Africa - INTER PRESS SERVICE

US President Donald Trump with UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres during the UN General Assembly sessions last September.

By Thalif Deen
UNITED NATIONS, Jan 25 2019 (IPS)

The United Nations, which embodies the core principles of multilateralism since its creation more than 74 years ago, is being steadily and systematically undermined by a reactionary and demagogic Trump administration recklessly flaunting American imperialism at its worst.

The US has already scuttled the 2015 multilateral nuclear agreement with Iran, refused to participate in the global migration compact, pulled out of the 2015 Paris climate change agreement, abandoned the 12-nation Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) agreement, dismissed the relevance of the World Trade Organization (WTO), revoked the 1987 Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty with Russia, and withdrew from both the Human Rights Council in Geneva and the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) in Paris.

And that’s just for starters—and perhaps with more to come during the next two years of an unpredictable Trump presidency.

Meanwhile, as it continues to ravage international treaties and treaty bodies, the Trump administration has also weakened the Hague-based International Criminal Court (ICC)– of which it was never a member– by threatening its judges with sanctions if they ever investigate war crimes committed either by US troops in Afghanistan or Israeli troops in Palestine.

The threat against the ICC was vociferously reinforced last September by National Security Adviser John Bolton, a former US ambassador, who once infamously said that you could chop off 10 floors of the 38-storeyed UN building and it wouldn’t make a difference (prompting a New York Times columnist to say Bolton would be ideally suited as an urban planner than as an American envoy).

But the tragedy of it all is that several countries with rightwing governments, including Brazil, the Philippines, Hungary and Poland are following in the footsteps of the US – and tragically so, at a time when UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres warns that “multilateralism is under fire precisely when we need it most.”

Will this trend continue in the coming years? And if it does, will the Trump administration be a potential threat to multilateral diplomacy – and the United Nations itself? And more importantly, will other big powers step up take the lead in a new world order?

Norman Solomon, Executive Director of the Washington-based Institute for Public Accuracy, told IPS the United Nations, as it now stands, is largely at the mercy of its most powerful member states.

Seventy years after adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, he pointed out, its principles are often violated by the five permanent members (P-5) of the Security Council—the US, UK, France, China and Russia — and the governments of many other countries.

“It is hard to see how the UN can move forward effectively to advance the ideals of the Universal Declaration in the real world without challenging the nations that dominate the world body.”

Selective outrage at the violations committed by countries in rival blocs does little to improve the well-being of the people of the world, said Solomon who is also Co-Founder and Coordinator of the online activist group RootsAction.org, which has 1.4 million active online members.

He singled out two fundamental, interrelated problems — vast economic inequality of extreme proportions and rampant militarism led by the U.S. government – that threaten the survival of humanity.

“Over us all loom the threats of nuclear war and climate change, with those threats fueled by severe shortfalls of democracy that make possible rule by oligarchy as well as huge profiteering from arms sales and warfare.”

The UN member states that have cleaner hands than the permanent members of the Security Council often seem intimidated by the most powerful governments as a matter of routine, he noted

“Yet, our only hope involves the willingness of individuals, organizations and nations to not only speak truth to and about power, but also to build effective coalitions across international borders on behalf of human rights, democracy, environmental protection and peace”, declared Solomon, and author of “War Made Easy: How Presidents and Pundits Keep Spinning Us to Death”.

Addressing delegates last December, Guterres lamented the rise of unilateralism and the decline of multilateralism.

He urged world leaders to renew their commitment to a rules-based order, with the United Nations at its centre.

“In the face of massive existential threats to people and planet — but, equally, at a time of compelling opportunities for shared prosperity — there is no way forward but collective, common-sense action for the common good,” he stressed. “This is how we rebuild trust.”

Despite chaos and confusion in the world, there are winds of hope, he said, pointing out three positive developments: first, Eritrea’s peace initiatives with neighbouring States, second, the signing of a peace agreement between rival leaders of South Sudan and third, the summit meetings involving leaders of North Korea, the United States and South Korea.

Stephen Zunes, Professor of Politics at the University of San Francisco, told IPS the Trump administration’s ultra-nationalism and its rejection of international legal principles and multilateral initiatives is certainly harmful to the United Nations and the international community on a number of levels.

One result is that the United States is not being taken as seriously as it used to be. That may actually be a good thing, however.

While there have been a number of areas at the United Nations where the United States has wielded a positive influence, he argued, there have been quite a few others areas where Washington has undermined basic principles of international law and efforts at multilateral diplomacy.

These, he said, include the 2003 invasion of Iraq, the frequent abuse of its veto power, the rejection of near-unanimous World Court decisions, attacks on various UN agencies which have documented war crimes and other misdeeds by the United States or its allies, support for the Israeli and Moroccan occupations, and more.

“The United States has gotten away with wielding a disproportionate amount of influence on the United Nations since its inception.”

With the U.S. reputation at its lowest ebb, however, it may allow some other countries to step up to take greater leadership and thereby help create a more pluralistic world order, declared Zunes.

Addressing the UN General Assembly last September, Trump said that his outgoing Ambassador to the United Nations, Nikki Haley, had laid out a clear agenda for reform.

“But despite reported and repeated warnings, no action at all was taken.”

So, the United States, he said, took the only responsible course: “We withdrew from the Human Rights Council, and we will not return until real reform is enacted.”

For similar reasons, said Trump, the US will provide no support in recognition to the International Criminal Court.

“As far as America is concerned, the ICC has no jurisdiction, no legitimacy, and no authority”.

He said the ICC claims near-universal jurisdiction over the citizens of every country, violating all principles of justice, fairness, and due process.

“We will never surrender America’s sovereignty to an unelected, unaccountable, global bureaucracy.”

“America is governed by Americans. We reject the ideology of globalism, and we embrace the doctrine of patriotism,” Trump insisted.

He also said the US did not participate in the new Global Compact on Migration because “migration should not be governed by an international body unaccountable to our own citizens”.

Trump’s nationalistic rhetoric was preceded by drastic cuts in US funding to at least two UN agencies: the UN Population Fund (UNFPA) and the UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) aiding Palestinian refugees.

At a press conference announcing her decision to step down as US ambassador to the UN, Haley told reporters last October that that during her two-year tenure “we cut $1.3 billion in the UN’s budget. We’ve made it stronger. We’ve made it more efficient.”

At the same time, the US has slashed its contribution to UNFPA , from $69 million in 2016 to zero in 2017, and cut $300 million in funds to UNRWA.

The writer can be contacted at thalifdeen@ips.org

The post Is the UN Being Undermined by a Demagogic Trump Administration? appeared first on Inter Press Service.

The “bride shortage” in India and China has triggered trafficking as women are lured under false pretences and sold as brides. Pictured here are the rites of a Hindu marriage ceremony.

By Tharanga Yakupitiyage
UNITED NATIONS, Jan 25 2019 (IPS)

Paradoxically, the world’s most populated countries are facing a population crisis: a woman shortage. And it’s women who are paying a brutal price for it.

According to the World Health Organisation (WHO), the natural sex ratio at birth is approximately 105 boys to every 100 girls.

However, decades of gender discrimination, which favoured having boys over girls, has left India and China with 80 million more men than women.

“When women lack equal rights and patriarchy is deeply engrained, it is no surprise that parents choose to not to have daughters,” said Human Rights Watch’s (HRW) Senior Researcher in the Women’s Rights Division Heather Barr.

Now that there is a shortage of women doesn’t mean that women become more treasured or valued, she noted. Instead, there are very harmful consequences.

“[Women have] become a commodity which is in demand, so in demand that people will use violence to acquire it,” Barr told IPS.

“The stories we heard were really unbelievably shocking even after having spent many, many years on human rights issues,” she added.

The “bride shortage” has triggered trafficking as women are lured under false pretences and sold as brides.

Bordering China is Myanmar’s Kachin and northern Shan states which has seen iterations of conflicts over the last decade.

HRW found that traffickers often prey on women and girls in those regions, offering jobs in and transport to China. The women are then sold for 3,000 to 13,000 dollars to Chinese families struggling to find a bride for their sons.

Once purchased, women and girls are often locked in room and raped so that they can quickly provide a baby for the family.

Often times, women and girls are even sold by people they know—sometimes even by family members.

“The idea that there is a situation, a set of social pressures, a sense of lawlessness that is so extreme that it is causing people to sell their own relatives…it is shocking,” Barr said.

In India, bride trafficking has become common in the northern states such as Haryana which has only 830 girls to every 1,000 boys.

In a study, the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) found in over 10,000 households, over 9,000 married women in Haryana were brought from other States.

Most of those women came from poor villages in Assam, West Bengal, and Bihar where their families, desperate for money, struck deals with traffickers. There are also cases of girls being resold to other people after living a married life for a few years.

According to the 2016 National Crimes Records Bureau, almost 34,000 were kidnapped or abducted for the purpose of marriage across India, half of whom were under the age of 18.

While the immediate consequences for women are clear, there may also be long-term consequences of the distorted sex ratio.

“Part of the reason that we should be worrying about it is that we simply don’t know what the long-term consequences of this are. We don’t know how this might change societies, but this is something that is going to have an effect through generations,” Barr told IPS, highlighting the need for action including better prevention efforts and law enforcement on trafficking and violence against women.

But at the end of the day, governments must do more to address the root cause of the imbalance—gender discrimination.

Though sex-selective abortion is illegal in India, it is still a widespread practice in the country. In fact, approximately five to seven million sex-selective abortions are estimated to be carried out in South Asian country every year.

China’s now two-child policy may also continue to pose a threat to women and girls, as well as the future stability of the country’s population.

“The most fundamental problem is gender inequality and most fundamental solution to this is that you have to change the dynamics in society that makes sons valued and daughters not valued,” Barr concluded.

Related Articles

• Recorded Increase in Human Trafficking, Women and Girls Targeted

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Congressman Juan Guaidó of the Popular Will party, president of the National Assembly since Jan. 5, was sworn in on Jan. 23 before a crowd as Venezuela's interim president. Credit: NationalAssembly

By Humberto Márquez
CARACAS, Jan 25 2019 (IPS)

Venezuela entered a new and astonishing arena of political confrontation, with two presidents, Nicolás Maduro and Juan Guaidó, leading the forces vying for power, while Venezuelans once again are taking to the streets to demonstrate their weariness at the crisis, which has left them exhausted.

