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Harabhara Cooperative is finding ways to sell their milk during the pandemic. Photo from Heifer Nepal.

By Heifer International
Jul 10 2020 (IPS-Partners)

For nearly three months, the government of Nepal implemented a strict lockdown to combat the spread of COVID-19. And while it slowed the spread of the virus, it also put a tremendous economic burden on many families nationwide. As of June 15, the country transitioned to a “soft lockdown,” easing some restrictions such as allowing private vehicles to operate on an odd/even-day scheme. But the economic effect is already being seen.

At the onset of pandemic, the majority of migrant laborers from Nepal returned home, meaning that remittances, the source of more than a quarter of the country’s gross domestic product, dried up nearly immediately. Exacerbating the situation, families of migrant workers usually don’t have savings to bolster themselves in times of distress. And because the government of Nepal requires people arriving from abroad to spend 14 days in quarantine, returning migrant workers generally stay in quarantine centers, converted buildings that many say are in poor condition and unsafe.

In such trying circumstances, Nepalese farmers are supporting their neighbors. Established just four months ago, the Heifer-supported Laligurans group in Baijanath Rural Municipality collected fruits, vegetables and more than two pounds of rice from each of their group members and to give to a quarantine facility. Similarly, members of a different group of Heifer farmers in Baijanath Rural Municipality, Ward 1, utilized their monthly savings to buy and deliver soap and toothpaste to people staying in quarantine sites. Ward Chairperson Roop Bahadur Malla, said, “I am thankful for the groups who have come out to help. Every small contribution makes a big difference in this dire situation.”

The Laligurans group collected fruits, vegetables and more than two pounds of rice from each member to donate to a quarantine facility. Photo from Heifer Nepal

Farmers themselves have faced a significant amount of adversity during the lockdown, especially when travel was nearly completely restricted, and they could not transport their produce to markets. During the stricter phase of the lockdown, Heifer Nepal supported partner cooperatives in acquiring government transport passes.

In Newalpur, one cooperative used their pass to establish an agri-ambulance to collect vegetables from farmers and get them to markets. “I was so worried that all my produce would be spoiled,” vegetable farmer Bishnu Timalsina said. “I had been having sleepless nights and was so stressed. As soon as I heard that the Cooperative would be collecting and selling the vegetables, I have breathed a sigh of relief.”

Farmers in Falebas Municipality raise close to 180 cows and collectively produce up to 260 gallons of milk every day. With a complete halt in transportation early in the pandemic, the Harabhara Social Entrepreneur’s Women’s Cooperative found themselves in dire straits, with the dairy buyer unable to collect the milk from farmers in a timely manner. After acquiring a travel pass for the transport vehicle with support, the milk from the area is finding its regular market in Pokhara 40 miles away. The farmer-owned agribusiness also ensured preventive measures by advising its members to follow social distancing norms, wear masks and install a handwashing facility on the premises. To support the local government, the cooperative also donated 10,000 rupees, or $83, to the municipality’s COVID-19 response fund.

Prayash Social Entrepreuner Women’s Cooperative is one of many groups of farmers affected by the pandemic in Nepal. Photo from Heifer Nepal

Deeplagan Women’s Entrepreneurs Cooperative used their clout in the community to arrange for one of its community members to travel across the country to attend his mother’s last rites. Deepalagan also provided food to his family to support them during a particularly difficult time.

With the transition to the soft lockdown, the government has allowed opening of businesses and offices but not resumption of public gatherings in shopping malls, religious services or events. Businesses are open and running with limited occupancy, meaning Heifer’s cooperatives are starting to resume some of their regular activities.

But just as some challenges are easing slightly due to the soft lockdown, others are arising. The country’s monsoon season occurs this time of year, which poses an additional risk, especially as COVID-19 limits many services. According to Nepal’s Ministry of Home Affairs, nearly 1,000 people lose their lives due to monsoon-related disasters every year, with the annual damage exceeding $58 million. Additionally, a swarm of millions of locusts passed over Nepal’s southern border on June 27. Although the swarm has dissipated significantly, about 2,800 acres of crops in the country have been affected by the insects.

Through ongoing distance communication, Heifer Nepal’s project team is regularly communicating with the project partners, communities and cooperatives to keep updated about the situation and prepare plans to support in the context of COVID-19 and other ongoing challenges.

The post Heifer Nepal Farmers Persevere During COVID-19 Pandemic appeared first on Inter Press Service.

By External Source
Jul 10 2020 (IPS-Partners)

The Honourable Karina Gould was first elected as the Member of Parliament for Burlington in 2015.

A graduate of McGill University and the University of Oxford, Minister Gould is passionate about public service and international development. Before her election as the Member of Parliament for Burlington, she worked as a trade and investment specialist for the Mexican Trade Commission in Toronto, a consultant for the Migration and Development Program at the Organization of American States in Washington, D.C., and spent a year volunteering at an orphanage in Mexico.

Minister Gould has deep roots in her hometown of Burlington, Ontario, and is an active member of the community and an advocate for women’s issues and affordable housing. She has volunteered with and actively supports the Iroquoia Bruce Trail Club, the Burlington chapter of the Canadian Federation of University Women, the Mississauga Furniture Bank, Halton Women’s Place, and other local organizations.

Minister Gould lives in Burlington with her husband Alberto and son Oliver.

With the birth of Oliver, Minister Gould became the first federal cabinet minister to have a baby while holding office. She is passionate about breaking down barriers for women, youth, and underrepresented groups.

ECW. As Canada’s Minister of International Development and as a key member of ECW’s High-Level Steering Group, could you please elaborate on the importance of linking emergency humanitarian response with development to achieve quality education for vulnerable children and youth in countries affected by armed conflict, forced displacement and natural disasters.

Karina Gould. We have heard from children and youth affected by armed conflict, forced displacement and natural disasters, as well as their families, that education is a priority for them. And we know that education in emergencies is an issue that ideally works across humanitarian and development responses.

Working through the humanitarian-development-peace nexus is crucial to ensuring that both immediate and long-term education needs are fulfilled. By working through a nexus approach, we recognize that the immediate response of humanitarian actors is vital to keeping children engaged and protected, while the long-term vision of the development community is critical to maintaining gains towards SDG4 and to strengthen education systems and make them more resilient to crises in the future.

Education is often the first thing that is disrupted and the last thing to be rebuilt during an emergency. Despite the importance of maintaining a system of quality education, especially in protracted humanitarian situations, education is still not sufficiently prioritized for immediate humanitarian funding and development actors need to do more to support resilient national education systems that ensure education is not disrupted. This is why Canada supports organizations like Education Cannot Wait, which is emerging as a leader in demonstrating how education programming can be quickly and efficiently rolled out within the humanitarian-development-peace nexus space.

ECW. Canada is a staunch defender of multilateralism in addressing the world’s challenges and opportunities. With almost 80 million forcibly displaced people worldwide, including 26 million refugees, Education Cannot Wait will dedicate its First Emergency Response to refugee education in its upcoming COVID-19 response actions this month. How do you see ECW’s progress so far in responding to COVID-19 and how can we strengthen collective efforts to deliver quality education to forcibly displaced populations, who often are left furthest behind?

Karina Gould. The COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted how connected we all are to one another across the globe. At the height of the pandemic, 164 countries had closed their schools, which affected 1.4 billion students worldwide – over 90% of the world’s learners. This is on top of the already marginalized populations such as refugees and internally displaced peoples who did not previously have consistent access to quality education.

In the past months, the world has come together to try to stop the spread of the virus. We shared innovative ideas for how to make education and learning more accessible for those who had their education disrupted, to ensure a continuity of learning for all. These solutions are made more effective and are amplified when we work in partnership, including through our major multilateral institutions like Education Cannot Wait.

I have been impressed with Education Cannot Wait’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic, including the speed with which they responded to the crisis in the first round of COVID-19 funding, and the commitment to focus the second round of funding on education for refugees, particularly adolescent girls. This is a group of children and youth who are often left behind and who are disproportionately affected by education disruptions due to displacement, and now even more so due to COVID-19. It is important that we take this time to strengthen our efforts to ensure these marginalized populations remain a priority in our global response to the COVID-19 pandemic. These groups must not be forgotten.

We can strengthen our collective efforts to deliver quality education to forcibly displaced populations, who often are left furthest behind, by continuing to work through multilateral organizations like Education Cannot Wait and ensuring strong coordination with other partners on the ground, including other multilateral partners, civil society and local refugee organizations.

In January, I travelled to Congo and the DRC and witnessed firsthand the important work that ECW’s partner organizations like War Child Canada are doing on the ground to support improved access to education for refugees and displaced peoples, especially girls. Their radio program allows adolescent girls and boys to continue with their learning during school closures by transmitting lessons and allowing learners to access teachers through dedicated hotlines. There are even question and answer periods to keep things dynamic and to keep the youth engaged in learning. I have seen how these initiatives are making a difference on the ground, and it is by building on these partnerships that we can maximize our ability to reach the most marginalized children and youth, particularly girls, refugee and displaced children, to ensure they have the opportunities they deserve.

ECW. Education Cannot Wait greatly appreciates Canada’s continued strong support in meeting the educational needs of children and youth caught in emergencies and protracted crises – including Canada’s new contribution of CAD $5.5 million a few days ago, and the Charlevoix Declaration to strengthen girls’ education in emergencies. ECW is committed to ensuring that 60% of our beneficiaries are girls. As a strong advocate for girls’ education, why is it so important for girls, including refugee and adolescent girls, to have access to education in crisis contexts?

Karina Gould. Girls and adolescent girls face a unique and additional set of challenges that limits their chances of accessing and completing an education. These challenges include poverty, unequal gendered roles in the household and at school, gender-based violence, and school environments and curricula that perpetuate inequalities. In crises contexts, these barriers to girls’ education can be even further entrenched, with girls being 2.5 times more likely to be out of school than boys.

Through the Feminist International Assistance Policy (FIAP), Canada recognizes that gender equality is key to achieving the Sustainable Development Goals. Access to education is a pathway to achieving this goal. It can significantly reduce poverty, provide for better economic opportunities, and can improve health outcomes such as maternal and child health, protecting women and girls from child, early and forced marriage and providing essential sexual and reproductive health services that can enable women to engage in improved family planning.

Yet access is only part of the solution. We also need to make sure that once the children are in school, that they are learning. Quality teaching and learning, and ensuring that schools are safe places for children, particularly girls, are equally important and require additional efforts and resources, especially during a crisis. Ensuring that teachers are well-trained and equipped to instruct children who have or are living through a crisis; that curricula and learning materials reflect relevant cultural realities and do not perpetuate negative gender norms; and that girls and boys have access to adequate hygiene and WASH facilities are all required in order to keep children engaged and for families to continue to see the value in sending their children, particularly their girls, to school. This is why Canada, as President of the G7 in 2018, championed the Charlevoix Declaration on Quality Education for girls, adolescent girls and women in developing countries to further address these challenges in order to ensure that girls – especially those affected by crisis and conflict – have access to quality education.

I personally believe that it is essential for girls, including refugee and displaced girls, as well as adolescent girls, to have access to education in crisis contexts.

ECW. Prior to becoming Minister of International Development, you were appointed Minister of Democratic Institutions in 2017 by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, becoming the youngest female cabinet minister in Canadian history. Congratulations! You are an inspiration and a role model for girls and women around the world. What message and guidance would you like to share with girls who face education challenges – including the COVID-19 pandemic – in achieving their hopes and dreams?

Karina Gould. My message to girls around the world facing education challenges would be this: “You are worth it. I know it is hard and there are a lot of challenges you are facing. But your hopes and dreams are worth fighting for. You have so much to offer the world. You and your voice and your experience matter. The world needs you to keep studying, to keep dreaming, to keep pushing for what you want to see in the world.”

ECW. We’d love to learn a bit more about you on a personal level. Could you tell us what are the three books that have influenced you the most (or that you’d recommend to others to read), and why? We’d also love to know what kind of music gets you energized and motivated to address the challenges you face as Minister. Finally, is there an inspirational or motivational quote (or two) that you often turn to in life?

One of my favourite quotes is by Margaret Mead. “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed, citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.”

It was hard to pick just three books, so here are my top four!

To Life by Ruth Minsky Sender

I read this book in grade 7, I was 12 years old. As the granddaughter of Holocaust survivors, this book opened my eyes to the experiences of my own family. It helped me talk to my grandmother and understand what it was like to be a survivor and to have to pick up and restart a life after living through unimaginable trauma and loss. It is an incredible story of loss, tragedy, strength, courage and renewal.

