By MediaGlobal
23 June 2008 [MEDIAGLOBAL]: In India, the gap between the numbers of boys and girls is growing, according to figures compiled by a United Kingdom charity, ActionAid. Even with India’s growing economic strength, a significant preference for sons remains. ActionAid worked with Canada’s International Development Research Center (IDRC) to produce the report, ‘Disappearing Daughters,’ based on findings from five states in north and northwest India. The charity states in a press release that “the number of girls born and surviving compared to boys has hit an all time low.” The issue is not confined to the poor – the distortion of the sex ratio between boys and girls has also been found in more affluent communities. In India’s wealthiest state, Punjab, statistics show that for every 1,000 boys there are 300 girls among ‘higher caste’ families. But ActionAid said that ideally for every 1000 boys, there should be 950 girls. “In urban sites, families abort daughters because they have access to technology,” Jane Mayo, a spokesperson for ActionAid, told MediaGlobal. The trend for smaller families means that the use of ultrasound technology has become prevalent, even though laws ban sex detection and sex-selective abortion. “In poorer communities, it is less likely that families have access to medical technology, but baby girls die because of deliberate neglect,” Mayo said. Deliberate neglect, such as allowing the umbilical cord to become infected, has been used to dispose of unwanted girls. “Tackling this complex issue means taking immediate action around enforcing the law against using ultrasound for sex selection and improving access to healthcare and education in poorer areas,” Laura Turquet, Women’s Rights Policy Officer at Action Aid, said. The ‘Disappearing Daughters’ report indicates that unless sustained action is taken on this issue, millions more women will vanish.
CONFLICT, CLIMATE CHANGE AND FOOD PRICES FORCE REFUGEE NUMBERS TO RISE
23 June 2008 [MEDIAGLOBAL]: The number of refugees worldwide has risen, according to the United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR). The majority come from Afghanistan and Iraq, where continued volatility has displaced millions. But conflict is not the only reason for the hike in the number of refugees. Climate change and rising food prices are also to blame, according to Antonio Guterres, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees. Global challenges include “multiple new conflict-related emergencies in world hot spots [and] bad governance, climate-induced environmental degradation that increases competition for scarce resources and extreme price hikes that have hit the poor the hardest and are generating instability in many places,” he said. By the end of 2007, the UN was caring for 11.4 million refugees, up from 9.9 million in 2006. Of all the refugees in 2007, 3.1 million were Afghans, and another 2.3 million were Iraqis. More than two million Iraqis have sought shelter in Syria and Jordan, while three million Afghans have fled to Pakistan and Iran. In Afghanistan, opium fuels ongoing violence, funding the Taliban insurgency. “Opium production is a major source of revenue for the Taliban. But it’s also an important source of livelihood for poor Afghan farmers, which makes the issue a hard one for policy makers. Leave the poppy fields alone and you fund the Taliban, destroy them and you impoverish the farmers, driving them into the Taliban’s arms,” Dr. Stephen Biddle, Senior Fellow for Defense Policy at the Council on Foreign Relations, told MediaGlobal.
RIGHTS GROUPS CALL ON GAMBIAN PRESIDENT TO RETRACT HOMOPHOBIC REMARKS
23 June 2008 [MEDIAGLOBAL]: Human rights groups are calling on Gambian President Yahya Jammeh, who last month threatened to kill or expel gay and lesbian individuals from the country, to renounce the homophobic statements. A Gambian newspaper, the Daily Observer, reported that Jammeh told a political rally, “We are in a Muslim dominated country and I will not and shall never accept such individuals [homosexuals] in this country.” He also reportedly threatened to decapitate any homosexuals arrested. “As of now, he has not publicly retracted the statements,” Juliana Cano Nieto, researcher with the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Rights Program at Human Rights Watch, told MediaGlobal. Gambia, whose prohibitions against homosexuality date back to colonial-era sodomy laws, is one of eleven West African nations – and 86 UN member states – that criminalize homosexuality. In a 2003 report, Human Rights Watch documented how homophobic proclamations by leaders in Zimbabwe, Zambia, and Namibia gave way to a culture of violence and intolerance for minorities and often revealed themselves as early manifestations of countries’ repressive trends. Human rights groups and LGBT activists are currently urging the international community to pressure Gambia to honor its commitments to equality, privacy, and non-discrimination. “It’s important that the international community responds because as of now no one has said anything,” Cano Nieto said. “The international community should put pressure on the president to vow for the rights of all citizens regardless of gender identity and gender expression and to publicly come out and say that there should be no violence to the LGBT community.”
