Authorities face criticism for withdrawing teaching staff from an already marginalised region where education is badly needed
A series of targeted killings of schoolteachers by a militia group in Kenya has seen an exodus of staff and the closure of hundreds of schools across the north-east of the country.
Thousands of teachers have left their posts in the past two months following several suspected al-Shabaab attacks in the region.
Continue reading...A petition is calling on the site to prevent non-consensual videos being posted – and highlights the lack of industry regulation
The news that 350,000 people – and counting – have signed a petition calling on Pornhub – the world’s most popular porn site – to stop posting non-consensual videos and marketing them as “pornography” is not surprising to me.
Pornhub’s argument that “extremists” are lobbying to shut them down is ridiculous. I’m non-religious, liberal and sex positive and in no way “anti-porn”.
Continue reading...‘Stagnant’ global health system is dominated by rich states, rooted in colonialism and undervalues women, says study
A small group of privileged men based in Europe and the US preside over a global health system which is 70% male, according to new research.
The Global Health 50/50 report, published on Monday by University College London’s Institute of Global Health, warns it could take 54 years until the world’s major health organisations have equality in their leadership.
Continue reading...Petition highlighting failure of Pornhub to protect rape and revenge porn victims has attracted over 350,000 signatures
An online petition accusing Pornhub, the UK’s biggest open access porn site, from profiting from videos of rape and sexual abuse has reached over 350,000 signatures.
Pornhub is the world’s biggest porn site and was visited 42bn times last year. It is free to access, with no age restrictions, and raises revenue through advertising and paid-for promotions by porn producers.
Continue reading...Foreign secretary asked to intervene as death penalty hangs over four young men at mass trial in Cairo
A group of British MPs has called on the foreign secretary to intervene in the case of four young men facing a death sentence in Cairo for crimes they allegedly committed as children.
One of them is Ammar El Sudany, who was in the bath when Egyptian security forces raided his home.
Continue reading...To mark International Women’s Day, ActionAid is staging a photography exhibition that celebrates female trailblazers in poor countries – from the Guatemalan hip-hop artist who uses her music to champion feminism, to the founder of Kabul’s first yoga studio. All of the images, which are on show at the Oxo Tower in London until 8 March, are taken by female photographers
Continue reading...As contagion swept through the Diamond Princess, its crew had to carry on working. Here, they recall the climate of chaos and fear that prevailed during the ship’s two-week quarantine
Christian Santos* remembers staying awake at night, anxiously listening to the sound of his colleague coughing. They were sleeping below deck, in one of the small rooms shared by workers on board the stricken Diamond Princess cruise ship.
He had spent the previous two weeks serving guests who were confined to their rooms, and watching the miserable failure of disease-control measures on the vessel. Now he knew the coronavirus, which had already transmitted to hundreds of people onboard, had almost certainly entered his own cabin.
Continue reading...Inquiry finds that authorities armed and orchestrated security forces that killed more than 200 pro-democracy protesters
Sudanese security forces systematically planned and coordinated a series of deadly attacks that killed 241 pro-democracy protesters and injured hundreds more at a Khartoum sit-in last year, an inquiry has found.
Authorities “purposefully pre-positioned” state security forces armed with tear gas, whips and assault rifles in the month before the protests began, and “intentionally targeted” medical personnel and facilities during and after the protests, according to the New York-based advocacy organisation Physicians for Human Rights (PHR), which led an investigation into the violence.
Continue reading...Charity Commission condemns ‘serious failures’ in handling of harassment allegations against senior staff
Save the Children “let down” its staff and the wider public over its handling of alleged sexual harassment and inappropriate behaviour by senior managers, according to a fiercely critical report published on Thursday.
The Charity Commission said the organisation’s handling of complaints against its former chief executive, Justin Forsyth, and Brendan Cox, its former policy director, amounted to mismanagement and had a “corrosive effect” on the organisation’s culture. The charity must work hard to rebuild its reputation, said the commission.
Continue reading...Winnie Byanyima pledges to stamp out abuse after International Labour Organization rules that agency breached duty of care
The head of UNAids said the agency would “take stock, learn and become a stronger and better organisation” after a tribunal ruled that it had failed in its duty to deal adequately with complaints of staff harassment.
In an email to staff, Winnie Byanyima, who promised to stamp out abusive behaviour when she took over the agency in November, said losing a case at the International Labour Organization tribunal – the highest internal court of appeal – was “very significant”.
