Africa - INTER PRESS SERVICE

Fishermen unloading on August 3, 2021 in the port of Mazatlán, in the state of Sinaloa, in northwestern Mexico, one of the main fishing and and arrival sites for shark boats in the country. Credit: Christian Lizarraga / EJN-IPS

By Emilio Godoy
LA PAZ, Mexico, Aug 26 2021 (IPS)

The Mexican fisherman Tomás Valencia, aged 70, remembers that around 30 years ago he used to catch a lot of sharks.

“We got bull shark, blacknose sharks, blue sharks, spinner sharks. We caught up to seven in a journey, on average we fished 4 or 5,” he recalled. Valencia began to fish at age 7 and has become a legend in Tuxpan, a town 500 kilometers southeast of Mexico City, in the state of Veracruz, a traditional fishing and oil exploitation site. In his youth he used to tie sharks by the tail, while two other men held the nets that kept the animals.

But those times are memories, because fishers catch less and less. Now, they set sail at 7am in the morning and come back the next day. “Fishing has become very hard. There is little left, because we’re finishing them off. Sometimes there are journeys that leave empty hands, said Valencia, a member of the “Puerto de Tampamachoco” cooperative, that incorporates 75 partners and advocates for the rights of small-scale fishers.

The coronavirus pandemic has hit the sector hard, because the fishermen couldn’t sail due to the risk of contagion and the market was down, and it hasn’t recovered yet.

This story plays out in other Mexican marine areas, aggravated by the authorities’ permissiveness of fishing of shark species under threat. More often than not, the fins end up in China and Hong Kong.

This assertion is based on the analysis of fishing license databases, notices of arrivals of shark boats and shark fin exports under the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES).

Flouting of the rules and a lack of uniformity in reporting has exacerbated the capture of sharks, whose existence dates back millions of years and is key for the health of ecosystems. As predators they control the balance of other species situated below them in the trophic chain; indirectly, they maintain the health of coral reefs and other ocean ecosystems.

Shark fisheries’ records reveal many discrepancies. Dozens of notices of arrival only report eviscerated or fresh whole shark, without naming the boat or the species. Conapesca, the Fishing and Aquaculture National Commission, has registered 8,278 boats, of which 1,680 have capacity to bring in more than 1 ton of catch to port, and 6,598 less than 1 ton. Data from Conapesca seen by EJN states that between 2011 and last May there have been 109,475 notices of arrivals of shark fishing boats to ports, of which 81,332 were small boats of 1-ton capacity and 28,143 were larger boats, bearing a heavier load.

Of those, there have been 11,128 notices of arrival of boats with weight greater than 3 tons. The largest landing of shark came from an unidentified boat on October 30th 2019, with 1,103 tons of shark on board, in Tonalá, 938 km south to Mexico City, in the state of Chiapas. Something similar — where boats were recorded bringing in volumes of shark that would have been physically impossible for them to transport — happened in other ports too, such as La Paz in the northern state of Baja California Sur, and San Blas, in northwest Nayarit.

A similar phenomenon happened to the export requests of shark fins under CITES, in existence since 1975. CITES, which covers more than 5,600 animal species and around 38,000 plants, protects them against overexploitation through international trade, according to their risk of extinction. It has three appendices that group species according to how threatened they are by international trade.

In 2017, 8 non-detriment finding certificates (NDFs), used to evaluate export requests of species protected by CITES, cite cases of unloading reports that exceed the registered capacity of the boat. In 2018 there were another 3 NDFs; in 2019, 4; and in 2020, a total of 6.

Experts interviewed by EJN put the responsibility on the environmental and fishing authorities.

Alejandro Olivera, Center for Biological Diversity (CBD)’s representative in Mexico, deemed physically “impossible” the unloading of high volumes of sharks by minor boats, because they can’t transport that weight, and imputes the lack of surveillance to law enforcement.

This data shows a capture pattern, explained to EJN by a fisherman in La Paz who chose to remain anonymous for security reasons. Major boats catch sharks in high seas and then share the volumes with minor ships that head for ports to unload the animals.

“The lack of control reflects on many fisheries and there are many forms to game the system of reporting. The fishing policy leads to a lack of transparency, to the absence of traceability of the boats and of seafood. Satellite data of minor boats aren’t shared (by the authorities). It’s a reflection of the disorder, which has too little data, and it impedes the fishery sustainable management”, added Olivera.

The consequence: overexploitation.

Juan Carlos Cantú, Defenders of Wildlife’s representative in Mexico, blamed Conapesca, the governmental agency that regulates the fishing sector, by issuing licences and controlling fishing activities.

“One of the things that has to be understood is that fishing authorities are responsible for the extraction (of species) and the surveillance (of fishing) as well. But only the catch matters for the fishing sector,” said this biologist by training.

Since 2011, Conapesca has given out 1,519 shark fishing permits, the only fishery that has specific licenses. In 2020, there were 170, valid until 2023, 2024 and 2025. By late May, the authorities renewed 21, in force until 2025. Most of the permits come from Baja California Sur, Veracruz, the northern state of Tamaulipas, Baja California, north of Mexico, and Sinaloa in the northwest. By law, the fishing authorities don’t award new licences, only renewals — an effort to keep the number of permits fixed and curb overfishing.

Most of the complaints the authorities receive are due to illegal fishing (only 20 cases). One complaint of illicit possession of sharks was recorded and there were 21 seizures between 2019 and 2020. Illicit or illegal fishing refers to activities such as fishing without a permit, fishing during a closed season, the capture of protected species, the use of forbidden fishing gear or the communication of false information on catch volume.

Those practices have given rise to another problem too: illegal shark finning, which consists of cutting off the fins and throwing the bodies into the sea, for exporting them to China and Hong Kong. The fishing sector — industry and cooperatives alike — denies it with the punctuality of a bureaucrat.

The NDF 192/2019, seen by EJN, cites 6 notices of arrival that reported unloading of fresh fins. In addition, the NDF 121/20 mentions 10 notices of arrival of fins.

To authorize the exports, the National Commission for the Knowledge and Use of Biodiversity (Conabio), financially dependent on the Secretary of the Environment (Semarnat), applies a conversion factor to tally the number of unloaded animals and the volume of fresh fins.

Hesiquio Benítez, Conabio’s International Cooperation and Implementation director general, explained that the authorizations are based on Conapesca’s data and scientific papers.

“It’s the only thing we can directly pay attention to. We use the information on a case by case basis. The annual estimations come from scientific studies and we see trends. We take the information with due care. Sometimes, the data does not match,” he said.

Conapesca, which imposes fishing closed seasons from May to August on both coasts, didn’t answer a request for comment.

Mazatlán, in the state of Sinaloa, in northwestern Mexico, is a traditional shark fishing and landing site. In the image, on August 3, 2021, a fisherman casts his catch nets in the waters of Mazatlán, a seaside resort on the Pacific coast. Credit: Christian Lizarraga / EJN-IPS

 

Defenseless

There are 111 shark species on Mexican waters, according to the 2018 Action Programme for Conservations of Sharks and Rays.

But quite a few varieties are protected by law, which forbids the capture of whale shark (Rhincodon typus), white shark (Carcharhodon carcharhias) and basking shark (Cetorhinus maximus).

IUCN’s Red List of Threatened Species catalogues as “vulnerable” the oceanic whitetip, smooth hammerhead, silky sharks, and bigeye thresher, common thresher and pelagic thresher, while considers the scalloped hammerhead, great hammerhead and shortfin mako sharks “in danger”.

CITES approved between 2013 and 2019 the inclusion in Appendix II of scalloped hammerhead shark (Sphyrna lewini), smooth hammerhead shark (Sphyrna zygaena), great hammerhead (Sphyrna mokarran), silky shark (Carcharhinus falciformis), bigeye thresher (Alopias superciliosus), common thresher (Alopias vulpinus), pelagic thresher (Alopias pelagicus) and shortfin mako shark (Isurus oxyrinchus). That classification, which covers 10 shark species, requires that its trade needs a special authorization by the exporter nation. However, Mexico still hasn’t updated its regulation of species under threat.

The Secretary of the Environment, in charge of drawing up the regulatory protection, vetoed the addition of scalloped hammerhead, smooth hammerhead, great hammerhead and shortfin mako sharks, in spite of the pressure of environmental groups that delivered scientific evidence of the urgency of that protection. Weeks ago, the secretary opened up a new public consultation on that annexation.

Mauricio Hoyos, the director general of non-government organization Pelagios Kakunjá, emphasized the low number of varieties under safeguard. “Mostly, it’s due to lack of information. That’s why it is so important to generate information to give the government those tools to protect the sharks. The hammerhead (shark) is at serious risk of extinction, because it’s captured too much for finning. It’s very prized. For that, it needs immediate protection,” said the biologist, who authored a study that supported the inclusion of those sharks.

Mexico is the fourth biggest producer of sharks, whose catch totaled 44,657 tons and consumption reached 45,615 tons –0.36 kg per capita– in 2018, according to Conapesca and the industry. As production doesn’t satisfy the domestic consumption, imports cover the difference. Between 2014-2018, the capture average equaled 38,233 tons.

The rays and shark fisheries are the eighth by size in the country, contributing 2.5% of captures and 2% of unloaded total weight in the last 15 years. The industry uses everything, from the meat until the fins.

To draw up the NDFs, Conabio assesses the actual risk and concludes which species face medium and high threats on both coasts, especially for their interaction with the artisanal fishing fleet –the main captor of sharks in shallow waters.

An obstacle lies in the absence of information on shark populations, which hinders their management.

Óscar Sosa-Nishizaki, researcher at the Center for Scientific Research and Higher Education’s Department of Biological Oceanography, highlighted the lack of “robust data” in fisheries.

“We have a general view, we try to rebuild the historic captures and make the best estimation of every species. The whole system of how capture data is obtained must be improved. We’re rebuilding the specific arrangement. There has to be assessment of the populations and the collection of biological information on birth, growth, migration and so on. It’s a long way until we can say if the populations are well or not,” he said.

The scientist is part of an inter-institutional working group that focuses on the historic reconstruction of shark fishing, to determine the conditions of the fishery, and that has to be ready later this year.

The 2017 National Fishery Letter, the basis for the management of fisheries , only refers to the scalloped hammerhead and silky sharks in the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean, which describes them “exploited to the maxim sustainability”.

Besides, in 2018 the Action Programme for the Conservation of Sharks and Rays, which is currently being updated, acknowledges the lack of dissemination, surveillance, monitoring and law enforcement as barriers to the conservation of the elasmobranch.

Moreover, it acknowledges the impacts of unsustainable fishing, disturbances and habitat pollution; and growth of human activities in important ecosystems for the species.

Defenders’ Cantú slamed Conapesca for blocking protection to the varieties under threat. “Simply put, it’s not interested in conservation. Its only interest are the fishermen’ votes. They’re not doing anything. The economic aspect has too much weight.” he said.

The Criminal Code typifies some felonies related to threatened species, including those in CITES. The code establishes one to nine years in prison for trafficking, capturing, owning, transporting, importing or exporting species protected by law or under international treaties, as CITES. It adds three additional years if the purpose of the activity is trading.

“It’s very difficult to enforce laws against a whole activity when authorities from different institutions intervene that have a totally different view on how things should be done,” said Cantu.

Since 2020, Semarnat faces two complaints by CBD and Pelagios Kakunjá for its reluctance to add the scalloped hammerhead, smooth hammerhead and great hammerhead sharks to the protection regulation.

CBD’s Olivera argued that the motive may be economic, because “the scientific arguments are proved, those species have a huge commercial importance, it’s a heavy factor”.

But Sosa-Nichizaki has doubts about the viability of that inclusion. “It’s worth checking the sea cucumber case. It goes from one typification to another one, and it doesn’t imply a better situation. It’s a very interesting challenge, but the results so far for the sea cucumber aren’t very clear. For conservation, inclusion is an important step, but it’s not achieved overnight,” he said.

In 2018, Semarnat changed the sea cucumber status from “special protection” to “threatened”, which implies restrictions for its fishing and trade.

But since that moment, the pressure on the specie hasn’t stopped. In 2019 and 2020, there were 11 cases of illegal fishing and one of illicit trade. Press reports have shown that its capture and commercialization intents have been going on.

Conabio’s Benítez has doubts too of the future protection of the species and complaints about that the fishing sector doesn’t listen to them. “There is resistance from the sector, but it’s a global problem. There are lots of interests, cooperatives, (fishing) communities”, stated.

While the scientific and political debate goes on, fishermen like Valencia only want better livelihoods. “We’re being educated, so that we stop predating, [fishing less and more sustainably]. But we want alternatives, we don’t want to work at sea anymore. I’ve spent my whole life at sea. We want something else, to defend ourselves when there is nothing out there in the water. But the government takes decisions without taking into account the ones affected,” he lamented.

 

This story was produced with support from the Internews’ Earth Journalism Network.

Related Articles

• Mexico’s Suspicious Shark Fins Exports Under CITES

Fresh produce at a supermarket. Credit: Alison Kentish/IPS

By Alison Kentish
Aug 26 2021 (IPS)

As the international community prepares for the landmark United Nations Food Systems Summit, a pivotal gathering as part of a global goal to tackle food insecurity, hunger, biodiversity loss, and climate change through sustainable food production, Caribbean youth say the successful transformation of food systems must include young innovators.

On Youth Day 2021, young agriculture entrepreneurs from the Eastern Caribbean and Barbados joined agriculture experts from the Inter American Institute for Cooperation on Agriculture and United Nations agencies like the Food and Agriculture Organization to discuss the role of youth in food systems transformation.

They shared ideas on how young people, governments, and lending agencies can work together to help youth in agriculture.

“What is preventing a few young people within a community to have small greenhouse units in their backyards and collectively produce for a particular market?” asked Jeshurun Andrew, Saint Lucian youth advocate, and agriculture extension officer.

“Why don’t we see our governments establishing greenhouse facilities, where you have 50-100 greenhouses within a certain space, with shared security, where youth can rent a greenhouse, with the support of development banks?”

Andrew said Caribbean youth who have witnessed farmers endure the vicious cycle of planting and destruction following storms and other hazards need assurance that they have adequate support in bad times.

“Price volatility and disaster risk are things that farmers face all the time. Maybe the young person looking at agriculture from the outside, a young person who went to school and understands the risks associated with agriculture, would look at the industry and feel a lot safer knowing that there is insurance that can protect them if they got into agriculture.”

The young agriculture advocates have also urged governments to ensure continuing farmer education programs and enact land-use policies across the region that protect agricultural lands.

Keithlin Caroo, the founder of Helen’s Daughters, a Saint Lucia-based project which empowers rural women’s economic development in agriculture, said no discussion on food systems transformation is complete without addressing the gender gaps in agriculture.

“We need to include women in the goal of redefining the narrative of the agricultural sector. There is the hurdle of ‘you don’t look like a farmer,’ that it’s the office job and high heels for women, the expectation for us not to go into agricultural jobs. Women face similar obstacles to youth in agriculture including lack of finance and access to land.”

Caroo has called for financing reform. She told the forum that traditional lending institutions like commercial banks are risk-averse and collateral-based, often showing low levels of investment in the agricultural sector.

She is suggesting adopting non-traditional financing mechanisms, particularly for women in agriculture. She referenced the Saint Lucian women farmers she works with, some of who have partnered with a major supermarket chain for a micro-lending scheme.

The youth panelists all agreed that improving access to finance for youth in agriculture should be a priority for Caribbean governments.

They said nutrition must also be a hallmark of the push to build resilient food systems.

“I became the change I wanted to see. I was consuming mainly processed foods and decided to change my diet. I started eating what I grow, and my family members and people in my community started seeing the difference in me. I impacted the people around me. I’m now figuring ways to positively feed the people. You do not many of our local foods in our stores and on supermarket shelves. The competition with processed food is there, and we need to make a bigger dent in the natural side of things,” said Mc Chris Morancie, a young Dominican and founder of Generation Honey, a business that produces organic honey and other natural products.

The virtual event was organized by the United Nations Office to Barbados and the Eastern Caribbean, in partnership with the 15th Session of the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD 15). The Office’s Resident Coordinator Didier Trebucq said the dialogue was an important platform for youth to share their experiences, ideas, and solutions on food systems transformation.

“As we move towards the staging of the United Nations Food Systems Summit in September, now is the time for science, policy, and innovation to be combined into real solutions to transform the way we produce, consume and even think about food. We really count on young people to be major stakeholders in this,” he said.

“In this climate emergency where youth are one of the most impacted groups, we need to tap into the tremendous potential that young people have to serve as change agents for climate action and food security, and for that, they should be given a voice.”

Many organizations, including the Barilla Centre for Food and Nutrition (BCFN) have also called for an overhaul of food systems. They urge the global community to work together towards achieving and participate in the upcoming UN Food systems summit. BCFN has also has called on people to adopt a sustainable and healthy diet which will contribute to a substantial reduction in greenhouses gas emissions and water consumption.

This week’s youth dialogue answered the call for UN agencies to engage young people in food systems dialogue as part of International Youth Day 2021.

It was held under the theme “Transforming Food Systems – Youth Innovation for Human and Planetary Health.”

