animals that rely on them for food, like owls, snakes, and raccoons.
Recognizing this, we’re reevaluating our lifestyles to reduce carbon emissions, a major contributor to global warming.
IUCN Red List Frogs are sensitive, but with the right conditions, they can survive, as this X post shows. These are pet frogs. One is colloquially known as a ‘crown horn frog,’ and the others ‘house mega frogs.’ Once, our crown horn frog faced a health issue. At first, we had it on a white electric mat, but we later discovered that an earthen floor was a better choice. Unfortunately, it turned out that the soil was contaminated and made the frog sick. This experience taught us that frogs are incredibly sensitive to changes in their environment.
Food Loss and Global Warming
Are you familiar with the term’ food loss?’ Discarding food that is still edible is not just about wasting food; it also contributes to the environmental issue of global warming. It is estimated that Japan discards approximately 5.22 million tons of food annually. To dispose of such a significant amount of food waste, incineration is necessary, which generates greenhouse gases and contributes to global warming. Another concern arises from the necessity of developing new final disposal sites for the ash produced from incineration, which often entails the destruction of sea and forest areas. This, in turn, exacerbates environmental issues.
Volunteer students at the Atashi Kitchen in Karuizawa. The kitchen operates a children’s cafeteria offering free or low-cost meals to those in need. Student volunteers at the Atashi Kitchen in Karuizawa. Food loss contributes to global warming. Students help prepare meals at the Atashi Kitchen in Karuizawa.
Driven by this realization, we decided to combat global warming by efficiently using surplus food, essentially functioning as food banks. Our search led us to Atashi Kitchen in Karuizawa, Japan, which operates a food bank as part of a children’s cafeteria (Kodomo-Shokudo), providing free or low-cost meals and distributing food to those in need.
On July 22, 2023, our group of eight Grade 8 students from Dalton Tokyo Gakuen Junior School volunteered at the children’s cafeteria. Witnessing the diverse array of food, from fresh vegetables donated by local farmers to meat from contributions and observing strangers sharing joyful conversations while enjoying their meals, we realized this place was about more than food; it was about sharing happiness.
The Ministry of the Environment reported that in 2020, Japan generated about 5.22 million tons of food loss, with businesses contributing 2.75 million tons and households 2.47 million tons. This data prompted us to search for environmentally conscious companies in Japan.
Group photo at the Suntory Odaiba Office Hikari Kujime (Corporate Sustainability Department), Yusuke Sasaki (PR Department), Tomoyuki Ichida, and Tamon Koshino (General Manager, Corporate Sustainability Department) at Suntory Holdings are with the students learning about sustainability in business.
Suntory actively harnesses artificial intelligence (AI) to accurately predict sales, a practice that significantly reduces food waste. Additionally, at Meissen, their restaurant, Suntory, ingeniously repurposes leftover bread crusts as feed for pigs. What struck us most during our visit was Suntory’s wholehearted dedication to ecological sustainability, which aligned perfectly with our mission as teenage writers.
Japan’s strong emphasis on safety and security, while commendable, inadvertently results in food loss. This has not only environmental implications but also economic repercussions for manufacturers. To address this issue, let’s consider the “one-third rule.” It dictates that the delivery deadline extends until one-third of the best-before date remains, and the sell-by date covers two-thirds of the best-before date. This rule aims to accommodate consumers who tend to be overly cautious about expiration dates. To combat food waste effectively, it’s essential to ensure consumers understand these dates, promote awareness of waste reduction, and shift the mindset away from avoiding products nearing their expiration date.
Maybe we can put it more straightforwardly: In Japan, food is often deemed expired much earlier compared to the United States or Europe. Here’s a comparison of delivery deadlines in these developed regions: In Japan, it’s one-third of the best-before date, while in the United States, it extends to one-half. European countries, like Belgium, allow up to two-thirds, and in the United Kingdom, it’s three-quarters. This clearly reflects Japan’s inclination to exercise greater caution concerning expiration dates.
Food expiry dates lead to food losses, too.
So, what does food loss mean to teenagers like us? For us, it signifies a mission to heighten awareness about the intricate interplay between food loss, global warming, the safeguarding of frogs and various other creatures, our deepened appreciation for the environment, and the responsible utilization of food resources.
In conclusion, our journey has taught us that small actions can lead to significant change. As teenagers, we often hear that we are the future, but we believe that we can make an impact in the present as well. The frogs drying up symbolize a larger issue – the delicate balance of our planet’s ecosystems. It’s a call to action, a reminder that our actions matter.
We, as young individuals, have a crucial role to play. By raising awareness about the interconnectedness of issues like food loss, global warming, and the protection of our fellow creatures, we can inspire change in our communities. We can choose to reduce waste, conserve resources, and make sustainable choices. We can advocate for policies that protect our environment. By embracing knowledge and taking action, we can be the driving force behind a healthier planet.
So, let’s continue this journey together, with the frogs as our inspiration. Let’s be the generation that not only stops the drying of our amphibian friends but also works towards a world where nature thrives and all creatures, including us, live harmoniously.
Remember, it all starts with awareness, and it’s our responsibility to pass on this knowledge to others. Together, we can create a more sustainable and compassionate world for all.
IPS UN Bureau Report
Note:Karuta Yamamoto and Seiji Takano were the team leaders
Nafissa, 17 from Niger, was married at 16. Three months after marrying she became pregnant. She gave birth to a still born baby. Credit: UNICEF/Marieke van der Velden
Opinion by Divya Srinivasan (geneva, switzerland)
Inter Press Service
The UN commemorates International Day of the Girl Child on October 11 — an annual and internationally recognized observance that empowers girls and amplifies their voices.
New research reveals that while some SADC countries have taken commendable action to strengthen legal protections in this area, other Member States have made little or no progress.
While the SADC Model Law is having a positive impact, its success depends on effective implementation and enforcement by states. To assist governments, the briefs also provide recommendations on strengthening elimination efforts through good application of child marriage laws and policies.
SADC Model Law
Child marriage severely harms girls and exposes them to various human rights violations. It impedes their right to education, as marriage often entails being forced to drop out of school to assume adult responsibilities. This lack of education perpetuates a cycle of poverty, limiting girls’ opportunities for personal development and financial independence.
Early marriages increase the likelihood of early pregnancies, posing significant health risks to girls whose bodies aren’t mature. This can result in complications during pregnancy and childbirth and is associated with higher maternal and infant mortality.
Moreover, child brides are often subjected to domestic violence and marital abuse as they lack the power to assert their rights, and alternative safe spaces are rarely available.
The SADC Model Law defines a child as any person below the age of 18 and recognizes that child marriage violates children’s rights, including the right to education, health, and protection from harm. It calls for prohibiting child marriage, creating prevention and response mechanisms, and promoting birth registration. Other components include supporting child brides and their families and ensuring access to education and healthcare.
The Model Law sets 18 as the minimum age for marriage for both boys and girls without exception and is applicable to all types of marriages – whether under statutory, religious or customary law — with marriages involving a child declared null and void.
To address the complex root causes contributing to child marriage, the Law promotes a comprehensive, multi-sectoral approach based on coordination and collaboration between legal, education, healthcare, and social services sectors.
Inconsistencies and weak implementation of laws
It is important to recognize that some progress in reducing child marriage has been achieved in Eastern and Southern Africa. However, progress is too slow as the prevalence rate has only reduced from 39% to 32% over the past 25 years, while other regions have made much faster progress.
At the current trajectory, it is estimated that child marriage in the region won’t end until 2240.
Concerningly, most progress in Sub-Saharan Africa has occurred amongst the wealthiest families, while in poorer communities, there has been a rise in child marriage. This perpetuates an unacceptable and deeply entrenched divide along socio-economic lines and demonstrates how governments need to focus more on prioritizing elimination of child marriage.
Problems include a lack of adequate resourcing to programs addressing child marriage and a general lack of effective implementation of laws and policies, which feeds into low prioritization of decision-making and lack of action on child marriage.
Out of the 16 countries in Southern Africa, only six countries – DRC, Malawi, Mauritius, Mozambique, Seychelles, and Zimbabwe – set 18 as the minimum age of marriage for both boys and girls, with no exceptions.
Five countries – Angola, Botswana, Comoros, Madagascar, and Namibia – set the minimum age as 18, but allow exceptions for customary and religious marriages and for marriage with consent from judicial or other government officials.
Statutory law in the remaining five countries – Eswatini, Lesotho, South Africa, Tanzania and Zambia – provides for a minimum age ranging between 15 and 18. These are different for boys and girls, with the boys invariably having a higher age limit.
In addition, all five countries allow for judicial or parental consent to lower the age of marriage even further, and in Eswatini and Lesotho, there are exceptions for customary law that permit marriage from the age of puberty.
These domestic laws violate the international and regional human rights standards that SADC countries have signed on to. Deeply entrenched cultural practices, poverty, and limited access to education and sexual and reproductive healthcare are slowing progress and hindering reform efforts.
Such is the case in Tanzania. In 2016, the Tanzanian High Court gave a landmark ruling that struck down sections of the Marriages Act of 1971, which set the marriage age at 18 for boys and 15 for girls, with additional exceptions allowing marriage at 14 with court approval.
Despite the ruling being upheld by the Court of Appeal in 2019, Tanzania’s government has thus far failed to amend the law accordingly.
However, there is encouraging progress elsewhere.
In Zimbabwe, the Constitutional Court ruled in 2016 that child marriage is inconsistent with the Constitution. A new Marriage Act enacted in 2022 prohibits marriage for those under 18 in all cases, including for customary marriages, and allows up to five years imprisonment for offenders.
In February 2023, the Constitutional Court of Uganda issued a ground-breaking decision in the case, Kirya Martins & Aboneka Michael v. Attorney General, striking down provisions of customary and religious law, including in Hindu and Muslim family laws, that conflicted with the minimum age of marriage set out in the Constitution.
Prioritizing legal reforms to end child marriage
Contradictory provisions in different laws on child marriage create confusion in the application of the law and the inconsistencies make jurisprudence difficult to interpret and implement. All SADC countries must prioritize legal reform and enact robust legislative and policy frameworks that comply with international and regional human rights obligations. This means setting the minimum age of marriage at 18, without any exceptions.
While legal reform is crucial, governments must close the divide between legal approaches and those aimed at influencing social and community norms. Prosecution and punishment of perpetrators should be accompanied by a multi-sectoral approach with an ample budgetary allocation.
