Abandoned Children Growing Problem in Northern Syria

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Humanitarian Emergencies

Children eating and drinking at the Children's House in Idlib. Abandoned children is a growing issue in the region. Credit: Sonia Al-Ali/IPS

Children eating and drinking at the Children’s House in Idlib. Abandoned children is a growing issue in the region. Credit: Sonia Al-Ali/IPS

IDLIB, Syria, Mar 27 2024 (IPS) – Wael Al-Hassan was returning from work in the Syrian city of Harim when he heard the sound of a baby crying.

He was returning from work on December 10, 2023. He stopped momentarily, turned on his mobile phone flashlight to investigate, and spotted a baby girl, around one month old, wrapped in a white blanket, lying by the roadside.

He felt saddened by the infant’s condition and said, “She was crying loudly, and I saw scratches on her face from cat or dog claws. I then carried her in my arms and took her home, where my wife breastfed her, changed her clothes, and took care of her.”

The phenomenon of abandoning newborns is increasing in northern Syria, where individuals leave their newborns in public parks or alongside roads, then leave the area. Passersby later find the infants, some of them dead from hunger or cold.

Al-Hassan said that the next morning, he handed the baby girl over to the police to search for her family and relatives.

Social Rejection

Social worker Abeer Al-Hamoud from the city of Idlib, located in northern Syria, attributes the primary reason for some families abandoning their children to the widespread poverty and high population density in the province. Additionally, there is fear of the security situation (the area is not in the control of the Syrian regime and is often under attack), the prevalence of divorces, and spouses abandoning their families after traveling abroad.

Al-Hamoud also points out another reason, which is the spread of the phenomenon of early marriage and marrying girls to foreign fighters who came from their countries to Syria to participate in combat. Under pressure from their families, wives often have to abandon their children after their husband’s death, sudden disappearance, or return to their homeland, especially when they are unable to care for them or provide for them financially. Moreover, these children have no proper documentation of parentage.

Furthermore, Al-Hamoud mentions another reason, which is some women are raped, leading them to abandon their newborns out of fear of punishment from their families or societal stigma.

Al-Hamoud warns that the number of abandoned children is increasing and says there is an urgent need to find solutions to protect them from exploitation, oppression, and societal discrimination they may face. She emphasizes that the solutions lie in returning displaced persons to their homes, improving living conditions for families, raising awareness among families about the importance of family planning, and launching campaigns to integrate these children into society.

Alternative Families

It’s preferable for members of the community to accept these children into their families, but they face difficulties in registering the births.

Thirty-nine-year-old Samaheer Al-Khalaf from the city of Sarmada in northern Idlib province, Syria, sponsored a newborn found abandoned at a park gate, and she welcomed him into her family.

She says, “After 11 years of marriage to my cousin, we were not blessed with children, so we decided to raise a child found in the city at the beginning of 2022.”

Al-Khalaf observes that the Islamic religion’s prohibition on “adoption” prevents her from registering the child under her name in the civil registry. Additionally, she cannot go to areas controlled by the Syrian regime to register him due to the presence of security barriers.

She says, “I fear for this child’s future because he will remain of unknown lineage. He will live deprived of his civil rights, such as education and healthcare, and he won’t be able to obtain official documents.”

Children’s House Provides Assistance

With the increasing numbers of children of unknown parentage, volunteers have opened a center to receive and care for the children abandoned by their families.

Younes Abu Amin, the director of Children’s House, says, “A child of unknown parentage is one who was found and whose father is unknown, or children whose parentage has not been proven and who have no provider.”

“The organization ‘Children’s House’ opened a center to care for children separated from their families and children of unknown parentage in the city of Sarmada, north of Idlib,” says Abu Amin. “The number of registered children in the center has reached 267, ranging in age from one day to 18 years. Some have been placed with foster families, while others currently reside in the center, receiving all their needs, including shelter, food, education, and healthcare.”

Upon arrival at the center, Abu Amin notes that the center registers each child in its records, transfers them to the shelter department, and makes efforts to locate their original family or relatives and send them to them or to find a foster family to provide them with a decent life.

Abu Amin explains that the center employs 20 staff members who provide children with care, psychological support, and education. They work to create a suitable environment for the children and support them psychologically to help with emotional support.

