Abusers are often family members, making victims reluctant to report the violence. Credit: Boris Bartels/cc by 2.0

By Chau Ngo
UNITED NATIONS, Aug 14 2014 (IPS)

A veteran women’s rights activist, Patricia Brownell was still taken aback by the prevalence of abuse against older women she discovered during dozens of conversations she and her colleagues had with victims.

They found that for every one official report of abuse made by agencies in New York State, there are 23 self-reports, with the abusers ranging from husbands, sons, daughters and other relatives to complete strangers.“In many cases, the victims did not want to talk about it. They felt guilty. They felt it was their fault.” -- Patricia Brownell

“It’s underreported,” Brownell, vice president of the National Committee for the Prevention of Elder Abuse, told IPS. “In many cases, the victims did not want to talk about it. They felt guilty. They felt it was their fault.”

Most research on the abuse of older women has focused on North America and Europe. A study conducted in five European countries in 2011 found that around 28 percent of older women had experienced abuse.

The situation in developing countries, where the socio-economic conditions are worse and the welfare system weaker, mostly remains unknown.

“It could be worse,” said Brownell, citing harmful traditional practices against widows or those accused of witchcraft in some developing countries. “It really introduces another dimension of abuse against older women. It’s community abuse.”

Violence directed against younger women has long overshadowed that against the elderly, who in some cases are more vulnerable. There has been so little research into the issue that activists said they do not know its full scope yet, hampering efforts to prevent and fight the violence.

Abuse of older women can take various forms, from physical, psychological and emotional (verbal aggression or threats), to sexual, financial (swindling, theft), and intentional or unintentional neglect, according to the World Health Organisation (WHO).

Addressing the Fifth Working Group on Aging at the United Nations in New York, Silvia Perel-Levin, chair of the NGO Committee on Ageing in Geneva, showed how fragmented the picture is: the prevalence of abuse ranges from six percent to 44 percent of those surveyed, depending on the geographic location and socio-economic conditions. 

While there has been an increase in reports of abuse and violence against older women in the past few years, it does not necessarily mean the problem is worsening, Perel-Levin told IPS.

“I believe [violence and abuse] have always been there, but they were never investigated, never reported,” she said. “That was always a taboo. We don’t have enough data about violence against older women.”

A long-neglected issue

The issue has been neglected partly because of the misconception that older women are less likely to suffer from domestic violence, activists said. Studies on domestic violence and reproductive health tend to examine the situation of women under 49 years old. The age range has only been broadened recently.

“People may think that older women are not subject to rape, and that their husbands stop beating them because they are 50,” said Perel-Levin. “This is not true.”

For many women, the abuse begins later in life. The abusers are sometimes beloved family members, which complicates the situation, as the victims are reluctant to report the violence.

Living with an extended family does not guarantee protection, because in many cases, the sons and other family members are the abusers. In several Asian countries, the daughters-in-law, who are expected to take care of their husbands’ aged parents, sometimes turn out to be abusers, activists said.

In developing countries, the situation is difficult for the victims even when they report the abuses, said Kazi Reazul Hoque of the Bangladesh National Human Rights Commission.

The older women in that South Asian country most likely to face abuse and violence are from ethnic minorities and religious communities, Hoque, a former judge, told IPS. These are already weaker and poorer communities, which encouraged the offenders to commit violence.

“Even when they bring the case to the court, it’s still difficult for them to pursue ‘the war’,” he said. “How long can these poor people fight?”

Activists have been calling for more research into violence against older women, such as by U.N. Women, the United Nations agency for gender equality and women’s empowerment.

James Collins, representative to the United Nations of the International Council on Social Welfare, told IPS, “We will continue to raise this issue during the events of the Sustainable Development Goals. We’re here push for the rights of older people.”

Edited by: Kitty Stapp

The writer can be contacted at ngocchau4009@gmail.com

In January, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon visited the Kawrgosik Refugee Camp near Erbil, in the Kurdistan region of Iraq, where more than 200,000 refugees from Syria are being hosted by the regional government. Credit: UN Photo/Eskinder Debebe

By Chau Ngo
UNITED NATIONS, Jul 28 2014 (IPS)

As the ambulance stopped in Iraq’s northern city of Kirkuk, people rushed in to help. They unloaded six children, from several months to 11 years old, all injured allegedly by an air attack in the neighbouring town of Tuz Khurmatu.