Community awareness-raising is key and requires comprehensive sexuality education and behavior change campaigns that foster understanding about the negative impact of child marriage on girls and the wider society.
So too is the empowerment of girls through education and other opportunities that increase their agency and decrease their vulnerability to human rights violations.
Child marriage prevention must also be fully integrated into climate change mitigation and disaster response strategies. Africa is bearing the brunt of global warming, with extreme weather events, prolonged droughts, and food shortages intensifying economic hardships, conflicts, and forced migration.
Girls are especially vulnerable, as families may view marrying daughters as a strategy to cope with financial difficulties and as a way of protecting them from the heightened risks of sexual violence and exploitation found in unstable environments.
Having the right laws in place is the foundation upon which access to protection and justice is built. But only through a multifaceted approach championed by governments can we create a future where every child and young woman in East and Southern Africa can reach their full potential, free from the shackles of child marriage and early motherhood.
Divya Srinivasan is Global Lead for End Harmful Practices at Equality Now.
Oil workers are busy on the banks of the Tiputini river, on the northern border of the Yasuní National Park, in Ecuador’s Amazon region. CREDIT: Pato Chavez / Flickr
by Carolina Loza (quito)
Inter Press Service
QUITO, Oct 09 (IPS) – The decision reached by Ecuadorians to put an end to oil production in Yasuní National Park, in a popular referendum in August, was a triumph for civil society and a global milestone in environmental democracy. But when it comes to implementation, the result is less promising.
Despite being a democratic decision, taken by the majority of Ecuadorians, who voted to halt oil exploration and production in the park, the authorities say the verdict is not clear.
During the Aug. 20 presidential and legislative elections, 59 percent of voters voted Yes to a halt to oil extraction in one of the most biodiverse protected areas in the world, part of the Ecuadorian Amazon rainforest that has been a biosphere reserve since 1989.
At the same time, 68 percent of the voters of the Metropolitan District of Quito voted against continued mining in their territory, in order to protect the biodiversity of the Chocó Andino, a forest northwest of the capital that provides it with water.
In the midst of an unprecedented political and criminal insecurity crisis in Ecuador, the two votes were a historic landmark at a democratic and environmental level, in addition to demonstrating that Ecuadorians are increasingly looking towards alternatives that would move Ecuador away from the extractivism on which the economy of this South American country has depended for decades.
But the No vote, i.e. the answer that allowed oil extraction to continue in the Yasuní ITT block, won in the provinces where the national park is located: Orellana and Sucumbíos. This is one of the arguments of the current authorities to stop compliance with the referendum, arguing that the areas involved want oil production to go ahead.
Constitutional lawyer Ximena Ron Erráez said the Ecuadorian government cannot escape the obligation to abide by the result of the referendum.
“As far as the Ecuadorian constitution is concerned…..it must be complied with in an obligatory manner by the authorities; there is no possibility, constitutionally speaking, that the authorities can refuse to comply with the results of the referendum,” she told IPS.
One of the murals that still remain on the streets of Quito from the campaign for the August referendum on whether or not to keep the oil wealth underground in Yasuní National Park, to which voters decided “yes”: leave it untouched. CREDIT: Carolina Loza / IPS
Ron Erráez also complained about a lack of political will.
On Sept. 5, Ecuadorian President Guillermo Lasso, in a meeting with indigenous communities, described the referendum as “not applicable”.
A leaked video in which he made the statement drew an outcry from civil society groups that pushed for the referendum for more than 10 years. Yasunidos, the group that was formed to reverse the 2013 decision by the government of then President Rafael Correa (2007-2017) to begin oil drilling and production in Yasuní, has declared itself in a state of permanent assembly.
The Correa administration had proposed a project that sought to keep the oil in Yasuní ITT (Ishpingo, Tambococha, Tiputini), also known as Block 43, in the ground, on almost 2,000 hectares, part of which is within the biosphere reserve and the rest in the so-called buffer zone.
The initiative consisted of asking for international economic compensation for not exploiting the oilfield, which contains more than 1.5 billion barrels of reserves, in order to continue to preserve the biodiversity of the park and its surrounding areas. But the proposal did not yield the hoped-for results in international financing and the government decided to cancel it.
This is despite the fact that Yasuní, covering an area of 10,700 square kilometers in the northeast of the country within the Amazon basin, is home to some 150 species of amphibians, 600 species of birds and 3,000 species of flora, as well as indigenous communities, some of which are in voluntary isolation.
Environmental activists and organizations working in favor of keeping Yasuní’s oil in the ground say the management of the project showed the dilemma of finding alternatives to the extractive industry and the lack of real political will on the part of the political powers-that-be to come up with solutions.
View of one of the rivers inside the Yasuni park, in northeastern Ecuador, which preserves an incomparable biodiversity. CREDIT: Manel Ortega Fernández / Flickr
Ron Erráez mentioned an important fact: Lasso, in power since May 2021, will be an outgoing president after the second round of presidential elections is held on Oct. 15, and it will be his successor who will have to fulfill the mandate of the referendum on the national park.
One difficulty is that his successor, who will take office on Nov. 25, will only serve as president for a year and a half, to complete the term of Lasso, who called for an unprecedented early election to avoid his likely impeachment by the legislature.
Alex Samaniego, who participates in Yasunídos from Scientist Rebellion Ecuador, said it was clear from the start that the campaign for the Yasuní and Andean Chocó referendums was a long-term process, which would not end with whatever result came out of the vote.
“We know that we have to defend the result, defend the votes of the citizens and make sure that the referendums are fully complied with,” he told IPS.
According to the environmental activist, the democratic process behind the referendums will serve as an example for many countries, including Brazil, where communities are waging a constant struggle to combat climate change by seeking alternatives to the extractive industries.
Capture from a video of the Quito Free of Mining campaign, which triumphed in the popular referendum on Aug. 20. CREDIT: Carolina Loza / IPS
“We are told about all the money that oil brings to the economy, but very little money stays in the communities,” said Samaniego, who mentioned alternatives such as community-based tourism and biomedicine and bioindustries as economic alternatives to oil production.
Ron Erráez said “the referendum process sets a precedent because it is a way of establishing what is called an environmental democracy, where the people decide what to exploit and what not to exploit.”
“These principles in practice are in harmony with the rights of nature that are mentioned in the Ecuadorian constitution, to protect nature above and beyond economic profit,” she added.
Ecuadorian voters decided at the ballot box, and their decision should accelerate the possibility of a transition to alternatives for their economy. But what will the implementation look like?
The referendum on the Andean Chocó region covers a conservation area of which Quito is part, which includes nine protected forests and more than 35 natural reserves, in order to avoid the issuance of mining exploration permits, a measure that will be implemented after the vote.
There are contrasting views over the halt to oil exploration and production in Yasuni. The state-owned oil company Petroecuador highlights the losses for the State and presents figures that question the studies of groups such as Yasunidos.
The referendum gives the government one year to bring oil production activities to a halt. But Ron Erráez said it could take longer to dismantle Petroecuador’s entire operation in Yasuní ITT. Meanwhile, operations in Block 43 continue.
Sofia Torres, spokesperson for Yasunidos, said that despite all the talk during the campaign about economic losses, the vote showed that a majority of Ecuadorians question the country’s extractivist industry status quo.
In her view, although government and oil authorities insist that oil resources are indispensable for the country’s development, Ecuadorians have not seen this materialize in terms of infrastructure, social measures or services.
For this reason, they decided that “it is better to opt for the preservation of something concrete, such as an ecosystem that provides us with clean water and clean air and that is something like an insurance policy for the future,” she told IPS.
On Oct. 15, Ecuadorians will choose between left-leaning Luisa Gonzalez, the protegé of former President Correa, and businessman Daniel Noboa. It will fall to one of them to enforce the majority vote on the future of Yasuní and the halt to oil industry activity in the park.
Give girls an opportunity to lead by putting them in the forefront of change efforts; hearing their voices; responding to their asks; and welcoming them in decision-making spaces – it is one of the ways to invest in a future that believes in girls’ agency. International Day of the Girl Child is an annual and internationally recognized observance on October 11 that empowers girls and amplifies their voices. Credit: UNFPA Burkina Faso/Théo
Opinion by Amy West, Aysel Madra (washington dc)
Inter Press Service
WASHINGTON DC, Oct 09 (IPS) – In a year that is rapidly becoming the costliest on record for climate-related disasters, the International Day of the Girl Child appeals to the global community for greater investments for and with adolescent girls.
Mounting evidence continues to show that the wellbeing of our households, our communities, and our world, especially amidst climate change, hinges on how seriously we take this call-to-action for half of the world’s population.
Protecting the rights of girls is key to achieving the Sustainable Development Goals. The Coalition for Adolescent Girls believes this prioritization of girls’ rights is all the more urgent among those who live in underserved and traditionally marginalized communities, many of which sit at the crossroads of poverty and climate fragility.
It is estimated that 80 percent of those displaced by climate-related disasters are women and girls. In the wake of cyclones, wildfires, floods, and earthquakes, adolescent girls have an even harder time accessing services and are often forced to forage for basic needs.
Further, the breakdown in family and community, as well as the loss of a key information and knowledge resources – namely, school or other learning centers – exposes girls to exploitative behaviors and multidimensional and intersecting vulnerabilities.
Thus, the notion of disaster preparedness and disaster response must evolve to include girl-centered protection solutions to reduce these increased risks and their ripple effect on larger social and economic development goals.
The recent earthquakes in Turkey, Syria, and Morocco have seen unprecedented levels of devastation, both in terms of human life and the infrastructure necessary for accessing public services and ensuring protection from sexual exploitation, abuse, and violence.
Initial reports observe that for adolescent girls there has been significant increases in domestic care and responsibilities, domestic abuse, sexual and gender-based violence, and child marriage along with reduced enrollment rates in school.
Committing to Girl-Centered Design
Girl-centered design is one protective and pro-active approach to finding new solutions to the challenges that international humanitarian and development sector practitioners struggle to address at scale.
This process thinks about how spaces, programs, and activities can be developed for and with girls based on child safety protocols and girl-led participation. It is applied to ensure that all girls, especially the most underserved, are recognized and engaged.
In Pazarc?k, and Antakya, Turkey—areas hardest hit by the February earthquake—adolescent girls, and their families, still live in temporary shelters. Several of these girls were asked recently, “if you oversaw international aid, what would you do differently?”