He emphasizes that the center survives on individual donations to cover its expenses – which are scarce. There is an urgent need for sufficient support, as the children require long-term care, especially newborns.

A young girl Marah (8) and her brother, Kamal (10), lost their father in the war. Their mother remarried, leaving them to live in a small tent with their grandfather, who forces them to beg and sell tissues, often leaving them without food for days.

Consequently, they decided to escape from home. Kamal says, “We used to sleep outdoors, overwhelmed by fear, cold, and hunger, until someone took us to the child center.”

Upon reaching the center, they returned to their studies, played with other children, and each other, just like children with families.

Kamal expresses his wish, “I hope to continue my education with my sister so we can rely on ourselves and escape from a life of injustice and deprivation.”

These children, innocent of any wrongdoing, are often left to fend for themselves, bearing the brunt of war-induced poverty, insecurity, homelessness, instability, and early marriage.

IPS UN Bureau Report

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New Report Examines Progress on Global Sustainable Development Goals

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Opinion

Credit: Students in Nepal’s Chitlang. Both Nomads/Forus

NEW YORK, Mar 21 2024 (IPS) – At the half-way point of the 2030 Agenda, the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) “are in deep trouble.” The need to accelerate progress towards the Sustainable Development Goals has never been more urgent as only approximately 12% of targets are currently on track. “Planet” is equally at risk as “people”.

As civil society leader Mavalow Christelle Kalhoule, Forus Chair and President of SPONG, the Burkina Faso NGO network, puts it, “What unfolds in the Sahel and in so many other forgotten communities ripples across the globe, impacting us all even if we choose to look away. Implementing the Sustainable Development Goals is vital to unlock a different future.”

The new “Progressing National SDGs Implementation” report looks at how countries around the world are advancing in their efforts towards sustainable development. The 2023 edition of the report is particularly significant as it marks the midpoint towards the 2030 Agenda’s goals, and the “world is not delivering”.

The report, which has been published since 2017, looks at crucial aspects such as governance, civil society involvement and space, localization, the importance of policy coherence, and the principle of Leaving No One Behind.

To compile the analysis, the report combines official Voluntary National Reviews (VNRs) submitted by member states with spotlight and alternative assessments, which aim to offer a more complete picture of national progress, particularly with respect to the fundamental 2030 Agenda principle to leave no one behind.

The report highlights that while more countries are engaging in ‘whole of government’ planning to implement the SDGs, at the same time many of the same countries do not ensure a wider ‘whole of society’ approach that involves civil society partners in delivery of the 2030 Agenda.

The report calls for a renewed global commitment to the SDGs, with a focus on:

    • Increased ambition: Countries need to adopt more ambitious plans to achieve the SDGs and ensure policy coherence.
    • Leaving no one behind: Data collection and policy focus must ensure that everyone benefits from SDG progress pacitularly by considering the extra challenges faced in reaching historically marginalized groups.
    • Stronger partnerships: Governments, civil society, and the private sector need to work together more effectively.
    • Improved monitoring: More robust data, national statistical and monitoring systems are needed to track progress and identify areas lagging behind.

Oli Henman from Action for Sustainable Development said: “We need to ensure that SDG reviews are genuinely inclusive of all parts of society and that national plans are backed up with real steps towards financing implementation at the community level. This to the only way that the world can get back on track to deliver the transformative change that was promised in 2015.”

Wangu Mwangi, a seasoned environmental journalist and expert in sustainable development, has authored the Progressing National SDG Implementation Report 2023, drawing on her extensive experience in sustainable development, land governance, natural resources management, climate change adaptation, and African development.

This report was coordinated by A4SD, in collaboration with ANND, BOND, Cooperation Canada, CPDE, Forus, IISD, Save The Children UK, and Sightsavers.

