A man hauls water at the Chico Mendes landless peasant camp in Pernambuco, Brazil. Credit: Alejandro Arigón/IPS

Everyone knows water is life. Far too few understand the role of trees, plants and other living things in ensuring we have clean, fresh water.

This dangerous ignorance results in destruction of wetlands that once cleaned water and prevented destructive and costly flooding, scientists and activists warn.

Around the world, politicians and others in power have made and continue to make decisions based on short-term economic interests without considering the long-term impact on the natural environment, said Anik Bhaduri, executive officer of the Global Water System Project (GWSP), a research institute based in Bonn, Germany.

“Humans are changing the character of the world water system in significant ways with inadequate knowledge of the system and the consequences of changes being imposed,” Bhaduri told IPS.

The list of human impacts on the world’s water – of which only 0.03percent is available as freshwater – is long and the scale of those impacts daunting.

“We have accelerated major processes like erosion, applied massive quantities of nitrogen that leaks from soil to ground and surface waters and, sometimes, literally siphoned all water from rivers, emptying them for human uses before they reach the ocean,” Bhaduri said.

On average, humanity has built one large dam every day for the last 130 years, which distorts the natural river flows to which ecosystems and aquatic life adapted over millennia. Two-thirds of major river deltas are sinking due to pumping out groundwater, oil and gas. Some deltas are falling at a rate four times faster than global sea level is rising.

More than 65 percent of the world’s rivers are in trouble, according to one study published in Nature in 2010. Those findings were very “conservative” since there was not enough data to assess impacts of climate change, pharmaceutical compounds, mining wastes and water transfers, Charles Vörösmarty of the City University of New York previously told IPS.

Recently, China’s First National Census of Water discovered they’d lost more than 28,000 rivers compared to just 20 years ago. Most experts blame the loss on massive overuse and engineering projects to shift water from one region to another.

“We treat symptoms of environmental abuse rather than underlying causes…by throwing concrete, pipes, pumps, and chemicals at our water problems, to the tune of a half-trillion dollars a year,” said Vörösmarty, who is also co-chair and a founding member of the GWSP.

As these problems continue to mount, the public is largely unaware of this reality or its growing costs, he said in a release.

Protecting and investing in natural infrastructure is far cheaper than concrete and pipes, representing the smarter solution to water security. This approach also benefits tourism, recreation and cultural benefits, improved resilience and biodiversity conservation.

World experts are meeting in Bonn, Germany this week to consolidate this understanding and offer policy makers solutions to prevent ongoing damage to the global water system.

The Water in the Anthropocene conference will also make recommendations on how decision makers can adapt to the multiple challenges of growing water use, declining ecosystems and climate change.

The public and policy makers are not aware of these huge water challenges, said water expert Janos Bogardi, senior advisor to GWSP. Education aside, there is an overwhelming need to have well-defined global water quantity and quality standards that meet the needs of people, agriculture and healthy ecosystems.

The upcoming U.N. Sustainable Development Goals are expected to include “water security”, which is huge step forward, Bogardi told IPS.

“Defining these interrelated needs is huge challenge for scientists and politicians alike,” he said.

Reasonable daily water use to meet sanitary needs and drinking is 40 to 80 litres, but U.S. per capita daily use is over 300 litres, while Germany is 120 litres. In urban Hungary, where water is relatively expensive, consumption is 80 litres/day.

But how much water does nature need?

GWSP scientists’ best guess at this point is that taking 30 percent to 40 percent of a renewable freshwater resource constitutes “extreme” water stress which could tip an ecosystem into collapse. This can be mitigated if water is returned and recycled in good quality. Mining fossil groundwater resources is by definition non-sustainable.

“We have to be careful that the water security goal is truly sustainable for ecosystems,” Bogardi said.

It is not clear that the Sustainable Development Goal on water will “simultaneously optimise water security for humans as well as for nature”, said Vörösmarty.

“The water sciences community stands ready to take on this challenge. Are the the decision makers?” he asked.

Indigenous students learning to operate equipment at a communications workshop. Credit: Courtesy of PCSAN/Daniela Silva

Indigenous communities in remote areas of Brazil have begun to recognise that they have the right to not be hungry, and are learning that food security means much more than simply having food on the table.

Rosiléia Cruz, 19, dreams of studying journalism. She chooses her words carefully during her interview with Tierramérica* by mobile phone from Tabatinga, in northwest Brazil, which can only be reached by plane or river travel.

Cruz is a member of the Ticuna indigenous ethnic group, one of the most numerous in the country. The Ticuna live in the Brazilian Amazon rainforest, in the Alto Solimões region around the river of the same name, near the borders of Peru and Colombia.

The lands of their ancestors were invaded for decades by “seringueiros” (rubber tappers), fishermen and loggers, who left poverty and destruction in their wake.

Up until three years ago, young people like Cruz had few prospects, and many sought relief in alcohol and even suicide.

But in January 2010, the Joint Programme on Food and Nutrition Security for Indigenous Women and Children opened a window of hope, with activities aimed at creating agricultural and other nutritional solutions, but with particular emphasis on training and awareness raising.

Cruz forms part of a group of 50 young people from Ticuna and Kokama indigenous communities participating in communications workshops held in local schools. At the Umariaçu II community school in Tabatinga, she learned how to conduct interviews, take photographs, and produce daily news billboards and radio programmes.

She was thrilled by the opportunity to handle a microphone or camera in order to question the village chief about community problems, explain the importance of breastfeeding to mothers-to-be, or inform children about healthy habits, soft drinks, processed foods and the fruits of the region.

“There are a lot of young people that we can rescue from alcoholism,” she said. “We just prepared a news report on ‘Indian Day’ (a Brazilian holiday celebrated every Apr. 19) and I’m going to participate in Indigenous Babies Week.”

The aim of the workshops is to motivate young people to promote and defend their rights. An agreement with a local television station made it possible for the youngsters to be trained in the use of the equipment donated by the joint programme. The radio station in Tabatinga provided them with space in its Saturday programming schedule so that they could broadcast their own radio show.

