Free at Last: Trafficked Woman’s Story a Warning to Other Vulnerable Job Seekers

When Kamikazi * from Gisagara, a district in Southern Rwanda, was forced to quit her job due to COVID-19 last year, she desperately sought other employment.

Once Tossed and Abused, Human Trafficking Survivor Finds Solace

For over two decades, Nina tossed around like a leaf in a storm. While a teenager, she was lured into the sex trade, and pimps kept a huge chunk of the money that she earned as a sex slave. Nina was often bruised. Once, she refused sex with a man who did not want to use a condom. He beat her so severely that she had found it difficult to breathe.

2021: A Grim Year for Planet Earth

Between the COVID-19 pandemic and the deadly manifestations of the climate crisis, there were few places to hide for most of us in 2021. Ageing billionaires riding booming stock markets could take their first flights into space in their own rockets, but for the rest of Planet Earth’s 8 billion people with their feet on the ground it was a year of placing hope in the hands of scientists and our political leaders to turn the tide.

Vaccines, Diagnostics and Therapeutics as Global Public Goods

Countries in the Asia-Pacific region are trying their best to deal with the COVID-19 pandemic by rapidly rolling out vaccination programmes and putting in place public health interventions to reduce its impact. At the end of November, there were 262 million confirmed COVID-19 cases and 5.2 million deaths globally. About 60 per cent of all COVID-19 cases and half of all COVID-19 related deaths were in Asia and the Pacific. About 7.8 billion vaccines have been administered globally, and vaccine supply is generally improving.

Covid-19 Has Accelerated New Agtech Development and Adoption in Asia-Pacific!

While the COVID-19 impact has been predominantly negative, the pandemic appears to have sparked increased interest in developing agricultural technology (agtech) to improve the efficiency of food systems, from input supplies through farming and processing to delivery and retail.

Trafficked and Trapped in Libya: A Nigerian Woman’s Story

Miriam* hoped for a better life in Europe. Instead, her journey ended in Libya, where, double-crossed by traffickers she was raped and abused.  She has returned to Nigeria and shared her experiences with Sam Olukoya.

The Future of an Entire Generation Hangs in the Balance

COVID-19 has upended our world, threatening our health, destroying economies and livelihoods, and deepening poverty and inequalities. It also created the single largest disruption to education systems that the world has ever seen.

Youth at Forefront of Climate Change Action Will Make Biggest Impact

On Gladys Habu’s birthday, she filmed a message to world leaders while standing waist-deep in the sea next to a dead tree stump – the only remnant of Kale Island now submerged underwater due to climate-change-induced sea-level rise.

Cool Scheme to Reduce Food Waste in Nigeria

Food spoilage forced smallholder farmers out of pocket and out of business – until an entrepreneur came up with a cool idea.

Greed-Driven Pandemic Still Killing Millions

Failure to vaccinate most in poor countries sustains the COVID-19 pandemic. Rich country greed and patent monopolies block developing countries from affordably making the means to protect themselves. Mutant menace The SARS-CoV-2 virus has been mutating as it replicates. Numerous replications in hundreds of millions of hosts have generated many variants. Some mutations are more resilient than others, and better able to overcome human defences.

CPJ’s Census on Jailed Journalists Reveals Distressing “Intolerance of Independent Journalism”

Governments are determined to control information and are prepared to imprison journalists to achieve this mission, the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) said following the release of their annual global census tracking journalists who were imprisoned and killed in 2021.

Noorjehan Niaz and Zakia Soman: Bonded to Change the Trajectory of Muslim Women in India

Discriminated in society and concerned about the discrimination of women in their homes, the two women who co-founded the Bhartiya Muslim Mahila Andolan (BMMA) started the movement to further Muslim women’s leadership and help them reclaim their rights.

ECW Interviews UK Special Envoy for Girls’ Education, Helen Grant

Helen Grant became actively involved in politics in 2006 and was elected as Member of Parliament for the Kent constituency of Maidstone & The Weald at the 2010 General Election.

ECW Joins Call to Action on Protection from Gender-Based Violence in Emergencies: Global Community Urged to Orange the World and End Gender-Based Violence Now

The statistics are dire: One in three women have experienced a form of gender-based violence in their lifetime, be it sexual violence, physical violence, or child marriage. The message is clear: Women and girls deserve a safer, brighter future – free from gender-based violence.

Refugee Voices Matter – Nothing about Us, Without Us

Over the past two years, the global refugee response has been tested. The world is being rocked by the greatest pandemic in over a century, while waves of refugees have fled from Afghanistan, Myanmar, Belarus, and Tigray. So, where do we go from here? Next week, the international community will convene to take stock of the successes and shortcomings of the Global Compact on Refugees (GCR), a unique multilateral mechanism built to ensure the protection of one of the most vulnerable populations. This marquee Compact is up for review, but unlike other review processes, the participation of the people whose lives are shaped by the decisions to be made in the review process will be marginal. Unfortunately, only 1 in 50 of the invited attendees at the UNHCR High-Level Official’s Meeting (HLOM) to discuss the GCR are refugees.

Zero-Leprosy in Pandemic: Experts, Advocates Discuss New Strategies

As 2021 nears its end, public health systems worldwide remain severely strained by COVID 19, which is showing no sign of ending. But even as countries battle to control the deadly pandemic, they must also maintain the progress made against other diseases, including leprosy, global leprosy experts and advocates have urged.

Act to Save Children Living Precarious Lives in Cameroon’s Forgotten and Neglected Conflict

Education is under attack in Cameroon. As one of the most complex humanitarian crises in the world unfolds, Education Cannot Wait’s director Yasmine Sherif and the Secretary-General of the Norwegian Refugee Council, Jan Egeland, say the children are pawns for grown men in a political conflict.

What Will it Take to Turn Farmers Toward Climate-Resilient Superfood Millet?

Millet could be Africa’s silver bullet for combating anaemia – and apart from health benefits, it is climate-resilient.

High Global Fertiliser Prices Overshadow Malawi’s Farm Subsidy Programme

Ellena Joseph, a small-scale maize farmer in Chiradzulu District in Southern Malawi, finished preparing her field early in October.

School Meals Coalition Hopes to Provide a Meal to Every Child

Meals at schools not only give each child a nutritious meal but increase enrolments, among other benefits.

Ethiopia’s Civil War Fueled by Weapons from UN’s Big Powers

In Hollywood movies, the legendary Wild West was routinely portrayed with gunslingers, lawmen and villains—resulting in the ultimate showdown between the “good guys and the bad guys”. Linda Thomson-Greenfield, US ambassador to the UN, told the Security Council early this month that the warring parties in the devastating 12-month-long civil war in Ethiopia involve the Ethiopian National Defense Forces, the Eritrean Defense Forces, the Amhara Special Forces, and the Tigrayan People’s Liberation Front.