Both sides “have sharply raised the stakes, they’re not giving in and the internal and international factors that traditionally operate as mediators show signs of having taken sides,” Carlos Romero, former director of postgraduate studies in political science at Venezuela’s Simón Bolívar and Central Universities, told IPS.

Guaidó, 35, who was appointed president of the single-chamber National Legislative Assembly on Jan. 5, was sworn in on Jan. 23 before a crowd of supporters in Caracas – while hundreds of thousands marched in 50 other cities – as “interim president of the Republic”, to put an end to Maduro’s alleged “usurping” of power, create a transitional government and organise new elections.

“I don’t want a ‘bono’ (stipend) anymore, I don’t want Clap (bags of food at subsidised prices), what I want is for Nicolás to leave”, along with shouts of “Freedom!” and insults against the president were the most frequently chants by people from practically all social strata, who have been hit hard by the crisis, including annual hyperinflation of 1.7 million percent, according to the National Assembly in the absence of official statistics.

The United States, Brazil, Canada and a dozen other countries in the Americas immediately recognisedGuaidó, to which Maduro responded by denouncing that “the imperialist government of the United States is directing an operation to, through a coup d’état, impose a puppet government” in Venezuela.

In response, Maduro cut off diplomatic ties with Washington and gave all U.S. diplomats 72 hours to leave the country.

The United States, through Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, ignored Maduro’s measure and announced that it would keep its diplomats in Caracas as requested by Guaidó, the president they recognise.

U.S. President Donald Trump also called for stronger measures.

For a century, Venezuela has been a supplier of oil to the United States, currently the destination of 47 percent of its exports, while it imports not only U.S. manufactured products, but also inputs such as components to make gasoline. But the flow of trade has not appeared in the breakup equation.

The “Guaidó phenomenon” achieved what seemed unthinkable just a few weeks ago: reviving the mass “open councils” in the streets, which led to the huge opposition marches on Jan. 23.

That is a key date in Venezuela because on that day in 1958 a civil-military uprising put an end to the almost 10-year dictatorship of General Marcos Pérez Jiménez (1914-2001).

Maduro, 56, in power since 2013, was re-elected on May 20, 2018 in controversial elections in which the majority of the opposition – much of which was disqualified – did not participate, and whose results were not recognised by many governments in the Americas and Europe.

General Vladimir Padrino, minister of defense and head of the high command of the Bolivarian National Armed Force of Venezuela, ratified his support for President Nicolás Maduro on Jan. 24. Credit: Miraflores Palace

The president took office on Jan. 10 for a new six-year term. That same day, a majority of governments in the Americas and the European Union (EU) said they did not recognise his government.

The heir to Hugo Chávez, who governed the country between 1999 and 2013, the year of his death, also received the backing of hundreds of supporters on Jan. 23, who crowded around the Miraflores Presidential Palace.

He was also backed by the commanders of the Bolivarian National Armed Force, who on Jan. 24 reiterated their loyalty to Maduro in a series of statements.

Guaidó’s proclamation “is shameful and aberrant,” and part of “a criminal plan that reached the limits of extreme danger,” because “a coup d’état is being carried out against democracy and the constitution,” declared General Vladimir Padrino, defense minister and head of the military high command.

Today in Venezuela “three scenarios have opened up. The first is that President Maduro withstands the pressure from the opposition, from the population in the streets and from the international community, and that the mass movement against him peters out,” Romero said.

The second is that the street protests and international pressure sustain the duality of power, which translates into the elimination of Maduro’s government, either by him stepping down or by an act of force, and new elections are called,” the analyst added.

“And the third is that a third actor enters the scene, which could be international, from the armed forces, or some other factor that intervenes to stop the confrontation if it gets out of hand in the country,” Romero said.

Luis Salamanca, also a professor of political science at the Central University of Venezuela, told IPS: “There can’t be two presidents at the same time in the same territory. That puts the ball in Maduro’s court, and he will have to pull his strings to stop and perhaps arrest Guaidó, but to do that he would have to assess the political costs.”

The crowds returned to the streets of Caracas and dozens of other Venezuelan cities to express discontent over the economic crisis and call for change in the country’s leadership. Credit: National Assembly

Guaidó, for his part, “must have calculated the risks of taking the bull by the horns in the middle of the square. There may be arrests that reach not only him but other members of the Assembly,” Salamanca said.

Parliament was declared “in contempt” two years ago by the government-appointed Supreme Court of Justice. Since then, the other branches of power, all in the hands of government allies, have ignored its decisions, while in 2017 a National Constituent Assembly was elected, also without an opposition presence, which has assumed part of the legislature’s functions.

International factors

United Nations Secretary General Antonio Guterres called on Jan. 24 for “a transparent and independent investigation” into “the incidents in Venezuela,” because in the context of the protests of Jan. 21-23, at least 26 people were shot dead, according to local media, and dozens were injured and arrested.

On Jan. 18,Guterres had already said his organisation”is willing to use its good offices” to promote a political solution”, since only the U.N. “can solve and provide answers to Venezuela’s problems.”

Washington, Ottawa and the Lima Group (Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Guatemala, Honduras, Panama, Paraguay and Peru) recognisedGuaidó. Ecuador did as well.

Meanwhile, Uruguay and Mexico distanced themselves to insist on the need for a new “urgent and transparent” dialogue between the parties. Bolivia, Cuba, El Salvador, Nicaragua and Suriname were the countries in the region that supported Maduro.

Although the EU did not recognise Maduro’s election and second term, it has not given Guaidó recognition either, although some of its members have done so or have ratified their support for him as president of the legislature.

However, the bloc insists on the need for new elections, with guarantees, in order to return to a state of law in Venezuela.

Two other major global players, China and Russia, have expressed their support for Maduro.

What will happen if, for example, the United States refuses to withdraw its diplomats from Caracas and Maduro’s government imprisons Guaidó?

The new scenario could take one of many directions, while underneath the surface of a situation where the country has two presidents are years of weariness and crisis that has undermined the quality of life of Venezuelans, with growing numbers of people going to sleep hungry every night, and millions forced to emigrate.

The post In Venezuela, Two Presidents Vie for Power appeared first on Inter Press Service.

By Staff Correspondent
Jan 24 2019 (IPS-Partners)

(The Daily Star, Bangladesh) – As many as 418 children were murdered in the country last year, up by 23.30 percent from the previous year, says a report by Bangladesh Shishu Adhikar Forum.

In 2017, at least 339 children were killed, mentions the report titled “State of Child Rights in Bangladesh 2018” unveiled in the capital’s Dhaka Reporters Unity yesterday.

Analysing the reasons behind the killings, it found that in most cases, children were murdered over trivial matters, family or conjugal dispute, dowry, extramarital affair and enmity.

In some cases, children were beaten to death over trifles or on false allegations of theft. There were incidents in which a parent killed his or her child and then committed suicide, BSAF Director Abdus Shahid Mahmood said while releasing the report.

The findings are based on media reports published in 15 national dailies.

It said 4,566 children fell victim to different types of incidents last year, up by 18.75 percent from the previous year. The number was 3,845 in 2017.

Incidents of child rape fell by 3.71 percent last year when 571 children were raped. The number was 593 in 2017, the report pointed out.

The country saw verdicts in 31 child murder cases and 50 cases over child rape last year, said the BSAF director.

“This reflects a sign of impunity and lengthy trial process in incidents of violence against children,” he said.

Apart from murder, suicide, road crash and drowning were among the main causes of death of children last year, according to the report.

Sharing the findings, Shahid said 627 children were killed in road accidents last year, up by 75.63 percent from the previous year.

Besides, 606 children drowned last year. The number was 391 in 2017.

Forty-six children died due to wrong treatment by doctors and negligence of the authorities concerned. The number was 35 in 2017, the report said.

Last year, 812 children fell victim to sexual violence, including rape, — a 9.71 percent fall from 2017 when 894 children faced such incidents, according to the BSAF.

A total of 262 children suffered violence and torture, including corporal punishment, last year, compared to 271 in 2017.

It said 233 children went missing and 150 others were abducted last year. Of those kidnapped, 136 were rescued.

In 2017, at least 177 children were abducted, and 188 others went missing. Of the abductees, 98 were rescued.

Moreover, 396 children were injured in different incidents, including road accidents and attempted murder last year. The number was 231 in 2017.

The report also mentioned that 38 incidents of child marriage were reported last year, and at least 134 children averted it, thanks to government intervention.

BSAF Chairperson Khawaja Shamsul Huda said the actual number of incidents of violence against children could be higher as many such incidents go unreported.

The BSAF urged the government to take effective measures to ensure speedy trial of incidents of violence against children, exemplary punishment of the culprits and quick implementation of the verdicts.

It said parents should be more cautious to stop sexual violence against children.

The forum also called upon development organisations to strengthen their awareness campaigns to check violence against children.

Addressing the programme as the chief guest, National Human Rights Commission Chairman Kazi Reazul Hoque said the commission was not satisfied with the overall status of child safety in the country despite progress in some areas.

Violence against children cannot continue this way, he said.

“We want an end to child marriage in the country. We want that no child will become a victim of rape.”

Reazul stressed the need for setting up a directorate and a national commission to deal with issues of child rights.

He also urged the government to formulate rules in line with the Children Act 2013 and the Child Marriage (Restraint) Act 2017.

Sharmeela Rassool, chief technical adviser of the UNDP’s Human Rights Programme, said about 1.3 million children have been involved in hazardous work in Bangladesh.

Efforts should be made to improve their condition, she added.

This story was originally published by The Daily Star, Bangladesh

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Illustration: Noor Us Safa Anik

By Aaqib Hasib and Momotaz Rahman Megha
Jan 24 2019 (IPS-Partners)

(The Daily Star, Bangladesh) – The past decade has seen progress being made for movements to support equality. The #MeToo and Time’s Up movements helped start conversations within the general public worldwide on the topics of sexual harassment and misogyny.

The power of conversation helped bring into the mainstream the many problems women face on the daily – in their social lives, workplaces, and even their homes. Activists who came forward to speak against the many incidents of sexism and sexual harassment have been essential to the fightback against the systematic misogyny that is embedded into our culture and societies.