 

Follow @IPSNewsUNBureau
!function(d,s,id){var js,fjs=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0],p=/^http:/.test(d.location)?'http':'https';if(!d.getElementById(id)){js=d.createElement(s);js.id=id;js.src=p+'://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js';fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js,fjs);}}(document, 'script', 'twitter-wjs');   Related Articles

• Q&A: Why the World ‘Can’t Afford to Wait’ for Transparent, Equitable Food Systems
• Digitisation Boosts Mechanised Farming Among Kenyan Farmers
• Rwandan Farmers Pin Hopes on New Tech to Tackle Food Losses
• The Future of Food is in Our Hands

By External Source
Nuku’Alofa, Tonga, Aug 26 2021 (IPS-Partners)

Fourteen Pacific Island Countries have enacted specific legislation to address domestic violence. While these laws have been developed to respond to domestic violence, implementation continues to be a challenge. It is affected by various factors that include practical social, cultural, religious, political, environmental and economic challenges.

Polotu Fakafanua-Paunga

On 30 January 2020, the World Health Organization (WHO) declared the global COVID-19 pandemic. As the world geared up its response to the pandemic, the Solomon Islands, Fiji, Tonga and Vanuatu were also hit hard by Tropical Cyclone Harold in April 2020 and more recently, Tropical Cyclones Yasa and Ana which hit Fiji in December 2020 and January 2021. The global pandemic, coupled with tropical cyclones, further impacted the already high numbers of women facing domestic violence in the region. In turn, adding more pressure on the existing challenges for implementation of DV legislation, including coordination and service provision.

The 2nd Regional Working Group on Family Protection and Domestic Violence (RWG) meeting will be held on 23-26 August, 2021. The meeting will focus on Pacific Island countries sharing experiences, reflecting on good practices, challenges, and learnings to date on the implementation of Domestic Violence (DV) legislation, particularly in the key priority areas (advisory committees, counselling and data collection) within the context of the COVID-19 pandemic environment and natural disasters.

This feature focuses on the Kingdom of Tonga, reflecting on their journey and their experiences in the implementation of the DV legislation. We spoke to Polotu Fakafanua-Paunga, Deputy CEO, Women Affairs Division, Ministry of Internal Affairs.

1. Where are you at in terms of the implementation of DV legislation in the Kingdom of Tonga? Please include any specific activities and timelines that was carried out to help in the implementation of DV legislation.

There has been significant progress in Tonga’s implementation of DV Legislation. In 2013, Tonga passed the Family Protection Act in 2013 to ensure the safety and protection of all persons including children who experience or witness domestic violence. The act was implemented the following year also leading to the establishment of the Family Protection Advisory Council (FPAC).

In 2016, we established the FPAC Counselling sub-committee. In 2018 the Family Protection Act Trust Fund for Gender Based Violence service providers was implemented. The Tonga Family Protection Legal Aid Center was established following that and work began on consolidating Domestic Violence administrative data from frontline agencies. The year 2019 saw momentous developments with the development of the Tonga Family Protection Counselling Framework and the establishment of the Tonga Police Domestic Violence Unit.

In addition, these four sub-committees was established: Family Protection Advisory Council (FPAC) Referral sub-committee, FPAC Data sub-committee and FPAC Faith Based Organization & GBV sub-committee. The Tonga National Service Delivery Protocol began its development and 2019 also saw the completion of the 5-year review of the Tonga Family Protection Act, 2013 and the Inclusion of Domestic Violence module at Tonga MICS survey2013.

Last year, Tonga’s first Family Protection Act (FPA) Panel of Counsellors was registered. This year, we have thus far launched Tonga’s National Service Delivery Protocol, progressed the national validation of the Tonga SDP and consequently rolled out the Training of Trainers of Service Delivery Protocol.

2. Has there been any significant progress with the implementation process of the DV legislation in Tonga?

Yes, there has certainly been substantial progress in the last few years with the establishment of a Family Unit Protection Legal Aid Center and the Tonga Police Domestic Violence Unit. Progress has been made with the empowerment of Police officers to issue Police Safety Order especially in outer islands where there are few resident magistrates. We have seen that the Coordination and collaborations between GBV stakeholders have improved tremendously. It is also encouraging to see stakeholders that have or are in the process of developing their own Referral Protocol aligning with the National Protocol (Tonga Leitis Association (LGBTQI) & Health System).

3. What are some challenges faced with the implementation process of the DV legislation in Tonga?

Some of the challenges of the implementation of the Domestic Violence legislation include the following: i) there is no standard legal age or child protection act in Tonga. ii) Health services require commitment especially on performing their roles under the FPA. iii) Women unable to own land (perpetrators are the landowners so it is a challenge to remove them legally from the homes during domestic violence incidents). iv) Tonga only have 5 key services available (legal, police, health, social and temporary shelter).

Legal and social services are not recognized as essential services and thus hinder access of survivors to assistance and response from service providers during emergencies such as the COVID 19 pandemic or natural disasters). v)There is also the lack of perpetrators’ rehabilitation programs.

4. What are some gaps in the implementation process of DV legislation in Tonga that you feel needs to be addressed at the RWG meeting?

There is lack of allocated resources both financial and human resources. There is need for improvement in the legal & health systems to go hand in hand with the FPA. There is need for trainings & awareness on GBV and related issues especially with our government service providers (Police, Health, Education & Local Government). We also see that the need to decentralise services to other parts of the islands. Majority of service providers are located in Tongatapu and majority of resources are used in the main island with less to no resources available to develop outer islands’ services.

5. Provide any other additional information that you wish to add or be relevant to Tonga on DV legislation implementation.

We have more activities scheduled for late 2021-2022 period, these include: development of a standard referral form, MOUs, establish case management committees in outer islands, increase service providers in outer islands, development of resource booklet and directory for GBV service providers etc.

Background

In 2018, the Regional Rights Resource Team (RRRT) of the Pacific Community (SPC) – now formally called the Human Rights and Social Development Division – convened a “Regional Consultation on the Implementation of Domestic Violence Legislation: from Law to Practice”. The regional consultation brought together senior government officials from the Government Ministries / Departments responsible for the implementation of their country’s domestic violence legislation and provided a platform for reflections on progress against implementation of the domestic violence legislation in the region.

A key outcome from the consultation was the establishment of the Regional Working Group on Family Protection and Domestic Violence (RWG). The first meeting of the RWG was held in May 2019 with representation from Cook Islands, Kiribati, Tuvalu, Federated States of Micronesia (Kosrae & Pohnpei), Solomon Islands, Marshall Islands, Vanuatu and Tonga. The RWG agreed to two annual meetings (one face-to-face and another virtually). These meetings would provide a space for the RWG to update on the implementation of their legislation, highlight key areas of need from regional organisations that support countries on responding to domestic violence, and recommend important work needing technical and/or financial support.

The Human Rights and Social Development Division (formerly RRRT) is the Secretariat of the Regional Working Group and works closely with the Chair and Deputy Chair to develop the program for the meetings, coordinate financial support and coordination of the meetings. The next annual meeting is scheduled for August 2021.

Source: The Pacific Community (SPC)

 

Follow @IPSNewsUNBureau
!function(d,s,id){var js,fjs=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0],p=/^http:/.test(d.location)?'http':'https';if(!d.getElementById(id)){js=d.createElement(s);js.id=id;js.src=p+'://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js';fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js,fjs);}}(document, 'script', 'twitter-wjs');  

Sania Farooqui is a journalist and filmmaker based out of New Delhi.

By Sania Farooqui
NEW DELHI, India, Aug 26 2021 (IPS)

“Sexual harassment is not about sexual attraction, it is about power. If an individual uses power plays to subjugate other people, when we have such dynamics going on in the workplace, what we need is a system that fights back against it, which unfortunately a lot of workplaces, they allow it to persist,”, says Adrienne Lawrence, anchor and legal analyst in an interview given to me here.

Adrienne Lawrence

In 2018, Lawrence filed a sex discrimination lawsuit against her former employers in the U.S. District Court, which eventually reached a settlement, but not without Lawrence going ahead and putting up an extraordinary fight against workplace discrimination, misogyny, abuse of power and most of all agaisnt sexual harassment.

“What happened at ESPN to me happens in a lot of workplaces here in the United States. It’s a fact that we have workplace sexual harassment, where women are subjucated and also other margenalized groups. When I had to leave ESPN, it did set my career back, but there are things that are important and worth fighting for, some of us have to stand up and fight back, and the ones that do, are the ones who can make changes,” Lawrence says.

According to this study by the Harvard Business Review, it measures sexual harassment along three dimensions: gender harassment, unwanted sexual attention, and sexual coercion.

Gender harassment mostly involves negative or ill-treatment of women that may or may not necessarily be sexual, but may include things like a supervisor or coworker making sexist remarks, telling inappropriate stories, or displaying sexist material.

Unwanted sexual attention, as self explanatory as it is, means coworker or supervisors behaviors such as staring, leering, ogling, or unwanted touching. Sexual coercion includes bribing or pressuring women to engage in sexual behavior.

Lawrence, in her book Staying in the Game lays down what it takes to confront, identify and avoid toxic workplaces, how to demand accountability, document abuse and help in not just identifying but also gives the readers strategic tools to navigate and deal with abuse and power structures within organizations.

It is imperative that organizations and their human resource departments remain vigilant in responding to concerns, and abuse flagged by women employers. In an ideal world, one would imagine the HR making the employees feel valued, safe and looked after, except in reality, as Lawrence points out, “they are in the job to protect the company’s interest, and so, often seen shielding and protecting “harassholes” – people who use power plays, gender dynamics and reinforce traditional gender rules, pegion-hole female staff, make them uncomfortable and feel small.”

In 2016, what came to be known as the #MeToo movement, over the years gained momentum through a series of takedowns by women in newsrooms across the globe coming out and talking about their own personal experiences and sharing their stories of workplace harassment.

This report by Columbia Journalism Review, where more than 300 people responded, forty-one percent of respondents said they had been subject to harassment in their newsrooms or as freelancers, but only one third had reported those incidents. “Determined to do their jobs, the subjects of harassment lower expectations, make concessions, work around it, and – most often – work through it.”

Harassment in journalism – whether it is feeling uncomfortable at work, being body shamed or fat shamed, unwanted comments and advances, bullying and other types of work-related harassment – abruptly ending contracts, killing stories, changing editorials, mental health issues which individuals are forced to overlook were all lived experiences of hundreds and thousands of women in newsrooms.

“People don’t realize that organizations are just groupings of individuals, and we live in a society which supports patriarchy and white supremacy, so organizations will unfortunately do the same thing, they will support the power structure.

“We need people to not only use their voice but also be represented in power and powerful positions, and also maintain their autonomy. That’s the only way to fight it,” says Lawrence.

While speaking out against sexual harassment and assault has gained momentum, this fight often comes with a cost – the cost of backlash. Women are often shunned, blackballed, called a whistleblower, a nuisance, a troublemaker and so on, all because they dared to have a voice.

Women also face retaliation not just by the abuser – who tends to become even more aggressive with time, but also at work when colleagues start to ignore or distance themselves, when social structures fail to support or stand up for the woman.

This piece in Forbes says that women need different kinds of networks and support systems to succeed, but once they have been retaliated against, that already small network shrinks, and connections are cut off. “For some, careers in that field are often put on hold, maybe forever”.

It is unfortunate that despite the #metoo movement, and big promises made towards equality and accountablity in workplaces, women are still treated as a liability the minute they decide to take a stand at work against harassment, where as men, they become the most important asset for the organization and are protected, despite their actions, even if that involves gender harassment or sexual harassment.

This fear of retaliation, of backlash, and being cut off, blacklisted, surrounded by all sorts of rumors is a nightmare for every woman when she decides to speak up or go down that path of calling the abuser out, but sometimes it takes one woman to raise a voice and shake the system up, as seen with Adrienne Lawrence. The fight is not just against a dysfunctional human resource system or power structure, but also against the deeply rooted misogyny, sexism and dismantling of the newsroom boys clubs.

“Just as we know how to navigate pay and work spaces, we need to know how to navigate workplace sexual harassment,” Lawrence says. “It will happen to you, it’s not if it happens, it’s when it happens, and the question is, will you be prepared.”

 

Follow @IPSNewsUNBureau
!function(d,s,id){var js,fjs=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0],p=/^http:/.test(d.location)?'http':'https';if(!d.getElementById(id)){js=d.createElement(s);js.id=id;js.src=p+'://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js';fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js,fjs);}}(document, 'script', 'twitter-wjs');  

Excerpt:

Sania Farooqui is a journalist and filmmaker based out of New Delhi.

By Mohammad Rakibul Hasan
DHAKA, Bangladesh, Aug 25 2021 (IPS)

Documentary photographer and filmmaker Mohammad Rakibul Hasan has documented the health crisis in Bangladesh over the past several months. In these haunting images, Hasan brings to life the conditions in which many patients are being treated in poor conditions exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Hasan was awarded the Lucie Awards Discovery of the Year 2018. He also received the 23rd Human Rights Press Awards for his series “The Looted Honor” on rape survivors of Rohingya Refugee from The Foreign Correspondents’ Club Hong Kong, Amnesty International and the Hong Kong Journalists Association that recognizes top reporting on Asian news.

In Bangladesh, from January 3, 2020, to August 23, 2021, there have been 1,467,715 confirmed cases of COVID-19, with 25,399 deaths, according to WHO. As of August 17, 2021, a total of 21,728,150 vaccine doses have been administered.

Medical professionals clean their used items of clothing and reusable and washable equipment in a COVID-19 make-shift hospital at the Rohingya Refugee Camp, Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh. Credit: Mohammad Rakibul Hasan (Documentary Photographer/filmmaker)

A medical professional is preserving the swab sample from a COVID-19 patient at the Rohingya Refugee Camp, Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh, in Bangladesh. The fight against coronavirus pandemic in the refugee camp is challenging as most live in densely packed temporary hut-like temporal houses are densely made in the camps, where social distancing is impossible. Credit: Mohammad Rakibul Hasan (Documentary Photographer/filmmaker)

A swab is being taken at the Rohingya Refugee Camp. There are many COVID-19 tests booths that the government and humanitarian organizations have installed for the host communities and the Rohingya Refugees around the camp area. Credit: Mohammad Rakibul Hasan (Documentary Photographer/filmmaker)

Mehrun (pseudonym) is a leprosy patient staying in a missionary leprosy hospital in Nilphamari, Bangladesh. If left untreated, Leprosy can create complications. Mehrun has lost her left eye, and her right one is being treated at the hospital. “After God, only doctors can treat my eye, and I love seeing the world,” she said. The health system is buckling under the latest wave of the pandemic with the highly contagious Delta variant.
Place: Nilphamari, Bangladesh Credit: Mohammad Rakibul Hasan (Documentary Photographer/filmmaker)

A critically ill COVID-19 patient is treated in the ICU in a hospital bed in Dhaka, Bangladesh. Most of the hospitals with ICU beds are occupied in Dhaka. The increased rates of infections and deaths every day are alarming, and the ferocity of the Delta variant of the disease is crippling the health system. Credit: Mohammad Rakibul Hasan (Documentary Photographer/filmmaker)

There is a critical shortage of hospital beds for COVID-19 patients and other critically ill people in Dhaka, Bangladesh. The highly contagious Delta causes most infections in the country. Credit: Mohammad Rakibul Hasan (Documentary Photographer/filmmaker)

A COVID-19 positive patient is being treated in ICU in Dhaka, Bangladesh. Medical professionals are dedicated to their jobs, but coronavirus infection rates among doctors, nurses, and other medical professionals is increasing. It has become harder for all hospitals in Bangladesh to fight the third wave of the pandemic. Credit: Mohammad Rakibul Hasan (Documentary Photographer/filmmaker)

A young boy has come to a hospital in Dhaka, Bangladesh, in critical condition during the third wave of the COVID-19 pandemic. Credit: Mohammad Rakibul Hasan (Documentary Photographer/filmmaker)

During the strict lockdown in Bangladesh, more than 20 horses used for tourism in Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh, which has the longest sandy beach globally, have died due to food shortages. The pandemic has broken the economic backbone of communities, especially in the low GDP countries across the globe. Credit: Mohammad Rakibul Hasan (Documentary Photographer/filmmaker)

 

Follow @IPSNewsUNBureau
!function(d,s,id){var js,fjs=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0],p=/^http:/.test(d.location)?'http':'https';if(!d.getElementById(id)){js=d.createElement(s);js.id=id;js.src=p+'://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js';fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js,fjs);}}(document, 'script', 'twitter-wjs');  

Local residents stand in the water on a street flooded by the sea in the Centro Habana municipality in the Cuban capital in September 2017 in the wake of Hurricane Irma, one of the most intense storms in recent decades in this Caribbean island nation. CREDIT: Jorge Luis Baños/IPS

By Patricia Grogg
HAVANA, Aug 25 2021 (IPS)

Cuba, already beset by hurricanes, floods, droughts that deplete its main water sources, among other natural disasters, has seen its socioeconomic difficulties, similar to those faced by other Caribbean island nations, aggravated by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Despite the complexity of its domestic situation, Cuba has offered its best health resources to small island nations in the region and more than a dozen of them have received Cuban medical brigades to help them face the emergency created by the pandemic.

