Decision to close public hammams – most people’s only chance for a warm wash – sparks anger in light of country’s mounting crises
The Taliban sparked outrage this week by announcing that women in northern Afghanistan would no longer be allowed to use communal bathhouses.
The use of bathhouses, or hammams, is an ancient tradition that remains for many people the only chance for a warm wash during the country’s bitterly cold winters.
Continue reading...High court to review government’s decision to include subsidiary of Malaysia’s Supermax in £6bn ‘framework’ deal for buying gloves
The UK government is facing legal action over its decision to keep using a Malaysian company accused of using forced labour as a supplier of personal protective equipment (PPE) to the NHS.
Lawyers at the London-based law firm Wilson Solicitors have filed for a judicial review of the government’s decision to name the UK subsidiary of the Malaysian company Supermax as one of the approved suppliers in a new £6bn contract for disposable gloves for NHS workers.
Continue reading...NRC, which was accused of spreading ‘misinformation’, says it will struggle to reach those in need as Tigray conflict enters third year
Ethiopia has lifted a five-month suspension of the Norwegian Refugee Council’s aid work after it cleared the organisation of allegations of spreading “misinformation”.
The government ordered the NRC, along with Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), to stop work for three months in July, including operations in the Tigray conflict zone. Both organisations were ordered to stop their humanitarian work in July but while MSF’s suspension was lifted in October, the NRC’s was extended.
Continue reading...Thousands of Tigrayan migrants abused and deported from Saudi Arabia are forcibly detained in Ethiopia, Human Rights Watch says
Thousands of Tigrayans are being deported from Saudi Arabia and held in secret detention sites in Ethiopia, according to Human Rights Watch.
In a new report, the international rights organisation says it has identified two detention sites where thousands of people from the war-torn Tigray region of Ethiopia are being mistreated and forcibly disappeared. The sites, identified via satellite imagery, videos and witness accounts, in the towns of Semera and Shone are most likely used to detain Tigrayan deportees, HRW said.
Continue reading...Forced from their homes by missionaries, the Ayoreo cling on in the Chaco. Now the Bioceanic Corridor cuts through the fastest-vanishing forest on Earth, refuge of some of the Americas’ last hunter-gatherers
In 1972, Catholic missionaries entered the Chaco forest of northern Paraguay and forced Oscar Pisoraja’s family, and their nomadic Ayoreo people, to leave with them. Many perished from thirst on the long march south. Settled near the village of Carmelo Peralta on the Paraguay River, dozens more died from illnesses. Still, the survivors kept up some traditions – hunting for armadillos; weaving satchels from the spiky caraguatá plant. “We felt part of this place,” says Pisoraja, now 51.
Today, his community – and other indigenous peoples across the Chaco, a tapestry of swamp, savanna and thorny forest across four countries that is South America’s largest ecosystem after the Amazon – are confronting a dramatic new change.
Mario Abdo Benítez, Paraguay’s president, and Reinaldo Azambuja Silva, governor of Mato Grosso do Sul state in Brazil, at the site of a new bridge across the Paraguay River, due to be completed in 2024
Continue reading...The Philippines adds little to global emissions but faces some of its worst effects in extreme weather. Climate justice is needed
A few days before Christmas, Super-typhoon Rai – known locally as Odette – ravaged the Philippines. The morning after the onslaught, on my way back to Iloilo City from San Jose, Antique, I could see the ocean still boiling; houses blown away and great trees knocked down, making roads impassable. The sights were terrifying.
Lost lives continue to climb two weeks on. Vast numbers of buildings were destroyed – from houses to schools; food crops lost to flooding. At first, I did not know what to feel – anger, helplessness? Later, I knew what I wanted: climate justice.
Continue reading...Half of total to be offered in compensation to 200,000 individuals and families who suffered from discriminatory system
A C$40bn agreement-in-principle has been reached in Canada to reform the child welfare system for First Nations people and compensate more than 200,000 individuals and families who suffered because of it.
At the heart of the deal is a legacy of discrimination in child welfare systems that saw many children removed from their homes and placed in state care, and others who were denied adequate medical care and social services because of their Indigenous identity.
Continue reading...A colonial law that criminalises ‘unnatural’ sexual acts leaves LGBTQ+ people prey to social media extortion and blackmail
One day after work last month, Tom Otieno* went to a shopping centre in Nairobi to pick up groceries before heading home. He got a call from someone he had been chatting to for a week on Grindr, a social networking app for gay, bi, trans and queer people. The man had already tried ringing several times during the day while Otieno was with colleagues and was keen to meet.
Otieno, 29, mentioned where he was but said that he did not want to see the man. Then, as he was heading to his car, he got another call. As he answered it, someone approached him and said they were a police officer. Seconds later, two other officers joined him and surrounded Otieno.
Continue reading...Brigitte Baptiste has a high profile as a transgender Colombian woman and an ecologist – in a country where both are targeted
When Brigitte Baptiste walks on to the 10th floor of Bogotá’s Ean University at 9.45am in a plunging dress, knee-high cheetah-print boots and a silvery wig, the office comes to life. She examines some flowers sent by the Colombian radio station Caracol to thank her for taking part in a forum, her co-worker compliments her on her lipstick, and she settles in for a day of back-to-back meetings, followed by a private virtual conversation with the UN secretary general, António Guterres. Later that evening, she flies to Cartagena for a conference on natural gas.
