The plan targets 17.3 million out of the staggering 23.4 million people in need of lifesaving humanitarian assistance and protection services across the war-ravaged Arab nation, as the first nationwide truce in six years, coinciding with the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, continues to broadly hold.
#Breaking The Humanitarian Country Team in #Yemen releases the 2022 Humanitarian Response Plan, seeking $4.3 billion to assist 17.3 million people in need. “The worsening humanitarian crisis in Yemen is a reality that we need to urgently address,” said @DavidGressly.
The UN-led truce between the Saudi-led coalition forces supporting the internationally recognized Government, and Houthi rebels (formally known as Ansar Allah) who hold much of the country including the capital, Sa’ana, began on 2 April, and is due to continue through May.
‘Urgently address’ realities
“The worsening humanitarian crisis in Yemen is a reality that we need to urgently address,” said David Gressly, the Humanitarian Coordinator for Yemen.
“The numbers this year are staggering. Over 23 million people – or almost three-quarters of Yemen’s population – now need assistance. That is an increase of almost three million people from 2021. Nearly 13 million people are already facing acute levels of need.”
Escalating conflict last year, resulted in untold suffering and further disruption of public services, pushing humanitarian needs higher, said a press release issued by the UN humanitarian affairs office (OCHA) team in Yemen.
A collapsing economy, another product of the seven-year war, has exacerbated vulnerabilities for the poorest, with a record 19 million people are projected to require food assistance in the second half of 2022.
There are an estimated 161,000 who face “the most extreme hunger”, says OCHA. “Children continue to suffer horribly”, with 2.2 million acutely malnourished, including more than half a million at severe levels. Limited access to critical services continues to worsen the conditions of the most vulnerable groups, including women and children.
‘Moment of hope’
“This is also a moment of hope for Yemen. The UN-led truce is a vital opportunity for aid agencies to scale up life-saving assistance and to reach more people in acute need quickly, including in areas where access was limited due to armed conflict and insecurity,” said Mr. Gressly. “For aid agencies to immediately step up efforts, we count on sufficient donor funding. Otherwise, the aid operation will collapse despite the positive momentum we are seeing in Yemen today.”
At a high-level fund-raising event for Yemen held in March this year, donors pledged $1.3 billion – just 30 per cent of the total requirement for the 2022 HRP.
Another $300 million has been pledged since then, said OCHA. However, the response remains severely underfunded, leaving aid agencies with limited resources at a time when two-thirds of major UN programmes in Yemen were forced to scale back or close due to underfunding. “I urge all donors to fund the appeal fully and commit to disbursing funds quickly,” said Mr. Gressly.
More than 4.3 million people have fled their homes since the current war erupted in 2015, making it the fourth largest internal displacement crisis on Earth.
Dr. Kate O’Brien, Immunization Director at the World Health Organization, devoted her life to immunization after working in a paediatric ward in Haiti, where she saw that a third of the children admitted were dying from diseases that could be prevented through vaccines.
She explains how the United Nations, and its partners in the COVAX facility, are ensuring that vaccines reach every low-income country in the world.
Dr Kate O’Brien, World Health Organization’s Director of Immunization, Vaccines and Biologicals speaking at the United Nations in Geneva., by UN News/Daniel Johnson
“Between four and five million lives are saved each year, as a result of being vaccinated. Immunization is one of the most effective, most impactful health interventions in all of human history.
Hundreds of millions of people died from smallpox. It was a dreaded disease and in the late 1700s there was an amazing breakthrough. A British physician, Edward Jenner, noticed that milkmaids who had been infected with cowpox – a related disease – were more or less immune from smallpox.
He used that observation to immunize an eight-year-old boy, James Phipps, using the cowpox virus. Weeks later, he exposed James Phipps, with the permission of his parents, to smallpox, and he didn’t get sick.
Today smallpox has been eradicated worldwide, because of vaccination.
Another disease that’s targeted for eradication is polio.
Polio leads to limb paralysis and disability, and many people die from the disease. In places like Pakistan and India, and many other countries, huge campaigns have vaccinated tens of millions of children over a short period of time.
We’re now at the point where polio has been reduced by over 99 per cent, and we’re so close to ending transmission of this virus.
A young girl receives a vaccination against polio from a health worker in Kabul, Afghanistan.
