💭 A CEASEFIRE AGREED weeks ago should have mitigated the suffering of starving Ethiopians caught up in war; The Economist asks why so little aid has got through.
Posted by addisethiopia / አዲስ ኢትዮጵያ on April 14, 2022
💭 In northern Ethiopia, a woman taken to an Eritrean Defense Forces camp was raped by 27 soldiers and contracted AIDS. In Central African Republic the bodies of a woman and two girls were found days after their kidnapping and rape by armed fighters. And in Iraq, 2,800 Yazidi woman and children have been captives of the Islamic State extremist group for eight years, many subjected to sexual violence.
These are some of the examples raised at a U.N. Security Council meeting Wednesday on accountability for such acts in conflicts by Pramila Patten, the U.N. special representative on sexual violence in conflict, and Nobel Peace Prize laureate Nadia Murad, a member of Iraq´s Yazidi religious minority forced into sexual slavery in 2014 who escaped her Islamic State captors.
Patten´s opening words were aimed squarely at the U.N.´s most powerful body, which has approved five resolutions that focus on preventing and addressing conflict-related sexual violence. What do those resolutions mean right now, she asked, for a woman in Ukraine, Afghanistan, Myanmar or Ethiopia´s northern Tigray region?
At this time of “great global turbulence marked by multiple crises,” she said, the world has seen “increased militarization, including an epidemic of coups, which have turned back the clock on women´s rights.” And every new war has seen human tragedies “including new waves of war´s oldest, most silences, and least-condemned crime” — sexual violence and rape in those countries and others whose victims “cry out for justice and redress.”
Patten said the gap between commitments by the Security Council, and compliance and reality is evident: The latest U.N. report covering conflicts in 18 countries documents 3,293 U.N.-verified cases of sexual violence committed in 2021, a significant increase of 800 cases compared to 2020. Again, she said, the highest number – 1,016 – were recorded in Congo.
Patten also cited examples in other conflict areas: two women from the Rohingya minority in Myanmar´s Chin state gang-raped by government soldiers resulting in unwanted pregnancies; a woman allegedly raped at gunpoint by Puntland police officer in Somalia where she said “abduction, rape and forced marriage are rampant;” documented cases in Colombia of sexual violence against women ex-combatants and their families; and the torture and killing of a female police officer who was eight months pregnant in Afghanistan´s Ghor province.
The U.N. special representative said the few cases of courts convicting perpetrators “are still the exception that prove the rule of justice denied.” Justice must be delivered in communities as well as courtrooms, and victims must receive reparations to rebuild their shattered lives, she said, stressing that “justice, peace and security are inextricably linked.”
Murad said at moments of global instability – like today’s world shaped by the COVID-19 pandemic, a climate crisis and war – issues like conflict-related sexual violence “tend to be pushed aside as though they are somehow secondary to the real issues.” But she said “the truth is these are precisely the moment when protecting, supporting and investing in women and girls should be urgent priorities.”
History shows that when conflict erupts brutality comes to the fore, and “we are seeing this in Ukraine as we speak, with reports of sexual violence that should alarm us.” Later, she told reporters, “my heart is with the people of Ukraine, especially the women and girls out there that are facing this brutality.”
“Sexual violence is not a side effect of conflict,” Murad said. “It is a tactic of war as old as time.”
Last year, a German court convicted an Islamic State member of genocide in a Yazidi girl’s death in a historic verdict, she said. But despite reams of evidence documenting atrocities IS committed against women and girls, she said the extremist perpetrators have faced few, if any, consequences.
Murad said survivors need “more than moral outrage” and urged the Security Council to vote to refer the Islamic State extremist group to the International Criminal Court to be tried for genocide and sexual violence. against Yazidis. In the meantime, she urged other countries to follow Germany´s example and use the principle of universal jurisdiction to try alleged perpetrators for war crimes.
“If you want to establish deterrence, if you want to assure Yazidi women and survivors everywhere that you stand with us, do not delay justice anymore,” she said.
Britain´s Minister of State Lord Tariq Ahmad, who chaired the meeting, joined her in launching “The Murad Code” which aims to tell investigators, journalists and others in the international community how to support survivors of sexual violence by reducing the burden on them and ensuring that their experiences are recorded safely and strengthen the pursuit of justice.
“The pathway to justice must have obstacles removed,” he said. “So ultimately, it´s all about survivors, that they know what their options are. … They have to be the center of our response.”
Posted by addisethiopia / አዲስ ኢትዮጵያ on April 14, 2022
💭 Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus says world ‘is not treating the human race the same way’ amid Tigray crisis
The head of the World Health Organization (WHO) has criticized the global community’s focus on the war in Ukraine, arguing that crises elsewhere, including in his home country of Ethiopia, are not being given equal consideration, possibly because the people affected are not white.
Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus questioned whether “the world really gives equal attention to Black and white lives” given that ongoing emergencies in Ethiopia, Yemen, Afghanistan and Syria had garnered only a “fraction” of the concern for Ukraine.
Last month Tedros said there was “nowhere on Earth where the health of millions of people is more under threat” than Ethiopia’s Tigray region.
Since a truce was declared in Tigray three weeks ago, about 2,000 trucks should have been able to bring food, medicines and other essentials to the conflict-ridden area, he said during a virtual press briefing from Geneva on Wednesday. Instead, only about 20 trucks had arrived, he said.
“As we speak, people are dying of starvation,” said Tedros, a former health minister in Ethiopia and an ethnic Tigrayan. “This is one of the longest and worst sieges by both Eritrean and Ethiopian forces in modern history.”
He acknowledged that the war in Ukraine was globally significant, but asked whether other crises were being accorded enough attention.
“I need to be blunt and honest that the world is not treating the human race the same way,” he said. “Some are more equal than others.”
Tedros described the situation in Tigray as tragic and said he “hopes the world comes back to its senses and treats all human life equally”.
He also criticised the media’s failure to document atrocities in Ethiopia, noting that people had been burned alive. “I don’t even know if that was taken seriously by the media,” he said.
💭 An example that confirms the validity of Dr. Tedros’ observation
1. Britain will fly many asylum seekers 4,000 miles to Rwandaunder a landmark plan to ‘take back control of illegal immigration’. Ministers have struck a ‘world-first’ deal with the East African nation to host migrants – including those who come to Britain across the Channel – while their claims are considered by the Home Office.
A UK sponsor from the Homes for Ukraine scheme has described the “diabolical” application process that nearly forced the refugees he is housing to return to a warzone.
Steve Dury from Langport, Somerset, was only able to accommodate two mothers and three children from Kharkiv, Ukraine, when his “desperate plea” led the Home Secretary’s office to intervene and see to the approval of the group’s final visa application for three-year-old Egor Svichkar.
Having applied for the scheme when it first opened on March 18, Egor’s four relatives had been staying in Warsaw and acquired their visas by the beginning of April, but a further delay left them waiting on Egor’s document until Monday.
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