Colombia Gives Nearly 1 Million Venezuelan Migrants Legal Status and Right to Work

Colombia will grant legal status to all Venezuelan migrants who fled there since 2016 to escape their country’s economic collapse and political crisis.

Trafficking Survivor & Son Born of Rape Face Daily Discrimination Upon Return to Nigeria

Sandra* had a baby born of rape. The young Nigeria woman had plans of a better life in Europe, but when her 'recruiters' abandoned her in Libya she was sexually assaulted and abused. 

World Moving Towards a “Devastating Marriage” of Artificial Intelligence & Weapons of War

Landmines are among the most insidious and cruel weapons of all, because they do not distinguish between armed soldiers, civilians or even children.

I Entered My Country’s House of Justice and Found a Snake Charmer’s Temple

On a Sunday night on 21 March 2021, gunmen stopped Juan Carlos Cerros Escalante (age 41) as he walked from this mother’s home to his own in the village of Nueva Granada near San Antonio de Cortés (Honduras). The gunmen opened fire in front of a catholic church, killing this leader of United Communities in front of his children. Forty bullets were found at the scene.

Countering Gender Stereotyping in the News Media

Gender stereotyping in the media has a significant impact on how women and gender minorities are perceived. In turn, it affects their opportunities to fully and effectively participate in public life.

People’s Leader: A Dalit Woman Becomes The Voice of Farmers In India

On 12 January this year, somewhere in the outskirts of the capital, New Delhi, 24 year old Dalit activist Nodeep Kaur was arrested by the Haryana police for protesting outside a factory. During the lockdown in 2020, Nodeep joined a local workers’ rights organization called Mazdoor Adhikar Sangathan (MAS) in the Kundli Industrial Area in Haryana. In January Nodeep was accused of allegedly manhandling management and staff of an industrial area during a protest and also assaulting the police team.

Invest in the Humanity of Those Left Furthest Behind

“To deny people their human rights is to challenge their very humanity,” Nelson Mandela once said. Today, the humanity of 128 million children and adolescents living in countries is impacted by armed conflicts, forced displacement and climate-induced disasters, where virtually every single one of their human rights are being challenged. The most central one, and in all too many cases, their only hope - their inherent right to an inclusive quality education, as enshrined in international human rights conventions - is brutally challenged, if not also willfully ignored or denied.

Profound Reform or Redundancy – United Nations’ Quandary?

Three recent developments bring about again the reasoning on the dire need to immediately reform the United Nations (UN) and avoid its predictable slide to redundancy.

Education Cannot Wait Interviews Afghanistan’s Minister of Education Rangina Hamidi

H.E. Rangina Hamidi is the first female Minister of Education of Afghanistan in the last 30 years. Minister Hamidi was born in Kandahar, Afghanistan, fled with her family to Pakistan in 1981 during the Soviet Occupation and eventually immigrated to the United States. She attended high school in the United States and received her B.A. degree with a double major in Religion and Gender Studies at the University of Virginia.

Palestinians are Suffering from Hunger, Poverty, Conflict & a Global Pandemic

The Trump administration’s decision to cut off assistance to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) caused considerable hardship for Palestinian refugees during the coronavirus pandemic, particularly those in Gaza where a majority of the population are refugees and poverty is rampant due to Israel’s blockade, Khaled Elgindy, a Senior Fellow at the Middle East Institute (MEI), told IPS.

Rohingya Children Find Refuge in Education

Although learning centres in Cox’s Bazar Kutupalong Refugee Camp are closed because of the COVID-19 pandemic, Mariom Akhter, a Rohingya mother of four, is grateful not only for the schooling her children have had but the training sessions she as a parent was able to attend. The skills she learnt has helped her assist her children with their education at home in a crisis. It’s something she’s likely needed to help her children with over the last few weeks after a Mar. 22 fire spread through the camp, destroying the shelters of at least 45,000 people as well as important infrastructure, including hospitals, learning centres, aid distribution points and a registration centre. At least 15 people were reported dead and 400 missing.

Clash of Cultures – Is it Real or a Smokescreen?

The notion of “Clash of Cultures” is most frequently used as a justification for anti-immigrant prejudice and, particularly in Europe and in the USA, for islamophobia. The reasoning goes as follows: immigrants, especially Muslims, have a deeply different culture from the hosting communities and these differences create unsurmountable tensions and conflicts.

Cost of Being ’Honour Bearers’ Sexual Violence During Communal Riots in India

Delayed, or no, justice and perpetrators’ impunity effectively silence rape and sexual assault survivors of communal violence in India. Activists and human rights lawyers have been speaking out about how rape and sexual violence, especially during communal conflicts, aims to humiliate religious and other minorities by turning the women into symbols of dishonour.

Was Trump’s Family-Separation Policy Torture?

“A crime against humanity” and “a disgrace to our great country”: that’s how 99-year-old Benjamin Ferencz, the last surviving prosecutor of the Nazis at the Nuremberg war-crimes trials, characterized the Donald Trump administration’s coercive separation of thousands of immigrant children from parents seeking asylum.

Transforming Global Food Systems
Jose Graziano da Silva on the Path to Zero Hunger

The battle for the future of food has grown contentious, and José Graziano da Silva has become a lightning rod for criticism. In 2014, as Director General of the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), he presided over the institution’s first International Agroecology Symposium, opening what he called “a new window in the Cathedral of the Green Revolution.” The FAO has since then formalized support for “Scaling Up Agroecology” while continuing to promote the kinds of chemical-intensive agriculture associated with the Green Revolution.

A Healthy Indian Ocean Feeds, Protects, and Connects all South Asians

It is the oceans that engendered life. The lives of humans remain connected to the seas, making the good health of the seas and the efficient management of sea-based activity essential elements for the wellbeing of people and nations.

Getting to Better than Normal in a Post-COVID-19 World

Girls in Asia don't want to go back to normal – they want to go "back to better than normal", says Zara Rapoport, a delegate during an online seminar on the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on gender.

Disability Discrimination at the World Bank: Is it Immunity or Impunity?

The 15,900-strong World Bank, which has funded over 12,000 development projects worldwide since 1947, is an international institution with a superlative reputation for its sustained efforts to end poverty in the developing world—with loans, interest-free credit and outright grants.

Syrians are Victims of a War “We Did not Choose”

Syrians are among the greatest victims of this century, according to the UN Special Envoy for Syria, Geir Pedersen. Indeed, we are.

UN Leadership Necessary for Fairer Tax Cooperation

Illicit financial flows (IFFs) hurt all countries, both developed and developing. But poor countries suffer relatively more, accounting for nearly half the loss of world tax revenue. IFFs refer to cross-border movements of money and other financial assets obtained illegally at source, e.g., by corruption, smuggling, tax evasion, etc. This often involves trade mis-invoicing and transnational corporations’ (TNCs) transfer pricing via ‘creative’ accounting or book-keeping.

Generation Equality: Women’s Leadership as a Catalyst for Change, Say 49 UN Women Envoys

March, women’s history month, closes with the Generation Equality Forum in Mexico and against the background of significant setbacks on the empowerment of women caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.