Half the Sky by Nicholas Kristoff and Sheryl WuDunn

I have always been a feminist. I have always believed in seeking and fighting for equality. But this book woke me up to the distinct disadvantages that women face around the world. Until I read this book I didn’t understand how dangerous giving birth was for the majority of women in the world. I learned so much and it made me want to learn even more. This book put me on a path to fight for women’s rights and women’s health around the world.

What is the What by Dave Eggers

This a fictionalized biography of Valentino Achak Deng, one of the “Lost Boys” of Sudan. This book ignited my passion for protecting children from the ravages of war, building a more compassionate world, and fighting for the rights of refugees. It also led me to explore books about Africa written by Africans, which opened up a whole new literary world for me.

Anne of Green Gables Series by Lucy Maud Montgomery

Was one of my favourite series as a child, written by a great Canadian author!

ECW. Are there any final comments you would like to share with ECW’s global audience on the importance of refugee children’s education in emergencies, as well as the importance of not only prioritizing education in humanitarian contexts, but also delivering quality education with ‘the fierce urgency of now’, rather than waiting until the crisis is over.

Karina Gould. When schools closed due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the world was quick to mobilize to ensure – to the best of our abilities – that we focused on continuity of learning for out of school children. What I would like to reiterate is that we need to remember the vulnerable populations, including refugees and displaced children, who were not in school before the pandemic and who never had access to quality education. These children deserve the chance to learn, and must not be left behind.

The post Education Cannot Wait Interviews Karina Gould, Canada’s Minister of International Development appeared first on Inter Press Service.

High school student in eastern India, studies a leaflet on menstrual hygiene. Credit: Stella Paul/IPS

By Shubha Nagesh and Monalisa Padhee
DEHRADUN, India, Jul 10 2020 (IPS)

The Coronavirus pandemic and the resulting lockdown has intensified most inequities in society- specifically those that affect vulnerable communities, including persons with disabilities, particularly young girls. As an aftermath of recent media attention, many government organizations, nonprofits and philanthropies have come together to ensure girls and women in remote communities have access to menstrual care products.

Despite these efforts, a large number of girls with disabilities who face the double burden of discrimination — stigma of disability and taboos associated with menstruation — have been left behind.

Girls and women comprise more than half of the total number of persons with disabilities. The majority of them live in low and middle income countries. A number of them are denied basic human rights because society is not set up to meet their unique needs. For instance, a large number do not attend schools, are not employed meaningfully, and are subject to neglect, abuse, violence, sexual harassment and much else.

The menstrual health needs of vulnerable populations need to be prioritized. Each girl deserves to have a safe and dignified menstrual experience irrespective of her disabilities

Families and parents grapple with additional worries that include safety and hygiene around menarche (onset of periods) and menstruation. These concerns magnify for families whose daughters have cognitive and intellectual impairments and behavioural challenges as part of their disability. Knowledge and awareness around effective menstruation management becomes a challenge with heavy reliance on parents and or caregivers.

The pandemic has further worsened access and support due to restricted access, closure of establishments, traffic restrictions, and financial constraints. There are many families who are unable to afford disposable sanitary products for their daughters and rely on cloth which puts an additional burden of washing. These are re washed and reused- oftentimes, dried in closed spaces and corners that receive no sunlight, risking infection upon re use. Stigma continues around access, utilisation and safe disposal of menstrual products, particularly in urban poor and rural contexts.

Even outside pandemics and crises, the menstrual health needs of vulnerable populations need to be prioritized. Each girl deserves to have a safe and dignified menstrual experience irrespective of her disabilities. Policies and practices are best if inclusive and accommodate unique provisions and needs for girls and women with disabilities.

 

We propose the following four recommendations to ensure uninterrupted menstrual health services, particularly the supply of products during a pandemic or other emergency crisis situation.

 

First, it’s important to have an inclusive crisis management policy, one that prioritises the sexual and reproductive health needs of the girls and women with disabilities with deliberation. Developing systems prior to pandemics so these services persist as essential and vital at all times, will support uninterrupted services.

 

Second, provision of supplies in adequate quantities is essential- on an average if a girl or woman uses 15-20 sanitary pads per month, providing at least three month supplies of 20 pads a month to each girl with a disability will be reasonable. Girls with intellectual impairment, more often than not, are unable to keep track of their menstrual dates or identify symptoms that develop prior to a menstrual period. Having an adequate stock of pads beforehand to safeguard against situations like this pandemic will prevent girls from resorting to unhygienic practices.

 

Third, having adequate training of community health workers to identify the number of girls with disabilities in the community and their future needs, well in advance, and communicate with the agencies monitoring supplies to ensure regular and ample supplies.

 

Fourth, agencies who link the disabled community to organisations and donors must have robust systems in place to match needs, when it is required and where it is required. The processes must be seamless with needs outlined in advance, donations matched well with needs, priority measures to determine disabled communities who need supplies the most and accountability in distribution.

 

If all donors and philanthropies could come together to enable creation of centralised nodal agencies to channelise procurement, distribution, monitoring and evaluation, the system becomes transparent, accountable and effective. Including disability organisations in the dialogue and the actual effort that follows will ensure establishment of supply chains that deliver on time to those that need it the most such as remote villages, urban poor settlements, migrant communities, hard to reach slums.

Some of the above are already in place in India and need integration and scale to reach vulnerable populations, like those with disabilities. UNICEF recommends through recent guidelines processes that could be implemented to ensure menstrual products reach girls during a pandemic; these could be adapted by including the voices of girls with disabilities in formulating strategies to meet their needs.

After all, periods don’t pause for a pandemic and any other crisis and we need to ensure that the needs and challenges of the vulnerable population are adequately addressed.

 

Dr Shubha Nagesh is an Atlantic Fellow in Global Health Equity and works with the Latika Roy Foundation, Dehradun India

Monalisa Padhee, PhD, is the head of Women Wellness Initiative at the Barefoot College working with women and girls in rural India. She is a senior Aspen New Voices fellow and Atlantic Fellow for Global Health Equity.

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By Dr. Iftekhar Ahmed Chowdhury
SINGAPORE, Jul 10 2020 (IPS-Partners)

William Somerset Maugham was already an established author when he began to focus on short stories. His interest in this genre was actually meant to have been a form of relief from novel-writing, but interestingly it was this literary form that rendered him more famous in the East. Though intensely English in attitudes and behaviour, he was not quite a ‘legit Brit’. Born in Paris (in 1874), he learnt to speak in French before he spoke English, spent some time studying at Heidelberg Germany, before continuing further education in England, then settled down in the south of France. Having written a few novels, he turned to short stories. Perhaps due to his cosmopolitan exposure, he was deeply influenced, in his short stories, by foreign writers. In particular, the Russian author Chekov and the Frenchman Guy de Maupassant.

Dr. Iftekhar Ahmed Chowdhury

He admired Chekov’s markedly superior characteristics, but was more approving of Guy de Maupassant. From the Frenchman, Maugham learnt not just to copy life in his tales, but also to dramatize, interest, excite and surprise the reader. Maugham thought Maupassant gave his stories a beginning, a middle and an end, a discipline that pleased him enormously. He declared that his prepossessions in the arts were on the side of law and order.

Maugham’s style was as ordered as his general plan. His language was simple and mellifluous. He liked to describe at length, almost exasperatingly so, but later corrected himself. His sentences were short. They balanced one another and were balanced in themselves. The wry sense of humour was pervasive, tempered by astringent cynicism. His writings had the requisite elements of character, emotion, and often an interesting cultural milieu. He used minimum of ornamentation in his prose, concentrating unflinchingly on the narrative line. He introduced readers to ‘shades of grey’ in life. His characters have streaks of virtue and vice that interplay in the narrative. His plots were compact. He thought the writer should need to prove nothing. Only paint a picture and leave it before you. You could take it or leave it. Most took it.

His philosophy in life was discernible in his “The summing Up’. It was one of resigned atheism and certain skepticism about the extent of man’s innate goodness and intelligence. In a very English fashion he understates his own profundity. He said: “I have never been anything but a story- teller; It has amused me to tell stories, and I have told a good many”.

Unlike his fellow Englishman, Rudyard Kipling, he held no brief for England’s imperial aspirations. In stories such as the “Rain” he comes through as an incisive allegorical critique of the white man’s colonial impulses. Maugham added a touch of the exotic oriental mystique as a backdrop to this tale of a white missionary’s fallibility. It was in the form of the incessant rain that continued to pour down with relentless force, unlike the light English drizzle ,as the story unfolds, symbolizing a pathetic fallacy that foreshadows a tragedy (the missionary’s suicide). Like many of his ilk in his time in Victorian and Edwardian England, he reached back to classical Greece for some of his techniques. A key one was ‘Anagnorisis’, a Greek word which translated into English means “recognition”. This is a moment in the unfolding of a tale that one character, oftentimes the hero or heroine suddenly recognizes another as being different from how he or she was initially perceived. As can be seen in his “Mister Know-All”.

Maugham first came to Singapore in 1921. He kept on coming back for four decades till a few years before his death (he died in 1965). He lived at the ‘Raffles Hotel’ which is still a landmark in the island Republic. He sat beneath a fragrant frangipani tree in the hotel’s’ Palm Court’ and crafted stories from tidbits of gossip overheard while dining with the local gentry. These men and women lived in rubber plantations of the Malay Straits, and had impeccable manners, afternoon teas, and evening cocktails of gin and tonic and the ‘Singapore Sling’. Often, they had deeply flawed human character, a treat for the observant writer. This was much like in the tea gardens in our parts, in Sylhet or in Darjeeling, which also inspired a contemporary Indian, Mulk Raj Anand, perhaps India’s first prominent English novelist.

In Singapore, British colonialism was spread more by the pen, rather than by the sword. Which is perhaps why, as the city was about to fall to the Japanese during World war II in 1942, Singaporeans made their “last stand” at the ‘Raffles’, not to fight, for they had already surrendered, but to sing the strains of “there shall always be an England, and England shall be free”. Maugham has at times used the term “Bengali” while describing the man on the street in Singapore. However, this “Bengali” was not necessarily a Bengali-speaking person, for those days it referred to anyone in Singapore coming over from Calcutta by ship, mostly Sikhs. The Tamils, on the other hand, came separately from Madras. Indeed, Singapore from 1830 to 1867, with the rest of the Straits, formed a part of the Bengal Presidency and was ruled from Calcutta. This is evidenced even at present in the architecture of many of the older buildings in the central parts, as also in names like ‘Victoria Hall’, ‘Clive Street’ or ‘Outram station’. Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose issued his clarion call for India’s freedom-struggle from Singapore, through his famous address while launching the Azad hind Fauj:“Tum mujhe khoon do , mein tumhe Azadi dunga”! (You give me blood, and in return, I shall give you freedom!)

I want to make an important point here. From the very beginning, as a part of national strategy Singapore has sought to weave its British intellectual heritage with its Chinese-Malay-Indian ethos. This it has done in order to create a cosmopolitan backdrop, and also retain the past western linkages, (one reason why Sir Stamford Raffles rather than a local was ‘selected’ to be the ‘Founder’ of Modern Singapore) to facilitate its current role as a global financial and knowledge hub. To that perhaps, is also owed the fact that the National University of Singapore (NUS) is rated as Asia’s foremost citadel of learning. It has also helped the overwhelmingly Chinese city de-emphasize any ethnic nationalist tendencies, and successfully build a harmonious relationship with the other two communities, the Malays and the Indians. Also to create a separate identity, distinct from the origin of its majority population, which is why, today, as the world is being increasingly dichotomized between the two powers, the United states and China, Singapore is still able to deftly navigate between the proverbial Scylla and Charybdis.

Dr Iftekhar Ahmed Chowdhury is Principal Research Fellow at the Institute of South Asia Studies, National University of Singapore. He is a former Foreign Advisor (Foreign Minister) of Bangladesh and President of Cosmos Foundation Bangladesh. The views addressed in the article are his own. He can be reached at: isasiac@nus.edu.sg

This story was originally published by Dhaka Courier.

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Kazakhstan's anti-gender bill aims for the complete erasure of concepts of gender and gender equality, according to rights activists. Courtesy: CC by 2.0/Steve Evans

By Samira Sadeque
UNITED NATIONS, Jul 10 2020 (IPS)

 The coronavirus lockdown in Kazakhstan, and the resultant limited public oversight and limited publication engagement, has paved the way for the government to propose amendments to the country’s laws around gender that could see the exclusion of the rights of the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, and Queer (LGBTQ)  community. 

