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    Convicts freed, hound victims. Victims in prison

    OWSA Contributor
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    Convicts freed, hound victims. Victims in prison

    A research by Amnesty International points to survivors of gender-based violence being abandoned following Taliban takeover of Afghanistan and their husbands are on the prowl.

    Sina (name changed) would be battered by her husband almost daily. There was no way she could protest or seek comfort – her own family supported her violent husband. The only place open to her was a shelter managed and run with government funds. But, when the Taliban arrived, she and the other woman inmates and their children had to flee the shelter.

    Now in hiding, Sina says, “We left with nothing by the clothes we had on our persons. We have no food. My husband is looking for me and he knows that the shelter has closed.

    All essential services for women and girl survivors of domestic violence have come to a stand-still in Afghanistan since the Taliban took over the country, says the human rights NGO, Amnesty International.

    Amnesty’s researchers conducted 26 interviews with survivors and service providers who spoke of the risks of violence and death they face. The Taliban has closed shelters. Worse, many of the men jailed for beating their wives were released by the Taliban and they are looking for their spouses against whom they hold a grudge.

    A legal professional who specializes in gender-based violence said told Amnesty that she had been involved in the conviction of more than 3,000 perpetrators of gender-based violence in the year preceding the Taliban’s takeover.

    She said: “Wherever [the Taliban] went, they freed the prisoners… Can you imagine? More than 3,000 released, in all the provinces of Afghanistan, in one month.”

    Amnesty International says that survivors have also been transferred by the Taliban into the detention system, including to the Pul-e-Charkhi prison, near Kabul.

    Women abandoned

    Even people staffing shelters for women escaping violent homes, prosecutors and judges who worked to deliver justice and others providing protective services are now at risk.

    Afghanistan has abandoned women like Sina.

    Agnès Callamard, Amnesty International Secretary General recognises this when she says, “Women and girl survivors of gender-based violence have essentially been abandoned in Afghanistan. Their network of support has been dismantled, and their places of refuge have all but disappeared.”

    “To protect women and girls from further violence, the Taliban must allow and support the reopening of shelters and the restoration of other protective services for survivors, reinstate the Ministry of Women’s Affairs, and ensure that service providers can work freely and without fear of retaliation.”

    Instead, the Taliban has reinstated the ministry of vice and virtue, only ensuring that its name is furthermore commensurate with their beliefs – it is now called the ministry for the propagation of virtue and the prevention of vice.

    The new government or its ministry charged with the propagation of virtue is not bothered about releasing wife-battering men from prisons. At best, this ministry remained a spectator to the Taliban’s rampaging foot soldiers throwing open prison doors, unmindful of the risks that convicted perpetrators pose to the women and girls they victimized. At worst, they were accomplices.

    Protective services are as important as evacuating survivors and those who served them from the imminently dangerous situation they find themselves in. There are only two ways. Either donors stick to long-term funding; or evacuate the women out of Afghanistan.

    Collapse of the system

    Amnesty International interviewed survivors and protective service providers in the provinces of Badghis, Bamiyan, Daikundi, Herat, Kabul, Kunduz, Nangarhar, Paktika, Sar-e Pul, and Takhar. The interviews led to one conclusion: The system had collapsed.

    Women and girls spoke of how, before the Taliban’s takeover, many of them accessed a nationwide network of shelters and services, including pro-bono legal representation, medical treatment, and psycho-social support.

    Thousands of women would be referred by the ministry of women’s and the national human rights commission. Many would even be referred by managements of the shelters they took refuge in or from hospitals where they were undergoing treatment, and in some case, by the police.

    Thousands is no exaggeration, knowing that Afghanistan has one of the highest rates of violence against women globally. Nine of every 10 Afghan women have experienced at least one form of intimate partner violence in their lifetime, according to the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA).

    Amnesty researchers quote a service provider from the eastern province of Nangargar who said, “[The cases] were very extreme. We had a case where a man took the nails off his wife’s fingers… [One] man took a crowbar and peeled off his wife’s skin… There was one woman who faced a lot of abuse from her family. She couldn’t even use the bathroom anymore.”

    With protective services collapsing and people staffing these services left to fend for themselves, and women like Sina in hiding for and her children’s own safety, it is not surprising that the people involved are desperate.

    As a shelter director, currently in hiding with some survivors said, “We don’t have a proper place. We can’t go out. We are so scared… Please bring us out of here. If not, then you can wait for us to be killed.”

     

    Image: UNMA

    The UN’s Vital Role in Afghanistan

    Inter Press Service
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    The UN’s Vital Role in Afghanistan

    The UN can help to place Afghanistan on a new development and political path with the backing of major global and regional powers and the cooperation of both Taliban and non-Taliban factions alike.

    By Sultan Barakat and Richard Ponzio

    On December 22, 2021, the UN Security Council voted unanimously to allow for more humanitarian assistance to reach vulnerable Afghans, while preventing the abuse of these funds by their Taliban rulers.

    With more than half of Afghanistan’s 39 million citizens — afflicted by drought, disease, and decades of war — depending upon critical life-saving aid to survive the harsh winter months, the decision to carve out an exception in UN sanctions against the ruling regime is timely.

    All the more so as Afghanistan quickly becomes ground zero for United Nations humanitarian operations worldwide.