“I would have done something to meet the self-care and clothing needs of the girls here. Then, the girls were cared for, I would send them to school,” said one 14-year-old from Pazarc?k. Adds a 13-year-old from the same area, “There could have been classes. There could have been information for us. There is nothing here.”
Their counterparts in Antakya talk about music, painting, dance, and sports. One 13-year-old says these creative activities would not only occupy girls, but also make them “happy.” One 14-year-old girl states, “I would make girls feel valuable. I would find out what girls are interested in and organize activities to engage them.”
Recent targeted research by Suna’n?n K?zlar? cites that girls spend the majority of their waking hours “pacing” and “waiting,” or else occupied with minding younger siblings or helping their mothers with household chores. Many girls yearn for and remark on the absence of “fun.”
Creating the Spaces for Girls to Occupy
With additional evidence on the intersection of wellbeing with outdoor activities, or the powerful learning and healing that occurs with ensuring girls’ right to play, there is a collective cry for doing better by them. Shelters should be constructed to include safe outdoor spaces for girls to play, strengthen the availability of the kinds of information they need, and provide access to basic services that support healthier prospects for their immediate and future needs.
To date, when such spaces or services are available, they are used predominantly by boys and men.
Adolescent girls inherently understand what it means to be a girl, to feel safe (or not), and to be valued as equals (or not). For the girls in Pazarc?k and Antakya, investing for and with them means not only applying girl-centered design to expand the physical safe and green spaces in which they can learn, play and grow, but also the decision-making spaces where their voices and ideas can be heard and taken seriously.
And while there are some welcome signs in this direction, it is not enough. If prioritized, girl-centered design and girl-led solutions before, during and after disaster may reap the results that have heretofore eluded us.
Amy West is co-lead of the Adolescent Girls and Young Women Initiative and principal international technical advisor at Education Development Center and Aysel Madra is a research coordinator at Suna’n?n K?zlar? (Suna’s Daughters). EDC. They are both active members in the Coalition for Adolescent Girls (CAG), a member-led and-driven organization dedicated to supporting, investing in, and improving the lives of adolescent girls.
As the 15-member Council prepared to meet, UN agencies were reporting that hundreds of people have been killed and thousands injured following the early Saturday morning rocket fire into Israel by Palestinian militants.
The ensuing Israeli response to the Hamas attacks included airstrikes in Gaza, where the UN agency operating there, UNRWA, had reported massive damages alongside rising death tolls.
The UN agency is currently sheltering 73,538 internally displaced people in 64 of its schools in all areas in the Gaza Strip. An UNRWA school sheltering 225 people was “directly hit” and severely damaged, but no casualties were recorded, the agency said.
New reports emerged of alarming food scarcity and clashes across the Israel-Lebanon border.
UN News/Ziad Taleb
Men walk through a heavily damaged area of central Gaza.
Israel-Lebanon border: Rocket, artillery fire
Early Sunday, the UN peacekeeping operation in Lebanon, UNIFIL, “detected several rockets fired from southeast Lebanon toward Israeli-occupied territory in the general area of Kafr Chouba and artillery fire from Israel to Lebanon in response”, according to the mission.
The UN Security Council-mandated mission, operating along an area known as the “Blue Line”, was deployed in 1978 to restore peace between Israel and Lebanon.
“We are in contact with authorities on both sides of the Blue Line, at all levels, to contain the situation and avoid a more serious escalation,” UNIFIL said in a statement. “Our peacekeepers remain in their positions and on task.”
UNIFIL said peacekeepers continued to work, “some from shelters, for their safety”.
“We urge everyone to exercise restraint and make use of UNIFIL’s liaison and coordination mechanisms to de-escalate to prevent a fast deterioration of the security situation,” the mission said.
In ‘close contact’ with key actors
At the same time, the UN chief of the Middle East Peace Process, Tor Wennesland, “is in close contact” with the United States, European Union, Qatar, Egypt, and Lebanon “to discuss the ongoing war” in Israel and Gaza, according to a social media post by his office, UNSCO.
“Priority now is to avoid further loss of civilian life and deliver much needed humanitarian aid to the Strip,” the UNSCO post said, adding that the “UN remains actively engaged to advance these efforts”.
Calls to protect civilians
Top UN officials have called for an immediate cessation of violence.
UN Secretary-General António Guterres on Saturday condemned “in the strongest terms” the attack by Hamas against Israeli towns, UN Spokesperson Stéphane Dujarric said, urging “maximum restraint” and that “all diplomatic efforts” are made “to avoid a wider conflagration”.
“Civilians must be respected and protected in accordance with international humanitarian law at all times,” the UN chief said in a statement.
UN agency raises alarm over food scarcity
As the conflict intensifies, civilians, including vulnerable children and families, face mounting challenges in accessing essential food supplies, with distribution networks disrupted and production severely hampered by hostilities, according to the World Food Programme (WFP).
“WFP urges safe and unimpeded humanitarian access to affected areas, calling on all parties to uphold the principles of humanitarian law, taking every necessary measure to safeguard the lives and well-being of civilians, including ensuring access to food,” the agency said.
From Gaza, UNRWA reported that food operations remain on hold until further notice, with 14 distribution centres now closed. Some 112,759 families, or 541,640 individuals, had not yet received food assistance, the agency said.
It’s estimated that 4.5 million more workers may be needed over the next decade in the labour force.
UN News asked Michael Newson, Senior Programme Coordinator for Migration and Sustainable Development at the International Organization for Migration (IOM) in Kyiv, Ukraine, about how people could be encouraged back home.
Michael Newson: IOM has already observed an increase of Ukrainians returning to Ukraine despite the ongoing war. Numerous surveys have indicated that a large percentage of Ukrainians who fled the country, especially those based in the European Union, intend to return once conditions allow. We can also expect that many will remain abroad in the long term. Current data suggests that Ukraine can expect a larger share of its population abroad to return after the war than we have seen in other post-conflict settings.
When and whether Ukrainians abroad return to the country will depend on a number of factors, including their conditions in their countries of refuge and in Ukraine. The number of people who choose to return to Ukraine will also depend on the types of policies and programmes that the Ukrainian Government and the international community put in place to incentivize return.
UNICEF in Ukraine
Reconstruction efforts are already underway in Ukraine, including schools.
UN News: What conditions are needed to encourage people to return home?
Michael Newson: Security is obviously a key criterion. Until people can feel safe and comfortable returning to their homes, any incentive programmes are likely to have a limited effect. People want to have a sense of economic stability and confidence that they will be able to provide for themselves and their families upon return. As such, ensuring basic healthcare and education services are in place is essential.
Developing programmes to link persons abroad with job opportunities in Ukraine even prior to their return will go a long way in encouraging people to return to the country. Often, we speak of providing financial incentives for return to address the costs of return and re-establishing oneself. Ultimately, incentive packages have to reduce the risks that people perceive with return. That includes security risks but also the economic risks and the risks that, should they choose to reverse their decision, they won’t be able to return to their country of refuge.
UN News: How will IOM support the Ministry of Economy in the process of reintegrating Ukrainians and ensuring a smooth transition back into the labour market?
Michael Newson: These are precisely the types of conversations we are currently having with colleagues at the Ministry of Economy and International Labour Organization (ILO).
Agriculture is one of the most important industries in Ukraine.
What is absolutely essential is that programmes are evidence-based. We need to develop programmes that respond to concerns Ukrainians abroad have when they are considering returning and to issues people who have already returned have faced in terms of their reintegration and transition into the labour market.
We can also learn from previous post-war scenarios. We need to recognize that, like anyone who is considering a major move, having a job and being able to provide for oneself is only part of the concerns of moving.
Developing services for potential returnees that assist and facilitate the process of finding housing, enrolling children in school, finding a job, or linking with healthcare services for existing and chronic health issues will also encourage return and ensure a smooth transition.
What we want to avoid is providing incentives for return and reintegration that put returnees in a more favourable position to those who have remained in the country, as this can lead to social tensions.
UN News: If not enough Ukrainians workers return home post-war, how will this affect the job market?
Michael Newson: Given the demographic situation in Ukraine even before the full-scale invasion, it’s clear that returning Ukrainians, on their own, will not be sufficient to meet the labour market needs of the country going forward, both for reconstruction and the broader economic recovery.
The Ministry of Economy has indicated that an additional 4.5 million workers may be needed in the next 10 years to meet labour market needs and economic objectives.
Incoming labour migration will be one of several tools that will be used in order to address this.
Ukraine is one of many countries in the region which is not traditionally seen as countries of immigration but need to start to reconsider policies and look at bringing in foreign workers to meet growing labour market gaps both at higher and lower skill levels.
Beyond these priorities, we should also be looking at capital investments such as machinery and automation as well as a re-design of management and operations structures that can increase productivity.
UN News: How challenging do you expect the post-war period to be as Ukraine readjusts to peace time?
Michael Newson: The challenges Ukraine faced even prior to the full-scale invasion were significant. The war has obviously exacerbated a number of these challenges relating to demographics, social services, and economic development.
However, I am heartened and encouraged by the Government of Ukraine’s willingness to acknowledge and face these challenges head on. The Government and the people of Ukraine have demonstrated incredible resilience and adaptability over the past 18 months.
There is no reason to think that, with the support of the international community, they could not adapt in order to stimulate the country’s reconstruction and economic recovery when peace arrives.
“I vehemently condemn this morning’s multi-front assault against Israeli towns and cities near the Gaza Strip and barrage of rockets reaching across central Israel by Hamas militants,” said Tor Wennesland, the UN’s Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process.
Reports of hostages
“These events have resulted in horrific scenes of violence and many Israeli fatalities and injuries, with many believed to be kidnapped inside the Strip,” he said. “These are heinous attacks targeting civilians and must stop immediately.”
Deeply concerned for the well-being of all civilians, he said he is “in close contact with all concerned to urge maximum restraint”.
“This is a dangerous precipice and I appeal to all to pull back from the brink,” he said, calling on all sides to protect civilians.
‘Possibly thousands of indiscriminate rockets’
UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk echoed that concern.
“Civilians must never be the target of attack,” he said, pointing to reports that Israelis have been taken hostage.
“I am shocked and appalled at reports this morning that hundreds, possibly thousands, of indiscriminate rockets have been fired by Palestinian armed groups towards Israel, and that at least 22 Israelis have been killed and hundreds injured.”
