A roundup of the coverage on struggles for human rights and freedoms, from Chile to Cambodia
Continue reading...Category Archives: Global development
I thought HIV meant death but it led me to fight to save millions of lives | Vuyiseka Dubula
Twenty years ago in South Africa people were dying unable to access expensive antiretrovirals. The creation of the Global Fund was gamechanging
In 2001, at the age of 22 – when I thought my life had just begun – I was diagnosed with HIV. At that time, the diagnosis felt like a death sentence. Every day, I waited for my hour to die.
However, after two months of waiting, death didn’t come.
Continue reading...‘I can’t give up on my leg’: the Gaza protesters resisting amputation at all costs
Despite chronic pain and deadly infections, Palestinians wounded in protests three years ago still hope to recover without surgery
Sitting on his hospital bed, with external fixators screwed into his right leg, Mohammed al-Mughari has been in pain and on medication since he was shot in the leg more than three years ago.
He lives with a chronic bone infection – from bacteria now resistant to most antibiotics. Doctors, including in Jordan and Egypt where he sought treatment previously, have all recommended that an amputation could end his long-term suffering, but he has steadfastly refused.
Continue reading...Indonesia’s hospitals in Covid crisis as car parks turned into emergency rooms
Spread of the Delta variant blamed for significant rise in cases that have threatened to overwhelm the medical system
Standing outside the glass wall at one of the emergency installations in a hospital in Tangerang, Benten, Uta Verina Maukar, 26, looked at her mother as she lay resting on a bed. She texted her mother, telling her that she was standing outside. Her mother looked at her from across the room, and with an oxygen mask on her face, tried to sit up so she could see her better. They both looked at each other like that for a while. That was the last time Uta saw her mother’s face.
She died from Covid the following day. She was 51.
Continue reading...‘Wage theft’ in Primark, Nike and H&M supply chain – report
No laws were broken but brands failed to ensure workers were paid properly during the pandemic, says Clean Clothes Campaign
Campaigners claim to have found evidence of “wage theft” in the supply chains of Primark, Nike and H&M in a report that outlines the devastating consequences of the pandemic on garment workers in Indonesia, Cambodia and Bangladesh.
Research by the Clean Clothes Campaign found that, while none of the brands had broken any laws, they had failed to ensure that their workers were properly paid throughout the pandemic.
Continue reading...Libyan coastguards ‘fired on and tried to ram migrant boat’ – NGO
German rescue group issues video of Libyans’ ‘brutal attack’ on boat of migrant families in Mediterranean
Footage has emerged that appears to show the Libyan coastguard firing on a boat in distress carrying migrant families in the Mediterranean Sea.
Rescue workers from the German organisation Sea-Watch recorded the coastguard patrol vessel apparently trying to ram the small wooden boat and firing shots in an attempt to force the people onboard back to Libya.
Continue reading...Major aid donors found to have funded ‘conversion therapy’ clinics in Africa
Investigation finds UK Aid and USAid money linked to centres where ‘condemned’ practice is routinely offered to LGBTQ+ people
The UK government is among major aid donors to have funded clinics in Uganda, Kenya and Tanzania that offer so-called “conversion therapies”, which pressurise gay people to “quit” same-sex attraction, an investigation has found.
In a six-month undercover investigation of the centres, reporters from global news website openDemocracy were told being gay is “evil”, “for whites” and a mental health problem. Among them were facilities linked to some of the world’s biggest aid donors, including USAid and the British government’s fund, UK Aid, run by organisations such as UK-based MSI Reproductive Choices (formerly Marie Stopes International) and Swiss-based Global Fund.
Continue reading...Tigray ceasefire: aid workers demand telecoms be restored
Lack of phone and internet hampering humanitarian efforts in war-torn Ethiopian province, UN warns
Humanitarian organisations in Ethiopia are demanding that phone lines and internet are restored to the troubled northern province of Tigray, warning that the ceasefire declared by Addis Ababa this week will only help alleviate famine if aid workers can operate safely.