    At the same time, addressing the underlying political, cultural, and socioeconomic challenges that continue to fuel widespread deprivation, violence, and corruption in Afghanistan requires a strategy and targeted investments in development and peace-building too.

    Fortunately, these are also areas where the UN maintains a decades-long track record in Afghanistan (including from 1996-2001, the last period of Taliban rule) and elsewhere.

    Moreover, the Security Council’s recent request to Secretary-General António Guterres to provide “strategic and operational recommendations” on the future of the UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA), by January 31, 2022, offers an opportunity to adapt the world body to the country’s fast-changing political, security, social, and economic context.

    Need diverse mechanisms

    First, the United Nations should aid in negotiating some conditionalities put forward by Western powers. Whilst a step-by-step roadmap for cooperation is needed, vital life-saving humanitarian aid should never be made conditional on the Taliban taking certain actions.

    Given the acute differences between the Taliban and the international community, diverse mechanisms are needed for addressing distinct humanitarian and non-humanitarian issues alike. Both sides have made opposing demands that essentially negate one another, while the needs of millions of innocent, vulnerable Afghans continue to grow.

    In direct immediate support of malnutrition, urgent health services, and other kinds of emergency, life-saving support detailed in a new Humanitarian Response Plan, donor countries should take careful heed of the UN’s largest-ever humanitarian appeal for a single country, announced on 11 January 2022, requesting more than USD $5 billion this year for Afghanistan.

    Humanitarian, developmental and peace challenges

    Second, there is a need to remain focused on the intersections of humanitarian, developmental, and peace challenges, rather than roll-out humanitarian-only models of response in Afghanistan. To advance more integrated approaches that break down the traditional silos of the international aid system in responding to the Afghan crisis, the humanitarian-development-peace nexus offers a powerful framework.

    The United Nations and other actors have implemented Triple Nexus programming in Afghanistan in recent years, including refugee return and reintegration, asset creation, and social safety net programming.

    The world body can play a vital role as a convening power and knowledge broker, facilitating local-international and whole-of-society dialogue on how to adapt nexus programming concepts and approaches in the uncharted territories of Afghanistan’s fast evolving and highly challenging operating environment.

    As bilateral aid likely recedes among most major donors, the UN could also serve as a chief oversight body and conduit of international assistance through multiple emergency trust funds. In doing so, it will provide de facto international development coordination assistance, with an eye to maintaining for all Afghan citizens the delivery of basic public services in such critical areas as healthcare, education, and power generation.

    Get beyond the blame game

    Third, durable peace in Afghanistan can only be reached through high-level political will that is best expressed through an empowered mandate and sufficient resources for UNAMA (ideally led by a Muslim diplomat with the gravitas and skills demonstrated by the UN trouble-shooter Lakhdar Brahimi).

    For the UN to be truly catalytic, it is vital that it is entrusted with a comprehensive mandate to perform its full suite of well-known and field-tested functions, including in the areas of reconciliation, development coordination, and humanitarian action.

    To get beyond the blame game and build trust between the Taliban and other Afghan parties, the world body must be allowed to provide its good offices and other peaceful settlement of dispute tools to resuscitate an intra-Afghan dialogue toward reconciliation and political reform.

    At the same time, the Afghan Future Thought Forum, chaired by Fatima Gailani, continues to be the only independent platform that brings together influential and diverse Afghan stakeholders (men and women), including Taliban and former government officials, to produce practical solutions for long-term peace and recovery in Afghanistan.

    Need a multi-faceted strategy

    Finally, the greatest obstacle to functioning relations between the Taliban and international community is the non-recognition of the new ruling regime in Kabul, which requires a medium to long-term vision to resolve. Although the Taliban are publicly seeking international recognition, these efforts are unlikely to bear fruit immediately.

    To avoid Afghanistan becoming once again an operating base for international terrorist groups or an even greater source of refugees — both vital interests of the international community, including the Western powers — a multi-faceted strategy that also deploys targeted resources beyond solely humanitarian aid is needed urgently.

    With thousands of staff dedicated to alleviating human suffering across Afghanistan, coupled with the West’s almost non-existent political leverage with the Taliban regime, the United Nations must resume its central development and peace-building roles, in addition to delivering and coordinating immediate life-saving humanitarian aid.

    With the backing of major global and regional powers and the cooperation of both Taliban and non-Taliban factions alike, the UN can help to place Afghanistan on a new development and political path toward a more stable country that, over time, improves the prospects for all Afghan citizens.

     

    Sultan Barakat is Director of the Centre for Conflict and Humanitarian Studies in Doha, Qatar and Honorary Professor of Politics at the University of York.

    Richard Ponzio is Senior Fellow and Director of the Global Governance, Justice & Security Program at the Stimson Center in Washington, D.C.

     

    This piece has been sourced from Inter Press Service

    Image: UNICEF

    WHO chief says COVID pandemic disrupted WHO’s five-year work

    OWSA Staff
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    WHO chief says COVID pandemic disrupted WHO’s five-year work

    The poor progress on the triple billion health targets will weigh heavily as WHO’s current chief readies for a second term.

    In his opening remarks at the 150th session of the executive board of the World Health Organisation today, director general Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, stressed on the need “to urgently strengthen the systems and tools for epidemic and pandemic preparedness and response at all levels.”

    Over two years, almost 350 million cases of COVID-19 have been reported together with over 5.5 million deaths.