“The situation in Iraq is grave,” said Tirana Hassan, senior emergencies researcher at Human Rights Watch, recalling a scene she witnessed during a recent research trip there.“Families, including those with children, are stuck in the middle of an increasingly violent war and they are paying the price." -- Tirana Hassan

“Families, including those with children, are stuck in the middle of an increasingly violent war and they are paying the price,” she told IPS.

Nearly two months since the outbreak of violence between Islamist militants and Iraqi government forces, civilian casualties have surged. In June alone, 1,500 people were killed, the highest in a month since 2008, the United Nations Assistance Mission for Iraq (UNAMI) said.

“In all conflict-affected areas, child casualties due to indiscriminate or systematic attacks by armed groups and by government shelling on populated areas have been on the rise,” said UNAMI.

Activists have also reported child casualties caused by government airstrikes against fighters from the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIS).

“We documented multiple cases of barrel bombs being used in Fallujah that had killed children and women,” Hassan said. “Using indiscriminate weapons in areas where children and their families are living is a violation of international law.”

Iraq has now become one of the most dangerous places on earth to be a child. UNAMI said it has also documented “systematic and egregious violations” by the Islamic State against children, including sexual violence and rape, killing and physical violence, forced recruitment.

The newly reported violence and casualties are the continuation of children’s suffering in Iraq in the past decade. More than 7,800 civilians were killed last year, the highest since the U.N. started a systematic count of civilian casualties in the country in 2008, according to a U.N. report.

Among these casualties, 248 were children, which were caused by the Islamic State and Al-Qaida in Iraq, the U.N. said. According to the Iraqi government, the number could be even higher, with 335 children killed and 1,300 injured.

By early June, at least 1.2 million Iraqis had fled their homes because of the violence, most seeking refuge in temporary housing, internally displaced persons’ (IDP) camps or with local host families, according to the U.N.

“A large number of IDP children are in dire need of assistance,” Alec Wargo, programme officer at the Office of the Special Representative of the U.N. Secretary-General for Children and Armed Conflict, told IPS.

He added that there have been reports of children who have been recruited by the insurgents and armed groups being killed or injured in fighting. The U.N. and the Iraqi government have been working to deal with the situation, he said.

So far there has been no official report about the situation of the children in areas under the Islamic State’s control, but Wargo said it “does not look good.” In the areas controlled by the government, the U.N. has said it is seriously concerned over the government’s inadequate attention to the impact of the conflict on children.

According to the U.N., violence against children in Iraq could be underreported, especially abduction cases, due to the difficulties in collecting information and the families’ reluctance to report to the police.

There are no official statistics on the number of children recruited as soldiers, but UNAMI said it has received reports of children being recruited by all sides of the conflict, including by government-affiliated forces. They have been used as informants, in some cases as suicide bombers, for manning checkpoints and for fighting, it said.

“Even though the government of Iraq does not have control over some of the country, it still has a prime responsibility to respect and protect the rights of children, and prevent their unlawful military recruitment and use,” Richard Clarke, Director of Child Soldiers International, told IPS.

The London-based organisation works to prevent the recruitment of children as soldiers and support their rehabilitation.

“The government must take all necessary legal, policy and practical measures to end and prevent child recruitment by the forces under its control and should seek the assistance of international organizations to achieve this,” Clarke said.

Editing by: Kitty Stapp

The writer can be contacted at ngocchau4009@gmail.com

Violence has resulted in widespread deaths in the Central African Republic (CAR) in one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises.

One in three families surveyed lost at least one family member between November 2013 and April 2014, the medical humanitarian organisation by Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF), or Doctors Without Borders, said in a report.

About 95 percent of the over 2,000 casualties examined derived from gunshot, grenade or other blast wounds, it said.