SECURITY IS PREREQUISITE FOR PEACE AGREEMENT IN DARFUR
24 June 2008 [MEDIAGLOBAL]: The conflict in Darfur has reached a “serious juncture,” Jan Eliasson, the United Nations Special Envoy for Darfur, told reporters after he and his counterpart for the African Union, Salim Ahmed Salim, briefed the UN Security Council on Tuesday. In his remarks to the Council, Eliasson expressed regret at the missed opportunities to bring peace to the troubled Darfur region of Sudan, where hundreds of thousands of people have died and an additional two million have been displaced in the last five years. “We now should focus all attention on getting security under control and take steps toward a credible cessation of hostilities,” Eliasson told reporters, adding that the international community, in particular regional players and Security Council members, must assume greater responsibility. On 22 June, the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) and seven other UN aid organizations issued a statement warning that frequent attacks against humanitarian workers and relief convoys are cutting off desperately needed aid, putting the beleaguered region at risk of an even greater humanitarian disaster. Aid shortages combined with a poor harvest have left over two million people hungry. “We have seen that, in areas which are controlled by the [armed] movements, it’s very difficult to get the food, medicine, water, drilling equipment, to those areas. That’s where we’ve seen the most tragic examples of poverty and suffering. This is very much due to banditry and hijacking and assassination of drivers,” Eliasson told MediaGlobal. The UN agencies reported that eight humanitarian workers have been killed and 160 vehicles hijacked in the first half of 2008. These problems are “compounded by this global new factor of rising food prices and [a] shortage in food,” Eliasson added. “I would say the margin is extremely thin. If there is an escalation now, we may have a massive humanitarian crisis of the nature we haven’t seen in the last three or four years. So it’s extremely important now that the security situation gets under control.”
AFGHAN CHILDREN IN JAIL DENIED RIGHTS
25 June 2008 [MEDIAGLOBAL]: Children in conflict with the law in Afghanistan often face maltreatment and lack access to education and health services, reports a new study by the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) and the Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission (AIHRC). The “government is required to provide health and basic education services to the children in detention [but] most provinces do not have such services due to financial restraints,” Roshan Khadivi, UNICEF External Relations Officer, told MediaGlobal. In addition, UNICEF reports that, “A punitive and retributive approach to juvenile justice seems to be still predominant in Afghanistan.” The study notes that while children can be responsible for serious crimes, most of the offenses are less serious and usually property-related. However, the cases in which females were prosecuted were significantly different. “At least 56 percent of females were charged with so-called ‘moral offenses’ including running away from home or adultery/sodomy. These included many cases where the girl was clearly a victim of abuse,” states the study. The study urges full implementation of the Juvenile Code, which Afghanistan adopted in March 2005 and which incorporates the basic principles of juvenile justice as expressed in the Convention on the Rights of the Child. “The new study offers an opportunity to evaluate the existing services for children in conflict with the law,“ said UNICEF Representative in Afghanistan Catherine Mbengue in a recent press release. “We need to invest more to prevent children coming into conflict with the law while we continue to assist children already in detention,” she added.
‘RESPONSIBILITY TO PROTECT’ CHANGING WORLD’S RESPONSE TO GENOCIDE
26 June 2008 [MEDIAGLOBAL]: The international community is well aware of its past failures to prevent genocide and crimes against humanity. The memory of the hundreds of thousands killed in Rwanda, the thousands who died in the massacre of the UN “safe area” of Srebrenica during the Bosnian War, and the current impasse in Darfur, where an estimated 300,000 have already perished, are a cause for shame and sadness among diplomats, world leaders and aid workers alike. But international politics are evolving, and the prevention of mass atrocities is becoming a global priority, said Edward Luck, Special Advisor to the United Nations Secretary-General, speaking at a briefing on genocide prevention on Thursday at UN headquarters. This change is due in part to the “responsibility to protect” (R2P), a doctrine accepted by the UN General Assembly in 2005, stating that nations have a duty to protect their citizens from genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity, and that if such protection is not provided, the international community has a responsibility to intercede. And while the UN Security Council still holds veto power over many forms of international response, “it would be very difficult politically to cast a veto today in the case of an unfolding genocide,” Luck said. “I don’t think the sort of situation we had in Rwanda in 1994 where everyone looked the other way could happen again politically. Values do change. And if R2P is nothing else, it is a value changer, because it attracts so much interest.” Intercession can happen in a variety of ways, Luck said, and flexibility on the part of the international community is imperative. “If you have one strict template, then you’re going to get in trouble,” he told MediaGlobal, adding that local actors can play an important role in areas where the UN’s political influence is limited. “Usually it is some kind of combination that works. You generally would want to look at the option of using neighbors, regional and sub-regional organizations,” he said. “Say ‘Which combination of tools makes sense in this case, which in this case, how do we apply them- [and] which ones are counterproductive?‘”
