Human Rights

Nothing About Us, Without Us, Asian Youth Tell Parliamentarians

By IPS Correspondent
Youth advocates from Asian countries called for an overhaul of a system that excluded young people from participation in policymaking. During an interaction with parliamentarians from 23 countries, youth representatives considered an enabling political framework to be the most crucial reform required to remove inequities.

A Film Challenging Religious Norms

By Sania Farooqui
When Turkish- Norwegian writer and filmmaker Nefise Ozkal Lorentzen heard about Seyran Ates’ mixed gender mosque in Berlin, Germany, she immediately decided to make a film on Seyran’s life. It took three years to produce the film, ‘Seyran Ates: Sex Revolution and Islam’ a portrait of a female Imam and her struggles in activating revolution within Islam.

Bridging the Gap and Crossing the Bridge

By Yasmine Sherif
It may be a challenge, but it is also an absolute necessity: bridging the gap between international law and reality and quickly crossing the bridge to reach all crisis-affected children and youth left furthest behind. Inclusive and equitable quality education is the right of every girl and boy and the objective of Sustainable Development Goal 4.

The New Social Contract: an Opportunity for Deliberative Participation

By Simone Galimberti
These days there hasn’t been certainly a shortage of reports portraying the decline of liberal democracy around the world. With rising popularism and a divisive use of social media, we should not be surprised about a general malaise taking roots in most advanced liberal democracies.

Another Impending Cataclysm in Afghanistan

By Saber Azam
The Biden administration made a decision to withdraw US troops from Afghanistan based on the Trump-Taliban agreement. Their last combat soldier may have already left. There is nothing to argue about!

Bangladesh’s Indigenous Forest Dwellers Fear Losing Ancestral Land as Officials Grapple with Land Grabs

By Rafiqul Islam
When the Bangladesh Forest Department felled Basanti Rema’s banana orchard, Rema, a Garo indigenous forest-dweller of Madhupur Forest, felt she was living a nightmare. Rema, from Pegmari village in Madhupur, Tangail district, had cultivated the banana plants on half an acre in the Madhupur Forest. But the Forest Department claimed that the land on which the bananas were cultivated belonged to the department. 

Investing in Education as Driver for All Our Futures

By Mehnaz Akber Aziz and Julius O. Ihonvbere
Never before have so many children been out of school. 1.6 billion children and young people – more than 90% of students worldwide – have been impacted by school closures during the pandemic. Hundreds of millions of those children have gone without any learning at all, deprived of all the benefits that being in school provides.

USMCA Agreement: Towards a New Economic Relationship in North America?

By Saul Escobar Toledo
The visit of the Vice President of the United States to Mexico on June 8 served to address various issues on the bilateral agenda . The media gave importance especially to the migration issue, but Mrs. Harris gave a prominent place , also , to the labor question. Her appointments deserve some comments.

UN Ready for Breakaway Nations but the Pace Remains Slow

By Thalif Deen
When the United Nations renovated its building at a cost of over $2.1 billion, as part of a seven-year refurbishing project back in 2014, the seating in the cavernous General Assembly hall was increased from 193 to 204—primarily in anticipation of at least 11 new member states joining the world body sooner or later.

ECW Interviews Jan Egeland, Secretary General of the Norwegian Refugee Council

Jan Egeland has been the Secretary General of the Norwegian Refugee Council since August 2013, a role which oversees the work of the humanitarian organisation in over 30 countries affected by conflict and disaster.

Flaws in Asia’s Pearl

By Neville de Silva
For well over a century Ceylon, now Sri Lanka, has been known to the world as the ‘Pearl of the Indian Ocean’ for its multifaceted attractions. That is until blurb writers ruined it all with hyperbolic epithets that obscured the country’s magnetic charms, which attracted visitors from around the globe.

Modern Slavery: How Consumers Can Make a Difference

Few people want to buy products that involve the exploitation or enslavement of the workers who make them – but that’s exactly what most of us do on a daily basis.

Families Search for Loved Ones Gone Missing in Post-War El Salvador

By Edgardo Ayala
The pain that María Estela Guevara feels over the disappearance of her niece Wendy Martínez remains as intense as it was four years ago, when she learned that the young woman, then 31, had vanished without a trace in eastern El Salvador.

US report on human trafficking: Bangladesh remains on Tier-2

The Bangladesh government does not fully meet the minimum standards for elimination of trafficking but is making significant efforts to do so and has demonstrated overall increasing efforts compared to the previous reporting period, considering the impact of Covid-19 pandemic on its anti-trafficking capacity and therefore remained on Tier 2, according to a US Department of State report.

If “A Nuclear War Must Never Be Fought,” Then …

By Daryl G. Kimball
After more than a decade of rising tensions and growing nuclear competition between the two largest nuclear-weapon states, U.S. President Joe Biden and Russian President Vladimir Putin agreed at their June 16 summit to engage in a robust “strategic stability” dialogue to “lay the groundwork for future arms control and risk reduction measures.”

Dalit and Muslim Indian Women Leading Change in South Sudan

By Mariya Salim
Two Indian women, one Muslim and the other Dalit (former untouchables), separated by culture and geography, have found common ground in leading change in conflict-torn South Sudan.

France Needs More Civil Liberties and Less Hypo-Securitization of Religion

By Sania Farooqui
In 2020, French President Emmanuel Macron announced plans for tougher laws to tackle what he called, “Islamist Separatism”, and a crackdown on “radical Islamists” in France, which he said were materializing through repeated deviations from the Republic’s values. To counter this, President Macron announced his plans to create a “French Islam”, a practise of the faith which would be regulated by the state.

Anti-Gay ‘Therapy’ Offered at Uganda Health Centres Run by Aid-Funded Groups

By Khatondi Soita Wepukhulu
At Mulago, Uganda’s biggest public hospital, a receptionist at an HIV clinic for marginalised and ‘most at risk’ populations, including LGBT people, said that an undercover reporter’s 17-year-old gay brother could “quit” his same-sex attraction.

Does a New ‘Gold Standard’ Really Protect Miners?

By Juliane Kippenberg
Many products these days come with the promise that workers and communities all along their supply line  are protected from abuse  under a particular standard or code of conduct. Since the United Nations adopted the Guiding Principles for Business and Human Rights a decade ago, a plethora of such certification systems have emerged, including for  mining  and connected industries ranging from cars to jewelry and electronics.

Acceleration Rights Plan for Gender Equality Mooted at Equality Forum

By Nayema Nusrat
As the global gathering for gender equality, the Generation Equality Forum, kicks off in Paris on June 30, 2020, IPS conducted an exclusive interview with Katja Iversen.

Universal Civil Registration and Vital Statistics Are Critical for Truth, Trust and COVID Recovery in Asia and the Pacific

By Armida Salsiah Alisjahbana, Kanni Wignaraja and Omar Abdi
With health systems at a breaking point, hospitals at capacity and desperate family members searching for oxygen for loved ones, the devastating second wave of COVID-19 that has swept across South Asia has felt ¬surreal. Official figures have indicated record-breaking daily coronavirus cases and deaths, not only in South Asia, but across the entire Asia-Pacific region during the latest surge. As devastating as it has been, the truth is we may never know how many people have died during the pandemic.
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