Developing countries – in Africa, in Asia, in Latin America and in the Middle East - are facing a combination of crises that are unprecedented in recent times. Over the last three years they have had to face the COVID-19 crisis, the food crisis, the energy crisis, the climate change crisis, the debt crisis and, on top of all this, a global recession. The crises have overlapped, and each has added to the problems created by the previous ones.
Samuel Sasu Adonteng, programme officer for the All-Africa Students Union (AASU), believes that the recent 5th Global Conference on the Elimination of Child Labour has taken us closer to ending child labour for the first time because the voices of those affected were heard.
Against a backdrop of ongoing social changes, education is becoming increasingly important for success in life. But with disasters, pandemics, armed conflicts, and political crises forcing children out of school, a future of success is often placed far out of reach.
The year 2019 was not just a time before the world saw the global pandemic, but also a time when the world saw mass political uprisings with women at the forefront. The MENA region in a way led this force, in Sudan
women played as drivers of the revolution, protesting decades of corruption, socioeconomic grievances and gendered violence.
Nubian queen became the symbol of the revolution in Sudan which finally saw the overthrow of the dictatorship in 2019.
The Asia-Pacific region is at a crossroads today – to further breakdown or breakthrough to a greener, better, safer future.
Since the Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP) was established in 1947, the region has made extraordinary progress, emerging as a pacesetter of global economic growth that has lifted millions out of poverty.
"Education is the most powerful weapon you can use to eliminate child labour." So said Dennis Sinyolo, Director of Education International's African Regional Office in Accra, Ghana adapting liberation icon and late South African president Nelson Mandela's famous quote about how education can change the world.
Tara Banjara was four and a half years old when her parents put her to work on the roads, cleaning the garbage and rubble out of potholes to prepare for construction in Nemdi village, Rajasthan, India. She worked in the wind, cold, and rain with her mother, day in and day out, year in and year out. She would return home shattered, too exhausted to eat before falling asleep each night.
Children's voices took centre stage at the 5th Global Conference on the Elimination of Child Labour, which kicked off in Durban, South Africa, on May 15, 2022. Their voices resonated with the saying: "Nothing about us without us."
The Global Estimate on Child Labour estimates 160 million children are in child labour worldwide – an increase of 8.4 million children in the last four years – with millions more at risk due to the impacts of COVID-19.
Children washing clothes in rivers, begging on the streets, hawking, walking for kilometres in search of water and firewood, their tiny hands competing with older, experienced hands to pick coffee or tea, or as child soldiers are familiar sights in Africa and Asia.
When it comes to gender equality and development, the Middle East, North Africa (MENA) and the Arab States region continues to be in a paradoxical situation. While within the region,
several laws, policies and programming focused on gender equality are growing, women’s representation in government jobs, corporate roles, and national programming seem to be dismissed. Healthcare, education have seen improvement, most countries have become tech inclusive as well, but access to hospitals and educational institutions –at times due to social programming or gender-related policies continues to prevent women from accessing them and using them.
Conflicts in Northern Ethiopia’s regions of Afar, Amhara and Tigray, have pushed children and adolescents out of school and are fueling humanitarian needs in the region. In response to this crisis, Education Cannot Wait (
ECW) announced today a US$2 million First Emergency Response Grant that will reach more than 20,000 refugee and displaced, as well as host community children and adolescents. This brings ECW ongoing investments in
Ethiopia to over $30 million.
“I first think about my children. They are why we were forced to leave - because our children are always our first concern.”
These are the moving words of Victoria, who fled the brutal war in Ukraine with her two daughters. Her eyes welling up with tears, she recalled their dangerous journey from Ukraine. She and her two school-aged daughters were forced to leave behind everything they have ever known.
This is our third episode on the ongoing movements of people around the world. You can listen to the previous ones, the first about
climate migrants and the second
on remittances, on any podcast app.
Fourteen-year-old Hadiza smiles as she clutches a purple bag in her hands. Inside the cloth bag is a Menstrual Hygiene Management kit, an essential item that gives her dignity and enables her to continue with school even when menstruating.
"I like lettuce, but not tomatoes and cucumbers," said nine-year-old Paulo Henrique da Silva de Jesus, a third grader at the João Baptista Caffaro Municipal School in the southeastern Brazilian city of Itaboraí.
Today, approximately
19 million young women are accessing post-secondary or tertiary education in India. Yet, such education has not translated into expected gains in female labour force participation. Only
34 percent of women in India with post-secondary education are active in the labour force, compared to
81 percent of men.
It was a long, harrowing road for Freshta and Shabaneh, two mothers (their names are pseudonyms) who fled Kabul, Afghanistan, late last summer before eventually settling in the southern New Jersey township of Hamilton.
The Karnataka court’s verdict to uphold the hijab ban has intensified the protest in the state. The row has been typically perceived by many as manufactured by the politicians pointing to the culture of politics in the state. While the jury is still out there on this, evidence on how state’s local culture constructs and deconstructs religious identity allows drawing conclusions with some definitiveness. The culture of state’s politics is one side of the coin. Considering its flip side – politics of culture, particularly of the religious cultural identity, is just as relevant.