The group also uses loudspeakers mounted on posts in their villages to get their message across. The daily news billboards are displayed on the walls of medical clinics and schools, and internet workshops have provided them with the skills to run their own website, which will be launched on May 21.

Once all the workshops are completed, the participants will share what they have learned with other students. Partnerships with local governments, universities and indigenous organisations will ensure continuity, and the internet will serve as a platform to disseminate the results, expand communication and inspire other young people.

These experiences form part of a wider project to help Ticuna and Kokama communities to organise in order to demand health care, education and economic and political participation.

The joint programme is an initiative of the Millennium Development Goal (MDG) Achievement Fund, set up with a financial contribution from the government of Spain and administered by various United Nations agencies, including the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), in partnership with the Brazilian government.

Now in the stage of collecting data and evaluating results, since it will conclude in June, the programme focused on the municipalities of Tabatinga, Benjamin Constant and São Paulo de Olivença in the northwestern state of Amazonas, and the municipality of Dourados in the southwestern state of Mato Grosso do Sul, which are home to a combined total of 53,000 indigenous people.

These areas were chosen because of their high rates of malnutrition, substance abuse and violence, as well as their remote and difficult-to-reach locations. It is hoped that the positive results expected can be extended to other regions of the country, Fernando Moretti, the national coordinator of the joint programme, told Tierramérica.

In the three and half years since the programme was launched, International Labour Organization (ILO) Convention 169 on indigenous and tribal peoples has been translated into the Guaraní, Terena and Ticuna languages. Brazil ratified the convention in 2002, but its implementation remains a challenge.

Another concrete outcome was the publication of a book that shares the perceptions of 25 children and adolescents in villages in Mato Grosso do Sol and neighbouring Paraguay on food and nutrition security. The book, which includes photographs, letters and artworks, will be distributed in a Portuguese-Guaraní bilingual edition to schools, libraries and cultural centres.

“When we talk about food security, it is not simply a matter of food production, but also of training in health and self-esteem,” said Moretti.

The activities are aimed at motivating people to use the region’s biological and agricultural diversity sustainably.

Communities were provided with rural technical assistance and guidance for the establishment of agro-forestry systems, which combine farming with sustainable use and recovery of local forests, and of school gardens. In Dourados, indigenous farmers reintroduced yerba mate – used to prepare a hot beverage widely consumed in southern Brazil and neighbouring countries – and other native plant species with significant commercial potential.

In the village of Panambizinho, two plant nurseries were constructed, and the local residents learned how to make eco-friendly stoves that use less firewood, thus preserving the forest, and reduce harmful smoke emissions.

There were also discussions of concepts and practices related to healthy eating and disease prevention. Awareness raising and the creation of opportunities allowed the project to grow naturally, said Moretti.

Some families created gardens in their homes. Indigenous community members were trained to measure and weigh babies and children in order to provide data on these populations to the Food and Nutrition Security System.

In Alto Solimões, the ILO is supporting an association of craftspeople with a market study to help their products reach buyers.

For Moretti, what was most important was strengthening institutions and expanding interaction with the indigenous population. From now on, there will be two indigenous representatives on the National Council for Food and Nutrition Security, the agency responsible for implementation of the Zero Hunger policy launched by the Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva administration (2003-2011). Indigenous community members are also organising to participate in municipal councils.

In Dourados, the National Indigenous Fund and UNICEF organised a colloquium in order to create a network for the protection of indigenous children and adolescents and to define the measures to be adopted in cases of abuse, abandonment and alcoholism. A similar event will be held with communities in Alto Solimões on Jun. 17-19.

An ethnic mapping exercise was also conducted, which included the identification of what is produced in each region. “These are tools that the indigenous people themselves will be able to use,” stressed Moretti.

* This story was originally published by Latin American newspapers that are part of the Tierramérica network.

HIJOS, the acronym for “Sons and Daughters for Identity and Justice Against Oblivion and Silence”, is an Argentine rights group founded in 1995 when children of people “disappeared” by that country’s 1976-1983 military regime came together to hold escraches or outings of human rights violators.

Argentine victims of forced disappearance. Credit: ha+/CC BY 2.0

An estimated 30,000 people were forcibly disappeared during the Argentine dictatorship’s systematic suppression of dissent. In 1976, then army chief Videla led the junta made up of the commanders of the three military forces after the coup d’état that overthrew the democratic government of Isabel Perón.

Videla, who died on May 17, may be physically no more, the 25-year-old Parodi told the audience in her acceptance speech, but Argentina is still trying to correct the historical wrongs of the regime he led for most of its seven years in power.

Parodi was with her colleague Marcos Kary in Gwangju to share the human rights experiences of Argentina and South Korea.

The Gwangju Prize is awarded by the May 18 Memorial Foundation in South Korea, which like HIJOS was established by the families of those subjected to the brutal excesses of a dictatorship. Protests against the rule of South Korean military commander and strongman Chun Doo-hwan (1979-1988) had culminated in the May 18-27, 1980 uprising in Gwangju, also known as 518, an allusion to the date the bloody crackdown began.

In spring 1980 there was a wave of demonstrations across South Korea. In Gwangju, in the southwest, the military responded with brute force, firing indiscriminately into crowds. Even passersby were killed. The final death toll is still uncertain, but up to 2,000 people may have died.

The uprising is seen as a pivotal moment in the struggle for South Korean democracy.

The May 18 Memorial Foundation was established in 1994, and the Gwangju Prize was created in 2000. Xanana Gusmao, who fought for the freedom of East Timor in Southeast Asia and was elected as its first president when it became a new country in 2002, was the first recipient of the prize.

The award has since gone to other leaders in South Asia, notably Aung San Suu Kyi, the icon for democracy in Myanmar/Burma, in 2004; Manipur’s Irom Sharmila, fighting the excesses of the military in northeastern India, in 2007; and Dr Binayak Sen, a civil rights activist working for the rights of tribal populations in India, in 2011.