With differences and similarities, the Caribbean region shares the fate of other Small Island Developing States (SIDS), which are particularly vulnerable to the impact of climate change but are responsible for only 0.2 percent of the carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions that cause global warming."For Cuba and the rest of the Caribbean island nations the greatest challenges in relation to the implementation of the 2030 Agenda involve the indispensable creation of measures for adaptation to climate change." -- Marcelo Resende

The SIDS will hold a Solutions Forum on Aug. 30-31, promoted by the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) and sponsored by Fiji, to exchange experiences on how to move forward in the midst of the climate and health crisis towards achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in just a few more years.

The virtual conference is based on the premise that the 38 SIDS that are members of the United Nations and the other 20 associated territories, beyond their differences in size and development, share common challenges as island nations and can also share successful sustainable management initiatives that can be replicated in the other members scattered throughout the developing regions of the South.

“SIDS are characterised by unique development needs and extreme vulnerability. Frequent exposure to hazards and natural disasters intensified by climate change” negatively impacts Cuba, as well as the rest of the countries, FAO representative in Cuba Marcelo Resende told IPS.

He said this Caribbean country “has a lot of expertise and know-how in the integration of environmental sustainability, disaster risk management and climate change adaptation, so this exchange and transfer of knowledge will be positive.”

The SIDS Forum aims precisely to promote and exchange innovation and digitalisation solutions for sustainable agriculture, food, nutrition, environment and health.

Cuba, the largest island in the Caribbean, faces increased frequency and intensity of extreme hydrometeorological events – not only tropical cyclones, but also drought, major floods, rising temperatures and sea level rise, which scientists currently project to reach 29.3 centimetres by 2050 and 95 centimetres by 2100.

A man rides his bicycle along a flooded street in the town of Batabanó, in southern Mayabeque province in western Cuba, an area of low-lying, often swampy coastal areas prone to frequent flooding during hurricanes and heavy rains. CREDIT: Jorge Luis Baños/IPS

Of the country’s 262 coastal settlements, an estimated 121 are at risk from the climate crisis. Of these, 54 are located on the south coast and 67 on the north coast, almost totally impacted in September 2017 by Hurricane Irma, which reached winds of 295 kilometres/hour and became one of the most intense storms in recent decades.

Irma devastated several Caribbean islands and in Cuba alone caused losses officially estimated at 13.18 billion dollars.

A prevention system that involves everyone from the government to urban and rural communities makes Cuba one of the best prepared Caribbean nations when it comes to prevention and mitigation of risks in case of disasters, despite the generally substantial economic damages.

In addition to legal measures to prevent human activities that accelerate the natural erosion of areas bordering the sea and the relocation of vulnerable settlements, this year the project “Increasing the climate resilience of rural households and communities through the rehabilitation of productive landscapes in selected localities of the Republic of Cuba” (Ires) began to be implemented.

The “Coastal resilience to climate change in Cuba through ecosystem based adaptation – MI COSTA” project was also created. Both initiatives are supported by the Green Climate Fund, an instrument of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).

In addition to boosting the resilience of rural communities and protecting coastal communities, both projects are aimed at generating information that will facilitate the scaling up of the use of ecosystem-based adaptation practices at the national level, and the model can be used in other island nations with similar conditions.

“The impacts that are already being felt today associated with climate variability and the country’s vulnerability imply a large economic burden, which is becoming even more critical given the limitations and difficulties in accessing international financing,” said Resende.

The FAO representative noted that according to the executive secretary of the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC), Alicia Bárcena, Caribbean SIDS will not achieve the sustainable development committed to in the 2030 Agenda if they fail to find effective ways to adapt to climate change.

“This means that for Cuba and the rest of the Caribbean island nations the greatest challenges in relation to the implementation of the 2030 Agenda involve the indispensable creation of measures for adaptation to climate change,” Resende stressed.

A row of solar panels on La Finca Vista Hermosa farm in Guanabacoa, one of Havana’s 15 municipalities, represents one of the small energy innovations that are part of the responses by some farms in Cuba aimed at making their production more sustainable. CREDIT: Jorge Luis Baños/IPS

Food security, also a priority

Improving sustainability, resilience and nutrition-based approaches to food systems, strengthening enabling environments for food security, as well as empowering people and communities for these strategies are also important challenges.

In this regard, Resende said that “Cuba is impacted by the steady degradation of its natural resources for food production (soil, water and biodiversity), and faces difficulties in the current context for the production, transformation and conservation of food,” which has repercussions on the instability of the physical availability of products in the markets.

For this island nation, which imports most of the food it consumes, these impacts are a challenge, “so the authorities are promoting an agenda of transformations and improvements in terms of supply and inclusive, sovereign and sustainable food systems, in compliance with the 2030 Agenda and as a priority that the country will face in the immediate future and beyond,” he said.

In July 2020 the Cuban government approved a National Plan for Food Sovereignty and Nutritional Education, which identifies as fundamental pillars the reduction of dependence on food and input imports, various intersectoral actions to bolster local food systems, and the mobilisation of educational, cultural and communication systems to strengthen food and nutritional education.

According to the objectives of the Global Action Programme on Food Security and Nutrition in Small Island Developing States, food systems should support local and family production, while providing a sufficient quantity of varied and nutritious quality food for their population, at a reasonable cost.

This transformation can help curb SIDS dependence on imports, as well as promote healthy eating and reduce obesity.

A patient receives the third dose of the Abdala anti-COVID vaccine at a hospital in Havana. Cuba has developed three vaccines against the coronavirus that could be used in other Caribbean island countries once all the steps for their international use have been completed. CREDIT: Jorge Luis Baños/IPS

The resurgence of COVID

The resurgence of the COVID-19 epidemic since late 2020 exacerbated the tension in Cuba’s weakened economy, which had to devote more resources to its hospital system, overwhelmed by the higher number of infections. However, Cuba already has three vaccines of its own: Abdala, Soberana 02 and Soberana Plus.

Authorities on the island have reaffirmed that the national biotechnology industry is in a position to produce by the end of 2021 at least 100 million doses of the vaccines, with which it intends to immunise the entire Cuban population before the end of the year as well as offer them to neighbouring countries, such as other Caribbean SIDS.

As of August 20, 27.8 percent of the island’s 11.2 million inhabitants had received the required three doses of one of the three locally produced vaccines.

On Aug. 11, the director of the Pan American Health Organisation (PAHO), Carissa F. Etienne, said that in the Caribbean, COVID cases have been on the rise in the Bahamas, Cuba, Jamaica, Martinique, Puerto Rico and Dominica – all members of the SIDS with the exception of Puerto Rico.

“In the last month, infections increased 30-fold in Martinique and there was a significant increase in hospitalisations,” she said.

Etienne announced that PAHO would use its Revolving Fund to help countries in the Latin American and Caribbean region acquire sufficient vaccines to curb the spread of COVID-19, on top of the assistance offered by Covax, a global mechanism to support the development, manufacture and distribution of vaccines.

The pandemic has severely impacted tourism, which many Caribbean economies and SIDS in general depend on. According to official figures Cuba’s tourism revenues fell in 2020 to 1.15 billion dollars – a 56.4 percent drop from 2019.

In addition to domestic problems, the tightening of the U.S. embargo is seriously hampering the Cuban economy, which shrank two percent in the first half of this year, after a 10.9 percent decline in 2020. Recovery will depend on curbing the epidemic and the rallying of the tourism industry.

(With reporting by Luis Brizuela from Havana.)

Related Articles

• Strengthening Cuban Coastal Landscape in the Face of Climate Change

Excerpt:

This article forms part of the special IPS coverage of the Solutions Forum, a high-level conference of Small Island Developing States (SIDS) to be held Aug. 30-31.

Mitali Padhi (19) cradles her 3-month-old son in front of her parents’ new brick-asbestos one-room home. With her is her mother, Parvati Padhi. Credit: Manipadma Jena/IPS

By Manipadma Jena
BHUBANESWAR, India, Aug 25 2021 (IPS)

When 11-year-old Mitali Padhi hugged her childhood friends to say goodbye, she felt a deep-seated foreboding.

Around her, the mud walls of their home had collapsed, wrecking their meagre belongings. All were mired in mud. The straw roof lay splayed 100 metres away from the house – blown away by tropical storm Phailin.

The tropical storm made landfall at 136 mph wind speeds near Mitali’s village in India’s eastern coastal Odisha State. The storm left 3.7 million houses damaged in its wake.

However pitiable this mud hut, it was the only secure place the girl had ever known, and it was a place where, since birth, a larger community supported her.

Rice paddies had turned into sea-water pools. Mitali’s father, a farm labourer, would have no work for a year until monsoons washed away the salt from farmlands.

Her family of five, her parents and two elder brothers, took a high-interest local loan and migrated to the nearest urban centre Bhubaneswar. This was 2013.

When IPS met Mitali Padhi, she had a 3-month-old baby boy in her arms. The frail 19-year-old says she is breastfeeding but feels extremely weak.

“We got a protein drink for her (Mitali), but she dislikes it,” her Mitali’s mother, Pravati Padhi, 50, interjects.

We stand between two parallel rows of one-room brick and asbestos hutments that the Padhi family built and moved into after super cyclone Fani in 2019. This cyclone, described as the worst since 1999, decimated their tiny mud-walled, plastic-sheet covered hut that squatted illegally against a university’s compound wall – displacing the family for a second time.

Mitali’s father runs a 3-wheeler tuk-tuk but is “lazy, moody, and his earnings are erratic,” according to his wife, Pravati. After leaving their village in 2013, the burden of providing for her three children was on her, she tells IPS. Since then, she sells spicy snacks on roadsides earning $10 a day.

After migrating to the city, the 11-year Mitali looked after the cooking for the family. After lunch, she helped her mother roll out tiny puffed poori (bread) and fry them crisp while her mother prepared the boiled potato filling and spicy, tangy water for the popular snacks.

In a dire financial state once again after the 2019 cyclone, Pravati decided to marry off Mitali. It would mean one less mouth to feed, “and the young man was earning well.”

“We were eating out our savings after the storm. My daughter was already ‘mature,’ (reached puberty), she was not in school, and when I was away from home vending, and she was alone, young boys from our slum tried to chat her up, come into the house,” Mitali’s mother told IPS, justifying the marriage of her teenage daughter.

Soon Mitali was pregnant – at barely 18.

“I would have liked to learn sewing, earn and get married only when I was 22,” she tells IPS.

2. A pre-teen girl migrating with her family to a brick kiln in India’s Telangana State after drought hit her native province of Bolangir in Odisha State. Here she looks after her sibling while her parents work.
Credit: Umi Daniel/IPS

The family are an example of increasingly vulnerable people affected by climate change disasters.

“As (the number of) climate disasters rise in Odisha, drought (is experienced) in its western part, cyclones in the coastal region, floods in over half of its 30 provinces,” Ghasiram Panda, Programme Manager for ActionAid, told IPS. “Because of poverty, because of their vulnerability, there are concerns for the safety (of vulnerable communities). We are seeing an increasing trend of girls being married off before the age of 18.”

This is not only in the rural areas.

“In Bhubaneswar city slums, populated by rural migrants in search of livelihoods, child marriages are (also) on the rise,” Ghasiram Panda says. “While rural families migrate to cities to better their income, girl children more particularly are unable to access education, they do poorly in school or drop out, and parents think marriage is the best way out.”

Umi Daniel, Director, Migration & Education, Aide et Action, South Asia, says children are adversely affected because “a quarter of all migrating population (from Odisha to brick kilns) are children.”

According to the UN, in India, internal migrants accounted for around 20 percent of the country’s workforce in 2017, which currently equals 100 million people.

Around the world, approximately 1 in 45 children are on the move. Nearly 50 million boys and girls have migrated across borders or forcibly displaced within their own countries, UNICEF estimated in 2017.

Climate-related events and their impacts are already contributing significantly to these staggering numbers, with 14.7 million people facing internal displacement due to weather-related disasters in 2015 alone.

The annual average since 2008 is increasing and now at 21.5 million is equivalent to almost 2 500 people being displaced every day.

Owing to climate change, 27 of the 37 Indian states are now disaster-prone. Some 68 percent of the cultivated land is vulnerable to drought, 58.6 percent landmass is prone to earthquakes, 12 percent to floods, 5,700 km of the coastline is prone to cyclones, and 15 percent of the area is susceptible to landslides, according to India’s National Disaster Management Authority.

“Mitali still is fortunate,” Gitanjali Panda, community mobiliser of local non-profit Centre for Child and Women Development, tells IPS.

Another internal migrant girl, ‘fell in love’ and eloped with a boy when she was 15, Gitanjali Panda says. The infatuation wore off within a year, and the family got her back but hastily married her off to another man.

Gitanjali Panda frequently visits the slum and says the young woman, a mother of a 5-year child at 21, had complained of excruciating stomach pain. She miscarried her second child. The doctor then diagnosed a ‘cracked uterus’ – the result of a fall during her first pregnancy at aged 16.

An adolescent boy takes a break from extracting burnt bricks from the kiln with his father and stacks them for transportation in Tamil Nadu State.
Credit: Umi Daniel/IPS

In Daniel’s experience, children are “invisible entities” – they don’t even count. Always migration in India is seen as male-dominated. The government doesn’t even (acknowledge) families are migrating, let alone formulating pro-child migration policies.”

Daniel has worked on migration and child rights for three decades, heading the Aide et Action’s Migration Information and Resource Centre (MIRC) in Bhubaneswar.

Internally displaced families live in rows of temporary tin huts next to brick kilns in the suburban areas where they congregate. In these tin boxes, without doors and with just a torn sari hanging at the door for privacy, boys may get beaten and made to work inhumanly as bonded labour, but girls are “several times more vulnerable,” Daniel says.

Girls and women face “disproportionate threats to their safety and most basic human rights,” Action Aid’s Ghasiram Panda agrees. They are, too often, “the silent victims of climate disasters.”

Governments rarely consider their specific needs and vulnerabilities, he says.

“Rape is frequent,” Daniel told IPS. MIRC took up a case where three minor girls were raped in front of their parents in a brick kiln by the drunk kiln owner and his friends. They were from Karimnagar in Telangana State, which is a climate migrants’ destination. It took MIRC five to six years in a fast-tracked court to bring the wealthier culprits to justice.

As climate displacement and internal migration increases with more intense natural disasters impacting the poorest, Umi says solutions are being implemented by the non-profit organisations but “urgently need scaling-up by governments.”

Inside a learning centre at a brick kiln site in Odisha where adolescents to infants are creatively engaged while their parents make bricks.
Credit: Umi Daniel/IPS

Among the hopelessness, there are stories of success. A decade ago, Aide et Action’s Migration Information and Resource Centre started sourcing youth volunteers from India’s migrants’ origin provinces to go to destination locations and teach migrant children in their local dialect at the kiln sites.

Initially, the kiln owners refused to allow these informal learning centres.

“Now owners are putting in money themselves because they see women’s outputs increase when their children, adolescents to infants, are taken care of,” Umi says.

Government schools often agree to allow two rooms for these informal teaching classes. When migrants’ children return home for the four paddy-sowing months of August to November, they can seamlessly continue their schooling.

“In these ten years, we were able to reach out to 30 000 children with this facility. We started with just 250 children,” Umi says.

Ghasiram Panda says, however, there is a lot more that needs doing.

“Strengthening the government system to be more sensitive towards children’s issues, linking (migrant) youth to re-integrate and fully utilise schemes meant for their benefit, is Action Aid’s main focus now.”

• This feature was produced on behalf of the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development.

 

Follow @IPSNewsUNBureau
!function(d,s,id){var js,fjs=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0],p=/^http:/.test(d.location)?'http':'https';if(!d.getElementById(id)){js=d.createElement(s);js.id=id;js.src=p+'://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js';fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js,fjs);}}(document, 'script', 'twitter-wjs');   Related Articles

• To Prevent Teenage Pregnancies in Sub Saharan Africa, It Takes a Whole Village to Raise a Child
• German Development Agency Raises Awareness of Teen Pregnancy in Burkina Faso

By Armida Salsiah Alisjahbana
BANGKOK, Thailand, Aug 25 2021 (IPS)

Over the past two decades, the Asia-Pacific region has made remarkable progress in managing disaster risk. But countries can never let down their guard. The COVID-19 pandemic, with its epicentre now in Asia, and all its tragic consequences, has exposed the frailties of human societies in the face of powerful natural forces. As of mid-August 2021, Asian and Pacific countries had reported 65 million confirmed coronavirus cases and more than 1 million deaths. This is compounded by the extreme climate events which are affecting the entire world. Despite the varying contexts across geographic zones, the climate change connection is evident as floods swept across parts of China, India and Western Europe, while heatwaves and fires raged in parts of North America, Southern Europe and Asia.

Armida Salsiah Alisjahbana

The human and economic impacts of disasters, including biological ones, and climate change are documented in our 2021 Asia-Pacific Disaster Report. It demonstrates that climate change is increasing the risk of extreme events like heatwaves, heavy rain and flooding, drought, tropical cyclones and wildfires. Heatwaves and related biological hazards in particular are expected to increase in East and North-East Asia while South and South-West Asia will encounter intensifying floods and related diseases. However, over recent, decades fewer people have been dying as a result of other natural hazards such as cyclones or floods. This is partly a consequence of more robust early warning systems and of responsive protection but also because governments have started to appreciate the importance of dealing with disaster risk in an integrated fashion rather than just responding on a hazard-by-hazard basis.

