With 93,000 children in Peru losing a parent to Covid, many face depression, anxiety and poverty
When Covid-19 began shutting down Nilda López’s vital organs, doctors decided that the best chance of saving her and her unborn baby was to put her into a coma.
Six months pregnant, López feared she would not wake up, or that if she did, her baby would not be there.
Continue reading...Exclusive: Front Line Defenders report says rights defenders working in sex industry face ‘targeted attacks’ around the world
Sex worker activists are among the most at risk defenders of human rights in the world, facing multiple threats and violent attacks, an extensive investigation has found.
The research, published today by human rights organisation Front Line Defenders, found that their visibility as sex workers who are advocates for their communities’ rights makes them more vulnerable to the violations routinely suffered by sex workers. In addition, they face unique, targeted abuse for their human rights work.
Continue reading...Steve Baker, MP for Wycombe, urged ministers not to ignore the cost of living crisis in constituencies like his
Boris Johnson faces another backbench rebellion over the Treasury’s spending this autumn, as a high-profile Tory MP hit out at “intolerable” levels of hunger and poverty in his affluent home counties constituency, and urged ministers to abandon plans to cut universal credit.
Steve Baker, a leading Brexiter and MP for Wycombe in Buckinghamshire, called on ministers not to ignore the cost of living crisis faced by people “in real trouble” in constituencies like his who had been “tipped over the edge” financially by the pandemic.
Continue reading...Amnesty is calling for action to help those with no papers who are denied access to education, employment and healthcare
At 45, Philimon Mashava has never had a bank account or a phone in his name.
He has never had a birth certificate and, without documents, Mashava’s stateless existence has meant him missing out on school and countless job opportunities, as employers want some form of identification.
Continue reading...Vulnerable and immunocompromised people anxious about 19 July end to Covid rules
Boris Johnson’s “freedom day” will be a day of fear for elderly and vulnerable people and those with compromised or suppressed immune systems, for whom the efficacy of vaccines is much reduced, charities have warned.
Citing the statement by the new health secretary, Sajid Javid, that Covid infections could surge to a record 100,000 a day in a few weeks after all social distancing and mask-wearing regulations are removed in England, Blood Cancer UK has said that 19 July “will be the day that it feels like freedoms are being taken away from” many people.
Continue reading...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...Sir Michael Marmot’s report says Covid figures from Manchester reveal sharp decline in social conditions
Boris Johnson’s post-Covid “levelling up” agenda will fail unless it addresses declining life expectancy and deteriorating social conditions in England’s poorest areas, a leading authority on public health has warned, as he published figures showing the impact of the pandemic on Greater Manchester.
Sir Michael Marmot revealed the coronavirus death rate in Greater Manchester was 25% higher than the England average during the year to March, leading to “jaw-dropping” falls in life expectancy and widening social and health inequalities across the region over the past year.
Continue reading...Misinformation and access issues combined with patriarchal social norms fuelling disparity in distribution across most states
Deep-rooted structural inequalities and patriarchal values are to blame for India’s worrying Covid vaccine gender gap, campaigners and academics have warned.
As of 25 June, of the 309m Covid vaccine doses delivered since January 2021, 143m were administered to women compared with nearly 167m to men, according to CoWin, India’s national statistics site – a ratio of 856 doses given to women for every 1,000 given to men. The difference is not accounted for by India’s gender imbalance of 924 women to 1,000 men.
Continue reading...National Trust for Scotland presents exploration of intimacy from 17th to 20th century
The chafing doesn’t bear thinking about. A replica linen condom secured with a dainty blue ribbon is one of the more wince-inducing props for a new exploration of the history of sex and intimate lives in Scotland.
The other material used to fashion prophylactics in the 17th century was animal gut, which was dried then rehydrated at the crucial moment. The Edinburgh-born diarist James Boswell writes about dipping one in a river before intercourse. He was adamant about their use to ward off venereal disease, but still recorded numerous painful bouts of infection in his journals.
Continue reading...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.”
Continue reading...While ban on evictions protected some people, domestic abuse and loss of temporary accommodation were common triggers for homelessness
At least 130,000 households in England were made homeless during the first year of the pandemic, despite the government’s ban on evictions, according to data sourced by the Observer. With the ban now over, fears are rising that a surge of evictions may be imminent. But the Observer’s figures show that even while the ban was in place, households were being forced from their homes.
“The ban didn’t stop tens of thousands from facing homelessness,” said Polly Neate, chief executive of Shelter. “During the pandemic, the most common triggers for homelessness were no longer being able to stay with friends or family, losing a private tenancy, and domestic abuse.”
Continue reading...Rights groups say government and UN inaction has left people lacking food and medicine for weeks
Tens of thousands of Cambodians are going hungry under the country’s strict lockdown as Covid cases continue to rise amid criticism from human rights groups that the government and the UN are being too slow to act.