For the first time, however, the prize has gone this year to an organisation so many miles and whole continents away from the parent country. HIJOS was chosen for its dedication to get justice for victims of human rights abuses during Argentina’s dictatorship.

Parodi and Kary, both students who work for and represent HIJOS, are not the children of any of those who fell prey to the atrocities of the regime, but are willing to carry on the job that the daughters and sons of the victims began nearly two decades ago.

Like other human rights groups in their country, their aim is to help restore truth and bring justice to Argentine society. The organisation has helped collect evidence, arranged legal assistance for those wishing to prosecute human rights violators, and offered psychological support.

Videla’s sentencing was a part of this effort. Tried and sentenced to life for human rights abuses soon after democracy was restored, he only served a few years in prison before he was released under a broad presidential pardon from Carlos Menem (1989-1999).

But the sustained efforts of organisations like HIJOS ensured that this impunity would not be permanent.

In the mid-2000s, the Argentine Supreme Court struck down the presidential pardon for the former members of the junta, as well as the two late 1980s amnesty laws, ruling that they were unconstitutional.

“In the period that no trials took place,” Parodi told IPS, “we undertook social action by identifying the perpetrators of atrocities and distributing leaflets to their neighbours indicating that the people next door were responsible for the brutal abuses that happened in the 1970s and 1980s.”

The human rights trials resumed after the pardons and amnesty laws were thrown out. In the central city of Córdoba, where Parodi and Kary work, there have already been four trials involving 400 victims and 43 accused, said Parodi. And a fifth trial began in December 2012 and will last another two years, the two activists told IPS.

However, helping to bring the perpetrators to court is not the end of HIJOS’s job, Parodi said, adding that there is still a lot to be done for human rights in their country.

“Human rights continue to be suppressed in Argentina,” Kary told IPS. “The military may no longer be in power, but the police continue to wield power, and their mindset has never really changed. Torture in jails continues.”

Meanwhile, the Gwangju Prize – and its 50,000 dollar cash award – has given the organisation an opportunity to share its human rights experience with rights groups and democratic movements in Asia. It is the first international recognition that HIJOS has received, and one it hopes to build on in its fight for human rights.

At the UN Forum of Mayors on Crime Prevention and Security in Urban Settings, from left to right: Dong Min Ki, Jonathan Lucas, Cecilia Andersson, Martin Xaba, Bilal S. Hamad, and Marin Casimir Ilboudo. Credit: Silvia Giannelli/IPS

As people around the world continue to migrate into cities, swelling urban populations, they have sparked growth in another area: crime and security issues.

“Big cities are…where the greatest opportunities are, but also where more criticalities concentrate,” said Piero Fassino, mayor of Turin, Italy, at the plenary session of the Forum of Mayors on Crime Prevention and Security in Urban Settings, held in Turin from May 20 to 21.

“While the quality of services to citizens are usually higher in those centres, they also present more problems of social alienation, youth unrest and crime,” Fassino added.

The forum, organised by United Nations Interregional Crime and Justice Research Institute (UNICRI) with the United Nations Settlements Programme (UN-HABITAT) and the municipality of Turin, sought to reduce inequality and injustice in urban settings and address the dynamics of security and crime preventions.

The challenge for the future is to take advantage of opportunities offered by urbanisation while reducing episodes of crime and violence that hinder sustainable development, particularly for the most vulnerable people: women, youth and marginalised groups.

“From 1960 to 1990, urbanisation was accompanied by a severe increase [in] crime and violence, which affected the majority of cities and towns in both the developed and the developing world,” explained Cecilia Andersson, human settlements officer of the Safer Cities Programme of UN-HABITAT, during her opening speech.

“This situation required change. It required the cities and towns themselves to take responsibility to deal with these issues,” she added.

Mayors and representatives of 18 municipalities around the world from Cape Town to Bangkok, from Ouagadougou (Burkina Faso) to Seoul, discussed the biggest challenges they encountered and the best measures to take to address them.

Martin Xaba, head of the Safer Cities and I-Trump Department of Durban, South Africa, explained how the local municipality decided in 2000 to adopt the Safer Cities strategy.

“The strategy requires the implementation of both reactive and proactive approach,” Xaba explained. While adequate responses to crime are always needed, “prevention remains the most effective tool, and this is where community involvement becomes critical”.

Such tools, in the case of Durban, include campaigns for crime awareness and against the abuse of women and children, workshops on drug abuse, and the active participation of the community in ward safety committees.

It was “upon the request of African mayors, who were having an issue with regards to safety in their cities” that the programme Safer Cities began in Africa, Andersson explained to IPS, with Johannesburg, South Africa and Dar Es Salaam, Tanzania as pilot cities. The programme has since gone global.

Meanwhile, local leaders say that exchanging ideas among cities does work. Antonio Frey, director of local security in Santiago del Chile, told IPS, “The experience of Cape Town, South Africa, is very interesting for us. They managed to recover public spaces, thanks to the involvement of citizens from marginalised areas.”

“This strategy has positive effects in the long run, because those people recover that space, and then take care [of] and manage it.”

Despite the substantial differences between cities in terms of crime rates and types of crimes, a key requirement to enhance safety and security is the decentralisation of policies from the national to local level.

When policies are not decentralised, improving circumstances becomes very difficult, as Bilal S. Hamad, mayor of Beirut, could attest during his speech at the plenary session.

In Beirut, a lack of decentralisation is hindering the municipality’s ability to intervene on crime and safety issues. “The central government has its hand in the affairs of the municipality,” Hamad lamented. The city is not in charge [of] a police force, and the central government put someone in the role of governor, “taking all the executive power in the city of Beirut”.

In another example, inadequate housing is a problem indirectly connected to crime, but “we don’t have full power [over] it, because it’s the central government which controls that”, insisted Hamad.

According to Andersson, apart from decentralisation, cooperation is also essential. “The best results come when all the various departments in a municipality [understand] that they have a role to play with regards to providing safety and security for the inhabitants of the city,” she told IPS.