Aigerim Kamidola, Legal Advocacy Officer, ‘Feminita’ Kazakhstan Feminist Initiative in Kazakhstan, spoke to IPS this week after presenting her organisation at the Jul. 9 United Nations panel on sustainable development for LGBTI people in times of COVID19. She was one of a group of advocates from around the world who shared their opinions and experiences about how the community has been affected during the crisis. 

She explains how the period of the lockdown was used for “the introduction of amendments and additions to legislative acts of Kazakhstan on family and gender policy”.

“The Draft Law (an anti-gender bill) proposes amendments to the law on state guarantees on equal rights and equal opportunities for men and women. The anti-gender bill aims for the complete erasure of concepts of gender and gender equality. The only outcome of the bill is to erase the word “gender” from the national legislation,” Kamidola says.

“And through the comments of some MPs initiating this legislation, we see that the rationale they provided was that there are “too many genders” and that they have the intention to reinstate two sexes.”

But Kamidola points out “the general public discourse in Kazakhstan is very homophobic and transphobic”.

“On a state-level the subject is a taboo so state officials normally do not speak of it.”

Her organisation works with lesbian, bisexual, transgender and queer (LBTQ) women on issues of discrimination and hate crimes based on sexual orientation and gender identity in Kazakhstan.

Inter Press Service (IPS): How has COVID-19 impacted the LBTQ community in Kazakhstan?  

Aigerim Kamidola (AK):  We’ve seen two main trends in Kazakhstan regarding LBTQ populations: first one is that the general measures, policies and legislations [around] the state’s response to COVID-19 pandemic didn’t take the intersectional approach at the core of it. As a result, they exacerbated the pre-existing inequalities that disproportionately affected LGBTQ people.

The second trend is measures that specifically target civil society and LGBTQ groups. Despite [the fact] that there was a state of emergency and the quarantine, when there was limited public oversight and civic and social engagement, the parliament and the government actually used the space to adopt certain legislation which actually targeted civil society groups.

IPS: What are some ways in which COVID-19 has affected the health of the members of the LBTQ community in Kazakhstan?

AK: With our allies from transgender initiatives, Feminita completed a big research project on access to healthcare of LBQ women and trans people in Kazakhstan in March. Because of the stigma by medical professionals, there’s a high resentment of the LBQT community for [asking for] medical help and that increases health risks. It’s not only HIV or STIs, which are normally spoken of, but also for other chronic disease and cancer-related diseases.

As a result, it makes the group of people more susceptible to health risks [in the event of a] pandemic or other epidemiological diseases.

IPS: Your organisation was denied registration as an NGO last year — how does this affect your ability to operate in the country and to serve the LBTQ community?

AK: We recently received the supreme court decision upholding the previous court rulings, confirming that there was no violation in a denied registration. And it surely affects the organisation’s institutional development because as a non-registered organisation, you’re not eligible to open a bank account, or apply for funding and hence [unable] to maybe be more effective in responding to some urgent calls. 

As a result, the initiative operates with a small group of people — most of them work other jobs on the side. And they cannot pay the initial salaries, or operate sustainably or have sustainable activities. And that of course exacerbates in the pandemic. 

On the other side, we see a contraction of funding too and it is [being] channelled towards the needs of pandemic response or healthcare needs. Then there’s a contraction of resources to activists and civil society groups and human rights organisations needs. We know that it’s just the beginning and that the financial effects of the pandemic will catch up later.  

IPS: Has the LBQT community reached out to your organisation during this pandemic?

AK: We’ve had some cases throughout this quarantine time. One in particular was regarding a woman who faced hate speech by a prominent sport athlete who made a degrading statement with incitement to hate, and the activist called him out. As a result, there was an avalanche of hate speech towards her and then she faced death threats online. She also faced threats by fans of the athlete. 

We launched a media advocacy campaign and also relocated her during the pandemic. The first measure of the pandemic response by the state was isolation, stay at home, as a safe space but home is not always safe for everyone and it was very problematic to relocate a person during the quarantine, because there was a lockdown measure in place. And borders between the states were closed, so it was impossible to relocate her to another state. She was relocated within the same state.

IPS: How does the current pandemic — and global lockdown — affect the LBTQ community’s work and participation in the SDGs?

AK: What is important for activists and civil society and also for international community when they deal with governments like in Kazakhstan — whose economy is very resource and industry driven, and places priority on a lot of investment coming in — we see quite a lot of political will in engaging with the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) framework. But at the same time it is a country with a low human rights record, that resents a human rights framework.

What is important is for us to actually strengthen the links between the human rights and SDG frameworks and one cannot be implemented without the other. The state cannot cherry pick the one it likes and just ignore the recommendations in human rights treaties.

 

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Outside of the Ethiopian embassy in Beirut, June 2020. Credit: This is Lebanon

By Eliane Eid
KESERWAN, Lebanon , Jul 10 2020 (IPS)

They were promised the world but ended up in a Lebanese household. This is the story of many domestic workers in Lebanon. With a 70-year-old sponsor system still in place, domestic workers are tied to their employers with little or no basic rights. The ‘Kafala’ system is the major problem behind what we have been seeing in Beirut in the last months.

Dumped outside of their embassies, many domestic workers were left without money, belongings, or their passports. In June 2020, when Lebanon witnessed a new wave of economic crisis, many of the Ethiopian domestic workers were left abandoned at their embassy doors in Beirut. With recent events that escalated the country’s economic situation, Lebanese people started losing the value of their national currency. And, since all domestic workers are paid in foreign currency, especially in US dollars, their employers were no longer able to pay what they owed their employees.

This situation exposed the reasons why Lebanon should abolish the ‘Kafala’ system and why Black Lives should also matter in Lebanon.

‘Kafala’ means sponsorship in Arabic. The International Labor Organization (ILO) and the Migrant Forum in Asia (MFA) worked on policy briefs to explain and examine the situation of domestic workers in Lebanon and in the Middle East. While referring to the ‘Kafala’ system they analyzed the main points of why it should change. The system makes the worker’s immigration status legally bound to the employer or sponsor. The migrant worker must sign a written acceptance of his or her ‘kafeel’ (sponsor) in order to exercise their rights, without which they would not be able to leave the country.

“This situates the migrant worker as completely dependent upon a ‘kafeel’ for their livelihood and residency” (ILO, MFA). In other words, an employer or sponsor can restrict the movements and any communication of the worker leading to abusive practices such as overwork, underpayment and even extortion.

With the power granted to the sponsor, many ‘kafeels’ used it to oppress Migrant Domestic Workers (MDW), resorting to physical and psychological abuse.

Domestic workers in Lebanon are mainly from developing countries in Africa or from South and South East Asian countries. The majority of them are women and, according to Amnesty International, Lebanon is home to 250,000 domestic workers.

Working conditions in Lebanon under the Kafala system. Credit: Eliane Eid

There have been many approaches by international and local communities to reform the Kafala system and even abolish it. Several NGOs, the ILO and many foreign embassies have raised the issue of reform with the Lebanese Ministry of Labor in order to ensure the safety and protection of foreign domestic workers from forced labor and exploitation.

‘This is Lebanon’ (TIL) is one of the organizations that has been working to help raise awareness of this modern-day slavery and protect MDWs from abusive families and employers. To protect those who agreed to speak, TIL used pseudonyms to ensure that they are safe and can continue with their mission.

When asked about the existence of modern-day slavery in Lebanon, a member of TIL, Patricia, told IPS that the answer is “an unequivocal yes”. She explained that the system justifies racial and class discrimination leading to apartheid-style societies. The reason why MDWs are considered “inferior” or even “subhuman” is because the system creates a culture of xenophobia, race superiority, sexism, and classism, and because employers see themselves as owners of these workers due to the power granted by the system.

According to Patricia, many workers don’t even know that they will be working in homes. They are usually lied to and promised job opportunities such as working in shops, restaurants, offices, schools and many other positions. She also mentioned that Nigerians are the worst affected by these falsehoods.

Zahraa Dirani, a freelance journalist and member of Fe-Male, an NGO that works with women and girls in Lebanon to eliminate injustice in the country, told IPS that the situation of MDWs is inhuman.

“Kafala puts domestic workers under the legislation of slavery” said Dirani. She explained that this situation is not humanly acceptable and is not part of the 21st century. Dirani stated that “NGOs are playing an important role in the society because they are intercepting and helping MDWs while the government is practically nowhere on this”.

According to Dirani, when Fe-Male decided to work on the relationship between domestic workers and employers, “people asked us why would we mention the rights of domestic workers; they are stubborn and deserve what is being done to them. Why would I give her a cell phone, she gets more money than I do, she doesn’t need more rights – this Lebanese mindset was one of the main challenges that we had to face”. Dirani continued to explain that what they heard was expected, especially because the system gave the employers all the power to feel “higher” or even “better” than MDWs.

As of today, the solution remains opaque or unknown. Many MDWs were able to leave the country, but a lot of them are still waiting to see how this period unfolds. What is of concern, though, is how much pressure was brought on by the foreign embassies on the government and why they have been silent on the plight of their own nationals. IPS learned from TIL that most embassies are consulates run by “honorary consuls” and not foreign ministry officials of those countries. Here lies the conflict of interest and the unexplained businesses that have a huge impact on migrant workers. “They are Lebanese nationals who have used their position to foster their business interests and sometimes running a recruitment agency on the side”, TIL’s Patricia added.

Since many of the consulates have hidden agendas, the Lebanese government should take a stand to minimize the damage. Unfortunately, Lebanon is in a deep conflict with its own policies and the only action that came forth was to waive the fine for some MDWs in order for them to be able to leave the country.

Usually, whenever a migrant worker wants to leave, he or she has to pay 300,000 Lebanese pounds (approximately USD 200) as an exit fee. “This was prohibitive and meant that women who had escaped abusive employers who hadn’t paid them for months were effectively imprisoned in the country”, said Patricia.

The “Kafala system made people treat MDWs as if they were “things” or even a “property” while forgetting that they are human beings”, Dirani stated.

Imprisoned in a foreign country, left without money, lied to, abused, broken and left behind, why are the authorities turning a blind eye while so many are suffering? In Lebanon, each week, two female domestic workers die according to the General Security’s intelligence agency. Silence is not an option when human trafficking is pushed to the backburner.

 

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GBV Survivor supported by UNFPA Cambodia and the Ministry of Women Affairs and relevant stakeholders to ensure GBV survivors receive the necessary support both physically and emotionally to live free of violence and abuse. Credit: UNFPA Cambodia.

By External Source
PHNOM PENH, Jul 10 2020 (IPS)

Fulfilling women’s and girls’ rights through promoting sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR) is an essential prerequisite for reaching national development goals as well as the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

While many countries have made significant progress in reducing maternal mortality, preventing unwanted pregnancies, stemming the spread of sexually transmitted infections and fostering gender equality, gains in sexual and reproductive health and rights remain vulnerable against a rising tide of conservatism across the globe, compounded by entrenched local traditional harmful practices, and exacerbated by multiple crises such as the current COVID-19 pandemic that threaten to shift the focus away from women’s rights issues and make access to much-needed resources all the more challenging.

Emerging from a history of daunting challenges, Cambodia nonetheless achieved a number of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), making considerable progress in adopting and implementing evidence-based national development policies, and strengthening its human capital. In this, it was guided as well by gender equality to ensure the rights of women including their right to sexual and reproductive health is upheld.

The pandemic is hitting already-marginalized communities particularly hard, deepening inequalities and threatening to set us back in our efforts of leaving no one behind with women and girls to undoubtedly bear the brunt of the crisis

But the considerable gains made could be compromised by crises such as COVID-19 and their socioeconomic fallout.

While COVID-19 has had an equalizing effect in its impact on various strata of society regardless of whether a country is “developed” or “developing”, not everyone is affected equally.

Indeed, the pandemic is hitting already-marginalized communities particularly hard, deepening inequalities and threatening to set us back in our efforts of leaving no one behind with women and girls to undoubtedly bear the brunt of the crisis.

Sophany, a 42-year-old mother of two from Tboung Khmum province in eastern Cambodia, has suffered from domestic violence and abuse from her husband for more than a decade till she escaped and filed for divorce. She is one of many who is feeling the weight of the pandemic.

