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Ein führender Abgeordneter des Europäischen Parlaments stellt sich gegen Italiens Pläne für ein milliardenschweres Abkommen mit Elon Musks SpaceX. Er wirft der Regierung in Rom vor, europäische Alternativen zu ignorieren und Steuergelder zu verschwenden.

UNICEF Global Spokesperson James Elder visits a school in Port-au-Prince, which UNICEF and partners relocated from La Saline in 2023, after its students got caught up in a clash between two armed groups. Credit: UNICEF/Ralph Tedy Erol

By Oritro Karim
UNITED NATIONS, Feb 12 2025 (IPS)

As ongoing gang violence and unrest bring down the living conditions in Haiti, humanitarian groups sound the alarm on human rights violations and the increasing challenges they dace in providing relief efforts.

On February 7, the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) issued a press release in which they detailed the deterioration of living conditions in Haiti, particularly as it impacts young girls.

“A staggering 1,000 per cent rise in sexual violence against children in Haiti has turned their bodies into battlegrounds. The 10-fold rise, recorded from 2023 to last year, comes as armed groups inflict unimaginable horrors on children,” said UNICEF spokesperson James Elder. He added that there was instances of young girls being abducted, beaten, drugged, raped, and held for ransom by gang members.

On January 22, Doctors Without Borders, also known as Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), released an informational animated video which sheds light on the daily lives of survivors of abuse in Haiti. In this video, it is stated that roughly 4,200 Haitian women were subjected to sexual assault last year, marking a 140 percent increase from 2022.

Life for survivors in Haiti has been described as very difficult as the country has limited psychosocial and medical resources. There are only a few emergency shelters that provide care for survivors, which are strained due to a high volume of patients. Survivors of sexual violence are often forced to reside in displacement camps or public streets, with some even returning back to the site of their assaults.

Heightened insecurity has made it difficult for most to seek justice or gain orders of protection. Additionally, survivors are often not granted legal or economic assistance due to the wide scale of needs.

“We see again and again that survivors cannot return safely to their regular lives, they often have no safe space to go to. So emergency shelter or safe houses is the biggest need cited by survivors of sexual violence,” said Diana Manilla Arroyo, the MSF head of mission in Haiti.

According to a report from the United Nations (UN), Haiti’s legal system is currently paralyzed. Despite the efforts of Prime Minister Alix Didier Fils-Aimé to revamp the judicial system in 2024, progress on the apprehension of perpetrators has been slow. As of now, no arrests have been made.

Currently, gangs control approximately 85 percent of Port-Au-Prince. Approximately 1.2 million children are under constant threat of armed violence. In 2024 alone, there was a 70 percent increase in child recruitments into gangs. Half of all gang members are estimated to be children, with some as young as eight years old.

This has been attributed to the collapse of social services for children in Haiti, particularly education. According to UNICEF, over 300,000 children have experienced disruptions in their education due to repeated displacement and widespread insecurity. Due to not having ways to make income or access protection services, many Haitian children join armed groups to avoid violence.

“Many are taken by force. Others are manipulated or driven by extreme poverty. It’s a lethal cycle: Children are recruited into the groups that fuel their own suffering,” said Elder.

UNICEF’s Chief of Child Survival and Development for Haiti, Gianluca Flamigni, visited a displacement shelter in 2025 to speak with displaced communities about their experiences. Dieussica, a 13-year old Haitian girl residing in the shelter, told Flamigni that children desperately “need education. Too many young people are carrying weapons.”

Following the gang attacks in Kenscoff in late January, rates of displacement have soared. According to figures from the International Organization for Migration (IOM), a total of 3,139 people have been displaced from these attacks alone. Over 1 million people have been displaced in 2024, 500,000 of which are children. Additionally, rates of displacement in Port-Au-Prince have increased by approximately 87 percent since 2023.

Rates of violence have also skyrocketed in the past year. According to estimates from Save the Children, 2024 was the deadliest year for children and their families since the eruption of gang violence in 2022. Roughly 289 children were killed last year, marking a 68 percent increase from 2023. An average of 24 children were killed in each month of 2024.

Humanitarian operations have seen numerous restrictions in 2024 and 2025. In the last quarter of 2024, MSF, which has been instrumental in providing direct medical assistance to Haitians, announced that they had to temporarily halt operations following a series of attacks on medical personnel. Although MSF resumed services 22 days later, Haiti continued to face a shortage of medical supplies and staff.

Currently, the UN’s 674 million dollar response fund for Haiti has only been 42 percent funded. To adequately provide support for the millions of Haitians in the midst of a dire humanitarian crisis, it is imperative that aid organizations are able to scale up responses. The UN Security Council continues to urge the international community to increase protection services.

IPS UN Bureau Report

 

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Die Debatte über Europas „Investitionslücke“ erinnert oft an ein dysfunktionales Paar, das darüber streitet, wie ein undichtes Dach repariert werden soll: Alle sind sich einig, dass etwas getan werden muss, aber niemand hat eine praktische Lösung.

