Category Archives: Global development

‘Latin America will never be the same’: Venezuela exodus reaches record levels

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Country at a ‘tipping point’ that could affect wider region, experts warn, as ‘donor fatigue’ causes aid shortfall

The continuing exodus of millions of Venezuelans is reaching “a tipping point” as the response to the crisis remains critically underfunded.

More than 5.6 million have left the country since 2015, when it had a population of 30 million, escaping political, economic and social hardships. It has become the largest external displacement crisis in the region’s history, and the most underfunded.

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Les Hijabeuses: the female footballers tackling France’s on-pitch hijab ban

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Young players excluded from matches because of their religious dress find a way to play on and encourage other hijab-wearing women into the sport

Founé Diawara was 15 years old when she was first told she could not wear her hijab in a football match.

It was an important game. She had recently got into the team of a club in Meaux, the town north-east of Paris where she grew up, and they were playing a local rival. Diawara had been wearing her hijab during training, but as she was about to walk on to the pitch, the referee said she must remove it if she wanted to play.

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Ethiopians cast ballots in delayed election against backdrop of war and famine

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Frontrunner Abiy Ahmed needs popular mandate to bolster his grip on power amid growing criticism

Voters have begun casting their ballots in delayed elections in Ethiopia that supporters of the prime minister, Abiy Ahmed, say are proof of his commitment to democracy and critics warn could be the launchpad for consolidation of an increasingly authoritarian rule.

The national and regional polls take place against a background of a gruelling military conflict in the northern Tigray region, the looming prospect of a famine, rising ethnic violence and deep economic problems.

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Half of Zimbabweans fell into extreme poverty during Covid

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Poor families cannot afford healthcare and schooling but good harvests offer some hope, World Bank finds

The number of Zimbabweans in extreme poverty has reached 7.9 million as the pandemic has delivered another economic shock to the country.

According to the World Bank’s economic and social update report, almost half of Zimbabwe’s population fell into extreme poverty between 2011 and last year, with children bearing the brunt of the misery.

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Hungary’s LGBT protests and Juneteenth Day: human rights this fortnight – in pictures

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A roundup of the coverage on struggles for human rights and freedoms from China to Colombia

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Trudeau makes global vaccine pledge but how committed is Canada?

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Promise to donate 100m doses highlights questions about Canada’s seriousness in helping poorer countries vaccinate

Canada has secured enough potential coronavirus vaccines to fully protect every resident nearly seven times over, even as a global shortage has forced poorer nations to wait.

After initial hiccups with its vaccination plan, more than 65% of Canadians have now received at least one dose, edging ahead of early leaders Israel and the UK, and on Friday, Justin Trudeau said 68m doses will have arrived in Canada by the end of July.

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‘Don’t betray women of Tigray’: calls grow for international action against rape in war

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Politicians among signatories of two open letters urging investigation into reports of sexual violence in Ethiopian conflict

The former prime minister of New Zealand, Helen Clark, and Zimbabwean author and 2020 Booker prize nominee Tsitsi Dangarembga are among the signatories of two separate letters demanding international action after shocking reports of sexual violence in Tigray.

In one, more than 50 women of African descent call for an immediate ceasefire and express horror at reports that African women and girls are “once again the victims” of violence and rape in war.

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David Miliband charity pushes ‘white supremacy culture’, workers allege

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International Rescue Committee hires law firm to review internal policies as leadership accused of ‘belittling and gaslighting’ staff

The International Rescue Committee reinforces “white supremacy culture”, staff have alleged, with the aid organization subsequently hiring a law firm to review its policies relating to discrimination, harassment and retaliation, the Guardian can reveal.

Headed by former UK foreign secretary David Miliband, the IRC is a major NGO with 20,000 staff and volunteers and a budget of $800m. It delivers aid in more than 40 countries, primarily in Africa, and helps resettle refugees across the US, with operations mainly directed out of New York.

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‘They beat him’: fear and anger at latest police killing in Tunis

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Protests erupt again in Tunisian capital after man ‘beaten to death’ amid claims of police impunity

Almost everyone in the streets around Ahmed Ben Ammar’s house in the Tunis district of Sidi Hassine claims to have known him or his family. Nearly everyone also has a slightly different account of his death in police custody on Tuesday. Details vary but all agree that the 32-year-old was beaten to death by police this week.

Sidi Hassine is to the west of Tunisia’s capital, on the far side of the Sebkha Sijoumi wetlands and the hulking landfill at Borj Chakir, already years past its scheduled closure date. The smell and the mosquitoes fill the air. At one end of the road is a thriving market, at the other – near where Ben Ammar lived – cafes and shops line the dusty street.

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‘We have more in common than what separates us’: refugee stories, told by refugees

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In One Thousand Dreams, award-winning photographer Robin Hammond hands the camera to refugees. Often reduced by the media’s toxic or well-meaning narratives, the portraits and interviews capture a different and more complex tale

Robin Hammond has spent two decades crisscrossing the developing world and telling other people’s stories. From photographing the Rohingya forced out of Myanmar and rape survivors in the Democratic Republic of the Congo to documenting the lives of people in countries where their sexuality is illegal, his work has earned him award after award.

But for his latest project the photographer has embarked on a paradigm shift: to remove himself – and others like him – from the process entirely. Instead, as part of an in-depth exploration of the refugee experience in Europe, the stories of those featured are told by those who, arguably, know them best: other refugees.

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Pride month in Guatemala marred by killings of three LGBTQ+ people

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Celebrations become ‘month of mourning’ after three murders in a week, with calls for urgent state reform

Guatemala’s LGBTQ+ community is in mourning after two transgender women and a gay man were murdered in less than a week during pride month.