WORLD OPINIONS: MORE ALIKE THAN DIFFERENT
27 June 2008 [MEDIAGLOBAL]: When it comes to torture, the treatment of women and discrimination based on race and ethnicity, public opinion across the world has more in common than expected. The most extensive survey of global public opinion on values such as government use of torture, gender equality, and racial and ethnic discrimination was conducted in nineteen countries including China, Egypt, Iran, and the United States. The survey was directed by the Program on International Policy Attitudes (PIPA) and carried out by affiliated research centers in each of the nineteen countries. An overwhelming majority in every country supported gender, racial, and ethnic equality, with a majority supporting increased UN and international action toward achieving equality. PIPA Director Steven Kull told MediaGlobal that he hoped the results would influence government policies, but that it was equally important to inform the public. “This is important because people have a tendency to think of themselves and their society as more progressive than others,” Kull said. “These results really dismantle that notion and show how universal many of our values are.” While a majority in each country favored a general prohibition against torture, four countries did not come out in favor of an unequivocal ban: India, Nigeria, Turkey, and Thailand. Still, Kull noted that considering the widespread use of or complicity in torture by governments throughout the world, public opinion stands in stark contrast. “Even the scenario one hears of terrorists holding information that could save innocent lives is rejected as a justification for torture in most countries,” Kull said. “Since such a scenario is exceedingly rare, this poll suggests that virtually all torture used by governments is at odds with the will of the people.”
GLOBAL HAPPENINGS
International Conference on Groundwater and Climate in Africa
Kampala, Uganda (25-28 June 2008): The conference seeks to bring together water and climate scientists from research/academic institutions, government departments, and private sector as well as representatives from international agencies, donors and consortia in order to share knowledge and expertise, and thereby improve current understanding of the impact of climate and development on groundwater resources in Africa.
Website: http://www.gwclim.org/
China-OECD Multi-stakeholder Symposium on Government Approaches to Encouraging Responsible Business Conduct
Paris, France (26-27 June 2008): All countries are facing the challenges of promoting sustainable development and conditions which facilitate responsible conduct on the part of business. As the world economy becomes more integrated, OECD countries, together with China and other emerging countries have a shared responsibility to meet these challenges. OECD countries have taken steps to do this, including the adoption of the OECD Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises to ensure that their companies work in harmony with the local societies everywhere they operate.
Website: http://www.oecd.org/document/53/0,3343,en_2649_34863_39384629_1_1_1_1,00.html
GIN2008 Conference: Facilitating Sustainable Innovation
Leeuwarden, The Netherlands (26-28 June 2008): The challenges that will be raised at the conference are: how to evoke successful innovations on a regional and commercial scale within a shifting paradigm towards sustainable development. Conference participants will work together to respond to the conference challenge: How do we create a context in which sustainable innovations can succeed? The conference outcome will include a manifesto on Creating Sustainable Pathways with concrete recommendations how to create sustainable innovations on a regional level. All sessions at the conference will contribute to the manifesto.
Website: http://www.greeningofindustry.org/gin2008.htm
Fifth The Center for Global Development and The Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies
Washington DC (27 June 2008)
Website: http:// www.pcf5.london.ac.uk
Workshop on Biodiversity and Climate Change
Kushiro, Japan (29 June-4 July 2008): Co-organized by the UN Institute for Training and Research (UNITAR) and the Kushiro International Wetland Centre, in partnership with Japan-UNDP Partnership Fund and the Secretariats of the Ramsar Convention and the Convention on Biological Diversity, this workshop aims to support the sharing of scientific facts and policies on biodiversity, wetlands and climate change, provide analytical knowledge to understand and practically use the scientific data and documentation, facilitate exchange of ideas and strengthen the Kushiro/UNITAR network of experts in wetlands, biodiversity and climate change.
Website: http://www.unitar.org/hiroshima/programmes/kushiro08
Development agencies and non-governmental organizations are welcome to send details of upcoming conferences for inclusion in our HAPPENINGS column.
Contributors: Nosh Nalavala, Sheana Laughlin, Adelia Saunders, Shipra Prakash, Alina Haddad, Nadia Khan and Emily Geminder
MediaGlobal is a leading provider of information on global development issues facing vulnerable countries in Africa and Asia. Leaders of developed countries, the global media (with media in developing countries), policymakers in donor countries, non-governmental organizations, Permanent Representatives of Missions to the United Nations and key personnel in the United Nations Secretariat, its agencies and managers in the field worldwide read MediaGlobal’s newswire stories. Contact: media@mediaglobal.org . United Nations, Room S-301, New York, NY 10017. Tel: (212) 963-9878. Fax: (609) 716-1297 Website: www.mediaglobal.org
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