Wealthy Nations have a Moral Obligation to Help Africa Fight AIDS

Michel Sidibe, the Executive Director of UNAIDS, said yesterday that he is worried that funding commitments to fight the HIV/AIDS epidemic are in jeopardy because of the global financial crisis.

An estimated 33.2 million people worldwide are infected with the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) that causes AIDS and 25 million have died so far from the fatal and incurable disease. Africa is the hardest hit continent. Last year 1.7 million people died there because of the disease.

In 2005,  at the G8 summit in the Scottish town of Gleneagles, the world’s wealthiest industrialized democracies promised to provide universal access to anti-HIV drugs in Africa by 2010 — an undertaking costing billions of dollars. As a result, 3.5 million people in Africa began treatment. Now, as countries focus on trying to revive their own economies it is feared that money earmarked for fighting AIDS will be diverted for other purposes. Already, Global Fund, which pools donations to fight infectious diseases, has reported that it is $4 billion short of the amount needed to fund AIDS projects it was already running or had committed to financing.

The challenge facing the world right now is how to fix the economy without losing our compassion. The financial crisis does not absolve us from our responsibilty to be care for the most vulnerable among us. Wealthy  nations have a moral obligation to keep their promise to help Africa fight AIDS. We must not abandon people on treatment or leave Africa’s 14 million AIDS orphans without help. Now is not the time for the world to falter in its committment to making drugs and treatment, particularly for the poorest of the poor, accessible and affordable.

Remember Neda Agha Soltan (1982-2009)

Neda Agha Soltan was a daughter, sister and friend, a music and travel lover, a beautiful young woman in the prime of her life. Killed by a Basij militiaman during a protest march on June 20, she has become the face of the opposition movement in Iran.

Soltan was among countless women, of all ages and backgrounds, who have taken to the streets in recent days to demand a recount of the presidential vote they and others say was won by Mir Hossein Mousavi, a former prime minister. Mousavi made his wife, Zahra Rahnavard, a feature of his campaign and promised to give women more rights.

The Ahmadinejad era has been a giant leap backwards for women in Iran. His government has spent millions on propaganda telling women their proper place is in the home. Universities capped the number of female students admitted. In 2005, the regime launched a “culture of modesty” campaign aimed at enforcing stricter veiling. It replaced the Center for Women’s Participation, founded under the liberal presidency of Mohammad Khatami, with the Center for Women and Family, whose exclusive goal is to promote “modesty.”

Last summer Ahmadinejad and his supporters attempted to push a “family protection law” through parliament, easing restrictions on polygamy and taxing mehriyeh, the traditional payment a husband gives a wife upon marriage. In a country where 42 percent of young women looking for a job are out of work, Ahmadinejad went so far as to cite polygamy as a solution to female unemployment. Mehriyeh is the only source of financial independence women have within a legal system that severely limits their rights to divorce, child custody, and inheritance.

Worst of all  Ahmadinejad supports sigheh, the religious “temporary marriages” that allow men to engage in consequence-free sex with prostitutes or to marry little girls and then divorce them when they are finished with them.

Iran’s 34 million women, disgruntled by Ahmadinejad’s gender policies are demanding female cabinet ministers, the right to able to run for president and the revision of civil and family law.

Neda Agha Soltan was not an activist. She was just a woman who wanted to be heard, wanted her vote to be counted. Her friends say that her outrage over the rigged election filled her with an unexpected daring and a willingness to stand up for her beliefs. I hope that I can be blessed with some of her courage.

Help Eric Proffitt “Break These Chains”

Every 30 seconds, a little child is inducted into slavery. A drug can only be sold once, but a person can be sold over and over again in the same night, that is why trafficking has become the 2nd most profitable illegal activity in the world.

Multiply that number by the estimated 27 million victims of human trafficking that live in every major city across the world, and we see a picture of suffering on a magnitude too staggering to comprehend.

• Human trafficking is a $10 billion+ growth industry with conservative estimates ranging from 700,000 to 2 million people – primarily women and children – trafficked into prostitution and slavery annually.
• Human trafficking is the third largest criminal business worldwide, after trafficking in drugs and weapons.
• For traffickers it has been a high profit, low risk enterprise. Laws against trafficking in persons do not exist or are not enforced in many countries.
• The most common form of human trafficking (79%) is sexual exploitation. The victims of sexual exploitation are predominantly women and girls.
• In 30% of the countries which provide information on the gender of traffickers, women make up the largest proportion of traffickers. In some parts of the world, women trafficking women is the norm.
• Worldwide, almost 20% of all trafficking victims are children. However, in some parts of Africa and the Mekong region, children are the majority (up to 100% in parts of West Africa).