Since the Ethiopian National Defense Forces (ENDF) withdrew from Mekelle, Tigray’s capital, on Monday, all telecommunications have been down, according to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (Ocha). Unicef said ENDF personnel had entered its office and dismantled crucial satellite equipment.
Continue reading...‘History’s on our side’: Turkish women fighting femicide
As Turkey quits the Istanbul convention, Gülsüm Kav’s group We Will Stop Femicide is helping keep women alive amid a rise in gender-based violence
“History is on our side,” says Gülsüm Kav. She leans in and speaks intensely. She has a lot to say: Kav helped create Turkey’s We Will Stop Femicide (WWSF) group, and has become one of the country’s leading feminist activists even as the political environment has grown more hostile.
Amid protests, Turkey withdrew from the Istanbul convention, the landmark international treaty to prevent violence against women and promote equality, on Thursday. The Turkish president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, has long attacked women’s rights and gender equality, suggesting that feminists “reject the concept of motherhood”, speaking out against abortion and even caesarean sections, and claiming that gender equality is “against nature”.
Continue reading...Uproar in Zimbabwe as teenager who ‘fought off sexual assault’ charged with murder
Activists believe the case, in which the accused says she acted in self-defence, shows the law fails women
A teenager has been charged with murder in Zimbabwe despite claims she was defending herself against a sexual predator. The action has triggered protests from lawyers and activists, who have raised concerns about how victims of sexual violence are treated in the country.
Tariro Matutsa, 19, said she acted in self-defence when she picked up a piece of firewood and hit 40-year-old Sure Tsuro several times last month. She said he had cornered her as she cooked over a fire at her home in Mudzi, a rural area east of the capital, Harare, exposed himself and aggressively demanded sex.
Continue reading...Forget GDP, ‘vulnerability index best gauges aid’ to small islands
Commonwealth research says UVI is better measure of small island states’ aid needs, especially on climate
Small island nations on the climate crisis frontlines have been overlooked in overseas aid, according to a new index.
Urging a move away from the current benchmark of using gross domestic product (GDP) to measure aid allocation, researchers from the Commonwealth secretariat and the Foundation for Studies and Research on International Development (Ferdi), a French thinktank, have developed the universal vulnerability index (UVI) as an alternative. GDP, they claim, fails to reflect the realities nations face, particularly on climate.
Continue reading...Billions pledged to tackle gender inequality at UN forum
Generation Equality Forum in Paris announces plans to radically speed up progress on women’s rights
Billions of pounds will be pledged to support efforts to tackle gender inequality this week at the largest international conference on women’s rights in more than 25 years.
The Generation Equality Forum, hosted in Paris by UN Women and the governments of France and Mexico, will launch plans to radically speed up progress over the next five years.
Continue reading...Pauline Latham MP picks up bill to end child marriage in England and Wales
MP to take over private member’s bill proposed by Sajid Javid to raise legal age to 18, after his promotion to health secretary
The MP Pauline Latham will step in to adopt Sajid Javid’s private member’s bill to end child marriage after his promotion to health secretary.
Javid presented a bill raising the minimum legal age of marriage to 18 in England and Wales to parliament earlier this month, but is not able to take it forward because he is no longer a backbencher.
Continue reading...Fears for Chilean indigenous leader’s safety after police shooting
Alberto Curamil, an award-winning environmental activist, was seriously injured during a protest against the burning of a Mapuche home
Former recipients of a prestigious environmental award, together with Amnesty International and the lawyer of indigenous land rights defender Alberto Curamil, have launched an appeal for Curamil’s safety after he was seriously injured in a shooting by police.
Curamil, an indigenous Mapuche leader who in 2019 won the Goldman Environmental Prize (GEP), also known as the “green Nobel”, was left with 18 riot shotgun pellets embedded in his body after police chased his truck and opened fire after a protest against an arson attack on a Mapuche home on contested land in southern Chile.