“It is a disaster characterised by unspeakable violence targeted against civilian populations, catastrophic levels of preventable disease and death,” said Sylvain Groulx, MSF Head of Mission in CAR. “CAR has devolved into a nightmare of even graver proportions.”

The country of 4.6 million people in central Africa has been wracked by violence between the anti-Balaka Christian militants and the Seleka-aligned Muslims.

A country rich in oil, gold and uranium, CAR has one of the world’s lowest gross national income per capita, at 320 dollars in 2013, according to the World Bank (WB). Its life expectancy is also among the shortest, at 49 in 2012.

Violence targeted at the Muslim minority has driven nearly all the Muslim population in the western area of the country to fled in several months, said MSF. However, they continued to face risks while seeking refuge in neighboring countries.

Hundreds of people died during the transfer to Chad, most of them due to violence, MSF said, adding that Chad’s decision to close its border for security reasons in May has complicated the situation of the Central African refugees. More than 120,000 people have sought refuge in Chad since last December.

“While Chad has the legitimate right to maintain the security of its territory, it is crucial that the fundamental right for people to flee violence is guaranteed and respected,” said Dounia Dekhili, Deputy Manager of MSF Emergency Programmes.

Asia and Africa are seeing a faster pace of urbanisation than the rest of the world and the trend is expected to continue, posing challenges for governments to provide public services and manage migration issues.

All regions in the world will further urbanise in the next decades, in which Asia and Africa, now accounting for nearly 90 percent of the world’s rural population, will be home to most of the urbanisation process, the United Nations said in its 2014 World Urbanisation Prospects report released here.

Nearly 64 percent of Asians and 56 percent of Africans will live in cities by 2050, an increase from today’s 48 percent and 40 percent respectively, according to the report. India now has the largest rural population in the world, with 850 million people.

The ongoing urbanisation trend requires governments worldwide to plan for and manage the changes in population distribution and migration, said John Wilmoth, Director of the Population Division of the U.N. Department of Economic and Social Affairs (DESA).

“The thing to be afraid of is the situation in which governments do not plan for the growth that’s going to take place, then you can get sprawl and slumps,” he said. “It’s very important to anticipate the growth that’s going to take place.”

The world’s urban population exceeded the rural one for the first time in 2007 and today around 54 percent of global population live in cities. The ratio is expected to increase to 66 percent by 2050, the U.N. said.

Tokyo is the world’s largest cities with around 38 million people, followed by Delhi with 25 million and Shanghai’s 23 million, according to the report.

The U.N. has also urged countries to produce extensive and better quality data on their population trends, which would help them to better manage urbanisation issues and ensure sustainable development.

“Accurate, consistent and timely data on global trends in urbanisation and city growth are critical for assessing current and future needs with respect to urban growth and for setting policy priorities to promote inclusive and equitable urban and rural development,” it said.

Poverty reduction has been slowing despite the swift economic development worldwide in the past 20 years, as a result of increasing inequality between countries and within the nations.

The pace of poverty reduction was faster in the 1990-2000 period than in the following decade, in contrast to that for trade and income, which grew more quickly after 2000, according to Social Watch, a network of citizen organisations advocating poverty eradication and ending discrimination.

“Slowing progress on social indicators will only get worse as the impact of the global financial, economic food and energy crisis is being registered in internationally comparable statistics,” the Uruguay-based advocacy group said in its 2014 report.

Social Watch said its Basic Capabilities Index (BCI), designed to measure progress in the Millennium Development Goals components, climbed by 7 percentage points between 1990 and 2010, adding this was “very little progress”.

In the same period, the world’s exports increased by five times and inhabitants’ average income doubled, it said.

The United Nations said earlier this week global poverty has been halved five years ahead of the targeted timeframe 2015, with around 22 percent of the world’s population living in poverty as of 2010.

However, Social Watch said poverty reduction progress has not been sufficient because the bar for these efforts has been lowered.

“The message to the governments of the world is, therefore, that nothing needs to change to win this war,” it said.

