Tag: Joyce Chimbi

Call to Freedom for Millions of Children Trapped in Child Labour as Global Conference to Comes to Africa — Global Issues

A child beneficiary holding a drawing portraying domestic violence, at the Centre for Youth Empowerment and Civic Education, Lilongwe, Malawi which partnered with the ILO/IPEC to support the national action plan aimed at combating child labour. Credit: Marcel Crozet/ILO
  • by Joyce Chimbi (nairobi)
  • Inter Press Service

Nairobi, May 13 (IPS) – Children washing clothes in rivers, begging on the streets, hawking, walking for kilometres in search of water and firewood, their tiny hands competing with older, experienced hands to pick coffee or tea, or as child soldiers are familiar sights in Africa and Asia.

Child rights experts at Kailash Satyarthi Children’s Foundation reiterate that tolerance and normalisation of working children, many of whom work in hazardous conditions and circumstances, and apathy has stalled progress towards the elimination of child labour.

Further warnings include more children in labour across the sub-Saharan Africa region than the rest of the world combined. The continent now falls far behind the collective commitment to end all forms of child labour by 2025.

The International Labour Organization estimates more than 160 million children are in child labour globally.

How to achieve the Sustainable Development Target 8.7 and the International Programme on the Elimination of Child Labour that focuses on its elimination by 2025 will be the subject of the 5th Global Conference on the Elimination of Child Labour to be held in Durban, South Africa, from May 15 to 20, 2022.

South Africa’s President Cyril Ramaphosa is expected to open the conference. He will share the stage with the Southern African Development Community (SADC) chairperson and President of the Republic of Malawi Lazarus McCarthy Chakwera, ILO Director-General Guy Ryder, and Argentina President Alberto Ángel Fernández Pérez (virtual).

“There are multiple drivers of child labour in Africa, and many of them are interconnected,” Minoru Ogasawara, Chief Technical Advisor for the Accelerating action for the elimination of child labour in supply chains in Africa (ACCEL Africa) at the International Labour Organization (ILO) tells IPS.

He speaks of the high prevalence of children working in agriculture, closely linked to poverty and family survival strategies.

Rapid population growth, Ogasawara says, has placed significant pressure on public budgets to maintain or increase the level of services required to fight child labour, such as education and social protection.

“Hence the call to substantially increase funding through official development assistance (ODA), national budgets and contributions from the private sector targeting child labour and its root causes,” he observes.

UNICEF says approximately 12 percent of children aged 5 to 14 years are involved in child labour – at the cost of their childhood, education, and future.

Of the 160 million child labourers worldwide, more than half are in sub-Saharan Africa, and 53 million are not in school – amounting to 28 % aged five to 11 and another 35 % aged 12 to 14, according to the most recent child labour global estimates by UNICEF and ILO.

Against this grim backdrop, keynote speakers Nobel Peace Laureates Kailash Satyarthi and Leymah Gbowee and former Prime Minister of Sweden Stefan Löfven will address the conference, which is expected to put into perspective how and why children still suffer some of the worst, most severe forms of child labour such as bonded labour, domestic servitude, child soldiers, drug trafficking and commercial sexual exploitation.

Satyarthi has been at the forefront of mobilising global support to this effect.

“I am working in collaboration with a number of other Nobel Laureates and world leaders. We are demanding the setting up of an international social protection mechanism. During the pandemic, we calculated that $53 billion annually could ensure social protection for all children in all low-income countries, as well as pregnant women too,” Satyarthi emphasises.

“Increased social protection, access to free quality education, health care, decent job opportunities for adults, and basic services together create an enabling environment that reduces household vulnerability to child labour,” Ogasawara stresses.

He points to an urgent need to introduce and or rapidly expand social security and other social protection measures suitable for the informal economy, such as cash transfers, school feeding, subsidies for direct education costs, and health care coverage.

The need for a school-to-work transition and to “target children from poor households, increase access to education while reducing the need to combine school with work among children below the minimum working age” should be highlighted.

In the absence of these social protection safety nets, the  International Labour Organization says it is estimated that an additional 9 million children are at risk of child labour by the end of this year and a possible further increase of 46 million child labourers.