Airstrikes in Gaza
Noting that Israeli forces have responded with air strikes into the densely populated Gaza Strip, he called on them to “take all precautions to avoid civilian casualties there”.
“I call for an immediate stop to the violence, and appeal to all sides and key countries in the region to de-escalate to avoid further bloodshed,” he said.
“We call upon the international community to urgently support refugees and their hosts,” said Filippo Grandi, UN High Commissioner for Refugees. “International support is crucial to sustain this welcome and to enable us to respond to immediate needs and to also build upon the resilience of this population.”
Following the escalation of hostilities at the end of September, more than 100,000 refugees arrived in Armenia in less than a week.
The UN refugee agency, UNHCR, with UN entities and non-governmental organization (NGO) partners, is appealing for emergency funds to provide urgent humanitarian aid and protection to refugees and those hosting them in Armenia, in support of the Government-led response.
‘Remarkable’ local welcome
“Local host communities have generously opened their doors and displayed tremendous solidarity with refugees,” Mr. Grandi said. “The local response, led by national authorities, volunteers and civil society, has also been equally remarkable.”
The Armenia emergency refugee response plan brings together 60 partners, including 43 national NGOs, and covers relief efforts for a six-month period, until the end of March 2024.
The joint plan aims to support some 231,000 people including 136,000 refugees and 95,000 members of local host communities. The plan also takes into account the upcoming, harsh winter months.
Meeting critical needs
Among new arrivals, are some 30,000 children and many vulnerable people, including pregnant women, those with disabilities, and others with chronic health conditions. More than half of the refugees are older people and children.
Many fled with just the few possessions they were able to grab and arrived distressed, exhausted, and apprehensive about the future. They now require critical support, according to UN agencies.
Having to absorb more than 100,000 refugees in a matter of days, there is immense pressure on the host community in Armenia and on existing national services. Refugee arrivals represent over 3.4 per cent of the country’s population and are in addition to a pre-existing refugee, asylum seeker, and stateless population of some 35,000 people.
WHO
Refugees from the Karabakh region have fled to Goris, Armenia, where authorities are assisting them.
Emergency protection
The response plan will support and complement the Government response, with an emphasis on emergency protection and assistance, while at the same time focusing on inclusion, resilience, and solutions from the start, reaching both refugees and the host communities, according to UNHCR.
The plan covers multiple sectors, notably protection, with a focus on gender-based violence, child protection, education, food security, nutrition, health, resilience, shelter, and non-food items. A longer-term focus will aim to ensure inclusion and the strengthening of national public services.
Montserrat Xilotl, a Regional Technical Advisor in Climate Change Adaptation for the UN Development Programme (UNDP), explains why.
UNDP
Montserrat Xilotl, Regional Technical Advisor in Climate Change Adaptation for the UN Development Programme (UNDP).
“Forests are nature’s water filters and storage systems. When rain falls, the trees, and vegetation capture and absorb it, allowing it to seep into the ground, replenishing aquifers, supplying drinking water to communities, and supporting agriculture.
Forests also help to regulate the flow of water in rivers and streams. The roots of trees and plants hold the soil together, preventing erosion and ensuring that water flows steadily, reducing the risk of floods and droughts.
Unfortunately, Honduras has seen a notable loss of forest cover over the years, with high levels of deforestation driven largely by unsustainable agriculture and illegal logging, both in return the result of poverty. On top of this, climate-related hazards such as forest fires, pests, and disease, have also been enormously damaging. It’s estimated that from 1990 to 2020, the country lost nine per cent of its forest coverage.
Recognizing the associated threats posed to people, ecosystems, and the economy, Honduras has been looking closely at nature-based solutions with a heavy emphasis on social inclusion.
Earlier this year, I flew to Tegucigalpa to see the work of one, financed by the global Adaptation Fund and implemented by the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment (SERNA) with support from UNDP, in the country’s central forest corridor.
What I witnessed was inspiring. Young people and women leading the way with innovation and enthusiasm, bringing in local pride and demonstrating how local knowledge provides the best way forward, not only in adapting to climate change but also in caring for their country’s natural resources.
UNDP/María-José Bu
Young scientists are the key to monitoring and protecting clean water in Honduras.
I met these young researchers at a lab at the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de Honduras, the National Autonomous University, which is key to understanding and solving the country’s water crisis.
Through the study of the ecology of water, they were integrating diverse practices to better monitor water sources and quality within the central forest corridor.
UNDP/Johan Edin Vallejo
Researchers at the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de Honduras are working on groundbreaking climate information and water modelling.
The lab we were standing in had been created around 10 years earlier, through an initial collaboration between the ministry and university, supported by the Adaptation Fund and UNDP.
Instead of accepting payment, the university requested scientific equipment to analyse the water that flowed into the city. A department dedicated to researching water ecology and a permanent lab were created, looking at the nexus between water, microbiology, climatology, and physics.
The lab has produced ground-breaking climate information and water modelling. It represents a huge leap forward, one which provides the science which is foundational to addressing the crisis.
I met women producer groups who are developing their own nutrient-rich biofertilizers made from local plants, fungi, and fruits to sell to local markets. I spoke with a young woman who was leading the municipal fire brigade to protect her forests from the increasing incidence of fires. She mentioned the value of the forest to her community and how she had taken pride in stopping several forest fires from escalating. She proudly mentioned how the project had taught her to prepare the forest during fire season, what protocols to take during a fire, and how she is communicating with other women in nearby communities about early detection.
It is promising that the university has secured grant funding to continue its work, including from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). It has also allowed us, through the new Adaptation Fund project, to commission more ambitious hydrological analyses to better identify water sources along the forest corridor while considering increasing demand and climate change.
As I boarded my flight home to Mexico, it struck me that this is what transformational change looks like – it is young, it is diverse, and it is proactive. I was able to understand why countries’ climate goals, known as nationally determined contributions, or NDCs, that engage youth, women and diverse populations are often more ambitious than those that don’t.
In the fight for a climate-resilient and prosperous future, it is clear that nature and youth are our most powerful assets.
UNITED NATIONS, Oct 06 (IPS) – The Taliban takeover of Afghanistan on 15 August 2021 has devastated millions of Afghanis. But women and girls have been particularly affected by progressively restrictive decrees that have created a virtual system of gender apartheid.
The stories of more than 50 women living in Afghanistan are featured on the new After August website – a collaboration between UN Women Afghanistan, Zan Times, Limbo, and independent storytellers. These unvarnished stories capture the fear, hardship, and sense of loss that shapes their lives, but also their strength, resistance, and resilience.
A few excerpts:
Credit: UN Women/Sayed Habib Bidell
“I sold my daughter out of poverty and desperation. I sold her so that the rest of the family wouldn’t starve to death… If I do not receive any aid, I will have to sell another daughter. I have a one-year-old daughter. I will take her to the city and auction her off in front of the Central Mosque. The older girls are sold off for 100,000 Afghani. I will sell my baby daughter for 50,000.” —Belquis, a mother from Ghor
Credit: UN Women/Sayed Habib Bidell
“Every day, I hugged my two children. I was afraid that the Taliban would take them from me. But consciously, responsibly, and honestly, I went to the streets every day to fight even harder than the day before … The Taliban surrounded us many times and tried to stop us with electric shocks and pepper spray, but we picked up their rifles with our bare hands and continued marching.” —Adela, a teacher and protester from Kabul
Credit: UN Women/Sayed Habib Bidell
“In the past, I used to share my feelings on social media with my friends, but today the atmosphere of fear and mistrust has deepened so much that I cannot share my pain with my friends. I have never felt so alone. Many times, I have decided to end my life, but I think about the fate of my son.” —Hira, a former public servant from Kunar
Credit: UN Women/Sayed Habib Bidell
“It is natural that fighting in the current situation also brings risks, but my life is sweeter as a woman who takes risks and has made sacrifices, even if this leads to my isolation and loss of neutrality. Changing society can only happen with our own awareness and efforts. I want a free life, the right to choose clothing, the right to choose a profession, the right to choose a field of study, the right to work.” —Amina, an engineer and activist from Langman
Credit: UN Women/Sayed Habib Bidell
“Afghanistan has become the graveyard of buried hopes. This past year was one of the most challenging years of all for people living here, particularly for women and girls. They have turned thousands of young people’s hopes and dreams into ashes, especially women and girls, and I am one of them.” —Ghotai, a computer science student from Baghlan
Credit: UN Women/Sayed Habib Bidell
“When we were children, children would hit animals and dogs with stones and harass them. Now this is the situation for women in my country. Being insulted and humiliated is the biggest change that we women see in our lives.” —Amina, a psychotherapist from Zabul
Credit: UN Women/Sayed Habib Bidell
“I am standing up for my sisters who have no support and whose men cannot raise their voices because they fear the Taliban. I want to raise the voices of these innocent women to the international community so that it no will longer just monitor and react, but instead act. Act for the benefit of the brave women of my country, because we do not get anything from reaction!” —Fatana, a protester from Nuristan
Echoing the words of Fatana, this collection aims to raise awareness and incite an international audience to reflect and, hopefully, to act.
Note: These first-person accounts have been anonymized, with names and locations changed to protect their identity. The photographs of women have also been randomly matched to stories.
**The views expressed in these stories belong to the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of UN Women and/or any affiliated agencies.
IPS UN Bureau Report
NEW YORK, Oct 05 (IPS) – Education Cannot Wait Executive Director Statement on World Teachers’ DayWe are in a race to deliver on our global promise of education for all by 2030 – especially for the 224 million girls and boys impacted by armed conflict, climate change, forced displacement and other protracted crises who so urgently need our support. At the frontlines of this movement are the inspiring, caring, brilliant teachers who work tirelessly to educate future generations.
As we commemorate World Teachers’ Day – along with key partners such as the International Labour Organization, UNICEF, UNESCO and Education International – Education Cannot Wait honours the sacrifice, compassion and dedication of the world’s teachers. We know you work long hours, with low pay. We know that after COVID-19, we face a massive learning and achievement gap. We know that world leaders have done far too little to support education or people like you on the frontlines, making learning happen day-in, day-out in classrooms around the world.