    On the cusp of the third year since the spread of COVID-19 was declared a public health emergency of international concern – the highest level of alarm under international law, he said that while the world will be living with COVID for the foreseeable future, “learning to live with COVID cannot mean that we give this virus a free ride. It cannot mean that we accept almost 50,000 deaths a week, from a preventable and treatable disease.”

    He reiterated the set of strategies proposed by the world organisation and said that “If countries use all of these strategies and tools in a comprehensive way, we can end the acute phase of the pandemic this year.”

    The strategies rest mainly on achieving 70 per cent vaccinations in all countries, boosting testing and sequencing rates globally to track the virus and monitor the emergence of new variants and restoring and sustaining essential health services.

    WHO achievements

    But besides COVID-19, there have been achievements on the communicable diseases front, especially with the world’s first malaria vaccine ready for use. Eight countries achieved the 90–90–90 targets for testing, treatment access, and viral suppression of HIV by the end of 2020 and 15 countries have eliminated mother-to-child transmission of HIV.

    “Despite the disruptions of the pandemic, 86 countries globally achieved the end-TB strategy milestone for 2020 of reducing TB incidence,” he said.

    But he also said that the COVID-19 pandemic has disrupted work to advance towards the “triple billion” targets of WHO’s thirteenth general programme of work (GPW defines WHO’s five-year strategy).

    Crucial plans off target

    The WHO director general proposed a two-year extension of the GPW to 2025, to be able to achieve the organisation’s triple billion targets – ensuring a billion people each benefit from universal health coverage; are better protected from health emergencies; and enjoy better health and well-being.

    He admitted that “the world was off track for the “triple billion” targets,” even before the pandemic. “Now, we’re even further behind,” he said.

    Today, the WHO also got new members countries on its board. These include Colombia, Guinea Bissau, India, Madagascar, Malaysia, Peru, India, Tonga and Tunisia.

    In the run up to the agency’s annual assembly meeting, 28 countries have already written letter of nominations for a second five-year term for Tedros Adhanom. This is to come up at the current session of WHO’s executive board. He will stand uncontested for the position.

    However, The United States, United Kingdom and China haven’t expressed support, though they haven’t nominated anyone else either.

    “This could be a modest vote of confidence in Tedros, an acknowledgement that a competitor would not prevail, or a matter of pandemic practicality,” wrote the science journal Nature.

     

    Image courtesy: YMCA.int

    Budget 2022: Government faces Hamletian dilemma on subsidies

    Policy Circle
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    Budget 2022: Government faces Hamletian dilemma on subsidies

    The government would like to cut subsidies in Budget 2022, but the question is whether it can afford to do it just ahead of the crucial assembly elections in five states.

    Prachi Gupta

    The economy continues to reel under the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. The last two years have been especially tough for the government as it had to leave the path of fiscal prudence in the face of an unprecedented economic crisis triggered by the pandemic. The subsidy bill for the current fiscal year ending March 31 could be around Rs 5.35-5.45 lakh crore.

    Newspaper reports say the government plans to peg food and fertiliser subsidies at Rs 2.6 lakh crore and Rs 90,000 crore respectively in the upcoming Budget 2022. The question is if it can afford to cut subsidies in a situation where people are highly dependent on agriculture jobs and the public distribution system. Cutting food and fertiliser subsidies may affect growth and aggravate poverty.

    India is an agriculture dominated economy with more than half of the population depending on farming directly or indirectly for their livelihood. Farm subsidies form an important part of the government’s budget. While in developed countries, the agricultural or farm subsidies compose nearly 40 per cent of the total budgetary outlay, it is much lower in India which offers direct and indirect subsidies.

    Subsidies necessary despite flaws

    These subsidies have always been a target of criticism. Firstly, the indirect subsidy has been blamed for benefiting big farmers more than small and medium farmers as the bulk of the subsidised fertilisers is picked up by rich farmers. The small and marginal farmers own just 37 per cent of the farm land.

    Secondly, indirect subsidy has also been a disincentive to improvements in production processes since manufacturers have no compulsion to raise efficiency. Cash subsidies are considered more beneficial to farmers as they will free up the distribution system and allow people who receive the subsidy to choose where they buy their goods from.

    The complexity lies in the identification of beneficiaries as opposed to the transfer of funds. Looking at the success of direct cash transfer in various countries across the globe, the Indian government started a pan-India scheme to disburse all forms of subsidies directly, through the Direct Benefit Transfer (DBT) in 2015–16.

    The food subsidy also provides cover to the marginalised and poor sections of society apart from farmers. To sum up, food subsidies not only ensure remunerative prices to farmers, encouraging them to increase production and improve access to food for economically vulnerable people, but also stabilises food grain prices and availability in the country.

    The PDS assures beneficiaries that they will receive food grains, and insulates them against price volatility. The government also provides food grains via fair price shops in villages which are easy to access. The system is not without its demerits as huge leakages have been observed in it, both during transportation and distribution. These include pilferage and errors of inclusion and exclusion from the beneficiary list. At times, beneficiaries have also reported receiving poor quality food grains.

    Budget 2022 may see financial jugglery

    The government also spends a large amount on fertiliser subsidy, compensating manufacturers for selling their product below cost. The subsidy bill for the current year is likely to be in the vicinity of 1.3 lakh crore.