Can you see why many ask,- “has humanity has lost it’s humanity?”

Our response is a resounding NO!

Please support Eric Proffitt as he runs 500 miles in chains  from London, to Bristol, to Liverpool, to this year’s FREEDOM FESTIVAL in Kingston-Upon-Hull is to help rescue victims of trafficking, prevent future exploitation, and to stop the demand for modern slavery. During this 27 day journey Eric will be joined by Theresa Flores, a trafficking survivor, as a guest speaker, and together they will use music and personal experiences to motivate the world to END SLAVERY! Beginning at the graveside of abolitionist hero William Wilberforce, Eric will run across the country until he reaches the birth city of William, where he is scheduled to be a key presenter at the Freedom Festival.

This extreme marathon event is about awareness, consumer responsibility, and of course funding!

it is about triggering a tipping point whereby people all over the world become involved in the abolition of modern slavery.

Visit http://www.ericproffitt.com to see how you fit into the solution!

Children are Paying for a Crisis They did not Cause

Even before the financial melt down, people living in poverty were suffering from rising fuel costs, skyrocketing food prices, and food shortages.

Around the world, before the financial crisis even began -
•    25,000 people (adults and children) were dying every day from hunger and related causes.
•    More than 60 percent of chronically hungry people were and are women.
•    Every six seconds a child died because of hunger and related causes.

Yet progress was being made and the number of hungry people in the world was going down. Now it is going up.  The number of hungry people in the world, defined as those getting fewer than 1,800 calories per day, is projected to rise by 104 million people this year, pushing the world total to a record number of more than a billion, according to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization.

As a result of the economic crisis, millions more people across the developing world have been plunged into poverty. The misery of the already poor has been intensified and the lives, welfare and futures of the most vulnerable of all, the children, have been endangered.

As incomes fall and food prices rise the burden on families can be tremendous. The high price of food means that those living in poverty spend a much higher proportion of their income on food than those who are better off, with the poorest third spending as much as 60% of earnings on food.  The results are higher rates of malnutrition among children and mothers and higher rates of child and maternal mortality. Of the 9.2 million deaths of children under five years of age around the world, 35% are directly related to malnutrition. If unaddressed, the current crisis could:
•    Increase rates of maternal anemia by 10-20%
•    Increase prevalence of low birth weight by 5-7%
•    Increase childhood stunting by 3-7%
•    Increase wasting by 8-16%

The overall under 5 child mortality rate in severely affected countries could increase by 3-11%.

When household incomes are reduced, school fees, including the costs of uniforms and transportation, become unaffordable. Children and young people drop out of school.  Many families are forced to send their children to work. Experts fear that the economic crisis will lead to increased trafficking in human beings as families become more desperate for income and the demand for cheap labor rises.

The World Bank has estimated that the crisis has set back the battle against poverty by seven years, with an additional 44 million children suffering permanent physical or mental impairment because of rising malnutrition last year. Across the world, a generation of children are paying and will continue to pay throughout their lives for an economic crisis they did not cause.

UNICEF Executive Board Meets this Week

The UNICEF Executive Board meets this week at UN Headquarters in New York. The Executive Board is the governing body of UNICEF.  It consists of 36 members representing the five regional groups of Member States at the UN. This year the members are from

Africa
Cameroon, Central African Republic, Ethiopia, Liberia, Mali, Mauritania, Sudan, Zimbabwe

Eastern Europe
Croatia, Romania, Russian Federation, Slovenia

Asia
Bangladesh, China, India, Iran, Malaysia, Myanmar, Republic of Korea

Latin America and the Caribbean
Antigua and Barbuda, Bahamas, Cuba, Haiti, Uruguay

Western Europe and Others
Canada, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Netherlands, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland, United States of America

UNICEF reports through its Executive Board to the United Nations General Assembly and to the Economic and Social Council. The role of the board is to oversee the work of UNICEF, to recommend new initiatives and to consult with the Secretary General on the appointment of the UNICEF Executive Director.