In the best of circumstances, being a teacher is a challenge. Now imagine what it is like for teachers in a crisis or conflict-hit area in Afghanistan, Colombia, Syria or Uganda. Imagine what it’s like teaching while being one of the millions fleeing wars, conflicts and disasters without any support. Teachers walk to school in fear of attack, bombings, abductions, and other forms of violence and threats. They see their schools swept away in floods and sometimes their family wakes up hungry because of climate change-related droughts. This is the reality facing millions of teachers in the world’s worst humanitarian crises.
We must do better. Education Cannot Wait, the UN global fund for education in emergencies and protracted crises, puts teachers at the forefront of everything we do. The teachers are themselves affected by conflicts and climate-induced disasters, and yet they have to serve as mentors and caretakers – inspiring their students to develop and reach their full potential. We cannot underestimate the heroic work carried out by teachers in the most difficult circumstances.
Through ECW’s joint programming, or Multi-Year Resilience Programmes, 100% of the teachers we support receive skills building and training to succeed in the work they do. Since inception, we have trained over 140,000 teachers. In 2022 alone, we recruited and provided financial support to over 22,000 teachers and school administrators. We place a special emphasis on recruiting female teachers, with about half of all recruited teachers being women.
Now we must also focus on the quality of the training we provide in order to elevate and deepen the quality of education provided. That means expanded skills training and continued education for students, it means smaller classroom sizes, it means enabling policies at the local and national level, it means climate resilience in the classroom, so when the next disaster strikes, we are ready.
Together, we can make a better world. Teachers everywhere deserve our respect and admiration. Teachers cannot and should not wait! Join ECW and our strategic partners in supporting teachers in the toughest humanitarian crises on the globe. Let us all bow to them. Let us contribute with funding and a donation today.
Hyolim Lee and Eunseol Cho, interview Sharon Park at the Songdo Grace Church, Incheon, South Korea.
Opinion by Hyolim Kelly Lee – Eunseol Rachel Cho (bangkok & seoul)
Inter Press Service
BANGKOK & SEOUL, Oct 05 (IPS) – Four acrylic panels stood like soldiers around the perimeter of my body, bolted upright by the men who installed them, light proudly bouncing off the inherent gloss on those walls as I sat on the toilet.
My backpack, rugged with zippers and the harshness of high school, chafed against the bare skin of my thighs–doughy in comparison. My hands were frantic – searching through every folder and handout and library book hoping for one thing. I could not spend any more time missing out on class. I could not lose the trust of my teacher, who had let me go to the bathroom.
Every second I spent rummaging through a compartment I had already looked at was another second I was wasting—but what other choice did I have? As my fingers foraged for a sanitary pad, the tactile familiarity of the delicate white plastic taped around it all, my breath got sharper and shorter. The enclosure of soldiers seemed to contract in accordance with my lungs, seemingly not wanting to release me until I found one, the walls cramming closer and closer…
Every month, humans, in the ridiculously bureaucratic world we live in, must do a myriad of things to continue living in normalcy.
As daughters living under the authority of adults, both of us (the writers of this editorial) have witnessed our parents get caught up in this whirlwind of paying their rent and going to the supermarket to buy groceries. But when we began the trials and tribulations of puberty, we realized that not only would our parents need to spend their cash on shelter and food every month, but also on menstrual products.
Hyolim Lee and Eunseol Cho interview Sharon Park at the Songdo Grace Church, Incheon, South Korea. Hyolim Lee and Eunseol Cho participate in a campaign to ensure period dignity, seen here with The Pink Book, a Thai and English book written by a former member of HER Period Dignity ISB to educate girls on puberty and menstruation, and ensuring that free sanitary pads are placed in the ISB High School Bathroom, a result of the project Code Red. From Scars to Stars, written by Sharon Park, and a pamphlet written by the Grace Academy on display.
And this isn’t a result of bureaucracy or self-indulgence – but rather the fated one of Mother Nature. The worst part is that periods are a biological cycle. So, unlike the other two tasks, purchasing menstrual products cannot be scheduled later. However, not only am I one of many who have experienced an absence of menstrual products, but we have also seen inconveniently high prices and inaccessibility.
“Period poverty results from limited access to menstrual products,” explain Ayaka Bijl, Sarisa (Monie) Sereeyothin, Julia Pugliese, and Kashvi Chauhan in an email interview with IPS about the organization they are officers for – HER Period Dignity. The writers of this piece are also involved in this organization.
The difference I have realized is that my experience is momentary – a product of forgetfulness, and theirs is enduring: a scarcity or a kind of “poverty” caused by financial and social barriers. Yet, in a world where we have found reliable information at our fingertips, and efforts to combat inequality and human rights violations are more shared than ever in our generation, the term and nuances of “period poverty” are still one that remains frustratingly shrouded in obscurity.
One of the most significant contributors to the fog surrounding period poverty, clouding it just enough for it not to immediately cross the minds of the upper echelon of society, is period stigma. It is a term for the discrimination menstruating people face, in which misleading cultural norms and beliefs regarding menstruation are utilized. While menstruation is a natural bodily process, numerous religious beliefs prompt denigrating misconceptions about period stigma, often assuming it to be unclean and unholy.
These surrounding misinterpretations of periods continue to invigorate feelings of shame and, therefore, avoidance among both rural and urban communities, especially for the girls and women who might even need to talk about it. Even as someone attending a culturally progressive international school, I still had to rely on a desperate tone of voice and the euphemism of simply “really needing” to go to the bathroom to end up there in the first place.
“Generally, we don’t view it as intrinsically negative, but we acknowledge that society indirectly attaches stigma to menstruation, which can shape how our classmates perceive it … it’s not necessarily a common topic,” states the HER Period Dignity club officers at the International School of Bangkok. Women shouldn’t have to rely on the tentative inferences of others to maintain reproductive hygiene. We need to combat period poverty because doing so means fighting period stigma–which would decrease discrimination and vitriol against menstruating people.
The ramifications of period poverty in a young, school-aged girl’s life are glaringly obvious. As someone just starting high school, I cannot help but think about the things I would not have been able to do had I been forced to stay home due to period poverty. With exams just around the corner, I would have been forced to catch up through vague instructions sent to me on a Google Document. Sweating alongside my teammates under the unabashedly fierce Bangkok sun would not have been an option. Instead of being hot on the heels of my passions at school, I would have been forced to sit still. My entire present would have been on pause, and my future questioned. But this is only the experience of someone standing on a pedestal in society.
For those without the economic privilege that I hold, the result of period poverty would have been so aggravated that hope would either be luxury or delusion. The World Bank estimates that broader society and national economies can profit from better menstruation management: with every 1 percent increase in the proportion of women with secondary education, a country’s annual per capita income grows by 0.3 percent.
But for those who “were not able to go to school in the first place due to economic poverty, not period poverty,” according to Sharon Park, who volunteered in Cambodia for the Songdo Grace Church, their potential would never be fulfilled. The future of the local Thai girls living in the slums next to our school would not be a question; it would be an answer to the generational poverty in their family: inheritance.
Nonetheless, something is more immediately destructive to the young schoolgirls currently experiencing this. Though I was lucky to find a new pad at the bottom of my backpack, for others, health issues are bound to occur when dirty rags and leaves become the new pads and tampons without proper menstrual products. Urinary tract infections and thrush can escalate to life-threatening degrees when left untouched, and continued use of such substitutions could hinder reproductive ability—rendering a woman “useless.”
As someone who faces enough anxiety at school regarding the leakage of period blood, I cannot imagine what these girls are going through without the safety net of a pad or tampon. The issue impacts mental health, too, with a Kenyan school girl committing suicide after facing humiliation in the classroom due to the lack of a pad. These are not isolated cases, with even 68.1 percent of U.S. college students who underwent period poverty monthly reporting symptoms consistent with moderate or severe depression. Period poverty is suppressive and life-threatening in every aspect for young female students.
The 50th Ms. Korea candidate, Park, has helped girls who are beginning menstruation. She has established an association that aids lower-income women in South Korea by establishing the HER Period Dignity Club. The club is constantly finding ways to ameliorate the issue in Thailand through fundraisers, education, and collaboration with other NGOs.
Bijl explains why the club is crucial at her school. “Although our club’s primary focus is on period poverty, we also prioritize the normalization of period stigma.”
In a personal email exchange, the NGO-based club explains the process behind one of its most significant projects.
“We started by meeting the CFO of ISB and the Dean of Students and presented our idea through a formal proposal that detailed the way we would satisfy the needs of our community,” installing free pads in all the female high school and eventually middle school bathrooms. We chose the name ‘Code Red’ to evoke the sensation of surprise associated with experiencing your period unexpectedly,” say the leaders.
As an extension of this, they “went to speak in middle and elementary school classrooms about menstruation from a destigmatizing perspective.”
The club at the International School of Bangkok was first established after having “the opportunity to meet Pear (Manyasiri Chotbunwong), who leads the HER Period Dignity NGO,” at a service conference. Hearing about Pear’s
proactive efforts to address this issue motivated us to actively participate in her mission. Pear founded HER (Health. Equity. Respect.).
The NGO also provides “reusable pads help individuals break free from the constant need to buy new ones, improving access to menstrual products,” says Bijl.
The ISB club can be found sharing awareness on Instagram (@herperioddignity.isb), and the HER Period Dignity NGO can be found as well (@herperioddignity).
From my mother to your daughter and her friends, from the waitress at a restaurant you are ordering at to the beautiful model posing in an advertisement at the bus stop, every menstruator deserves period products. We, the authors of this editorial, are members of a generation pushing for radical change in the overarching matters of our lives. This includes acting upon the philosophy above in this paragraph. The Code Red initiative has helped me breathe in the bathroom, knowing there was always a collection of pads in a basket next to the sink I could rely on.
“We hope that from here, it only continues to improve,” Bijl.
Everyone deserves that continued normalcy in the beautiful yet chaotic world that we live in—which includes life with minimal hindrance from periods. In the future, Eunseol and I aim to further clear the fog of obscurity around the issue at school. As Park stated, “Change begins with the people, when we are aware.”
Source: U.S. American Community Survey, 2021 and Census Bureau, 1960.
Opinion by Joseph Chamie (portland, usa)
Inter Press Service
PORTLAND, USA, Oct 04 (IPS) – America’s immigration has reached record-breaking levels having weighty consequences domestically and internationally.
Based on the Census Bureau’s 2023 Current Population Survey, the estimated number of foreign-born residents in the United States as of September 2023 is at a historic high of nearly 50 million.