During COVID-19, she lost her income as a food-seller to garment factory workers given the closure of some factories, and she has found it all the more difficult to raise her children, resulting in her estranged husband taking one of their children. This resulted in further mental suffering and distress, but with the support of her brother and the local authorities she managed to regain a livelihood, and now is willing to volunteer to help other women in a similar situation.

A recent study conducted by UNFPA, the United Nations sexual and reproductive health agency, estimated that if lockdowns continue for six months with significant disruptions to health and other essential services, some 47 million women in low- and middle-income countries may not be able to access modern contraceptives resulting in seven million unintended pregnancies. The restrictions will also result in 31 million additional cases of gender-based violence during the same period.

The impact of the pandemic is not confined to women’s health in isolation. Women were already disproportionately represented in insecure labor markets that are now harder hit by the economic impacts of COVID-19, resulting in women like Sophany falling back into poverty. Furthermore, women’s unpaid care work has increased as a result of school closures and the increased needs of older people within the family.

The time is now to act and accelerate the promise made for women and girls in 1994 in Cairo at the historic International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD).

In Cairo, Cambodia was one of 179 governments that signed on to a far-reaching Programme of Action that transformed our view of population and development – a genuine paradigm shift – by embracing individual rights and choices, including sexual and reproductive health and rights grounded in gender equality, as being at the heart of sustainable development.

Since 1994, Cambodia has been working hard to fulfill the ICPD Programme of Action, making remarkable progress in reducing poverty levels with the percentage of Cambodians living under the national poverty line falling from almost 48% in 2007 to 13.5% in 2014; maternal mortality rates decreasing by around 65% from 2005 to 2014; life expectancy at birth increasing from 58 years in 2000 to 69 years in 2013; and the first-ever National Policy on Gender Equality draft initiated in 2019.

Despite these achievements however, we must collectively work even harder to shore up these gains and ensure they are not rolled back amid the pandemic and its socioeconomic fallout. It is time for us all to realize our ICPD commitments, keep our promises, and build a Cambodia that is better and safer for all including women such as Sophany.

A quarter-century after Cairo, at the Nairobi Summit on the ICPD25 in 2019, we observed thousands of representatives from governments, civil society, multilateral and bilateral institutions, private sector and marginalized communities come together at another historic summit to reaffirm once again the centrality of SRHR to sustainable development, and collectively commit to the Three Zeros to be achieved by 2030: Zero Preventable Maternal Deaths, Zero Unmet Need for Family Planning, and Zero Gender-Based Violence and Harmful Practices.

 

Population Census reaches remote parts of rural Cambodia, here three-generation family captured. Credit: Mr. Taylor Weidman, UNFPA Cambodia.

 

For Cambodia that means doubling down on efforts to achieve the unfinished business of the ICPD by 2030, recognizing that without fulfilling the ICPD, we simply cannot fulfill the SDGs. Since our return from Nairobi, the Royal Government of Cambodia has actively undertaken necessary steps to introduce an ICPD25 roadmap and put in place a coordination mechanism to oversee the implementation of the ICPD25 National Commitments delivered at Nairobi.

On the occasion of the World Population Day 2020, celebrated on July 11 each year, with the theme of “Putting the brakes on COVID-19: How to safeguard the health and rights of women and girls now”, we call on all partners and stakeholders to recommit to and prioritize the sexual and reproductive health of women and girls – including safer pregnancy and childbirth, increased access to modern contraception nationwide, and the prevention and management of gender-based violence (which currently affects one in five women in Cambodia).

We cannot do this alone. We need to work together around the clock – both to fight and contain this deadly virus and ensure at the same time that rights and choices for women’s and girls’ health and well-being are protected. We cannot be complacent and we cannot fail. The cost of failure will simply be too high to bear!

While COVID-19 presents numerous challenges, this unprecedented global crisis has also provided new opportunities and impetus to tackling the unfinished business of ICPD with ever-greater urgency. If we are to make progress on the ICPD amid and beyond the pandemic in this Decade of Action towards the 2030 SDGs finish line, we must put women and girls at the very center of development, recognizing that women and girls are ultimately at the heart of Cambodia’s remarkable, transformational journey of growth and change.

 

H.E. Dr. Ing Khantha Phavi, Minister, Ministry of Women’s Affairs of Cambodia, and Head of the Royal Government of Cambodia Delegation to the Nairobi Summit in 2019.

H.E. Mr. Chea Chantum, Secretary General of the General Secretariat for Population and Development, Ministry of Planning of Cambodia.

Mr. Daniel Alemu, Acting Representative, United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) in Cambodia

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Engineering students gave a new purpose to a 3D printer by producing personal protective equipment (PPE) for local health professionals. Credit: Andrés Bello Catholic University/UN Academic Impact

By Ramu Damodaram
UNITED NATIONS, Jul 10 2020 (IPS)

Among the many compelling points made by Dr. Anthony Fauci in our “Rethinking Health” webinar this week was the absolute essentiality of global collaboration and transparency to contain the pandemic with which we are faced.

It’s an imperative between, but beyond, States and governments, which Secretary-General Guterres has affirmed, most recently when he spoke of how we must reimagine the way nations cooperate in a “networked multilateralism” where the United Nations works with others more closely and effectively.

The primary logic of the Academic Impact has been precisely the networks of scholarship and research that can underpin the achievements and the promises of multilateralism.

But when we determined that logic, many of us saw it as inherent to a gradual accommodative process, not one compelled by the urgencies the past few months have laid bare.

What we can be proud of is the scale of adaptation, innovation and reasoned experiment that our network displayed in addressing the many dimensions of our global crisis.

Let’s look at a few instances.

New Giza University (Egypt), whose Dr Lamiaa Mohsen we were privileged to welcome for our webinar, sent medical convoys to nearby communities, and sanitized houses with specialized equipment.

Students at Ahfad University for Women (Sudan) produced hand sanitizers after scientifically testing different combinations and formulas and then distributed them through local NGOs.

The University of Pretoria (South Africa) assessed nutritional needs of students from disadvantaged groups while offering support to policymakers on children’s nutrition and the pandemic’s impact on food security.

Across the Indian Ocean, Kristu Jayanti College (India) undertook a community social survey to assess the impact of the pandemic on disadvantaged communities to chart out a multidimensional strategy to address and improve their situation.

Western Sydney University (Australia) implemented a program of transitioning medical students into the hospital system as Assistants in Medicine, to meet the requirements of individual health services during the pandemic.

And at De Monftort University (United Kingdom) nursing graduates were fast-tracked to join the National Health Service to provide vital support during the pandemic. On related track, Rey Juan Carlos University (Spain) launched an initiative to offer virtual health support via videoconferencing or calling tools, for professionals and users working in nursing homes, to provide assistance on health issues, including those on COVID-19.

If these initiatives took advantage of the skills and readiness of students in the medical field, two other institutions co-opted those in engineering departments to bring their own expertise to bear.

Andrés Bello Catholic University (Venezuela) launched a project to produce personal protective equipment (PPE) for health professionals in three local public hospitals, with a 3D printer handled by Engineering students.

And the Balochistan University of Information Technology, Engineering and Management Sciences (Pakistan), through a research team of the Control Automation & Robotics Lab at the Faculty of Information and Technology, has developed a low-cost ventilator product called BUITEMS Vent-1 for treatment of COVID-19 patients.

Related is the venture by Lehigh University (United States) where a research team has produced a device to ensure, through the use of UV-C light, the sterilization and reuse of N95 masks when new ones are unavailable.

These are only some of the examples of which we hear every day, each of which attests to the logic of our mission. Many years ago, a distinguished physician spoke of two things—-science and opinion; “the former begets knowledge, the latter ignorance.”

Today we are proud of our members who, in reinforcing the former over the latter each day, give life not only to that aphorism of Hippocrates 2400 years ago, but to children, women and men today.

*This article originally appeared in the UN Academic Impact Weekly Newsletter

academicimpact@un.org

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Excerpt:

Ramu Damodaran is Chief, United Nations Academic Impact*

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Donald Trump addresses the UN's General Assembly. Credit: UN Photo/Cia Pak

By Joaquín Roy
MIAMI, Jul 10 2020 (IPS)

“As we were saying yesterday.” When, after an abnormal interruption of the school calendar, as happened recently with the extension of spring break (which does not coincide with “Easter”), I return to teach a class surprising my students with this phrase: “as we were saying yesterday. “

The students’ reaction, when asked about the origin of these words, is a general silence. I try to explain its background and take the opportunity to provide a review of the history of Spain (perfectly unknown) and Europe (somewhat better known).

Secondary is that they learn the biography of Fray Luis de León, the distinguished professor at the University of Salamanca, that they grasp some concepts of the Inquisition, something better known as part of the so-called Black Legend against Spain, very well established in American society, heir to the British.

In short, I reflected on my special circumstance of relationship with the generous readers and editors who have accepted me during more than half a century of producing columns for newspapers in Spain, the United States and Latin America. I considered it fair to clarify the reason for this hiatus of almost two years when I left silent the computer keyboard and freed editors from the heavy task of processing my texts.

Joaquín Roy

They were simply personal reasons, and an accumulation of academic work. It was not because of internal obstacles in the newspapers, to which I only have to thank for their patience for years and a certain disdain for discontinuing the offer. I hope you take it into account now that I intend to resume writing functions, with a new version of “as we said yesterday”

Why am I coming back now? Latent in several weeks as the pandemic eternalized and the institutional chaos of response was repeated, it has been installed in my perception of the country where I have lived since President Lyndon Johnson decided not to stand for re-election. I have felt the need to face the explanation of the very serious existential situation of that political entity, turned into a nation, in reality simply an idea, that we call the United States.

And the most concrete reason has been the installation of a person in (hopefully temporary) control of the course of the country. For the first time, in more than five decades of full residence in the United States, I feel the sense of danger of self-destruction of an admirable work, in every way. This fear is not exclusively due to the personality of the President.

The record of his conduct includes mistreatment of their subordinates, disdain for many of America's traditional allies (Germany, Italy, France), and ill-concealed admiration for a handful of authoritarian or decidedly dictatorial colleagues (Putin, Bolsonaro). He enjoys disregard of public health officials (Fauci, the most prominent), culminating in personal insults against his predecessor Obama, an action that is a fragrant violation of customary uses of American political liturgy

It simply reflects or takes advantage of the feelings of an imposing part of society that Richard Nixon (comparatively much less fearsome than Trump) called “the silent majority”. Now he has emerged from his burrow with impressive naturalness, spiced with a slogan to “make America great again”, as the motto embedded in the President’s baseball cap says.

The moment the United States now lives under Trump is much more serious than the Watergate experience. Among other comparisons, the honorable decision that Nixon made with his resignation, when detecting that the dismissal was imminent through impeachment, is not in the Trump script. Reinforced by the imperfect expulsion process carried out by the Democrats, in the Trump scenario there is only the overcoming of each and every one of the violations of political good taste and the breach of the most basic protocol laws.

The record of his conduct includes mistreatment of their subordinates, disdain for many of America’s traditional allies (Germany, Italy, France), and ill-concealed admiration for a handful of authoritarian or decidedly dictatorial colleagues (Putin, Bolsonaro). He enjoys disregard of public health officials (Fauci, the most prominent), culminating in personal insults against his predecessor Obama, an action that is a fragrant violation of customary uses of American political liturgy.

After his obscene appearance at the front of a Washington Episcopal parish, where traditionally the newly elected presidents come, brandishing a Bible, after having cleaned the grounds of peaceful demonstrators with tear gas and battering, his own Joint Chief of Staff was embarrassed to be forced to accompany him. A dozen senior military veterans (some recently in office charged and abruptly fired) have censured him, something unusual in military history.

Embarrassed, select Republican leaders comment privately (some already in public) on the disaster of the party founded by Lincoln, by actions that will only leave a trace of the fetid smell of failure. They accuse him of being incompetent, ignorant, inept, outdatedly stupid and now causing the collapse of pandemic treatment. Unusual phenomenon, a conservative minority yearns for Trump’s defeat in November.

His hatred for immigrants (legal or undocumented) contrasts with the motto embedded on the support of the Statue of Liberty. In the words of the poet Emma Lazarus: “Give me your tired, your poor, your crowds, moaning to breathe free.”

For all these reasons I have decided to return, with the generosity of the editors and the magnanimity of the readers.