In this context, the fifth global conference presents an opportunity to assess progress made towards achieving the goals of SDG Target 8.7, discuss good practices implemented by different actors around the world and identify gaps and urgent measures needed to accelerate the elimination of both child labour and forced labour.

The timing is crucial, says the ILO, as there are only three years left to achieve the goal of the elimination of all child labour by 2025 and only eight years towards the elimination of forced labour by 2030, as established by the Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) Target 8.7.

The conference will also see the active participation of young survivor-advocates from India and Africa. They will share their first-person accounts and lived experiences in sync with the core theme of the discussion.

The conference will also take place within the context of the COVID-19 pandemic, amid fears and concerns that ending child labour became less significant on the international agenda as the world coped with the impact of the pandemic. This could reverse the many gains accrued in the fight against child labour, forced labour and child trafficking.

This is the first of a series of stories which IPS will be publishing during the 5th Global Conference on the Elimination of Child Labour from May 15 to 20, 2022.

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Give Edible Insects a Chance as an Alternative High-Quality Protein Source, say Scientists — Global Issues

A variety of insect-based delicacies. It is estimated that 2.5 billion people around the world eat insects as part of their regular diet. Encouraging the eating of insects could have health and climate change benefits. Credit: icipe
  • by Joyce Chimbi (nairobi)
  • Inter Press Service

Nairobi, May 06 (IPS) – Growing up in Samoya Village of Bungoma County in the Western part of Kenya, Elvis Wanjala has fond childhood memories of the rainy season, chasing and catching black-bellied winged termites in the rain.

“The termites would also come inside the house, attracted by the light late in the evening. My mother would sun-dry the termites and pan-fry them. We would then eat the crunchy termites with ugali (posho) and a serving of traditional vegetables,” he recounts.

“I grew up believing that everybody ate termites. At 11 years, I visited my uncle in Nairobi and was shocked to find that termites were more of a nuisance than food. One morning after a heavy downpour, I watched in awe as women and girls swept termites from their doorsteps and threw them in the bin.”

Beatrice Karare from the Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock and Fisheries tells IPS termites, and other insects such as grasshoppers, locusts, black and white ants, and crickets are part of traditional diets in Western Kenya, but not so in other parts of the country.

But with rising inflation, scientists at the International Centre of Insect Physiology and Ecology (icipe) say edible insects are a low-cost alternative to more expensive foods. The Kenyan ‘food basket’ indicates that food inflation rose by 20 percent in January 2022 compared to the same period in 2021.

Pan-dried desert grasshoppers. Credit: icipe
Pan-dried desert grasshoppers. Credit: icipe

Dr Saliou Niassy, a scientist from icipe, tells IPS edible insects contain high-quality protein, vitamins, fibre, calcium, iron, B vitamins, selenium, zinc, and amino acids and are also an excellent source of healthy fats.

Insect oil produced through an icipe research project from two edible insects – the desert locust and the African bush-cricket – was richer in omega-3 fatty acids, flavonoids, and Vitamin E than the plant oil.

Niassy says as this East African nation grapples with increasing threats to food security such as “climate change, landscape degradation and pest invasion, edible insects are a viable and affordable alternative.” It is projected that Africa’s annual food import bill of  $35 billion could rise to $110 billion by 2025.

A survey conducted by icipe shows there are an estimated 500 species of edible insects in African communities. The Central African region is home to approximately 256 edible insect species. East Africa hosts about 100 species, and about eight species are available in North Africa. An estimated 17 primary species are used for feed and food in Kenya.

“We have had two main challenges as far as increasing consumption of insects is concerned, a lack of legislation around the production, packaging, and marketing of insects for food and strong perceptions that dictate what is culturally acceptable as food. There are also strong beliefs that you must be very poor to eat insects,” Karare explains.

Karare says some of these issues were resolved in December 2020 when Kenya became the first African country to develop national standards regulating the production, handling, and processing of insects for food and feed.

Included in the regulation are stipulations of the necessary minimum infrastructural and environmental requirements necessary for the ideal production of edible insects, including how they are packaged and presented.