Continue reading...Analysis of 75 countries reveals ‘shocking’ scale of global women’s rights backlash
Almost 90% of people are biased against women, according to a new index that highlights the “shocking” extent of the global backlash towards gender equality.
Despite progress in closing the equality gap, 91% of men and 86% of women hold at least one bias against women in relation to politics, economics, education, violence or reproductive rights.
Continue reading...Charity Commission accuses organisation of mishandling sexual harassment allegations levelled at former senior staff
The head of one of Britain’s biggest charities resisted calls to resign on Wednesday after a damning inquiry into the organisation’s handling of allegations of sexual harassment and inappropriate behaviour against senior managers.
A Charity Commission investigation into Save the Children’s handling of claims against Justin Forsyth and Brendan Cox, respectively the charity’s former chief executive and policy director, will be published on Thursday.
Continue reading...Researchers use supercomputer to predict potential breeding areas as food security fears grow
Scientists monitoring the movements of the worst locust outbreak in Kenya in 70 years are hopeful that a new tracking programme they will be able to prevent a second surge of the crop-ravaging insects.
The UN has described the locust outbreak in the Horn of Africa, and the widespread breeding of the insects in Kenya, Ethiopia and Somalia that has followed, as “extremely alarming”.
Continue reading...At least 25 heavily pregnant women have disappeared from asylum shelters since November, sparking fears of trafficking and illegal adoption
This article is part of the Guardian’s This is Europe series
Dutch authorities have issued an alert over the disappearances of dozens of pregnant African women housed in asylum shelters in the Netherlands.
The unusual alert, seen by the Guardian and Argos Radio of the Netherlands, was put out by the Expertise Centre for Human Trafficking and Smuggling (EMM), a collaboration between the Dutch National Police, the Royal Netherlands Military Police, the Social Affairs and Employment Inspectorate and the Immigration Service.
Continue reading...A quarter of a century after world conference pledged to advance gender equality, reports finds opportunities and rights still lacking
Girls are far less likely to get married or drop out of school than ever before, but worryingly high rates of obesity, suicide and sexually transmitted infections underline how uneven global progress has been for them over the past 25 years, according to a report published on Wednesday.
Despite major gains in some aspects of girls’ lives since governments pledged at the fourth world conference on women in 1995 to advance the rights of women and girls, violence against them is still not only common but accepted, claim the UN children’s agency, Plan International, and UN Women. They warn that if discrimination continues, the 2030 gender equality targets are unlikely to be achieved.
Continue reading...Trachoma is the most common infectious cause of blindness in the world. Kenya aims to eliminate the disease in four years, helped by teams who traverse desert and bushland to reach scattered communities
Continue reading...Pioneering Rajasthan initiative helps health workers reach families in greatest need first, increasing identification of malnutrition and issues in pregnancy
It’s 10am and time for the first home visit of the day. After consulting a colour-coded map on the wall of the village centre, the three female health workers make their way through the winding lanes of a remote village in Jhalawar district, Rajasthan, where the rice has been harvested and garlic is being planted, to the home of Nirmala.
The yellow bindi (dot) on the map indicates that Nirmala and her children are highly likely to become malnourished without the proper care, which means the family is a priority for health services.
Continue reading...Canadian Humanitarian members deny distributing expired medication or acting without approval
Authorities in Ethiopia have detained 13 Canadian healthcare workers and volunteers, alleging the group were improperly practising medicine in the country.
Canadian Humanitarian, a non-profit organisation based in the province of Alberta, confirmed the detentions but denied allegations it had distributed expired medication or was offering medical services without prior approval.
Continue reading...Expert calls for Home Office to lose powers but councils say they are struggling to cope
The UK’s independent anti-slavery commissioner has called for decision-making on child trafficking cases to be taken away from the Home Office.
Sara Thornton told the Independent that local authorities should take over the powers because they are better placed to provide subsequent support for the child.
Continue reading...Two men sue over alleged HIV and gonorrhoea infections that they claim were caused by defective contraceptives
Two Ugandan men have taken court action against an international charity for distributing faulty condoms which, they claim, led to one of them contracting HIV and the other gonorrhoea.
In a lawsuit, Joseph Kintu and Sulaiman Balinya say they bought Life Guard condoms from stores supplied by the Marie Stopes organisation in Uganda in October last year.
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