    Fertiliser is a critical and expensive input in improving agricultural output. Since the Green Revolution in the mid-1960s, there has been a sharp increase in the use of fertilisers in the country. Today, fertiliser subsidies stand at around 10% of the total agricultural GDP as the government looks to incentivise its usage.

    Earlier, the government had to substantially increase the fertiliser subsidy amid farmer protests. In the budget unveiled in February 2021, this was pegged at nearly Rs 80,000 crore. Additional funds were provided twice due to increase in prices of fertiliser and supply side disruptions. Newspaper reports have quoted finance ministry officials saying that the allocation towards the fertiliser subsidy for FY23 could be lower than the revised estimates.

    The Union Budget 2022 will be presented by finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman on February 1. Despite the assembly elections in Goa, Manipur, Punjab, Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand, the government is expected to maintain the momentum of agriculture reforms. The budgetary allocation of the agriculture ministry has shot up substantially after the Narendra Modi government came to power in 2014.

    Elections to the state assemblies could influence the final subsidy figures of Budget 2022 as the BJP looks to woo farmers after the massive protests from the agrarian community against the three farm laws that forced the government to withdraw them.

     

    This piece has been sourced from Policy Circle – policycircle.org

    Image: Hippox – under CC0 license 

    Farms stretched, water sources stressed and polluted, and forests shrinking, says FAO report

    OWSA Staff
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    Farms stretched, water sources stressed and polluted, and forests shrinking, says FAO report

    As climate stresses the world and water sources get depleted and polluted, scientists around feel the need to shift to sustainable agricultural practices to feed an additional two billion mouths by 2050.

    Today, the world is home to eight billion people. This number will have swelled to 10 billion in less than 30 years from now – or simply, a child born today will very likely become a parent in 2050.

    How will all of tomorrow’s parents feed their children?

    A possible answer to this question is that today’s governments, policy makers and farmers work to reverse water degradation, smartly plan for sustainable farming practices and harness new innovative technologies.

    Because, existing agricultural practices will not be able to feed 10 billion people populating planet earth by 2050, warns a new report from the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO). Today, one in every 10 persons on planet earth is undernourished. Three of eight people lack healthy diets.

    The State of the World’s Land and Water Resources for Food and Agriculture report 2021 builds upon the concepts and conclusions given in the 2011 report.

    But it also recognises that much has happened since then. It alludes to the recent assessments, projections and scenarios to paint an alarming picture of the planet’s natural resources – highlighting depletion of land and water resources, loss of biodiversity, associated degradation and pollution and scarcity of primary natural resources.

    Climate change

    But the FAO report’s warning is too dire for solutions to hinge on just that prescription. Far reaching changes will be necessary to avoid widespread hunger and other catastrophes, it says.

    It says that climate change “may bring opportunities for multiple rainfed cropping, particularly in the tropics and subtropics.”

    For instance, farmers might need to grow crops they never did before. For example, farmers in Canada and northern Eurasia might need to farm more cereals in the coming couple of decades than they do today.

    For areas “where the climate becomes marginal for current staple and niche crops, there are alternative annual and perennial tree crops, livestock, and soil and water management options available.”

    It says there will be a need to shift to sustainable agricultural practices to feed an additional two billion mouths by 2050 as climate stresses the world and water sources get depleted and polluted.

    Scientists might be able to work on new varieties of crops with seed and germplasm exchanged globally and among regions to create breeds that can withstand changes in temperature, salinity, wind, and evaporation. This of course, will require investments from governments.

    Need sustainable agriculture practices as never before

    So, why have things come to such a pass?

    Complicated as the question might be, part of the answer is the limited land on earth to grow food. Forests cannot be thrashed any further and food has been hugely linked to fuel, fertilisers and pesticides.

    None of these are sustainable. As the report points out, “Human-induced degradation affects 34 per cent of agricultural land.”

    “The treatment of soils with inorganic fertilizers to increase or sustain yields has had significant adverse effects on soil health, and has contributed to freshwater pollution induced by run-off and drainage,” it says.

    Extensive degradation due to irrigation of farmlands has harsh consequences as irrigation causes a runoff of fertilizers and pesticides that eventually contaminate soil and groundwater.

    The FAO report notes that agricultural irrigation needs are depleting groundwater aquifers in many regions.

    Similarly, it notes that the quality of 13 per cent of global soil, including 34 per cent of agricultural land, is now degraded by the use of fertilisers, overgrazing by cattle and livestock, erosion, deforestation and decreasing water availability.

    The report emphaises that climate change is further stressing agricultural systems and amplifying global food production challenges as it discusses the changing climate: erratic rainfall patterns, the unsuitability of land for certain crops, increasing spread of insects and pests and shorter growing seasons in parts of the globe due to intense droughts.

    Drought-like conditions

    As it exacerbates agricultural challenges, climate change is also exaggerating water demands and resulting in drought-like conditions. Extreme heat conditions stress crops. While agricultural productivity might increase in relatively colder regions, productivity will decrease in places that are already heating and drying up.

    Climate adaptation can be painful and costly, it says, offering the example of farmers in California tearing up their lucrative almond orchards.

    However, there is one spot in the report that holds hope. It says that deforestation trends have been partly arrested. The rate of decline of global forested areas over the past decade has halved from where it was in the 1990’s.