Credit: United Nations, Iraq

By Dima Dabbous
BEIRUT, Lebanon, Feb 12 2025 (IPS)

Efforts to end child marriage in Iraq are facing a serious threat, with the Iraqi Council of Representatives’ approval of amendments to Iraq’s Personal Status Law raising grave concerns that it risks permitting child marriage for girls.

These legal amendments would grant religious authorities in Iraq greater control over family matters such as marriage, divorce, inheritance, and the care of children by allowing clerics in Islamic Courts to rule on these in accordance with the clerics’ interpretations of Islamic law.

This includes permitting the marriage of minors according to the specific religious sect under which the marriage contract is conducted, meaning that the minimum age of marriage could be lowered below 18, and could vary between different religious denominations.

If this goes ahead, it would be a profound violation of human rights and risks undermining legal protections for women and girls, in direct contravention of international human rights commitments, including the Convention on the Rights of the Child, to which Iraq is a signatory.

It is important to note that these changes have not yet been made to Iraq’s personal status law. The amendment passed by the Iraqi Council of Representatives on January 21, 2025, only granted religious authorities the ability to interpret and potentially modify the law, but the alterations have not been implemented yet.

On February 4, Iraq’s Federal Supreme Court suspended implementation of the controversial bill after a number of members of parliament filed a complaint on the grounds that the voting process was illegal. This provides a crucial opportunity for continued advocacy, with the persistent efforts of civil society organizations already having a positive impact.

Now is a critical moment to join together in action to help safeguard and strengthen the rights of women and girls in Iraq, and prevent their fundamental human rights from being further eroded.

Child marriage puts girls at greater risk of harm

If the amendment is implemented, it could end a ban on the marriage of children under the age of 18 that has been in place In Iraq since 1959 – although this did include a provision allowing a child to be married with a judge’s consent.

In 2022, UNICEF reported that 28% of girls in Iraq were married under the age of 18, and 7% were married before they turned 15. Child marriage rates vary across different Iraqi regions, with the highest prevalence found in Missan (43.5%), Najaf (37.2%), and Karbalah (36.8%).

Legalizing child marriage under any pretext sets a dangerous precedent. It is not a cultural or religious necessity but a harmful practice that perpetuates cycles of poverty, illiteracy, and gender-based violence.

Marrying girls while they are still children puts them at greater risk of exploitation and is associated with higher rates of early and forced pregnancy, physical and sexual abuse, psychological trauma, and limited access to education, employment, and financial independence.

Women and girls need greater protection in personal status laws

Personal status laws govern some of the most intimate aspects of family relationships, such as marriage, divorce, child custody, inheritance, and property ownership. In many countries, these laws are deeply rooted in discriminatory traditions that prioritize the rights of men and boys over women and girls.

As a result, women and girls in Iraq, and in many other countries, continue to face significant challenges due to sex discrimination written into personal status laws.

Reforming this type of legislation has proved to be one of the most intractable areas of legal change because laws governing family relationships are deeply intertwined with beliefs about religion, tradition, and culture.

The weakening of legal protections for women and girls in Iraq reflects a disturbing global trend. Around the world, efforts to roll back laws that protect women’s and girls’ rights are gaining momentum, putting millions at risk of child and forced marriage, sexual and gender-based violence, and forced pregnancy due to curtailed access to reproductive healthcare.

Collaborating to protect women’s and girls’ legal rights

The proposed amendments to Iraq’s Personal Status Law threaten to normalize harmful practices like child marriage, potentially undermining decades of progressive reform that established greater safeguards for women and girls and helped unify the country’s family law provisions.

As the United Nations in Iraq has highlighted in its statement released in response to recent developments, legal reforms must “align with Iraq’s international human rights commitments, particularly in relation to safeguarding the rights and well-being of women and children, in a way that meets the aspirations of the Iraqi people and preserves the country’s historic achievements and gains.”

Women’s rights supporters are united in opposition to harmful legal reforms that endanger the rights of women and girls across the Middle East and North Africa (MENA). Local advocates in Iraq are collaborating alongside leading MENA women’s rights organizations as part of the Hurra Coalition, which seeks to reform family laws at national and regional levels in compliance with international human rights standards.

Through evidence-based advocacy and survivor-centered approaches, Hurra Coalition members are building a regional movement to protect girls’ rights within the family, their safety, and autonomy over their futures.

This includes calling for comprehensive family law reforms that uphold and advance equality, ensure safety, and guarantee access to justice for all, without discrimination. We urge the global community to support the human rights of Iraqi women and girls by amplifying advocacy and promoting their protection.

Governments, lawmakers, and global institutions must stand firm in upholding the legal rights of women and girls to safeguard them from harm in Iraq and in all countries around the world.

Dr. Dima Dabbous is Equality Now’s Regional Representative in the Middle East and North Africa

Equality Now is an international human rights organization dedicated to protecting and promoting the rights of all women and girls worldwide. Its work is organized around four main program areas: Achieving Legal Equality, Ending Sexual Violence, Ending Harmful Practices, and Ending Sexual Exploitation, with a cross-cutting focus on the unique challenges facing adolescent girls.

IPS UN Bureau

 

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