Dying from a lack of vaccines
I worked in a hospital in Haiti, in the capital city, Port-au-Prince. The paediatric ward in that hospital was full of children with measles, diarrhoea, meningitis and tuberculosis. Some were born with tetanus. Every day, about a third of the children admitted to the ward died.
So many of the illnesses that they came in with, were completely preventable with vaccination.
I decided to devote my career to not only making sure that new vaccines were developed for diseases, but also, and more importantly, ensuring that the vaccines that we already have are completely accessible, completely available, completely safe, and effective for people in every part of the world, no matter what community they’re born in.
An employee works on the production line of a COVID-19 vaccine in India
The power of COVAX
We’ve all been living through the COVID-19 pandemic over the last, enormously difficult, couple of years. We’ve seen the incredible development, in a remarkably short period of time, of vaccines that prevent COVID disease, and work against both infection and transmission.
One of the ways that vaccines have been sent into every country around the world is through the COVAX facility. This enables billions of does to be shipped to countries that need them but can’t buy them on their own.
Eighty per cent of the doses provided to low-income countries are coming through the COVAX facility, and around 92 nations are benefiting.
A mother receives her second dose of the COVID-19 vaccination at a health centre in Obassin, Burkina Faso.
A social justice issue
We vaccinate against diseases that are transmissible from person-to-person. This means that, unless we protect ourselves through the use of vaccines, each of us presents some level of risk to someone else.
So, I really think of vaccination as a social equity and social justice issue.
There’s nothing more overwhelming, or more tragic, than a perfectly healthy child who succumbs to an infection that was completely preventable.”
The blast at the Khalifa Sahib mosque, located in the Darulaman area in the west of the city, is the latest in a series of attacks on civilian targets in the capital and provinces.
The explosion tore through the mosque, damaging the roof, which caved in on worshippers, the UN humanitarian affairs office (OCHA) in the country said, citing initial reports.
Casualties likely higher
Local hospitals reported far higher casualty figures, with dozens said to be killed and injured, including many children.
A hospital ran by the non-governmental organization EMERGENCY, alone received more than 20 victims, two of whom were dead on arrival.
Ramiz Alakbarov, UN Humanitarian Coordinator in Afghanistan, issued a statement condemning the “heinous” attack.
Indiscriminately targeted
“Today’s blast, which comes on the last Friday of the holy week of Ramadan, is yet another painful blow to the people of Afghanistan who continue to be exposed to unremitting insecurity and violence,” he said.
“It is unconscionable for civilians to be targeted indiscriminately as they go about their daily business, gathering for prayers, going to school or the market, or on their way to work.”
On Thursday, at least nine people were killed, and 15 wounded, in separate blasts on two minibuses in the city of Mazar-e-Sharif in northern Afghanistan.
Mr. Alakbarov reiterated that directing attacks against civilians and civilian infrastructure, including mosques, is strictly prohibited under international humanitarian law.
Total disregard for ‘religious sanctity’
The UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) said the explosion on Friday followed a spate of recent deadly attacks in Kabul, Kunduz and Mazar-e-Sharif, which appear to have specifically targeted the Hazara, Shia and Sufi minority communities.
Two UN staff members and their families, who were inside the mosque at the time of the blast, were directly affected.
“Today’s attack, carried out on the last Friday of the Holy month of Ramadan and on the eve of the Eid-ul-Fitr, totally disregards human lives and religious sanctity. No words are strong enough to condemn this despicable act, targeting a place of worship, as Muslims across Afghanistan prepare to celebrate the Eid,” said Mette Knudsen, the UN Secretary-General’s Deputy Special Representative for Afghanistan.
“Recent attacks against civilians, targeting ethnic and religious minorities, represent a disturbing trend in Afghanistan. These violations of international humanitarian and human rights laws must end immediately.”
Migrant labourers wait in queues in Kashmir in order to travel back to their homes. The second wave of COVID-19 in India has seen masses of people leave cities and towns to return to their rural homes. Credit: Umer Asif/IPS
by Ranjit Devraj (new delhi)
Inter Press Service
NEW DELHI, Apr 29 (IPS) – Public health specialists say that an ongoing wrangle between the Indian government and the World Health Organization (WHO) over the COVID-19 death toll in this country is symptomatic of a long-ailing public health delivery system.