 

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Excerpt:

Joaquin Roy is Professor Jean Monnet and Director of the European UnionCenter at the University of Miami

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Migrant workers in Dubai. Photo: AFP

By C R Abrar
Jul 9 2020 (IPS-Partners)

During the pandemic, forced return of migrants has become a major issue of concern for intergovernmental bodies and the global civil society engaged in migration issues. The United Nations Network on Migration (UNNM) has urged states “to suspend forced returns during the pandemic, in order to protect the health of migrants and communities, and uphold the human rights of all migrants, regardless of status”. UNNM has called for a halt to arbitrary expulsions and reiterated that their “protection needs must be individually assessed; and that the rule of law and due process must be observed”. It reminded the states that these obligations under international law “can never be put on hold and are vital to any successful approach to combatting Covid-19 for the benefit of all”.

In separate memos to the governments of six Gulf states, a coalition of civil society organisations and trade unions, including Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, urged those states to “refrain from arbitrary deportations of migrant workers… as a means to contain Covid-19”. Closer to home, five leading civil society organisations including Migrant Forum in Asia have noted that “the repatriation procedures have been undertaken hastily by countries of both origin and destination, without any proper redress mechanism… This is a gross violation of labour rights on a large scale”.

Expressing concern that some destination countries are exerting pressure on the origin countries to take back the latter’s nationals, the Bangladesh Civil Society for Migrants in a memo implored the UN Secretary General “to appeal to those destination countries (of the Gulf region) to refrain from pursuing such a policy at this critical juncture”.

There are legal, moral and ethical issues with the way the forced returns are being pursued by the Gulf states. It has also been noted that forced returns can intensify public health risks for everyone. With overstretched public health systems, almost all these countries have little capacity to protect the returnees and their communities through testing, self-isolation and institutional quarantine.

In all likelihood, despite the pleas and supplications, most countries of origin (CoO) of migrant workers including Bangladesh, Nepal, India, Sri Lanka and the Philippines will experience large scale return of their migrant workforce once the flights resume. Therefore, it has become imperative that concerned authorities of the CoO, including Bangladesh, develop strategies to competently negotiate return with the Countries of Destination (CoD). A collective initiative by the CoO, perhaps under the aegis of the Colombo Process, is likely to yield better outcomes than bilateral negotiations. The origin countries also need to frame the reintegration policies for forced migrants. Documenting the returnees is one of the first tasks in such a process.

The core element in any repatriation negotiation between the CoO and CoD should be upholding the rights and dignity of migrant workers. All those concerned with repatriation (labour, health, immigration authorities) must guarantee and verify that no worker is deported without receiving compensation, pending wages and other dues, testing and treatment for Covid-19, identity papers and other related documentation. If clearance of outstanding dues is not possible due to prevailing conditions, CoD should commit to ensuring that employers will settle all outstanding claims as soon as the situation permits. As the primary frontline stakeholder, missions of CoO have particular obligations to ensure compliance of labour and international standards of the concerned CoD.

While negotiating return, Bangladesh should insist that CoD declare amnesty to those who are in irregular status and allow applications for visa extensions for the workers who could not apply on time due to Covid-19 to facilitate their return to home countries. The cases of workers who were forced to be in undocumented status (by their Kafeels or other reasons) should be investigated and the concerned workers be provided due redress before they are repatriated.

Bangladesh should ensure that all migrant workers be tested for Covid-19 free of charge, regardless of visible symptoms prior to departure or embarkation (as has been negotiated by Sri Lanka). Only those workers should be permitted to return who test negative. The CoD should ensure that the migrant workers have access to quarantine facilities during the period in which test results are under process. Due care must be taken so that workers remain protected and are not exposed to possible infection or transmission in such holding areas.

The cases of detained migrants should be dealt on a case-by-case basis with due diligence by Bangladesh Missions and the Labour Department of the concerned CoD. Their irregular status should not be in the way of accessing testing and treatment of Covid-19 prior to their return.

The Bangladesh missions should establish a mechanism to register returning migrants. Among other things, it should record personal details of the worker, name and address of the employer, type of work, skill level and outstanding claims of wages and end of service or other benefits (if any). Ideally, if there are outstanding claims or unresolved labour disputes that the worker is involved in, the missions may secure a power of attorney from the worker so that those could be pursued by the missions in his/her absence in future.

While transporting the workers, Bangladesh should insist that either the concerned employer or the government should be made to bear the costs of air travel. In no instance should forced deportees be made liable to pay for their return flight. Both parties are to ensure strict compliance of the World Health Organisation’s guidelines pertaining to air travel including seating allocation, handling of cases suspected during flight, reduction of exposure and limiting transmission, availability and use of personal protective equipment and air recirculation system.

Upon arrival in Bangladesh, all returning migrant workers should be obliged to undergo Covid-19 tests, as tests conducted prior to their departures may provide false results (a practice that the Philippines has introduced). Appropriate messages targeting the returnees and members of their families should be developed so that they adhere to the mandatory 14 day home quarantine. Tracing and tracking mechanisms should be in place so that the government can monitor if the returnees adhere to home quarantine rules. Suitable institutional quarantine facilities should be established for those who show symptoms of infection when they arrive. Those placed in such facilities should be provided with food and water, appropriate accommodation including sleeping arrangements and clothing, protection for baggage and other possessions, and suitable medical treatment. They should be given the opportunity to contact their families and be treated with respect, maintaining their dignity, human rights and fundamental freedoms and minimising any discomfort or distress.

Effective reintegration policy necessitates that the government develop a comprehensive policy that addresses stigmatisation of returnees as carriers of virus through disseminating appropriate social messages. It should also encompass developing a database of returnee workers with information on their personal profile, skills and language competence, so that those could be linked with potential employers both at home and abroad; creating opportunities for re-skilling of migrants commensurate with potential demands, both within the country and outside; encouraging banks and other financial institutions to extend loans to returnee migrants at low interest and providing them with financial literacy and basic book-keeping, and help establish mechanisms to market their products.

The reintegration policy should also have provisions for social protection of migrant workers and members of their families who are severely affected by the pandemic, drawing upon contributions of the government, insurance programmes and Wage Earners’ Welfare Fund. The special needs of women returnee migrants should also receive due consideration. Needless to say, the prime stakeholder, the migrants, and the civil society should be engaged from the very start of the process of charting out a reintegration policy.

Despite a lot of good intentions and a plethora of policies, laws and institutions, migrant workers of Bangladesh have largely remained unprotected and underserved. Covid-19 has provided an opportunity to rectify the situation. Planning a comprehensive return and reintegration strategy for migrant workers can be the beginning of such redemption.

C R Abrar is an academic. He is the Coordinator of Refugee and Migratory Movements Research Unit (RMMRU). He acknowledges the insights gained from “Between Peril and Pandemic: MFA Policy Document 3” and deliberations of the RMMRU eSymposium “Migrant Workers of South Asia: Experiences of Return, Repatriation and Deportation” on June 24.

This story was originally published by The Daily Star, Bangladesh

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By PRESS RELEASE
VIENNA, Jul 9 2020 (IPS-Partners)

Two-day online expert meeting to discuss recent developments and policy gaps in combating trafficking in human beings for the removal of organs concluded yesterday evening. The event was co-organized by the Office of the OSCE Special Representative for Combating Trafficking in Human Beings (OSR/CTHB), the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) and co-sponsored by the World Health Organization (WHO).

Despite being mentioned explicitly in the internationally recognized definition of trafficking in human beings, trafficking in human beings for the removal of organs remains one of the least understood and addressed forms of human trafficking globally. The event aimed to share experiences addressing this challenge and examine possible ways to enhance the OSCE region’s response. The meeting, gathering legal, criminal justice, medical and victim-protection experts from over 20 OSCE participating States, Partners for Co-operation and international organizations, explored the scope of trafficking in human beings for the removal of organs in the OSCE region. They also discussed recent developments in international and national legal frameworks, and current needs for further awareness-raising, policy, and capacity building efforts.

“One of the things I am struck by is how incredibly challenging it is to respond to trafficking in human beings. And yet I am also optimistic because we have been jointly developing some of the tools we need like on technology and financial investigations,” OSCE Special Representative and Co-ordinator for Combating Trafficking in Human Beings Valiant Richey said.

Exploitation without borders

While the number of identified victims of this form of trafficking remains limited, the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) indicates that this highly lucrative form of human trafficking is perpetrated by organized criminal networks able to operate over prolonged periods with high numbers of victims before being caught. Many participants pointed out the inadequacy of the legal instruments currently in use, and the crucial necessity to enhance cooperation between countries to make perpetrators accountable.

Participants stressed that attention needs to be devoted to situations with patients traveling abroad to get a transplant or coming from abroad with a donor. The crime often has a transboundary element, that makes it much harder for investigators and prosecutors to trace all the components of the crime and exercise jurisdiction over cases often encompassing numerous countries (victim from one country, the broker from another, recruiting in a third, for the surgery taking place in a fourth, possibly with a recipient for yet another country, for example). Without international judicial cooperation, these crimes -even when detected- will hardly be successfully prosecuted.

The illegal organ trade is a crime involving global financial transactions at the expense of the most vulnerable. The role of financial investigations in detecting and countering flows of money alimenting and paying for these illegal services is vital, noted by the participants.

Trafficking in human beings for the removal of organs is reportedly an age-specific and gendered crime, affecting adult males the most. The sale of cells and tissues, including ova, was discussed. During the meeting, a specific case of successful investigation and prosecution by Greeks authorities, in which perpetrators brought to justice, included doctors and lawyers, was presented as a case study.

Several other insightful elements emerged during the meeting. A crucial point in discussions was the critical role that can be played by the medical personnel, both in preventing these crimes from happening but also in reporting dubious situations, including when the origins/donor of the organ to be transplanted are not clear. Some participants suggested that assigning criminal liability to brokers and medical personnel involved could be an effective measure to deter some of these practices and put some pressure on traffickers, who now operate mostly undetected.

Participants raised difficulties in establishing contact with victims of this form of trafficking. They encouraged to think of ways to build CTHB practitioners’ capacity and medical personnel to improve the identification of such victims. Better identification could also lead to enhanced assistance to survivors, which today is mostly lacking. And especially for such an unknown and unaddressed form of trafficking, engaging with and listening to survivors is crucial to understand the mechanism governing it.

The OSCE Special Representative and Coordinator on Combating Trafficking in Human Beings closed the discussions by saying that “this two-day meeting served as an excellent basis upon which the OSCE will build future activities on the issue. We shed some light on a largely unaddressed issue, and we look forward to working with the wide range of our partners on a list of concrete recommendations“.

What is the OSCE?

With 57 participating States in North America, Europe, and Asia, the OSCE – the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe – is the world’s largest regional security organization. The OSCE works for stability, peace, and democracy for more than a billion people, through political dialogue about shared values and practical work that aims to make a lasting difference.

The OSCE is a forum for political dialogue on a wide range of security issues and a platform for joint action to improve individual’s and communities’ lives. The organization uses a comprehensive approach to security that encompasses the politico-military, economic and environmental, and human dimensions. Through this approach, and with its inclusive membership, the OSCE helps bridge differences and build trust between states by co-operating on conflict prevention, crisis management, and post-conflict rehabilitation.

With its Institutions, expert units, and network of field operations, the OSCE addresses issues that impact our collective security, including arms control, terrorism, good governance, energy security, human trafficking, democratization, and media freedom and national minorities.

The post Human trafficking for ORGANS REMOVAL: an unseen form of exploitation appeared first on Inter Press Service.

By Mariya Brussevich, Era Dabla-Norris, and Salma Khalid
Jul 9 2020 (IPS)

The COVID-19 pandemic is devastating labor markets across the world. Tens of millions of workers lost their jobs, millions more out of the labor force altogether, and many occupations face an uncertain future. Social distancing measures threaten jobs requiring physical presence at the workplace or face-to-face interactions. Those unable to work remotely, unless deemed essential, face a significantly higher risk of reductions in hours or pay, temporary furloughs, or permanent layoffs. What types of jobs and workers are most at risk? Not surprisingly, the costs have fallen most heavily on those who are least able to bear them: the poor and the young in the lowest-paid jobs.

In a new paper, we investigate the feasibility to work from home in a large sample of advanced and emerging market economies. We estimate that nearly 100 million workers in 35 advanced and emerging countries (out of 189 IMF members) could be at high risk because they are unable to do their jobs remotely. This is equivalent to 15 percent of their workforce, on average. But there are important differences across countries and workers.