Nevertheless, there is still much more to be done. As the COVID-19 pandemic has demonstrated, most countries are still ill-prepared for multiple overlapping crises – which often cascade, with one triggering another. Tropical cyclones, for example, can lead to floods, which lead to disease, which exacerbates poverty. In five hotspots around the region where people are at greatest risk, the human and economic devastation as these shocks intersect and interact highlights the dangers of the poor living in several of the region’s extensive river basins.

Disasters threaten not just human lives but also livelihoods. And they are likely to be even more costly in future as their impacts are exacerbated by climate change. Annual losses from both natural and biological hazards across Asia and the Pacific are estimated at around $780 billion. In a worst-case climate change scenario, the annual economic losses arising from these cascading risks could rise to $1.3 trillion – equivalent to 4.2 per cent of regional GDP.

Rather than regarding the human and economic costs as inevitable, countries would do far better to ensure that their populations and their infrastructure were more resilient. This would involve strengthening infrastructure such as bridges and roads, as well as schools and other buildings that provide shelter and support at times of crisis. Above all, governments should invest in more robust health infrastructure. This would need substantial resources. The annual cost of adaptation for natural and other biological hazards under the worst-case climate change scenario is estimated at $270 billion. Nevertheless, at only one-fifth of estimated annualized losses – or 0.85 per cent of the Asia-Pacific GDP, it’s affordable.

Where can additional funds come from? Some could come from normal fiscal revenues. Governments can also look to new, innovative sources of finance, such as climate resilience bonds, debt-for-resilience swaps and debt relief initiatives.

COVID-19 has demonstrated yet again how all disaster risks interconnect – how a public health crisis can rapidly trigger an economic disaster and societal upheaval. This is what is meant by “systemic risk,” and this is the kind of risk that policymakers now need to address if they are to protect their poorest people.

This does not simply mean responding rapidly with relief packages but anticipating emergencies and creating robust systems of social protection that will make vulnerable communities safer and more resilient. Fortunately, as the Report illustrates, new technology, often exploiting the ubiquity of mobile phones, is presenting more opportunities to connect people and communities with financial and other forms of support. To better identify, understand and interrupt the transmission mechanisms of COVID-19, countries have turned to “frontier technologies” such as artificial intelligence and the manipulation of big data. They have also used advanced modelling techniques for early detection, rapid diagnosis and containment.

Asia and the Pacific is an immense and diverse region. The disaster risks in the steppes of Central Asia are very different from those of the small island states in the Pacific. What all countries should have in common, however, are sound principles for managing disaster risks in a more coherent and systematic way – principles that are applied with political commitment and strong regional and subregional collaboration.

Ms. Armida Salsiah Alisjahbana is the United Nations Under-Secretary-General and Executive Secretary of the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and Pacific (ESCAP)

 

Follow @IPSNewsUNBureau
!function(d,s,id){var js,fjs=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0],p=/^http:/.test(d.location)?'http':'https';if(!d.getElementById(id)){js=d.createElement(s);js.id=id;js.src=p+'://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js';fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js,fjs);}}(document, 'script', 'twitter-wjs');  

Credit: UNICEF

By Anoja Wijeyesekera
COLOMBO, Sri Lanka, Aug 25 2021 (IPS)

The desperate scenes at Kabul airport of Afghans trying to flee and the image of the US Airforce flight taxying down the runway with people scrambling to climb on, is an image that will be etched on our minds forever.

The tragedy of Afghanistan is that the same saga of desperation and suffering has been repeatedly endured by ordinary Afghans who have been at the receiving end of war, and suffered unspeakable horrors, for over four decades.

At a human level, the Afghans feel betrayed by the Western Alliance and the US. This is not the first time but the second. In the war to defeat the Russians, waged by Mujahideen and funded by the CIA, via ISI, the Afghans paid a heavy price.

An estimated 2 million deaths, 2 million disabled, approximately 800,000 widows and the annihilation of infrastructure.

Once the Russians left, the US turned its back on Afghanistan paying no heed to reconstruction and recovery. This was the first experience of betrayal and it was when Osama Bin Laden, an ally of the US became its enemy.

The second episode took place after 9/11. To capture Osama Bin Laden, the mastermind of the 9/11 attacks, the US invaded Afghanistan. Although Osama Bin Laden had already left Afghanistan, many bombs were dropped, and drone attacks followed.

Large numbers of civilians including women and children were killed as a result. Now in August 2021, with no proper system in place to ensure peace and stability, the US forces simply left. Even General David Petraeus, former Commander of the US forces in Afghanistan, expressed his shock when interviewed on TV.

For the Afghans, in their hour of need, the sudden and inexplicable departure of their President, Ashraf Ghani, is an even greater disappointment.

It is inconceivable that President Ghani left to save his own skin. It is possible that this was part of a hasty deal worked out with the Taliban to avoid a blood bath and destruction of the infrastructure of Kabul. In turn, it is possible that the Taliban agreed to the concessions they announced during their press conference in Kabul, on August 17.

The Taliban spokesman declared an amnesty to all opposing combatants, protection for all citizens, the assurance that Afghanistan would not become a base for terrorists to attack other countries, and a stoppage of the sale and production of opium.

The Taliban stated that women’s right to education and work would be allowed, within Sharia Law, the interpretation of which was not stated. The formation of an inclusive government under their leadership was mentioned.

That the Taliban would be back, was evident right from the start. There is a popular Taliban saying “You have the watches, we have the time. We were born here and will die here. We are not going anywhere”.

Thus, the takeover of Kabul on 16th August 2021, was just the last lap of the race and was a parting gift offered on a platter by the US, when it hurriedly withdrew, with no apparent handover and no declared plan for governance.

The Western misadventure is but a repetition of history. No foreign invader has ever been able to hold Afghanistan. The 13th Century saw Genghis Khan’s army massacred. In the 19th century, the British sent a garrison to Kabul and every soldier except one, was slaughtered. In the 20th Century, the mighty USSR suffered a humiliating defeat.

There is a saying that those who don’t learn the lessons of history are doomed to repeat them. The US did not learn from what happened to the Russians or from their own experience in Viet Nam.

At a time when the TV footage is showing the desperation of the Afghans, the efforts made by the US government to justify their hasty departure and declare to the world that their mission in Afghanistan was a success, rings hollow and indicates a cynical disregard for the plight of Afghans.

Subsequently the US announced that it would help Afghans who worked for them, to seek refuge in the US. This process is going on now.

Whatever brand of “inclusive” government is worked out, the reality is that the Taliban is back in power and seems determined to recreate their “Emirate.”

I served with UNICEF in Afghanistan, in the years 1997 to 2001, both in Jalalabad and Kabul and am therefore very familiar with the draconian regulations of the Taliban.

The Taliban brand of Sharia Law imposed during their time in office, 1996 to 2001, was particularly geared towards the ruthless limitation of women’s freedom and rights. Women were debarred from working and girls’ education was banned. They were forced to wear a “burka” that covered them from head to foot.

At the time I was there, they passed the Maharam Edict, which dictated that women could not walk alone on the streets. A woman had to be accompanied by a “Maharam” meaning a close male relative. The Beard Law, dictated that all men should grow beards.

Both men and women were beaten in public if they flouted these regulations. The Taliban brand of “justice” was meted out on the streets, by vice squads, who beat you first and asked questions later.

Music was banned. TV, films, entertainment and gatherings involving both sexes, prohibited.

Afghans were forced to pray five times a day. Transgression meant getting beaten, even on the road-side. The penalty for theft was the amputation of limbs and the punishment for adultery was stoning to death.

The football stadium in Kabul was an arena where these horrific acts were performed in front of an unsuspecting audience. There was no judicial system and no due process.

Card games which they deemed to be gambling was banned. Iconography, art, photographs and images were destroyed. Priceless artefacts in the Kabul Museum were smashed to smithereens and we are all too aware of what happened to the Bamiyan Buddha statues, which were priceless treasures and a wonder of the ancient world.

When I first went to Afghanistan in 1997, as the UNICEF Resident Project Officer in Jalalabad, the Taliban refused to look at me, as I happened to be a woman. At meetings, which were all male events, they would look away from me with an expression of total disgust and would keep their heads turned away from me, when speaking to me.

After a couple of months of this icy reception, which I considered to be a farcical comedy, they gradually thawed and even shook my hand, spoke in English and became friendly. I said to my staff that I thought that perhaps the Taliban thought that I had turned into a man!

After the closure of girls’ schools when female teachers lost their jobs, Home Schools were started by them in their own compounds, which UNICEF supported. As the Home Schools progressed, I began to think that even the Taliban sent their daughters to those schools.

The educated Taliban valued education. However, their Madrassa educated foot soldiers only studied the Quran, Arabic and the art of guerrilla warfare.

In the office, I worked closely as a team with my all-male Afghan staff, who were highly educated and were perfect gentlemen. I regarded the Taliban as fellow citizens of the world and our UNICEF team followed the principle of “give respect to get respect”.

This formula was effective and we received the cooperation needed to implement our programmes for women and children.

When the Bamiyan Buddha statues were blown up, and I was devastated, one Taliban minister apologised to me, as he knew that I was a Buddhist. He said to me that many in the Taliban government opposed this action, implying that the Bamiyan Buddhas were a part of their own heritage.

The Afghans reported that the Buddha statues were not destroyed by the Taliban, but by the Al Qaeda, who were Arabs. They cried and said to me, “the Taliban has destroyed our future and now they have destroyed our past, we have nothing left”.

In the present context, following the fall of Kabul, the only hope for the future is that the Taliban will form a truly inclusive government and take a more enlightened approach to governance. This will be important for them, in gaining international recognition and much-needed aid.

In my opinion it would be a mistake on the part of the international community to impose sanctions as that would only hurt the poor and vulnerable. To regard the Taliban regime as a pariah state would also not be fruitful as that will only make them even more adamant in pursing inhuman practices.

It is only through engagement and genuine dialogue that the international community will be able to help Afghanistan and influence the Taliban to be more responsible and mature.

At present, all indications are that the Taliban wish to form an inclusive government and that they have softened their stance on the rights of women. The spokesman repeated that everything will be done within Sharia Law. I hope that since they were last in power, they have changed their interpretation of Sharia Law.

It is imperative upon the international community to now step up on their humanitarian assistance and ensure that starvation, destitution and a colossal human tragedy is averted and that the displaced are assisted to return to their homes.

Already more than 50% of Afghans are in need of food aid, on account of the severe drought that has hit the country. Childhood malnutrition has increased and Covid is on the rise. UNCEF, WFP, WHO, UNHCR and the other UN humanitarian agencies are in place and are working round the clock.

The UN Secretary General has already made an appeal to donor countries to increase their assistance. The US and its allies who spent billions in weaponry and military hardware, need to now genuinely engage with the Taliban and support a workable plan for the development of Afghanistan, under the auspices of the UN, so that a sincere attempt is made at long last, to improve the lives of all Afghans.

This is the best safeguard against the country descending once again into civil war and becoming a breeding ground for terrorism.

On reflection, the famous saying that “In wars there are no winners, there are only losers” is indeed true. The Taliban has lost thousands of fighters: no statistics are available. There would be hundreds with severe wounds and injuries.

In fact, some of the Taliban leaders during the time I was there had serious war injuries and resulting disabilities. In the Western Alliance, large numbers of soldiers have died and some are left with lifelong injuries and disabilities.

American and British soldiers who served in Afghanistan experienced severe forms of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorders [PTSD], that led to a staggering number of suicides, after their return home.

The BBC quoted in a Panorama programme that in 2012, more British soldiers took their own lives after their return from combat duty in Afghanistan, than the number killed on the battle field. Taliban soldiers who are the poorest of the poor, too would have suffered similarly.

It is up to the world to now help Afghanistan, and not turn its back on it. The formation of the inclusive government needs to be accelerated to avoid a civil war. The Afghans need maximum help and support to recover from this prolonged tragedy.
The Islamic countries in particular, that helped the Taliban to wage war, need to come to their aid, to build peace.

‘Islam’ in Arabic means peace. Therefore, the Islamic world needs to exert influence on the Taliban and support them to evolve from ruthless fighters into a group of leaders, who can govern with compassion and wisdom and bring about long-lasting peace and stability to that beautiful country – Afghanistan.

 

Follow @IPSNewsUNBureau
!function(d,s,id){var js,fjs=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0],p=/^http:/.test(d.location)?'http':'https';if(!d.getElementById(id)){js=d.createElement(s);js.id=id;js.src=p+'://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js';fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js,fjs);}}(document, 'script', 'twitter-wjs');  

Excerpt:

The writer is former UNICEF Resident Project Officer in Kabul (1999 –2001) and Resident Project Officer in Jalalabad (1997 – 1999).

Nina Salusalu works on her backyard garden, which she started with guidance from the My Kana smartphone app. Credit: Ivamere Nataro/IPS.

By Ivamere Nataro
Aug 24 2021 (IPS)

A smartphone app in Fiji is helping users to not only eat better but to help grow food that will contribute to a more nutritious diet.

An initiative of the University of the South Pacific and the Ministry of Health (MoH), the My Kana app was launched in 2017 to help address the growing prevalence of non-communicable diseases (NCDs) in Fiji and the South Pacific.

NCDs, mainly diabetes, cardiovascular diseases, cancers and respiratory diseases, accounted for 80 percent of all deaths in Fiji in 2015, an MoH report found. In 2018 the country recorded the world’s highest death rate from diabetes, with 188 fatalities per 100,000 people, according to the Asia Pacific Report.

NCDs, mainly diabetes, cardiovascular diseases, cancers and respiratory diseases, accounted for 80 percent of all deaths in Fiji in 2015. In 2018 the country recorded the world’s highest death rate from diabetes, with 188 fatalities per 100,000 people

But there is hope that the My Kana app will help make a difference. It has two components — My Meals and My Garden. My Meals allows participants to record and visualize their meals so that they can monitor what they eat and drink, and know whether their meals are balanced and healthy. They can also select ingredients, many local to the Pacific, to create recipes.

To date the app, which is free for users in the Pacific, has about 500 active users, says the country’s senior nutritionist at the MoH, Alvina Deo. My Kana also has a social media presence on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter, where followers are 60 percent female. This is possibly because of women’s interest in backyard gardening and also their concern for their family’s diets, Deo said in an interview.

My Garden guides users on starting and maintaining a home garden, depending on the season, and how to record the growing process.

Adi Kelera is a happy My Kana user. “I have been able to monitor my water intake, which is something I don’t normally do,” she said, adding, “the data reflection of what I eat has motivated me to take my home exercise routine more passionately, especially in maintaining my weight and size goal.”

Kelera admits that Covid-19 restrictions have affected her lifestyle and her daily training schedule, like many other people. “The pandemic has somehow sidetracked many people from maintaining a healthy lifestyle, and before they know it, they become obese and start developing non-communicable diseases.”

However, she continues using the app, especially the food selfie option. “The app gives me an estimate amount of calories, fat and protein in my food. I find this really helpful and informative at the same time.”

Kelera reckons the app can be improved. “I think that there should a notification to remind users to stay on track and an automated plan for when they log in their details.” But she said she would recommend My Kana to her family and friends because it is user friendly.

Nina Salusalu uses the app not only to track her diet plan, but followed its guidance to start a home garden. She was able to harvest tomatoes, cabbage and beans, using containers and buckets. “I don’t have much land space to carry out home gardening, but that didn’t stop me from growing vegetables. I really appreciate this app, especially during this pandemic.”

Salusalu thinks that more people should know about My Kana. “I feel there are still smartphone users out there who are not aware of the app and they need to be educated about it as Fiji needs to tackle the issue of NCDs.”

About 817,425 Fijians, or 95 percent of the population, have access to mobile internet connectivity across 3G, 4G and 4G+ networks.

NCDs and the pandemic have both put pressure on Fiji’s already overwhelmed health resources. Covid-19 only makes health problems worse, as people with pre-existing medical conditions, including NCDs, are more likely to succumb to the virus.

The first wave of Covid-19 in 2020 saw a huge uptake on the use of My Kana app, Deo said. That is when the My Garden component was developed. “The My Kana garden component aimed to empower Fiji’s population and other South Pacific Islanders to grow our own vegetables, fruits and crops, and eat healthy,” she said.

“Through the My Kana garden component all our health facilities are encouraged to establish gardens to promote healthy eating and serve as models,” added Deo.

She noted that My Kana will also help to address the lack of NCD statistics in Fiji and the Pacific, and contribute to research in the region. “The My Kana App can contribute to food and nutrition security indicators of national development that is inclusive and sustainable, and will improve the lives and livelihood of vulnerable populations.”

Pre-Covid, the app was promoted through continuous community trainings. But with pandemic restrictions, this is now taking place on social media platforms, where followers are continuously reminded to use the app to make healthy choices.

By Alison Kentish
NEW YORK, Aug 24 2021 (IPS)

In 2020, Brazil, Paraguay and Bolivia faced their worst drought in half a century. The Atlantic Basin saw 30 named storms – the most recorded in a single year. Two category 4 hurricanes achieved an unprecedented feat by making landfall in Nicaragua.

The World Meteorological Organization (WMO) says events like floods, droughts, and heatwaves account for over 90 percent of all disasters in Latin America and the Caribbean in the last 20 years.

It adds that warns that climate change impacts are likely to become more intense for the Region.