Highlighting this annual meeting will be a special focus on global health, with a particular focus on polio eradication.

Read more at: http://www.unicef.org/about/execboard/index.html

United Nations Conference on the World Financial and Economic Crisis and its Impact on Development

Early in May several NGOs urged their members to write to their government leaders and and urge them to personally attend the United Nations Conference on the World Financial and Economic Crisis and its Impact on Development, originally scheduled for June 1-3, here in New York.  Only occasionally do we get to see results from the letters and emails we send to government officials but it is clear that our our action in May is having an impact. The US Mission to the UN indicated that more that 700 letters were received on this topic!

The impact of the global financial and economic crisis continues to cut deeper into the economies of the world, especially in the so-called developing world. Since the beginning of May government representatives at the UN have been meeting regularly to negotiate the text of an outcome document for the UN Conference on the World Financial and Economic Crisis and its Impact on Development now scheduled for the 24th-26th June 2009.

Background

One of our  NGO colleagues, who has been monitoring the current negotiations, reports the following:

• Areas of considerable agreement among the governments: need follow up reform process beyond conference itself; UN is legitimate forum as all countries represented; need improve current system and address needs of the poorer countries; keep focus on people-centered development
• Areas needing further clarification before any agreement: naming the root causes of the crisis; has economic growth brought benefits to those living in poverty?
• Areas of marked differences: G77 (developing countries) want to address role of specific developed countries and the international financial institutions (IFIs) in current crisis and see as essential reform of the IFIs; EU and US (developed economies) hesitant to affirm these

For more information and references: http://www.un.org/ga/econcrisissummit/webcast.shtml; http://www.un-ngls.org

The sessions of the Conference will be webcast, cf. http://www.un.org/ga/econcrisissummit/webcast.shtml

The upcoming summit from the perspective of the General Assembly. http://www.un.org.ga/econcrisissummit/

The summit from the perspective of the NGOs working on Financing for Development. http://www.FfDngo.org

Center of Concern response to G-20 meeting: http://www.coc.org/node/6370

OXFAM analysis of G-20 meeting: http://www.oxfam.org/en/policy/what-happened-g20

Take Action!

Even if you acted in May, please send another letter to your government leader: Below is a sample letter to President Obama

Dear President Obama:

We are writing to urge you to attend the United Nations Conference on the World Financial and Economic Crisis and its Impact on Development that will be held from the 24th to 26th of June 2009 in New York.

Your message of hope and change has inspired people across the globe, but this current crisis has shattered many people’s hope for a better future, replacing it with despair.  Developing countries are suffering disproportionately from this crisis for which they bear the least responsibility, and we believe, as you do, that peace, stability and prosperity are inextricably linked.

The responses currently proposed by the G20 are not sufficient to address the root causes of this complex crisis. And we know that real recovery for the global economy must include input from the developing world.  This crisis may be the impetus for transformational change, but such change requires strong leadership.  Your presence and input could make a tremendous difference and move us closer to a more equitable and sustainable global economic structure.

Sincerely,

Email the White House:
http://www.whitehouse.gov/contact/

You can also call or fax:
Phone Numbers
Comments: 202-456-1111
FAX: 202-456-2461
TTY/TDD
Comments: 202-456-6213

How Can We End Human Trafficking?

more about “Labour Inspection in Italy by an elit…“, posted with vodpod

Yesterday, United Nations’ Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, in remarks to a special General Assembly Thematic Debate on Human Trafficking related the story of Grace Akallo.

“Grace Akallo was a young high school student in Uganda who dreamed of being the first person from her village to go to university. Then came the Lord’s Resistance Army. Rebels took her and 138 other girls from their dormitory and marched them into the forest.

Grace told her story at the Security Council last week. I listened with the heaviest of hearts. “My spirit died,” she said, recounting how she was forced to kill and was repeatedly raped.

She was followed into the forest by the headmistress, Sister Rachele, who confronted the rebels. They threatened to kill her in front of the girls. She was asked to leave, but instead she faced them down, risking her own safety so that others could be freed. In the end, she was able to rescue more than 100 girls.”

The Secretary-General then challenged those present. “If this seemingly powerless educator from Uganda could face down armed rebels, surely we in this room can stand up to this threat with bold and decisive action.

Trafficking in weapons, drugs and blood diamonds has long been on the UN agenda. Now we must add people to that list.