The nature of jobs in each country

Most studies measuring the feasibility of working from home follow job definitions used in the United States. But the same occupations in other countries may differ in the face-to-face interactions required, the technology intensity of the production process, or even access to digital infrastructure. To reflect that, the work-from-home feasibility index that we built uses the tasks actually performed within each country, according to surveys compiled by the OECD for 35 countries.

We found significant differences across countries even for the same occupations. It is much easier to telework in Norway and Singapore than in Turkey, Chile, Mexico, Ecuador, and Peru, simply because more than half the households in most emerging and developing countries don’t even have a computer at home.

Who is most vulnerable?

Overall, workers in food and accommodation, and wholesale and retail trade, are the hardest hit for having the least “teleworkable” jobs at all. That means more than 20 million people in our sample who work in these sectors are at the highest risk of losing their jobs. Yet some are more vulnerable than others:

• Young workers and those without university education are significantly less likely to work remotely. This higher risk is consistent with the age profiles of workers in the sectors hardest hit by lockdowns and social distancing policies. Worryingly, this suggests that the crisis could amplify intergenerational inequality.
• Women could be particularly hit hard, threatening to undo some of the gains in gender equality made in recent decades. This is because women are disproportionately concentrated in the hardest-hit sectors like food service and accommodation. In addition, women carry a heavier burden of child care and domestic chores, while market provision of these services has been disrupted.
• Part-time workers and employees of small and medium-sized firms face greater risk of job loss. Workers in part-time work are often the first to be let go when economic conditions deteriorate, and the last to be hired when conditions improve. They are also less likely to have access to health care and the formal insurance channels that can help them weather the crisis. In developing economies, in particular, part-time workers and those in informal work face a dramatically higher risk of falling into poverty.

The impact on low-income and precariously-employed workers could be particularly severe, amplifying long-standing inequities in societies. Our finding—that workers at the bottom of the earnings distribution are least able to work remotely—is corroborated by recent unemployment data from the United States and other countries. The COVID-19 crisis will exacerbate income inequality.

To compound the effect, workers at the bottom of the income distribution are already disproportionately concentrated in the hardest-hit sectors like food and accommodation services, which are among those sectors least amenable to teleworking. Low-income workers are also more likely to live hand-to-mouth and have little financial buffers like savings and access to credit.

How to protect the most vulnerable?

The pandemic is likely to change how work is done in many sectors. Consumers may rely more on e-commerce, to the detriment of retail jobs; and may order more takeout, reducing the labor market for restaurant workers.

What can governments do? They can focus on assisting the affected workers and their families by broadening social insurance and safety nets to cushion against income and employment loss. Wage subsidies and public-works programs can help them regain their livelihoods during the recovery.

To reduce inequality and give people better prospects, governments need to strengthen education and training to better prepare workers for the jobs of the future. Lifelong learning also means bolstering access to schooling and skills training to help workers displaced by economic shocks like COVID-19.

This crisis has clearly shown that being able to get online was a crucial determinant to people’s ability to continue engaging in the workplace. Investing in digital infrastructure and closing the digital divide will allow disadvantaged groups to participate meaningfully in the future economy.

 

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A dated photo of indigenous women in Chiquimula in Guatemala making rope out of maguey (Agave americana) fibre. Experts say there is concern about whether there will be the protection and respect of indigenous peoples’ right to land and national resources as there will be huge interest in those resources during the post-COVID-19 recovery. Credit: Danilo Valladares/IPS

By Samira Sadeque
UNITED NATIONS, Jul 9 2020 (IPS)

When governments and states begin their recovery journey from the economic downturn caused by the coronavirus pandemic, there might be a heightened threat to indigenous peoples, their land and resources. 

“The fear is [that] the economic recovery is based on access to land and natural resources,” Lola García-Alix, senior advisor on Global Governance at the International Work Group for Indigenous Affairs (IWGIA), told IPS.

“Indigenous people also live in areas with the most biological diversity. So of course they are the last frontier where the many governments meet in a situation of economic recovery. It’s an economic asset for them to have access there,” she said.

García-Alix moderated a panel on Jul. 7 about the impact of COVID-19 on indigenous communities around the world and key factors that states must keep in mind during the recovery process. 

The panel, “Delivering Results For Not Leaving Indigenous Peoples Behind: COVID-19 Responses and Beyond” was organised as part of the United Nations’ High Level Political Forum (HLPF). 

“One of the main threats that indigenous people are facing today is land grabbing,” García-Alix added. “So, it’s not so much the issue of financial support but the issue of where will be the protection and respect of indigenous peoples’ right to land and national resources in a context where there will be huge interest in those resources.” 

She was responding to concerns posed by other indigenous leaders about different factors affecting the impact of COVID-19 on their communities. 

At the Jul. 7 talk, Antonia Urrejola, vice president of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights and the rapporteur on the rights of indigenous peoples, warned of “external actors” coming into territories of indigenous peoples that are exacerbating the pandemic’s impacts. 

“External actors are coming into these territories now more than ever so there’s more contagion and this is why they’re putting at risk not only the individual people but as a collective group as well,” she said. 

These “actors” include members of security forces, drug traffickers as well as miners. García-Alix said that there’s been an increase in illegal logging, entering of different actors, as well as an increase in killing of indigenous community members under the pandemic. 

“It’s a hunger to access their resources in their lands. And this hunger is in the part of states’ as well as other actors – from cartels to illegal logging, or companies,” she told IPS. “Many of these illegal actors don’t stop because there’s quarantine. It’s even better because there’s no police.”

Urrejola added other concerns that are currently exacerbated because of the pandemic, such as lack of access to health services.

“Hospitals are very far away in general from indigenous areas, and sometimes [the people] have to travel even for a day, and they [still] cannot receive medical treatment,” she said. “We know that they don’t have basic needs, many times they can’t even get tested.” 

A dated photo of an ethnic matriarch in India’s biodiversity-rich Sikkim State in the Himalayan foothills. She is a repository of traditional knowledge on plants both for food and medicinal properties. Experts say that indigenous women are being denied their fundamental right to access information because the information is not being disseminated in indigenous languages. This is especially crucial as indigenous women hold a key role as caretakers in many of their communities. Credit: Manipadma Jena/IPS

García-Alix pointed out how language and accessibility can play a role in this lack of services for the indigenous community. 

“In most cases, the problem is that indigenous people haven’t had the information in their own language and have not had the access to the medical services,” she said. 

Kamla Thapa, executive director of National Indigenous Women’s Federation in Nepal, also brought up this issue during a panel talk about indigenous women in COVID-19 responses and impacts on Jul. 8. 

“Indigenous women are not in decision-making positions, and they are ignored,” she said, adding that many of these women are being denied their fundamental right to access information because the information is not being disseminated in indigenous languages. This is especially crucial as indigenous women hold a key role as caretakers in many of their communities. 

Thapa expressed hope going forward, citing the example of a group of indigenous women in India who developed a herbal sanitiser, as well as the Santal community from India and Nepal who are making sure outsiders aren’t allowed into the community so as to protect members from contracting COVID-19.

“We indigenous women are the knowledge holders, we have hope; we are knowledgeable, and changemakers,” she said. “We have the power to transform the pandemic into an opportunity, to derive a new normal by applying our knowledge, our skills.”

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Indian farmers are no longer able to get their produce easily to market since the coronavirus outbreak. Experts say that leveraging technology to match supply and demand of resources and food is key to overcoming the issues of starvation and food supply interruptions. Credit: Neeta Lal/IPS

By Neeta Lal
NEW DELHI, Jul 9 2020 (IPS)

Digital technologies in agriculture are helping address the twin problems of food security and supply chain disruptions triggered by COVID-19 in India, while augmenting the income of smallholder farmers.

Leveraging technology to match supply and demand of resources and food is key to overcoming the issues of starvation and food supply interruptions, Anshul Sushil, CEO and co-founder at Wizikey, an online platform linking over 500 agriculture-related business, tells IPS.

“Agritech is finally getting its fair share of attention and the innovation and research that is happening in India right now will change the way we all get food from farm to fork. The technology transformation in the industry will ensure direct supply and smoother distribution,” Sushil says.

According to the entrepreneur, the growth of homegrown agritech start-ups such as Ninjacart, India’s largest tech-driven supply chain platform, as well as Dehaat and Jumbotail, which aim to bolster the agritech ecosystem by maximising productivity, increasing supply chain efficiency and improving market linkages, are helping tackle the challenges of agriculture and food production successfully.

A number of urban agritech startups have leveraged the model of facilitating direct transactions between communities and farmers, enabling the latter to tap into demand in cities.

Digital Green, an organisation that trains Indian farmers in sustainable practices is developing a voice-enabled WhatsApp chatbot. The technology will provide seamless market connections, enabling smallholder farmers to improve their incomes amid economic disruptions caused by COVID-19.

Farmers can use the chatbot to share the type, quantity, and price of crops they wish to sell using a chatbot accessed via WhatsApp. Buyers, including small purchasers from the local community looking for nutritious foods, large industrial and retail buyers, use the same chatbot interface to discover available produce, using farmer-uploaded photos to assess quality. The buyers can directly contact farmers via WhatsApp to complete the transaction.

“In the best of times Indian farmers have limited selling options — typically to local traders or regional markets — which present low prices and high transaction costs (time and money) for relatively small volumes.

“The transportation restrictions and market closures due to COVID-19 further restricted their options, with major implications for livelihoods, India’s food supply and the rural economy,” explains Rikin Gandhi, CEO of Digital Green.  

Using technology to match supply and demand of agricultural resources and food will be critical to absorb the influx of people amid tenuous conditions in which farmers who already operate on thin margins are unable to sell their crops and face uncertainty about the upcoming season, adds the expert. 

Amidst the global pandemic’s devastating impact on lives and livelihoods, India’s farming community remains one of the most vulnerable. 

• As per the International Labor Organisation’s statistics, 43.9 percent of India’s total workforce worked in agriculture in 2018.
  
• Nearly 700 million Indians rely directly or indirectly on an agriculture-derived livelihood. Agriculture and allied sectors contribute 16.5 percent to the country’s $2.6 trillion GDP, according to the Indian government’s Economic Survey 2019-20.
  

The United Nations World Food Programme estimates that COVID-19 will lead to a surge in the number of people facing acute food insecurity, leading to an upswing in children’s malnutrition cases while pushing back the achievement of Sustainable Development Goals. 

The 2020 Global Nutrition Report, the world’s leading independent assessment, stresses the need for more equitable, resilient and sustainable food and health systems to ensure food security for all. 

India’s 1.4 billion people present a daunting challenge for the country’s COVID-19 response. The country imposed one of the world’s strictest lockdowns, confining its population at home from Mar. 25 to May 18.

Expectedly, the lockdown has had ramifications on people’s health. A survey of 12 Indian states by leading civil society organisations titled “COVID-19 induced Lockdown – How is the Hinterland Coping?” revealed that over 50 percent of respondents have reduced the number of times they are eating each day and 68 percent have whittled down the items in meals. 

A World Bank analysis predicts that 12 million Indians will plunge into extreme poverty (living on less than $1.90/day) in 2020 as a result of COVID-19. Credit: Neeta Lal/IPS

Worse, rampant hunger is jeopardising the health of millions. According to the Global Hunger Index, the pandemic will only exacerbate the situation with a greater likelihood of people dying from hunger than the coronavirus in the wake of the lockdown. This will only add to India’s burden of malnutrition. 

According to the National Family Health Survey 2015- 2016, 38.4 percent of children under five are stunted (low height for age), 21 percent are wasted (low weight for height) and 35.8 percent are underweight (low weight for age). 

Even more disconcerting is the prediction of a rise in poverty.

A World Bank analysis predicts that 12 million Indians will plunge into extreme poverty (living on less than $1.90/day) in 2020 as a result of COVID-19. This is in addition to about 415 million people who already exist below the poverty line in rural India. This demographic refers to people earning less than the country’s per-capita monthly income of approximately $100.

India maintains nearly 60 million tons of food grain in its granaries, according to the Food Corporation of India. The Food Sustainability Index created by the Barilla Centre for Food and Nutrition and the Economist Intelligence Unit, ranks India among other middle income countries with an above-average score of 65.5 out of 100 in sustainable agriculture, but disruption of traditional supply chains has impacted  farmers badly. 

CSC Sekhar, Professor of Economics, Institute of Economic Growth, University of Delhi, writes in his column for The Economic Times that the incomes of farmers of perishable crops and poultry products are going to be much lower due to crop losses, storage problems and a halt of transportation networks. 