Wanjala, now a teacher based in Nairobi, says communities that do not eat insects and children could be slowly introduced to insect products such as biscuits “so that the idea of eating insects can slowly sink in. When it comes to eating whole insects, I find that people are also more likely to try dry-fried, crunchy insects.”

Despite the challenges of creating a viable and attractive market for insects, Karare is convinced that insects can be part of the diet in many homes, drawing parallels with the journey of Kenyans embracing traditional vegetables.

“A few years ago, highly nutritious traditional vegetables were eaten by a few communities. In Central Kenya, for instance, Amaranthus was considered to be food for poor people. Today, Amaranthus is a popular delicacy and part of the menu in five-star hotels. The same with pumpkin leaves,” Karare observes.

“We need to educate the people that edible insects can add nutrients to a plant-based meal. More importantly, insects can even nutritionally replace meat.”

These are pan-dried nsenene. Researchers say edible insects provide low-cost alternative protein. Credit: icipe

According to the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), an estimated 2.5 billion people eat insects as part of their regular meals, whole or in processed food products such as snacks and pasta. Karare says the global edible insect market estimated at $112 million in 2019, could reach $1.5 billion by 2026.

There are approximately 1,900 edible species globally, including butterflies, cockroaches, crickets, grasshoppers, ants, bees, dragonflies, beetles, domestic silk moths, centipedes and locusts.

According to FAO, turning to insects is not only good for the body but highly environment friendly and could contribute to reducing the emission of harmful greenhouse gases. The livestock sector contributes significantly to climate change as total emissions from global livestock represent 14.5 percent of all anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions.

Cattle reared for beef and milk and inedible outputs such as manure and draft power account for 65 percent of the livestock sector’s emissions. Producing insects for food is yet another alternative to reducing the emission of harmful greenhouse gases, the FAO says.

Crickets need six times less feed than cattle, four times less than sheep, and half as much as pigs and broiler chickens to produce the same amount of protein. Additionally, insect-based products are found to have a much smaller carbon footprint in comparison to conventional livestock.

With these revelations, Niassy says there is a lot more to learn and benefit from, “we have just scratched the surface in terms of sustainable access to biodiversity for resilience, livelihood, food and nutritional security in Africa.”

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ECW, Strategic Partners Bring Relief to Child Refugees Fleeing Ukrainian Conflict — Global Issues

Yasmine Sherif, Director of Education Cannot Wait, at the “Blue Dot” established by UNICEF, UNHCR and partners in Chișinău. “Blue Dot” support centers offer protection, temporary shelter, food and psychosocial support to meet the urgent needs of families fleeing Ukraine. Credit: ECW
  • by Joyce Chimbi (nairobi)
  • Inter Press Service

Nairobi, Apr 14 (IPS) – A brutal war now engulfs the young lives of an estimated 7.5 million children in Ukraine. Caught in the crossfire of bullets and missiles as the conflict escalates, children and young people have been plunged into a humanitarian crisis.

With their lives turned upside down, affected children are lost, traumatized, and among millions fleeing their homes into neighboring countries, including the Republic of Moldova, in search of safety, protection, and assistance.

Having seen the effects of the ongoing crisis firsthand, Yasmine Sherif, Director of Education Cannot Wait (ECW), tells IPS that affected children and their mothers arrive in Moldova visibly traumatized and need immediate psychosocial support.

“As a result of the conflict in Ukraine, across the region, there are more than 5 million refugees who have fled Ukraine and an additional 7.1 million people internally displaced. An estimated 400,000 people have passed through Moldova in search of safety thus far,” she says.

Students attending class at a local school in Ungheni, Moldova. The school hosts Ukraine refugee children who attend class with Moldovan pupils. Credit: ECW

Sherif paints a picture of a country unprepared for the refugee crisis – despite its welcoming spirit and an open-door policy for refugees.

“Moldova is the poorest country in Europe with significant capacity gaps and is struggling to accommodate an inflow of refugees. Today, Moldova hosts at least 100,000 refugees, including 50,000 refugee girls and boys, of whom only 1,800 are currently enrolled in school.”

