Addressing the UN-backed body meeting in Rome on Monday, António Guterres underscored that the session was taking place “at a moment of crisis for global food security” and provided some sobering statistics.
“Last year, 735 million people went hungry. More than 3 billion cannot afford a healthy diet,” said the Secretary-General in a video message, adding that “we are going backward on our goal of zero hunger by 2030.”
He emphasized that hunger and malnutrition were not just problems but human rights violations “on an epic scale”, painting a vivid picture of the dire consequences of the rolling crisis.
“When nutritious food is out of reach because of cost or geography; when bodies are eaten away by hunger; when parents watch helplessly as their children suffer and even die from a lack of food”, this is nothing less than “a human tragedy – a moral catastrophe – and a global outrage,” Mr. Guterres stated.
All about access
The Secretary-General made it clear the world has the resources to address this crisis. “There is more than enough food to go around. And more than enough resources to ensure that every person on the planet has enough to eat.”
He emphasized the role of governments in ensuring access to nutritious food, saying that while they have a responsibility to provide it, many governments lack the resources to do so.
António Guterres called for effective international solidarity to transform food systems for all people.
For that, explained the UN chief, massive investment, innovation, science, and technology are essential – to build “sustainable food systems in harmony with nature and addressing the climate crisis.”
Thinktank on food supply
He commended the work of the CFS – which includes staff from the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and World Food Programme (WFP) – emphasizing its importance in finding solutions.
“Your Committee’s work is critical to this process. From reimagining agrifood systems, to boosting the collection and use of data, to ensuring that the needs of women and girls are at the heart of all that we do.”
The Secretary-General implored the world to prioritize this fundamental human right: “Let’s give the fundamental human right to food the investment and urgent action it deserves.”
Established in 1974, the Committee on World Food Security was reformed in 2009 to become an inclusive international and intergovernmental platform tasked to ensure food security and nutrition for all.
UN Day on 24 October marks the anniversary of the entry into force in 1945 of the UN Charter – the day the Organization officially came into being.
‘We grieve, and we remember’
The dead in Gaza include many teachers, the agency noted in a tweet on Monday. “We grieve and we remember. These are not just numbers. These are our friends and colleagues…UNRWA mourns this huge loss.”
The 13,000-strong agency which operates across the Palestine Occupied Territory has been working tirelessly with other UN humanitarians inside Gaza and across the region, to aid stricken civilians, often at great personal risk.
Determined to forge peace
Through the UN Charter, countries united in their resolve to “save succeeding generations from the scourge of war.”
“On this United Nations Day, let us commit with hope and determination to build the better world of our aspirations,” he said.
Call for unity
The UN chief called on all nations to commit to a future that lives up to the name of the indispensable organization.
“We are a divided world. We can and must be united nations,” he urged.
Commemorative events planned on Tuesday include a concert at UN Headquarters in New York, on the theme of The Frontlines of Climate Action, reinforcing one of the UN chief’s key priorities, ahead of the crucial COP28 summit in Dubai next month.
UNITED NATIONS, Oct 23 (IPS) – The widespread use of American weapons by Israel, which has killed thousands of civilians in Gaza, has triggered accusations of war crimes against the United States.
But US has always escaped these charges in contemporary military conflicts –particularly in the killing fields of Afghanistan and Iraq –and also in the use of American weapons in Yemen where thousands have been killed.
The United Nations once described the deaths and destruction in the eight-year-old civil war in Yemen as “the world’s worst humanitarian disaster”.
The killings of mostly civilians have been estimated at over 100,000, with accusations of war crimes against a coalition led by Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE), whose primary arms supplier is the US.
And now, the killings of Palestinians in Gaza have come back to haunt the Americans in a new war zone. But still, the US is unlikely to be hauled before the International Criminal Court (ICC).
“If U.S. officials don’t care about Palestinian civilians facing atrocities using U.S. weapons, perhaps they will care a bit more about their own individual criminal liability for aiding Israel in carrying out these atrocities,” said Sarah Leah Whitson, executive director of Democracy for the Arab World Now (DAWN), an American non-profit organization that advocates democracy and human rights in the Middle East.