The Organization, in collaboration with the UN Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) and the UN Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNDRR), launched the ‘State of the Climate in Latin America and the Caribbean 2020’ on August 17 at a high-level conference ‘Working Together for Weather, Climate and Water Resilience in Latin America and the Caribbean.’

According to the Report, increasing temperatures, glaciers retreat, sea-level rise, ocean acidification, coral reefs bleaching, land and marine heatwaves, intense tropical cyclones, floods, droughts, and wildfires have impacted the most vulnerable communities, among them many Small Island Developing States.

“Accurate and accessible information is crucial for risk-informed decision-making, and the ‘State of the Climate in Latin America and the Caribbean’ is a vital tool in our battle for a safer, more resilient world,” said Mami Mizutori, Special Representative of the Secretary-General for Disaster Risk Reduction and Head of UNDRR.

While the report lays bare the devastating impact of a changing climate on the Region, it is also heavy on solutions and urgently needed mitigation and adaptation initiatives.

Leaning on Sustainable Development Goal 13, which calls for ‘urgent action to combat climate change and its impacts,’ the WMO wants nations to strengthen their national multi-hazard Early Warning Systems.

While agencies like the WMO and ECLAC say those systems are underutilized in the Region, Coordinating Director of the Caribbean Meteorological Organization Dr Arlene Laing told the virtual event that recent disasters in the Caribbean, including the eruption of the La Soufriere Volcano in St. Vincent and the Grenadines, have underscored the importance of early warning systems to reduce disaster risk and impacts on lives and livelihoods.
“The meteorological service in St. Vincent, for example, supplied weather forecasts to the University of the West Indies Seismic Research Centre for planning their onsite activities. There were red alerts given to fisherfolk, who were advised of poor visibility due to volcanic ash. There was constant communication with the National Emergency Management Organization and the local water authority on heavy rainfall which would lead to rain-soaked ash,’ she said.

Haiti, beleaguered by poverty and political turmoil, has also faced numerous disasters in the past decade. In 2020, Tropical Storm Laura claimed 31 lives in the country, while its citizens and farmers bore the burdens of severe drought. According to the WMO report, Haiti is among the top 10 countries experiencing a food crisis.

“Haiti presents a much more extreme need for this kind of early warning system and cooperation, as they have been experiencing in succession Tropical Storm Fred, an earthquake then Tropical Storm Grace,” said Dr. Laing.

Many Small Island Developing States (SIDS) in the Caribbean know the importance of adaptation and mitigation measures. The problem lies in financing for those initiatives.

Chairperson of the Alliance of Small Island States (AOSIS) Dr Walton Webson told IPS that in the absence of climate finance reform, these nations which contribute so little to global greenhouse gas emissions but bear the highest burden of climate change impacts, will be unable to undertake the projects they need for survival.

“Only 2 percent of total climate finance provided and mobilized by developing countries was targeted towards SIDS from 2016 to 2018. The COVID-19 pandemic has exacerbated our financial challenges and placed us in a fiscally precarious situation. Our needs have multiplied, and we continue to take on debt as our economies are hit and the avenues for concessional finance close for many of us,” he said.

The AOSIS Chair says the Alliance is leading reforms to ensure targeted financial flows to the most vulnerable. This includes developing a ‘multidimensional vulnerability index to address eligibility.’

He added that the Caribbean small island states of Antigua and Barbuda, the Bahamas, Barbados, St. Kitts, Nevis, and Trinidad and Tobago no longer have development assistance.

“Imagine that these climate-vulnerable islands, hit by hurricanes, flooding, and drought, must now find loans at commercial interest rates to invest in early warning systems, water resources, and other climate resilience! We need strong political support at the Highest Level to adopt a multidimensional vulnerability index,” he said.

The release of the ‘State of the Climate in Latin America and the Caribbean 2020’ closely follows the publication of a new report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which warned that ‘human influence has warmed the atmosphere, ocean, and land,’ leading to extreme heatwaves, droughts, and flooding.

Latin America and the Caribbean are already reeling from the impacts of a changing climate.
With 2020 among the three hottest years in Central America and the Caribbean and 6-8 percent of people living in areas classified as high or very high risk of coastal hazards, the WMO says the way forward must include collaboration among governments and the scientific community, bolstered by strong financial support.

 

Follow @IPSNewsUNBureau
!function(d,s,id){var js,fjs=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0],p=/^http:/.test(d.location)?'http':'https';if(!d.getElementById(id)){js=d.createElement(s);js.id=id;js.src=p+'://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js';fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js,fjs);}}(document, 'script', 'twitter-wjs');  

Credit: Elena L. Pasquini

By Elena L. Pasquini
ROME, Aug 24 2021 (IPS)

It is a metallic sound, harmless. It lasts just over a second, but it can become as sharp as a machete blade or as devastating as the burst from an assault rifle. It is a beep, just the beep of a phone notification. A woman is on the ground, her belly open, her intestines exposed and her severed head resting on her arm. A pagne of colorful fabric still girds her hips. Where? Why? Then, a video. Do you hear those voices? It happened there, in that village. It was them who did it, it was them.

Forwarded many times, the message overwhelms anyone who has enough courage to look at it. However, here, in Ituri, in the East of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, looking at horror is not a choice. Even so, with just a beep, terror spreads. It grows at each sharing, like water swelling along muddy roads. An instant and it is everywhere, ready to be turned into hatred.

In the villages, as in Bunia, the provincial capital, everyone seems to know who those “them” are. Yet no “them” is ever equal to another in a war that is stubbornly narrated, at home and abroad, as the eternal struggle between Cain and Abel, between the Lendu and the Hema, a war between farmers and herders.

It is said to have started again with the death of a Catholic priest in December 2017—a mystery for many, like the mystery hiding the reasons and hands behind a conflict that is blood from an open wound. Ituri has forgotten peace. It remembers only fragile truces.

“We fled because our brothers made war on us,” says François. “The bandits, whom we always consider our brothers, always our brothers, came to us,” says Jean de Dieu. “We shared meals, and the same market,” Emmanuel recalls. They fled, joining the over 1.7 million internally displaced people in this province of just over 65,000 square kilometers in the Great Lakes region.

Michael Barongo Kiza doesn’t use the word Lendu. Sitting with his hands on his legs and wearing a large golden watch, which shines against his brown trousers, he lives in the IDP camp of Kigonze, on the outskirts of Bunia: “The problem is the CODECO who kill people. When I was the chief of Fataki, almost twenty-seven people were killed at the minor seminary, including a priest from Jeiba.”

Irumu. Credit: Elena L. Pasquini

The Ituri war is one of armed groups, a guerrilla war. Irregular fighters, rebels, sometimes hidden in the forest, increasingly confused among their people. The CODECO, Cooperative for the Development of the Congo, is an association of militias founded in the 1970s and described as a sect where animist rituals and Christianity fade into each other. To the CODECO is ascribed most of the violence in the North, in the territories of Djugu and Mahagi. The majority of its militiamen belong to the Lendu ethnic group.

The ADF, the Allied Democratic Forces, an Islamist formation that is threatening North Kivu, began operating in the South, in Irumu. However, Irumu is the territory of the FPIC, the Patriotic force and integrationist of Congo. It is a group related to another tribe, the Bira, and its organization is still obscure. Its main target is the Hema community, which would constitute the majority of the fighters of Zaïre—a militia to which a limited number of attacks have been attributed. However, the geography of the conflict is much more complex: Mai Mai in the Mambasa area, factions, self-defense groups, dissidents of the FRPI (the Front for Patriotic Resistance in Ituri, which, in February 2020, concluded a peace agreement with the government), and many others. What they share is the strategy: targeting civilians.

That’s who “them” is—the perpetrators. That’s the easy narrative of violence generated from ethnic hatred. Yet, in the ISP camp of Bunia, Jean de Dieu Amani Paye looks out of his earthen house. He just knows that had to flee, suddenly. He farmed the land and taught at a school in a rural center, but he can’t say why it happened. “We lived well,” he says. “Someone you were with yesterday is now burning your house. It wasn’t easy. Searching for the cause was difficult for us. What prompted them to do so? We would like to ask them this question so that they can answer and we are reassured.”

Jean de Dieu’s question leads to a look into the eyes of a “many-headed monster,” as this war of multiple roots could be defined, according to Rehema Mussanzi, executive director of the Center for Conflict Resolution in Bunia. “If you go within the communities, communities will tell you different things depending on what has affected them most,” he explains. However, the roots lie in the wounds inflicted by an uninterrupted chain of conflicts.

Before the Congo became a possession of Leopold II, King of Belgium, in 1885, the tribes who migrated in Ituri had a history of clashes over land and resources that time had taught them to manage. It was the white colonizer, with his racist system, who laid the foundations for the hatred that would fuel future violence. It was said that there were superior and inferior races—races that would receive power and races for menial jobs; friends and enemies of Belgium. An “encyclopedia of the black races” crystallized the discrimination.

In 1998, the Second Congo War—the bloodiest contemporary war since the Second World War, with its more than five million deaths and the involvement of eight African countries—brought tension between ethnic groups to the boiling point. The following year, and up to 2003, it would have been a massacre. Then, there were new waves of acute violence until 2007. The victims of those conflicts are only estimates.

Irumu. Credit: Elena L. Pasquini

Even in the village of Sombuso, people died, and Emmanuel Kajole does not know why. “We lived very well with them. They suddenly came to attack us without us knowing what was the problem. … They kill us for no reason,” he says, sitting on a low stool, his hat on his head even though his shelter in the IDP camp of Kigonze is only half-lit.

A draped sheet separates the slightly raised mat from the corner, where the coal burns to cook the food. Emmanuel had a large house in Sombuso, with a living room and three bedrooms. He was a tailor and carpenter, but also the head of a small Hema community, traditionally herders. Seventy-six people raised goats, cows, and other animals, with someone fishing or trading. It was up to the elderly to ensure harmony between the generations. “Our ancestors ate sorghum and corn with meat. If you have a guest, you have to welcome him with meat, so kill an animal and offer him Malofu, a tea,” he says. “Life was too good before this war because the best meat in the region came from us,” he adds.

Traditionally farmers, instead, the Lendus. Today, however, shared lifestyles and intermarriages have caused one culture to fade into another to the point that, even more than in the past, what unites is now greater than what divides. Communities that in the North speak the same Central-Eastern Sudanese language, that have trod the same land for centuries, traded products, and lived with the same frugality that makes this region a place where everything is taken care of as if it were the most precious. A house, a field, or a road.

Joshua Marcus Mbitso has no doubts: “The world today talks of inter-ethnic conflict and that is what we have always rejected.” Joshua is the president of Lendu youth; he lives in Bunia, and the militiamen who perpetrate what the United Nations believes could be crimes against humanity belong mainly to his ethnic group, to his people. “We live together,” explains Joshua. “The Hema and Lendu chiefdoms are side by side, they are like leopard skin: a Lendu entity, then a Hema entity, and so on.”

Joshua talks about how it is easy to generate a fire. He tells of a young Lendu on his way to the market, stopped by the Congolese army at one of those “barriers” that can cost a headshot to those who do not pay. The soldier asks for 200 francs, but the young man has a 500 note—barely twenty cents of euro—and wants his 300 back. “There were young Hema at the barrier because it was in a Hema village. When the young Lendu claimed his 300 francs, he was mistreated by the soldier and the young Hema. They beat him … Do you understand what’s the problem?” he asks. Nobody was punished, Joshua says.

“(The war) began with individual problems. Some young people from our community and neighboring communities—I am talking about the Hema community—have had issues (with each other),” he explains. A trigger, like the death of Father Florent, a Lendu priest who died in circumstances never clarified, according to the Lendu community. The suspicion that he was murdered by a Hema member would have ignited violence. A war built on a chain of retaliation and the actions of armed groups with vague claims: “self-defense,” integration into the army, defense of the nation from “balkanization,” the protection of minerals.

Irumu. Credit: Elena L. Pasquini

“We didn’t know they were planning a war. We lived with them in goodness. In just three days, we have seen changes: No one went to the fields or to the market.” François Mwanza Lwanga talks while his son, still a child, looks at him intently, with his legs curled up. His wife sits silently beside the empty dishes in the small house at the IDP camp where they have found shelter. The space is so small that clothes are hanging from the ceiling and every object can only be neatly stacked. François explains that in 1999, the same thing happened and so, when killings began, they fled. Seventeen died in his village. The ethnicity of the authors: again, Lendu. Yet, he, like Jean, Michael, Emmanuel, and Joshua, refuses to call it an ethnic war, even though the victims are for the most part Hema, to the point that the word “genocide” has been invoked.

“It is an international media campaign (aiming at saying that) in Ituripeople are being killed for ethnic reasons,” says David Mambo Kiza, a lawyer who defends the victims, almost all of Hema, but also Mbisa and Nyali. There is no war between rival groups, only a runaway community, killed by a militia that is a “well-organized mafia, a mafia of criminals.”

The Lendu, unlike the Hema, are not targets of such widespread violence, but they live a different form of suffering in a land where their name is the one given to the slaughters. Christian Ngabo Micho is a young Lendu and lives in a small town in the Djugu area, in the region from which the Hema flee while they remain, sometimes forced to move in search of help in other villages of their community. “It is very difficult to find community members in large sites for internally displaced persons … NGOs and humanitarian workers also find it difficult to understand that the Lendus are suffering … This is why they are confused, they fail to understand that (our) community is also a victim of this war … We are really suffering and the world should know,” he says.

Militias that bring death and devastation to the villages would not be an expression of the communities to which their members belong, as happened in the previous conflicts. However, they find shelter or impose silence in those communities. “The armed groups in some cases live within these communities even when the communities attempt to distance themselves from the armed groups,” explains Rehema. They are still their children, husbands, and youth, but first of all, they are armed. “Even communities and chief of villages, in Djugu in particular, have been targeted by some of these armed groups whenever they tried to advocate against the use of force to retaliate against the other community. In many cases communities are against them, but they have very small bargaining power to convince them otherwise,” he adds. “Often (the militias) say: “We are fighting (for our community) …. This is why we are taking arms. But do they have a mandate from the community to do it? No,” says Josiah Obat, head of the Monusco of Bunia, the UN peacekeepers who have been in Ituri since the early 2000s.

The word that would explain a conflict of an ethnic nature that, however, is not ethnic, is the one that is on everyone’s lips, the one that stirs up the anger of those who do not hold a Kalashnikov or brandish a knife: “manipulation.” Those who want chaos would blow on the burning embers of ancient tribal grudges, fueled by recent wars and the memory of a colonial past that would have rewarded one tribe with spaces of power to the detriment of another—the Lendus. “If the conflict were ethnic, we would not have had to live with them since the wars of 1999,” explains François, who fled with his family, abandoning his village where he was a pharmacist and cultivated a small patch of land. “We ask ourselves whether behind these conflicts there are string-pullers who hide to create conflicts”, says Jean.

It is a genocide armed by “black hands,” internal and foreign. Wilson Mugara Komwiso, provincial deputy elected in Irumu and a notable Hema who works with the youth of his community, wants his message to reach the world. His is a cry: The narrative of the ethnic war would move the attention from the deep reasons for the violence and from finding those “black hands” that use the ancient hatred to incite fighting.

People know the Roman adage “divide et impera,” but here it becomes “divide and extract.” In Bunia, shops facing asphalt-free streets sell all kinds of goods, mostly cheap plastic, imported from China. They arrive along the road that leads to Uganda, the dirt road where trucks raise dense dust and challenge the insecurity of the region to supply a city that is an expanding bubble—the bubble of a war economy. From that street, where rickety and loaded scooters whiz by and women let colored fabrics sway over their bodies, gold reaches international markets, passing through the Emirates. “There are people who may not want the conflict to end because they are profiting from it. They are using their capability to have ammunition to exploit mineral resources.” This is from Joseph Obaith, at the head of the blue helmets.

Leaning against the entrance of one of those shops, three men wait. They lead the way to a small bare office in the back. There is little or nothing on the walls, a plastic tablecloth with geometric designs on a table, chairs also made of colored plastic. And a scale. The deal is silence; don’t even register a sigh. “Gold is brought to us from artisanal mines, small quantities at a time, always the same people,” says one of the three. Sitting down, he takes a plastic bag out of his wallet, inside crumbs of what lives under the thin crust of Ituri. No one speaks. They almost seem to hold their breaths while the camera shoots two suspended saucers with a few coins and a little gold. Suddenly, for no apparent reason, the men ask to clear the room.

You need a license to sell gold, but it is often a façade. A little of its trade goes to the state, and much more ends up in the pockets of a few. Buying it without a trace is now a habit. In 2019, Ituri and North and South Kivu declared just over 60 kg of artisanal gold production. The United Nations estimates that 1.1 tons were smuggled, in Ituri alone. “It is quite easy for gold to illicitly … leave the country into Uganda or into Sud Sudan, or going south into North Kivu and taking the road to Rwanda,” explains Rehema.

Monusco soliders. Credit: Elena L. Pasquini

This is a country where everyone digs if they can and where borders have always remained only pencil drawings on a map. That pencil has never been able to draw the right boundaries even inside, on that land under which gold never seems to run out, and which Hema and Lendu must take care of to produce meat, cheese, fruit, and cereals. It is the same land that the Belgian colonizers divided and distributed among the ethnic groups in a semi-feudal system that after independence changed the actors, but remained the same. Even for those boundaries and for their control, Ituri dies: “To my knowledge, there is no formal land registry for customary land. It is just known that the boundaries of certain collectivities are here, but formally it is really difficult to find a piece of paper that clarifies that this is land belonging to such and such tribe. Actually, it is just historical because those tribes settled on those lands,” explains Rehema.