The expert advocates a judicious mix of policies, combining direct payments with free food provision, in addition to providing employment under the flagship MGNREGA job employment scheme [Mahatma Gandhi Employment Guarantee Act 2005, an Indian labour law and social security measure that guarantees the right to work], to ensure economic and physical access to food for vulnerable sections.

As per the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the U.N., the four pillars of food security are availability, access, stability and utilisation. These indicate the physical availability of food; economic access to food; stability of the availability and access; and absorptive capacity (health status).

But availability and access thus become critical in the present context, writes Sekhar.

“The public and the private sector buyers are looking for ways to reliably access products and struggling to find reliable, aggregated supply. These changes have highlighted the need for a new digital marketplace that enables lower transaction costs for buyers and sellers, and greater value capture for smallholder farmers,” says Gandhi.  

Apart from such innovations, necessitating public-private partnerships, the country’s food safety net also needs to be expanded, an officer in the Ministry of Agriculture and Farmers’ Welfare, who didn’t want to be quoted, tells IPS.

India’s social safety net is extensive and an elaborate array of programmes exist to assist the poor, including the world’s largest food-based social programme; the Public Distribution System, which covers 800 million people. However, all these programmes face bottlenecks because of the lockdown. 

In an article “Food security for children amidst Covid19: A cause for concern”, Shoba Suri, senior fellow at the Observer Research Foundation, a New Delhi-based think tank, states the lockdown has led to children being deprived of nutrition support, adding to the burden of families not able to meet ends due to loss of wages and looming poverty.  

Particularly vulnerable are slum dwellers and migrants returning to their villages  who often miss out on food support from government schemes, says Asha Devi, a volunteer with a Delhi-based NGO. 

“Hundreds of thousands of factory workers and wage earners who have lost their jobs continue to face uncertainty about livelihood and food security for their families. Various marginal groups such as HIV/AIDS patients and sex workers complain to us of rising hunger due to loss of income. We need to reach out to them urgently,” Devi tells IPS. 

 

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By Jomo Kwame Sundaram and Michael Lim Mah Hui
KUALA LUMPUR and PENANG, Jul 9 2020 (IPS)

The 1971 Bretton Woods (BW) system collapse opened the way for financial globalization and transnational financialization. Before the 1980s, most economies had similar shares of trade and financial openness, but cross-border financial transactions have been increasingly unrelated to trade since then.

Although Covid-19 recessions have rather different causes and manifestations from the financially driven crises of recent decades, financialization continues to constrain, shape and thus stunt government responses with deep short-, medium- and long-term consequences.

Jomo Kwame Sundaram

It is thus necessary to revisit and contain the virus of financialization wreaking long-term havoc in developing, especially emerging market economies. No one is financing work on a vaccine, while all too many with influence seek to infect us all as the virus is touted as the miracle cure to contemporary society’s deep malaise, rather than exposed for the threats it actually poses.

Financialization
Global financialization has spread, deepened and morphed with a changing cast of banks, institutional investors, asset managers, investment funds and other shadow banks. Transborder financialization has thus been transforming national finance and economies.

The changing preferences of financial market investors have been reshaping the uneven spread of market finance across assets, borders, currencies and regulatory regimes. To preserve and enhance their value, new financial asset classes and relationships have been created.

Within borders, banks and shadow banks are lending to households, companies and one another, while national frontiers do not matter for securities and derivative markets, often financed via wholesale money markets.

Over the last four decades, the scope, size and concentration of finance have grown and changed as mainly national regulatory authorities try to keep up with recent financial innovations and their typically transnational consequences.

Managing discontents
Financialization has involved reorganizing finance, the economy, and even aspects of society, to enable investors to get more from financial market investments, effectively undermining sustainable growth, full employment and fairer wealth distribution. The following measures should help slow financialization and limit some of its adverse effects:

Michael Lim Mah Hui

Strengthen international financial regulation
While financialization has become transnational, financial regulation remains largely national, albeit with some transborder effects of the most powerful, e.g., US tax rules and Fed requirements. Transnational finance has often successfully taken advantage of loopholes and ‘arbitrage’ to great profit.

Multilateral cooperation to strengthen effective and equitable regulation will be difficult to secure as voting power in the only multilateral institution, the IMF, remains heavily biased against developing countries.

Strengthen national capital account management
Transnational financialization has made developing countries more vulnerable to transnational finance and its rent-gouging practices, while also causing greater instability, and limiting policy space for development.

Although the IMF’s Article 6 guarantees the national right to capital account management, all too many national authorities in developing countries, especially emerging markets, have been deterred from exercising their rights effectively.

Improve national regulation of finance
Improving effective, equitable and progressive national regulation of finance, particularly market-based finance, remains challenging, especially in emerging market economies where typically divergent, if not contradictory, banking and capital market interests seek to influence reforms differently in their own specific interests.

Strengthen bank regulation
There were few banking crises from the 1930s to the 1970s after banking was strictly regulated following the 1929 Crash. With financial deregulation from the 1980s, major financial and currency crises have become more frequent. More effective regulation and supervision are urgently needed, not only of banks, but also of ‘shadow banks’, that account for a large and growing share of transnational finance.

Make finance accountable
Instead of improving regulations to achieve these objectives, the growth and greater influence of finance have led to regulatory capture, with reforms enabling, not hindering financialization, including its adverse consequences. Political financing reforms are also urgently needed to limit the influence of finance in politics.

Promote collective, not asset-based welfare
Financialization has been enabled by the reduced role of government. Nationalizing or renationalizing pension funds and improved government ‘social provisioning’ of health, education and infrastructure would reduce the power and influence of institutional investors and asset managers.

Ensure finance serves the real economy
The original and primary role of finance – to provide credit to accelerate productive investments and to finance trade – has been increasingly eclipsed by financial institutions, including banks, engaging in securities and derivatives trading and other types of financial speculation.

Such trading and speculative activities must be subjected to much higher and more appropriate regulatory and capital requirements, with commercial or retail banking insulated from investment or merchant banking activities, e.g., insulating Main Street from Wall Street, or High Street from the City of London, instead of the recent trend towards ‘universal’ banking.

Promote patient banking, not short-termist profiteering
National financial authorities should introduce appropriate incentives and disincentives to encourage banks to finance productive investments and trading activities, and deter them from pursuing higher short-term profits, especially from daily changes in securities and derivatives prices.

This can be achieved with appropriate regulations and deterrent taxes on securities and derivatives financing transactions. An alternative framework for banking and finance should promote long-term investment over short-term speculation, e.g., by introducing an incremental capital gains tax where the rate is higher the shorter the holding period.

Ensure equitable financial inclusion
While financial exclusion has deprived many of the needy of affordable credit, new modes of financial inclusion which truly enhance their welfare must be enabled and promoted.

Ostensible financial inclusion could extend exploitative and abusive financial services to those previously excluded. In some emerging market economies, for example, levels of personal and household debt have risen rapidly, largely due to inclusive finance initiatives.

New financial technologies
Financial houses are profitably using new digital technologies to capture higher rents. While technological innovations can advance financial inclusion and other progressive development and welfare goals, thus far, they have largely served financial rent-gouging and other such exploitive and regressive purposes.

For example, while big data has been used to track, anticipate and stop the spread of infectious diseases, it has also been more commonly abused for commercial and political purposes.

National regulators must be vigilant that ostensibly philanthropic foundations and businesses are actively promoting ‘fintech’ in developing countries without sufficient transparency, let alone consideration of its mixed purposes, implications and potential.

Minimize tax avoidance
Besides curtailing and penalizing tax avoidance practices at the national level, tax accountants, lawyers and others who greatly enable and facilitate tax evasion and related abuses should be much more effectively deterred.

Strengthen multilateral cooperation to equitably enhance national fiscal capacities
Governments must cooperate better multilaterally to more effectively and equitably tax transnational corporations and high net worth individuals. Such cooperation should effectively check illicit financial flows with strict regulations to deter private banking, banking secrecy, tax havens and other international facilitation of tax evasion.

Existing initiatives need to be far more inclusive of, sensitive to and supportive of developing country governments. OECD led initiatives previously excluded developing countries, but their recent inclusion, while an advance, remains biased against them.

Related Articles

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• Developing Economies’ Subordinate Financialization
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• Driving Financialization
• Transforming Society, Financialization Destroys Social Solidarity
• Finance’s New Avatar

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The post In India, Climate Change is Increasing Refugees & Human Trafficking appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Excerpt:

Soumik Dutta is a freelance investigative journalist based in Kolkata and Bangalore, India, covering energy transition, environmental or green corruption, human interest, land acquisition-related conflicts and human rights violation issues.

The post In India, Climate Change is Increasing Refugees & Human Trafficking appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Credit: Jeffrey Moyo/IPS.

By Ifeanyi Nsofor
ABUJA, Jul 8 2020 (IPS)

Recently, Barcelona’s Liceu opera opened its 2020-2021 season by serenading a full house of plants with classical music. The plants will then be given to over 2,200 health workers who serve at the frontlines to battle the pandemic. The performance was both an appreciation for the workers and it also celebrated the return to normalcy following the devastations caused by COVID-19.

It is commendable that health workers are being celebrated this way. However, from the beginning of this pandemic, health workers have been victims. For instance, Li Wenliang, who first raised an alarm about a serious infectious disease in Wuhan, China was hounded by Chinese authorities for inciting fear. This caused a delay in China accepting and reporting the occurrence of a new deadly disease.

In the heat of the pandemic, NHS workers wore bin bags as protection. Shockingly, personal protective equipment were fashioned out of clinical waste bags, plastic aprons and borrowed skiing goggles

Consequently, there are currently more than 9 million cases of COVID-19, above 5 million recoveries and almost 500,000 deaths globally. Unfortunately, Li Wenliang caught the virus and died from COVID-19.

All over the world, health workers continue to suffer a great deal during this pandemic. This is shocking because health workers save lives. In the U.S., more than 400 health workers have died from COVID-19, according to the Centres for Disease Control.

In the United Kingdom, more than 200 health workers have died from COVID-19. Sixty percent of the U.K. deaths are among Black, Asian, and minority ethnic groups. In Nigeria, over 800 health workers have been infected with COVID-19 and 10 doctors have died. This led to Nigerian doctors embarking on a national strike recently.  These deaths are attributed to lack of Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) for health workers.

As cities begin to reopen globally, the world must reflect on this pandemic and how it has claimed the lives of hundreds of thousands of people, including health workers.

 

These three lessons, which ensure safety of health workers should guide preparedness for the next infectious disease outbreak.

 

First, Infection, prevention and control protocols must be put in place in all health facilities and should be strictly adhered to. Infection, prevention and control measures include provision of clean running water, availability of soaps in health facilities and provision of personal protective equipment for health workers.

As common as these seem, they are not available in most health facilities in both low- and middle-income countries and high-income countries. A World Health Organization report on water, sanitation and hygiene from 54 low- and middle-income countries, shows that 38% lack access to even basic levels of water, 19% lack sanitation and 35% do not have water and soap for handwashing.

High-income countries have not done well with regards to infection, prevention and control during this pandemic. Reports from the United Kingdom revealed that in the heat of the pandemic, NHS workers wore bin bags as protection. Shockingly, personal protective equipment were fashioned out of clinical waste bags, plastic aprons and borrowed skiing goggles.

 

Second, improve salaries and conditions of service for health workers everywhere, especially in developing countries. These are ways to show health workers that they are appreciated. Poor salaries and poor conditions of service are major reasons for emigration of health workers from low to high income countries.

A 2017 study on emigration of Nigerian doctors conducted by Nigeria Health Watch and NOI Polls explored reasons for emigration. More than 700 medical doctors were interviewed. The result revealed that improved remuneration (18%), upgrade of all hospital facilities and equipment (16%), increased healthcare funding (13%), and improved working conditions for health workers as major reasons for reducing emigration of doctors.

Furthermore, it is mind-boggling that medical doctors in Nigeria are paid a monthly hazard allowance of less than $13. If this poor remuneration continues, emigration would persist and will adversely affect response to pandemics in poor countries.

 

Third, build regional coalitions for epidemic preparedness because epidemics will always happen. One lesson from COVID-19 is that epidemics do not respect borders and therefore, no country is safe as far as one country is at risk of epidemics. Going forward, countries should no longer operate in silos.

The African continent is leading in this regard through the Africa Medical Supplies Platform. This is an African Union initiative which enables African governments to join forces in bulk buying and transportation of COVID-19 commodities.