When exploring the topic of systematic misogyny, we were able to learn just how ingrained it is in our daily lives. Women face misogyny in almost every aspect of their lives, and the only way to combat something that is part of the basic system of how our societies operate, is to raise awareness on the different dimensions of a woman’s life where she is discriminated. Raising awareness is only the first step; it will help further shape the conversation towards a future where women are treated equally.

MISOGYNY AT HOME

Being a woman is tough. The streets are filled with unwanted stares and catcalling. But sometimes a woman doesn’t even need to exit the safety of her own home to come face to face with a form of misogyny. Sometimes it is at the hands of their parents and siblings, and sometimes relatives, that they witness misogyny rear its ugly head.

When asked about her experience, second-year university student Tasnia Alam* shared, “I’ve been criticised for not being fair, for not being tall, or not ‘feminine’ enough. I’ve been subjected to body shaming for as long as I can remember by my mother and some of my relatives. There is a constant feeling of never being treated with the same respect as my brother and I’ve come to make my peace with it. And even though, to cope, I’ve created a world of my own outside of my family, which motivates me to be who I want to be, no matter how empowered I become, I feel like there will always be this stinging feeling of never being accepted and cherished by my own family.”

If the parents are concerned with the behaviour of their daughters rather than that of society, we need to re-evaluate our priorities. The entire blame doesn’t fall on our parents’ generation, instead the situation is a by-product of cultural upbringing.

MISOGYNY IN SOCIAL GROUPS

Women often find themselves discriminated by even their closest friends. When asked about systematic misogyny that she face in her social groups, Odhora Islam*, a university student, said, “Back when I was in kindergarten, my school thought it was okay for them to make the girls take dance classes while the boys were allowed to go for sports. The girls in my class, including myself, who showed immense interest in outdoor sports, were never allowed to attend these classes with the boys, because according to the school, we were ‘too weak’.”

Exposure to such social constructs from an early age shapes the way our mentalities evolve. It isn’t uncommon to see misogynistic comments being passed in friend groups, only to be considered and then shrugged off as a joke. Sometimes we even have friends who promote feminism and equality, but are unaware how certain comments that they make are a contradiction to their support for women.

Thus, combating misogyny will often require you to go up against the people that are close to you. Some educational institutions also have to stop associating subjects such as Home Economics as a degree or course designed specifically for women. Instead, they should open their doors for women to partake in whichever academic pursuit they wish to.

MISOGYNY AMONG WOMEN

Misogyny at the hands of other women is a common sight in our societies. The way in which our societies have developed over the course of history is the prime cause of women being misogynistic towards other women.

Another university student, Antara Kabir* had this to say on the matter: “I find myself in these situations repetitively. Whether I am dressing in more Western clothes, or working long hours at a job that requires me to stay out late, I’ve heard my neighbour make comments about me being too ‘modern’ and that I am a disgrace to my parents. Hearing such comments from another woman hurts more, as I believe we should be supporting each other rather than engaging in petty backbiting.”

However, even though societies tend to dictate certain gender stereotypes for women, when someone breaks out of these social constructs, it’s extremely important to see it as a step forward for women. Whenever a woman breaks through a glass ceiling, it becomes a step towards empowerment for women everywhere; empowered women help in empowering other women, thus helping society to evolve as well.

MISOGYNY AT WORKPLACE

Misogyny in the workplace isn’t a newfound phenomenon. Women in the workplace are more often than not shown a lack of respect, mostly when compared to how a man is treated. Similar to the problems faced by women in social groups, the same gender stereotypes exist here as well. Men in the workplace often leave women out of certain work-related activities, mainly due to their assumptions about women’s capabilities based on pre-existing gender stereotypes.

When asked about the issue of exclusion, Maliha Ahmed Khan*(24), working in the development sector, said, “Usually the discrimination comes in the form of exclusion, especially from certain activities and roles. For example, a woman might not be assigned a task, like going to a remote area for fieldwork, that she is capable of doing simply because it is assumed that the role is more suited for males.”

All of the women we talked to suggested similar measures to combat the problems and discrimination that they face on a daily basis — being there for women to raise their own voices and stand up for their rights, as they are equally as capable as the men they work alongside.

MISOGYNY IN RELATIONSHIPS

Relationship dynamics are often seen to be dictated by misogynistic ideologies. Misogynistic partners will typically display signs of micro-managing, because they need to feel that they are in control of the relationship. It is their belief that women are incapable of taking and being in control. Their misogyny might be displayed in small decisions, like them choosing where to go on a date or which movie to watch, even when their significant others or wives may have stated their own choice. They will justify making decisions all the time by saying that they do it better than you, because you area woman and therefore indecisive and bad at decision-making. This is a direct reflection of the superiority complex that misogynists thrive on.

A misogynistic partner is also likely to devalue the success of their female partners, because things in which women excel are of less importance than the things which they do. This is one of the main reasons why being a “housewife” is seen as a job that has no value to it. Women are also likely to be blamed for anything and everything that goes wrong in the relationship, because misogynists assume women mess up because they are sentimental and unprofessional.

Anika Tabassum* shares from her personal experience, “In the beginning I thought his controlling attitude was a gesture of love, and that he didn’t want me to worry about things, and so he did them himself. However, the more time we spent together, the more I understood how little he actually thought of me. He started labelling all of my opinions as wrong. He treated me like a child, who has no idea about how the world works.”

There is often no fix for misogynistic partners. Trying to hold on to such toxic relationships only makes life harder for women, and it becomes an endless cycle, with them trying to justify the actions of their partners. And the more time women spend trying to cut them some slack, the more they feel that they have power over a woman and her actions. If you are a woman with a misogynistic partner, it’s high time you stop justifying their irrational behaviour; misogynists don’t need excuses made for them, instead put your foot down and move on.

When asked about how women can rise up and fight against the many forms of misogyny they face, Afsana Islam, Assistant Professor at the Department of Women and Gender Studies in University of Dhaka, explained, “Sexism is an ideology under the shelter of patriarchy which helps to uphold misogyny and creates impediments to women’s empowerment. We have to work on the factors behind them. Firstly, women have to be self-confident. Secondly, women should gain adequate knowledge and awareness about their rights. And thirdly, engaging men and boys from the early in their childhood to change cultural misconception is vital to solving the problem. Men’s awareness and involvement is also a necessity to overcome misogyny.”

The way the world views women is slowly changing, and it’s our responsibility to get behind this change and help it climb up the slope of misogyny, for a future where men and women are treated equally is essential.

While some topics allow for everyone to have their personal opinion and perspective, the case regarding misogynistic treatment is not the same. There is no dialogue for opposition, because when the issue becomes one that denies women their fundamental and basic human rights, it no longer has any further option for discourse.

*Names have been changed to protect the privacy of the individuals

Aaqib loves petting doggos. Send him pictures of your ”good boys” at aaqibhasib94@gmail.com

Megha is probably going to be a dropout of university. If you think you are going to do the same, you can find her at megharahman26@gmail.com and share your thoughts.

This story was originally published by The Daily Star, Bangladesh

The post Combatting Systematic Misogyny appeared first on Inter Press Service.

By Geneva Centre
GENEVA, Jan 24 2019 (IPS-Partners)

(Geneva Centre) – In a letter to the UN Secretary-General António Guterres signed by HRH Prince El Hassan bin Talal of Jordan, the General Secretary of the World Council of Churches Reverend Dr Olav Fykse Tveit and the Executive Director of the Geneva Centre for Human Rights Advancement and Global Dialogue Ambassador Idriss Jazairy, the co-signatories appealed to the UN Secretary-General to contribute to the peaceful resolution of the matter concerning the Pakistani Christian woman Asia Bibi.

In the said letter, the co-signatories underlined that they “celebrate the decision of the Supreme Court of Pakistan of 31 October 2018 to acquit and release Asia Bibi, a Pakistani Christian lady convicted and sentenced to death under Pakistan’s blasphemy laws in 2010.”

However, they expressed their concerns about calls from extremist and radical groups to overturn the decision of the Supreme Court of Pakistan and to reinstate the death penalty following her acquittal.

In this regard, the co-signatories stated that this ominous situation violates article 3 of the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights stating that “Everyone has the right to life, liberty and security of person.”

The co-signatories likewise referred to the Holy Scriptures of Christianity and Islam about the sanctity of life and the importance of valuing each other. “The Old Testament says that ‘All life is sacred’ while the Holy Qur’an [29:46] asserts that ‘whoever kills a soul (unless for a soul) or for corruption (done) in the land, it is as if he had slain mankind entirely,” it was underlined by the co-signatories.

It was in this context that the co-signatories appealed to the UN Secretary-General to support “our appeal to the international community, as well as to the authorities and people of Pakistan to comply with article 3 of the UDHR.”

The letter can be downloaded below:
Letter to UN Secretary General

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Lujio Jaran took up fishing as an alternative source of livelihood but receding waters in Lake Turkana is affecting the quality of fish and fishing activities; sometimes fishermen go home empty handed after even after hours of fishing. Photo: Amunga Eshuchi/UNDP Kenya

By Ngele Ali
NAIROBI, Jan 24 2019 (IPS)

It’s estimated that 70% of the Earth’s surface is covered by water. Unfortunately, our water resources are under serious threats attributable to uncontrolled human activities that are severely impacting livelihoods and the ecosystem.

For instance, every year, more than 8 million tons of plastic end up in the ocean, a large percentage of it having been washed into the oceans through rivers as a result of poor waste management and dumping upstream.

Against this backdrop, in late November 2018, Kenya together with Canada and Japan hosted 18,000 delegates from 184 countries, including several Heads of state, top government officials, the private sector, civil society, academia, scientists and private citizens in Nairobi.

Ngele Ali, Head of Communications, UNDP Kenya

Under the auspice of the Sustainable Blue Economy Conference, the three-day gathering pursued conversations on productivity and protection of the blue economy; with a call to rethink utilisation and promotion of water resources, as a base for new economies (fisheries, tourism, aquaculture, maritime transportation and renewable energy) to advance socio-economic development and environmental sustainability.

Being the first international gathering of its kind – that looked at all water resources – the outcomes of the conference are expected to act as a launching pad that will progressively stimulate global discourses and influence how countries make the Blue Economy more advantageous for all.