That is the same land that Bile Luchobe cultivated. Surprised by the war, she fled to Bunia, too. “We lived in peace and security. The CODECO members knew us very well. We do not know where they got the thought of killing us.” The blue mask is lowered on her chin and she has a handkerchief on her head, as do almost all the women here, like those who return home along the road that runs to Uganda. She wears a necklace framed by the ruffles of a pink and yellow dress. “We lived in peace with our brothers. We even went to the market with them without any problems and now they are starting to kill us with machetes and guns.”

She sits in a crowded hangar with other women and children at the IDP camp. She waits to go back home. “I can’t live with them anymore. I can’t live with people who kill like that. But after the war, in peace, we will live together.” Bile is sure of that. Still, however, it is a beep that turns pain into terror and spreads a hatred fed by hunger and misery. These, too, are the heads of the monster that arms men and snatches childhood from children, leads them to pick up rifles and set houses on fire when killing seems the only way to live.

THE FORGOTTEN WAR OF ITURI
Fleeing war, weaving life in IDP camps of Bunia
Between horror and hope in the villages of Ituri
“Don’t call it ethnic. Ituri confict is a mystery”

This feature was first published by Degrees of Latitude

Akilimali Saleh Chomachoma as producer and Sahwili interpreter

 

Follow @IPSNewsUNBureau
!function(d,s,id){var js,fjs=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0],p=/^http:/.test(d.location)?'http':'https';if(!d.getElementById(id)){js=d.createElement(s);js.id=id;js.src=p+'://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js';fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js,fjs);}}(document, 'script', 'twitter-wjs');  

A mother and her child in the Haji camp for internally displaced people in Kandahar, Afghanistan. UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has called on Taliban militants to “immediately halt” their offensive against Government forces and return to the negotiating table in good faith, “in the interest of Afghanistan, and its people.” Credit: UNICEF Afghanistan

By Rahul Singh
NEW DELHI, India, Aug 24 2021 (IPS)

As I write this, India has just celebrated the 75th anniversary of its independence from British rule (Pakistan celebrated it a day earlier). But there is little cause for celebration. A dark shadow looms over both countries, indeed over much of the world as well.

I am referring to the astonishingly swift takeover of Afghanistan by the Islamic fundamentalist Taliban. For the past two decades, the Taliban had confronted the 14,000 troops of the USA and its NATO allies. These troops and their advisers had been trying to arm and train 300,000 soldiers of the Afghan National Army (ANA) which, it was hoped, would eventually be able to hold its own against the Taliban, and continue Afghanistan on its democratic path.

That hope was cruelly shattered with the announcement by US President Joe Biden that all American troops would be withdrawn from Afghanistan by the end of this month. Even then, it was expected that the ANA would be able to resist the Taliban. That expectation has also been belied.

First, the rural military outposts held by the ANA surrendered without a fight. Then, the main districts, including towns and cities like Herat, Mazhar-e-Sharif, and Kandahar, fell, with hardly a shot being fired. The capital, Kabul (population: six million), which was surrounded by what had been described as a “ring of steel”, was expected to repel the Taliban, and perhaps even take the initiative against them.

However, the resistance simply melted away and, incredibly, within a day, Taliban fighters were roaming the city and even reached the airport, stopping all commercial flights out of the country. Images of helicopters ferrying Americans from the embassy to the Kabul airport were eerily reminiscent of a similar evacuation in Saigon in 1975.

The desperation of Afghans to leave their country, clearly because they fear reprisals from the vindictive Taliban, was evident from TV footage of hundreds on the runway of the Kabul international airport, trying to get on to departing planes. Incredibly and tragically, two of them were shown falling to their death after the plane had taken off.

How will the Taliban treat the thousands of Afghans who were, in some way or the other, partnering the Americans and their allies in trying to rebuild the country? Will they be seen as collaborators of the “enemy”, against whom punitive action needs to be taken, or will they be left alone?

That is the troubling question many Afghans must be asking themselves. Then, there is the issue of refugees. Quite a few scared Afghans are bound to try and flee to surrounding countries, like Iran in the West and Pakistan in the south, across porous borders.

Afghanistan has no land border with India, but hundreds of Afghans have been thronging the Indian Embassy, trying to get visas to enter India. Will they be permitted to leave Afghanistan? And will India, as well as Pakistan and Iran, accept them?

India and Pakistan have had close ties with Afghanistan. In fact, Afghanistan was part of the Sikh Emperor, Ranjit Singh’s kingdom in the early 19th century. Thousands of Afghan students have been to Indian colleges.

Hundreds of diplomats from many countries, personnel of the United Nations, of other international organisations, and those who had been working in non-governmental organisations (NGOs), helping to re-build the shattered nation, also find themselves stranded and abandoned, not knowing when and if they will be able to leave Afghanistan.

Perhaps most tragic of all, Afghan girls and women who had been able to go to schools and colleges, and to work, during the past two decades, don’t know if they will be able to do so now. Reports from Herat say that when girls turned up at schools, they were turned away and told to stay at home.

If that is a sign of things to come, all the gains that women had made in the country since 2001 may be nullified. Some of the worst aspects of Islamic Shariah law, such as the barbaric stoning to death of women found guilty of adultery, and the amputation of hands and feet of those guilty of theft, which was prevailing when the Taliban were in power from 1996 to 2001, might now be reimposed.

How has Afghanistan come to such a perilously sorry situation?

For an answer, we need to go back into Afghan history. The region first came to world attention at the time of Alexander the Great of Macedonia, three centuries before Christ. He married a princess of Bactria, an area which is now part of Afghanistan.

In his attempt to expand his empire, his all-conquering army went from present-day Greece eastwards, through what is now Turkey and Iran, then Afghanistan and Pakistan, right up to north-west India. His exhausted troops, threatening to mutiny, refused to go further.

But while returning, he left commanders of his army behind, to rule over and govern some of the regions he had conquered. Hence, even after his death, the Greek influence on Afghanistan survived for several centuries, in art and culture. This is still known as “Gandhara” art, named after the Afghan city of Kandhara.

After the Greek impact, came Buddhism. The sixth century gigantic images of the Buddha carved into the mountainside in Bamiyan, are testimony of the Buddhist influence (they were blown up and destroyed by the Taliban in March 2001).

Buddhism was replaced by Islam, which is when the Afghans became formidable fighters. They also formed a loose federation of various clans and tribes, ruled by warlords.

When the British gained control over India, Afghanistan became a buffer zone between India and Russia. This was the era when “the great game” was played. It was also the time that Afghanistan became a fiercely independent country, resenting all foreigners.

Nadir Shah was the last Iranian ruler who was able to take his army through Afghanistan, on his numerous raids to plunder the treasures of India, including the sacking of the rich Somnath temple in western India.

A revolt against Iranian rule eventually culminated in the establishment of the Durrani Afghan Empire under Ahmed Shah Durrani in 1747. After the collapse of the Durrani Empire in 1823, Afghanistan became a kingdom. Its last King, Mohammed Zahir Shah was deposed in a 1973 coup, and the country became a Republic.

Since 1978, however, it has been in constant political turmoil. The Russians occupied Afghanistan from 1979 to 1989, when it felt its interests were being threatened. Big mistake. They should have learnt from the British.

The occupation drained the resources of the Soviet Union to such an extent that it partly led to the Soviet collapse and break-up. Not without reason has Afghanistan been called “the graveyard of empires”. The British had tried to occupy it in the 19th century and suffered a catastrophic defeat.

The withdrawal of the Russians in 1989 left Afghanistan under the control of the Mujahideen (freedom fighters), who had been armed and financed by the Americans. “Charlie Wilson’s War”, a Hollywood film starring Tom Hanks, graphically describes how the conflict between the Russians and the Mujahideen (who were aided by the Americans) resulted in the Soviet defeat.

The Americans, their objective accomplished, withdrew from the scene. The ensuing vacuum was filled by a medley of battle-hardened fighters, many of them jihadists from other countries, armed to the teeth with American and Russian arms, with no enemy to fight against.

They would soon transform into the Taliban (which ironically means “students”) and become radicalized, believing in a fundamentalist interpretation of the Islamic Shariah law. Quite a few of them crossed the porous border into Pakistan, creating a Pakistani Taliban. Not knowing how to cope with so many jihadist fighters, Islamabad sent them to the Indian state of Jammu and Kashmir, to join the separatist movement there.

Meanwhile, within Afghanistan, a churn was taking place within the Taliban and out of the churning emerged El Qaeda and Lashkar-e-Toiba, the world’s foremost terrorist outfits. This was the prelude to 9/11, the infamous 2001 attack on the New York World Trade Centre.

The conspirators, led by Osama Bin Laden, may mostly have been of Saudi Arabian descent, but the conspiracy was hatched in Afghanistan, which is where they holed themselves up after the attack.

The retaliation against the perpetrators of 9/11 and subsequent two-decade-long occupation of Afghanistan by American and NATO troops may have subdued El Qaeda and the Taliban, but they were never really defeated.

Their opportunity to rise up again came with the announcement by Joe Biden that all American troops would be withdrawn by the end of this month. The withdrawal was unplanned and American intelligence failed to gauge the strength of the Taliban and the weakness of the Afghan army. It was a colossal miscalculation, the consequences of which are being felt now.

A huge sum of one trillion dollars has been spent by the American tax-payer to rebuild Afghanistan, and to finance 14,000 combat troops for two decades, while training and arming 300,000 troops of the Afghan army. Much of that money has probably gone into the pockets of corrupt Afghan politicians and officials.

The former President of Afghanistan is reported to have fled with a plane loaded with hard cash. As for the army which was meant to resist the Taliban, it simply handed over its arms, and either surrendered or disappeared into the shadows.

As I write this, fear and foreboding fills the Afghan air. This is evident from what is being shown on all the news channels. Fear of what the Taliban, now clearly in control of the whole nation, will do, especially to the girls and women, who had enjoyed the right to education and to work, since 2001. And the foreboding is over the heavily armed Taliban, its main enemy, the US and NATO troops, no longer confronting them.

Basically, the USA has been defeated, as it was in Vietnam, and it has left Afghanistan in a mess, as it did with Iraq. What will the triumphant Taliban do now? The situation parallels that of 1989, after the Russian defeat and the withdrawal of its troops from Afghanistan, leaving the Mujahideen in full control.

The vacuum then had led to the creation of El Qaeda, 9/11, and world-wide terrorism. Will history repeat itself? The world is holding its breath.

Rahul Singh is a writer and journalist. A former editor of Reader’s Digest, Sunday Observer, The Indian Express and Khaleej Times (Dubai), he has also contributed to the International Herald Tribune, The New York Times, Newsweek and Forbes.

 

Follow @IPSNewsUNBureau
!function(d,s,id){var js,fjs=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0],p=/^http:/.test(d.location)?'http':'https';if(!d.getElementById(id)){js=d.createElement(s);js.id=id;js.src=p+'://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js';fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js,fjs);}}(document, 'script', 'twitter-wjs');  

By Anis Chowdhury and Jomo Kwame Sundaram
SYDNEY and KUALA LUMPUR, Aug 24 2021 (IPS)

Instead of a health system striving to provide universal healthcare, a fragmented, profit-driven market ‘non-system’ has emerged. The 1980s’ neo-liberal counter-revolution against the historic 1978 Alma-Ata Declaration is responsible.

Alma-Ata a big step forward
Neoliberal health reforms over the last four decades have reversed progress at the World Health Organization (WHO) Assembly in the capital of the then Socialist Republic of Kazakhstan, now known as Almaty.

Anis Chowdhury

Then, 134 WHO Member States reached a historic consensus reaffirming health as a human right. It recognised that heath is determined by environmental, socio-economic and political conditions, not only medical factors narrowly understood.

The Declaration stated, “Governments have a responsibility for the health of their people which can be fulfilled only by the provision of adequate health and social measures”. Also, “The people have the right and duty to participate individually and collectively in the planning and implementation of their health care”.

Countries committed to the fundamental right of every human being to enjoy the highest attainable standard of healthcare without discrimination. They agreed that primary healthcare (PHC) is key to addressing crucial determinants of health.

Alma-Ata eschewed overly ‘hospital-centric’ and ‘medicalised’ systems, instead favouring a more ‘social approach’ to medicine. In the Cold War divided world, the Declaration was a triumph for humanity, promising progress for global health.

It recognised the crucial contributions of multilateral cooperation, peace, social health determinants, health equity norms, community participation in planning, implementation and regulation, and involving other ‘sectors’ to promote health.

Primary healthcare
Some developing countries – e.g., China, Costa Rica, Cuba and Sri Lanka – had already achieved impressive health outcomes at relatively low cost, raising life expectancy by 15 to 20 years in under two decades.

Instead of just curative medicine and clinical care, prevention and public health were given more emphasis. Basic health services, improved diets, safe water, better sanitation, health education and disease prevention became central to such initiatives.

Jomo Kwame Sundaram

Mainly rural community health workers (CHWs) were trained to help communities address common health problems. Differences in national government approaches, contexts and needs have also shaped PHC outcomes, reach and efficacy, e.g., in delivering healthcare to the poor.

But despite reversals elsewhere, some efforts have continued, even expanded. Even in the 21st century, large-scale PHC efforts have made remarkable health gains, e.g., Brazil’s Programa Saude da Familia and Thailand’s Universal Coverage Scheme.

Lalonde Report turning point
Thus, Alma-Ata inverted health policy priorities, as 90% of health problems were recognised as due to lifestyles, environments and human biology, with only 10% due to the “healthcare system”, as noted by Canada’s 1974 Lalonde Report.

The Lalonde Report reaffirmed WHO’s basic approach. Its 1946 constitution had affirmed, “Health is a state of complete physical, mental, and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity”.

The Report’s multidimensional approach to human health marked a turning point, reshaping policy approaches. Similar health assessments, with more holistic understandings, were also influential.

Reports from the UK, USA, Sweden and elsewhere also challenged the dominant medicalised approach to healthcare promoted by big pharmaceutical and other health-related businesses.

Neo-liberal ascendance
Developments since the 1980s have set back and reversed the Alma-Ata commitments. Latin American and other debt crises paved the way for the neo-liberal ‘Washington Consensus’ counter-revolution.

‘Rescue packages’ from the International Monetary Fund and World Bank, especially structural adjustment programmes (SAPs), demanded public spending cuts. These reduced social spending, cutting funding for health.

Thus, many PHC, including CHW programmes did not last. Citing cost recovery, SAPs pressed to impose user fees and privatise health services. The outcomes betrayed Alma-Ata’s promise of greater health equity, and ‘Health for All’ by 2000, undermining prospects for universal health coverage.

The World Bank’s 1993 World Development Report, ‘Investing in Health’, also undermined Alma-Ata. Justifying state healthcare provisioning cuts, it promoted for-profit health financing and other private solutions.

Healthcare financing key
In neoliberal dialect, strengthening health systems meant “enhancing public-private partnerships” among other such interventions. The Bank provided substantial financial support to fund its recommendations.

Despite Alma-Ata, the WHO’s 2000 World Health Report (WHR 2000) criticised developing countries for “focusing on the public sector and often disregarding the – frequently much larger – private provision of care”. It argued, “Health policy and strategies need to cover the private provision of services and private financing”.

Addressing health progress became more ‘siloed’ with the UN’s Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) indicators’ focus on curing and preventing particular diseases. Neither WHR 2000 nor the MDGs reiterated Alma-Ata’s emphasis on social justice, equity and community participation.

Instead, that era saw more healthcare privatisation, public-private partnerships and contracting out of services. After this neo-liberal eclipse, WHO’s attempted U-turn, starting over a decade ago, has emphasised universal health care (UHC) and socio-economic determinants, but the Alma-Ata betrayals prevail.

Thus, the Bank’s International Finance Corporation has been promoting private investments in healthcare services and infrastructure. Deploying billions, it buys public policy influence in Africa, India and beyond.

Philanthropy rules
Unsurprisingly, cash-strapped governments have welcomed financial support from supposed ‘do-gooder’ philanthropists. Many states have to cope with fragile, even crumbling health systems, often overwhelmed by old killers and new epidemics.

Such MDGs-inspired support has typically been via ‘vertical funds’ targeting specific diseases – contrary to Alma-Ata. With more money than WHO’s paltry budget, corporate philanthropy has been remaking policies the world over.

Thus, the policy and ideological prejudices of the Gates Foundation, Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunisation and Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria have obscured Alma-Ata, also reshaping national health priorities.

COVID-19 has unveiled some more effects of various profit-driven healthcare inequities, chronic under-investment in PHC, and over-investment in profit-driven healthcare. They have not only hastened the retreat from ‘health for all’ and UHC, but also made the world more vulnerable to epidemics.

Worse, the interests and priorities of corporate philanthropy have not only raised the costs of, and thus delayed containing the pandemic, but also reversed much of the modest and uneven progress of recent decades, besides worsening inequalities.