“The American people never signed up to help Israel commit war crimes against defenseless civilians with taxpayer funded bombs and artillery,” she noted.
According to DAWN, U.S. law requires that United States monitor and ensure that weapons and munitions it provides to Israel are not used to commit war crimes in Gaza.
The advocacy group reminded both Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Secretary of Defense Lloyd J. Austin III in a letter sent last week.
“Failure to comply with end-use monitoring requirements not only breaches U.S. laws but also could expose U.S. officials to prosecution by the International Criminal Court (ICC) for aiding and abetting war crimes,” warned DAWN.
In a separate letter to ICC Prosecutor Karim Khan, DAWN asked the Prosecutor urgently to issue a public statement reminding the parties to the conflict of the ongoing investigation there and send an investigative team to the Gaza region of Palestine to document and investigate potential crimes under the Rome Statute.
Mouin Rabbani, Co-Editor, Jadaliyya, an independent ezine produced by the Arab Studies Institute, told IPS the United States is in violation of international law, as well as its own domestic legislation, by providing weapons to Israel in the full knowledge that these are being used for the express purpose of committing war crimes and crimes against humanity.
“I would go further and state that it is providing them to Israel for precisely this reason. This is because the US is determined to see Israel achieve its objectives in the Gaza Strip; Washington recognizes that Israel does not have the military capacity and political will to physically occupy the Gaza Strip for a prolonged period and eradicate Hamas and other groups, and has instead — with unqualified US support — adopted as its primary objective the systematic destruction of the Gaza Strip and mass killings of Palestinian civilians”, he pointed out.
As for international law and domestic US legislation, these are as irrelevant as Palestinian lives in this context. That’s how the US-designed rules-based international order works and was designed to work, he said.
“US legislation, the laws of war, and international law more generally, are rigorously applied to rivals and adversaries, while the US and its partners are free to violate them with total impunity, Rabbani argued.
It would be fair to say that ICC Prosecutor Karim Khan is the personification of this system — fearlessly prosecuting official enemies and adversaries with rabid zeal, but more docile than a dead canary when similar or greater crimes are committed by states his government and its Western partners support without qualification, said Rabbani.
If there’s one thing US officials complicit in Israel’s war crimes don’t have to worry about, it is prosecution by the ICC, he declared.
Asked about US weapons in killings in Gaza, Matthew Miller, Spokesperson for the State Department told reporters last week that American weapons cannot be deliberately used against civilians.
“Of course – and one of the tragedies of war –is that there are always civilian deaths. It is one of the great tragedies of war, and what we try to do is work to minimize civilian deaths to the greatest extent possible,” he said.
Asked if there is “any concern among the administration that by supplying this military assistance, the US might be involved in any possible war crimes against civilians”, Miller said: “No, I would say that we have made very clear that we expect Israel to conduct its operations in compliance with international law.”
“That is the standard we hold – uphold – that’s the standard we hold ourselves to; it’s the standard we hold our partners to; it’s the standard every democracy ought to be held to. And we will continue to work with them and continue to deliver messages to them that they should conduct their military operations in – and to the maximum extent possible to protect civilians from harm,” he declared.
According to the Washington-based Stimson Center, Israel is the largest cumulative recipient of U.S. military assistance since the Second World War, amounting to more than $158 billion over the past seven decades– not adjusted for inflation.
In recent years, U.S. assistance to Israel has been outlined in a 10-year memoranda of understandings, the most recent of which was signed in 2016 and pledges $38 billion in military assistance between FY2019-FY2028.
Dr Ramzy Baroud, Palestinian journalist and author, told IPS asking the US to clarify the End Use Monitoring (EUM) measures, or Israel’s compliance with the use of American weapons in its war against Gaza, may give the impression that Washington lacks awareness of how US weapons, and US tax payers money are being used.