IPS UN Bureau

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Unpaid Caregivers, a Symbol of Inequality in Chile

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Women & Economy

On International Women's Day on Mar. 8, thousands of Chilean women of all ages took to Santiago's central Alameda avenue to demonstrate peacefully for several hours and turn the Chilean capital into a stage for protest and demands for their rights. Some of them were women caregivers accompanied by dependent women. CREDIT: Orlando Milesi / IPS - In Chile, like elsewhere in Latin America, unpaid caregivers—mostly women—bear the responsibility of caring for individuals with disabilities, the elderly, and children, often leaving them without access to paid work or personal time

On International Women’s Day on Mar. 8, thousands of Chilean women of all ages took to Santiago’s central Alameda avenue to demonstrate peacefully for several hours and turn the Chilean capital into a stage for protest and demands for their rights. Some of them were women caregivers accompanied by dependent women. CREDIT: Orlando Milesi / IPS

SANTIAGO , Mar 20 2024 (IPS) – In Chile, as in the rest of Latin America, the task of caring for people with disabilities, the elderly and children falls to women who, as a result, do not have access to paid jobs or time for themselves.

Unpaid domestic and care work is crucial to the economies of the region, accounting for around 20 percent of gross domestic product (GDP).

Measurements by the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) found that in 16 Latin American countries, women spend between 22.1 and 42.8 hours per week on unpaid domestic and care work. Men only spend between 6.7 and 19.8 hours.

Ana Güezmes, director of ECLAC’s Division for Gender Affairs, told IPS that “in most countries women work longer total hours, but with a lower proportion of paid hours.”

“This work, which is fundamental for sustaining life and social well-being, is disproportionately assigned to women. This situation impacts women’s autonomy, economic opportunities, labor and political participation and their access to leisure activities and rest,” Güezmes said at ECLAC headquarters in Santiago.

The situation is far from changing as it is replicated in young women who devote up to 20 percent of their time to unpaid work.

Paloma Olivares, president for Santiago of the women's organization Yo Cuido, works in her office in the working-class municipality of Estación Central, in the northeast of the Chilean capital. CREDIT: Orlando Milesi / IPS

Paloma Olivares, president for Santiago of the women’s organization Yo Cuido, works in her office in the working-class municipality of Estación Central, in the northeast of the Chilean capital. CREDIT: Orlando Milesi / IPS

Women left on their own as caregivers

Paloma Olivares, 43, chairs the Yo Cuido Association in Santiago, Chile, which brings together 120 members, only two of them men.

“Women caregivers are denied the right to participate on equal terms in society because we are forced to choose between exercising our rights or doing caregiving work. And we cannot choose because it is a job we do for a loved one, for a family member.” — Paloma Olivares

“Women caregivers are denied the right to participate on equal terms in society because we are forced to choose between exercising our rights or doing caregiving work. And we cannot choose because it is a job we do for a loved one, for a family member,” she told IPS.

“We are left in a position of inequality, of absolute vulnerability because you have to devote your life to supporting someone else at the expense of your personal life,” she said.

Olivares stopped working to care for Pascale, her granddaughter, who was born with cerebral palsy and hydrocephalus.

Three days after her birth, a bacterium became lodged in her central nervous system. She was hospitalized for almost a year and became severely dependent.

At the time, she was given a seven percent chance of survival. Today she is eight years old, goes to school and lives an almost normal life thanks to the work of her caregivers.

She is now cared for by her mother Valentina, who had her at the age of 15. Paloma was able to return to paid work, but her daughter abandoned her studies to take care of Pascale.

“When you start being a caregiver, friendships end, because no one can keep up. Even the family drifts away. That’s why most caregiving families are single-parent, the woman is left alone to care because the man can’t keep up with the pace and the emotional and economic burden,” she said.

Olivares participated from Mar. 12 to 14 in a public hearing, digital and in person, on the right to care and its interrelation with other rights, in a collective request of several social organizations and the governments of Chile and other Latin American countries before the Inter-American Court of Human Rights (IACHR Court), based in San Jose, Costa Rica,

In the request for an opinion from the IACHR Court, “we asked the Court to take a stance on the right to care and how the rights of women in particular have been violated because there are no public policies in this regard. We want the Court to pronounce itself on the right to care and how the States should address it so that this right is guaranteed and so the rights of caregivers are no longer violated,” she explained.

It is expected that the Court’s pronouncement on the matter will come out in April and could establish minimum parameters regarding women caregivers for Chile and other Latin American countries.

Critical situation for women caregivers

Millaray Sáez, 59, told IPS by telephone from the southern Chilean city of Concepción that her son Mario Ignacio, 33, “is no longer the autonomous person he was. Since 2012 he has become a baby.”