Continue reading...‘I refuse to visit his grave’: the trauma of mothers caught in Israel-Gaza conflict
Many women have lost children, been separated from newborns or are unable to breastfeed and bond with their babies because of the war
In the last month of her pregnancy, May al-Masri was preparing dinner when a rocket landed outside her home in northern Gaza, killing her one-year-old son, Yasser.
Masri had felt the explosion’s shockwave when the attack happened last month, but was largely unharmed. Running outside once the air had cleared, she found her husband severely wounded and her child’s body covered in blood.
Continue reading...‘I want them to feel human again’: the woman who escaped slavery in the UK – and fights to free others
Analiza Guevarra ended up in a living hell in London after fleeing poverty in the Philippines. Now, her organisation rescues scores of people in domestic servitude every year
The streets of west London were dark and empty as Analiza Guevarra walked towards a large, white mansion block in South Kensington in February 2019.
Just after 5am, she stood at a corner, well away from any street lights. “I’m here,” she tapped into her phone. Seconds later, her phone pinged back. “I’m coming, I’m carrying a green bag. Please wait for me.”
Continue reading...Honduran state responsible for trans woman’s murder – court
Landmark ruling orders state to pay reparations, protect trans people and legalise gender change
In a landmark ruling for transgender rights, the Honduras government has been found responsible for the 2009 murder of the trans woman and activist Vicky Hernández. The ruling, at the inter-American court of human rights, was published on the 12th anniversary of Hernández’s death, and marks the first time the highest regional human rights court has held a state accountable for failing to prevent, investigate and prosecute the death of a trans person.
The court has ordered Honduras, which has the world’s highest rate of murders of trans people, to pay reparations to Hernández’s family and implement a sweeping range of measures designed to protect trans people, including anti-discrimination training for security forces and state collection of data on violence against LGBTQ+ people.
Continue reading...Canada has lost its halo: we must confront our Indigenous genocide | Tara Sutton
Hundreds of unmarked graves, and testimonies of countless horrors, belie our angelic self-image
It’s not often that Canadians have to apologise for their country. I’ve travelled the world reporting on conflict and human rights and am always greeted positively when I say I’m Canadian. “It is a beautiful country,” I am told. “Your country cares for its citizens.” In Canada, people make sympathetic noises when I retell whatever tragic story I have been working on. “We are so lucky to live in Canada,” they say.
Canadians like the idea of a “good” country full of “good” people. There’s even a name for it: “the angel complex”. Look at all the immigrants and refugees we welcome here, goes the doctrine – we’re not like those American racists, or those European xenophobes. Canada see itself as proudly multicultural, tolerant, peace-loving and polite. A beacon of light to the world.
Continue reading...Brazil could have stopped 400,000 Covid deaths with better government response, expert says
Epidemiologist behind study on scale of disaster says Jair Bolsonaro’s government is ‘entirely’ responsible
Brazil could have saved 400,000 lives if the country had implemented stricter social distancing measures and launched a vaccination programme earlier, according to an eminent epidemiologist who is leading the first study to quantify the scale of the country’s Covid disaster.
Such policies would have prevented 80% of the half a million Covid deaths registered in one of the hardest-hit countries in the world, said Pedro Hallal, a professor at the Federal University of Pelotas.
Continue reading...Greece accused of refugee ‘pushback’ after family avoid being forced off island
Story of Palestinians who hid on Samos to escape deportation to Turkey appears to be ‘proof’ that pushbacks continue, claim rights groups
On 26 April Dimitris Choulis, an immigration lawyer based on the Greek island of Samos, opened his office door to find a family of four on his doorstep. Aisha*, 31, and her three children, all from Palestine.
“She said ‘pushback,’” said Choulis, “and I understood what had happened.” These were the only people left on the island out of a group of asylum seekers who had arrived from Turkey a few days before.
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