Andrea González, a prominent activist and leader in the transgender women’s organisation Otrans Reinas de la Noche (Queens of the Night) was shot dead on 11 June in the street near her home in Guatemala City. Her murder followed the killing of another Otrans member, Cecy Ixpatá, who was assaulted and died from her injuries on 9 June in a hospital in Salamá, about 50 miles north of Guatemala City. José Manuel Vargas Villeda, a 22-year-old gay man was also shot and killed on 14 June in Morales, 150 miles north-east of the capital.

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A silent decimation: South America’s losing battle against Covid

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Strained and underfunded health systems, economics and misinformation have all led to a surge in deaths

The cold, tired and desperate relatives camped outside the Barrio Obrero general hospital in Asunción don’t need charts or datasets to confirm what they can see with their own eyes.

As Paraguay records the world’s highest daily proportion of Covid deaths, the huddled families wait for news of their loved ones – and for the sudden requests for medicine and supplies that the country’s chronically underfunded health system cannot provide.

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EU ‘has blood on its hands’, say activists calling for border agency’s abolition

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Coalition of rights groups demanding Frontex be defunded claim EU policies have ‘killed over 40,555 people since 1993’

Activists, captains of rescue ships and about 80 human rights organisations across the world have launched an international campaign calling for the European border agency to be defunded and dismantled.

In an open letter sent last week to the European Commission, the Council of the EU and the European parliament, the campaign coalition highlighted the “illegal and inhumane practices” of the EU border agency, Frontex, which is accused of having promoted and enforced violent policies against migrants.

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Budapest Pride goes ahead in solidarity against Hungary’s anti-LBGTQ+ laws

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As oppressive legislation passed by Viktor Orbán’s government, activists plan procession to ‘show LGBT people they are not alone’

For the second year in a row, Covid has succeeded in doing what many had once thought impossible: toning down Pride celebrations. From Berlin to Brighton, Toronto to San Francisco, parades have been cancelled or put online, floats forgotten and parties swapped for quieter, often more reflective events.

But in Budapest, where LGBTQ+ activists are engaged in a near-existential fight against the rightwing government of Viktor Orbán, the stakes were too high for Pride to take a back seat.

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‘Disability is possibility’: a mission to bust myths in India – photo essay

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The photographer Vicky Roy has been travelling around the country documenting people with disabilities. The project, Everyone is Good at Something, hopes to tell their stories and challenge the stigma they face

  • Photographs by Vicky Roy

When he isn’t working on the farm or making things out of jute, Gobinda Majumdar likes to walk to a tea stall near his home in Assam to buy sweets for his nieces. All this he explains with tactile signing, the only means of communication for the 37-year-old, who cannot speak and has no hearing or sight.

Born deaf, Majumdar then went blind at the age of two after contracting rubella. Life has its challenges but he hopes to find a wife. “My younger brother is married so why not me?” he told the photographer Vicky Roy, who visited him in Kamrup district as part of a project to share stories of people with disabilities in rural India.

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‘Where should we go?’: thousands left homeless as Karachi clears waterways

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As Pakistan’s supreme court backs bulldozing of homes blamed for floods, critics say government has no proper plans for residents

Maqsooda Bibi, 62, did not know the house she had lived in all her life would be demolished, forcing her whole family to become homeless. But on Monday, Pakistan’s supreme court backed the Sindh government in bulldozing her home and hundreds of others, legalising the eviction of thousands who live along narrow waterways – nullahs – that crisscross Karachi.

The verdict came as Bibi and hundreds of others held a protest outside the court. “We hoped that the court would ask the government not to make us homeless, but it did the opposite. Our children also protested on Sunday and urged the supreme court to stop demolition. It seems no one here cares for the future of the poor.”

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‘It’s not easy’: seven working parents around the world – photo essay

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Photographers Linda Bournane Engelberth and Valentina Sinis document the lives of working parents from Botswana to the UK for Unicef

If investing in family-friendly policies is good for business, then many companies are missing a trick. Giving parents and families adequate time, resources and services to care for children, while staying in their jobs and improving their skills and productivity, pays off according to employers. But for many, in all parts of the world, paid parental leave and childcare are not a reality. And that can compromise the first critical years of life – a time when the combination of the right nourishment, environment and love can strengthen a developing brain and give a baby the best start.

Evidence suggests family-friendly policies pay off in healthier, better-educated children and greater gender equality, and are linked to better productivity and the ability to attract and retain workers. Momentum for change is growing with an increasing number of businesses beginning to see the value.

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High in the Himalayas, villagers hit by Covid are left to fend for themselves

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In India’s remote peaks, the pandemic’s toll is worsened by lack of medical facilities, roads and information

Phalguni Devi has spent a fortnight living in a cattle shed. Looking out on a rainy afternoon in early June, she worries that if the rain does not let up, her fever will worsen.

Devi, 51, shares the shed with a cow and two cats, and this has taken its toll. Herbal concoctions have not worked and the visit to a pharmacist in the nearest town, in the Nijmola valley in the Himalayas, which took an entire day, did not help.

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South Korea says consensual sex act between male soldiers ‘bordered on rape’

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Activists decry discrimination as court finds men guilty of indecency and hands down a six-month suspended sentence

A South Korean military court has been accused of discriminating against sexual minorities after it found two male soldiers guilty of indecency for engaging in consensual oral sex.

The ruling, which took place in March but emerged last week, found the soldiers’ actions “bordered on rape” and handed them a six-month suspended prison sentence by applying the controversial article 92-6 of the Military Criminal Act. This punishes “anal sex and other indecent acts” between military personnel with up to two years in prison.

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