“Never before in the history of the US’s relationship with the Middle East has Washington been so directly involved in an Israeli war. The closest was the 1973 war, and even then, the US involvement arrived a week later, and was hardly as direct,” he said.
Every statement made by top US officials, starting with Biden, to Blinken to Sullivan, to all others, indicate that the US is a party in the war, not an outsider, a benefactor, and certainly not a mediator. They even sat in on meetings to discuss Israeli war plans on Gaza. They cannot claim ignorance, Dr, Baroud pointed out.
“In the past, Israel has violated the US’s rules on the use of US arms against civilians, and repeatedly so. Much has been written about this subject, particularly in terms of Israeli violation of the Lehy Laws.”
But what is happening right now is a whole different reality. By sending massive arm shipments, aircraft carriers, and even soldiers to Israel, the US has become a party in the world, therefore it is responsible for the unprecedented war crimes in Gaza, he argued.
“The fingerprints of US weapons are on the body of every Palestinian killed in Gaza, from the Al-Ahli Baptist Hospital, to UN schools, to every house and every street.
We don’t demand clarification regarding the use of these weapons. We know precisely how they are being used. We demand accountability from war criminals, whether in Tel Aviv or Washington,” he noted.
Meanwhile, a report on Cable News Network (CNN) October 22 said the death toll in Gaza since October 7 has risen to 4,651, with more than 14,245 wounded, according to the Palestinian Ministry of Health in Gaza.
Families sheltering in an UNRWA school. Credit: UNICEF/Hassan Islyeh
Opinion by an IPS Correspondent (new york)
Inter Press Service
NEW YORK, Oct 23 (IPS) – Amnesty International (AI), one of the leading human rights organizations, has accused Israeli forces of continuing “to intensify their cataclysmic assault on the occupied Gaza Strip.”
AI says it has documented unlawful Israeli attacks, including indiscriminate attacks, which caused mass civilian casualties and must be investigated as war crimes.
Agnès Callamard, Amnesty International’s Secretary General, said Israeli forces, in their stated intent to use all means to destroy Hamas, have shown a shocking disregard for civilian lives.
“They have pulverized street after street of residential buildings killing civilians on a mass scale and destroying essential infrastructure, while new restrictions mean Gaza is fast running out of water, medicine, fuel and electricity”.
Testimonies from eyewitness and survivors highlighted, again and again, how Israeli attacks decimated Palestinian families, causing such destruction that surviving relatives have little but rubble to remember their loved ones by, said Callamard.
Families sheltering in an UNRWA school. Credit: UNICEF/Hassan Islyeh
AI said it spoke to survivors and eyewitnesses, analysed satellite imagery, and verified photos and videos to investigate air bombardments carried out by Israeli forces between 7 and 12 October, which caused horrific destruction, and in some cases wiped out entire families.
Here the organization presented an in-depth analysis of its findings in five of these unlawful attacks. In each of these cases, Israeli attacks violated international humanitarian law, including by failing to take feasible precautions to spare civilians, or by carrying out indiscriminate attacks that failed to distinguish between civilians and military objectives, or by carrying out attacks that may have been directed against civilian objects.
“The five cases presented barely scratch the surface of the horror that Amnesty has documented and illustrate the devastating impact that Israel’s aerial bombardments are having on people in Gaza. For 16 years, Israel’s illegal blockade has made Gaza the world’s biggest open-air prison – the international community must act now to prevent it becoming a giant graveyard”.
“We are calling on Israeli forces to immediately end unlawful attacks in Gaza and ensure that they take all feasible precautions to minimize harm to civilians and damage to civilian objects. Israel’s allies must immediately impose a comprehensive arms embargo given that serious violations under international law are being committed.”
Since 7 October Israeli forces have launched thousands of air bombardments in the Gaza Strip, killing at least 3,793 people, mostly civilians, including more than 1,500 children, according to the Palestinian Ministry of Health in Gaza. Approximately 12,500 have been injured and more than 1,000 bodies are still trapped beneath the rubble.