She chairs the AML Bío Bío Corporación, an association of women in the Bío Bío region created in 2017 to address the question of female empowerment and today dedicated to the issue of caregivers.

“I have been a caregiver for 30 years for my son who has refractory epilepsy. He became prostrate in 2012 as a result of medical negligence,” said the international trade engineer who has become an expert in public policies on care with a gender perspective.

Sáez said “the situation of women caregivers is very bad, very precarious. There is a single cause, which is the work of caregiving, but the consequences are multidimensional…. from physical deterioration to the lack of legislation to protect against forms of violence, and ranging from the family to what society or the State adds.”

She also pointed to the economic consequences of dependent care.

She cited cases in which caregivers spend over 150 dollars a month on diapers alone for a person who needs them. And she pointed out that the government provides an economic aid stipend of just 33 dollars a month.

Teresa Valdés, head of the Gender and Equity Observatory of the Catholic University of Chile, praises the new registry of caregivers promoted by the Chilean government, but underlines the importance of municipal experiences and initiatives that promote homes and care centers to facilitate the lives of women caregivers. CREDIT: Orlando Milesi / IPS

Teresa Valdés, head of the Gender and Equity Observatory of the Catholic University of Chile, praises the new registry of caregivers promoted by the Chilean government, but underlines the importance of municipal experiences and initiatives that promote homes and care centers to facilitate the lives of women caregivers. CREDIT: Orlando Milesi / IPS

The magnitude of the problem

It is a pending task to determine the number of women caregivers in Chile.

The government of leftist President Gabriel Boric created a system for caregivers to register and receive a credential that gives them access to public services.

“The credential is the gateway to the Chile Cuida System. With it we seek to make them visible in services and institutions and to reward them for their work by saving them waiting time in daily procedures,” the Minister of Women and Gender Equity, Antonia Orellana, explained to IPS.

So far, there are 85,817 people registered, of whom 74,650 are women, or 87 percent of the total, and 11,167 are men, according to data provided to IPS on Mar. 14 by the Undersecretariat of Social Services of the Ministry of Social Development and Family.

But Chile has 19.5 million inhabitants, and “17.6 percent of the adult population has some degree of disability and, therefore, requires the daily care and support of other people in the home,” the minister said.

That means 3.4 million Chileans depend on a caregiver.

According to Orellana, facing the care scenario projected by the aging of the population will require the collaboration of everyone to “create and sustain an economic and productive system that generates decent work and formal employment, leaving no one behind.”

Other urgent demands by women

Sociologist Teresa Valdés, head of the Gender and Equity Observatory, told IPS that there are many social problems facing Chilean women today, “especially those related to access to health care, social security, unequal pay and access to different goods and services.”

Valdés regretted that the term “women caregivers” is used to refer to the role that women play and the tasks that are culturally assigned to them as a priority.

“We are all caregivers, all women work double shifts. The time-use survey shows that we work an additional 41 hours per week of so-called unpaid reproductive care work,” she said.

According to Valdés, the main advance in this problem is to include it in the debate because these are policies that require a lot of resources and extensive development, since they have to do with the structure of the labor market.

“Part of the proposal should be how to ‘de-genderize’, how care becomes a task of shared responsibility and not only that women have more time to take on the care tasks,” she said.

“When we call women caregivers, we are referring to the group most affected by the conditions of sexual division of labor and family reproduction,” she added.

The expert proposes progressively identifying ways to support women caregivers in order to provide them with available time and take care of their mental health.

She praised the programs promoted by some municipalities to free up time for these women to enjoy leisure and self-care.

“We have to move towards a cultural conception that we are all dependent. Today I depend on you, tomorrow you depend on me. Care is a social task in which I take care of you today so that you can take care of me tomorrow. And that is something that has to start from the earliest childhood,” she argued.

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Thailand’s ‘Humanitarian Corridor’ for Myanmar Faces Pushback

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Migration & Refugees

A Myanmar girl, displaced by war, sells cigarettes through the razor-wired border with Thailand near the frontier town of Mae Sot. Thailand is bracing for another influx of refugees. Credit: William Webb/lPS

A Myanmar girl, displaced by war, sells cigarettes through the razor-wired border with Thailand near the frontier town of Mae Sot. Thailand is bracing for another influx of refugees. Credit: William Webb/lPS

MAE SOT, Thailand, Mar 13 2024 (IPS) – The Maung family is rebuilding their lives in a foreign land. A freshly painted signboard with a play on the word Revolution declares their small restaurant is open for business, and breakfast features traditional Myanmar mohinga—rice noodles and fish soup.

