UN News Centre

A young man wants to smoke a cigarette but does not have the money to buy a pack.

“He has a slave girl, he goes and sells her to another man, and he gets enough money for a pack of cigarettes. That’s it. She is the value of a pack of cigarettes,” said Zainab Bangura, the Secretary-General’s Special Representative on Sexual Violence in Conflict.

The treatment of children in judicial proceedings around the world, both civil and criminal, is not satisfactory and often “unacceptable,” the UN human rights expert on the independence of judges and lawyers said today and called on countries to develop justice systems that are sensitive to the needs of children.

The number of people fleeing their homes in Ukraine continues to rise, according to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA).

The United Nations Security Council, reiterating today its support to the Agreement on Peace and Reconciliation in Mali, said it looked forward to the expected signing of the accord this weekend by the so-called ‘Coordination’ armed groups.

United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has strongly condemned the apparently racially motivated killings at an historic African American church in South Carolina in the southern United States, and expressed the hope that those responsible for such a “hateful act of violence” will be brought to justice.

&#8220A moral imperative and a legal obligation,&#8221 protecting children should never be jeopardized by national interests, United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said today, deploring that 2014 was one of the worst years in recent memory for children in countries affected by conflict.

The head of the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) has appealed “in the name of humanity and common decency” for a halt to the worsening violence against children in South Sudan that has seen boys reportedly castrated and left to bleed to death and girls as young as eight who have been gang raped and murdered.

The cholera outbreak in Tanzania continues to spread among the populations in the country’s western Kigoma region amid an influx of refugees from neighbouring Burundi, the United Nations health agency warned today as it detailed its ongoing response aimed at stemming the epidemic.

Six million people in Yemen are slipping towards severe hunger and now need emergency food and life-saving assistance, “a sharp increase” from the last quarter of 2014, according to a new joint study by two United Nations organizations.

United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon today welcomed the release of Pope Francis’ Papal Encyclical in which the leader of the Catholic Church deplored climate change as one of the principal challenges facing humanity and called for a ‘new dialogue’ about shaping the future of our planet.

The international community is experiencing a dramatic shift in the situation facing the world’s refugees as a global surge in war, conflict and persecution has caused a record number of people to flee their homes in search of safety, the United Nations refugee agency reported today.

Noting that economic, political and social marginalization of Roma communities remains a major issue, a United Nations human rights expert urged thinking outside the “poverty paradigm” and adopting an integrated approach to address their plight.

The Security Council has emphasized the urgency for Libyan stakeholders to reach a political solution to the country’s crisis amid ongoing United Nations-facilitated talks.

Addressing over a hundred delegates attending a United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) conference in Rome, Pope Francis today urged Member States to work toward combatting food waste, reducing the volatility of food prices, and creating a sense of global solidarity to ensure food security for all people.

The United Nations Peacebuilding Commission has called on all stakeholders in Central African Republic (CAR) to help promote an environment conducive to holding elections ahead of the country’s upcoming parliamentary vote.

A United Nations counter-terrorism body is calling for expanding the use of advance passenger information (API) to stem the flow of foreign terrorist fighters, and recommends a number of measures to help overcome the challenges associated with using this important tool.

Concerned at the recent armed clashes amid the ongoing peace talks on Colombia, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, António Guterres, today said these incidents have the potential to “derail” a long sought peace process, increasing risks for the civilian population.

The top United Nations human rights official has urged the Government of Pakistan to reinstate its moratorium on the death penalty amid a sharp uptick in the number of executions in the country, the Organization’s human rights office reported today.

The Central Africa region is still facing many challenges, including an economic crisis aggravated by the drop in oil prices, rising youth unemployment, and terrorist activities, as well as the cross-border impact of crises in Central African Republic (CAR) and Burundi, the Special Representative of the United Nations Secretary-General for the sub-region warned today.

The number of Ebola cases in West Africa has increased for the second straight week, with the number of cases that arose from unknown sources of infection highlighting the challenges still faced in finding and eliminating every chain of transmission, according to the World Health Organization (WHO).