Category Archives: Global development

Abandoned at sea: the crews cast adrift without food, fuel or pay | Karen McVeigh

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Seafarers on board the Azraqmoiah have spent 18 desperate months stranded off the coast of UAE, owed $260,000 in wages

When Captain Ayyappan Swaminathan set off from his home in Kumbakonam, southern India, in January 2017, to work on a ship in the Persian Gulf, he told his four-year-old daughter, Aniha: “Don’t worry, I’ll be back shortly.”

But the merchant seaman’s hope of returning home soon with good money for his family turned into a nightmare. His cargo ship, the MV Azraqmoiah, became a floating prison from which he and his 10-man crew could not escape without losing their claim to thousands of dollars in unpaid wages.

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Emergency panel meets as Congo Ebola outbreak gathers pace

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Faltering national response to epidemic prompts experts to consider official announcement of public health crisis

Experts will convene for an emergency meeting on Friday to determine whether the recent escalation of Ebola cases in the Democratic Republic of the Congo should be declared a global health crisis.

More than eight months into the epidemic, which has killed 751 people, agencies warned the disease is still not under control. The response to the outbreak has been complicated by conflict, political instability, and distrust of Ebola services.

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Lithuanian workers win exploitation case against Kent gangmasters

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Firm that supplied major UK supermarkets ordered to compensate trafficking victims forced to live and work in inhumane conditions

Eleven Lithuanian trafficking victims who suffered severe exploitation while working as chicken catchers on British farms have won a high court case against “the worst gangmaster ever”.

Three of the Lithuanian workers told the court about the brutal conditions experienced by workers between 2009 and 2012 while under the control of DJ Houghton Chicken Catching Services, a Kent-based gangmaster firm.

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Women are suffering silently in Pakistan – is #MeToo the answer?

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Inclusiveness and an appreciation of cultural nuances are key to changing attitudes in a society where harassment is the norm

When I was in seventh grade in Pakistan, a classmate tapped my best friend’s shoulder and remarked: “Nice bra”. We were 12, and accustomed to friendships with boys. But youthful idealism meant less tolerance for unsolicited sexual innuendo. We marched to the headteacher’s office ready to change the world, only to be asked to repeat verbatim, several times, the words that had been spoken.

“These things happen in co-education,” we were told. The headteacher downsized our trauma, reducing our complaint to a cheap, inflated scandal. The boy escaped without punishment and the message was clear: girls, pick your battles.

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Poorest countries bear the brunt as aid levels fall for second successive year

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Experts warn of ‘step backwards’ in fight against global poverty as latest figures show 3% drop in aid to most vulnerable states

Experts have warned that the fight against global poverty has taken a backward step after the publication of new figures showing foreign aid has fallen for a second successive year.

Aid levels dropped last year by 2.7% from 2017, with the poorest countries worst hit, according to figures published by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD).

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‘I was raised to love our home’: Sudan’s singing protester speaks out

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Alaa Salah, 22, talks to the Guardian about having her image seen around the world

The young woman in a photo that has come to symbolise the protest movement in Sudan has been identified as Alaa Salah, a 22-year-old architecture student in Khartoum.

Salah told the Guardian she was happy that the image, taken on Monday evening at a demonstration in the Sudanese capital, had been viewed so widely.

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Men charged with trafficking women into Italy to appear in court in Sicily

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Trial of five Romanians accused of labour exploitation and forced prostitution follows Guardian investigation

Five men will appear in court in Sicily on Friday to face charges of trafficking women into the country from Romania after a Guardian investigation exposed the conditions in which the women were living.

The men, all of whom are Romanian, are accused of trafficking at least seven women into Sicily and forcing them to work in greenhouses in Ragusa for paltry wages, as well as forcing them into prostitution.

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Why should we Yemenis stop having babies and surrender to war? | Elle Kurancid, Elham Hassan and Amira Al-Sharif

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Four years into the world’s worst man-made humanitarian crisis, three Yemeni women ask – exactly what is required of people living in warzones?

A news report from December 2018 lays bare the depths of the crisis gripping Yemen. Mothers watch doctors measure the arms of their children. “When the tape shows red,” the TV correspondent narrates, “it means they’re severely malnourished.” After more than four years of a civil war and proxy conflict, these Yemeni children, mothers, and doctors are trapped in what the UN has called “the worst man-made humanitarian crisis of our time”.

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The women leading the calls for revolution in Sudan – video

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As a wave of protests continues against President Omar al-Bashir's 30-year rule, viral images reveal women spearheading the demonstrations, despite the dangers of speaking out against this oppressive regime. Price rises and food shortages first sparked unrest in December 2018, but the biggest demonstrations so far have taken place in recent days, shaking authorities in Khartoum

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Penny Mordaunt says UK will defend abortion rights amid global pushback

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Development secretary vows government will ‘hold a strong line’, after attempts by Trump administration to weaken commitments

Britain’s international development secretary has promised to stand firm in her support for abortion rights in the face of growing opposition.

Speaking at an event hosted by the Canadian embassy on Monday, Penny Mordaunt said: “Leadership means not shying away from issues like safe abortion when the evidence shows us these services will save women’s lives.”