India has consistently challenged estimates published by leading scientific journals such as the Lancet, which placed the number of excess deaths in the country at four million from 1 Jan 2020 to 31 Dec 2021.
On 16 April an official note from the Press Information Bureau in response to a New York Times article said, “India’s basic objection has not been with the results (whatever they might have been) but rather the methodology adopted for the same.”
India’s concern was that the projected estimates in the article, titled “India Is Stalling the WHO’s Efforts to Make Global COVID Death Toll Public,” for a country of its geographical size and population could not be done in the same way as for smaller countries. “Such one size fit all approach and models which are true for smaller countries like Tunisia may not be applicable to India with a population of 1.3 billion,” the official note said.
But independent public health specialists said that the concern was that India’s spat with the WHO was detracting from the more serious issue of the country’s tottering health delivery system failing to deal with the pandemic.
“Forget about the actual number of people who died of COVID-19 or because of comorbidities like diabetes, hypertension or cardiovascular disease — the fact remains that an unusually large number of people died during the pandemic because the health delivery system was overwhelmed,” said Mira Shiva, founder-member of the international Peoples Health Movement.
“One could say that the pandemic worked like a stress test of how good healthcare services were, and they were found seriously wanting,” said Shiva. ”Unsurprisingly, it was the poor and marginalised groups that took the brunt of it all — many more died of undocumented causes than usual as reflected in the several calculations based on excess deaths.”
Shiva said that, at the best of times, a cause of death is not properly registered in India. “We can only guess from the very large number of bodies seen floating down the main Ganges and Yamuna rivers during the second wave of the pandemic in 2021. There were also widely-circulated images of bodies laid out in rows on the river banks — these were obviously of people whose relatives could not afford to buy the firewood for cremations.”
Says Satya Mohanty, former secretary in the government and currently adjunct professor of economics at Jamia Milia Islamia University, New Delhi: “You can argue till the cows come home but the figures are going to be in the range of four to five million deaths as shown in several studies and any contestation would require robust data rather than bland denials.”
“If the crude death rate on average is one per thousand per month, anything above that average over a period of two years can be safely taken as deaths due to a differentiator – in this case the COVID and post-COVID effects,” says Mohanty. “There cannot be any other reason unless other differentiators were at play and to the best of our information there were no other differentiators.”
Sandhya Mahapatro, assistant professor at the A.N. Sinha Institute of Social Studies (ANSISS) in Patna, Bihar state, says “while India has made great strides in reducing inequalities in healthcare, large access gaps by socioeconomic status remain. Our studies show that 38 percent of outpatients in Bihar, a state with a population of 128 million, had no access to public healthcare.”
“There is growing concern about the distributive consequences of welfare initiatives on different socioeconomic groups,” Mahapatro added. “The historical disadvantages of healthcare access experienced by women and marginalised groups continue, with factors like caste, class and gender intersecting at various levels to create advantage for some sections and disadvantages for others,” she said.
A paper published by Mahapatro and her colleagues in the peer-reviewed journal Health Policy Open in December 2021 showed that social status clearly determined whether a person could access healthcare or not, despite pledges to ensure equity in healthcare provision and commitment to the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) Goal 3 — providing quality health services to all at an affordable cost.
“The issue of inequity played out during the COVID-19 pandemic affecting the poor and marginalised disproportionately,” said Mahapatro. “Internal migrants were greatly affected by the lockdowns with a staggering economic burden befalling them. The pre-existing inequality has widened and is expected to further widen as a result of the pandemic.”
Mahapatro said a study conducted at ANSISS during the post lockdown period found a familiar pattern of deprivation in healthcare services as in earlier studies. “The burden of unmet healthcare needs was substantially higher among the poor, women and people of low caste,” Mahapatro said. “Unmet healthcare needs were found to be particularly high among women of lower caste groups.”
“Importantly, our studies show that the pattern of health spending has remain unchanged over the decades and that the household remains the main source of financing healthcare before and during the pandemic,” she added.
A local priest and relative of a family member who died from Covid watching a pyre burn at the Garh Ganga Ghat in Mukteshwar, in Uttar Pradesh on 4 May, 2021. (Mukteshwar, Hapur/ File-Amit Sharma)
“The ongoing economic crisis due to the pandemic and inadequate healthcare capacity would obviously constrain healthcare utilisation by the marginalised sections of society, with internal migrants being the worst impacted as a result of the lockdowns,” Mahapatro said.