Three years ago, the family of four was prospering in the central Myanmar city of Mandalay but suddenly everything changed. The military seized back power from the newly elected government, and thousands of people took to the streets in protest, including the Maungs. A brutal crackdown ensued across Myanmar, the father was arrested and their two restaurants seized.

Since the 2021 coup, the UN estimates some 2.4 million more people have been displaced by conflict across Myanmar, while 78,000 civilian properties, including homes, hospitals, schools, and places of worship, have been burnt or destroyed by the military.

The Maung family was wise to leave Myanmar when they could, and fortunate to survive the hazardous journey eastwards towards the border with Thailand. After spending a year in a border camp for IDPs run by the military wing of the Karen National Union (KNU) in eastern Kayin State, the family managed to cross into the Thai frontier town of Mae Sot to start afresh, even if they exist in a grey zone of legality alongside tens of thousands of others.

More waves of refugees are following in their footsteps.

“We have 750,000 IDPs in our territory,” said a senior official of the KNU, which has been waging the world’s longest civil war against successive Myanmar regimes since 1949. “A year ago, there were 500,000 to 600,000. Numbers are rising because the military is deliberately targeting civilians,” he told IPS in Mae Sot, asking not to be named.

Myanmar refugees in Thailand pick out clothes piled in the street that have been donated in the border town of Mae Sot. Credit: William Webb/IPS

Myanmar refugees in Thailand pick out clothes piled in the street that have been donated in the border town of Mae Sot. Credit: William Webb/IPS

Against this background and wanting to preempt an influx, Thailand’s new coalition government announced its intention last month to open up a ‘humanitarian corridor’ into Myanmar to funnel aid to IDPs and keep them well away from the border.

Thailand’s military—the real arbiter of power in these border regions and holding sway over two parties in the coalition—is haunted by the spectre of past and present examples of chaos through conflict. In the 1980s, Thailand reluctantly hosted several hundred thousand Cambodian refugees, including remnants of the genocidal Khmer Rouge regime, on its eastern borders. Today it looks west and sees Bangladesh struggling to contain in camps some one million Rohingya refugees forced out of Myanmar in what the UN special rapporteur on human rights called a genocidal campaign by the Myanmar military.

But beyond the ‘humanitarian’ aspect, what has caused anger within the various groups fighting the Myanmar military as well as rights activists, is Thailand’s own admission that its humanitarian corridor proposal is aimed at drawing the regime’s State Administration Council (SAC) into a dialogue that would lead to a negotiated settlement with Myanmar’s diverse resistance forces.

Neither the KNU nor the parallel National Unity Government set up by ousted Myanmar lawmakers after the coup were consulted by Thailand, which received a green light from the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN).

Under Thailand’s initiative, aid would be delivered initially to 20,000 IDPs by the Thai Red Cross and the Myanmar Red Cross (whose senior administrators are former military officers) and monitored by ASEAN’s Coordinating Centre for Humanitarian Assistance on Disaster Management, where the Myanmar junta also has a presence.

“Aid is used everywhere in the world as a political entry point,” the KNU official commented. “This is not a pure humanitarian issue. They want to bring the SAC out of isolation. This is very problematic for us.”

A senior NUG official, also based in Thailand, was similarly concerned by the political intentions behind the proposal.  “It’s a desperate measure by ASEAN seeking a semblance of negotiated peace and dialogue,” he told IPS.

The official doubted it would get off the ground in its present form without the support of the Karen forces that control large areas of Kayin State, nor without the full backing of the US.

The US values its long-held strategic ties with Thailand and its military, and Thai Foreign Minister Parnpree Bahiddha-Nukara returned from Washington last month, declaring that he had secured complete US support for the initiative, although the US public statement appeared more cautious.

Human rights activists and humanitarian workers on the Thai-Myanmar border remain highly sceptical of the initiative, denouncing it as a “weaponization of aid”.

Thailand, they note, has never officially recognized the refugee status of nearly 100,000 people living in nine UNHCR camps along the Thai-Myanmar border since the 1990s.