     

    Image: Hippox – under CC0 license

    Cops might not like this gaming app

    OWSA Staff
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    Cops might not like this gaming app

    Rights Arcade, an Amnesty International gaming app will make human rights learning accessible, and possibly, interesting.

    Amnesty International has launched Rights Arcade, a free human rights game app which aims to educate the next generation of human rights defenders about rights such as freedom of expression and freedom of peaceful assembly. The launch coincides with the international day of education.

    Amnesty International has developed the app to make human rights learning accessible.  The Amnesty gaming app is designed to strengthen the human rights movement through action-oriented education. The games will boost players’ knowledge about human rights and encourage people to take action on human rights issues.

    One of Rights Arcade’s key features is a self-paced approach that allows players to learn, reflect and take action at their own pace while navigating through the game’s stories.

    “This game has been designed to empower and encourage people everywhere, but especially younger audiences, to learn about human rights in an engaging manner,” said Agnès Callamard, Amnesty International’s secretary general.

    Real life characters

    “Young people are pivotal in setting the human rights agenda, today and for the future. Reaching them in the spaces they inhabit, or with which they engage regularly, is key to enabling new generations of activists and empowering them to fight for, and protect, human rights – now and in the future.”

    Players can take a human rights journey through the experiences of three real-life people: Ahmed Kabir Kishor, a cartoonist unjustly charged under the Digital Security Act in Bangladesh; Zhang Zhan, a citizen journalist sentenced to four years in prison for reporting about COVID-19 in China; and Panusaya Sithijirawattanakul, a student activist facing more than 25 charges for protesting in Thailand.

    The game’s stories, which are fictionalized experiences inspired by real world events, are driven by a player’s choices.

    The player gets to play the role and navigate the experiences of the three central characters, making decisions based on their own understanding of human rights and unpacking how human rights concepts apply in daily life.

    People around the world will be able to access a collection of three games currently available in four languages: English, Simplified Chinese, Thai and Korean. Rights Arcade can be downloaded on iOS and Android devices, ensuring its accessibility in regions with poor internet connectivity.

    Rights Arcade will be regularly updated to accommodate learning in more languages, and with new game offerings in the months and years to come.

    Education and gaming in the times of COVID-19

    Gaming and education have become unique partners. This abstract partnership has blossomed through the past two years of the COVID-19 pandemic.

    Statistical evidence suggests a significant increase in the use of video-games during the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic. Researchers are gathering evidences on the pedagogical effectiveness of edu-games as mediators to enhance cognitive skills of students.

    Omicron has a growth advantage over Delta: WHO

    OWSA Staff
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    Omicron has a growth advantage over Delta: WHO

    Omicron has a substantial growth advantage over the Delta strain of COVID-19 and is rapidly replacing Delta globally, particularly because it is able to evade the human immune system, says WHO’s technical briefing paper for member states.

    COVID-19, and particularly its Omicron strain, continues to spread, says a technical brief produced by the World Health Organisation. It says that available evidence suggest that the overall risk related to Omicron remains very high.

    As of 20 January 2022, the Omicron variant had been identified in 171 countries across all six WHO regions. The briefing paper says that there has been a four per cent increase in the number of new deaths globally in the week between 10 and 16 January 2022 compared to the previous week. The highest increases of 12 per cent has been reported from WHO’s South-East Asia Region that includes India. The Americas region has reported a seven per cent increase.

    “The large increase in the South-East Asia Region is mainly driven by the increase in the number of cases in India which reported 1,594,160 million new cases compared to 638 872 cases the previous week (a 150% increase),” the paper says.

    The paper says that Omicron has a substantial growth advantage over Delta, and it is rapidly replacing Delta globally, particularly because it is able to evade the human immune system. “There is now significant evidence that immune evasion contributes to the rapid spread of Omicron,” the WHO paper says.

    Higher levels of incidence

    Experts point out the Omicron has a significant growth advantage over Delta and is leading to rapid spread in the community with higher levels of incidence than previously seen in this pandemic.

    “Despite a lower risk of severe disease and death following infection than previous SARS-CoV-2 variants, the very high levels of transmission nevertheless have resulted in significant increases in hospitalization, continue to pose overwhelming demands on health care systems in most countries, and may lead to significant morbidity, particularly in vulnerable populations” says the WHO.

    On the question of the effectiveness of vaccines, the paper reiterates that “there is a growing body of evidence on vaccine effectiveness for Omicron, with data available from 15 observational studies from five countries.”

    In addition, increased risk of reinfection has been reported by South Africa, the United Kingdom, Denmark, and Israel.

    Priority actions suggested by the group for member states (governments) include surveillance and testing, vaccination (with particular focus among populations designated as high priority and prioritising those yet to be vaccinated or incompletely vaccinated), infection prevention and control, public health and social measures, contact tracing and quarantine and risk communication and community engagement.

    The WHO group of experts has also recommended travel-related measures that will adjust international travel measures in a timely manner. Simultaneously, it has cautioned against blanket travel bans, saying that this “can adversely impact global health efforts during a pandemic by disincentivizing countries to report and share epidemiological and sequencing data.”

    How COVID-19 has shattered a family’s dreams

    OWSA Contributor
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    How COVID-19 has shattered a family’s dreams

    A Bangladeshi family’s dreams of a good future life for their two young children is proving to be elusive as incomes come to a halt due to the COVID-19 pandemic and they find it difficult to pay for their schooling.