The Blue Economy is not entirely a new concept as communities have always relied on water resources directly or indirectly, for their socio-economic interests. Through the SDGs, communities are urged to ‘conserve and sustainably use the oceans, seas, and marine resources for sustainable development.’

Therefore in line with this vision, the conference created a unique space for the exploration of ideas that will responsibly spur sustainable economic growth and build resilient communities. Although the potential of the blue economy is evident, barriers that hinder communities from benefitting to the maximum need to be addressed.

"The blue economy can only succeed if it guarantees that the needs of communities are put into consideration and safeguarded now and in the future"

Ahuna Eziakonwa, UNDP Regional Director for Africa

As we move forward after successful discussions that unpacked the blue economy as a viable economic driver, it’s now time to take stock and pragmatically create a shift that will convert theorised concepts into tangible and result oriented actions.

First, to address the declining access and quality of water, formulation of adequate environmental governance policies must be put in place; to help tackle issues of climate change and uncontrolled human activities.

Specifically, countries need prioritise investing in solutions that involve communities to address encroachment of riparian lands, destruction of water towers, pollution, poor management of waste and disposal which continue to choke our dwindling resources and the ecosystem.

Second, for the blue economy to be more lucrative and beneficial for all, strategic partnerships that will lay essential foundations need to be established to facilitate inclusive and accountable implementation of ideas.

Governments, environmental institutions, the private sector, communities and all other stakeholders need to work in concert to drive an agenda that will support innovative ideas that respond contextually to communities’ needs and ambition.

Third, if the intention is to advance this sector, to significantly contribute to building communities’ resilience and lifting people out of poverty; communities must be at the heart of proposed ideas and actions.

As Ahuna Eziakonwa, UNDP Regional Director for Africa emphasised, the blue economy can only succeed if it guarantees that the needs of communities are put into consideration and safeguarded now and in the future.

Fourth, the decline of the water resources is alarming as it negatively impacts on communities’ wellbeing, fuels competition for the scarce resources and contributes to community conflicts. Any conceivable ideas must, therefore, reflect the vision of the 2030 agenda of sustainable development.

As the blue economy opens new development opportunities, all players in the sector should foster partnerships that ensure equitable access and utilisation of available resources for inclusive economic growth.

Fifth, besides commitments by countries to mobilise of funds that will advance the sector, there is the need for political will intentionally promote interventions that discourage further destruction and depletion of the blue economy resources.

Since communities have been custodians of water resources for centuries, advancing home-grown conservation ideas will ensure their buy-in and guarantee that no one is left behind by this new realm of economic trajectory.

Further, rather than reinvent the wheel, countries need to make deliberate efforts to create opportunities to learn from each other, open access to information and data, build knowledge and capacity; as these will go a long way to deliver a stronger and inclusive water-based economy innovatively.

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Excerpt:

Ngele Ali is Head of Communications, UNDP Kenya

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By Thalif Deen
UNITED NATIONS, Jan 24 2019 (IPS)

The widespread innovations in modern digital technology have a devastating downside to it: the accumulation of over 50 million tonnes of electronics waste (e-waste) globally every year.

And that’s greater in weight than all of the world’s commercial airliners ever made, or enough Eiffel Towers to fill the borough of Manhattan in New York city, warns a new report released at the World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos, January 24.

Currently only 20% of e-waste—including desktop computers, cell phones, laptops, television sets, printers and a wide variety of household electrical appliances– is formally recycled.

If nothing changes, the United Nations University (UNU), one of the authors of the report, predicts e-waste could nearly triple to nearly 120 million tonnes by 2050.

The study says it is difficult to gauge how many electrical goods are produced annually, but just taking account of devices connected to the internet, they now number many more than humans, whose total world population now stands at over 7.7 billion.

The joint report, titled “A New Circular Vision for Electronics – Time for a Global Reboot“, and backed by seven UN agencies, points out that rapid innovation and lowering costs have dramatically increased access to electronic products and digital technology, with many benefits.

This has led to an increase in the use of electronic devices and equipment. And the unintended consequence of this is a ballooning of electronic and electrical waste.

The study says e-waste is now the fastest-growing waste stream in the world. Some forms of it have been growing exponentially.

Asked how feasible is it for countries to have mandatory legislation on recycling e-waste, Dr. Ruediger Kuehr, co-author of the report and Director, UNU-ViE SCYCLE, Sustainable Cycles Programme, told IPS mandatory e-waste recycling legislations are in place, for example, in the European Union (EU).

As per such, 85% all e-waste generated in the EU must be recycled in 2019. However, this target is not going to be reached at all, he noted.

Collection is the biggest challenge and recent attempts to substantially increase it by forcing, for example, retailers to accept obsolete e-products have not substantially increased collections.

Hence, he said, e-waste recycling legislations must come together with innovative and rewarding collection systems; consumer awareness (for example, not for storing obsolete equipment at home, but returning it early on) but also new systems to consume electronics such as dematerialization — purchasing the service instead of the product.

This will ease collection, because the ownership of the product would remain with the producer, he added.

He also said such systems are necessary in the long-run, because extend-collection systems by returning equipment with retailers; recycling points or collection bins have proved to be key, but do not provide the necessary breakthrough.

‘In consequence, the pure e-waste legislation will not change things, especially also because in many countries their enforcement is lacking,” Dr Kuehr warned.

In terms of material value, says the study, e-waste presents an opportunity worth over 62.5 billion dollars per year, more than the GDP of most countries and three times the output of the world’s silver mines.

There is 100 times more gold in a tonne of e-waste than a tonne of gold ore, according to the report.

The study calls for a new vision for electronics based on the circular economy and the need for collaboration with major brands, small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), academia, trade unions, civil society and associations, in a deliberative process to change the system

The joint report supports the work of the E-waste Coalition, which includes: the International Labour Organization (ILO); the International Telecommunication Union (ITU); the UN Environment Programme (UN Environment); the UN Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO); the UN Institute for Training and Research (UNITAR); the UN University (UNU), and the Secretariats of the Basel and Stockholm Conventions.

The Coalition is supported by the World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD) and the World Economic Forum and coordinated by the Secretariat of the Environment Management Group (EMG).

Asked if the issue of e-waste should be on the agenda of the UN General Assembly in order to motivate firm commitments from the 193 member states, Dr Kuehr told IPS that some stakeholders in politics and industry are of the standpoint that the e-waste issue is sustainably solved, though all numbers speak a different language and are alarming.

And though e-waste has moved up on the political agenda, also within the UN, it is still regarded as a niche issue. International and globally harmonized attempts, partly revolutionary, are required for sustainable solutions, he argued.

“And the UN General Assembly could play an important role in taking the discussion to the next level, also illustrating the urgency for regional and national action.”

“But we must also take further attempts in greening the blue, by also re-considering our UN internal consumption of electrical and electronic equipment”.

Seeing the UN as a large consumer, he said, “we can have a say in what products and services we want from the producer. But so far, it is hardly reflected.”

However, national governments, companies and other stakeholders must do substantially better in researching the e-waste challenge and coming up with sustainable solutions, declared Dr Kuehr.

Meanwhile the study cites several concrete examples in the battle against e-waste in a “circular economy”.

The Nigerian government, the Global Environment Facility (GEF) and UNEP have jointly announced a $2.0 million dollar investment to kick off the formal e-waste recycling industry in Nigeria. The new investment will leverage over $13 million dollars in additional financing from the private sector.

According to the ILO, upto 100,000 people in Nigeria work in the informal e-waste sector.

This investment is expected to help create a system which formalizes these workers, giving them safe and decent employment while capturing the latent value in Nigeria’s 500,000 tonnes of e-waste.

UNIDO is collaborating with a large number of organizations on e-waste projects, including UNU, ILO, ITU, and WHO, as well as various other partners, such as Dell and the International Solid Waste Association (ISWA).

In Latin America and the Caribbean, a UNIDO e-waste project, co-funded by GEF, seeks to support sustainable economic and social growth in 13 countries.

From upgrading e-waste recycling facilities, to helping to establish national e-waste management strategies, the initiative adopts a circular economy approach, whilst enhancing regional cooperation.

The writer can be contacted at thalifdeen@ips.org

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Bangladesh should align its many different plans and goals related to climate change for a greater impact. PHOTO: REUTERS

By Saleemul Huq
Jan 23 2019 (The Daily Star, Bangladesh)

Bangladesh has a long tradition of national development planning under the aegis of the General Economics Division (GED) of the Planning Commission, through the seven Five Year Plans prepared since we became an independent country. Recently, there have been a number of additional types of planning which will need to be well-aligned if we wish to achieve our goal of becoming a climate-resilient country by 2030. Some of these require examination and we need to discuss ways to ensure their mutual alignment going forward.

The first and longest-term one is the recently approved Delta Plan that has a time horizon up to 2100. Only the Netherlands has drawn up such a long-term plan and Bangladesh is the second country in the world to do so. It is more of an aspirational evolution towards our future development rather than a detailed plan, as the normal five-year plans will still remain the overriding planning vehicle, with the next one being the 8th Five Year Plan (8FYP)—which will start from 2021 onwards.

The second vehicle is to the year 2041 which is a perspective plan that is supposed to earn Bangladesh the middle-income status over the next few decades. This will also need to be translated into five-year segments to feed into the 8th, 9th, 10th and 11th Five Year Plans to be implemented over that time period.

Then we have a set of 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) which have a time horizon of 2030 to be achieved. These goals are global goals agreed at the level of the United Nations for all countries to implement at the national level, using common metrics to measure progress towards each of the 17 goals. In case of Bangladesh, all 17 SDGs have been mapped onto different lead ministries and support ministries for each goal by the Planning Commission. In addition, a high-powered monitoring unit has been set up at the prime minister’s office to track progress by each ministry for each of the 17 SDGs.

In addition to these development-oriented goals, there is also a goal on disaster risk reduction under the global Sendai Framework which each country is supposed to try to achieve disaster resilience by 2030. In case of Bangladesh, the lead for this is assigned to the Ministry of Disaster Management and Relief (DMDR). There are also civil society and military allies and actors that are involved in the implementation of this plan.

