Human-rights lawyers are warning that abuse claims by Moroccans picking fruit in Spain for UK supermarkets could amount to “state-sponsored human trafficking”.
The international lawyers say Spanish authorities have a legal duty to ensure the allegations by the women – that they have faced exploitation and abuse while harvesting strawberries – are properly investigated by the courts.
Continue reading...Leeds’ managed zone for prostitution was meant to make life safer for women, but, amid a firestorm of opposition, who is benefiting from the radical approach?
During the day the Holbeck industrial zone looks pretty innocuous. Perched on the southern edge of Leeds city centre, it backs on to residential streets peppered with betting shops, newsagents and takeaways.
Yet at night this industrial zone becomes something very different. It transforms into the UK’s first designated red light zone where, between the hours of 8pm-6am, street prostitution operates openly with neither the women nor the sex buyers facing prosecution.
Continue reading...Study identifies DRC, India and South Sudan among countries where women are at greatest risk of attack
Sexual violence is on the increase both inside and outside of wartime contexts and women remain the primary victims, warns new research.
In their report, researchers from the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data project (Acled) analysed data gathered from 400 recorded sexual violence events that occurred between January 2018 and June 2019.
Continue reading...Somali people at Kenya’s sprawling refugee camp allege that UN staff want money for everything from food to repatriation
Four years ago, Asha made what seemed like an impossible decision. She knew the journey from Kenya’s Dadaab refugee camp back to her native Somalia was risky. But after an attack by the Somali Islamist group al-Shabaab, the Kenyan government had threatened to close the vast, sprawling camp for security reasons. Asha feared for her family’s safety if Kenyan soldiers moved in to evict them.
“I wanted to be gone before the rough-up,” recalls Asha. “I didn’t want my girls raped by [the] military forcing them on buses. I wanted to protect myself too.–
Continue reading...Study finds Trump-backed policy led to increase in pregnancies and reduction in use of modern contraceptives
A US government policy that restricts funding to organisations that conduct or support abortions has been linked to a 40% increase in terminations in African countries that depend on American foreign aid, according to new research.
Related: Medical experts criticise BBC for use of phrase 'heartbeat bill'
Continue reading...Regional hearing seen as ‘last resort’ in battle to overturn measure that, exacerbated by Ebola, has affected thousands
Sierra Leone is being taken to court over its ban on pregnant girls attending school, which has denied thousands the right to finish their education.
Many girls were orphaned in the west African country’s deadly Ebola outbreak and, as they were left vulnerable and forced to fend for themselves, there was a spike in pregnancies. When schools reopened after the outbreak was contained, the government banned them from attending, to protect “innocent girls” from a bad influence.
Continue reading...Vietnamese national was illegally detained for five months after Home Office refused to accept he was not someone else
The Home Office will pay £45,000 in compensation to a trafficking victim for illegally detaining him in an immigration removal centre for more than five months after it mistook him for another man who had been deported from the UK in 2011.
The victim – known as NN – was unlawfully detained in Morton Hall immigration removal centre last year after the Home Office refused to accept he was not another Vietnamese national, referred to in court as T. The Home Office only agreed to carry out fingerprint tests after NN’s lawyers threatened legal action.
Continue reading...Dengue fever is one of the most deadly mosquito-borne diseases – half the world’s population is at risk from it. Adrienne Surprenant’s photos from the World Mosquito Program in Brazil capture the fight against it
In an age when social media has undermined our ability to engage with pictures, Julia le Duc’s tragic image raises tough questions
Warning: graphic images
Julia le Duc’s image of Óscar Alberto Martínez Ramírez and his 23-month-old daughter, Valeria, lying drowned on a muddy shoreline after an attempted crossing of Rio Grande into the US appears like a summation of all the arguments about the Trump administration’s harsh immigration policies.
The pair look as though they could be locked in a sleeping embrace, the child’s head tucked inside her father’s T-shirt, where she’d been placed by him for safety as he swam, protecting their last dignity.
Continue reading...Development minister fears impact of no-deal Brexit on UK role in reducing global poverty
Rory Stewart has said it would be “heartbreaking” to leave his job as international development secretary were Boris Johnson to become the next prime minister.
Stewart, an anti no-deal candidate who was knocked out of the Tory leadership contest after last week after a television debate, has vowed not to serve in a Johnson cabinet.
Continue reading...Two other unnamed women also accuse Jammeh of rape and sexual assault as investigation claims systematic abuse
A Gambian pageant winner has accused the country’s former president of rape as an investigation claims Yahya Jammeh systematically sexually abused young women.
Jammeh, who reluctantly stepped down in 2017 after 22 years of rule, presented himself as a deeply religious figure and an advocate of girls’ rights and declared his small west African nation an Islamic republic.