In Israel, more than 1,400 people, most of them civilians, have been killed and some 3,300 others were injured, according to the Israeli Ministry of Health after armed groups from the Gaza Strip launched an unprecedented attack against Israel on 7 October. They fired indiscriminate rockets and sent fighters into southern Israel who committed war crimes including deliberately killing civilians and hostage-taking. The Israeli military says that fighters also took more than 200 civilian hostages and military captives back to the Gaza Strip.
“Amnesty International is calling on Hamas and other armed groups to urgently release all civilian hostages, and to immediately stop firing indiscriminate rockets. There can be no justification for the deliberate killing of civilians under any circumstances,” said Callamard.
Hours after the attacks began, Israeli forces started their massive bombardment of Gaza. Since then, Hamas and other armed groups have also continued to fire indiscriminate rockets into civilian areas in Israel in attacks that must also be investigated as war crimes.
Meanwhile in the occupied West Bank, including East Jerusalem, at least 79 Palestinians, including 20 children, have been killed by Israeli forces or settlers amid a spike in excessive use of force by the Israeli army and an escalation in state-backed settler violence, which Amnesty International is also investigating.
Amnesty International is continuing to investigate dozens of attacks in Gaza. This output focuses on five unlawful attacks which struck residential buildings, a refugee camp, a family home and a public market. The Israeli army claims it only attacks military targets, but in a number of cases Amnesty International found no evidence of the presence of fighters or other military objectives in the vicinity at the time of the attacks.
Amnesty International also found that the Israeli military failed to take all feasible precautions ahead of attacks including by not giving Palestinian civilians effective prior warnings – in some cases they did not warn civilians at all and in others they issued inadequate warnings.
“Our research points to damning evidence of war crimes in Israel’s bombing campaign that must be urgently investigated. Decades of impunity and injustice and the unprecedented level of death and destruction of the current offensive will only result in further violence and instability in Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories,” said Callamard.
“It is vital that the Office of the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court urgently expedites its ongoing investigation into evidence of war crimes and other crimes under international law by all parties. Without justice and the dismantlement of Israel’s system of apartheid against Palestinians, there can be no end to the horrifying civilian suffering we are witnessing.”
The relentless bombardment of Gaza has brought unimaginable suffering to people who are already facing a dire humanitarian crisis. After 16 years under Israel’s illegal blockade, Gaza’s healthcare system is already close to ruin, and its economy is in tatters.
Hospitals are collapsing, unable to cope with the sheer number of wounded people and desperately lacking in life-saving medication and equipment.
Amnesty International is calling on the international community to urge Israel to end its total siege, which has cut Gazans off from food, water, electricity and fuel and urgently allow humanitarian aid into Gaza.
They must also press Israel to lift its longstanding blockade on Gaza which amounts to collective punishment of Gaza’s civilian population, is a war crime and is a key aspect of Israel’s system of apartheid.
Finally, the Israeli authorities must rescind their “evacuation order” which may amount to forced displacement of the population.
It documents additional indiscriminate attacks with explosive weapons, resulting in deaths, injuries and the destruction and damage of civilian objects.
For example, 24 people, mostly women and children, were killed in an attack on a multistorey block of residential apartments in Uman, a city in the Cherkasy region, in April, and part of the building became uninhabitable. Commissioners spoke with residents during their recent visit to the country.
New evidence, same torture pattern
Their investigations also confirmed previous findings that Russian authorities used torture in a widespread and systematic way in various types of detention facilities.
New evidence collected in the Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions found Russian authorities used the same pattern of torture in areas under their control, mainly against men suspected of passing information to the Ukrainian authorities or supporting the Ukrainian armed forces.
The commissioners said their interviews with victims and witnesses revealed “a profound disregard towards human dignity by Russian authorities”. Witnesses reported situations in which torture had been committed so brutally that the victim died.