A staggering 450 million Indians are internal migrants according to the 2011 census, 37 percent of the total population. A national lockdown imposed with a four-hour notice on 24 March 2020 left most of these domestic migrants with no option but to undertake long treks back home with little money or food.
The national lockdown, considered among the tightest globally, went into three more phases with increasingly relaxed restrictions on economic and human activity until 7 June.
“Almost 80 percent of the migrant workers we surveyed had lost their jobs during the lockdowns,” said Mahapatro. This naturally affected their ability to access healthcare, with huge nutritional implications for them as well as their women and children.”
“If the unmet needs of such large and deprived social groups are not catered to then equity in healthcare and the UN SDGs on health will remain a distant dream,” Mahapatro added.
Economic and social progress in Least Developed Countries (LDCs) have been slowed by the impact of the #COVID19 pandemic, climate change and the continuing energy and food crises.
— International Labour Organization (@ilo) April 29, 2022
The report provides an overview of progress and challenges these nations face in terms of structural transformation, a just transition to greener economies, and creation of full and productive employment.
‘Enormous pressure’
“Multiple shocks have put Least Developed Countries under enormous pressure,” said Guy Ryder, the ILO Director-General.
“However, with the right employment and macroeconomic policy measures, new jobs can be created in both existing and new sectors, along with enhanced productivity and innovation driven by investments in green and digital economic opportunities.”
The report examines how digital technologies can deliver huge benefits to LDCs, provided investments are made in capital, skills and knowledge, to support inclusive, decent work.
Numerous vulnerabilities
The 46 nations represent 12 per cent of the world’s population and are characterized by low income levels, vulnerability to economic and environmental shocks, diminished levels of well-being, extreme poverty and high mortality rates.
Their vulnerabilities are largely the result of weak productive capacities associated with inadequate infrastructure, as well as limited access to technologies, according to the report.
Weak institutions, including those relating to work and social protection, are also a factor, while informal employment with no social safety net, is pervasive, representing almost 90 per cent of jobs.
‘Virtuous circle’
The report contains several policy recommendations that promote what the ILO called “human-centred recovery” that is inclusive, sustainable and resilient.
These measures include expanding international assistance and cooperation to strengthen health care and vaccines, and to avoid unnecessary restrictions and barriers to trade and migration.
The report also called for strengthening institutions of work and building capacities to enable fundamental rights, such as freedom of association and collective bargaining, with active engagement of social partners.
“This policy focus would create a virtuous circle that improves trust in government, facilitates a progressive shift to high value-added and environmentally sustainable activities, help reduce poverty and inequality and contribute to social justice,” according to the report.
Secretary-General António Guterres issued a statement hailing the “powerful testament” that the convention represents, as a successful example of multilateralism, and the security that it can provide.
“We cannot allow an erosion of this essential pillar of the disarmament and non-proliferation regime,” he said. “There can be no justification for their use”.
‘Abhorrent weapons’
The UN chief reminded that the use of chemical weapons is a serious violation of international law.
“It is imperative that those responsible for using these abhorrent weapons are identified and held accountable, for the sake of the victims and to prevent any future chemical warfare”.
In its statement, the Security Council underscored its commitment to never use them “anywhere, at any time”, or under “under any circumstance”.
The Council member also reiterated their call for “the complete destruction of chemical weapons stockpiles and abandoned chemical weapons,” in accordance with what’s formally known as the Convention on the Prohibition of the Development, Production, Stockpiling and Use of Chemical Weapons and on Their Destruction (CWC), which entered into force on 29 April 1997.
Moreover, they condemned the use of these indiscriminate, inhumane weapons in conflicts such as the Syrian civil war, over the past quarter of a century.
For humanity’s sake
The Council stressed that no one should, “under any circumstances” develop, produce, acquire, stockpile, or retain chemical weapons.
Nor should anyone transfer, directly or indirectly, chemical weapons; engage in any military preparations to use chemical weapons; or assist, “encourage or induce, in any way, anyone to engage in any activity prohibited to a State party under the Convention.”
They reaffirmed that “the development, production and use of chemical weapons, as prohibited by the Convention, remained a clear threat to international peace and security”.
Recognizing OPCW
Ambassadors also urged all States that have not yet done so, to become parties to the CWC “without delay”.
