Category Archives: Global development

Slavery survivors moved ‘without notice, without reason’ in London lockdown

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Despite stay at home orders, vulnerable asylum seekers in Home Office accommodation say they were given as little as a day’s notice

Modern slavery survivors with young children were among refugees allegedly forced to move accommodation in London with as little as one day’s notice during coronavirus lockdowns this winter.

Women who are among the UK’s most vulnerable refugees and asylum seekers said they were given just 24 hours to pack before being moved from accommodation provided by the Home Office, often having to travel long distances across the capital, in late December and January.

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Joe Biden axes ‘global gag rule’ but health groups call on him to go further

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President’s move to end ‘abortion ban’ on overseas funding hailed – now aid groups want apology for harmful Trump policies

Health groups around the world are celebrating the end of a harmful policy banning US funding for overseas aid organisations that facilitate or promote abortion, which was scrapped by the US president, Joe Biden, in a presidential memorandum on Thursday.

Reproductive rights advocates are urging the new administration to now go further and permanently repeal the Mexico City policy – known as the “global gag rule” – to prevent it being reinstated by a future Republican president. The policy has been blamed for contributing to thousands of maternal deaths in the developing world over the past four years.

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Refugee rights ‘under attack’ at Europe’s borders, UN warns

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Agency says violent pushback policies are continuing despite number of arrivals falling by nearly a quarter last year

The right to asylum is coming under increasing attack at Europe’s borders, the UN’s refugee body is warning.

UNHCR says it is alarmed by mounting expulsions and pushbacks of refugees and asylum-seekers and is calling for states to urgently investigate and halt increasing violence against people at Europe’s land and sea borders.

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‘They use old cloths’: Sri Lanka to give schoolgirls free period products

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In a country where women often still resort to rags as sanitary towels, campaigners are trying to break down a damaging taboo

In a village school near the beach, Koshala Dilrukshi teaches English to students from Uswetakeiyawa, a Sri Lankan fishing village. On most days, Dilrukshi says, some of the girls in her class will be missing. They go absent when they have their periods.

It’s not uncommon throughout Sri Lanka. More than half of the adolescents responding to a Unicef study in 2015 did not want or weren’t allowed to go to school during their periods, while 37% miss one or two school days each month. For most, fear of staining, pain and discomfort are the main reasons for not going to school.

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Mining giant Glencore faces human rights complaint over toxic spill in Chad

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Dozens of villagers, including children, claim they suffered severe burns and sickness after contact with contaminated water

The UK government has accepted a human rights complaint against mining and commodities giant Glencore regarding a toxic wastewater spill in Chad, where dozens of villagers – among them children – claim they suffered severe burns, skin lesions and sickness after contact with contaminated water.

The complaint, brought by three human rights groups on behalf of affected communities, alleges environmental abuses and social engagement failures by the FTSE-100 company in relation to two spillages, the wastewater spill and an alleged oil spill, both in 2018.

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Italy ‘failed to protect life’ in 2013 drowning of 200 people, rules UN

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Authorities had duty under international law to respond immediately to calls from boat that came under fire and capsized

Italy failed in its duty to protect human life by delaying a rescue mission for a sinking boat in the Mediterranean, the UN Human Rights Committee found on Wednesday.

More than 200 people who had been on board drowned on 11 October 2013 after repeated requests for help were ignored, according to a ruling by the committee on a case brought by Syrian and Palestinian survivors who lost their relatives.

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‘Things are getting worse’: Tunisia protests rage on as latest victim named

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Police brutality and unemployment worsened by the pandemic continues to drive young protesters onto streets to demand reform

The latest victim of Tunisia’s current unrest has been named as Haykel Rachdi, from Sbeitla in Kasserine, near the Algerian border. He died of his injuries on Monday night after reportedly being struck on the head by a police teargas canister.

Protests were continuing on Wednesday, with police pushing back hundreds of mainly young demonstrators outside the country’s parliament in the capital, Tunis. One group had marched there from the working-class district of Hay Ettadhamen, in the north of the city. The protesters chanted refrains from the revolution of the winter of 2010–11 and anti-police slogans, while inside, politicians continued to debate whether to accept or reject a proposed new government, the fifth since 2019’s inconclusive elections.

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From waste to play space: the project turning India’s scrap into playgrounds

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Realising safe play places were in short supply while waste materials were abundant, a group of friends has set about transforming life for India’s children

Children of all ages cluster on top of tin cans painted in green, red and yellow embedded in the ground, others hang off a climbing frame made of rubber tubes. Others clamber energetically up a wall of colourfully painted repurposed tyres while some play on giant dominoes.

“Tyres are versatile,” said Pooja Rai. “We use as many as 70 tyres in one playground to build seesaws and slides as well as elephants, octopuses and bikes that keep the children engaged.”

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UK aid cuts of up to 70% a ‘gut punch’ to world’s poorest, experts say

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Decision to reduce overseas aid represents a ‘major challenge’ to partner countries’ Covid responses, FCDO warned

The British government’s decision to slash at least 50% in overseas aid within the next few weeks has been called a “gut punch” to the world’s poorest.

Reacting to the news that diplomats had been ordered to cut billions in aid over the next six weeks, experts warned that many lives would be lost and the UK stood to lose its reputation as a global “force for good”.

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UK diplomats told to cut up to 70% from overseas aid budget

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Officials have just weeks to slash costs, prompting fears that speed of cuts could cost lives

British diplomats have been instructed to find at least 50% cuts in UK overseas bilateral aid in the next few weeks in advance of the next financial year, the Labour party has said.