I spoke just now about Uganda, but examples could be drawn from any of a number of countries from Asia, across the Americas, to Europe. Millions are bought and sold like chattel, most of them women and children.”

He called on member states to:

• Criminalize human trafficking. All countries must ratify the UN anti-trafficking Protocol.
• Prevent victimization by teaching people about their rights and protecting them.
• Reduce demand.
• End to impunity.
• Protect the victims.

The Secretary-General’s call for a coordinated effort to combat forced labor and human trafficking comes at a time when, because of the world financial crisis and increasing restrictions on legal migration more people are likely to fall victim to traffickers. The most vulnerable, people already living in poverty, especially women and children will suffer the most.

According to a new report by the International Labour Organization (ILO) entitled “The Cost of Coercion”, the value of the work done by people who are trapped in forced labor is over 20 billion US dollars per year.

Trafficking and forced labor are a scourge that reaches across the globe. The ILO report highlights facts and figures from each region.

Europe and Central Asia
Trafficking in Europe reflects shifts in patterns of economic development and the gradual enlargement of the European Union. While most of the victims identified by authorities are women trafficked for sexual exploitation, the number of cases of men trafficked for labor exploitation is on the rise. A recent case in Italy illustrates the international nature of the business of trafficking.  Police discovered a group of Chinese workers trapped in forced labor in a hidden factory. A lengthy investigation revealed that the leader of the trafficking ring that brought these workers to Italy lived in a suburb of Paris.

Asia
The biggest share of the world’s forced laborers are from Asia. Many are migrants, either from elsewhere in Asia or from their home country. Three issues are of particular concern.

• The persistence of bonded labor systems, particularly in South Asia, despite legislation to ban it.
• Widespread trafficking of children and adults, for both sexual and labor exploitation.
• Continued use of forced labor by the State and official institutions, notably in Myanmar.

Africa
Sub-Saharan Africa is the region with the third highest incidence of forced labor in relation to population after Asia and Latin America. It reflects long-standing patterns of discrimination against vulnerable groups, sometimes linked to the historical legacy of slavery. People in areas of conflict are at risk, an extreme example being child soldiers. There is trafficking of people for labor and sexual exploitation both within and across African countries and to Europe, North America, and the Middle East. Women are especially affected.

Americas
Latin America accounts for the second largest number of forced laborers in the world after Asia. Those most at risk are migrant workers in sweatshops, agriculture and domestic service. The main form of forced labor is through debt bondage.

Forced labor in Latin America is closely linked to patterns of inequality and discrimination especially against indigenous peoples.

In the United States and Canada the increased focus on human trafficking have brought to light more and more cases of forced labor among foreign workers, particularly in debt bondage in agriculture and domestic service.

Middle East
Forced labor and human trafficking are closely intertwined with migration in the Middle East, particularly in the Gulf States where there is a high proportion of migrant workers mainly from Asia. Labor recruitment companies operating in source countries alter contract terms and charge high recruitment fees, which the worker must ultimately repay. Employers retain control of work visas and illegally buy, sell and trade them. These costs are also passed on to the workers creating a situation of debt bondage.

The United Nations General Assembly is considering the request of some member states for a Global Plan of Action on trafficking and forced labor. The Secretary-General urged all States, whether they support this proposal or not, to move beyond fine rhetoric and moral outrage to deeds particularly by mainstreaming the fight against human trafficking into broader programs, from poverty reduction to reducing gender discrimination.

Links
Has your country ratified the UN anti-trafficking protocol? Find out here: http://www.unodc.org/unodc/en/treaties/CTOC/countrylist-traffickingprotocol.html

Resources on human trafficking from the International Organization for Migration

English: http://www.iom.int/jahia/Jahia/counter-trafficking/lang/en

Español : http://www.iom.int/jahia/Jahia/activities/by-theme/regulating-migration/counter-trafficking/lang/es

UN.Gift – Global Initiative to Fight Human Trafficking – http://www.ungift.org/

Rape as a Weapon of War

Article 27 of the Fourth Geneva Convention states that “women shall be especially protected against any attack on their honour, in particular against rape, enforced prostitution, or any form of indecent assault.”

Yesterday, the Christian Science Monitor reported that rape is now being prosecuted as a war crime in Columbia. Small progress has been made. In May 2007, only 12 cases of sexual violence were filed with prosecutors appointed to carry out Colombia’s special Justice and Peace Law. Today that number stands at 228.