Interestingly, crime and violence differ significantly from city to city, and developed and developing countries do not necessarily face separate types of crimes.

“In developing countries, the biggest challenge is always finding resources,” Andersson told IPS, particularly moving resources from national to local governments. Some problems, however, affect most cities, regardless of the country in which they are located. “Across borders, in all regions, the issue of women and girls’ safety…comes out quite clearly,” Andersson said.

This issue, by limiting the freedom of women and girls, prevents them from participating in and contributing to their communities. As Andersson clarified during the conference, “Communities where all citizens are empowered to participate in social, economic and political opportunities…are instrumental [in reducing] poverty.”

Young women on a Damascus street. Credit: Rebecca Murray/IPS

When thousands of participants from around the world gather in the Malaysian capital of Kuala Lumpur next week, the primary focus will be on health and empowerment of girls and women.

The meeting, scheduled for May 26-30 under a banner titled Women Deliver, will zero in on a longstanding unanswered question: how does the international community meet the massive unmet needs for contraception by over 222 million women in the developing world?”

The U.N. Population Fund (UNFPA) points out that increased contraceptive use and reduced unmet needs for contraception are central to achieving three of the U.N.’s Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) – improving maternal health, reducing child mortality and combating HIV/AIDS – heading towards the 2015 deadline.

Sivananthi Thanenthiran, executive director at the Malaysia-based Asian-Pacific Resource & Research Centre for Women (ARROW), told IPS the ability to decide the number, timing, and spacing of their children is one of the most fundamental rights individuals and couples can have.

Currently, she said, it is estimated 222 million women have an unmet need for family planning, and in many countries most women still continue to have more children then they desired.

“Investing in reproductive health and reproductive rights requires investment in a number of interventions by U.N. agencies, governments and donors,” she added.

Since UNFPA began operations back in 1969, the average global fertility has been cut in half. UNFPA says it has been a “critical catalyst” in this success by responding to requests by developing countries.

Asked how best the contraceptive needs could be met, Dr. Purnima Mane, president and chief executive officer of Pathfinder International, told IPS the United Nations and the international community need to continue advocating for increased funding – domestic and international – for access to contraception and for the integration of family planning into universal health coverage in all possible forums and through broader partnerships across sectors.

While it is true that investments in women’s education are essential to this effort, she said, much more needs to happen to change the situation of women.

Community-oriented work to change social norms around gender and enabling social and economic policies are essential to prevent early marriage, to keep girls in school, and to help women to space their births and give birth safely, when they want to bear children, said Dr. Mane, who heads an organisation described as the global leader in sexual and reproductive rights.

She argued that based on historical evidence, political will is, and will be, the most critical element of success for strong family planning programmes.

“However, we need to be vigilant about the voluntary nature of such programmes and the quality of the care provided,” Mane added.

At this time, she said, the most critical priority is for the global community to come together to address the contraceptive and sexual and reproductive health information and service needs of the growing youth population of over three billion under the age of 25.

“There is no easy fix and we all know that. What we need is to address the multiple factors that impact on this issue rather than focus on any one aspect alone,” she said.

The Kuala Lumpur meeting, the third Women Deliver conference launched originally in 2007, is touted as the largest global event of the decade – primarily of government leaders, policymakers, healthcare professionals, representatives of non-governmental organisations (NGOs), corporate leaders, and global media outlets.

The event will include a Youth Pre-Conference, a Minister’s Forum and a Parliamentarians Forum.

Asked about investments in reproductive health, Thanenthiran told IPS these include interventions around delaying the age of marriage and the age of first pregnancies, which include investments in girls’ education especially at the secondary and tertiary levels.

Interventions such as making available a range of contraceptive methods and ensuring women receive the right information so that they can make informed choices about the method that best suits them, and that health service providers treat women with kindness and provide quality care and service are essential in increasing trust towards family planning programmes, she added.

Naturally this requires funding and political commitment, but the health of women and girls is well worth safeguarding, Thanenthiran added.

Asked how the U.N.’s post-2015 economic agenda could underline reproductive health, Dr. Mane told IPS human rights principles of the International Conference on Population and Development (which took place in Cairo in 1994) can be embedded constructively in a variety of ways in the new set of development goals, but given that the relevant MDGs are especially lagging, “more explicit attention to the unfinished agenda is needed as we go forward.”

Population dynamics are also often left out of important discussions about future needs and development scenarios. For example, population growth may be mentioned but not in relation to access to contraception as a solution, she added.

She said universal health care is a start, if coverage of the broadest range of sexual and reproductive health care is explicitly included to move the unfinished agenda forward.

“Only then will we achieve sustainable development,” she said.

“My organisation, Pathfinder International, stands behind confronting inequality by advocating with other civil society partners for better governance which not only addresses inequality but holds policymakers accountable for failing to address preventable deaths among women and children,” Dr. Mane declared.

Thanenthiran said it is essential that access to comprehensive, quality sexual and reproductive health services, as promised to women and committed to by governments in the Cairo ICPD Programme of Action, is prioritised in the post-2015 development framework.

The ICPD Programme of Action (PoA) is going to be 20 years in 2014, and women are yet to enjoy in full the promises made to them during that time, she pointed out.

In the MDGs, some attention was given to the agenda under MDG 5 (on improving maternal health), and those working in the field of sexual and reproductive health and rights are hoping to see a more comprehensive approach with more reproductive health issues and indicators being covered in the new goal on reproductive and maternal health.

This would be the best way to go about to ensure government commitments to the ICPD are fulfilled, and initial investments made during the MDGs are continued and fully realised in the new development framework, she declared.

The Public Order and Security Act gives untold power to the police, and many have claimed that President Robert Mugabe has used the country’s security forces to intimidate his opposition. Credit: Jeffrey Moyo/IPS

For the last month Gibson Severe and his wife, Merjury Severe, known opposition supporters from Hurungwe district in Zimbabwe’s Mashonaland West Province, have been hiding out in the country’s capital Harare.