Finally, there are two climate change related goals agreed globally under the Paris Agreement on Climate Change to be achieved by 2030. The first goal—which is about mitigation—is to reduce emissions of Greenhouse Gases that cause climate change so that global temperatures are kept below 1.5 Degrees Centigrade by achieving 100 percent reliance on renewable energy in every country by 2050. The second goal is to achieve transformational adaptation to the adverse impacts of climate change in every country in order to make them climate-resilient by 2030. In case of Bangladesh, we have a number of planning documents under the aegis of the Ministry of Environment, Forests and Climate Change (MOEFCC).

The first is the Bangladesh Climate Change Strategy and Action Plan (BCCSAP), first prepared in 2009 and now being updated to take it to 2030. There is another called the Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC) that every country has to prepare to show how it will achieve the mitigation goal of the Paris Agreement. The Bangladesh NDC has pledged to reduce the national emissions of Greenhouse Gases by 5 percent by 2030, and if we get additional funding and technology, then we can reduce them by up to 15 percent. Finally, we are about to develop the National Adaptation Plan (NAP) which every developing country has to prepare to chart its objective of becoming climate-resilient by 2030.

In addition to these plans and goals, there are also others in different sectors, such as health, energy, agriculture, and water development, which are being developed by the respective ministries and departments.

It is clear from the above discussion that there is a lot of potential overlaps and lack of synergies unless these are addressed from the very beginning to ensure that each plan is well-aligned and linked, where necessary, to the other relevant plan(s). Also, it is imperative that the Five Year Plans should be the main vehicles into which all the others will be mainstreamed, starting with 8FYP which we will have to start developing very soon.

There are three overarching ways in which we can ensure that such synergies and mainstreaming is effectively achieved over the coming decades.

The first is to ensure that all the plans are aligned with each other while the 8FYP is started and developed. This is the responsibility of each ministry to liaise with the General Economics Division in the Planning Commission to ensure that the 8FYP receives inputs from all the other plans and goals. It is up to the GED to lead this process.

The second major action that has to take place is a very robust monitoring system for all the plans and goals cutting across the different sectors. This has already been put in place by the prime minister under her own direction with a well-respected former civil servant in charge. This is indeed a very good development. In this connection, it will also be useful to add a section of academics and researchers so that in addition to simply monitoring progress, we also have genuine learning-by-doing to inform and improve future Five Year Plans after 8FYP.

Finally, it is important to recognise that one of the biggest differences between the past and the future of the country is the shift from public sources of investment to private sources and also for the private sector to implement most of the plans. Hence, the country will have to become better at ensuring a whole-of-society approach rather than just a whole-of-government one with regard to both the planning and implementation of all these tasks. Bangladesh would do well to ensure that we find synergies and alignments among all the different plans.

Saleemul Huq is Director, International Centre for Climate Change and Development, Independent University, Bangladesh (IUB).
Email: Saleem.icccad@iub.edu.bd

This story was originally published by The Daily Star, Bangladesh

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Credit: Getty Images

By Chandra Bhushan
NEW DELHI, Jan 23 2019 (IPS)

As I was attending the 24th Conference of Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change—to create a rulebook to operationalise the Paris Agreement—in Katowice, Poland, it dawned on me, like never before, that the negotiations were taking place in a make-believe world.

There was a stark disconnect between what is required to contain the impacts of climate change and what representatives of 197 parties were trying to achieve.

The world is reeling under the effects of climate disasters. From Kerala to California, extreme weather events are killing people, destroying properties and businesses.

This, when the global temperature has only increased by 1.0°C from preindustrial levels. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s Special Report on Global Warming of 1.5°C makes it clear that the impacts are going to be substantially higher at 1.5°C warming and catastrophic at 2.0°C.

The worst part is that most countries, including the US and the European Union, were not even on track to meet their meagre commitments to curb emissions.

So why is it that three years after the “historic” Paris Agreement was signed, the global collective effort is in tatters? The reason is the architecture of the Paris Agreement itself.

The Paris Agreement is a voluntary agreement in which countries are free to choose their own climate targets, called nationally determined contributions (NDCs). Developed countries and rich developing countries were expected to take higher emission reduction targets than poor developing countries.

But if a rich country doesn’t commit to a higher emissions cut, no one can demand a revision of targets. Worse, if a country fails to meet its NDCs, there is no penalty. The agreement, therefore, based on the goodwill of countries.
Herein lies the catch.

Since the beginning, climate negotiations have been viewed as an economic negotiation and not as an environmental negotiation. So, instead of cooperation, competition is the foundation of these negotiations. Worst still, the negotiations are viewed as a zero-sum game.

For instance, Donald Trump believes that reducing emissions will hurt the US economy and benefit China, so he has walked out of the Paris Agreement. China too believes in this viewpoint, and despite being the world’s largest polluter today, it has not yet committed to any absolute emissions cut.

The fact is every country is looking for its own narrow interest and not the larger interest of the whole world. They are, therefore, committing to as little climate targets as possible.

This is the Achilles heel of the Paris Agreement. This is the reason why the Paris Agreement will not be able meet its own goal of limiting global warming well below 2°C. The negotiations, however, are devoid of this realisation.

We need to understand that the interest of countries and the interest of the world are two sides of the same coin. Climate change demands countries cooperate and work together to reduce emissions.

But this can only happen if the climate change negotiations move from being a zero-sum game to a positive-sum game. Today, it is possible to make this changeover because reducing emissions and increasing economic growth are no more incompatible to each other.

Costs of technologies such as batteries, super-efficient appliances and smart grids are falling so rapidly that they are already competitive with fossil fuel technologies.

So the reason for countries to compete with each other for carbon budget is becoming immaterial. If countries cooperate, the cost of low and no-carbon technologies can be reduced at a much faster pace, which will benefit everyone.

The bottom line is negotiations cannot continue in a business-as-usual fashion. The time has come to devise new mechanisms for a meaningful international collaboration to fight climate change.

The link to the original article:
https://www.downtoearth.org.in/blog/climate-change/cop24-sum-and-substance-of-climate-diplomacy-62483

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Joy Daniels now works at a Fair Trade travel company in Cape Town. Credit: Ida Karlsson/IPS

By Ida Karlsson
CAPE TOWN, South Africa, Jan 23 2019 (IPS)

Long before Joy Daniels became the manager of a travel company she was cleaning rooms at a guesthouse. But after joining a Fair Trade-certified business, a place that valued its staff, in a few years she was soon promoted to manager. 

A Fair Trade certification is one of several initiatives in South Africa aimed at developing tourism in a responsible way.

“The way they were running that guesthouse and the way they were dealing with staff was totally different from what I experienced later on. I tried to help out here and there but I was kept back. I was just a cleaner and that was it,” she says of her previous company.

But after joining a Fair Trade-certified business she got the opportunity to develop new skills. There was a position available as manager and people encouraged her to apply.

“I have not studied management. Everything I learnt was day-to-day stealing with the eye. And I had never worked on my own without supervisor. I was very scared, but I realised I had nothing to lose.”

She was offered the job and she says the experience made her grow both personally and professionally.

“I used to be very shy. It built up my self-esteem. And when you run a company you think differently in other parts of life as well. There is a lot of things that I learnt, how to manage my life and my time, to make sure that my personal life is also in order,” Daniels says.

The impact on her life was enormous. The single mum was soon able to move from Mitchell’s Plain—a former apartheid suburb for people of colour that is still troubled by gang violence—to Sea Point, a trendy residential area on the edge of the Atlantic ocean in Cape Town.

Beneath the slopes of Table Mountain in Cape Town, another Fair Trade Tourism accredited business, a backpacking hostel started in 1990, welcomes travellers from all over the world.

Lee Harris at the hostel in Cape Town. She hopes that in the future responsible tourism is nothing unusual. Credit: Ida Karlsson/IPS

“Me and my best friend Toni wanted to make a difference right from the start and our very first brochures were printed on recycled paper. Unheard of in those days, in fact it was a little difficult to get the paper,” Lee Harris, co-owner, told IPS.

Harris and Toni Shina have invested heavily in the well-being and professional development of the staff members. There is a staff bursary fund, which supports the education of employees and their children with up to 15,000 Rands (around 1,000 dollars) per year. The bursary means a chance for families to put their children in good schools.

The owners pay the school fees directly to the school so they get it timeously. While schooling is free in all South African government schools, some former “whites-only” government schools (which are now open to all races by law) are administered by school boards that charge minimal fees for the maintenance of the schools and provisions of extra murals etc.

One of the security guards used the bursary to pay for studies to become a pastor. Another employee used it for studies in tourism. They also have a provident fund, which is a retirement fund that the staff pay towards.

“It is like an enforced saving which is theirs when they either leave or retire,” Harris says.

They also make sure the staff members can see a doctor four times a year and that people are treated well if they become seriously ill. One of the staff members suffered from tuberculosis.

“We never get rid of people if they are sick, we try to work around it instead,” Harris explains.

The hostel has also implemented a number of eco-friendly practices; recycling, worm farms, water-wise shower, tap heads and solar panels.

“We have a company that comes every Monday to recycle our waste. The table scraps are put in a bin and used by a city farm nearby,”  Harris says.

They only buy vegetables and fruits in season. Leftovers are packed and handed out to people in the street. The hostel is also actively involved in a range of social initiatives.

At the hostel they let the staff decide on the rules of the workplace, which are integrated into the employment contract.

The staff members travel long distances to work as they cannot afford to live in the city.

“It costs about 1,000 Rands (around 70 dollars) a month to get to work and the government basic salary is 3,200 Rands (around 200 dollars) so what can you do with that? Our entry level salary is 2.6 times the basic wage – 8,500 Rand (around 590 dollars), ” Harris says.

Fair Trade in Tourism South Africa, FTTSA, started initially as a project of IUCN, the International Union for Conservation of Nature. But later a separate local non-profit organisation was formed. FTTSA has six guiding principles – fair share, fair say, respect, reliability, transparency and sustainability.

“There are 230 certification criteria. Businesses struggle with the administration involved to pass the audit. We do a lot of consulting to get them through the process,” Jane Edge, Managing Director, FTTSA, tells IPS.

The Fair Trade Tourism standard is directly applicable in four other countries – Malawi, Zambia, Uganda and Zimbabwe – and through mutual recognition agreements in additional five countries.

Edge says there are plans for expansion.