The statement concluded with their recognizing the crucial role of the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) – the body responsible to ensure the “impartial, independent and professional implementation of all provisions of the Convention.”
Faltering compliance
Meanwhile, at a high-level event in the Security Council? making the 25th anniversary, the High Representative for Disarmament Affairs argued that the norm against chemical weapons has been repeatedly and fundamentally challenged.
According to Izumi Nakamitsu, this has been driven by a lack of strict compliance by some, a deteriorating international security environment, the rise of dangerous non-State actors, and developments in science and technology.
“The international community must act together to shore up the norm against the use of chemical weapons, to hold to account anyone who would stoop to using them and to revive the global regime,” she said.
Syria challenge
The UN disarmament chief noted that the toxic chemicals have been used with impunity as weapons in Syria, describing it as an immediate challenge facing the CWC.
“The gaps, inconsistencies and discrepancies in Syria’s initial and subsequent declarations to the OPCW must be resolved,” she said, adding that the Government of the war-torn and divided country, after more than a decade of fighting, must also allow “immediate and unfettered access for the OPCW”.
Without Syria’s cooperation, the international community cannot have confidence that the country is abiding by its commitments.
Address ‘profound violations’
Ms. Nakamitsu said that if we fail to both identify the perpetrators of chemical weapon attacks and hold them accountable, “we will further damage the norm against the use of chemical weapons”.
“Such profound violations of international law cannot continue to go unaddressed and unresolved”.
Highlighting the growing challenges that they pose, the senior UN official urged for stronger collaboration to “restore the taboo against chemical weapons” and finally consign them “to the pages of history”.
To date, 19 countries have already ratified the treaty. However, this number remains far short of the 55 AU member states and excludes some of the region’s power houses such as South Africa, Nigeria, Kenya, Ethiopia, and Senegal. Credit: Charles Mpaka/IPS
Opinion by Johnpaul Omollo, Taonga Chilalika (nairobi/johannesburg)
Inter Press Service
NAIROBI/JOHANNESBURG, Apr 29 (IPS) – Across Africa, local manufacturing and pharmaceutical companies are responding to the urgent need for locally produced medical products and technologies despite the existing regulatory challenges. We can support manufacturing capacity by expediting the establishment and operationalisation of the African Medicines Agency (AMA).
In November 2021, after 15 countries signed and ratified the AMA treaty, the AMA became a specialised agency of the African Union (AU). To date, 19 countries — Algeria, Benin, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Chad, Egypt, Gabon, Ghana, Guinea, Mali, Mauritius, Namibia, Niger, Rwanda, Seychelles, Sierra Leone, Tunisia, Uganda, and Zimbabwe — have ratified the treaty.
However, this number remains far short of the 55 AU member states and excludes some of the region’s power houses such as South Africa, Nigeria, Kenya, Ethiopia, and Senegal.
Over the next five years, Africa’s health care sector, especially local pharmaceutical production, will be a key economic driver for the region—predicted to be about two percent of the global pharmaceutical market in 2022.
Harmonising health product regulations will make Africa a more attractive market for the pharmaceutical sector, for both research and development, as well as introduction of innovations.
These harmonisation efforts will further improve trade in support of the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA), by deepening African integration and enabling the development of markets for health commodities and technologies? Of most importance, the agency will coordinate joint assessments and inspections for a select group of products, and coordinate capacity building.
The next two years will be critical in setting up the agency, including selecting a host country, appointing the director general, recruiting staff, and setting up offices for AMA. Countries that have not yet ratified will not have an input into these key decisions which will bolster the medicines regulatory environment in the region.
This has been a long journey. The agency is derived from the African Medicines Regulatory Harmonisation (AMRH) initiative launched in 2012, led by African Union Development Agency (AUDA-NEPAD) to address challenges faced in medicines regulation in Africa.
These challenges include weak legislative frameworks, duplicative and slow medicine registration processes, and subsequent prolonged approval decisions, limited technical capacity, and weak supply chain control. As COVID-19 has shown, these challenges pose both a public health and economic risk to the continent.
To improve the fragmented regulatory system for medical product registration in Africa, the vision is to gradually move from a country-focused approach, with 55 countries acting independently to a collaborative regional one, with five Regional Economic Communities supporting one Agency.