The U.S., with 4 percent of the global population of 8 billion, is also the home to the largest number of immigrants in the world. Approximately 17 percent of the world’s total number of immigrants reside in America, followed by Germany at 5 percent, or about 15 million immigrants.
The current number of the foreign-born residing in America is substantially higher than the 44 million estimated at the time of its 2020 population census. Today’s figure is also five times larger than the number of immigrants residing in the country in 1965 when America passed the far-reaching Immigration and Nationality Act.
That Act created a new system that prioritized highly skilled immigrants and those who already had family living in the country. The legislation paved the way for millions of non-European immigrants to come to the United States.
In 1960 the five largest immigrant groups in America were from Italy followed by Germany, Canada, Great Britain and Poland. About a half century later, the five largest immigrant groups were from Mexico and then at considerably lower levels India, China, the Philippines and El Salvador (Figure 1).
Source: U.S. American Community Survey, 2021 and Census Bureau, 1960.
With a U.S. total population of 335 million, the estimated proportion of foreign-born residents in America stands at 14.9 percent, breaking the previous records of 14.8 percent in 1890 and 14.7 percent in 1910. In contrast, immigrants in 1970 comprised a record low of 4.7 percent of America’s resident population (Figure 2).
Source: Migration Policy Institute.
The number of foreign-born workers in America also reached a record high of 29.8 million in 2022, or 18.1 percent of the U.S. civilian labor force, up from 17.4 percent in 2021. In addition, the Biden administration in September granted nearly a half a million Venezuelan migrants an opportunity to work and live in the U.S. legally for at least the next 18 months under Temporary Protected Status (TPS).
Among the 50 million foreign-born residents in America, 38 million entered the country legally. The estimated remaining number of foreign-born, approximately 12 million, again a record high, consists of unauthorized or undocumented migrants.
It is noteworthy that during the past ten years, visa overstayers in the U.S. have outnumbered unlawful border crossings by a ratio of about two to one. In addition to the increasingly large numbers of people visiting America who choose to overstay their temporary visas, migrant apprehensions at the U.S.-Mexico border are reported to be on track to break all-time records.
During the past two and a half years, Border Patrol reported unprecedented levels of migrant apprehensions, including 2.76 million in FY 2022 breaking the previous annual record by more than 1 million. That high level of migrant apprehensions is on track to be matched in FY 2023. The surge in undocumented migrants crossing the U.S. southern border seeking asylum has created a humanitarian crisis.
The number of migrant encounters in September is record-setting, exceeding 260 thousand, and notably higher than the previous record monthly high of 252 thousand in December of 2022. Also in September, border agents processed more than 200 thousand migrants who crossed the U.S. southern border unlawfully, the highest level in 2023.
Record numbers of migrant families from various countries are streaming from Mexico into the United States. The U.S. Border Patrol arrested a record-breaking number of 91 thousand migrants who crossed the border as part of a family group in August, substantially exceeding the prior one-month record of 84 thousand set in May 2019.
The increase in migration to the United States is happening across the Western Hemisphere. Record numbers of people are on their way north to the U.S. across Central and South America and many then riding on the top of freight trains through Mexico. In August alone, more than 80,000 people crossed Panama’s treacherous Darién Gap, a monthly record high for a major migration crossroads for hundreds of thousands of migrants hoping to reach the United States.
Also, unprecedented numbers of migrants entering Mexico are coming from other continents, as the journey to the U.S.-Mexico border has become the largest migration corridor in the world. For example, the number of African migrants registered by Mexican authorities so far this year is already three times as high as during all of 2022.
Since President Biden took office the average monthly growth of America’s foreign-born population has been about 143 thousand. That figure is significantly higher than the 76,000 per month during Obama’s second term, and the 42,000 per month under Trump before Covid-19 pandemic began in March 2020.
The U.S. lacks the capacity to detain and process the growing numbers of unauthorized migrants at its southern border. Hundreds of thousands of people from around the world are crossing the Rio Grande with U.S. Border Patrol agents now encountering between 10,000 to 11,000 migrants each day.
The recent dramatic spikes in the numbers of unauthorized migration have further strained federal services and overwhelmed local resources. In some areas of Arizona, California and Texas, the U.S. Border Patrol recently released unmanageable large numbers of migrants into communities to prevent overcrowding in federal facilities.
The mayor of Eagle Pass, Texas, recently issued a disaster declaration, citing the record-breaking daily arrival of thousands of undocumented migrants to the city. Similarly, the mayor of El Paso said that the city was at the breaking point amid the dramatic jump in migration of more than 2,000 people per day.
Far from America’s southern border, the recent arrival of more than 100,000 migrants in New York City has overwhelmed shelters, services and local resources and fueled anti-immigration sentiment.
Also in other U.S. cities, including Boston, Chicago, Denver, Philadelphia and Portland (Maine), the arrivals of the large numbers of asylum seekers have swamped local government facilities and budgets as well as stressed volunteer groups.
It is also worth noting that the proportions foreign-born vary considerably across America’s states. California has the highest proportion with more than a quarter of its population being foreign-born. It is followed by New Jersey, New York, Florida and Hawaii with approximately a fifth of their populations being foreign-born. In contrast, less than four percent of the population is foreign-born in West Virginia, Mississippi, Montana, Wyoming and South Dakota (Figure 3).
Source: World Population Review.
The increases in unauthorized border crossings are creating political challenges across the country. In particular, the increases pose re-election issues for the Biden administration whose policies aimed at slowing down the unauthorized migrant flows.
Nearly 75 percent of Americans say the government is doing a bad job dealing with the large numbers seeking asylum. Also, a slight majority, 52 percent, indicate that it is very important to require people to apply for asylum before they travel to the U.S. southern border.
In addition, close to half of Americans consider illegal immigration to be a very big problem for the country. That view varies considerably by political party affiliation. Whereas 70 percent of Republicans consider illegal immigration to be a very big problem for the country, the corresponding figure among Democrats is 25 percent.
Over the coming four decades, America is expected to receive slightly more than one million authorized immigrants annually. If those levels continue as expected, the projected number of foreign-born residing in America in 2060 is about 69 million, or about 17 percent of the population.
However, that projected number of foreign-born does not take into account visa overstayers and unauthorized immigrants entering the U.S. southern border. If the projection took into account unauthorized migrants, the foreign-born population in 2060 is likely to be closer to 80 million, or about a fifth of America’s projected population.
In sum, America’s immigration has reached record-breaking levels and over the coming decades, those levels are expected to be even higher. As has been the case throughout its history, America’s immigration levels continue to have profound demographic, economic, social and political consequences domestically as well as internationally.
Joseph Chamie is a consulting demographer, a former director of the United Nations Population Division and author of numerous publications on population issues, including his recent book, “Population Levels, Trends, and Differentials”.
BONN, Germany, Oct 04 (IPS) – Once a year, on October 5, we celebrate World Teachers’ Day. Why is it so important to have a closer look on the teaching profession? What is so special about being a teacher nowadays?
World Teachers’ Day is an international day which was established to attract public attention on the work of teachers. The day was established in 1994, in commemora-tion the signing of the “ILO/UNESCO Recommendation concerning the Status of Teachers” in 1966, which focused on “appreciating, assessing and improving the ed-ucators of the world” and on providing a global opportunity to consider issues related to teachers and teaching (see Wikipedia, The Free Encycopledia, World Teachers’ Day).
With benchmarks regarding teacher’s rights and responsibilities, standards for their preparation when starting the profession as well as their ongoing training and em-ployment their profession got international attention. This is due to the fact that teaching and learning conditions are most important for the development of pupils and students everywhere.
Dr. Heike KuhnEducation is also at the heart of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development with a stand-alone goal: SDG 4 demands inclusive and equitable quality education and lifelong learning opportunities for all. With a special target, SDG focuses on teachers, stating that by 2030, there is a need to substantially increase the supply of qualified teachers, including through international cooperation for teacher training in develop-ing countries, especially least developed countries and small island developing states (SDG 4c). The 2030 Agenda was signed in 2015 in New York, but was has happened up to now in order to reach this goal?
Special attention was given to teachers during the UN Transforming Education Summit on September 19, 2022, with relevant recommendations stating that teaching should be an attractive and recognised profession, taking into account that teachers need autonomy, decent working conditions, support and lifelong learning opportunities.
However, a year later, reality is quite disillusioning as we can see from the theme for World Teachers’ Day 2023: “The teachers we need for the education we want: The global imperative to reverse the teacher shortage”.
How come that this profession has suffered from attrition? For decades, the educa-tion sector has been chronically underfunded. Already in 2016, data analysis from the UNESCO Institute for Statistics (UIS) estimated that in order to meet the targets of the SDGs by 2030, nearly 69 million more teachers were needed. Most recent estimates by UNESCO and the Teacher Task Force (TTF) confirm this number today, revealing that in sub-Saharan Africa and Southern Asia alone, an additional 24 million teachers are required.
So what are the root causes and what should be done? Starting with the most im-portant reasons: The COVID 19 pandemic and its long school closures have even worsened an already dire situation. Becoming a teacher is simply no longer attrac-tive: teaching many pupils, put together in crowded classes in not adequately main-tained buildings and not being reasonably paid for the often exhaustive pedagogic work does not come along with incentives for this ambitious profession.
Credit: Education Cannot Wait
Disillusioned by these working conditions, teachers leave their countries for better paid teaching jobs in other regions (e.g. Caribbean teachers move to the US) or – even worse – quit being teachers in order to pursue other jobs.
With children dropping out of schools due to wars, conflicts or the ongoing climate crisis, teachers face new challenges all the time, their mental health is as endan-gered as the mental health of their pupils. And how can a child traumatized by war and escape, living in overcrowded refugee camps concentrate on school subjects? And what a challenge for teachers who might have made similar experiences but nonetheless try to convey hope and structure as well as a bit or normal life to the children in their lessons.
So what is teaching all about? It is about learning and changing your mind-set. Teachers can empower children of all sexes, can open perspectives for lives and therefore ignite change in millions of young pupils. Female teachers are often role models for girls, conveying self-esteem, questioning harmful gender norms. Teachers can educate green skills needed so much nowadays when we are taking the first steps, sometimes stumbling on our way to a green economy, no longer exploiting our planet.
Let me ask you: Do you remember when a teacher empowered you, believing in you? Hopefully you do and hopefully you could experience the power and the impact on your life.