Continue reading...Global Commission on Drug Policy calls for a reclassification of drugs including cocaine, heroin and cannabis
Illegal drugs including cocaine, heroin and cannabis should be reclassified to reflect a scientific assessment of harm, according to a report by the Global Commission on Drug Policy.
The commission, which includes 14 former heads of states from countries such as Colombia, Mexico, Portugal and New Zealand, said the international classification system underpinning drug control is “biased and inconsistent”.
Continue reading...Zimbabwe, Botswana, Zambia, Angola and Namibia call for embargo suspension to allow sale of hugely valuable stockpiles
Southern African leaders have renewed calls for a lifting of the ban on the ivory trade as debate over the “unfair” embargo escalates.
At a wildlife economic summit in Zimbabwe, leaders of the five countries that make up the Kavango-Zambezi conservation area – Zimbabwe, Botswana, Zambia, Angola and Namibia – raised the issue ahead of the August conference of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (Cites) in Geneva, Switzerland.
Continue reading...Political, security and cultural complications – not least a refusal to believe that Ebola exists – have thwarted efforts to overcome DRC’s deadly outbreak
Moise Kitsakihu-Mbira has lost his brother, his grandson and 11 other family members to Ebola. When he himself fell sick he sought treatment in secret. His family don’t believe the virus exists and think a man in their village poisoned them.
Refusal to believe in the existence of Ebola is one difficulty for doctors who say the current outbreak of the deadly virus in the Democratic Republic of the Congo is the “most complex public health emergency in history” and warn it could drag on for months.
Continue reading...The Pacific island nation best known as a holiday destination is grappling with a growing drug problem
In the early hours of a Saturday morning in the city of Nadi, on the west coast of Fiji’s main island, Isaiah* is sitting in a Burger King drinking Fanta through a straw and explaining how he became a drug dealer.
He started five years ago, aged 13, selling cigarettes and marijuana. Now he sells cocaine and methamphetamines.
Continue reading...Visa decision overturned for British resident Nina Saleh, 48 hours after Guardian and others published her story
A woman who was refused a visa to return to London after travelling to Pakistan to adopt a baby has been told she can come home.
Nina Saleh has a Norwegian passport but full UK residency rights after living in London for 20 years. She was refused a visa to return home with baby Sofia three times, despite going through a stringent and lengthy adoption process in the UK with British authorities’ involvement.
Continue reading...From Colombia to Zimbabwe, members of a global network of rape survivors are demanding an end to the use of sexual violence as a weapon of war
All photographs by Raegan Hodge of the Dr Denis Mukwege Foundation
Carmen was raped by armed guerrilla forces in Colombia. Ekhlas was kidnapped by Isis in Iraq and forced into sexual slavery. Grace was taken by rebels from her classroom in Uganda, “given” to a soldier and impregnated twice before finally fleeing to safety.
Today, these women are all members of the Global Network of Victims and Survivors to End Wartime Rape, known as Sema, which translates to “speak out” in Swahili. The network represents roughly 2,000 rape survivors and 90 years’ worth of conflict across 21 countries in Africa, South America, the Middle East and Europe.
Continue reading...Survey of 25,000 people in Middle East and North Africa also shows 52% of 18- to 29-year-olds are thinking about migrating
The Arab world is turning its back on religion and on US relations, according to the largest public opinion survey ever carried out in the region.
A survey of more than 25,000 people across 10 countries and the Palestinian territories found that trust in religious leaders has plummeted in recent years.
Continue reading...Explosion in number of boats carrying cocaine and meth from Latin America to Australia is causing havoc for islands on the way
• Cocaine used as washing powder: police struggle with Pacific drug influx
It is the drug route you’ve never heard of: a multibillion-dollar operation involving cocaine and methamphetamines being packed into the hulls of sailing boats in the US and Latin America and transported to Australia via South Pacific islands more often thought of as holiday destinations than narcotics hubs.
In the past five years there has been an explosion in the number of boats, sometimes carrying more than a tonne of cocaine, making the journey across the Pacific Ocean to feed Australia’s growing and very lucrative drug habit.
Continue reading...Under-resourced but undeterred, Fiji’s officers battle surge in trafficking – with just one boat
• The new drug highway: Pacific islands at centre of cocaine trafficking boom
Sitiveni Qiliho, Fiji’s police commissioner, says he doesn’t watch films any more because, since taking on Fiji police’s top job two years ago, his life has enough drama.
Over the past few months he has found himself scuba diving in search of multimillion-dollar stashes of cocaine stored in huge underwater nets, arresting drug traffickers on the high seas and informing remote islands communities that the mysterious packages washing up on their beaches are full of cocaine and shouldn’t be baked into cakes or put in tea.
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