The Movement for Democratic Change – Morgan Tsvangirai (MDC–T) supporters were forced to flee their rural home in Hurungwe district after Zimbabwe African National Union – Patriotic Front (Zanu-PF) militias threatened them for encouraging people to participate in the recently-ended mobile voter registration.

“It’s been a month since we left Hurungwe district after the Jochomondo militia, which has known links to Zanu-PF, besieged our rural home accusing us of encouraging people to register to vote for the MDC-T,” Gibson Severe told IPS.

Since last year, the Jochomondo militia has allegedly terrorised residents in Zimbabwe’s northern Hurungwe district, a Zanu-PF-stronghold, making it almost impossible for opposition parties to campaign in the region.

Merjury Severe told IPS that elections in this southern African nation have become associated with threats and violence.

“This is not the first time we have been subjected to intimidation. In the 2008 presidential runoff we were beaten up for being MDC-T sympathisers,” she said.

Zimbabweans will go to the polls sometime later this year to vote for a new president. Current President Robert Mugabe, 89, has been in office for 33 years in a reign characterised by corruption, oppression, forced land seizures and a failing economy.

However, Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai recently told media that the date for the elections would only be set after voter registration was completed. Although mobile registration has ended, voters can still register at the Registrar General’s office.

But as Zimbabwe’s first round of 30-day mobile voter registration ended on Sunday, May 19, the process was marked by long queues, slow registration and intimidation by violent gangs with suspected Zanu-PF links.

Pedzisai Ruhanya, director for the Zimbabwe Democracy Institute, an independent public policy think-tank, told IPS that the process had been fraught with chaos. “The mobile voter registration exercise was not done properly. It was chaotic and characterised by political gerrymandering.”

Zanu-PF-linked militias who call themselves Al-Shabaab, named after Somalia’s Islamic terrorist group, are alleged to have threatened the electorate in Midlands Province.

“The mobile voter registration exercise here irked Zanu-PF stooges who have directed their anger towards teachers in rural communities, fiercely warning them against voting for the (two) MDC formations,” a local councilor from Midlands Province told IPS. The MDC split in 2006 into the MDC-T and the MDC-Ncube, which is led by Professor Welshman Ncube.

Officials from Marondera, the capital of Mashonaland East Province, situated some 72 km east of Harare, said villagers were forced by suspected Zanu-PF-linked militias to participate in the voter registration process.

“People were being abused by Zanu-PF militias, who were singing liberation war songs and chanting party slogans, and forced into (going to) register to vote,” a local district official in Marondera told IPS.

Police from Mashonaland Central Province’s Bindura and Mazowe towns, which are located about 90 km north of Harare, said that people there still live in fear of a repeat of the violence that ensued during the country’s previous elections. Many are scared just to publicly support political parties.

“Nobody wears MDC-T shirts here after the 2008 violent elections that left thousands of people maimed. Zanu-PF is going to use this to win this election, by reminding people about the June 2008 atrocities,” a top police official told IPS.

Global rights group Amnesty International reported that the 2008 presidential runoff had been “held against a backdrop of widespread killings, torture and assault of perceived opposition supporters.”

Human Rights Watch said in its January 2013 report titled “Race Against Time: The Need for Legal and Institutional Reforms Ahead of Zimbabwe’s Elections,” that over 200 people died in the 2008 election violence.

So far, no arrests have been made in any of the cases of apparent intimidation. However, Zanu-PF spokesperson Rugare Gumbo dismissed the reports.

“There is nothing like terror groups linked to our party. Why should we beat people into submission when it’s well known that the MDCs have lost supporters to Zanu-PF?” Gumbo told IPS.

However, renowned political commentator Rejoice Ngwenya told IPS that

Zimbabwe’s mobile voter registration process was flawed.

“Mobile voter registration was disjointed and weak, perhaps deliberately. There is no voter education in Zimbabwe … the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (ZEC) has neither the capacity nor the political will (to carry out voter education).

“But civil society organisations and political parties are giving it their best shot, although they still encounter a very uncooperative legislative piece – the Public Order and Security Act.”

The act gives untold power to the police, and many have claimed that Mugabe has used the country’s security forces to intimidate his opposition.

Local rights groups also expressed concern about the mobile voter registration.

“We embrace the exercise. But we are worried by the manner in which it was being conducted in rural areas, where Zanu-PF members were distributing membership forms, purporting to carry out voter registration,” David Chidende, programme manager for Youth Information and Education For Behaviour Change, a democracy lobby group, told IPS.

It is also alleged that in Zanu-PF strongholds there were large numbers of voter registration centres, while in MDC-dominated areas there were a limited few. Ruhanya said: “Perceived anti-Zanu-PF political activists linked to (both) MDC formations were given limited sites to register to vote.”

A Zanu-PF central committee member told IPS on the condition of anonymity: “Officials were first registering voters in constituencies where Zanu-PF mobilised supporters to register in their numbers.”

Once Mugabe approves the country’s new constitution, a second round of voter registration and inspection will take place.

“We still have an additional 30-day voter registration period provided for by the draft constitution,” ZEC chairperson, Justice Rita Makarau, told the local Financial Gazette newspaper.

Ruhanya urged authorities to conduct the next round of voter registration exercise differently “in order for Zimbabwe to have free and fair elections.”

Little girls play outside in India's West Bengal state. Credit: Sujoy Dhar/IPS

When a five-year-old was rescued from the basement of a building in the eastern part of India’s capital, New Delhi, the doctors treating her were horrified to find the little girl had not only been raped by two men several times, but the perpetrators had also inflicted severe perineal injuries by inserting foreign objects into her body.

Tied to a bed for nearly two days, the girl was raped and brutalised by a young neighbour and his friend, even while the police ignored her parents’ repeated requests to trace their missing child.

Coming after a season of anti-rape protests in New Delhi over last December’s fatal gang-rape of a young medical student inside a bus, this latest incident, coupled with police inaction, triggered fresh agitation in the national capital.

In the same month, another five-year-old girl in the central Indian state of Madhya Pradesh succumbed to her injuries after enduring similarly unspeakable horrors.