Sarah Champion, the Labour chair of parliament’s international development select committee, said: “Our ambassadors have today been instructed by the Foreign Office to cut 50-70% from the aid budget.”

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UK must cancel poor countries’ debt or face Covid-19 ‘financial tsunami’

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International development committee tells government that pandemic and foreign aid cuts fuelling poverty and food insecurity

Billions of dollars of debt owed by poor countries must be permanently cancelled in order to stave off a “looming financial tsunami” caused by Covid-19 and the ensuing global recession, a cross-party committee of MPs has warned.

Debt relief will not be enough to help the world’s most vulnerable economies as they face skyrocketing levels of hunger and unemployment, according to an inquiry into Covid-19’s secondary impacts in developing countries, published on Tuesday by the House of Commons international development committee (IDC).

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Egypt’s political prisoners ‘denied healthcare and subject to reprisals’

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International community must put pressure on Egypt to prevent prison deaths, warns Amnesty International

A decade after the uprising that overturned politics in Egypt, political prisoners are being targeted inside the country’s overcrowded prison system.

Egypt’s prisons hold at least twice the number of people they were built for, with prisoners of conscience targeted by security forces and denied healthcare, according to Amnesty International. Prisoners of all kinds risk dying in custody because of the profound lack of basic care by the authorities, said the human rights organisation.

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Covid ‘imperils family planning in poorest countries’, says global project

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Sixty million more girls and women using modern contraceptives due to global campaign, but pandemic recession threatens services

Sixty million more women and girls in the world’s poorest countries are now using modern contraceptives, after an eight-year global effort to expand family planning services.

But the FP2020 global partnership, launched in London in 2012, warned that the coronavirus pandemic and the resulting financial crisis imperils further progress.

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‘The lockdown was political’: Chad under strain ahead of election

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Opposition cries foul as Covid restrictions cut off incomes and health care in country where two-thirds live in severe poverty

For Abdulgadir Sanousi the decision to lock down the capital of Chad was “a nightmare”. His work driving from N’Djamena to Moundou in the south four times a week dried up overnight. This month any work has involved bribing police to let him through the checkpoints at N’Djamena’s four main entry points.

“The situation is just a nightmare for us. We are faced with difficulties by the police. In order to deal with them you need to bribe them, if not they would confiscate your vehicle,” says 27-year-old Sanousi.

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‘Nowhere is safe’: Colombia confronts alarming surge in femicides

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Vice-president joins activists in calling for zero tolerance of ‘machismo’ that has left hundreds of women and girls dead

When authorities pulled the lifeless body of four-year-old María Ángel Molina out of a river in rural Colombia on 13 January, the South American country mourned what was the 14th documented case of femicide this year.

Her murderer, Juan Carlos Galvis, also kidnapped María’s sister, and later admitted to authorities that he committed the brutal crimes in order to punish the girls’ mother for seeing another man.

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Mexico faces challenge to light-touch Covid approach as US restricts travel

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Biden administration’s demand that travelers provide a negative test and self-quarantine could hit Mexico’s tourist industry hard

New US coronavirus travel restrictions are likely to have an outsized impact on Mexico, which is also struggling with an uncontrolled outbreak of the virus and record-breaking deaths.

Related: Covid fatalities soar in Mexico as president condemned for inaction

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‘It’s a big deal’: why former protester turned Davos mayor wants WEF back

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Philipp Wilhelm knows local people rely on forum’s revenue – but still thinks world must change

In his youth, Philipp Wilhelm was at the forefront of protests against the World Economic Forum’s annual “extreme capitalism” gathering of the business and political elite in Davos, the Swiss mountain resort where he grew up.

Now, however, Wilhelm is the mayor of the town and his central mission is to ensure the return of the WEF jamboree, which had been scheduled to start next week but was cancelled this year due to the pandemic.

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World’s poor need action, not Covid ‘vaccine nationalism’, say experts

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Nations outbidding each other creates an ‘immoral race towards the abyss’

Pharmaceutical companies should do more to transfer vaccine technology to prevent the poorest countries falling behind in the distribution of Covid-19 vaccines, according to an expert.

The warning came from Dag-Inge Ulstein, the co-chair of the global council trying to speed up access to Covid vaccines for the world’s poor, known as the Act (Access to Covid-19 Tools) Accelerator. Ulstein, Norway’s international development minister, oversees the drive to ensure vaccines reach the poor – the Covax programme.

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UN warns most will live downstream of ageing large dams by 2050

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Global study calls on governments to step up maintenance efforts to prevent failures, overtopping or leaks

By 2050 most people will live downstream of a large dam built in the 20th century, many of which are approaching the limits of the useful lifetime they were designed for, according to global research.

To avoid the potential for dam failures, overtopping or leaks, the dams will require increasing maintenance, and some may have to be taken out of service. Many governments have not prepared for these needs, warn the authors of a study by the United Nations University.

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US missionary faces new legal action over child deaths at Uganda health centre

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Four families seek damages and apology from Renee Bach, who settled two cases out of court last year

Four Ugandan families are taking legal action against an American missionary accused of taking part in treatments at a religious health centre she ran, despite having no medical qualifications.

Renee Bach founded the now defunct Serving His Children (SHC) centre in Jinja, a city in east Uganda, where the families took their children, three of whom later died.

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