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‘You often get sick’: the deadly toll of illegal gold mining in South Africa | Christopher Clark

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Driven by need, tens of thousands of women are risking death, disease and sexual violence to scrape a living in the country’s informal mining sector

On the outskirts of Durban Deep, an abandoned mining town with a labyrinth of underground tunnels long since abandoned by the big gold companies, Elizabeth goes rhythmically about her work.

Grinding piles of rough stones into white, gold-flecked silt on a large concrete slab, the 40-year-old is one of the ghostly dust-covered zama zamas – artisanal miners, mostly illegal – who have turned to scavenging in disused gold and diamond mines across South Africa.

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‘An example to all’: the Mongolian herders who took on a corporate behemoth – and won

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Displaced from their land by multinational mining companies, nomadic herders defied the odds to preserve their heritage for future generations

All photographs by Susan Schulman

Just 10 years ago, the district of Khanbogd, in southern Mongolia’s Omnogovi province, was a barely known region of eastern Asia.

That changed with the discovery of gold and copper deposits below the seemingly endless Gobi desert, home to a community of herdsmen who had worked hard to make a living from this barren land. So when their government forged an agreement that threatened to deprive them of the land they had owned for generations, they fought back for their way of life, taking the mining giant Rio Tinto and others to court in order to safeguard their heritage.

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Revealed: women making clothes for west face sexual abuse

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Study finds workers in Vietnamese factories have been harassed, groped and even raped

Female factory workers producing clothing and shoes in Vietnam – many probably for major US and European brands – face systemic sexual harassment and violence at work, the Observer can reveal.

Nearly half (43.1%) of 763 women interviewed in factories in three Vietnamese provinces said they had suffered at least one form of violence and/or harassment in the previous year, according to a study by the Fair Wear Foundation and Care International out on Monday.

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‘It’s dangerous to go out now’: young, gay and scared in Brunei

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Draconian new laws have spread unease rather than outright panic in a population that is used to finding ways around legislation

A day after it became legally possible to be stoned to death for having gay sex in Brunei, 21-year-old Zain* got a bitter taste of the new reality.

Walking down the street in skinny jeans and high-heeled boots, a flamboyant anomaly in the conservative sultanate, the university student became a target.

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UN urged to declare full-scale crisis in Venezuela as health system ‘collapses’

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Researchers warn of rise in infectious diseases amid spike in levels of malnutrition and infant and maternal mortality

The UN must officially declare a full-scale humanitarian emergency in Venezuela after the “utter collapse” of the health system, experts have said.

Warning of the return of infectious diseases and rising levels of malnutrition and infant and maternal death, a report published this week by Human Rights Watch and the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health calls on the UN secretary general, António Guterres, to declare a “complex humanitarian emergency”.

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Paul Kagame orders release of women and girls jailed over abortion in Rwanda

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Women’s rights activists welcome presidential pardon of 367 female prisoners as evidence of progress

Rwanda’s president has pardoned hundreds of girls and women jailed for abortion.

The women are expected to be released immediately under the presidential prerogative.

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Zimbabwe’s £118,000 outlay on judges’ wigs met with fury

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Lawyers say economically stricken country’s purchase of horsehair wigs made in London evokes spirit of colonialism

Lawyers in Zimbabwe have hit out at a government decision to spend thousands of pounds on wigs made in England for local judges, saying the tradition evokes a colonial past that should not exist in modern Zimbabwe.

Zimbabwe’s judicial services commission has placed an order for 64 wigs from Stanley Ley Legal Outfitters in London, at a cost of £118,400.

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British watchdog launches inquiry into WWF abuse allegations

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Charity Commission to assess whether money sent abroad was subject to due diligence as German MPs urge funding halt

Britain’s charity regulator has launched a formal investigation into the World Wide Fund for Nature, following allegations the conservation group is implicated in human rights abuses against people in Africa and Asia.

The inquiry by the Charity Commission will assess whether WWF’s UK arm followed “due diligence” in ensuring that money sent abroad did not contribute to abuse.

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Marine plastic pollution costs the world up to $2.5bn a year, researchers find

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Scientists warn that social and economic price of plastic waste to global society has been underestimated

Plastic pollution in the world’s oceans costs society billions of dollars every year in damaged and lost resources, research has found.

Fisheries, aquaculture, recreational activities and global wellbeing are all negatively affected by plastic pollution, with an estimated 1-5% decline in the benefit humans derive from oceans. The resulting cost in such benefits, known as marine ecosystem value, is up to $2.5bn (£1.9bn) a year, according to a study published this week in Marine Pollution Bulletin.

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Why were the people worst affected by Cyclone Idai so badly prepared? | Antonio Matimbe

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While the world’s poorest bear the brunt of ever more powerful storms, international leaders do little to address the devastating impact of climate change

I am a Mozambican aid agency communicator. Cyclone Idai is just the latest humanitarian crisis I have been involved in.

Mozambique has a history of being affected by huge storms. The upsetting thing to me is that while international leaders and experts talk about climate change and the impact this is having on the world, the very poorest are bearing the brunt of ever more powerful storms.

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