Stories of rape and abuse, often involving fatalities, are pouring in every day now, with the latest figures showing that child rapes in India have risen 336 percent between 2001 and 2011.

Human rights activists lament that these figures represent only reported cases, while the actual number may be much higher.

Many of these rapes occur in the confines of the victim’s own household, sometimes by family members or other known assailants, other times by unknown attackers.

According to a recent report by the New Delhi-based Asian Centre for Human Rights (ACHR), sexual offences against children in India have reached an “epidemic proportion”.

The 56-page report, citing National Crimes Record Bureau (NCRB) statistics, stated that rape cases increased from 2,113 cases in 2001 to 7,112 cases in 2011, with a total of 48,338 cases in that period.

ACHR Director Suhas Chakma told IPS these numbers represent “only the tip of the iceberg, as the large majority of child rape cases are not reported to the police”, while other forms of sexual assault against children pass largely under the radar of the authorities.

Chakma attributes the increase partly to the “tremendous rural-urban migration” of the last 15 years that has resulted in a clash of cultures, as migrant workers from India’s remote agricultural belts come face to face with an urban lifestyle.

“Pornography is now at everyone’s fingertips,” he noted, adding that India’s socio-economic upheaval of the last decade and a half have “impacted behaviours”.

The state of Madhya Pradesh recorded the highest number of child rapes, with 9,465 cases from 2001 to 2011; the western state Maharashtra came a close second, with 6,868 cases; while Uttar Pradesh, located on the northern border, reported 5,949 cases.

The report found that every single Indian state reported high numbers and experienced an increase in cases.

Not a private matter

When it comes to child abuse, said Shantha Sinha, chairperson of India’s National Commission for the Protection of Child Rights (NCPCR), there cannot be any distinction between private and public space.

“Violence against a child, even if it occurs inside (his or her) own home, must not be seen as a private issue. It is violence and it is a public issue,” Sinha told IPS.

She stressed the need for citizens to report as many details as possible about such cases to the proper authorities – maintaining anonymity if necessary – such as the countrywide Child Welfare Committee (CWC).

Homes of horror

According to the ACHR, rape is especially rampant in juvenile homes established under the Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Children) Act of 2000.

The government of India supports at least 733 juvenile homes under the Integrated Child Protection Scheme (ICPS) of the ministry of women and child development; but government oversight has been unable to stem abuse.

“All juvenile homes are centres of sexual abuse,” said Chakma. “There is no supervision whatsoever and the offenders are mostly staff members.”

He alleged that the government has failed to establish proper “inspection committees”, charging that the issue is not even on the agenda for minister-level discussions. Chakam also blasted the NCPCR for being “useless.”

According to a report by NCPCR member Vinod Kumar Tikoo, who visited three such homes in the Ambala district of India’s northern Haryana state after reports of physical and sexual abuse, the conditions of the facilities are “shocking.”

In one of the homes, Tikoo found girls and boys living together but could see “no evidence” of a professional staff, trained caretakers or security measures. The operation seemed to be an “entirely family affair.”

“The husband–wife duo managing one of the other homes seemed unaware of the roles, responsibilities and…the jurisprudence governing child protection in an official child care institution,” he said.

Conditions are particularly threatening to girl children. In one of the homes, the only toilet facility available for girls was located on the terrace, surrounded by water.

According to the report, many of the managers of these homes simply bring in abandoned or runaway children from hospitals, railway stations and bus-stands, without presenting them to the concerned Child Welfare Committee, which exist in every state.

According to Sinha, security in juvenile homes is a complex issue and calls for rigorous government monitoring and intervention. She recommended that the state “redefine” the meaning of these homes, and run them instead as training and resource centres, thereby offering these kids the chance for a more independent future.

Poor legal infrastructure

Other experts believe the answer lies in amending the Juvenile Justice Act, which does not currently provide an adequate support system for families too poor to embark on lengthy legal battles.

Chakma said it is “essential” that the government create a victim assistance fund, which aggrieved parties can utilise to seek justice and punitive measures through the courts.

“India enacts laws without any judicial impact assessments. So the judicial infrastructure has to be upgraded too,” he said.

“Nowadays finance is an end in itself, to make money out of money, while it should be a tool to serve the economy and the people,” says Andrea Baranes, president of Fondazione Culturale Responsabilità Etica (the Cultural Foundation for Ethical Responsibility).

Andrea Baranes, president of Fondazione Culturale Responsabilità Etica. Credit: Silvia Giannelli/IPS

“Finance lost its social role,” Baranes explains. “We need measures to change this route.”

The Cultural Foundation for Ethical Responsibility (FCRE, in Italian) is part of the Ethics Network Bank, a network of organisations that promote financial services and cultural, environmental and human protection.

FCRE is of the main partners of Terra Futura (Future Earth), a annual three-day forum and exhibition held in Florence where associations, institutions and citizens meet to exchange ideas and experiences on good practises in social, economic and environmental sustainability.

IPS correspondent Silvia Giannelli interviewed Baranes on the opening day of the forum about the purpose of the forum and the alterative models it can offer to alleviate Europe’s economic crisis.

Q: As this is the tenth edition of Terra Futura, how do you evaluate this experience?

A: It was definitely a positive one. Over the years, the public, exhibitors and local institutions have become more aware of the importance of networking.

It does not make sense to reflect on the environment, jobs, rights and so on, as separate things, the way it does not make sense to talk about ethical finance without considering responsible tourism, fair trade and solidarity based purchasing groups.

But when you put all these things together, creating a network that deals with consumption, production, living and eating habits, you can build a truly alternative economic model that has been shown to work better than the traditional one, not only from social and environmental perspectives but from an economic one too.

Q: This year Terra Futura is dedicated to the economic crisis and the effort to overcome it. In what direction is the European Union headed?

A: Unfortunately Europe nowadays means almost exclusively austerity, sacrifices and the like. Even worse, we see a Europe of the common currency, of the common markets, of the free movement of capital, but there is no social Europe.