    Struck by the COVID-19 pandemic, Bangladesh families are struggling to pay for their children’s education.

    Rafiq Islam (name changed), a handloom trader living in Tangail would earn about 45,000 Bangladeshi Takas a month. His family would somehow see the month through. That is not the case any longer. Rafiq says that the economic crisis means that he and his wife Shabnam (name changed) have to stop dreaming.

    “The looms are silent and there are no buyers these days,” he says. “My income has dropped to a trickle and I realise how lucky I am to have my own ancestral house. But even buying rations is difficult these days.”

    Earlier, the family managed to save some money. That is no longer the case.

    The young couple had dreams for their two young sons aged eight and ten years. They wanted to give them good education. For this, they sent them to the best school they could pay for.

    The best school in Bangladesh, as elsewhere in SouthAsia, is often a private school – and not necessarily the best. Teachers are untrained and children return home with loads of homework. Students in these best schools are under pressure to cope with the best in the class. This gap in education is served by private tutors.

    Parents insist that the quality of education in government schools is poor. This is not without reason. A USAID report, for instance, says that 44 per cent of students completing their first grade education in a government-funded school struggle to read a word and the rate of dropouts is high.

    Expensive private schools are an option for the aspiring parent. But this needs to be complemented with private tutions that cost parents like Rafiq and Shabnam a fortune. 67 per cent of the urban households, most often like theirs, pay for their children’s private tutions, up from 48 per cent in 2000, according to UNESCO’s global education monitoring report.

    Bangladesh’s low investment on public education

    There is little influence that the government has in this regard. “Government schools are no good,” Shabnam says. “The teachers don’t come to school and they don’t teach if they come.”

    But the family can no longer pay for the private tution fees for their two young children.

    The UNESCO report that was released in December 2021 has been the subject of an intense discussion in the Bangladeshi media and parents like Rafiq and Shabnam are aware of its import.

    They say how they identify with what the report has to say – that seven per cent of Bangladeshi families have to borrow to pay for their children’s schooling. They say, in hushed, hesitation-filled tones, that they too have to borrow money for educating their children. “It is tough to pay the school fees and the tution fees,” says Rafiq. “But both must be paid.”

    The share of urban households in Bangladesh paying a private tution fee increased from 48 per cent in 2000 to 67 per cent in 2010.

    Overall, the average expenditure increased by 80 per cent in real terms, according to the report.

    Private schools have also been charging during the pandemic and thousands of families like Rafiq and Shabnam’s feel the strain. Rafiq complains that there is no income and what he is paying is not justified. But the schools have their own reasons and so do the private tutors.

    The government introduced classrooms over televisions, mobile phones, the good old radio and over internet – but the reach has been limited because internet penetration in communities like Tangail is poor and has taken a further hit during the pandemic.

    According to a World Bank study, pre-pandemic estimates showed 58 per cent of Bangladeshi children did not achieve minimum reading proficiency by grade 5. It is estimated this figure will increase to 76 per cent during school closures.

    The COVID-19 pandemic is likely to translate into a substantial long-term economic cost, the World Bank study says. Researchers have estimated that the average Bangladeshi student will face a reduction around US$ 335 in yearly earnings, or almost 6.8 per cent of their annual income by the time they grow up.

    Such is the story of Rafiq and Shabnam’s shattered dreams.

     

    Image: UNICEF

    Human rights violations and culture of impunity in SouthAsia

    Inter Press Service
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    Human rights violations and culture of impunity in SouthAsia

    South Asian countries are grappling with the erosion of democratic norms, growing authoritarianism, the crackdown on freedom of press, speech and dissent, a report by Human Rights Watch says.

    By Sania Farooqui / Inter Press Service

    As countries across South Asia continue to battle the deadly COVID-19 pandemic, causing serious public health and economic crisis, this region, which is home to almost two billion people, is also grappling with the erosion of democratic norms, growing authoritarianism, the crackdown on freedom of press, speech and dissent.

    Despite the committed efforts of human rights defenders across South Asia, achieving human rights objectives remains a challenging task. Almost all countries in the region – Afghanistan, Bangladesh, India, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka – face a common trend of human rights violations and a culture of impunity.

    Afghanistan

    In Afghanistan, the Taliban rule has had a devastating impact on the lives of Afghan women, girls, journalists and human rights defenders. “The crisis for women and girls in Afghanistan is escalating with no end in sight. Taliban policies have rapidly turned many women and girls into virtual prisoners in their homes, depriving the country of one of its most precious resources, the skills and talents of the female half of the populations,” said Heather Barr, associate women’s rights director at Human Rights Watch in this report.

    This report states, “the Taliban’s return to power has made members of some ethnic and religious minorities feel more vulnerable to threats even from those not affiliated with the Taliban. Taliban authorities have also used intimidation to extract money, food, and services. Fighting has mostly ended in the country, but people expressed fear of violence and arbitrary arrests by the Taliban and lack of the rule of law and reported increased crime in some areas.”

    A group of three dozen Human Rights Council appointed experts in this report said, “waves of measures such as barring women from returning to their jobs, requiring a male relative to accompany them in public spaces, prohibiting women from using public transport on their own, as well as imposing a strict dress code on women and girls. Taken together, these policies constitute a collective punishment of women and girls, grounded in gender-based bias and harmful practices.”