Lasting traumatic impacts
Recent investigations in the Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions showed that rape and other sexual violence were often committed together with additional acts of violence, including severe beatings, strangling, suffocating, slashing, shooting next to the head of the victim, and wilful killing.
In one instance, a 75-year-old woman who stayed alone to protect her property, was raped and tortured by a Russian soldier who hit her on the face, chest, and ribs, and strangled her, while interrogating her.
The soldier ordered the woman to undress and when she refused, he ripped off her clothes, cut her abdomen with a small sharp object and raped her several times. The woman also suffered several broken ribs and teeth.
Such traumatic experiences have severe and long-term consequences for the physical and mental health of the victims, the report said.
Unlawful child deportations
The Commissioners investigated further accounts of Ukrainian children being transferred to Russia or to Russian-occupied areas in Ukraine. They concluded that the transfer of 31 children to Russia in May 2022 was an unlawful deportation, thus a war crime.
Their report also contains three cases where investigations showed that Ukrainian authorities committed violations of human rights against persons accused of collaboration with Russia.
They underlined the importance of accountability “with full respect and care for the rights of the victims.”
The UN Human Rights Council established the Independent Commission of Inquiry on Ukraine in March 2022, shortly after the start of the full-scale Russian invasion. The mandate was extended in April for an additional year.
The three Commissioners are not UN staff and do not receive payment for their work.
Countries attending the landmark Conference, held in Cairo, agreed a Programme of Action which promised that women and girls must have the power to make decisions about their own lives, their bodies and their futures.
Mr. Türk commended the “leaps” made during the past three decades which include a reduction in deaths during pregnancy, and “substantial investments” in healthcare, education and social services. Many people are also living longer, healthier lives.
“But this is an unfinished agenda,” he said. “Alongside the progress, we have seen regression.”
Backlash and toxic masculinity
Mr. Türk pointed to “patchy implementation” of the principles laid out in the Programme of Action in many parts of the world.
“Gender equality backlash is spreading, denying women and girls autonomy, the capacity to choose their futures or their roles within families and households, and silencing their voices,” he said. “Toxic masculinity – and misogyny – have inflamed and normalised hate.”
Additionally, COVID-19, conflict and economic downturns have also disproportionately affected women and girls. Meanwhile, “babies don’t stop being born during conflict or disaster, and people still get pregnant.”
WHO/Occupied Palestinian Territory
Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza. WHO warns that hospitals in the Gaza Strip are at a breaking point.
Pregnancy under fire
Today, roughly 50,000 women are pregnant in Gaza, where health services are currently under attack.
The earthquake in western Afghanistan this month has rendered pregnant women there even more vulnerable, while women and girls in Ukraine still need access to life-saving sexual and reproductive health services.
Furthermore, in 68 countries, an estimated 44 per cent of women who are married or partnered do not have the ability to make their own decisions on sexual relations, use of contraceptives, and healthcare.
“Women’s right to decide – free of discrimination, coercion and violence – if and when to have children, how many and with whom, needs to be guaranteed,” he said.
“This is all the more the case as progress on maternal mortality has stagnated in the last decade. Every two minutes, a woman will die due to complications in pregnancy and childbirth.”
Against unsafe abortion
He remarked that “perhaps nowhere is a woman’s autonomy and ability to make her own choices about her body and life more hotly contested than when she seeks to access safe abortion services.”
Roughly 33 million unsafe abortions are conducted globally each year, he said, and it is one of the leading causes of maternal mortality. He welcomed action by many countries in the last five years to liberalize legislation, whether through decriminalization, expanding legal grounds for it, or removing access barriers.
Keep Cairo promise
Mr. Türk said human rights reversals of all kinds are accelerating around the globe, putting countries offtrack to achieve sustainable development and the ICPD Programme of Action, but it is not too late to course correct.
His Office is working with States to bolster their efforts towards “a human rights economy”, which puts people and the planet at the heart of all policies, plans and programmes.
“To change lives, and to save lives, we need to ensure the fundamentals promised in Cairo thirty years ago are upheld – for all women and girls, no matter their age, their migration status, or any other factor,” he said.