The 58-year-old ecologist is one of Colombia’s foremost environmental experts, and one of its most visible transgender people, challenging scientific and social conventions alike. An ecology professor at the Jesuit-run Javeriana University for 20 years, she has written 15 books, countless newspaper columns, and won international prizes for her work. Most recently, she was appointed chancellor of Ean University, a business school, as part of its push for greater sustainability.
Continue reading...In one of the world’s most dangerous regions for environmental and human rights activists, La Siguata offers a safe space for women suffering trauma as a result of their work
A milky-white and sky-blue stone hangs from a red string around Ethels Correa’s neck, and every so often she rubs it between her fingers.
“When I feel anger, I grab this stone and I begin to relax, because they taught me how to breathe, to relax the body and to relax the mind,” she says. “I carry it with me all the time.”
Continue reading...Half a million people have sunk into poverty since the pandemic struck, with rising costs forcing many to cut back on food
Sri Lanka is facing a deepening financial and humanitarian crisis with fears it could go bankrupt in 2022 as inflation rises to record levels, food prices rocket and its coffers run dry.
The meltdown faced by the government, led by the strongman president Gotabaya Rajapaksa, is in part caused by the immediate impact of the Covid crisis and the loss of tourism but is compounded by high government spending and tax cuts eroding state revenues, vast debt repayments to China and foreign exchange reserves at their lowest levels in a decade. Inflation has meanwhile been spurred by the government printing money to pay off domestic loans and foreign bonds.
Continue reading...Sharing soup joumou on 1 January represents what Haitians bring to the world – but remembering that inequality prevails is arguably more important
Whispers. Curfews. Never-ending military parades and shows of arms. Opponents’ bodies exposed for children to see as some sort of macabre art. And always, that nasal voice of “Papa Doc”, François Duvalier, chanting on all radio stations. Those were the days of my childhood under a dictator in Haiti.
But on 1 January, Independence Day, there were three things that made a difference.
Continue reading...Alexis Huguet’s image of this twin girl, born as her mother fled into Congo, captures the fragility of life in the Central African Republic
The picture is a joyful one. Laure, a midwife at a health facility in Ndu, a village in the Democratic Republic of Congo, holds a healthy newborn girl. The baby’s mother, Ester, was at the health centre for a postnatal appointment after giving birth to twin daughters.
A couple of weeks earlier, when she was heavily pregnant and due to go into labour at any moment, Ester was forced to leave her home in Bangassou, on the other side of a river, in the neighbouring Central African Republic.
Continue reading...The effects of Covid-19 continue to be felt, but in many places the fallout from civil war, displacement and natural disasters provide more pressing concerns. We look back on some of this year’s best shots from Global Development galleries and photo essays
Continue reading...The WHO’s vaccination goal is achievable – but it will take proper funding, better vaccine distribution and jabs with longer shelf lives
While western countries scramble with their booster rollout to deal with the Omicron wave, only 8.4% of people in low-income countries have had at least one Covid vaccination dose.
The gap in the vaccination rates between high- and low-income countries is wider than ever. We cannot keep turning a blind eye to it.
Continue reading...Maseray Sei, 21, was found dead after undergoing the procedure in a centuries-old ritual carried out by a secret society for women
The death of a young woman in Sierra Leone, almost immediately after undergoing female genital mutilation, has sparked outrage and revived calls to end the practice.
The body of 21-year-old Maseray Sei was found on 20 December at Nyandeni village in Bonthe district, southern Sierra Leone, a day after the FGM took place. Sei’s family said that after the procedure the mother of two boys complained of a migraine and was in pain, with complications from FGM thought to be the cause, according to activists working on the case.
Continue reading...Mahé Elipe captures the visceral anger as International Women’s Day protests turned into a violent clash with police
On 8 March 2021, women across the world took part in protests to mark International Women’s Day. In Mexico, there is an added poignancy to the annual event, as at least 10 women are murdered in the country each day; in 2021 the date was was marred by additional violence.
In the runup to the day fences were erected around the national palace in Mexico City’s main square, where thousands of women were due to gather.
Continue reading...About 1,000 people, mostly Kurds, are waiting at a converted customs centre in Bruzgi for the chance to cross into EU
The giant warehouse towers over the Belarus countryside, less than a mile from the Polish border. In this 10,000 sq metre space patrolled by dozens of armed soldiers, 1,000 asylum seekers are crammed among countless industrial shelving units, held up on their way to Europe in the midst of a frigid winter.
“We’re trapped in this building,” says Alima Skandar, 40. “We don’t want to go back to Iraq and we can’t cross the border. Please, help us.”
Continue reading...Coastal communities in Mexico, Bangladesh and Somalia are struggling to adapt to the climate crisis. Many people have already lost livelihoods and homes to rising waters
Continue reading...One of the city’s most wanted, Peter Wainaina was given a second chance and used it to turn his life around and help others find different path out of poverty
At the entrance of Kibagare, a slum in Nairobi’s outskirts, boots of dead gangsters dangle from electricity wires that hover over ramshackle homes of wood and iron sheets.
With little state protection from crime, angry local people will often take the law into their own hands and beat an offender who is caught in the act, sometimes to death.
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