    The UN high commissioner for human rights, Michelle Bachelet, has urged the UN security council to hold all perpetrators of human rights violations accountable, “I ask the security council to ensure that the perpetrators of these violations are accountable, I ask all states to use their influence with the Taliban to encourage respect for fundamental human rights.”

    Bangladesh

    While Bangladesh, despite making economic progress and getting upgraded by the United Nations from the category of least developed country to developing country last November, the country continues to be in the news for enforced disappearances, abductions, torture and extrajudicial killings by its security forces with impunity.

    In this letter written by 12 organizations to Under-Secretary-General Jean-Pierre Lacroix, urging the United Nations Department of Peace Operations to ban Bangladesh’s notoriously abusive paramilitary Rapid Action Battalion (RAB) from UN deployment.

    As many as 600 people, including opposition leaders, activists, journalists, business people, and others, have been subjected to enforced disappearance since 2009. In this report, Dhaka–based rights organization Odhikar said that “some of the disappeared persons resurfaced in government’s custody after being arrested under the draconian Digital Security Act 2018.”

    “Human rights defenders, journalists, and others critical of the government continue to be targeted with surveillance, politically motivated charges and arbitrary detention,” says this report. Earlier in November 2021, the United States slapped sanctions on elite Bangladeshi paramilitary force, Rapid Action Battalion (RAB), stating it threatens US national security interests by undermining the rule of law and respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms, and the economic prosperity of the people of Bangladesh. Bangladesh is the only South Asian country other than Afghanistan to receive US sanctions since 1998.

    India

    In 2021, Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government in India was downgraded from a free democracy to a “partially free democracy” by global political rights and liberties US-based nonprofit Freedom House. Following this, a Sweden based V-Dem institute said, India had become an “electoral autocracy”. The country has slid from No. 35 in 2006 to No. 53 today on The Economist’s list.

    The United States Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) recommended India be designated as a “country of particular concern, or CPC, for engaging in and tolerating systematic, ongoing and egregious religious freedom violations, as defined by the International Religious Freedom Act in its report.

    In its World Report 2022, Human Rights Watch said, “Indian authorities intensified their crackdown on activists, journalists, and other critics of the government using politically motivated prosecutions in 2021. “Attacks against religious minorities were carried out with impunity under the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led Hindu nationalist government.”

    Indian authorities have continued to press charges against students, activities, journalists, including counter-terrorism and sedition laws.

    The ongoing harassment of journalists, including particularly those reporting from and in Kashmir, including the recent crackdown on Kashmir’s independent press club being shut down, arbitrary detention of journalists, alleged custodial killings, and a broader pattern of systematic infringement of fundamental rights used against the local population,” the report said.

    According to this report, calls for genocide have become more common than ever, “where Hindu extremists organized 12 events over 24 months in four states, calling for genocide of Muslims, attacks on Christian minority and insurrection against the government.

    Nepal

    In Nepal, lack of effective government leadership, inadequate and unequal access to health care, and a ‘pervasive culture of impunity’ continue to undermine the country’s fundamental human rights. “A lack of effective government leadership in Nepal means that little is done to uphold citizens’ rights, leaving millions to fend for themselves without adequate services such as for health or education, said Meenakshi Ganguly, South Asia director, Human Rights Watch.

    “Systemic impunity for human rights abuses extends to ongoing violations, undermining the principles of accountability and the rule of law in post-conflict Nepal. The report states that the authorities routinely fail to investigate or prosecute killings or torture allegedly carried by security forces,” the report states.

    In October 2020, the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) published 20 years of data, naming 286 people, mostly police officials, military personnel, and former Maoist insurgents, “as suspects in serious crimes, including torture, enforced disappearance and extrajudicial killings”.

    Along with this, the situation of women’s and girls’ human rights continues to be alarming in the country. According to this report, Nepal has the highest rate of child marriages in Asia, with 33 percent of girls marrying before 18 years and 8 percent by 15. Reports also indicate there has been an increase in cases of rape in 2021, with widespread impunity for sexual violence.

    Pakistan

    The Pakistan government, on the other hand, “harassed and at times persecuted human rights defenders, lawyers, and journalists for criticizing government officials and policies,” said this report by Human Rights Watch. Significant human rights issues include freedom of expression, attacks on civil society groups, freedom of religion and belief, forced disappearances by governments and their agents, unlawful or arbitrary killings, extrajudicial killings, torture, arbitrary detentions, terrorism, counter-terrorism and law enforcement abuses.

    “Pakistan failed to enact a law criminalizing torture despite Pakistan’s obligation to do so under the Convention against Torture,” the report said. The country’s regressive blasphemy law provides a pretext for violence against religious minorities, leaving them vulnerable to arbitrary arrests and prosecution.

    According to this report by Human Rights Without Frontiers, 1,865 people have been charged with blasphemy laws, with a significant spike in 2020, when 200 cases were registered.

    This piece highlights the plight of thousands of Pakistan’s Baloch who security forces have abducted. A bill about enforced disappearances, which the National Assembly passed, mysteriously went missing after it was sent to the Senate.

    The continued attack on journalists and activists for violations of the Electronic Crimes Act, the use of the National Accountability Bureau (NAB), an anti-corruption agency to target critics, attacks and well-coordinated campaigns and attacks on women journalists on social media, and reported intimidation of nongovernmental organizations, including harassment and surveillance are all crackdowns which are only getting worse.