He outlined what they need, namely comprehensive sexuality education; access to modern forms of contraception, including emergency contraception; access to quality sexual and reproductive health services, including safe and timely abortion services and maternal and newborn care, and the freedom to make their own choices.
Community health workers demand to be recognised as formal workers with pay and benefits to match. Credit: Zofeen T. Ebrahim
by Zofeen Ebrahim (karachi)
Inter Press Service
KARACHI, Oct 19 (IPS) – “Professionally, I am still where I was 23 years ago when I started working as a lady health worker (LHW),” said a disgruntled Yasmin Siddiq, 47, from Karachi. “I will probably retire in the same capacity, as a Grade 5 government servant, without any hope for upward mobility.”
The idea behind the Lady Health Worker Programme (LHWP), the brainchild of Pakistan’s late prime minister Benazir Bhutto, began in 1994 with the purpose of “training women as community health workers (CHWs) to improve the dismal maternal and child health scores of the country and build a bridge between the village woman and the formal health sector,” said Dr Talat Rizvi, a public health physician with a vast experience in Maternal and Child Health with a particular focus on community-based projects and who designed the programme.
Siddiqi’s day starts at 9 am, and she must go door-to-door, covering between 5 to 10 homes within the 1 km radius of her home. “Initially, my tasks included making married women (of reproductive age) aware of the benefits of family planning and informing and providing them assistance about contraceptives, ensuring they go for antenatal check-ups when pregnant and their tetanus shots. I had to keep an eye on under-five children of that family and get them vaccinated,” she said. Over the years, her workload has expanded.
“We were asked to help fight TB, handle refusals by parents on administration of polio drops, ensure every child under five gets immunised against childhood diseases, which have now increased to 12 vaccines, and recently during the COVID-19 pandemic, we helped with vaccinations,” said Bushra Bano Arain, chairperson of All Pakistan Lady Health Workers Union. “And as if health is not enough, we are asked to carry out our duties on election day,” disclosed Arain, an LHW supervisor.
“Over the years, the focus got diluted from primary healthcare when more and more responsibilities were added to the LHWP’s boat, and the boat sank,” said Rizvi.
“The original programme of ensuring the health of mother and child took a backseat,” agreed Dr Shershah Syed, a gynaecologist and obstetrician. “LHW was perhaps started with good intention but had become a politicised entity with many women recruited by MPAs and MNAs as ghost workers, in the Sindh province especially,” he added.
The situation is no better for the over a million Accredited Social Health Activists (ASHAs) in India or the 52,000 Female Community Health Volunteers (FCHVs) of Nepal, who have, over the years, been lumped with more and more tasks, according to Public Services International, a global trade union federation, which helped the women CHWs in Pakistan, Nepal and India come up with a Charter of Demands to “address injustices and advocate for better working conditions”.
According to Jeni Jain Thapa, PSI’s project organiser in Nepa, the FCHVs “have no fixed working hours and must be on standby 24/7”.
The same is the case with the LHWs, said Musarrat Basharat, an LHW and the general secretary of the Punjab LHW’s Union. “Whatever time of the day or night it is, we must accompany a woman in labour to the health centre and be with her till she delivers. Same with a sick child. If the baby has diarrhoea and is dehydrated, we must rehydrate and be with the family for six hours until the child is out of danger. We are not shirking from our duty, but at least pay us for overtime or make some provision for it,” she said.
However, of the CHWs in the three countries, over 100,000 LHWs have won significant gains in getting themselves recognised as workers, securing a wage and registering their unions, Kannan Raman, secretary PSI, South Asia: “In Nepal and India, they are considered volunteers and not offered decent wages or better working conditions.”
“It took us 20 years to get ourselves noticed when the Supreme Court of Pakistan asked the government to bring us into the fold of formal work and make us permanent employees in 2014,” said Haleema Leghari, central president of All Sindh Lady Health Workers and Employees Union, working as a supervisor in the LHW programme.