The south-east Asian country had recorded one of the world’s smallest coronavirus caseloads, but infections have climbed from about 500 in late February to 20,695 this week, with 136 deaths.
Continue reading...Local authorities reveal devastating toll of coronavirus on households who have struggled to keep a roof over their heads
A rise in the use of food banks and an increase in family disputes requiring mediation has been seen across most of England, according to new research that uncovers the pressures on families during the Covid crisis.
Most local councils in England have also reported increased numbers of people needing help for homelessness, with warnings that many poorer households will face “disaster” unless emergency support is extended well beyond the pandemic.
Continue reading...Around the world, coronavirus has both highlighted and worsened existing inequalities
One year into the pandemic, women have little cause to celebrate International Women’s Day tomorrow, and less energy to battle for change. Men are more likely to die from Covid-19. But women have suffered the greatest economic and social blows. They have taken the brunt of increased caregiving, have been more likely to lose their jobs and have seen a sharp rise in domestic abuse.
In the UK, women did two-thirds of the extra childcare in the first lockdown, and were more likely to be furloughed. In the US, every one of the 140,000 jobs lost in December belonged to a woman: they saw 156,000 jobs disappear, while men gained 16,000. But white women actually made gains, while black and Latina women – disproportionately in jobs that offer no sick pay and little flexibility – lost out. Race, wealth, disability and migration status have all determined who is hit hardest. Previous experience suggests that the effects of health crises can be long-lasting: in Sierra Leone, over a year after Ebola broke out, 63% of men had returned to work but only 17% of women.
Continue reading...The artists have responded to the pandemic with comic, haunting works showing themselves being buffeted around a chaotic London. They talk about lines of coffins, illegal raves and ‘shameful’ statue-toppling
As they call themselves living sculptures, I can’t resist asking Gilbert and George what they think of all the statue-toppling that took place last year. When I ask for their verdict on the removal of public works that have been accused of celebrating slavery and colonialism, they are sceptical.
“We would call that shameful behaviour,” says George. “And it’s very odd – because normally those statues are totally invisible. Nobody ever looks at them. I remember, very near my home town, there’s a statue of Redvers Buller, the hero of the Boer war, surrounded by dying Zulus and things. And if you asked people in Exeter, ‘Where’s Buller’s statue?’, none of them knew. It’s a bit silly. Rewriting history is very silly.”
Continue reading...Stephen Cottrell says the nation has learned to live with wrongs when it should be trying to change them
Britain needs to reset its compass in a political climate in which “we’ve learned to accommodate things that we know are wrong”, the archbishop of York has said.
Stephen Cottrell, who was enthroned in October, told the Observer: “Our compass has slipped; we’ve allowed ourselves to believe that things can’t change, that this is just the way the world is. Politics has, I think, shrunk. There’s a loss of vision about what the world could be like.”
Continue reading...Pastor Mick Fleming has devoted all of his time in this lockdown to supporting the poorest communities in Burnley. But his life hasn’t always been this way. He tells us how he swapped a life of crime for delivering food parcels seven days a week, holding funerals for free and counselling people through drug relapses. He says the suffering of the poorest people in his town should make society deeply uncomfortable
Mick's Church on the Street charity: https://www.cots-ministries.com/
Exclusive: government urged to activate part of Equality Act that would impose duty on public bodies to tackle inequality
The failure of successive governments to enact part of the Equality Act, which would have imposed a duty to address socio-economic disadvantage, has exacerbated inequalities in England during the coronavirus pandemic, a thinktank has claimed.
The Runnymede Trust’s report, Facts Don’t Lie, says that the public sector duty provision would have imposed a legal obligation on education authorities in England to ensure working class children on free school meals were fed properly while schools were shut and had access to laptops for remote learning.
Continue reading...Exclusive: Agnes Kalibata says price rises and scarcity mean people in poverty are in more danger than last year
People living in poverty around the world are in danger of food shortages as the coronavirus crisis continues, the UN’s food envoy has warned, with the risk worse this year than in the period shortly after the pandemic began.
Agnes Kalibata, the special envoy to the UN secretary general for the food systems summit 2021, said: “Food systems have contracted, because of Covid-19. And food has become more expensive and, in some places, out of reach for people. Food is looking more challenging this year than last year.”
Continue reading...The mostly white development sector only funds efforts led by more ‘legitimate’ people. We need support from the diaspora
Being poor, black and from sub-Saharan Africa is the hardest thing you can ever be. But that is what I am.
Before Covid-19 came, extreme poverty had largely become a problem of only one part of the world – sub-Saharan Africa. According to the World Bank in 2018, the region was projected to host more than 90% of the world’s extreme poor by 2030.
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