From one side, we have the European Central Bank, with its monetary policies, but on the other there is no parliament, because the European Parliament has no regulatory authority.

Q: What are solutions can Terra Futura offer to these issues?

A: What we say here is that we need to act in two directions. One is top-down, by means of regulations, in order to close what we call “casinò finance” and to block tax havens.

We also need to act from the bottom-up, to promote virtuous models in the way we use our money. I truly believe that by putting together theoretical analysis and practise we can find real solutions.

Q: What are the priorities of the Ethics Network Bank in this economic phase?

A: Before the Italian elections, the Ethics Network Bank launched proposals under the name of “Let’s change finance to change Italy”. In these proposals we asked to reduce financial derivatives and increase transparency, close tax havens, and introduce a tax on financial transactions.

We also proposed measures to enhance ethical finance, like the revision of the Basel Accords, an international regulatory framework for banks, in order to prevent ethical banks and cooperatives from being penalised and to facilitate the service sector’s access to credit.

Q: Do other European countries have organisations similar to Ethics Network Bank?

A: There are many examples of ethical finance in Europe and in the world. The differences depend on the social context of the country.

The Netherlands, for instance, being a low-lying country, is concerned with climate change, and therefore to them ethical finance means investing in renewable energies and energy conservation.

In France, where trade unions are very strong, ethical finance corresponds to job creation. In Italy, it all started thanks to the initiative of grassroots associations and civil society, so Banca Etica has always been the bank of non-profits and social cooperatives.

They come from different models, and they are different organisations with different functions, but they all have essential elements in common: the importance of real economy, the attention towards social and environmental impacts and the rejection of speculation.

Q: On Saturday you will present the campaign “Con i miei soldi” (“With my money”). What is this campaign about?

A: Last year we launched “Non con i miei soldi” (“Not with my money”), which wanted to show how we often are not only victims but also accomplices of this crisis. The money in our bank accounts risks ending up in tax havens, in weapons or other polluting activities.

This year we wanted to be proactive and explain to people how, through ethical finance, their money can boost biological agriculture, fair trade, energy conservation, etc. That way, our little savings can eventually influence the choices made in the business world.

Q: Are you optimistic about the chances of Ethics Network Bank’s reflections and proposals being heard?

A: I have one main reason to be optimistic, which at the same time makes me angry. There are no technical challenges preventing the enforcement of our proposals. We know perfectly what needs to be done and how to do it.

What is missing is the political will. But we can change this, through campaigns and grassroots actions, just what we are trying to do here at Terra Futura.

Migrants employed as construction workers in Thailand receive little training or safety equipment. Credit: Kalinga Seneviratne/IPS

On the outskirts of the northern Thai city of Chiang Mai, a group of twelve migrant families lives in a makeshift camp comprised of houses constructed from scrap metal.

They share three toilets between them, and each home consists of nothing more than a single room, whose flimsy walls and roof provide little privacy, and are no match for the heavy monsoon rains that lash northern Thailand between the months of May and November.

Sounds of splashing water fill the air as both male and female migrants, returning from a long day’s work, unwind with a shower in the rudimentary, open-air structures that contain nothing more than a rap connected to a water tank.

Most of these workers are employed on a residential construction site just north of here, where they pour cement, plaster walls, build roofs or install electrical wiring from seven in the morning until six in the evening, seven days a week. They do not have much to show for these gruelling hours on the job, returning home with as little as six dollars a day.

One of this shantytown’s residents, Nang Soi Sat, tells IPS the long working hours and paltry income are not even her biggest concerns: she is more worried about maintaining her legal status in the face of multiple challenges.

Thailand is home to an estimated 2.5 million migrant workers. The country’s economic boom – which has seen an 18.9 percent growth in gross domestic product (GDP) since 2011 – relies heavily on a constant influx of labour from neighbouring countries. Over 82 percent of the workers hail from Myanmar (Burma), 8.4 percent from Laos and 9.5 percent from Cambodia.

Those from Myanmar say ethnic strife and civil conflict sent them fleeing in search of better opportunities in the region. A network of garment and furniture factories housed in Special Economic Zones (SEZs) that dot the Thai-Myanmar border quickly absorb incoming migrants to work for a pittance.

Other key areas of employment for migrants include the seafood and agricultural sectors.

For migrants like Sai Sun Lu, the search for better opportunities did not end with his arrival here. Originally from Myanmar’s volatile Shan State, Lu works over nine hours a day at a site in Chiang Mai, constructing high rise buildings that will likely be converted into commercial centres, residential condos or offices, without a single day off.

He tells IPS he did not want to come to Thailand, but was forced to as a result of intense fighting in his home. His hopes for greener pastures on the other side of the border have been dashed and he now finds himself living in a kind of daily nightmare, toiling in what rights groups have called “appalling” conditions.

According to the U.S. State Department’s report on migration and refugees, Thailand ranks alongside some of the worst offenders of migrants’ rights, including Afghanistan, Chad, Iran and Niger.

Because migrant labourers are typically unskilled, with little awareness of occupational safety, they are easy prey for employers looking to cut corners by dismissing safety concerns.

In the construction sector, inadequate training in the proper use of machinery and a lack of protective equipment such as body harnesses or guardrail systems pose a grave threat to those who work on buildings as high as 27 to 69 stories.

On Sai Sun Lu’s construction site, “there have been many accidents and deaths. Some workers have slipped and fallen from the high rises but we receive very little or no compensation,” he said.

“As Burmese we have to be extra careful because if we make any mistakes then our employers can terminate our work without any explanation.”

Fear of this last consequence is, for many workers, second only to the fear of death, and a very common one among migrants from Myanmar who account for 75 percent of Thailand’s one million undocumented workers, according to the Institute for Population and Social Research at Mahidol University.

The 2008 National Verification Programme (NVP) was intended to legalise the status of incoming migrants and provide them with basic protections under Thai labour laws, such as access to social security schemes, official work accident compensation and the ability to apply for driving licences.