The World Bank classified “absolute poverty” in low-income developing countries as a person living on less than 30 U.S. cents a day in 1973, which is now equivalent to 1.6 dollars, adjusted to inflation, Social Watch said. Today, the World Bank is keeping the threshold at 1.25 dollars.

Environment should be among the top issues to be addressed by China in its urbanisation spree to ensure sustainable development, according to panelists at a discussion here Tuesday.

“I deeply hope that carbon capture and sequestration can work at a significant scale and this would be the number one option for China, because it’s a coal-based economy,” Prof. Jeffrey Sachs, Special Advisor to the Secretary-General on Millennial Development Goals, told the audience at a discussion on China’s initiatives on city development.

“This is the time for sustainable development within China and globally.”

Coal accounts for about 70 percent of China’s total energy consumption, according to the World Bank. The country is also the world’s largest coal producer and consumer, with half of the global consumption of the fossil fuel.

Urbanisation has taken place swiftly in China in the past 30 years following economic expansion. As of 2012, around 52.6 percent of the country’s population lived in urban areas, a jump from 36 percent in the early 2000s.

China said it expects the urbanisation ratio to reach 60 percent by 2020, meaning around 800 million people will be living in cities.

China’s urbanisation, which is the swiftest and largest in human history, has placed the country in the face of various issues, including the misuse of land, hardships of migrant workers, environmental issues.

Pollution in China’s cities is a popular topic in media coverage. The U.N. Environment Programme (UNEP) has also warned the country about health issues as a result of heavy air pollution, with hundreds of thousands of people being affected.

China said it has adopted a plan to deal with the issues arising from its urbanisation process, in which it aims to seek new ways to ensure sustainable development.

Drug transactions are usually conducted using the online peer-to-peer currency bitcoin, which remains in escrow until it is transferred to the seller after the product is delivered. Credit: BTC keychain/cc by 2.0

By Chau Ngo
UNITED NATIONS, Jul 3 2014 (IPS)

In its two years of operation, the online marketplace Silk Road raked in 1.2 billion dollars in revenue and amassed an estimated 200,000 registered users – a success story that would be any start-up’s dream.

But the site was shut down by the FBI last October amid charges that it was essentially the Amazon.com of illegal drugs, shedding light on the increasing sophistication of a cyber drug trade that offers both buyers and dealers high-tech anonymity.“The new markets that have replaced Silk Road can now encrypt all communications and use advanced techniques to launder the bitcoins used in transactions." -- Prof. David Hetu

In its World Drug Report 2014 released last week, the United Nations Office on Drug and Crime (UNODC) warns that illicit online drug sales will pose unique challenges for law enforcement.

“The online marketplace for illicit drugs is becoming larger and more brazen,” it said. “If the past trend continues, it has the potential to become a popular mode of trafficking in controlled substances in years to come.”

The growth of online drug dealing has gone hand in hand with advancements in technology. The UNODC’s review of global drug seizure data shows that cannabis seizures obtained through the postal service rose 300 percent in the decade from 2000 to 2011.

The majority of the reported seizures came from Europe and the Americas, with high-quality drugs and new psychoactive substances, according to the report.

Governments’ efforts to curb this crime brought down a number of networks last year, with Silk Road being the most prominent case so far. The United States’ Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) arrested the website’s owner, Ross Ulbricht, a 29-year-old physics graduate, and seized bitcoins worth 33.6 million dollars at the time of the capture.

Silk Road was for some time the most sophisticated and extensive marketplace on the Internet, where dealers sell illegal goods and services, including illicit drugs of almost every variety, the FBI said.

So far the value of cyberspace drug trafficking is still marginal in comparison with the overall drug trade, which is in the hundreds of billions of dollars, according to David Hetu, assistant professor of criminology at the University of Montreal, who specialises in cybercrime. But the upward trend is troubling.

“We are seeing an exponential growth of virtual drug markets,” he told IPS. “What we have seen is a lot of markets with a heavy focus on drugs and prescription drugs.”  

There are some 200,000 drug-related deaths worldwide every year, and 39 million people had drug disorders or dependence in 2012, according to the U.N. Despite a stabilisation of drug use around the world, illicit opium production still rose to a record level last year, with Afghanistan continuing to be the world’s largest producer.