 

Follow @IPSNewsUNBureau
!function(d,s,id){var js,fjs=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0],p=/^http:/.test(d.location)?'http':'https';if(!d.getElementById(id)){js=d.createElement(s);js.id=id;js.src=p+'://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js';fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js,fjs);}}(document, 'script', 'twitter-wjs');   Related Articles

• Privatised Health Services Worsen Pandemic
• Why Some National Health Care Systems Do Better than Others
• Hospital PPPs Undermine Healthcare
• PPPs Likely to Undermine Public Health Commitments
• Big Business Capturing UN SDG Agenda?

Organic vanilla farmer, Shelley Burich, works on her farm at Vaoala. Credit: FAO.

By Keni Lesa
APIA, Samoa, Aug 23 2021 (IPS)

A woman farmer in Samoa is using innovation and technology to overcome economic hardship as the Pacific Island nation seeks ways to adapt to the challenges resulting from the Covid-19 pandemic.

Although Samoa, with a population of less than 200,000, remains one of a few countries in the world without a positive Covid-19 case, its border closed in March 2020 after the government declared a state of emergency, dealing the country’s economy a decisive blow.

The woman farmer from Samoa will soon share her story with the world in a bid to inspire others who have found themselves in a similar situation. Burich’s innovations will be among the solutions showcased at the Small Island Developing States Solutions Forum, scheduled for 30-31 August 2021

Tourism, regarded as the mainstay of the economy, has been crippled by the absence of foreign visitors for nearly two years. Hotels, restaurants and tourism-related businesses have had to shut their doors and look elsewhere to make ends meet. But it’s not just the inner circle of the tourism industry that has been affected. Domestic growers and farmers, who had relied on the steady and frequent influx of visitors, suddenly found themselves on the back foot.

Among them is Shelley Burich, the owner of an organic vanilla farm, which profited from the tourism industry. Burich’s farm and business, perched on the cool heights of Vaoala, overlooking Apia, the capital of Samoa, was booming prior to the pandemic.

“Before Covid I was relying a lot on tourists that would be coming to the islands,” said Burich. “I was getting people looking to come and tour the vanilla farm, and a lot of my business was word of mouth. So when the borders closed, that stopped.”

Like other farmers, Burich needed to be innovative to survive. She did not sit idle. Days of studying social media and innovation gave birth to her new baby, “Long Distance Vanilla.”

“I make my own composting and mulching to feed the vanilla, and from the vanilla beans we export our premium beans, which are the grade ones and twos,” she explains. “From the other beans I make value-added products like vanilla syrup, vanilla extract and vanilla powder.”

Outside-the-box thinking and digitalization were critical to transforming her fortunes.

“I decided to go full-time into the social media realm. I created an online store, and I had to figure out a way to keep my business generating products and getting it out of Samoa. My products are now being sold to Ireland, Japan, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, the (United) States and all over.”

While Covid is an unwelcome challenge, Burich said it forced her to diversify. “And now I am doing a lot more on the social media platform. Even though I am sitting here in Samoa, I am actually building an online store for customers in Canada.”

But this woman farmer is not done — she has big plans in the pipeline.

“My dream is really to use (my experience) as a training farm, to get people more into growing and also teach them how to build a business online.”

The woman farmer from Samoa will soon share her story with the world in a bid to inspire others who have found themselves in a similar situation. Burich’s innovations will be among the solutions showcased at the Small Island Developing States (SIDS) Solutions Forum, scheduled for 30-31 August 2021. She will share the stage with other success stories from SIDS around the globe.

The forum will create a space for government leaders, development partners, farmers, fishers, community development practitioners and leaders, entrepreneurs, women and youth to discuss, share, promote and encourage home-grown and imported solutions to respond to the challenges posed by Covid-19, and others that existed before the pandemic.

The ultimate goal is to accelerate the achievement of the agriculture, food and nutrition-related Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in SIDS.

 

Excerpt:

Keni Lesa works on SIDS Solution Platform Communications for the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations in Samoa

Increasing agricultural output and consumption of nutritious food are major priorities in small island developing states in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic. Central food market, Apia, Samoa. Credit: Catherine Wilson/IPS

By Catherine Wilson
CANBERRA, Australia, Aug 23 2021 (IPS)

The urgency of finding solutions to the most pressing development challenges of our times has increased as the Covid-19 pandemic threatens to reverse the global momentum in recent years toward achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). And small island developing states (SIDS), with their physical remoteness, restricted land and resources and dependence on trade and tourism, are experiencing growing hardship caused by closed borders and plummeting economies.

Boosting food security and better nutrition, which falls under SDG 2, is a priority in the current crisis and imperative to succeeding more widely to raise living standards and economic growth. By 2019, the year before the COVID-19 outbreak, the Pacific Islands had made few advances on this goal. Now, the sub-region will be the focus of a high level virtual international conference, the SIDS Solutions Forum, 30-31 August.

The forum initiative is driven by the belief that each SIDS already has many solutions and innovations that are either home grown or generated from similar situations elsewhere, and have the potential to be scaled up. With increasing access to the internet, there are other opportunities for innovation and knowledge sharing

Takayuki Hagiwara, FAO

“The forum initiative is driven by the belief that each SIDS already has many solutions and innovations that are either home grown or generated from similar situations elsewhere, and have the potential to be scaled up. With increasing access to the internet, there are other opportunities for innovation and knowledge sharing,” Takayuki Hagiwara, Regional Programme Leader at the Regional Office for Asia and the Pacific of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), in Bangkok, told IPS.

The two day event, co-hosted by FAO and the Fiji Government, will bring together heads of governments, public policy makers, non-government organizations, private sector leaders, farmers, and community representatives to explore how ‘digitalization and innovation’ can fast-track gains in sustainable agriculture, food, nutrition, environment and health in island states.

Many of the issues to be discussed are not new. For instance, declining agricultural output and low levels of food processing and value addition have been problems for years. And Pacific Islanders have suffered from lack of food following natural disasters, such as cyclones and earthquakes, for generations. In 2019, the FAO reported that 5.9 million people in Oceania, or 50 percent of the region’s population of about 11.9 million, were suffering moderate to severe food insecurity. Meanwhile 20 percent of people in the Pacific and 16 percent in the Caribbean were undernourished.

Initiatives have already begun at the national level. In the Cook Islands, the government launched the SMART Agritech Scheme in July last year as part of the country’s response to some of these issues.

“Targeting commercial farmers and agribusiness ventures, the scheme’s objective was to encourage investment in technology and smart processes to improve yield, efficiency, and profitability… The scheme has approved a range of applications including honey production, establishing temperature-controlled greenhouses, aquaponics, and the processing of agricultural produce. I am excited for the future of this important sector,” Hon. Mark Brown, Prime Minister of the Cook Islands, told IPS.

SIDS account for just under 1 percent of the world’s population. Among them are UN member states Antigua and Barbuda, Barbados, Guinea-Bissau, Haiti, Singapore, Seychelles, Papua New Guinea, Tuvalu and Vanuatu.

Experts point to food insecurity associated with loss of incomes and lower availability of affordable food in the Pacific Islands following the pandemic as a major issue. Post-harvest losses of farming produce are expected to rise, too, because of disruptions to transport networks, supply chains and inadequate storage options.

The present high rates of malnutrition in SIDS, including under-nutrition and obesity, and the overwhelming burden of non-communicable diseases (NCDs), such as diabetes, could also worsen. For decades, increasing reliance on imported food has occurred alongside higher consumption of processed sugar-laden foods and beverages. The majority of Pacific and Caribbean nations import more than 60 percent of their food, while one-third of adults in the Caribbean are obese and 75 percent of all adult deaths in the Pacific are due to NCDs, reports the FAO.

The forum’s hosts believe that indigenous and introduced innovative ideas to address problems at any stage in the value chain, from pre-harvest to market access, can be enhanced and optimized by digital tools.

“Not only is it pertinent, the emphasis on ‘digitalization and innovation’ at the forum is crucial for the needed technological transition of the region’s collective effort towards enhancing current and future agriculture and food systems,” said Mani Mua, Plant Health Field Coordinator, Land Resources Division, at the regional development organization, Pacific Community, in Fiji.

In Papua New Guinea, the use of blockchain technologies, involving the RFID (radio frequency) tagging of livestock pigs, which are then monitored through a computer database, is ensuring the tracing of pork and other food products, a vital process for meeting food safety standards. Meanwhile, a mobile application developed in Fiji enables users to quickly analyse the nutritional value of meals captured on camera. And digital payment platforms, an enormous asset for farmers and businesses, are being supported by mobile providers in Samoa, Fiji and Vanuatu.

But promoting digital-based solutions has its challenges in countries where infrastructure and connectivity can be poor. While 73 percent and 49 percent of people in Antigua and Barbuda and Fiji respectively have access to the internet, this falls dramatically to 11 percent in Papua New Guinea and the Solomon Islands, and 3.9 percent in Guinea-Bissau, according to the World Bank.

“The digital divide is a developmental challenge in SIDS, but also in many developed countries… FAO is working with governments, the private sector, development partners and communities to pursue an incremental approach by leveraging the current connectivity to improve the livelihoods of those with access, and then linking their success with remote farmers. If digitalization helps urban food processors and handlers to earn more, chances are that the remote producers will also earn a bit more while digital access is being gradually improved,” Joseph Nyemah, Food and Nutrition Officer at the FAO Pacific Sub-regional office in Samoa, told IPS.

The International Telecommunications Union (ITU), a key partner in delivering the forum, is also working to guide and implement the Smart Islands initiative, an integrated strategy with governments to upgrade affordable broadband access and expand digital services in island nations.

Bringing digital tools into the households and businesses of Pacific Islanders will require large-scale investment by international donors and partners. However, David Dawe, a Senior FAO Economist in Bangkok, believes that: “Much of the investment should come from the private sector. The pandemic has increased demand for digital services and expanded their customer base, so these companies should see an opportunity in the current situation.”

During the forum, a SIDS Solutions digital platform will be launched. It will be a virtual space in which stakeholders, from government ministers to local entrepreneurs, can continue seeking out ideas from around the world and pulling together the support and resources for those that successfully match nations and their needs.

Ultimately, “new partnerships will be built and, more importantly, local innovations in SIDS that are not always spoken of will be brought to the front and leveraged to catalyse the achievement of the SDGs,” declared Nyemah.

There are calls to include migrants and other vulnerable groups in the vaccine rollout programmes in the Southern Africa region. Credit: UNICEF/Nahom Tesfaye

By Kevin Humphrey
Johannesburg, South Africa, Aug 23 2021 (IPS)

Migrants across the Southern Africa region are massively disadvantaged as they find themselves excluded from vaccine programmes – even when the global vaccine initiative COVAX often funds these programmes.

This is the latest in a long list of struggles migrants have experienced since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. Migrant is a catch-all word that includes a diverse set of people, including non-citizens, asylum seekers, refugees and those who have acquired permission to dwell in the country they have settled.

However, vaccines are just one of the issues faced by migrants. Border shutdowns, travel restrictions and lockdowns have severely restricted large swathes of the region’s economic activities. Relationships between friends, family and social, religious, and other groups have also suffered.

Experts believe that ending the pandemic can only be achieved if vaccines are available in all countries – to all populations, including refugees and displaced people fleeing conflict and other crises – but this regional cooperation is not yet on the region’s agenda.

“In terms of the Southern African region, we are currently not seeing a conversation in place around a regional response,” Public health researcher and Associate Professor and Director of the African Centre for Migration & Society at the University of the Witwatersrand, South Africa, Jo Vearey told IPS.

“In a region of such high levels of population mobility, we need to ensure that our response to COVID-19, in access to vaccinations and testing and other related issues, can reflect the forms of movement that people undertake in the region.”

The Southern African Nationality Network (“SANN”) has called on governments in the South African Development Community (SADC) region to ensure all have access to vaccines. The group advocates for equitable treatment for vulnerable groups such as refugees, asylum seekers, internally displaces persons, undocumented persons, and stateless persons. They also asked authorities to “enable irregular migrants, undocumented persons and stateless persons to access health care without fear and risk of arrest or detention”.

Vearey agrees, saying that “if a person is in a location other than their normal place of residence, we need to ensure that they can access vaccines easily and safely regardless of documentation status. We need firewalls to be in place – where the firewall acts as a legal provision so that undocumented people have no fear of penalty should they be accessing COVID services”.

She says extraordinary measures were needed. National departments of health, home affairs, foreign affairs, and the Southern African Development Community (SADC) should ensure a smooth and inclusive rollout.

“There are, however, questions about the capacity of the SADC structures,” Vearey says.

“There are also issues around how we respond appropriately to the myths and assumptions around the movement of people. We know foreign nationals tend to be scapegoated and blamed for various issues. There is also the issue of giving out numbers of foreign nationals in a given country, particularly South Africa, often inflated. We know that immigration, in particular, is a heavily politicised issue. Some political leaders make use of rhetoric to blame foreign nationals for failures in delivery by the state.”

It was time to set aside differences, and there was no place in this pandemic for xenophobia.

“This is a pandemic, it affects everyone, and obviously, a pandemic by definition doesn’t respect borders, doesn’t care who someone is. It works by moving from person to person. Unless we effectively break that train of transmission, we won’t get a grip on the pandemic and will probably see more variants emerge, which will lead to more ill-health and fatalities,” Vearey says.

“It will also mean a further impact on people’s livelihoods because of more lockdowns and restrictions. Migrant labour is so important in the region through various forms of employment, both formal and informal. Particularly in the sectors of mining, agriculture and construction work. The sooner we can get everyone vaccinated, the sooner we will return to some semblance of normality.”

Traditional forms of migrant labour in the region were established during the minerals super boom in South Africa during the colonial era. Kicked off by the discovery of diamonds (1867), a handful of mining magnates accumulated enough capital to develop deep level gold mining on the Witwatersrand (1886) which is now part of modern-day Gauteng province. This history still exerts massive influence and attracts people with expectations of jobs and business opportunities.

Covid 19 has interfered significantly with these economic crosscurrents.

Senior economist at Trade and Industrial Policy Strategies (TIPS), Dr Neva Makgetla, former lead economist for the Development Planning and Implementation Division at the Development Bank of Southern Africa, among many other roles, told IPS significant impacts of the pandemic were on tourism and mining.

“International and regional tourism has collapsed, and mining has seen a run-up in prices. According to the World Bank, tourism accounted for 9% of South African export revenues in 2018, which is a real blow.

Mira Gaspar outside her studio in Kempton Park, South Africa talks about the devastating impact of COVID-19 on her and her business. Credit: Kevin Humphrey

“The recovery will depend above all on the rollout of vaccinations, which has made good progress but is expected to reach the majority of adults only toward the end of 2021,” Makgetla said.

“The loss of tourism revenues has, however, to date been offset by mining prices, which rose to 2011 levels this year. The question, of course, is how long they will remain so high; the answer depends in part on monetary policy in the global North, and in part on Chinese growth prospects.”

Down at street level, Mira Gaspar, a single mother (originally from Mozambique but now, after many years of struggle, has a South African permanent resident status), tells of her earth-shattering experiences since the COVID-19 Tsunami hit the world and her neck of the woods.

“I had managed to open up a hair salon in a part of Kempton Park where I did not have too much competition. I basically had a reasonably sized area where I was the nearest salon. It was not easy to establish the business, but I did manage to build a steady clientele of women and girls and even went into men’s hair. I added to my income by working with a close friend to import and export items between Johannesburg and Maputo,” Gaspar said.

She sold hair extensions – and even prawns from Mozambique to make a living.

“It was hard, but it worked. COVID wrecked it. The big lockdown took my salon. The border closures took my import-export business. Now I am slowly trying to pick up the pieces, but I have used any money I had for my daughter and me to survive during this time. It is hard, but God will help us through this time.”

 

Follow @IPSNewsUNBureau
!function(d,s,id){var js,fjs=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0],p=/^http:/.test(d.location)?'http':'https';if(!d.getElementById(id)){js=d.createElement(s);js.id=id;js.src=p+'://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js';fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js,fjs);}}(document, 'script', 'twitter-wjs');  

Delegates from Asia and Africa met during a two-day conference to discuss ICPD25 programme of action. Credit: APDA

By Cecilia Russell
Johannesburg, South Africa, Aug 23 2021 (IPS)

Politicians from Asia and Africa shared activism anecdotes demonstrating their determination to meet ICPD 25 commitments. They were speaking at a hybrid conference held simultaneously in Kampala, Uganda, and online.

Ugandan MP Kabahenda Flavia dramatically told the conference that women parliamentarians in her country “stampeded the budget process” to ensure there was potential to recruit midwives and nurses at health centres. Another told of a breastfeeding lawmaker who brought her child to parliament, forcing it to create inclusive facilities for new mothers.

Yet, despite these displays of determination, there was consensus at the meeting, organised by the Asian Population and Development Association and Ugandan Parliamentarians Forum of Food Security, Population and Development, that the COVID-19 pandemic had set the ICPD25 programme of action back, and it needed to be addressed.

In his opening remarks, former Prime Minister of Japan and chair of the APDA, Yasuo Fukuda, commented that the pandemic had “dramatically changed the world. It has exposed enormous challenges faced by African and Asian countries, which lack sufficient infrastructure in health and medical services.”

With only nine years until 2030 to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)
Fukuda told parliamentarians they needed to respond to the swift pace of global change.