This is exactly why we need qualified teachers so urgently, everywhere. Education is a human right that shall no longer be a privilege for few people, but an opportunity for all – including the possibilities of digitization and AI. All children and learners deserve it. And we need teachers to inspire all human beings, letting them thrive in order to restore and save the planet.
In my country, Germany, there is a saying: A teacher is much more important than two books. I firmly believe this is true.
Dr. Heike Kuhn is Head of Division, Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development, Bonn, Germany
Co-Chair of the Teacher Task Force (with South Africa), https://teachertaskforce.org/
Co-Chair of the Executive Committee of ECW (with Norway), https://educationcannotwait.org/
UNITED NATIONS, Oct 04 (IPS) – The UN’s high-level appointments have mostly been on the basis of “equitable geographical rotation”—with Asia, Africa, Eastern Europe, Western Europe and Latin America and the Caribbean taking turns.
But a proposal for future appointments and for candidates for elective office-– based on gender rotation—is gaining ground against a world body which is mostly male-oriented even at its highest echelons, with nine all-male Secretaries-General (UNSG) and only 4 women out of 78 presidents of the General Assembly.
In an interview with IPS, Natalie Samarasinghe, Global Director for Advocacy, Open Society Foundations and co-founder of the 1-for-7 Billion campaign “for a more open and inclusive UNSG selection process”, said so-called temporary special measures have proven successful in transforming the landscape for women across sectors, from national politics to company boards and senior UN positions.
But these measures can only go so far, as it is governments who nominate and appoint candidates to posts such as the Secretary-General (SG), President of the General Assembly (PGA) and heads of multiple UN agencies.
She pointed out that decades have shown that warm words aren’t enough. As the Group of Women Leaders has shown, 13 international organizations have never had a female leader, including the United Nations, International Labour Organization and the World Bank.
A further five have only had one, including the UN Refugee Agency and UN Development Programme. And of the 78 presidents of the General Assembly, only four have been women.
“Gender rotation of the GA presidency is not a complex reform: it would require only a simple resolution and mean that states would have to put forward qualified female candidates (of which there are plenty) at least every other year, instead of just talking about it. This is something that could be considered for other senior positions too,” she said.
For the appointment of the Secretary-General, she said, it seems states are finally waking up. In 2021, the GA noted for the first time that “there is yet to be a woman Secretary-General” and invited states “to bear this in mind in the future, when nominating candidates”.
But even this tame language provoked pushback, especially from the five permanent members (P5) of the Security Council. While the focus was on objections by Russia, UN watchers have noted that all permanent members worked to undermine the language on gender, albeit with more sophisticated arguments, she noted
“During the last SG selection process, I deliberately called for the “best possible person” to be appointed, noting how many women would more than fit the bill. That was because saying it had to be a woman sat uneasily with disrupting regional pre-emption”.
“Today, when the normative functions of the UN may well be its strongest, and most needed, I have no qualms in calling for Madam Secretary-General,” Samarasinghe declared.
Susana Malcorra, President, Global Women Leaders (GWL), told IPS “GWL Voices is actively advocating for better gender representation in all organizations of the System, both in the institutions and in their governing bodies.”
“Our Flagship Report: Numbers Matter, launched in March, shows how under-represented women have been in the history of the 33 multilateral organizations”.
“After that, we have launched two campaigns: “Mme. Secretary-General” (to ensure that a woman succeeds Antonio Guterres) and #GenderAlternationUNPGA. We have launched the latter through this OpEd that I authored in Devex”.
Some Presidents, at the request of GWL Voices, Malcorra said, raised these questions in their statements at the High Level week in September:
Joseph Chamie, a consulting demographer and a former director of the United Nations Population Division, told IPS: First, it is unfortunately the case that Goal 5 of the SDGs to achieve gender equality and empower women and girls by 2030 is unlikely to be met.
Second, given that the United Nations has the long-standing tradition for geographical and regional rotations on most senior appointments and elections, it seems both reasonable and desirable to be guided by gender rotations for each region.
Third, if gender rotations are adopted as a guideline by the United Nations for appointments and elections, including the Security Council, the rotations need to be applied for each and every major region, said Chamie who has worked in various regions of the world and is the author of numerous publications on population issues, including his recent book, “Population Levels, Trends, and Differentials“
Finally, while gender rotation by region for UN appointments and elections would be desirable, clearly much more needs to be done, especially by some countries, to achieve gender equality and empower women and girls.
“Countries blatantly denying women and girls their basic human rights should be highlighted and strongly encouraged to end their discriminatory policies”, declared Chamie.
Antonia Kirkland, Global Lead on Legal Equality & Access to Justice at Equality Now, told IPS the majority of countries are failing to meet Sustainable Development Goal 5 – achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls – and 54% have no laws on key issues of gender equality, such as marriage and divorce rights.
For example, only 14 countries, just .07%, have full legal equality between men and women, she pointed out.
“Sexual harassment and sexual exploitation by UN staff within and outside the UN still persists, with cases going unreported for fear of retaliation and stigma. And while parity has been achieved within the senior management level of the UN, it has not yet been reached within the executive heads of UN agencies nor the general staff ranks.
“In addition to further strengthening policy and legal frameworks within the UN around the world, a feminist woman Secretary-General is needed to lead and encourage a culture of equality and inclusivity based on fundamental human rights standards.
“Beyond reaffirming previous resolutions referring to “gender balance.” and strongly encouraging member states to bear in mind there have only been male Secretary-Generals – as the General Assembly did in a September resolution – the UN should fully endorse a gender rotation, or gender alternation as GWL Voices and others are calling for.
“Building on previous campaigns for a woman Secretary-General, UNA-UK, a co-founder of the 1-for-8 Billion (formerly the 1-for-7 Billion) campaign has clearly called on UN Member States to consider only nominating women candidates and undertake other important reforms to make the selection process as transparent and inclusive as possible.”
While gender equality is everyone’s responsibility, Kirkland said, representation is important because women have been excluded from decision-making roles for far too long.
“However, it is important to be represented by women who are progressive, feminist, and work for substantive gender equality for everyone, everywhere, including further marginalized communities.”
Meanwhile, the notion of geographic distribution remains firmly embedded in the UN system, according to civil society organizations (CSOs).
When it comes to state representation in bodies such as ECOSOC or the Human Rights Council, it is sacrosanct, baked into the Charter, resolutions and rules of procedure.
When it comes to staff appointments, it is a matter of principle and reflected in several resolutions and processes (e.g. A/41/206 which affirms “the principle of equitable geographic distribution, and the need for rotation in the composition of the upper echelons of the secretariat”)
The idea of ‘rotation’ between regions is handled differently depending on the post. For the President of the General Assembly, rotation through the regional groups is stipulated (GA rules of procedure, rule 30). That has been followed since 1966.
For the Secretary-General, the idea gathered steam after Waldheim – the third, and not particularly effective, postholder from WEOG, and again when Boutros-Ghali was not appointed to a second term (African diplomats argued that their region had ‘lost out’).
In 2015, Eastern European countries fielded a number of candidates, with the region saying that it had never occupied the post and some were resentful of the push that year – within the UN and outside through the 1-for-7 Billion campaign (now 1-for-8 Billion: https://1for8billion.org/) – for the emphasis to be on merit first.
But in practice every appointment process has featured candidates from different regions, and the postholder is not, of course, supposed to represent any one region.
For several other senior appointments, the big issue is not so much rotation but breaking the stranglehold that particular states have on these posts.
Despite the GA’s position that no national of a state should succeed another national of that state (e.g. GA resolution 46/232), certain nationalities dominate posts such as DPO, OCHA, DPPA, DESA etc.
The last non-French person appointed to head UN peace operations was Kofi Annan in 1993. OCHA has been headed by Brits for 16 years.
On gender, several references refer to the need for equal and fair distribution based on gender as well as geographic balance (e.g. GA res 69/321). There is no reference to rotation, nor has this principle been applied in practice.
There has been progress on gender parity on other senior posts (USGs, heads and deputy heads of peace operations and resident coordinators).
This has been the result of a concerted effort: a clear vision championed at the highest levels and translated into a systemwide strategy with targets and so-called ‘temporary special measures’ (e.g. parity on shortlists, or an explanation as to why this was not possible)
Currently, the UN has five regional groups – the Asia-Pacific states, the African states, the East European States (even though Eastern Europe has ceased to exist after the end of the Cold War), the Latin American and Caribbean states and the Western European and Other States (includes Australia and New Zealand).
The US does not belong to any regional groups but is designated as an “observer” in the Western European and Other States Group.
Opinion by Nandita Bajaj (st paul, minnesota, usa)
Inter Press Service
ST PAUL, Minnesota, USA, Oct 04 (IPS) – There’s an insidious new tactic emerging for selling right-wing ideology to wider audiences, evident in last month’s Budapest Demographic Summit for “family-friendly thinkers and decision-makers,” the upcoming pro-birth Natal conference in Austin, Texas, and the recent film “Birthgap.”
They all peddle pronatalism, a set of norms and policies that exhorts and often coerces women to have more children to raise fertility rates, often coupled with alarmism over alleged “population collapse.”
Elon Musk, for example, is an avowed pronatalist who donated $10 million to population collapse “research” and liked the idea of denying voting rights to childless people. He wanted to attend the Budapest summit, but couldn’t make it so he met last week in Texas with Hungary’s President Novák instead to draw attention to the “demographic crisis.”
Lately, pronatalists are trying to pull a more appealing game face. The Budapest Summit says it wants to support the “psychological health and security of families,” so they can “plan for a secure future.” The Natal conference claims it “has no political or ideological goal other than a world in which our children can have grandchildren.”
The “Birthgap” film purports to help cure an epidemic of “unplanned childlessness” and proposes “re-engineer our societies to reduce many more people would go on to have…children just like parents naturally do.” It conducts tearful interviews with regretful women who lament that their natural drive to have children was thwarted by society, and now it’s too late.
Who could object to standing up for families’ health and security, and for the right of people who want children to have them? Yet behind this innocuous-seeming family-friendly rhetoric lurk unsavory connections to right-wing propaganda, manipulation, and straight-up lies.
The Budapest summit touts Hungary’s achievement of the “highest rates of marriage and childbearing in Europe, while divorce and abortion rates are falling,” a nice way of saying that its right-wing populist leader Viktor Orbán adopted and implemented the Great Replacement ideology, which motivated mass-shooters in the U.S., as state policy. “We do not need numbers, but Hungarian children,” he said. “In our minds, immigration means surrender.”