Taking advantage of high tech

Online drug trading has existed since the early days of the Internet. However, its sophistication has only accelerated recently, experts say. Technology has enabled online dealers to offer goods and services, and make transactions anonymously.

“Two distinct technologies that have emerged in the past decade – anonymous networks such as Tor, and pseudonymous payments systems such as Bitcoin – have made it possible to create online anonymous markets which provide reasonably good anonymity guarantees,” Nicolas Christin, assistant research professor at Carnegie Mellon University, told IPS.

“This is the most important development in online drug dealing in the past three years.”

In his research paper “Traveling the ‘Silk Road’: a measurement analysis of a large anonymous online marketplace,” Christin noted that the top three items for sale on this website were “weed”, “drugs” and “prescriptions”.

Introduced in 2009 as a virtual currency, the bitcoin has no physical existence. Operating on an electronic system built on the peer-to-peer network where users are directly connected instead of going through the central servers in the traditional system, transactions in bitcoins are almost untraceable and anonymous.

Despite not being recognised by any central bank or government, the bitcoin is widely seen as not being illegal. People can buy anything from from pizzas to houses with bitcoins, as long as the sellers accept it.

Tor, or The Onion Router, is software that enables data to transmit globally almost untraceably. It allows users to connect to another location in the network while keeping their Internet Protocol address invisible – known as the Dark Net.

Because of the technical issues, buying drugs online is more complicated than in the streets, said David Hetu. However, it is not too difficult for those who seek to circumvent law enforcement. All that a buyer needs to do is to buy bitcoins online, install Tor, choose to buy drugs from the listings and have it delivered at home through the postal service.

For dealers, drug trafficking has become easier with technology. After Road Silk was taken down by the FBI last year, new markets emerged just within days.

“The new markets that have replaced Silk Road can now encrypt all communications and use advanced techniques to launder the bitcoins used in transactions,” Hetu said.

“This makes it much more difficult for law enforcement to trace buyers and vendors.”

International cooperation

There is no reliable data on how many people are buying drugs online, but the types of drugs being sold are multiplying, according to the UNODC.

Before its shutdown, Silk Road was the marketplace for a vast majority of illegal drugs, with nearly 13,000 listings of controlled drugs, the FBI said. Despite the anonymity of transactions, the FBI said dealers might be located in more than 10 countries, stretching from North America to Europe.

Cyberspace drug dealing is particularly challenging, as offenders can easily and quickly adapt their practices to avoid risks posed by law enforcement, Thomas Holt, an assistant professor at Michigan State University’s School of Criminal Justice, told IPS.

Holt, whose research focuses on cybercrime and identity theft, said that law enforcement agencies need to engage in undercover operations to understand the practices of buyers and sellers within the market.

“International cooperation is essential to these efforts as the buyers and sellers may be half a world away from one another,” he said.

“Incorporating postal inspectors, customs agents, and other agencies is vital to ensure that points in the supply chain could be more effectively cut off and make it more difficult for buyers to obtain products.”

Illicit opium production rose last year to nearly 300,000 hectares, the largest since estimates became available, with Afghan heroin reaching new markets, according to a United Nations report.

Afghanistan, which has been the world’s largest opium producer, accounted for 209,000 hectares, or 70 percent of the total cultivation area, said the World Drug Report 2014 released on Thursday by the U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC).

“There is evidence that Afghan heroin is increasingly reaching new markets, such as Oceania and Southeast Asia, that had been traditionally supplied from Southeast Asia,” the report said.

“The so-called ‘southern route’ is expanding, with heroin being smuggled through the area south of Afghanistan reaching Europe, via the Near and Middle East and Africa, as well as directly from Pakistan.”

Apart from Afghanistan, Myanmar saw an increase in the area of opium cultivation, according to the report.

The report also presents the latest development of the use of opiates, cocaine, cannabis and amphetamines, and their impacts on the users’ health. Up to 200,000 people worldwide die of drug-related issues every year despite the stabilisation of its use, the report said.