AMA will review regional policies and identify new sources of funding to enhance national capacity to regulate medicines, as well as try to simplify the complex requirements from regional and global level standards and guidelines.
Member states also need to be cognizant of the extensive operationalization process required to set up the agency’s administrative and technical workstreams. For instance, as part of the administrative workstream, they need to select a host country, appoint a Director General, recruit staff, set up office space, and register the treaty with the UN Secretary General.
We need to move swiftly to ensure the entire continent is on board. By now, every AU member state should have approved and ratified the AMA by signing, ratifying, and depositing its instruments at the AU commission.
With the vision of preparing Africa to facilitate the production of 60 percent of vaccines needed on the continent by 2040, the establishment of AMA is a clarion call to countries and regulators. We must urgently put in place the tools needed to realise the optimal operationalisation of the Agency by the end of 2022.
We applaud the 19 member states that have ratified the AMA. We urge these states to be champions by promoting the benefits of the agency all over the continent to encourage and motivate the rest to come on board and ratify the Africa Medicines Agency.
Johnpaul Omollo is a Senior Advocacy and Policy Officer at PATH in Kenya. Follow him on Twitter @JPmcOmollo
Taonga Chilalika is a Senior Advocacy and Policy Associate at PATH in South Africa. Follow her on Twitter @TaongaChilalika.
Of the 2021 total, 1,924 people were reported to have died or gone missing on the Central and Western Mediterranean routes, while an additional 1,153 perished or went missing on the Northwest African maritime route to the Canary Islands, according to UNHCR’s newly published report: Protection, saving lives, & solutions for refugees in dangerous Journeys.
Fatalities for 2020, stood at 1,776 for the three routes – reflecting an increase of 478 people since the beginning of this year.
“Most of the sea crossings took place in packed, unseaworthy, inflatable boats – many of which capsized or were deflated leading to the loss of life,” UNHCR spokesperson Shabia Mantoo told journalists at a regular press briefing in Geneva.
Thousands of people are perishing at sea, attempting to reach Europe, crossing the western and central Med and the Atlantic. Last year’s tragic toll was 3,000 – almost double the year before.https://t.co/iCL5ifkWAc
The sea journey from West African coastal states, such as Senegal and Mauritania to the Canary Islands, is long and perilous and can take up to 10 days.
“Many boats drifted off course or otherwise went missing without trace in these waters,” she said.
Land routes also continue to be highly dangerous, where even greater numbers may have died on journeys through the Sahara Desert and remote border areas, in detention centres, or while being held by smugglers or traffickers.
Extrajudicial killings, arbitrary detention, sexual and gender-based violence, and forced labour and marriage are just some of the abuses reported by people traveling these routes.
Other challenges
COVID-related border closures impacted movements towards North Africa and European coastal countries, with many desperate refugees and migrants turning to smugglers.
“Continued political instability and conflicts, deteriorating socioeconomic conditions as well as the impact of climate change may increase displacement and dangerous onward movements,” Ms. Mantoo warned.
Plea for help
In launching an updated protection and solutions strategy for refugees on dangerous journeys along routes towards Europe across the Central and Western Mediterranean Sea and the Atlantic, UNHCR is appealing for support in providing meaningful alternatives to these dangerous journeys and prevent people from becoming victims of traffickers.
The approach calls for increased humanitarian assistance, support and solutions for people in need of international protection and survivors of gross human rights abuses.
It covers some 25 countries across four regions connected by the same land and sea routes used by migrants, asylum seekers and refugees, and includes countries of origin, departure, first asylum, transit and destination.
Much-needed actions
To address protection and solution challenges, UNHCR is also urging States to strengthen humanitarian, development, and peace action.
Additionally, it is calling on regional States in both Africa and Europe to enhance legal frameworks and operational capacities at land and sea borders and in urban centres while also guaranteeing inclusion, youth programming and local community-based development as credible alternatives to dangerous journeys.
“States must ensure unimpeded humanitarian access for the delivery of essential services to people on the move or stranded en route, intercepted at sea, or held in detention centres, and to determine whether they have international protection needs,” the UNHCR spokesperson said.
Treacherous alternative
If these important measures are not carried out, refugees, asylum seekers, internally displaced people and others will continue to move onwards in dangerous journeys in search of safety and protection.