However, rights activists contend that the NVP’s registration fees are “extortionate”, often requiring three times the average worker’s monthly salary of between 100 and 167 dollars.

According to this year’s World Report, published annually by Human Rights Watch (HRW), Thai employers frequently seize migrant workers’ documents, thus rendering them bonded labourers, while government policies – like the Thai cabinet’s 2010 resolution to fine employees if their papers carry outdated information – impose severe restrictions on migrant workers’ ability to change jobs.

Even migrants with all their legal papers in hand often go to pains to avoid encounters with the police for fear of being harassed, physically abused, or arrested.

In desperation, many have turned to personal networks of friends and family members to gain access into the country.

In rural Myanmar, where most migrants come from, informal transporters linked to smugglers with networks along the border facilitate entry into Thailand. This system has led to the proliferation of so-called recruiters, or agents, who charge exorbitant fees in exchange for providing such services as remitting money, establishing communication channels between families, or securing employment.

Following allegations of rampant corruption among recruitment agencies, the Labour Ministry of Myanmar recently banned 12 agencies from sending migrant workers to Thailand, according to an internal memo obtained by ‘The Myanmar Times’.

Earlier this month, Myanmar’s Deputy Labour Minister Myint Thein assured labour activists and migrants that the state was doing everything possible to rein in illegal actors and ensure safe, affordable passage between the two countries. It has a vested interest in doing so: a 2010 ILO report found that the average migrant worker in Thailand sent home about 1,000 dollars every month, with total remittances from Thailand accounting for about five percent of Myanmar’s annual GDP.

Marchers in a conga line ended four days of activities against homophobia in Ciego de Ávila, Cuba. Credit: Jorge Luis Baños/IPS

The lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender community in Cuba has won advances on issues like the change of name of pre-operative transgender persons, while they continue to fight for the right to same-sex civil unions.

For the first time since 1997, a transsexual woman who had not undergone sex-change surgery was issued a photo ID card this year reflecting her chosen name and gender identity, Manuel Vázquez, a lawyer with the National Centre for Sex Education (CENESEX), a government-funded body, told IPS.

“We will continue supporting efforts to attain name changes in other cases, and we hope it will become the norm,” said Vázquez, who is head of the legal services unit in CENESEX, which reports that the family and the workplace are the spheres where the rights of LGBT persons are violated the most.

Up to now, the photo on the national ID card of trans women and men has had to reflect their biological sex.

In 1997, CENESEX managed to reach agreements with the ministries of the interior and justice to change the names and photos on the ID cards of 13 transgender people who had not undergone sex-reassignment surgery, although other civil registry documents, such as their birth certificates, were not modified. But that had not happened again until now.

Transgender people who have undergone sex-change surgery, which is provided free of charge in Cuba since 2008, are allowed to modify their ID cards. In Cuba, 19 people – two of them female-to-male transgender persons – have had sex-reassignment surgery so far, according to CENESEX.

“Now a trans person who has not had surgery is free to seek and win a name change, thanks to this precedent,” Vázquez said.

Speaking to IPS during the month-long events surrounding the International Day Against Homophobia, celebrated May 17, Adela Hernández, the only transgender member of a municipal assembly in Cuba, said she had started the process of applying for a name change on her ID card.

Hernández, a nurse and now a municipal assembly member in the city of Caibarién in the central province of Villa Clara, had to register as a candidate in the October-November 2012 municipal elections under the name José Agustín Hernández and with a photo that looks very different from the woman who won a majority of votes in her district.

Hernández is one of the special guests on this year’s agenda of educational, cultural and – for the first time – sports activities organised by CENESEX, which has led a month of anti-homophobia events every year since 2008.

On this occasion, the central activities took place May 14-17 in the city of Ciego de Ávila, 434 km east of Havana, ending with a festive march down the central avenue Libertad, with the demonstrators waving rainbow and Cuban flags and dancing in a conga line.

Mariela *, a 36-year-old mother, came to watch the conga line with her nine-year-old baby. “I haven’t taken part (in the activities), but I’m not against it,” she told IPS. “These events help families learn about sexual diversity and to respect it more, and help children and young people grow up better.”

But other people are still opposed to the campaign for respect for free sexual orientation and gender identity, which CENESEX carries out all year long, culminating in the May schedule of events, dedicated this year to families.

CENESEX director Mariela Castro said “the hardest thing is to change people’s mentalities,” in a country that is still heavily machista and homophobic. In fact, until the 1990s, “ostentatious public displays of homosexuality” were illegal.

Since 2012, the LGBT community and CENESEX have stepped up their activism demanding recognition of sexual rights as human rights in this country, which has no specific law against discrimination on the grounds of sexual orientation and gender identity.

The Cuban parliament has not yet debated the bill for a new “family code”, sponsored in 2008 by the non-governmental Federation of Cuban Women and other institutions. Among other things, the bill, aimed at updating the family code in effect since 1975, would recognise same-sex civil unions.

In Latin America, same-sex marriage is legal only in Argentina and Uruguay, as well as Mexico City and three states in Mexico. In Brazil, meanwhile, civil unions that confer nearly the same rights as marriage are legal, and on May 14, the National Council of Justice ordered civil registries to allow same-sex couples who apply for a marriage license to marry.

Vázquez called for a law on civil unions in Cuba, and said he supported the creation of a law on gender identity, as advocated by legal experts and activists.

But until such legislation is approved, the 26-year-old lawyer’s strategy is to train attorneys and judges on how to take advantage of existing laws in cases of violations of LGBT rights

“People also have to be brave, and report these crimes,” he said.

He mentioned the first workshop on the question of LGBT rights for lawyers and judges, held in the eastern city of Santiago de Cuba. CENESEX also plans to expand its legal services to other parts of the country.

“There is no law on the rights of homosexuals. There is only very vague language about it,” said Raquel Fernández of the Red de Lesbianas Atenea, a network of lesbians based in Ciego de Ávila. Domestic violence and limited access to housing or jobs due to homophobia are among the limitations that lesbians suffer the most, she told IPS.

*The source asked that her last name not be used.