Between 3.5 percent and 7.0 percent of the world’s population at the age of 15-64 had used an illicit drug at least once by 2012 while up to 39 million people worldwide had drug use disorders or dependence in 2012, relatively similar to the previous years, according to the report.

“We must continue to enhance international cooperation, including with respect to transparent sharing of data and analysis, to help us better understand the drug problem and address the many challenges, including the related issues of violence and insecurity,” UNODC Executive Director Yury Fedotov said.

This report also provides the joint estimates about the number of people injecting drugs and living with HIV from the UNODC, the World Health Organization (WHO), the Joint UN Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) and the World Bank, the U.N. said.

The surging violence in Iraq killed more than 1,000 people and left another 1,000 injured within two weeks since the dramatic rise of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) earlier this month, the United Nations said Tuesday.

“This figure – which should be viewed very much as a minimum – includes a number of verified summary executions and extra-judicial killings of civilians, police, and soldiers who were hors (de) combat,” said Rupert Colville, spokesperson for the Office of the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), using a French term for soldiers who are no longer combatants.

There have been further abductions in Baghdad and the northern provinces, some of which involved killings, the OHCHR said, adding that there has been evidence of summary executions.

The ISIL ousted Iraqi troops and seized Mosul, Iraq’s second-largest city, earlier this month and has continued to take control of the country’s northern region since. The ISIL, which grew out of al-Qaeda, aims to form an Islamic emirate at the heart of the Middle East.

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has condemned the violence “at the hands of terrorist groups” including ISIL, saying the mass summary executions by the group are deeply disturbing.

He also warned against “sectarian rhetoric that could further exacerbate the conflict and carry grave implications for the entire region,” the U.N. said.

At least 757 civilians were killed and 599 injured in provinces to the north and east of Baghdad in 17 days since June 5, while an additional 318 lost their lives and 590 were wounded in Baghdad and southern areas, said the U.N. Assistance Mission in Iraq (UNAMI).

Apart from ISIL’s violence, the UNAMI also said it has received reports about abuses by the government-run Iraqi Security Forces’ (ISF), including executions of at least 41 prisoners.

“We urge the Iraqi authorities to swiftly carry out their obligation to thoroughly investigate these, and any other, reported summary executions and all other violations by their personnel,” the OHCHR said.

The spreading violence has resulted in a critical humanitarian situation in Iraq, the U.N. has said. Around one million Iraqis have been displaced so far this year while there have been reports about children being recruited and used as suicide bombers by the militias, it said.

United Nations officials on Monday voiced their concerns over the verdicts and sentences of three Al Jazeera journalists and 11 others who were tried in absentia in Egypt, and called on the country to review the handling of these cases.

U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon was  “deeply concerned” by the death sentences of 183 people and the heavy sentencing of journalists in Egypt, his spokesperson Stephane Dujarric told reporters Monday.

“Proceedings that clearly appear not to meet basic fair trial standards, particularly those resulting in the imposition of the death penalty, are likely to undermine prospects for long-term stability,” Ban was quoted as saying.

An Egyptian court sentenced two Al Jazeera journalists – Peter Greste and Mohamed Fahmy – to seven years of imprisonment and Baher Mohamed to ten years on charges of supporting the Muslim Brotherhood and spreading false information, the news network said Monday.

The three reporters have been detained for more than 170 days and have rejected the charges, it added.

The court rulings left U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay “shocked and alarmed,” her office said in a statement, adding that these verdicts, together with the confirmation of the death penalty for 183 Muslim Brotherhood members and supporters, added to a string of prosecutions that have been “rife with procedural irregularities and in breach of international human rights law.”

“Harassment, detention and prosecution of national and international journalists, including bloggers, as well as violent attacks by unidentified assailants, have become commonplace,” she said.

“It is not a crime to carry a camera, or to try to report various points of views about events.”

Pillay called on the Egyptian authorities to release all journalists who have been detained for doing their job. “Media employees trying to carry out their work in Egypt are now confronted by an extremely difficult and dangerous environment,” she said. “They should be protected not prosecuted.”

