Active Citizens

Global Governance: Time for Reform

By Andrew Firmin
At last the UN Security Council has passed a resolution calling for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza. While stopping short of demanding a permanent end to the violence, it goes further than the world’s peak peace and security body had so far managed since the start of the current brutal phase of conflict in October. But the time it’s taken to get to this point signals an ongoing failure of global institutions to uphold human rights.

Abandoned Children Growing Problem in Northern Syria

By Sonia Al Ali
Wael Al-Hassan was returning from work in the Syrian city of Harim when he heard the sound of a baby crying. He was returning from work on December 10, 2023. He stopped momentarily, turned on his mobile phone flashlight to investigate, and spotted a baby girl, around one month old, wrapped in a white blanket, lying by the roadside.

Building Resilience and Mental Health Capacity of Youth

By Cecilia Russell
Sri Lankan lawmaker Hector Appuhamy, in conversation with IPS ahead of a two-day conference aimed at educating  and involving university students in mental health issues, said parliamentarians were concerned about gaps in the programmes and financing for youth mental health. They were looking beyond the country's health budget for support in ensuring that youth were able to access mental health facilities in a supportive environment.

Women’s Land Rights in Farming Need Further Recognition

By Naureen Hossain
In the developing world, land rights for women remain tenuous in the agricultural sector. But if women farmers are recognized as landowners in their own right, it can lead to greater economic empowerment and be a positive step towards eradicating poverty. This formed part of the wider discussions that are being hosted during the 68th session of the Commission for the Status of Women (CSW68) in New York. The leading theme of CSW68 and its side events is the effort to accelerate gender equality by addressing poverty and strengthening institutions.

How Women in Ahmedabad Slums Are Beating Back Climate’s Deadly Heat

By Manipadma Jena
Seema Mali is desperate. She has no defences against this changing climate’s brutal heat. Mali makes fresh flower garland the whole year, but her summer income has been plummeting by 30 percent over the last 8–10 years due to the extreme heat.

Gender Rights: Resistance Against Regression

By Inés M. Pousadela
Global progress on gender rights has slowed almost to a halt. After decades of steady progress, demands for the rights of women and LGBTQI+ people now play out on bitterly contested territory. Over the course of several decades, global movements for rights won profound changes in consciences, customs and institutions. They elevated over half of humanity, excluded for centuries, to the status of holders of rights.

Beekeeping Offers Opportunity to Zimbabwean Farming Communities

By Farai Shawn Matiashe
Honeybees quickly react with a sharp and loud buzz sound as beekeeper Tanyaradzwa Kanangira opens one of the wooden horizontal Kenyan top bar hives near a stream in a thick forest in Chimanimani, 412 kilometres from Zimbabwe’s capital, Harare. The 26-year-old puffs some smoke, a safety measure, as he holds and inspects a honeycomb built from hexagons by the honey bees.

Stepping Up Investment in Latin American Women is Imperative

By Mariela Jara
Time is running out to achieve gender equality in Latin America and the Caribbean by 2030. The autonomy of women and girls in the region is threatened by hunger, poverty and violence, and countries must urgently step on the gas.

International Women’s Day, 2024
Rural Tajik Woman’s Road to Empowering Women Living with HIV

By Ed Holt
Born and raised in a rural area in a traditional Tajik family, Takhmina Haidarova managed to finish high school with excellent grades and wanted to go to university. “[But] it was compulsory for my family to give higher education to boys, and girls were trained to be housewives,” she says. Her dream of higher education was instead replaced by an arranged marriage to a cousin.

International Women’s Day, 2024
In a Fearless Gesture, Woman Police Officer Averts Mob Lynching

By Zofeen Ebrahim
Since the start of the year, there has been very little to celebrate for Pakistanis. Disrupted social media, escalating electricity, fuel, and food prices, and newly-held elections mired in controversy. But then, Assistant Superintendent of Police (ASP), Syeda Shehrbano Naqvi, did something that brightened the days of despair. The 31-year-old’s courageous overture and foresight in the face of a potentially explosive situation have given Pakistan a reason to stand among the countries on this year’s Women’s Day with pride.

