Active Citizens

People’s Tribunal Hopes Verdict on Mining Abuses Gains Traction

By Leila Lemghalef
A recent case study on Canadian mining abuses in Latin America has woven one more thread of justice into the tapestry of international law.

Glimmer of Hope for Assange

By Gustavo Capdevila
There is a window of hope, thanks to a U.N. human rights body, for a solution to the diplomatic asylum of Wikileaks founder Julian Assange, holed up in the embassy of Ecuador in London for the past two and a half years.

Dumped, Abandoned, Abused: Women in India’s Mental Health Institutions

By Shai Venkatraman
Following the birth of her third child, Delhi-based entrepreneur Smita* found herself feeling “disconnected and depressed”, often for days at a stretch. “Much later I was told it was severe post-partum depression but at the time it wasn’t properly diagnosed,” she told IPS.

Missing Students Case Also Highlights Racism in Mexico

By Emilio Godoy
The mother tongue of Celso García, a 51-year-old indigenous Mexican, is Mixteca. As a boy, García, the father of one of the 43 students forcibly disappeared four months ago, had to learn Spanish to make his way in mainstream society in this country where most people are of mixed-race heritage.

Marine Resources in High Seas Should be Shared Equitably

By Dr. Palitha Kohona
After almost 10 years of often frustrating negotiations, the U.N. ad hoc committee on BBNJ decided, by consensus, to set in motion a process that will result in work commencing on a legally binding international instrument on the conservation and sustainable use, including benefit sharing, of Biological Diversity Beyond Areas of National Jurisdiction.

Teenage Girls in Argentina – Invisible Victims of Femicide

By Fabiana Frayssinet
The murder of a young Argentine girl on a beach in neighbouring Uruguay shook both countries and drew attention to a kind of violence that goes almost unnoticed as a cause of death among Argentine adolescents: femicide.

OPINION: Russia’s Friendship University, Educating the Developing World for 55 Years

By Somar Wijayadasa
People’s Friendship University of Russia (PFUR), which celebrates its 55th anniversary on Feb. 5, is known worldwide as a major academic and research centre. During the last five decades, PFUR has educated 80,000 students from 145 countries.

Young People in Latin America Face Stigma and Inequality

By Marianela Jarroud
Young people in Latin America now enjoy greater access to education. But in many cases their future is dim due to the lack of opportunities and the siren call of crime in a region where 167 million people are poor, and 71 million live in extreme poverty.

Developing Nations Write Hopeful New Chapters in a Toxic Legacy

By Kitty Stapp
The village of Dong Mai in Vietnam's agricultural heartland had a serious problem.

Cuba and U.S. Skirt Obstacles to Normalisation of Ties

By Patricia Grogg and Ivet González
The biggest discrepancies in the first meeting to normalise relations between Cuba and the United States, after more than half a century, were over the issue of human rights. But what stood out in the talks was a keen interest in forging ahead, in a process led by two women.

Not Without Our Daughters: Lambada Women Fight Infanticide and Child Trafficking

By Stella Paul
At 11 years of age, Banawat Gangotri already has four years of work experience as a farm labourer. The child, a member of the nomadic Lambada community from the village of Bugga Thanda in India’s southern Telangana state, plucked cotton and chillies from nine a.m. until 5 p.m. for about a dollar daily.

Aboriginal Businesses Stimulate Positive Change in Australia

By Neena Bhandari
Roy Roger Gibson, an indigenous Kuku Yalanji elder, would watch thousands of tourists and vehicles trampling his pristine land while working on the sugarcane fields in Far North Queensland. His people were suffering and their culture was being eroded. The native wildlife was disappearing. He dreamt of turning this around.

After Nine Years of Foot-Dragging, U.N. Ready for Talks on High Seas Treaty

By Thalif Deen
After four days of intense negotiations - preceded by nine years of dilly-dallying - the United Nations has agreed to convene an intergovernmental conference aimed at drafting a legally binding treaty to conserve marine life and govern the mostly lawless high seas beyond national jurisdiction.

OPINION: Greece Gives EU the Chance to Rediscover Its Social Responsibility

By Marianna Fotaki
The European Union should not be afraid of the leftist opposition party Syriza winning the Greek election, but see it as a chance to rediscover its founding principle - the social dimension that created it and without which it cannot survive.

U.S. May Soon Stand Alone Opposing Children’s Treaty

By Thalif Deen
When the East African nation of Somalia, once described as a "lawless state", ratified the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) early this week, it left two countries in splendid isolation from the rest of the world: South Sudan and the United States.
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