The three journalists’ verdicts have drawn attention from activist groups. Human Rights Watch said prosecutors could not provide credible evidence of criminal wrongdoing, and urged the Egyptian government to drop charges and free the journalists.

According to the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), 65 journalists have been detained in Egypt since last July with most of them having been released. However, 14 journalists are still imprisoned.

“CPJ has repeatedly called on the Egyptian government and newly elected President Abdel-Fattah el-Sisi to do all they can to see that all journalists being held in Egypt, including the three Al-Jazeera staff members jailed since December, are set free,” the watchdog group said.

Many countries have refrained from reporting their small arms exports while the weapons trade has continued to boom, according to a report released here.

“More than half of the countries under review do not provide any information on licenses granted or refused, despite the categories’ overall importance of transparency,” the Small Arms Survey, a project of Switzerland’s Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies, said in its annual report on Monday.

The project assessed the small arms and light weapons exports in 2012 of 55 countries. Iran, North Korea, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) are the least transparent, the Geneva-based research project said.

The Institute said the project intends to operate as an independent source of information about small arms and armed violence for governments, policy makers, researchers and activists.

Despite many countries’ modest reporting activities, the overall transparency in publicising information slightly improved from the previous year, with Switzerland taking the lead, followed by Germany, Serbia and the United Kingdom.

The transfer of small arms and light weapons flourished in the 2001-2011 period, with the total value of global authorised trade almost doubling to 4.63 billion dollars in 2011, according to the U.N. Comtrade data reviewed by Small Arms Survey. The United States, Italy and Germany are respectively the three largest exporters.

The U.N. General Assembly adopted the Arms Trade Treaty (ATT) last year in an attempt to foster security and promote information transparency in global arms trade. So far 118 countries have signed the treaty, of which 40 nations have ratified. The treaty will take effect once it has been ratified or acceded to by 50 countries.

Technical issues regarding how to report arms trade may also hamper transparency, according to the survey. Despite requiring each country to provide an annual report on authorised and actual arms exports and imports, the ATT does not specify the types of information to be provided.

The treaty allows the countries to send the same information they provide to the U.N. Register of Conventional Arms.

“States parties will need to draw inspiration from other frameworks for small arms transfer reporting, such as U.N. Comtrade and national arms export reports,” it said. “ATT reporting practises that stop at the U.N. Register would fall well short of what is possible and feasible.”

A priest who spent decades treating patients in Africa and a non-governmental organisation (NGO) have received the 2014 U.N. Population Award for their contributions to the world’s population and health issues.

Catholic Father Aldo Marchesini of Italy and the John Hopkins Programme for International Education in Gynecology and Obstetrics (JHPIEGO) received the prize last week at a ceremony organised by the U.N. Population Fund (UNFPA).

“The Population Award is the expression of our joint committment to ensure a life of dignity for all and build a world where every pregnancy is wanted, every birth is safe and every young person’s potential is fulfilled,” said U.N. Deputy Secretary-General Jan Eliasson at the ceremony.

The U.N. Population Award, established in 1981, is given annually to individuals and institutions who contribute to address population issues including family planning, maternal health.

Father Marchesini, who is also a medical doctor, spent 43 years in Africa, mostly Mozambique, treating obstetric fistula in impoverished areas. He worked in conflict zones and was kidnapped and imprisoned several times. He got infected with HIV while treating the patients in poor medical conditions.

Father Marchesini worked as the only medical doctor to treat obstetric fistula in Mozambique in many years and trained all the physicians in this field in the country. Apart from treating the patients, he helped to raise fund to support their transportation and meals.

JHPIEGO, a non-profit health organisation affiliated with Johns Hopkins University, has been contributing towards preventing maternal deaths. Since its establishment in 1973, it has trained more than half a million health practictioners in family planning and maternal health in 160 countries.

Since UNFPA started operation in 1969, the rate of women dying from pregnancy and childbirth-related isues has been halved, it said.

The organisation trains health workers to introduce family planning services and prevent maternal deaths, educates about people family planning, and avocates for young people’s welfare.