“In a year or so we want to be active in 12-13 African countries,” she tells IPS.

Meanwhile, Harris says: “I hope that in the future responsible tourism is nothing unusual.”

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Credit: Dinh Manh Tai

By Rebecca Ricks
CAMBRIDGE, MA, USA, Jan 23 2019 (IPS)

On December 6, the Australian parliament rushed to pass a bill that could weaken security on the phones and software people rely on every day, in Australia and worldwide. The sweeping law could force tech companies to take vaguely described actions to access encrypted data.

For example, authorities could order Apple and WhatsApp to send secretly altered software updates that would undermine the encryption they use to protect our data and communications.

At a time when governments across the globe are engaging in increasingly invasive surveillance, unfettered public access to encryption protects our basic rights to privacy and freedom of expression. Users should call on their governments to promote strong encryption, not undercut efforts to protect our safety and rights.

Encryption ensures that our information stays private, whether we are browsing the web, buying things, chatting online, or sending an email. We may not always know it, but the security of our networks relies on encryption, which scrambles our data so no one else can see what we’ve written or said unless we want to share it with them.

The Australian law passed despite strong opposition by cybersecurity experts, human rights groups, and some members of parliament. It is modelled on the UK’s Investigatory Powers Act, which similarly requires companies to potentially break encryption and hack into their own systems

Strong encryption also ensures our safety in other critical ways. It protects our communications networks, our power grids, our hospitals, and our transportation systems.

Encryption is especially important for the most vulnerable among us. Access to encrypted tools is critical to maintaining the safety of people who are disproportionately subjected to surveillance and scrutiny, whether victims of domestic abuse or minorities and other marginalized members of society. Political dissidents, journalists, and activists are vulnerable to retaliation for expressing their views or exposing wrongdoing. By encrypting our devices and our messages by default, we–along with the companies that build these tools–are taking steps to ensure that we can speak out without endangering ourselves.

Encryption also helps protect us in our personal lives, keeping us safe from online harassers, abusive partners, or other malicious people. The market for commercial spyware products has skyrocketed, and there is mounting evidence that these tools are being used to monitor, abuse, intimidate, and victimize people, especially intimate partners. When our tools use encryption by default, we have more control over our information from people in our lives who might want to hurt us.

As companies and nongovernmental organizations have taken steps to secure communications by using encryption, many governments have complained that it is hampering their ability to investigate criminals and conduct surveillance. In recent years, some governments have called for building intentional weaknesses, or backdoors, into encrypted technologies.

The Australian law passed despite strong opposition by cybersecurity experts, human rights groups, and some members of parliament. It is modelled on the UK’s Investigatory Powers Act, which similarly requires companies to potentially break encryption and hack into their own systems. In the US, law enforcement officials continue to call for anti-encryption legislation, even though they have been criticized for overstating the problem encryption poses to investigations.

Cybersecurity experts have repeatedly explained that laws addressing the challenges raised by encryption misunderstand how the technology  works. There is no plausible way to build tools to undermine encryption without eroding everyone’s security.  People with technical expertise and bad intentions will figure out how to manipulate such tools. By weakening encrypted technologies for government agencies, we weaken it for everyone.

The issue is so important that UN human rights experts have warned governments that weakening encryption could have a devastating impact on human rights.  Governments should be seeking to strengthen, not weaken, encryption.

Digital security is about tradeoffs: There will always be risks when you use the internet. Encryption simply helps us manage those risks and make sure that we are taking steps toward securing our communications. Human Rights Watch has created a new interactive game about digital security to help people understand why encryption is needed to protect us.

The Australian government promised to consider amendments to the anti-encryption law next year in response to opposition. We hope the public will use the game to understand just how much their security could be put at risk if the law isn’t substantially revised to prevent encryption backdoors.

We all pay a price when the tools we rely on every day to keep us secure are compromised.

 

Rebecca Ricks was the 2017-2018 Ford-Mozilla Open Web Fellow at Human Rights Watch. She now works as an independent researcher.

 

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Educo Education in Emergencies specialist reviews damage at a school caused by Typhoon Usman in the Philippines. Educo has been working in the Philippines since 2005. January 2019. Credit: Educo

By José María Faura
BARCELONA, Jan 23 2019 (IPS)

Children´s education is in a state of emergency when it comes to protracted crises. 75 million school-aged children and young people are in desperate need of educational support, are either in danger of or are already missing out on their education in countries facing war and violence (1*).

Yet education has traditionally been the most underfunded area regarding humanitarian aid, coming in at less than 3% of total global funding (2*).

This year not only marks the 30th anniversary of the Convention on the Rights of the Child, but the world´s first International Day of Education. As an organization focused on child rights, Educo welcomes this UNESCO marker.

We share the conviction that while education is an end in itself, it is also the ideal means for guaranteeing the exercise of rights, the enjoyment of wellbeing and a life of dignity.

Education in emergencies has historically not been a priority for governments, international institutions or donors. This is despite schooling being what children want the most when faced with a crisis (3*).

On average, conflicts last 20 years. A childhood lasts 18, if a child survives an emergency of course. With little access to education, a child´s recovery from a crisis is much more difficult. For generations of children caught up in conflicts, this lack of opportunity all too often leads to a cycle of poverty alongside societal and political instability.

A child´s right to quality education regardless of where or who they are is being ignored; this cannot continue. Children out of school are exposed to increased risks of sexual and gender-based violence, violent extremism, forced marriage, early pregnancy, child labor and recruitment by armed groups.

A school is used as an emergency shelter following the Mayon Volcano eruption in the Philippines. Educo has been working in the Philippines since 2005. January 2018. Credit: Educo

Protracted conflicts heighten children’s vulnerability and weaken often already under-resourced education systems. Added to this are the increased attacks on educational facilities, making teachers and students vulnerable (4). Overall, we are seeing a growing trend of violent attacks on education for political, military and ideological reasons, among others.

Though governments signed up to the UN´s Sustainable Development Goals in 2015, which include educational targets, there has been little to no tangible progress since. Education must be at the center of humanitarian action otherwise governments today will continue to fail the most vulnerable of children for generations to come.

Educo’s humanitarian mandate is to protect, help and assist the most vulnerable people, especially children, in their right to life and security, with dignity and comprehensive coverage of rights and needs in the face of risk situations and of humanitarian crises. Defending the right to education in humanitarian disasters is the backbone to its mandate.

The right to education cannot be put on pause due to emergencies or crises, no matter how challenging.

Almost half of primary school age refugees are not in school. These children, as well as those on the move, should be guaranteed quality education on an equal footing to national children (5).

With funding so low, however, hundreds of thousands more children could miss out on an education because they are unable to be in their home or more usual setting. Providing funding and specific measures for these children to access education, be they migrants or refugees, must be a global priority.

Educo is a global development and humanitarian NGO with over 25 years’ experience working to defend children and their rights. As part of ChildFund Alliance, we are working in more than 60 countries around the world.

The Alliance helps over 14 million children and their families to overcome poverty and create sustainable solutions that protect and advance their rights and well-being.

In El Salvador, for example, Educo runs a project in six areas of the country where there is prolonged violence. It aims to protect children from forced displacement due to the protracted crisis there – one that is largely forgotten on the international stage.

The project provides assistance and protection to children and their families, supporting them with housing, food and hygiene as well as psychosocial assistance. All of this work runs alongside the focus of the project, which is to ensure children do not fall out of education and if they have, to re-integrate them.

It is heartening to see some governments and institutions finally recognizing the need to focus on education in emergencies. The EU Commission’s aim of improving joint planning, coordination and response is timely.

This collaboration within the Commission, with EU Member States and among other donors and partners is fundamental if we are to reach the millions of children at risk of becoming a lost generation.

Boosting the Commission’s allocation of humanitarian assistance to 10% for education in emergencies and protracted crises is also a great step, but as we have seen before, governments fall short of meeting their commitments.

If the countries that agreed to the UN Sustainable Development Goals really want to meet them, and stay on top of the Education 2030 Agenda, pressure on governments is also required.

We cannot have any more children ending up in the emergency room rather than the classroom.

Sources:
1. ODI Education cannot wait. Proposing a fund for education in emergencies, p. 7
2. http://ec.europa.eu/echo/files/news/Communication_on_Education_in_Emergencies_and_Protracted_Crises.pdf
3. https://www.savethechildren.org/content/dam/global/reports/education-and-child-protection/what-children-want.pdf
4. https://www.savethechildren.net/malala-day
5. https://www.childrenonthemove.org/our-recommendations/

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Excerpt:

José María Faura is the Executive Director of Educo, a global development and humanitarian action NGO with over 25 years’ experience working to defend children and their rights, and especially the right to an equitable and quality education.

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Solar panels can be seen on three buildings in the Morro de Santa Marta favela in Rio de Janeiro. In the middle is the CEPAC daycare center, with a green terrace and two sets of photovoltaic panels, which reduced its expenses by 80 percent thanks to solar energy. Credit: Mario Osava/IPS

By Mario Osava
RÍO DE JANEIRO, Jan 22 2019 (IPS)

“We can’t work just to pay the electric bill,” complained José Hilario dos Santos, president of the Residents Association of Morro de Santa Marta, a favela or shantytown embedded in Botafogo, a traditional middle-class neighborhood in Rio de Janeiro.

The high cost of electricity in the favela is due to consumption estimates made by Light, the local electricity distributor, based on telemetry, without reading the meters in each home, Santos believes.

“The bill is high even when you’re not home, when you’re traveling,” he lamented.

The steady years-long rise in electricity has turned solar energy into a general desire, especially among the poor in the favelas, who account for nearly a quarter of the 6.6 million inhabitants of Rio de Janeiro proper, because the electric bill absorbs a large proportion of their income.

 

 

At least 15 public institutions in Santa Marta already have solar installations that lower their energy costs, thanks to Insolar, a “social business” company active in the neighborhood since 2015.

Four daycare centres, churches, the Residents Association, a music school and the local samba school now have solar power systems, with the support of Anglo-Dutch oil giant Shell.

Now the idea is to extend the initiative to 30 businesses on the “morro” or hill where the Santa Marta favela is located. In addition, Insolar is seeking funding to install pilot systems in 14 other favelas in Rio de Janeiro, to expand solar energy, for which there is growing demand in these areas, said Henrique Drumond, the company’s founder.