The Natal conference has demonstrable links to far-right eugenicists and racists. “Birthgap” filmmaker Stephen Shaw is feted by right-wing talk show hosts like Jordan Peterson, Neil Oliver, and Chris Williamson, and presented as a “renowned demographer” despite having no credentials in demography. Shaw and Peterson both gave keynotes at the Budapest summit.
But ad hominem objections to the people behind the conferences and the film aside, the assertions they make are discreditable and counterfactual. Decrying imminent “population collapse” while the global population grows by 80 million each year and is projected to hit 10.4 billion in the 2080s is absurd.
To make depopulation seem like a threat, “Birthgap” resorts to lying about data on the reasons for declining birth rates. It cites a 2010 study (which it calls a “meta-analysis”) by Prof. Renska Keizer which the film says indicates that just 10% of women chose not to have children and 10% can’t have them for medical reasons, which “leaves a whopping 80% of women without children childless by circumstance” as opposed to by choice.
But that’s not at all what Keizer’s research says. The 2010 study Birthgap cites is not a meta-analysis, not quantitative, and does not indicate 80% of childless women didn’t choose to be so. In fact a 2011 study by Keizer et al. analyzed a 2006 dataset surveying women in the Netherlands who were childless at age 45, and found that 55% of them were childless voluntarily, while 45% were childless due to medical or other reasons.
Other studies found similar results: 56% of those without children were voluntarily childless according to a 2021 Pew Research Center survey, 72% according to the CDC National Survey of Family Growth, and 74% according to a 2022 Michigan State University study. Researchers working on my organization’s fact-checking project Birthgap Facts found no credible data supporting the film’s claim that 80% of childless women were “childless by circumstance” as opposed to by choice.
What the data does show is that women exercising their right to choose if and when to have children results in delaying childbirth, smaller families, and a decline in teen pregnancy. Those outcomes are beneficial and should be celebrated, not stigmatized.
According to the United Nations, at least 12 million girls are married before they reach the age of 18 every year, and more than 650 million women alive today were married as children. Around 257 million women globally face unintended pregnancies due to lack of access to contraception, abortion care, and counseling.
At current levels of consumption, today’s population of eight billion is driving resource depletion, soil erosion, water shortages, species extinctions, and climate catastrophe. Over a billion children are already at “extremely high risk” from climate change.
These are the real threats to the future, not some imagined conspiracy to stigmatize reproductive choices and hold fertility rates down. They make Shaw’s proposal of “social engineering” to reverse the imaginary threat of depopulation all the more reprehensible.
By distorting and lying about childlessness, he’s trying to manipulate young people and their governments into prioritizing procreation over education and career. This purports to avoid a dystopian future, yet it would actually usher one in.
Rather than manufacturing a crisis whose remedy entails “social engineering” to roll back progress on human rights and women’s control over their own lives, we should focus on the real crisis fueled by pronatalist pressures from family, religion, and governments that force millions into motherhood against their wishes, often by means of coercion and sexual violence.
The rhetoric of the Budapest summit, Natal, “Birthgap” and their ilk claiming they’re simply trying to help families and alleviate the heartbreak of “unplanned childlessness” is insidious, and we should recognize and call it out for what it is: another arrow in the pronatalist quiver, another weapon wielded against hard-fought gains in gender equality and reproductive autonomy.
Nandita Bajaj is the Executive Director of the NGO Population Balance and an adjunct lecturer at the Institute for Humane Education at Antioch University. Her research and advocacy work focuses on the combined impacts of pronatalism and human expansionism on reproductive, ecological, and intergenerational justice.
Kalkani Choolburra, Aboriginal Programs Coordinator at the Botanic Gardens of Sydney, showing the many uses of native plants. Here, she is weaving with a Lomandra leaf. Credit: Neena Bhandari/IPS
by Neena Bhandari (sydney)
Inter Press Service
SYDNEY, Oct 03 (IPS) – Growing up in Sydney, Kalkani Choolburra, a Girramay, Kuku Yalanji, Kalkadoon and Pitta Pitta woman from Far North Queensland, would frequently travel with her family up and down Australia’s eastern seaboard. Her grandfathers and uncles would bring fresh catch of dugong, her favourite bush food, and she would go hunting for the short-necked turtle with her aunties and female cousins.
The traditional or subsistence hunting of dugongs and turtles has been an important part of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander (Indigenous Australians) people’s social and cultural lives. Its meat has been a vital source of protein for these communities, who have sustained themselves on the native flora and fauna for thousands of years.
Now, national and international chefs are incorporating some of these native Indigenous produce – notably Kakadu plum, Davidson plum, lemon myrtle, wattle seed, quandong, finger lime, bush tomato, muntries, mountain pepper, saltbush – into their dishes ranging from sushi and samosa, pizza and pies to cakes and muffins.
These quintessentially native Indigenous ingredients are also being used in condiments, relishes, sauces, and marmalades and infused into chocolates, teas and beverages for their unique flavours and textures.
In recent years, there has been a growing interest and recognition of the nutritive and medicinal properties of native Indigenous plants and fruits. Professor Yasmina Sultanbawa, Director of the ARC Training Centre for Uniquely Australian Foods at The University of Queensland in Brisbane, recalls taking lemon myrtle to her lectures a decade ago. She would crush the leaves and ask her students to smell and identify them.
“They didn’t know what it was back then, but now they immediately recognise it as lemon myrtle,” Sultanbawa tells IPS. “The market for native Indigenous foods is growing because it is rich in nutrients. For example, the vitamin C content in Kakadu plum is about 75 times more than in an orange; folates (a natural form of vitamin B9 or folic acid) and fibre in green plum is much higher than in a mango; and kangaroo meat has only 2 per cent fat and a high concentration of conjugated linoleic acid and omega 3.”
In a study co-authored with Dharini Sivakumar, Sultanbawa argues that including native Indigenous foods in the diet could help reduce malnutrition.
“Legumes like wattle seed are low in carbohydrates and have a very high content of protein, fibre, zinc and iron comparable to chickpeas. Wattle seed is also a great functional ingredient for adding value to other foods; for example, it can be incorporated into breads made with wheat flour. What makes native Indigenous foods attractive is that you don’t have to add a lot of it to get the nutritional benefit,” she adds.
A 2019-20 market study of Australia’s native foods and botanicals industry by researchers at The University of Sydney, supported by Australian Native Foods and Botanicals (ANFAB), forecasted the native food sector would grow to 40 million Australian dollars (about USD 25,2m) in farm gate value, A$100m (about USD 63,1m) in middle market value and A$160m (about USD 101m) in total retail value by 2025.
A spread of Lilly Pilly, Davidson Plum, Finger Lime marmalade and traditional Aboriginal bread, Damper, which is made by crushing a variety of native seeds into flour and then baking the dough in the ashes of a fire. Credit: Neena Bhandari/IPS
Besides being used in traditional and modern cuisine, many of these native Indigenous botanicals are being used in cosmetics, pharmaceutical and nutraceutical industries. For example, the vitamin C-rich, pink-red native Lilly Pilly fruit has good astringent properties that boosts collagen production within the skin. It is used today in a variety of anti-ageing skincare products.
The COVID-19 pandemic craze for superfoods and television cooking shows, such as Australian MasterChef, has also contributed to the increasing popularity of native Indigenous foods.
They can now be found on grocery superstore shelves. According to a spokesperson for Coles Group Ltd., a leading Australian retailer, “We currently work with nine Indigenous-run businesses that sell products with native ingredients, including Kurrajong Kitchen Oaklees original crackers, Yaru still mineral water and Seven Season Green Ant gin, on our shelves.”
Recently, The Coles Nurture Fund awarded Indigenous-owned family business Walaja Raw Bush Honey a grant of A$330,000 (about USD 208,470) to create a new, medicinal grade, premium Melaleuca honey that is sustainably made in the West Kimberley region on Yawuru Country (Country is a term used by Indigenous Australians to describe the lands, waterways and seas to which they are connected through ancestral ties and family origins).
Although the demand is growing, supply is limited because much of the native Indigenous produce is currently wild-harvested.
“Native foods have never been cultivated to be mass produced. They grow now as they’ve grown since the beginning of their time, culturally and sustainably. It’s best left like that,” says Choolburra, who is the Aboriginal Programs Coordinator at the Botanic Gardens of Sydney.
As Indigenous Land and Sea Corporation’s Group Chief Executive Officer, Joe Morrison says, “Bush foods (food native to Australia and historically eaten by Indigenous Australians) are a fundamental part of Indigenous identity and our traditions that span thousands of years of connection to Country.”
But climate change presents a growing challenge with extreme weather conditions, including frequent storms, soil erosion, salinity in fresh water and ocean acidification threatening the ecosystems supporting native flora and fauna.
Choolburra says, “We (Indigenous Australians) are adapting our sustainability practices to meet the challenges of climate change, which is impacting everything in various ways. For example, many areas now facilitate cultural burns (Indigenous fire practice) in order to manage land and provide nutrients. In many cases, the production or harvesting of native foods is left to local communities in order to sustain the amount of quality produce.”
She occasionally leads the Aboriginal Bush Tucker Tour, which provides visitors from across the world an opportunity to learn about the traditional knowledge and cultural significance of native Indigenous flora and its many innovative uses.
On a cool, wet Sydney day, as we walk along the rich foliage in the Botanic Gardens, she plucks the long, flat green leaf from the native Lomandra plant, a vital source of food and survival and referred to as the ‘corner shop’ in some Indigenous Australians’ cultures and shows us how it can be woven to make baskets.
Pointing at the Dianella bush, she relates the old practice when children were told to hide in it – if they got lost. The Dianella’s sharp-edged leaves would repel snakes, and the children could attract attention by blowing in the hollow base of the leaf to make a whistling sound. The edible blue-purple berries, with tiny, nutty seeds from some of the Dianella species, are rich in vitamin C.
However, she warns that like anything consumed in large quantities, some of the popular nutritious plants, such as warrigal greens, used as a substitute for common spinach, and the sandpaper fig could cause diarrhoea or vomiting if eaten too much.
As the native Indigenous food industry grows, experts say, there is a need to enhance Indigenous communities’ participation to ensure they reap the benefits. “Australia needs to brand and market native Indigenous foods as its authentic cuisine. This will foster cultural knowledge about our Indigenous heritage and biodiversity,” Sultanbawa tells IPS.