UN Environmental Assembly Call for Action to Address Planetary Triple Threat

By Maina Waruru
The  Sixth United Nations Environmental Assembly (UNEA-6)  ended with delegates calling for firm actions to address the triple planetary crisis of climate change, nature loss, and pollution. The assembly also reaffirmed its call for “environmental multilateralism” in seeking solutions to the threats, noting that time was running out fast before the threats could besiege the planet and make life a bigger nightmare, especially for the underprivileged.

Female Genital Mutilation Continues Amid Sudan’s Conflict and Forced Displacement

By Paleki Ayang
Female genital mutilation (FGM) stands as one of the most egregious violations of human rights, particularly affecting women and girls worldwide. However, when conflict and forced displacement enter the equation, the horrors of FGM are exacerbated, creating a dire situation that demands urgent attention and action. Where instability and insecurity prevail, the prevalence of FGM often intensifies, exacerbated by factors such as displacement, poverty, and the breakdown of social systems.

Parcels for Prisoners: Exiled Myanmar Activists Keep the Revolutionary Faith

By William Webb
Rangoon Nights is rocking. The bar is on its feet and the cocktail shaker is shaking in abandon as the band Born In Burma starts pumping out its beat. Except we’re not in Rangoon or Burma (officially called Myanmar), but in the northern Thai town of Chiangmai which has evolved into a hub for activists, fugitives, and those taking a break from the war tearing their country apart.

Funding, Policy Changes Could Result in Countries Reaping Benefit of Migration

By Ignatius Banda
Amid an escalation of global conflict and climate change-induced displacements, the International Organization for Migration (IOM) is escalating its donor campaign. For the first time since the organization’s formation in 1951, the IOM says it is "proactively approaching all partners to fund this vital appeal," at a time when the number of migrants making perilous intercontinental journeys has increased.

#UNmute: Over 350 Civil Society Organizations Ask for Real Inclusion in UN Summit of the Future Negotiations

By Bibbi Abruzzini and Clarisse Sih, Forus
A coalition of over 350 civil society organisations part of the #UNmute initiative, shared concerns over the current engagement mechanisms for civil society at the UN – particularly in light of the upcoming Summit of the Future.

Coastal Indigenous and Minority Women Driving Kenya’s Blue Forest Conservation Efforts

By Joyce Chimbi
Tsunza Peninsula is a natural wonder that sits just inside the many inlets of Mombasa Island on the border between Mombasa and Kwale Counties—a little-known spectacle of lagoons, islands, and thick mangroves in Kinango Sub-County, Kwale County, on Kenya’s coastal region. 

Inside Kenya’s Seed Control Battle: Why Smallholder Farmers Want to Share Indigenous Seeds

By Jackson Ambole
A group of 15 smallholder farmers in Kenya petitioned the country’s High Court, seeking to compel the government to review sections of a law that bans the sharing and exchange of uncertified and unregistered seeds.

New Anti-Rape Crisis Centre Brings Hope for Sexual Abuse Survivors in Pakistan

By Ashfaq Yusufzai
Medical experts and women's rights activists are pinning hopes on the establishment of an anti-rape crisis centre for the provision of medical and legal aid to victims of sexual assaults in a timely manner will ensure convictions. Currently, it takes years to bring the perpetrators of rape to justice due to a lack of evidence and more often than not, the accused get acquitted.

Another World Seen Through the Lenses of Gender and Sexuality

By Tanka Dhakal
On a white canvas, people were painting different structures, objects and creatures in a range of colours. Kavita Sada Musahar’s creation was on its way to becoming a painting — with houses, humans, birds, trees and rivers — and a bright red heart.

Local Knowledge and Women’s Leadership are Key to Food Justice: Activists

By Tanka Dhakal
Manjula Dungdung is explaining why she is fighting for land and agricultural rights for herself and other members of the Kharia tribe, who grow the food they eat. “Women’s right to land is especially important because it is an issue of our dignity, and since we are the ones who do most of the agricultural work, it is to maintain food security.”

World Social Forum Insists: Another World is Possible!

By Marty Logan
These are the worst of times, but they can become the best of times, said speaker Dr. Walden Bello, seeking to inspire thousands of progressives who gathered for the World Social Forum (WSF) in Kathmandu on Thursday with the planet under clouds of armed conflict and assaults on democracy.
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