    Sri Lanka

    In Sri Lanka, the government continued to ‘suppress minority communities and harassed activists, and undermined democratic institutions.’ According to Human Rights Watch’s World Report 2022, “President Gotabaya Rajapaksha seems determined to reverse past rights improvements and protect those implicated in serious abuses. While promising reforms and justice to deflate international criticism, his administration has stepped up suppression of minority communities,” Meenakshi Ganguly, South Asia director at Human Rights Watch, said.

    The report highlights the harassment of security forces towards human rights defenders, journalists, lawyers and the families of victims of past abuses and suppression of peaceful protests. As COVID-19 cases surged in the country, military-controlled response to the pandemic “led to serious right violations”.

    A major concern from the minority Muslim and Christian communities in Sri Lanka was the government’s order not to allow the bodies of COVID-19 victims to be buried. According to this report, “several bodies were forcibly cremated, despite experts saying that bodies could be buried with proper safety measures.” This order, which rights activists said was intended to target minorities and did not respect religions, after much criticism was reversed.

    A leading British religious freedom advocacy group, CSW, in its report titled, “A Nation Divided: The state of freedom of religious or belief in Sri Lanka,” said the Muslim community experiences “severe” religious freedom violations. A key factor in the violations is the perception by Sinhalese-Buddhist nationalists that Muslims are a threat to both Buddhism and the Sinhalese. The report also noted attempts to “reduce the visibility of Islam through the destruction of mosques and restrictive stances on religious clothing.

     

    This piece has been sourced from Inter Press Service

    Image: Paula Bronstein for Human Rights Watch 2017

    Inequality doesn’t kill. Destitution kills.

    OWSA Contributor
    -
    0
    Inequality doesn’t kill. Destitution kills.

    From the perspectives of developmental economics, economic equality is not the greatest of virtues; neither is economic inequality the worst of vices.

    By Anuj Kumar Vaksha

    On 17 January 2022, Oxfam International published a briefing paper titled Inequality Kills, and called for unparalleled action to combat unprecedented inequality in the wake of COVID-19. It also published, on the same day, an India-specific report on the same subject titled, Inequality kills: India Supplement 2022. The report, particularly, the India supplement received wide coverage in print and social media. Most of the media coverage were captioned with alarmist headlines relating to the rise of economic inequality in India.

    There is no denying the fact that economic inequality is bad – greater the economic inequality, the worse it is for the poor. This undeniable fact, however, is not the complete truth. From the perspectives of developmental economics, economic equality is not the greatest of virtues; neither is economic inequality the worst of vices. The general economic impoverishment and destitution arising out of the failing economic processes are far greater vices than the economic inequality of some degree persisting with sound economic processes.

    It is now almost a settled proposition that an open, free and competitive economy brings general prosperity in society, though with inequality which follows the former as a byproduct.  Most modern economies thus, on the one hand seek to build an open, free and competitive economy, while on the other hand, the seek to control inequality. India has embraced economic reforms since 1991 as a resolute decision to shake off socialist biases from the Indian economy and structure it to evolve as a free, open and competitive economy.

    Complex nuances

    By 2022, India has moved far ahead on the path of economic reforms with almost irreversible political gusto. In the new India, economic inequality is not an unpardonable sin. It is an undesirable feature of a rapidly developing economy that needs to be appropriately managed. In a socialist or a communist polity, the most stringent and even repressive measures are used to remove inequality. In a democratic polity like India, the control of economic inequality involves complex economic, policy and political nuances.

    Irrespective of the fact that India has moved far ahead, almost irreversibly, on the path of economic reforms, the socialist and communist brigades have repeatedly attempted to mud-sling the economic reform processes through rhetorical, propagandist and emotive reports on one or other aspect of the Indian economy. The recent Inequality Kills report from Oxfam on India is one such attempt to put in grisly state the issue of economic inequality, particularly in the context of untold human sufferings of the poor during the COVID-19 pandemic.

    Billionaires bitterly targeted

    The report particularly targets the government of the day and the billionaires who are the key participants in the economic growth of the country. The billionaires have been targeted so bitterly that, one with soft heart would possibly get sick, if he or she hears the sins attributed to them.

    The report ignores the fact the wealth of the richest people in an open, competitive and free economy are not kept in their safe vaults in hard currencies. The substantive part of their wealth is invested in running enterprises. Thus, except for the numerical value of the notional wealth, the wealth that makes them billionaire does not live with them.

    The Oxfam report completely ignores the herculean measures undertaken by government to address the economic depravity of the poor from time to time and particularly during the COVID-19 pandemic. In this sense, the Oxfam report is biased, misleading and motivated by left philosophical distortions.

    The report does make some good, practical solutions to address the sufferings of the poor during COVID-19 pandemic. To this limited extent, it is appreciated. But it also advocates for radical changes based on the left ideological constructs, against which the people need to be guarded.

     

    Anuj Kumar Vaksha is a Professor with the Guru Gobind Singh Indraprastha University, Delhi.

    As a platform, OneWorld SouthAsia is obliged to carry all shades of opinions. We respect diversity of views and encourage contributions from readers.

    Image: Wikimedia Commons / Indrajit Das

     

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