Local and national women’s organizations say that both right-wing paramilitaries and leftist guerrillas engaged in rape and other forms of sexual violence during Columbia’s four-decade civil war. Women and girls were raped, sexually tortured and mutilated. Many were killed. Fighters would often take control of a village and make all of the women and girls sex slaves. A 2006 report by a special rapporteur of the Inter-American Commission of Human Rights said: “The actors in Colombia’s armed conflict, particularly the paramilitaries and guerrillas, use physical, sexual, and psychological violence against women as a strategy of war.”

It is estimated that the number of women and girls who have been sexually abused is in the thousands, but very few incidents were ever reported. Now, women’s organizations are campaigning to make women aware of their rights and to push prosecutors to question paramilitaries about sexual violence. These efforts have led hundreds of females to come forward, but most are still remaining silent out of fear of retaliation. Even though the conflict is officially over, women continue to be sexually assaulted if they speak out

Rape has always been part of war in one way or another. In ancient times women were routinely taken as spoils of war, raped and either sold as slaves or forced to marry their captors. Into modern times, random rape by soldiers has been seen as an unavoidable consequence of war.

In spite of a body of international law condemning rape, the use of systematic rape as a tactic of war has become a common phenomena.

Serbians raped more than 20,000 Muslim women and girls between 1991-1994 in the former Yugoslavia. One goal was to make the women pregnant with Serbian babies. Another was to terrorize women so that they would flee from their land.

Iraqi soldiers raped at least 5,000 Kuwaiti women during Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait.

It is estimated that 500,00 women and girls in Rwanda were gang raped and sexually mutilated, after which many were killed, during the civil war there.

Probably no war zone in recent times has employed rape as sexual terrorism as extensively as the various military forces in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), known as the  “rape capital of the world.”

According to MADRE, an international women’s rights group, no one knows how many Iraqi women have been raped since the war began in 2003. Most crimes against women “are not reported because of stigma, fear of retaliation, or lack of confidence in the police. Documenting sexual assault in Iraq by international researchers remains complicated because of widespread violence and because militias often target women’s rights advocates.

How long will men turn women’s bodies into battlefields?

http://www.amnesty.org/en/campaigns/stop-violence-against-women/issues/implementation-existing-laws/violence-in-conflict

http://www.madre.org/

Prosecute those who authorized torture

TORTURINGDEMOCRACY.ORG.

Last night I watched Torturing Democracy on PBS and was simultaneously horrified, nauseated and ashamed. This film, which you can watch in its entirety at the address above, documents in excruciating detail the way that the Bush administration broke both United States and international law, including the Geneva Convention and cynically lied about it.

In your name and mine, the Bush administration tortured human beings using methods that were once employed by the Inquisition, the Nazis, the KGB and the Viet Cong.

Once you have finished watching the film and are done throwing up please join me in emailing President Obama and asking him to prosecute those responsible for these atrocities. It is important we ensure that this never happens again.

President Barack Obama
Email: http://www.whitehouse.gov/contact/
fax: 202-456-2461

Iran Executes Gifted Artist Delara Darabi

BBC NEWS | Middle East | Iran execution provokes outrage.

The BBC’s Jon Leyne in Tehran says that early on Friday morning Delara Darabi made a desperate phone call to her parents, saying she could see the hangman’s noose.

“Mother they are going to execute me, please save me,” she said, before a prison official took the phone away and said: “We are going to execute your daughter and there’s nothing you can do about it.”

Yesterday, Delara Darabi was hanged in Iran for murder. She was 23 years old. The murder was committed when she was 17 years old. Derabi initially confessed to the crime, taking the blame for her boyfriend, believing that as she was a minor she would receive a lesser punishment and save him from the gallows. She was dead wrong. He got ten years. She was sentenced to death.

Amnesty International and other human rights groups do not consider Delara Darabi’s  trial to have been fair and claim that the Iranian judiciary ignored evidence that would have proven her innocence.

The execution of Delara Darabi brings the number of executions in Iran this year to 140. She is the second woman known to have been executed. Iran has executed at least forty two juvenile offenders since 1990, eight of them in 2008 and one on 21 January 2009, in total disregard of international law, which unequivocally bans the execution of those convicted of crimes committed when under the age of 18. Amnesty International