Sherif confirms that Moldova is registering the children as quickly as possible to attend school and that public schools are open to refugees. Still, she says there are pressing issues facing affected Ukrainian refugee children and that, as of now, Moldova is ill-equipped to address their educational needs.

Sherif says that the capacity was stretched in Moldova, and many parts of the education system needed development even before the refugee crisis.

With 50,000 children in the country needing to be enrolled, she says, the capacity is “now stretching beyond what was expected. Moldova was not ready for this crisis.”

ECW and its strategic partners US Agency for International Development (USAID),  Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office/UK (FCDO/UK), and Theirworld were looking at the capacity gap, including “urgent mental health and psychosocial services.”

Children in Moldova are taught in Romania, a Latin-derived language, while children in Ukraine speak Russia, a Slavic language – leading to language barriers. This requires additional teachers who can teach in Russia and are trained to handle children in crisis. For refugee children in the rural part of Moldova, access to safe water and sanitation is another pressing need.

Sherif spoke in the backdrop of a high-level mission to Moldova with its strategic partners in a coordinated and joint-up response in Moldova.

ECW has thus far contributed 6.5 million US dollars to support education in emergencies response to the Ukraine refugee crisis.

In March, the organization announced that it had made a grant of 5 million US dollars available for Ukraine’s First Emergency Response.

On April 13, ECW announced a new, initial US$1.5 million allocation to support the education in emergencies response, to be delivered in partnership with the Government of Moldova, to ensure refugee children and youth can access safe and protective learning opportunities.

During the high-level mission, USAID also announced an additional 18 million US dollar contribution to the ECW global trust fund to support ECW education responses in crisis-impacted countries across the globe. After Germany and the UK, this contribution makes the USA the third-largest donor to ECW – the UN global fund for education in emergencies and protracted crises.

With an estimated $30 million funding gap for the emergency education response in Ukraine, ECW has escalated advocacy efforts, calling for donors and other strategic partners to help close the gap.

ECW Mission to Moldova delegation: ECW Director Yasmine Sherif and partners from USAID, FCDO/UK, Theirworld, World Vision, UNICEF and UNHCR at the steps of the UN House in Moldova. Credit: ECW

UNHCR Representative to Moldova, Francesca Bonelli, says education is key to refugees living with dignity and “is one of the first services requested. We greatly appreciate the support of the Moldovan authorities, teachers, and communities in welcoming refugee learners.”

Theirworld President, Justin van Fleet, says the organization will announce additional funding. Theirworld is a global innovative children’s charity committed to ending the global education crisis and unleashing the potential of the next generation.

The funds, he says, will support refugee education projects in the coming weeks, harnessing the charity’s experiences from other emergencies and campaigning to ensure donors invest 10% of the humanitarian response funding into education.

“COVID-19 school closures have taught us that learning loss amounts to more than days missed in school,” says UNICEF Representative to Moldova Maha Damaj. “In Moldova, UNICEF is working with partners to help refugee children coming from Ukraine reclaim their learning experience in a safe and supportive environment, nurturing their resilience against the traumas of war.”

“As a leading donor to Education Cannot Wait, the UK is committed to protecting the right of all children to education, including those affected by the crisis.  We stand ready to support a coordinated education response for refugee children from Ukraine. Education must be prioritized as an integral part of the ongoing humanitarian response in Ukraine,” says Alicia Herbert, Director of Education, Gender and Equality and Gender Envoy, FCDO.

Whether contributed resources will meet the most pressing needs of affected Ukrainian children in Moldova, Sherif says it all depends on how long it takes to resolve the ongoing conflict in Ukraine.

“More than 400,000 refugees have passed through Moldova. Should hostilities escalate further and new towns such as Odesa are captured, the second wave of refugees will be coming to Moldova and elsewhere,” Sherif says.

“Moldova is currently unprepared for a refugee crisis of this magnitude, and more funding will be required to meet the ongoing capacity gap. I appeal to governments and the private sector not to rest because there can be no peace until everyone has peace.”

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