But even after nine years, they continue working without a job structure or rules that go with that. “We rejected the service structure made for us as it was found to be discriminatory,” said Leghari, adding: “Recognition from the government is mere lip service.”
Even for those who started in 1994, like Arain and Leghari, who have become supervisors, their grades have been marginally improved from Grade 5 (which is for LHWs) to Grade 7 (which is for the supervisor). “While in other sections of the health departments, those who have worked as many years as us and are as educated as us have reached Grade 14; why have we not been upgraded?” Arain asked.
Although their salary was increased by 35 percent in June, Leghari said: “We do not want these ad-hoc increments; we want promotions like other government servants are promoted based on work performance, education and years of service, as these impromptu increments can also be taken back anytime.”
In addition, she said that those who have retired after attaining 60 years of age, are sick, or have died should be compensated. They or their families should be paid the pension in arrears,” she added. Today, the LHWs want the 20 years of contract work to be accounted for, which they say “everyone seems to have forgotten”.
According to Leghari, in other government departments, when an employee retires or meets with an accident, is sick or dies, a family member gets the job in that department. “We are missing out on these benefits because the rules have not been approved in the absence of a service structure,” she said.
“Their main demand is fool-proof security,” said Mir Zulfiqar Ali, executive director of Workers Education and Research Organisation. “You know so many LHWs have been killed by extremists,” he said. His organisation is working with the LHWs and training them about labour rights, health protection especially during crises and pandemics, and workplace safety and how to lobby effectively with the government to get their demands accepted, coordinating the PSI CHW project in Pakistan.
Siddiqi’s monthly payment is now Rs 44,000 from Rs 37,000 since June, but given the skyrocketing food, electricity and fuel prices, she said this was certainly not enough for a single mother with two school and college-going kids.
“The provincial health departments have time to meet all the international NGOs and donor agencies, but for holding a meeting to address our grievances, they can never find time,” said Arain.
“The invaluable work community health workers do work that has delivered immeasurable value to communities and public health, is not valued, simply because it is carried out by women, and women’s care work is routinely de-valued, even when it saves lives”, explained Kate Lappin, the Asia Pacific regional secretary for PSI.
With new climate catastrophes imminent, Lappin said Pakistan will need the services of LHWs even more, as was proved during the pandemic and the 2022 floods that disrupted the already fragile health system. “They are the first line of defence in a crisis.” She was in Pakistan recently and met with LHWs from some remote parts of Pakistan. “It was clear that they are often the only source of support to women in the most underserviced areas.”
The experts were alarmed that hundreds of escapees – the vast majority of whom are women – have been sent back, despite repeated appeals by multiple international human rights bodies. Hundreds more reportedly are in detention awaiting the same fate.
There are long-standing and credible reports that people returned to the DPRK, more commonly known as North Korea, would face serious human rights violations such as torture or cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment and punishment, they said in a statement on Tuesday.
‘Criminals’ and ‘traitors’
The DPRK authorities label citizens “criminals” if they commit “illegal border-crossing”, and “traitors” if any link is found suggesting an “intention to escape to the Republic of Korea”, the official name for South Korea.
“Traitors” receive harsh punishments, including imprisonment without due process, and they may be subjected to enforced disappearance and even execution, the experts warned.
“No one should be returned to a country where they would face the risk of torture, cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment and other irreparable harm, including the use of the death penalty, and enforced disappearance,” they said.
Respect international law
The rights experts urged China to respect the principle of non-refoulement, which guarantees that no one should be returned to a country where they would face torture, cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment and other irreparable harm.
They stressed that the principle is guaranteed under international law and must be applied to all individuals at all times, regardless of their migratory status.
The UN experts wrote to Beijing raising concerns over the forcible returns and said they appreciated the official response from the authorities.
They called on China to abide by its international legal obligations and not forcibly repatriate remaining North Korean escapees.