His sentiments were echoed by Ugandan MP Marie Rose Nguini Effa, who said in Africa, the pandemic had “affected the lives of many people, including the aged, youth and women. Many young people lost their jobs while girls’ and young women’s access to integrated sexual and reproductive health information, education and services have plunged.”

Addressing how parliamentarians can make a difference, Pakistani MP Romina Khurshid Alam intimated legislation was not the only route.

Other actions were needed to achieve SDGs, especially those relating to women. For example, the act of paying women the same as their male counterparts would more than compensate for the estimated $264 billion costs over ten years of achieving SDG 5 on gender equality.

Alam, who is also the chair of the Commonwealth Women Parliamentarians forum, quoted figures from the World Economic Forum, which had looked at the benefits of pay equity. Each year the discrimination “takes $16 trillion off the table”.

“If we just started paying women the same amount of money that we pay men for the same job. Your country will generate that GDP. We will not have to beg anyone for that money,” she said.

The ‘shadow pandemic’ also threatens to destroy any progress made on agenda 2030, Alam said.
People were put into lockdown to prevent the spread of the disease – but not all people live in three-bedroom houses. Overcrowding in poor areas, the stress of lockdowns led to a 300 percent increase in violence.

Flavia said in Uganda, women’s issues were taken extremely seriously – their role, she said, should not be underestimated.

“Women don’t only give birth. They are the backbone of most economies,” she noted, adding that more than 80 percent of the informal sector is made up of women. She listed various laws created to ensure women are accorded full and equal dignity, including article 33 of the Ugandan constitution, which enshrined this.

Women parliamentarians saw their role as custodians of the ICPD 25 programme as action – and were prepared to act if their demands were not taken seriously, including holding up the budgeting process until critical health posts were funded.

Constatino Kanyasu, an MP from Tanzania, called for collective action.

“Developing countries should merge those efforts with other issues, by addressing Covid-19 together with ICPD+25 commitments horizontally,” she said.

In a presentation shared at the conference, Jyoti Tewari, UNFPA for East and South African regions, showed some progress indices since the ICPD conference, including a 49 percent decrease in maternal mortality before the pandemic.

However, he said there was still a long way to go, with 80 000 women dying from preventable deaths during pregnancy. However, the lockdowns during the two waves of the COVID-19 pandemic had prolonged disruptions to SRHR services.

It was necessary to “sustain evidence-based advocacy to promptly
detect changes to service delivery and utilization, and support countries to implement mitigation strategies,” Tewari said.
Ugandan Deputy Speaker Anita Annet Among expressed concern that one in five adolescent girls falls pregnant in Africa – many of whom drop out of school. With schools closed, the situation had worsened.

She called on parliamentarians to be the voice of the voiceless and ensure “you make strong laws that protect the women and youth. Ensure the appropriation of monies that support these marginalized people.”

A declaration following the meeting included advocating for increased budgets to meet the ICPD 25 commitments, including sexual and reproductive health services for all and contributing to the three zeros – preventable maternal deaths, unmet family planning needs, and eliminating gender-based violence.

• The meeting was held under the auspices of the Asian Population and Development Association (APDA) in partnership with The United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) and hosted by Ugandan Parliamentarians Forum of Food Security, Population and Development (UPFFSP&D).

 

Follow @IPSNewsUNBureau
!function(d,s,id){var js,fjs=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0],p=/^http:/.test(d.location)?'http':'https';if(!d.getElementById(id)){js=d.createElement(s);js.id=id;js.src=p+'://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js';fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js,fjs);}}(document, 'script', 'twitter-wjs');  

María Santos Hernández, 66, poses outside her home in the village of Huisisilapa, municipality of San Pablo Tacachico, in central El Salvador, on Aug. 17, a day before leaving for the United States, in her case with a visa and by plane, to reunite with three sons who live in the town of Stephenson, in the state of Virginia. A fourth son is on his way through Mexico to try to enter the country as an undocumented immigrant and join his family. CREDIT: Edgardo Ayala/IPS

By Edgardo Ayala
SAN PABLO TACACHICO, El Salvador , Aug 23 2021 (IPS)

The Joe Biden administration’s call for undocumented Central American migrants not to go to the United States, as requested by Vice President Kamala Harris during a June visit to Guatemala, appears to have fallen on deaf ears.

In towns in countries such as El Salvador, people continue to set out every day on their way to the U.S. in search of a better future. But there are no hard numbers to indicate whether the flow is larger or smaller than in previous years.

It remains to be seen whether the number of undocumented Salvadoran migrants has significantly decreased as a result of the public policies implemented since June 2019 by the government of Nayib Bukele, as his administration claims, said experts interviewed by IPS.

What is clear is that people continue to undertake the journey that could offer them an opportunity for a better future, given the poverty and social exclusion they face in this country of 6.7 million inhabitants, as well as in the rest of Central America, especially Guatemala and Honduras.

Oscar left on Aug. 14 for Stephenson, a small town in Virginia, a state on the east coast of the United States, from his native Huisisilapa, a village in San Pablo Tacachico municipality in the central Salvadoran department of La Libertad.

“I don’t know where in Mexico I am right now, I’m going with the guide,” Oscar told IPS in a WhatsApp conversation on Tuesday, Aug. 17, asking to be identified only by his first name.

A photo of Oscar and his son Andrés, when they lived together in Huisisilapa, a village in central El Salvador. Five years ago the boy left with his mother for the small town of Stephenson, Virginia, and now Oscar is making his way across Mexico as an undocumented migrant, with the aim of living in the U.S. with his son, who is now eight years old. CREDIT: Courtesy of the family

The 27-year-old peasant farmer who used to mainly grow corn undertook the journey with the aim of being reunited with his son Andres, who is now eight and has been living in that town since his undocumented mother took him with her to the United States five years ago.

“It’s dangerous, but my desire to be with him outweighs my fears of the trip,” Oscar added.

Irregular migration of Salvadorans to the United States skyrocketed in the 1980s with the outbreak of the civil war, which left some 70,000 people dead between 1980 and 1992.

An estimated three million Salvadorans live in the U.S., many of them undocumented, contributing enormously to the economy of this Central American nation, sending home some six billion dollars in remittances.

The decades that followed the 1992 peace agreement saw a rise in crime, especially gang activity, which spurred another surge in migration to the United States.

El Salvador became one of the most violent countries in the world, with rates sometimes exceeding 100 homicides per 100,000 inhabitants.

A picture of the main street in the village of Huisisilapa, San Pablo Tacachico municipality in the central El Salvador department of La Paz. Many undocumented migrants set out from farming towns like this one, where there are few possibilities of finding work, heading to the United States in search of the “American dream”. CREDIT: Edgardo Ayala/IPS

Has “Bukelismo” reduced undocumented migration?

Bukele became president in June 2019 at the age of 39, after a landslide victory in the February elections when he wrested power from the former Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front (FMLN) guerrillas, who were in power since 2009.

Just two years into his term, Bukele, described as a millennial populist who governs through tweets, has achieved a significant decrease in crime rates.

Since he took office, the homicide rate has plunged from 50 per 100,000 population to 19 per 100,000 – a drop that the president attributes to his Territorial Control Plan to crack down on crime.

According to the government, the programme has also reduced the numbers of Salvadorans heading to the United States.

“Don’t ask me if the territorial control plan is really a success, or if the government’s plan to generate jobs has worked, because most likely neither has been that good,” analyst Oscar Chacón, of Alianza América, told IPS in a telephone interview from Chicago, Illinois.

He added, however: “But a good percentage of people want to believe that there is hope that things are going to get better in El Salvador; that is what I call the hope factor.”

Bukele achieved his overwhelming victory by arguing that the parties that preceded him, the leftist FMLN and the right-wing Nationalist Republican Alliance (ARENA), which governed from 1989 to 2009, plunged the country into crisis during three decades of corruption and failed policies.

Lito Miranda, a relative of María Santos, husks ears of tender corn in the Salvadoran village of Huisisilapa to prepare the tamales that the mother of three young Salvadorans living in the United States insists on bringing them to enjoy at their family reunion. Some three million Salvadorans live in the United States, many of them undocumented. The flow of migrants from the country continues, despite the administration of Joe Biden’s plea urging them not to come. CREDIT: Edgardo Ayala/IPS

But more and more information is coming out that some of his officials may be involved in embezzlement, and the president’s style of governing, always at loggerheads with the opposition and social movements, has not created a climate of stability.

In any case, the hope factor should make Salvadoran families less likely to leave the country than families from Guatemala and Honduras, Chacón said.

In April, El Salvador’s ambassador in Washington, Milena Mayorga, said in a tweet that, thanks to the government’s policies, there has been an “unprecedented” reduction in migratory flows to the United States, since only 5.11 percent of the total number of migrants arriving at the southern U.S. border are Salvadorans.

However, the diplomat did not offer more data, nor did she mention the source of her information.

In March, Mayorga reported in another tweet that, in the case of unaccompanied minors, the number of Salvadorans reaching the southern border was lower than the numbers of Guatemalans, Hondurans and Mexicans so far in fiscal year 2021 (which began in October 2020).

But other data indicates that the influx may actually be growing.

Local media reports, citing U.S. Customs and Border Protection figures, have indicated that 12,643 Salvadorans were apprehended at the southern border in July. That represented a 9.2 percent increase over the 11,575 apprehensions reported in June.

Pieces of chicken that formed part of the filling of the tamales cooked in the home of María Santos Hernández, on Aug. 17, in the village of Huisisilapa in the central Salvadoran municipality of San Pablo Tacachico. She flew out the next day to join her sons in the small town of Stephenson, Virginia, carrying with her 60 tamales: 30 filled with chicken and 30 stuffed with corn, to remind them of the land they left behind in search of a better future in the United States. CREDIT: Edgardo Ayala/IPS

“It seems so simplistic to me to say that the government is doing things right and that’s why fewer people are supposedly leaving,” migration expert Karla Castillo told IPS.

Irregular migration is a complex phenomenon with many different facet, she said, and has to do with structural causes that cannot be solved in one or two years.

Chacón said that overall, U.S. authorities have reported 1.24 million people apprehended at the southern border from October to date, but he stressed that the figure was not entirely reliable.

That is because the number counts “events” rather than people, since the same person may be arrested and deported several times.

“Unfortunately, I couldn’t say that there is an accurate measurement method, because we only have partial measurement units,” Chacón said, adding that “we have no way of counting the people who make it in undetected. It’s as simple as that, we just don’t know.”

Some of the 60 tamales made in the home of María Santos Hernández, which she successfully brought with her to the United States, where she traveled by plane with a visa on Aug. 18 to visit three of her sons who live in a small town in the eastern state of Virginia. A fourth son, Oscar, is currently making his way up through Mexico as an undocumented migrant, to try to join his mother and brothers. CREDIT: Courtesy of the family

Taking tamales to Virginia

Oscar is hopeful that he will make it. While he was crossing Mexico, his mother, Maria Santos Hernández, was packing her bags at her home in Huisisilapa to also travel to Stephenson, Virginia, on Wednesday, Aug. 18.

But she travelled by plane with a temporary visa, planning to return home after spending some time there. Her son Walter, who emigrated 13 years ago and “already has papers,” arranged her visa a few years ago.

Maria Santos also has two other sons living in Stephenson, but without documents: Moises and Jonathan.

“We are praying that Oscar will make it through so we can all be reunited there,” the 66-year-old told IPS, adding, “I have a mixture of feelings: the joy of seeing my three sons who live there, and concern for Oscar, who is making his way through Mexico right now.”

Maria, her husband Felipe, and their children lived in Huisisilapa after they were relocated to their land there at the end of the war. And they were able to build their home thanks to the remittances sent back by their sons.

In her suitcase she was carrying 60 tamales that she made on Tuesday the 17th, to celebrate the family reunion in Stephenson with Walter, Moises and Jonathan, and later with Oscar, who is still en route.

“They love tamales, that’s why I’m bringing them,” María told IPS, who was with her on her last day at her home, as she stirred with a large wooden paddle the liquid that bubbled inside a huge pot on the stove.

Tamales are a kind of corn cake with savory or sweet fillings, which are wrapped in banana leaves or corn husks. María was making two different kinds of fillings: chicken and fresh corn.

And as IPS learned, the tamales made it through customs and her family in the United States is enjoying them – though they have saved some for Oscar, who everyone is waiting for.

Credit: Goma, North Kivu. Elena L. Pasquini

By Akilimali Saleh Chomachoma
GOMA, NORTH KIVU, DRCongo, Aug 23 2021 (IPS)

On May 6, 2021, after a decision by President Félix Tshisekedi, a state of siege was established in Ituri and North Kivu, two provinces that are located in the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo and that are in the grip of endless violence.

Earky this month the National Assembly voted on a fifth extension of the measure. Under the state of siege, local administration – including justice and security – is in the hands of military authorities, and local deputies are suspended from their duties.

Bunia, as well as Goma’s airports, experienced enthusiasm and popular jubilation when the new military authorities arrived. Almost three months later, however, mistrust is growing.

“Three months after the declaration of a state of siege in the provinces of North Kivu and Ituri, the violence coming from negative armed groups and elements of the army has intensified, the rights of citizens are more and more trampled and the local administration is completely at a standstill, the citizens’ movement Lucha, movement Lutte pour le changement, notes in a press release.

The pro-democracy movement indicates that since its establishment at least 533 people have been killed in the two provinces, an average of six civilians killed per day. A measure without expected results despite the financial efforts made.

The FARDC, the Congolese army, is still plagued by “businessism” and the consequent lack of logistical and financial support from the government. As a result, the army “only helplessly witness the killings of civilians which, to date, have spread to geographic areas that were once calm.” As it happened in town of Kalunguta, in the territory of Beni, which suffered its very first murderous attack on July 15, 2021, or the town of Beni, which was attacked again on 01July 2021, after nearly 15 months of relative calm.

Among those who support the measure is Jordan, a student. “The province of North Kivu has been scarred for too long by politicians in need of opportunities. This has to be changed quickly. Putting aside politicians will mean a lot for restoring peace, and putting them aside will help the military to act in sovereignty and then restore peace,” he says. Joseph Ombeni does not share this vision. “We see how people are being killed in the town of Goma even during the state of siege. So far, I don’t see any change on the security front. We must strengthen the local authorities for administrative and political affairs and then strengthen the military with the means to search for (criminals). The state of siege is just a waste of time for the country,” he explains.

On July 22, the Study Group on Congo released a publication entitled: “State of siege or state of dysfunction in North Kivu.” The think tank considers that “the relationship between the new executive and the suspended animators of the provinces is not no longer regulated. The military officials, all from other provinces and sometimes without much knowledge of the environments in which they are assigned, are free to consult or not those they are temporarily replacing, and who will normally have to take over the management of their respective entities at the end of the state of siege. The suspended governor of North Kivu is reduced to a passive role of a ‘mere notable’ in the province. The suspended provincial deputies, now deprived of their immunities from prosecution, are more cautious.”

Provincial deputies broke their silence. In an open letter to the President of the Republic, seventeen elected members of provincial authorities denounced the disregard of the state of siege and a plot against them by the government of Kinshasa: “In view of the discourteous, humiliating and degrading remarks made towards the provincial deputies by the military governor, the latter seems to have come with heavy prejudices and presumption according to which the notabilities and social layers of North Kivu would be involved in the destabilization. Everything suggests that there would be a plot against the provincial deputies of North Kivu.” No military authority has received the deputies despite their multiple requests, according to the letter.

Several elected officials in the country hardly support the state of siege any more. Ayobangira Sanvura calls for the “return of the civil administration” and says that “the military [should] concentrate on the security aspect only” for more efficiency. The same applies to Jean-Batiste Kasekwa, elected from the city of Goma.

In a video that went viral, one of the officials responsible for customs declarant people in North Kivu decried the abuse of the new authorities: “We have a blatant case today. Five vehicles that were collected from Bunagana. This merchandise was taken care of to be transferred to the customs of Goma … to be cleared in Goma where the economic operator is located. The customs declarant who was responsible for this commodity began to be worried by the military administrator of Rutshuru. The administrator changed the destination of the goods to Rutshuru territory. This is a serious customs violation,” he said.

“Now is not the time to say that (the state of siege) has succeeded or failed. Rather, now it is the time to make recommendations and exercise maximum vigilance so that the state of siege does not distract those in power and start to become something else,” said Hubert Furuguta, the national deputy elected from Goma.

The fifth extension, voted on last week, was preceded by an assessment demanded by the deputies of the two provinces. According to them, everything is in place to ensure that the state of siege achieves the expected objectives. However, it emerged that despite the efforts made, several security, administrative, and financial problems persist.

Responding to the criticism, Brigadier General Sylvain Ekenge highlighted, to the local press, the work that the army has carried out. Above all, he admitted that the state of siege will not end a conflict that has lasted for over three decades. “Do you think that it is with the state of siege that we will put an end to all the insecurity? No,” conceded the general. “The state of siege will reduce violence, and the army and the police will continue their action for stabilization and achieve total pacification of the country. The state of siege has been put in place so that the violence is reduced as much as possible.”

This article was first published by Degrees of Latitude

 

Follow @IPSNewsUNBureau
!function(d,s,id){var js,fjs=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0],p=/^http:/.test(d.location)?'http':'https';if(!d.getElementById(id)){js=d.createElement(s);js.id=id;js.src=p+'://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js';fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js,fjs);}}(document, 'script', 'twitter-wjs');