“Our goal is to democratise solar energy,” he explained. “We are doing it together with the local residents, involving them in the whole process, training local labour,” he told IPS, which made several tours of Santa Marta and other favelas to talk with residents about the arrival of solar power in their lives and their economies.

For further information read Solar Energy Drives Social Development in Brazil’s Favelas

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President Omar al-Bashir waves to supporters during a rally in Khartoum on January 9. Sudanese authorities have revoked the credentials of at least six journalists working for international outlets. (Reuters/Mohamed Nureldin Abdallah)

By Staff Correspondent
WASHINGTON DC, Jan 22 2019 (CPJ)

Sudanese authorities yesterday revoked the credentials of at least six journalists working for international news outlets, including Qatar-based broadcaster Al-Jazeera, according to news reports. The outlets have been covering demonstrations against President Omar al-Bashir. Bashir is due to travel to Qatar today for his first international trip since the protests began in December, according to reports.

“Sudan’s move against the international media is another desperate attempt to muzzle the press during this period of unrest,” said CPJ Middle East and North Africa Program Coordinator Sherif Mansour. “It is particularly ironic that Al-Jazeera journalists are denied their right to report as Bashir travels to Qatar.”

Sudanese security officials yesterday revoked the credentials of Al-Jazeera correspondents Osama Ahmed and Ahmed Alrehaid and camera operator Badawi Bashir; and Al Arabiya correspondent Saad el-Din Hassan, the journalists’ outletsreported. The same day, authorities revoked the credentials of Turkish Anatolia Agency correspondent Bahram Abdel Moneim and photographer Mahmoud Hajjaj, according to the local press freedom group Sudanese Journalists Network. In a statement, Al-Jazeera denounced Sudan’s “arbitrary decision” and called on authorities to reinstate the accreditation.

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By Anis Chowdhury and Jomo Kwame Sundaram
SYDNEY & KUALA LUMPUR, Jan 22 2019 (IPS)

Despite all the evidence to the contrary, and substantial opposition from community groups, public-private partnerships (PPPs) are still being promoted to deliver sustainable development.

Public-private hospital partnerships are supposed to ensure that the private sector will offer much needed efficiency in healthcare provision.

Anis Chowdhury

However, any government considering healthcare PPPs should be aware of the Australian experience, especially after what has happened with the Northern Beaches Hospital, a PPP between the New South Wales government and Healthscope.

The A$600m facility was officially opened with much fanfare on 19 November 2018. With a A$2.2 billion 20-year contract, it was billed as the flagship project for the NSW government to hand over to the private sector delivery of a wide range of public services from prisons to technical education to health.

Profits before patients
The chief executive officer resigned two days after the official opening amidst claims of critical shortages of staff, medicines and supplies since it opened to its first patients on 30 October. Anaesthetists at the hospital have threatened to stop performing elective surgery until critical problems are addressed, leading to a crisis atmosphere.

The government and hospital authority describe the staffing and supply shortages as ‘hiccups’ and ‘teething problems’. But these are not trivial, often involving life and death issues. In one particular case, a new mother’s life was put in danger after undergoing a caesarean section at the hospital. Her attending doctors and nurses had to frantically try to source blood and equipment to operate safely. Thankfully, that episode did not end in any tragedies.

The Sydney Morning Herald has reported on complaints that the hospital has been forced to cancel elective surgery perhaps due to lack of staff. The facility suffers from a lack of basic supplies including syringes, intravenous lines, medical swabs, saline bags, needles, wash cloths, rubbing alcohol and maternity pads. It also reported inadequate nursing staff and a large number of locum nurses.

Jomo Kwame Sundaram

The Australian doctors’ union has warned the head of NSW Health that junior medical officers were required to do ‘unsafe work hours’. For instance, one intern was assigned 60 patients while junior medical officers were expected to work up to six hours of overtime daily, usually unpaid. One doctor reported working 110 hours in a week.

Costing taxpayers more
This latest healthcare PPP is also costing taxpayers more than what the government announced before. For example, before the 2015 state election, the former health minister said that the hospital would cost only A$1 billion. However, the true cost to taxpayers was A$2.14 billion.

This is not the only instance of healthcare PPPs going wrong. In the early 1990s, the NSW government opened the privately-operated Port Macquarie Base Hospital. The authorities announced savings by ignoring additional administrative and legal costs; it ended up costing about A$6 million more than a public hospital of an equivalent size. The Auditor-General’s report concluded, “The government is, in effect, paying for the hospital twice and giving it away”.

Yet, the ‘teething problems’ had not gone away 13 years after it was privatised by the Conservative Government. Before its 20-year contract period ended, the Labour Government felt compelled to buy back the hospital for A$80 million.

Similarly, after years of losses, the South Australian government was forced to buy back a privately run hospital opened by Healthscope in 1995 at a cost of A$17.5 million to the taxpayer. The Victorian government bought back Latrobe Regional Hospital, opened in 1998 under a similar agreement, two years later, after suffering A$8.9 million worth of losses. Years later, the Victorian government announced plans to buy back Mildura Base Hospital, the last remaining privately run hospital in the state.

Private operators not more efficient
Despite these spectacular failures, governments do not seem to learn from past mistakes, instead continuing with more PPPs. Therefore, a dogmatic belief that the market will provide healthcare more efficiently must be behind the push for these partnerships.

The Australian Productivity Commission’s 2009 report found that, on average, the efficiency of public and private hospitals is similar nationwide. Public hospitals in NSW and Victoria were more efficient than their private counterparts by more than 3% and 4% respectively despite operating far more in rural areas (generally much more costly), and their high-cost responsibility to provide accident and emergency services.

More recently, the independent McKell Institute reported similar findings, and noted a disconcerting trend of private operators only picking the most profitable services to run, leaving the public sector with the more costly, less profitable and onerous work. This allows private operators to capture more profits while leaving the government, and taxpayers, with more risks and costs.

Health rights undermined
Health is a right, and society (and therefore government) has a responsibility to ensure that everyone has access to health services. But with PPPs, the state becomes health service purchaser, instead of provider. Under PPPs, private operators, previously earning patient fees and health insurance payments, can profitably earn public funds meant to finance patient services.

Profit-seeking is ‘distorting’ patient-health service provider relations. As noted by the New England Journal of Medicine, “Our main objection to investor-owned care is not that it wastes taxpayers’ money, nor even that it causes modest decrements in quality. The most serious problem with such care is that it embodies a new value system that severs the communal roots and Samaritan traditions of hospitals, makes doctors and nurses the instruments of investors, and views patients as commodities.’’

Anis Chowdhury, Adjunct Professor at Western Sydney University & University of New South Wales (Australia), held senior United Nations positions in New York and Bangkok.
Jomo Kwame Sundaram, a former economics professor, was Assistant Director-General for Economic and Social Development, Food and Agriculture Organization, and received the Wassily Leontief Prize for Advancing the Frontiers of Economic Thought in 2007.

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A young boy runs with his tyre past buildings damaged by airstrikes in Saada Old Town. Credit: Giles Clarke/OCHA

By Martin Scott
NORWICH, UK, Jan 22 2019 (IPS)

According to a recent poll of aid agencies by the Thomson Reuters Foundation, the most under-reported crisis of 2018 was the conflict in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).

Jan Egeland, head of the Norwegian Refugee Council, commented that, ‘the brutality of the conflict is shocking, the national and international neglect outrageous… I have seldom witnessed such a gap between needs and assistance’.

Other ‘forgotten crises’, according to the agencies polled, include the Central African Republic, Lake Chad Basin, Yemen, Afghanistan, South Sudan, Burundi, Nigeria and, for the first time, Venezuela.

Highlighting such ‘reporting gaps’ is important because international news coverage plays a key role in raising awareness of and drawing attention to humanitarian crises, in order to secure the funding needed to help.

The 2018 U.N. funding appeal for the Democratic Republic of the Congo was less than 50 percent funded. Such under-funding is linked, albeit indirectly, to a lack of public awareness. In the UK, for example, a recent survey, commissioned by Human Appeal, showed that two thirds of adults were not aware of the recent violence in the DRC.

In response, it is not enough to simply urge news organisations to do more. We need to understand the main causes of this acute lack of coverage of humanitarian affairs, in order to know what can be done about it.

Dr Martin Scott

This is the aim of an ongoing academic research project into Humanitarian Journalism and was the focus of a report I published late last year entitled The State of Humanitarian Journalism with Dr Kate Wright at the University of Edinburgh and Dr Mel Bunce from City, University of London.

 

Humanitarian journalism in crisis

The research makes clear that humanitarian journalism is itself in crisis.

Our survey of over 1500 individuals involved in the aid sector, revealed widespread dissatisfaction with the quantity and quality of mainstream news coverage of humanitarian affairs. 73% of respondents agreed that mainstream news media does not produce enough coverage of humanitarian issues. News coverage was also criticised for being selective, sporadic, simplistic and partial.

It is not enough to simply urge news organisations to do more. We need to understand the main causes of this acute lack of coverage of humanitarian affairs, in order to know what can be done about it.
We also examined coverage of over 20,000 news outlets to find out how many were regularly reporting on humanitarian affairs. Only 12 covered the four humanitarian events we analysed. These events included the ongoing crisis in South Sudan, the 2016 Aceh earthquake, the 2016 World Humanitarian Summit and the 2017 UN appeal for humanitarian funding.

The 12 news organisations which did cover all four of these events included Al Jazeera English, the Guardian Global Development site, IRIN News, the Thomson Reuters Foundation and Voice of America.

Our analysis of their coverage showed that they do a better job than most at reporting humanitarian crises. These particular news organisations generally offer sustained and detailed coverage, regularly producing features, analysis pieces and even some campaigning reports.

Furthermore, while journalists are often accused of telling very similar stories about disasters, we find that these particular news outlets actually varied significantly in how they covered such crises.

For instance, we found that Thomson Reuters focused on stories about dramatic and timely events, while the specialist humanitarian news outlet IRIN wrote thematic pieces and analysis, targeted at global audiences.

 

The challenges of funding humanitarian news

The main reason why few news organisations, and particularly commercial news outlets, regularly produce original coverage of humanitarian affairs is the very high costs involved.