“We welcome the reopening of the border and urge the DPRK to allow UN agencies, other humanitarian organisations and diplomatic missions to return to the country as soon as possible and engage the relevant Special Procedures of the Human Rights Council to review its human rights,” they said.
They also called on the DPRK “to comply with its international legal obligations in respect to all citizens returning to the country, including the absolute prohibition on torture and enforced disappearance, the prohibition of arbitrary detention, and fair trial guarantees.”
UN Photo/Eskinder Debebe
Elizabeth Salmón, Special Rapporteur on the situation on human rights in the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, briefs the Security Council meeting on the situation in the country (file).
They are part of what is known as the Special Procedures of the Council, which is the general name of its independent fact-finding and monitoring mechanisms that address either specific country situations or thematic issues in all parts of the world.
These experts work on a voluntary basis, are independent from any government or organization and serve in their individual capacity.
Siobhán Mullally, UN Special Rapporteur on trafficking in persons, said unaccompanied children and children from poor families have reportedly been targeted by the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) militia in the outskirts of the capital Khartoum and elsewhere.
They’ve forcibly recruited women and children especially, she warned.
Girls have also reportedly been abducted from Khartoum to Darfur for sexual exploitation, including sexual slavery.
To date, an estimated 9,000 people have been killed, over 5.6 million driven from their homes in the civil conflict between military Government forces and the RSF, and 25 million people are reliant on aid.
Children ‘easy targets’
“The deteriorating humanitarian situation and lack of access to food and other basic services make children, especially unaccompanied and separated children on the streets, easy targets for recruitment by armed groups,” Ms. Mullally said.
The UN Human Rights Council-appointed expert stressed that recruitment of children by armed groups for any form of exploitation, including in combat roles, is a gross violation of human rights, a serious crime and a violation of international humanitarian law.
Addressing reports that children might be joining armed groups as a means of survival, Ms. Mullally emphasized that the consent of a child – defined as any person below the age of 18 – is legally irrelevant, and it is not necessary to prove the use of force.
Urgent action needed
She also voiced concern over lack of humanitarian access to children.
She called on all parties to the conflict to return to peace talks and reach a comprehensive ceasefire agreement that would allow for the safe delivery of humanitarian assistance and ensure accountability for alleged violations.
“Urgent action is needed to address these pressing concerns and take effective measures to prevent child trafficking and provide effective protection to child victims and children at risk, in particular displaced, unaccompanied and separated children, refugee children and children with disabilities,” Ms. Mullally said.
Independent experts
Special Rapporteurs are appointed by the UN Human Rights Council and form part of what is known as its Special Procedures. The experts are mandated to monitor and report on specific thematic issues or country situations.
They serve in their individual capacity, are not UN staff and do not receive a salary.
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Cookie
Duration
Description
cookielawinfo-checkbox-analytics
11 months
This cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent plugin. The cookie is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Analytics".
cookielawinfo-checkbox-functional
11 months
The cookie is set by GDPR cookie consent to record the user consent for the cookies in the category "Functional".
cookielawinfo-checkbox-necessary
11 months
This cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent plugin. The cookies is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Necessary".
cookielawinfo-checkbox-others
11 months
This cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent plugin. The cookie is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Other.
cookielawinfo-checkbox-performance
11 months
This cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent plugin. The cookie is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Performance".
viewed_cookie_policy
11 months
The cookie is set by the GDPR Cookie Consent plugin and is used to store whether or not user has consented to the use of cookies. It does not store any personal data.
Functional cookies help to perform certain functionalities like sharing the content of the website on social media platforms, collect feedbacks, and other third-party features.
Performance cookies are used to understand and analyze the key performance indexes of the website which helps in delivering a better user experience for the visitors.
Analytical cookies are used to understand how visitors interact with the website. These cookies help provide information on metrics the number of visitors, bounce rate, traffic source, etc.
Advertisement cookies are used to provide visitors with relevant ads and marketing campaigns. These cookies track visitors across websites and collect information to provide customized ads.