Other people, including migrants, will move in search of a better life, hoping to find work or educational opportunities elsewhere in the absence of sufficient seasonal or longer-term legal pathways for safe and orderly migration.
Rural women are often targeted by human traffickers and taken across borders in Africa and forced to become sex workers. Credit: Aimable Twahirwa/IPS
by Aimable Twahirwa (kigali)
Inter Press Service
KIGALI, Apr 29 (IPS) – Desperate to escape the rural area where she was engaged in the informal economy in Kayonza, a district in Eastern Rwanda, Sharon* made a long and arduous journey to Kenya in the hope of a well-paid job.
An unidentified individual contacted her, paid for her ticket, and gave her a modest amount of pocket money to travel to Kenya by road. The person told the 19-year-old she was traveling to take up an “employment opportunity”.
However, Sharon found herself in sexual servitude at a karaoke bar on the outskirts of the Kenyan capital Nairobi.
Sharon’s job was to bow elegantly to all customers at the door and usher them inside the bar.
“I was also hired as a nightclub dancer and sometimes forced by my employer to engage in sexual intercourse with clients to earn a living,” the high school graduate told IPS in an interview.
Like Sharon, activists say the number of young women from rural areas trafficked into the sex trade across many East African countries is growing. The young women are lured with the promise of good jobs or marriage. Instead, they are sold into prostitution in cities such as Nairobi (Kenya) and Kampala (Uganda).
Both activists and lawmakers warn that people with hidden agendas could target young women from Rwanda.
The process of trafficking most of these young women into neighboring countries is complex. It involves false promises to their families and victims in which they are promised a “better life”, activists say.
In many cases, traffickers lure young women from rural villages to neighboring countries with the promise of well-paid work. Then, victims are transferred to people who become their enslavers – especially in dubious hotels and karaoke bars.
While Rwanda has tried to combat human trafficking, law enforcement agencies stress that the main challenge revolves around the financial and other assistance for repatriated victims. Limited budgets of the institutions in charge of investigation and rehabilitation of the victims have meant that these programmes are not working optimally.
The chairperson of the East African Legislative Assembly’s Committee on Regional Affairs and Conflict Resolution, Fatuma Ndangiza, warned that if no urgent measures are undertaken, the problem is likely to worsen.
“Most of these young women without employment were victims of a well-established human trafficking ring operating under the guise of employment agencies in the region,” Ndangiza told IPS.
The latest figures by Rwanda Investigation Bureau (RIB) indicate that 119 cases of human trafficking, illegal migration, and smuggling of migrants in the region were investigated in the last three years.
These involved 215 victims, among whom 165 were females and 59 males.
Driven by the demand for cheap labor and commercial sex, trafficking rings across the East African region capitalize primarily on economic and social vulnerabilities to exploit their victims, experts said.
But estimates by the UN International Organization for Migration (IOM) show that the lack of relevant legislation and needed administrative institutions across the East African region have continued to give traffickers and smugglers an undue advantage to carry on their activities.
To prevent human trafficking, Rwanda has adopted several measures, including passing a new law in 2018.
Under the current legislation, offenders face up to 15 years of imprisonment, but activists say this measure is not enough deterrent.
Although law enforcement officers were trained in combatting human trafficking, Evariste Murwanashyaka, a fervent defender of human rights who is based in Kigali, told IPS that enforcing laws is a challenge, mainly because it is hard to detect women who are engaged in sex work or other forms of sexual exploitation in neighboring countries.
“Young women are still more likely to become targets of trafficking due to the growing demand for sexual slavery across the region, ” he said.
Now with the COVID-19 pandemic, activists say there is not only a lack of awareness but people, especially youth, who are unaware they are victims of a human trafficking offense.
“Most informal job offers from abroad for these young people are associated with illicit businesses, such as human trafficking, mainly of women, and their sexual and labor exploitation,” Murwanashyaka told IPS
According to the Africa Centre for Strategic Studies, the increasing unemployment rates, malnourishment, and school closures have increased human trafficking.
Meanwhile, RIB spokesperson, Dr Thierry Murangira is convinced that human trafficking is a transnational organized crime.
“Being transnational organized crimes, “this requires the involvement of more than one jurisdiction and regional cooperation to investigate and prosecute the crime,” he said.
This article is part of a series of features from across the globe on human trafficking. IPS coverage is supported by the Airways Aviation Group.