It is very expensive to fund on-the-ground reporters and the kinds of time-consuming research and travel necessary to explain the complex causes of humanitarian crises.

In fact, we find that almost all international news outlets regularly covering humanitarian affairs rely on support from either states or private foundations. There are issues with both sources of funding.

Foundation funding alone rarely offers journalists long-term financial sustainability. Professor Rodney Benson, in the Department of Media, Culture, and Communication, at New York University, explains that, ‘most major foundations see themselves as providing… short-term start-up support with the expectation that non-profits will eventually achieve commercial sustainability’.

In addition, there just isn’t enough donor money to go around. Very few foundations are active in this area; often because of their objectives don’t align with those of journalists or because of the difficulty of measuring the impact of their investments.

This is why specialist non-profit news outlets reporting on humanitarian issues struggle to survive.

For example, despite featuring in our list as one of just 12 news outlets regularly covering humanitarian affairs, the news non-profit Humanosphere closed down in 2017 due to a loss of funding.

Other foundation-dependent news organisations in this area that have either closed or dramatically downsized in recent months include News Deeply and the International Reporting Project.

Support from Western governments can also subsidise the high costs of producing regular, original coverage of humanitarian affairs for radio stations like the BBC World Service and Voice of America (VoA).

For instance, we found that humanitarian issues were mentioned in nearly one in five (19%) items on the news bulletins of the BBC World Service.

However, there are important questions to be asked about the ways in which humanitarian news might be affected when governments support journalism as part of their foreign policy objectives – and to achieve ‘soft power’.

We found no evidence that government officials directly interfered in editorial output of either World Service or VoA. However, a key problem, at both organisations, was the way in which journalists’ ability to cover humanitarian issues in particular geographic regions waxed and waned in relation to governments’ strategic and funding priorities.

Such problems were even more acute at international news outlets, based outside the West and funded by state money. Journalists at Al Jazeera English, for example, faced considerable ethical dilemmas about how to cover events in areas where Qatar was involved militarily, or had diplomatic interests. This includes Yemen, Syria, Sudan and South Sudan.

 

Paying for humanitarian reporting

Given the inherent costs and challenges associated with funding humanitarian news, there are no easy answers to the question of how to increase coverage of under-reported crises.

However, there is also some cause for optimism. In the Aid Attitudes Tracker, a largescale survey of audiences in the UK, France, Germany and the US, more people claimed to follow news about “humanitarian disasters” (59%) either “closely” or “fairly closely” than any other type of international news (see Clarke et al 2018).

Perhaps audiences are more interested in humanitarian journalism than many journalists think. Some may even be willing to pay for it.

An audience survey for IRIN recently found that a majority (57%) would consider signing up to some form of paid subscription model.

Encouraging audiences to pay directly for journalism they trust and value may ultimately be the only sustainable solution to the crisis facing humanitarian news.

* https://people.uea.ac.uk/en/persons/martin-scott

 

The State of Humanitarian Journalism report is the latest publication from the ongoing Humanitarian Journalism Research Project by Dr Martin Scott, Dr Kate Wright and Dr Mel Bunce. This AHRC-supported research has involved interviews with nearly 200 journalists and media funders; as well as surveys and extensive newsroom observations. More information about this project can be found here.

The post Why Are so Many Humanitarian Crises Under-reported? appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Excerpt:

Dr Martin Scott* is a Senior Lecturer in Media and International Development at the University of East Anglia, UK.

The post Why Are so Many Humanitarian Crises Under-reported? appeared first on Inter Press Service.

A protester in the Slovak capital, Bratislava holds up a picture of murdered journalist Jan Kuciak and his fiancée Martina Kusnirova. Credit: Ed Holt/IPS

By Ed Holt
BRATISLAVA, Jan 22 2019 (IPS)

“I’ve never known a time when it was as bad as it is now,” says Beata Balogova, the Vice-Chair of the International Press Institute (IPI) and Editor in Chief of the Slovak Spectator Sme. “In terms of what’s going on with journalists, we’re in a very unique period,” she adds.

Balogova explains during a break from editing the paper at its headquarters in the Slovak capital, Bratislava, how growing animosity towards journalists in Slovakia and other parts of Europe, is being increasingly violently expressed.

“It’s more intense now, there are verbal attacks, threats and the internet discussions on stories are much more aggressive [than before],” she tells IPS.

She says she is just finishing filing legal action against an anonymous person after she received online threats, including calls for a massacre at her newspaper—specifically a repeat of the 2015 one at French satirical publication Charlie Hebdo where two brothers opened fire in the newsroom and killed 12.

It is just under a year since the murder of Slovak journalist Jan Kuciak, who had been investigating links between the Slovak government and the Italian mafia, and Balogova says journalists are having to take all threats more seriously.

“What’s changed over the course of the last year is that in the past a lot of journalists didn’t pay much attention to anonymous threats or aggressions, but as they are seeing now, this kind of hate is being expressed in physical attacks on journalists,” she says.

The murder of Kuciak and his fiancee last February made headlines around the world and led to the resignation of the Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico. It also raised questions about press freedom and the safety of journalists in the country and focused international attention on apparent serious shortfalls in press freedom in other countries in the region.

This month a new special investigative journalism centre has been set up in Slovakia in memory of Kuciak—the Jan Kuciak Investigative Centre—and is the first such centre in Slovakia.

But while its founders believe it can become an important investigative journalism hub facilitating cross-border investigations into global organised crime, it opens at a time when Slovakia continues to struggle with eroding press freedom, as well as growing and very serious concerns about not just declining press freedom in Eastern Europe, but a complete lack of it in some places, even in European Union (EU) member states.

Romania has taken over the EU presidency this month at the same time it has been criticised for serious shortcomings in press freedom. In Hungary, critics say Prime Minister Viktor Orban and his ruling Fidesz have virtually liquidated all opposition media, and the Polish ruling party is, according to critics, systematically doing the same.

There remain concerns about the Czech media being controlled by Prime Minister Andrej Babiš and his business associates, as well as the President’s openly hostile attitude to reporters. There have also been massive protests in the last few weeks in Serbia against President Aleksander Vucic and his ruling Serbian Progressive Party, in part over a lack of press freedom.

Meanwhile, just last week a court in Montenegro sentenced investigative journalist Jovo Martinovic to 18 months in prison on charges of drug trafficking and criminal associations. He maintains his contacts with criminals were part of his investigative work and that the case against him was politically motivated and press freedom advocates said his sentence had been handed down as a warning to other journalists in the region.

“The ruling will have a chilling effect on other journalists in the region – they will think that if they infiltrate the mafia and work with them, they need to fear not just the mafia but the government of their own country too,” Pauline Ades-Mevel of media freedom watchdog Reporters Without Borders (RSF), told IPS.

Media watchdogs like RSF as well as international organisations such as the European Commission, have highlighted declining press freedom across the region in recent years.

Poland, Hungary, Slovakia, the Czech Republic and Serbia have all fallen significantly in Reporters Without Borders’ press freedom rankings in the last few years amid concerns over authoritarian governments’ use of legislation, taxes, takeovers, forced closures and, some believe, even security service surveillance, to try and silence critical news outlets.

Meanwhile, public denigration of individual journalists and media by politicians have helped fuel what some describe as a “hostile environment” for journalists and encouraged verbal and physical attacks on them.

“The rhetoric from certain politicians has certainly played its part in the [increased] number of attacks on journalists,” Slovak journalist and founder of the Jan Kuciak Investigative Centre, Arpad Soltesz, told IPS.

One of the latest cases of violence against a journalist was an attempt to break into the apartment of investigative reporter Milan Jovanovic on Dec. 30—just weeks after his home in Belgrade, Serbia, had been burnt down after someone threw a Molotov cocktail into it. His requests for police protection after the first attack had not been answered.

The response of Vucic—who dismissed the attack as ‘just a burglary’—and the court ruling in Montenegro is typical, said Ades-Mevel, of governments only paying lip-service to international bodies over media freedom commitments. Both countries are pursuing accession negotiations with the EU.

“These are examples of how politicians can pretend to the EU that there are improvements to the rule of law and press freedom, but that the reality is different,” she said.

But while the situation looks grim in many countries, their relations with Brussels could provide a way of effecting change and improving the environment for journalists and media.

“It is important that the governments in Serbia and Montenegro understand they are under scrutiny. Pressure needs to come from outside for governments to clear up from the inside,” said Ades-Mevel.

She added that if action were taken against existing EU members over dwindling press freedom, it would send a strong signal to those hoping to join the bloc.

Earlier this month, the European Parliament (MEPs), agreed to back proposed measures to cut funding for member states where the rule of law, including press freedom, was seen to be undermined. They will come into force if backed by EU member states.

But governments, such as those in Poland and Hungary, have brushed off concerns over media freedom in the past, pointing out examples of critical news outlets as evidence of healthy media plurality.

“Orban has often used the argument that ‘look, there is media plurality, there are over 300 media outlets that can be described as opposition’. But these are normally small and don’t have a national reach,” says Balogova.

“What [Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor] Orban and his oligarch friends have actually done is ….. changed the public service media into an extended branch of the cabinet office. There is coordinated news production, there are weekly meetings where bosses of the pro-Orban media meet and set the news agenda. It is the worst nightmare version of what the communists tried, and failed, to do, and now Orban has done it to perfection,” she adds.

Jelena Kleut, Assistant Professor at the Department of Media Studies at the University of Novi Sad, in Serbia, told IPS: “We may be already past the point of no return here. So much has been done to weaken press freedom in Serbia, not just the attacks on journalists but the ruling party gaining control of the media, so I’m not sure if even EU pressure could really change anything.”

Other journalists believe that third-sector organisations hold the key to creating a less hostile environment for journalists to work in.

Pavla Holcova, a prominent Czech investigative journalist, told IPS: “Politicians have been involved in creating a hostile environment for journalists [but] we, as journalists, can’t do very much to stop them [verbally attacking journalists]. We need civil society to stand up and do that for us, to try and get politicians to change.”

However, few people are expecting the environment for journalists to change anytime soon in the region, and some are fearing the worst.

“It was just pure luck that Milan Jovanovic was not in his house at the time it was set on fire. I hope no journalist gets killed but with the frequency of attacks we are seeing now it is something that could happen,” said Kleut.

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