This would help countries procure and supply infection, prevention and control commodities needed by health workers, such as personal protective equipment and sanitizers. Furthermore, this should be taken to scale to cover other healthcare needs necessary to make health facilities safer for health workers in the post-COVID-19 period.

Pulling forces together is an important way to ensure sustainable funding for epidemic preparedness and protect health workers.

It is gratifying that all the plants serenaded with classical music by the Barcelona Opera will be donated to 2,292 health workers at the Hospital Clínic of Barcelona.

When health workers are appreciated, properly salaried and protected, the world would be healthier and safer.

 

Dr. Ifeanyi M. Nsofor, is a medical doctor, a graduate of the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine, the CEO of EpiAFRIC and Director of Policy and Advocacy at Nigeria Health Watch. He is a Senior Atlantic Fellow for Health Equity at George Washington University, a Senior New Voices Fellow at the Aspen Institute and a 2006 International Ford Fellow. 

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By Saima W. Hossain
DHAKA, Bangladesh, Jul 8 2020 (IPS)

The issue of women’s rights, feminism and gender is complex and ongoing in most countries including Bangladesh. When I was asked to write about impact of COVID-19 on women and girls, I found myself drawn towards writing about women’s situation in general as that automatically impacts COVID-19 response as well. Since I am a woman who has been a part of many different cultures, yet a Bangali at heart, I am not only a survivor within its ranks but also responsible for being a part of the solution to the problems we face.

Saima W. Hossain

At the heart of it is the question: Are women in Bangladesh truly equal in all social, economic, cultural and legal practices in our country, as stated in our Constitution, as our Founding Father intended for us to be?

A decade and a half ago, findings from my graduate thesis (unpublished) exploring psychological well-being of women in Bangladesh showed that interestingly women reported valuing education above employment, and those who were employed did not exercise any control over their income. Also, they perceived the ‘purdah’ as a tool that enabled them to access greater social freedom, for which they were still required to garner permission.

In his chronicles as a young adult, Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, the Founding Father of Bangladesh, wrote about the need for equal rights for men and women. He stayed true to his vision by giving them equal voice in the political process of the country as an equal citizen. As a President he went to tremendous lengths to rehabilitate and support the survivors of the genocide committed by the Pakistani military on Bengali civilians in 1971.

Since independence, much progress has been made to ensure that women from childhood have every opportunity to participate in educational and economic opportunities in the country. We not only have a woman as the Head of Government, but women holding positions in the justice system, as Speaker of the House of Parliament, as ministers, in academia, armed forces, and the corporate sector, among others. New laws addressing age of marriage, gender violence, domestic abuse and others have also been adopted.

Cornerstones of the transition of the role of women in Bangladesh are the growth in the RMG (ready-made garments) sector, and the opportunities created by small cottage industries. In the 1980’s, Bangladeshi society experienced a major shift due to the demand by the growing RMG sector for large number of cheap labor who would work under practically any circumstances.

Despite the many questionable labor practices and human rights issues, for the young women living in abject poverty and treated as a burden on their families, it was an opportunity for financial freedom, and to be valued within their families. Up until that time, the only other income opportunity for women with minimal education was domestic work. The same time that women began to be employed in the RMG sector, women were simultaneously also making incremental earnings through small cottage industries. Looking at these notable and impactful changes, it is undeniable that the most significant reason behind Bangladesh’s dramatic economic development is the role and function women have played, be it as a leader or as a daily wage earner.
Nevertheless, the question remains, has economic participation, opportunities for education, and employment truly impacted how women are treated in society on a daily basis?

Women have always struggled and continue to struggle to find balance between what is expected of them by their families and society, and what they wish to do for themselves. For many, the choice may appear easy to make and they happily do what is expected and needed, but for many it can lead to a lifetime of emotional turmoil. The choice women face between motherhood and a successful career cannot simply be addressed by changing laws without also addressing social expectations and attitudinal pressures to be the primary carer of children and dependents.

The societal imbalance that exists between men, women, and those we identify as third gender in Bangladesh, are in almost every country but manifests themselves differently. Thus, a one- size-fits-all solution does not work because of this very reason. The Covid 19 pandemic we are all trying to survive, demonstrates that no issue or solution is as simple as it appears.

Ensuring women are protected during this global crisis needs a solution which is based significantly on an understanding of the culture where the woman belongs; and importantly that the biased ocial and economic structure ensures they are impacted even more adversely. In order to effectively address the issue we need to be willing to take the ‘bull by the horn’ i.e. rather than reaching for the lowest hanging fruit, work at solutions that are mindful of its impact to all including women, and the diverse communities that make our country.

We need to acknowledge that we have not sufficiently delved into legal, social and economic protections that are necessary. Despite many female political leaders, the everyday woman still suffers in silence because she does not have the voice or the agency to speak her mind or pursue her dreams independently. Addressing these issues become even more important when we are faced with a global pandemic, making this gap starkly apparent. In the past few months, women across the globe have been victims of a rising number of domestic violence situations, which have escalated. In addition, women who hitherto worked in the informal sector, have been left particularly vulnerable; essentially unaccounted for and unsupported, significantly impacting their financial and emotional well-being.

Saima W. Hossain, a licensed School Psychologist, is currently Advisor to the Director General of WHO on Autism and Mental Health, Member of WHO’s Expert Advisory Panel on Mental Health, Chairperson of the National Advisory Committee on Autism and NDDs in Bangladesh, and Chairperson of Shuchona Foundation.

 

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By GGGI
KAMPALA, Uganda, Jul 8 2020 (IPS-Partners)

The European Union (EU) represented by the European Commission in Uganda and the Government of Uganda through the Global Green Growth Institute (GGGI) have signed a contract today to cooperate on advancing the Greening Uganda’s Urbanization and Industrialization agenda. This project is part of the European Union’s Inclusive Green Economy Uptake Programme (GreenUP) financed under the 11th European Development Fund (EDF) and will be implemented for a 36 months period with a total cost estimated of just under EUR 5mln. The MoU was signed by European Union in Uganda and Ms. Dagmar Zwebe, Country Representative of the GGGI Uganda office.

The overall objective of the GreenUp action is to contribute to the Ugandan transition toward an inclusive, green and competitive low carbon economy with the creation of decent green jobs. Within the framework of this intervention this Project has been designed to support the Government of Uganda (GOU) with their National Development Plan III (NDPIII) commitments for 2020/21-2024/25, and the long term commitments as expressed in the Uganda Green Growth Development Strategy (UGGDS) and Uganda’s Vision 2040. It will directly contribute to greener growth paths to becoming a middle-income country, through the acceleration of investments in green growth pathways.

The Projects impact objective is therefore “Uganda achieves strong, inclusive and sustainable economic growth”. The Uganda Vision 2040 specifically highlights industrialization and urbanization as key focal are as it envisions that 60% of Ugandans will live in urban areas by 2040 and therefore, actions of designing, servicing and attracting investments into greening secondary cities will help Uganda to benefit from the economic and social dividends that come with urbanization.

Through a multistakeholder process guided by the National Planning Authority (NPA) as the project coordinator the industrial zones of Gulu, Entebbe, Pakwach and Soroti have been identified to receive support from the Project in the development of their Masterplans in a green manner and the identification of potential investment projects. The Project is committed to attract investment commitments for at least 6 projects for these industrial areas to accelerate and green the industrialization process in Uganda. This process will be guided by specific guidelines setting out what a green industrial could look like.

With a similar process the cities of Arua, Gulu, Jinja and Mbarara have been identified by the stakeholders, led by the Ministry of Lands, Housing and Urban Development in close coordination with the NPA, to receive similar support as the industrial zones in the development of their Masterplans and the acceleration of financing in potential (public and private) projects. For the Arua-Pakwach corridor, and for Gulu there will be a joined focus combining both elements to ensure inclusive green growth is accomplished. Overall, the aim is to set the country on a low carbon development pathway, generating green jobs, to reduce the environmental burden and the use of natural resources and to contribute substantially to increasing green investment flows into Uganda.

Increased waste collection and sorting in the Greater Kampala Metropolitan Area (GKMA) is another element of the Project. Guided by the GKMA Waste Management Strategy 2021-2030, two waste sorting and diversion centers will be designed, and investment commitment will be sought for at least one of these sites to support the GKMA commitment of 30% recycling by 2030. Furthermore, business development support will be provided to multiple small and medium enterprises in the waste sector to strengthen their operations and be able to widen their scope and increase their waste recycling or treatment.

All stakeholders involved within this Project including -but not limited to- the Government of Uganda, the EU and GGGI and are strongly committed to support Uganda’s transition toward an inclusive, green and competitive low carbon economy, and especially the sectors as elaborated upon in the UGGDS. This includes making Uganda’s business environment more conducive to inclusive and green investments and improving the environment for investing in Uganda’s economic green transformation and the urbanization and industrialization agenda.

Learn more about GGGI’s work in Uganda by clicking here.

 

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Excerpt:

PRESS RELEASE

The post GGGI signs an Implementation Agreement with the European Union to provide support in accelerating Greening Uganda’s Urbanization and Industrialization Agenda appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Mumbai, India. Credit: Sthitaprajna Jena (CC BY-SA 2.0).

By Sanjeet Bagcchi
NEW DELHI, Jul 8 2020 (IPS)

Indian health experts say the findings of a US study — which suggest that population density is unrelated to COVID-19 infection rates — to be completely contradictory to their experience of dealing with the pandemic in India, a country with 1.3 billion people.

Shima Hamidi, lead author of the study, published June in the Journal of the American Planning Association, claimed in a press statement that “the fact that [urban] density is unrelated to confirmed virus infection rates and inversely related to confirmed COVID-19 death rates is important, unexpected and profound”.

“In theory, density leads to closer contact and more interaction among residents, which makes them potential hotspots for the rapid spread of emerging infectious diseases,” Hamidi of Bloomberg School of Public Health at Johns Hopkins University, said.

However, after controlling for metropolitan population, county density is not significantly related to the infection rate, possibly due to greater adherence to social distancing guidelines, the authors pointed out. Also, counties with higher densities have significantly lower virus-related death rates than do counties with lower densities, possibly due to superior healthcare systems, they added.

Hamidi and colleagues assessed SARS-CoV-2 infection rates and Covid-19 death rates, from 20 January to 25 May at 913 metropolitan counties in the US. They used ‘Structural Equation Modelling’ that considered education levels, population size, healthcare infrastructure and demographic variables such as age and race to reach their findings.

But public health experts and doctors involved in COVID-19 care in India — which recorded 605,000 cases and 17,800 deaths by the virus, as of 2 July — say the findings are contradictory to their observations while working in densely populated India.

“The COVID-19 challenge in India centres on the classical factor of higher population density,” says Diptendra Kumar Sarkar, public health expert and COVID-19 strategist affiliated to the Institute of Post Graduate Medical Education and Research, Kolkata, India.

Further, in India, higher mortality has been noted in densely populated cities such as Mumbai, Delhi and Chennai as compared with the smaller urban centres, Sarkar tells SciDev.Net.

Ahsan Ahmed, chief consultant of critical care and emergency services at the KPC Medical College and Hospital, Kolkata, India, agrees. “The study findings are completely opposite to what I observed while dealing with COVID-19 patients,” he tells SciDev.Net.

“I have treated over 200 COVID-19 patients who belong to the densely populated areas of Kolkata [population density of 24,000 people per square kilometre]; the death numbers are also more among patients from these areas,” Ahmed adds.

According to Ahmed, Mumbai’s densely populated Dharavi area — the largest slum in Asia where 650,000 people reportedly live in an area of 2.5 square kilometres — had a total of 2,301 COVID-19 cases as of 2 July,  as compared with 80,262 cases reported from Mumbai, a city of 19.5 million people with an average population density of 32,303 per square kilometre.

Thekkekara Jacob John, a top virologist and emeritus professor and former head of clinical virology at the Christian Medical College, Vellore, India, says, citing the study authors, that healthcare and educational facilities are better in denser communities. Intensive care unit (ICU) beds per 1000 population is an important measure of good healthcare and India has inadequate ICU beds, he says. “Our healthcare quality is not proportional to dense or sprawling living.”

“Where planning is practiced diligently, this study is a special one — applicable only to contagious outbreaks,” John tells SciDev.Net.

Reid Ewing, an author of the study and distinguished professor of city and metropolitan planning at the University of Utah, Salt Lake City, US, says there appears to be a misunderstanding of the study. “Results in low-density US, with superior health care and greater ability to social distance have no implications for India.”

 

This story was originally published by SciDev.Net

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