The Global Sustainability Network ( GSN ) is pursuing the United Nations Sustainable Development Goal number 8 with a special emphasis on Goal 8.7, which “takes immediate and effective measures to eradicate forced labor, end modern slavery and human trafficking, and secure the prohibition and elimination of the worst forms of child labor, including recruitment and use of child soldiers, and by 2025 end child labor in all its forms”.
The origins of the GSN come from the endeavors of the Joint Declaration of Religious Leaders signed on 2 December 2014. Religious leaders of various faiths gathered to work together “to defend the dignity and freedom of the human being against the extreme forms of the globalization of indifference, such as exploitation, forced labor, prostitution, human trafficking”.
The extreme heat is impacting hundreds of millions of people in one of the most densely populated parts of the world, threatening to damage whole ecosystems.
Working closely with health and disaster management agencies, the national meteorological and hydrological departments in both countries, plan to roll out heat health action plans, which have been successful in saving lives in the past few years, said the UN weather agency in a statement.
Cascading impacts
Extreme heat has multiple and cascading impacts not just on human health, but also on ecosystems, agriculture, water and energy supplies and key sectors of the economy.
WMO reiterated its commitment to “ensuring that multi-hazard early warning services reach the most vulnerable”.
Heat Health Action Plans
Both India and Pakistan have successful heat-health early warning systems and action plans already in place, including those specially tailored for urban areas.
They reduce heat mortality and lessen the social impacts of extreme heat, including lost work productivity.
Important lessons have been learned from the past and these are now being shared among all partners of the WMO co-sponsored Global Heat Health Information Network, to enhance capacity in the hard-hit region, WMO advanced.
Intense heat to continue
The India Meteorological Department said that maximum temperatures reached 43-46°C in widespread areas, on 28 April, and that this intense heat will continue until 2 May.
Similar temperatures have also been seen in Pakistan, with daytime temperatures likely to be between 5°C and 8°C above normal in large swathes of the country, said the Pakistan Meteorological Department.
They also warned that in the mountainous regions of Gilgit-Baltistan and Khyber Pakhtunkwa, the unusual heat levels would accelerate snow and ice melt, with the possibility of triggering glacial lake floods – or flash floods in vulnerable areas.
Air quality has also deteriorated, and large swathes of land are at risk of fire outbreaks.
Consistent with ‘changing climate’
According to WMO, “it is premature to attribute the extreme heat in India and Pakistan solely to climate change”, however, the agency continues “it is consistent with what we expect in a changing climate”.
Furthermore, heatwaves are more frequent and more intense and starting earlier than in the past.
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), in its recent Sixth Assessment Report, also said that heatwaves and humid heat stress would be more intense and frequent in South Asia this century.
The current heatwave was triggered by a high-pressure system and follows an extended period of above average temperatures.
India recorded its warmest March on record, with an average maximum temperature of 33.1 ºC, or 1.86 °C above the long-term average.
Pakistan also recorded its warmest March for at least the past 60 years, with a number of stations breaking March records.
In the pre-monsoon period, both India and Pakistan regularly experience excessively high temperatures, especially during May.
Action Plans
India has established a national framework for heat action plans through the National Disaster Management Authority which coordinates a network of state disaster response agencies and city leaders, to prepare for soaring temperatures and ensure that everyone is aware of heatwave protocols.
The city of Ahmedabad in India was the first South Asian city to develop and implement a city-wide heat health adaptation, in 2013, after experiencing a devastating heatwave in 2010. This successful approach has then been expanded to 23 heatwave-prone states and serves to protect more than 130 cities and districts.
UNDP/Hira Hashmey
In Sindh province, Pakistan, a mother tries to shield her four-year-old daughter from scorching heat.
Pakistan has also made strides towards protecting public health from heat. In the summer of 2015, a heatwave engulfed much of central and northwest India and eastern Pakistan and was directly or indirectly responsible for several thousand deaths.
The event acted as a wake-up call and led to the development and implementation of the Heat Action Plan in Karachi and other parts of Pakistan.
Typical plans make sure the targeted intervention is a right fit and designed for the heat vulnerable population of a city.
It first identifies the heat hotspots of the city, locates the vulnerable populations in these pockets, and assesses the nature and status of their vulnerability to extreme heat.
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