“This is not about providing humanitarian aid to the people of Myanmar. It is about giving a new lifeline to the junta to re-engage with ASEAN and everybody else,” commented Paul Greening, a former UN senior staff officer and now independent consultant in Mae Sot.

“Neighbours and other international actors, including the US and China, do not want the junta to fall. They do not want the junta to win but they do not want it to fall either. This is why they all want a ‘negotiated settlement’,” he said.

Igor Blazevic, a senior adviser at the Prague Civil Society Centre who previously worked in Myanmar, said a “carrot” was being held out to the Myanmar regime at a time when it was “seriously weakened and shaken” after losing large areas of territory to resistance forces both in Rakhine State in the west and in Shan State close to China.

“A political aim behind the ‘humanitarian initiative’ is the intention to treat genocidal power-usurpers in uniform as the inevitable and unavoidable key factor in Myanmar’s ‘stability’ and with combination of soft pressure and humanitarian incentives, try to force everybody else to surrender, in a soft way, to ongoing military dominance in politics and the economy,” Blazevic wrote in a commentary.

With the UN warning that nearly two million people in Myanmar are expected to fall into the “highest category of needs severity (catastrophic)” this year, the resistance is aware that they will come under intense international pressure not to reject the Thai initiative.

Recent developments indicate Thailand may rethink its proposal, however. It has opened channels with the KNU and the NUG to discuss their involvement in facilitating aid deliveries through Myanmar civil society organisations independent of the regime. Word has it that the Myanmar Red Cross is not that keen to be directly involved, knowing it is too close to the regime to be able to safely deliver aid to those who have suffered atrocities at its hands.

For the Maung family and their small eatery in Mae Sot, a dream would be to return to Mandalay and Myanmar in peace. But they have little hope of such an outcome, nor do they really want to remain in Thailand, along with over two million other Myanmar workers, classified as migrants, not refugees.

For the moment, life revolves around navigating Thailand’s complex and often corrupt system to secure papers that would give them a degree of legitimacy and enable them to move beyond Mae Sot and surrounding Tak Province. A possible lifeline is an ethnic Chinese branch of their family with members in Taiwan.

“Taiwan could be our future,” says the elder of two daughters, who still dreams of going to university. “I can learn Chinese,” she says, in excellent English.

IPS UN Bureau Report

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UNWRA Chief Warns Agency’s Fate ‘Hangs in the Balance’

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Philippe Lazzarini, Commissioner-General of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA), briefs reporters at UN Headquarters.

Philippe Lazzarini, Commissioner-General of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA), briefs reporters at UN Headquarters.

UNITED NATIONS, Mar 6 2024 (IPS) – UNRWA Commissioner-General Philippe Lazzarini asked the UN General Assembly to urge member states to support the organization’s mandate during this period of unprecedented crisis for the region and the agency. He also called for member states to facilitate a “long-overdue political process” for the two-state solution for Israel and Palestine. Only then, in this context, should UNRWA be allowed to transition.

He was speaking at an informal session of the General Assembly on the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA). This was convened to discuss the ongoing situation with UNRWA’s capacity as a humanitarian and human development agency in Gaza.

Despite its existence for 75 years, UNRWA’s presence was always intended to be temporary. “It is a stain on our collective conscience that for 75 years, UNRWA has had to fill a vacuum left by the lack of a political solution and genuine peace,” said Lazzarini.

The ongoing hostilities in the Gaza Strip and the resulting destruction of UNRWA facilities, which have disrupted humanitarian services in the region, have led to calls to seek alternatives that can deliver on the scale of the agency or to raise concern about whether other agencies can deliver the necessary humanitarian aid.

“UNRWA is facing a deliberate and concerted campaign to undermine its operations and ultimately end them,” said Lazzarini.

Lazzarini argued that dismantling UNRWA during the current crisis would be shortsighted, given that the agency was designed to provide public services such as education and primary healthcare in a region without state authority. “The notion that the Agency can be dismantled without violating a host of human rights and jeopardizing international peace and security is naïve at best,” he said.

Speaking at a press briefing that same day, Lazzarini told reporters, “We can only feel that the worst is yet to come.” He remarked that since January, aid delivery to Gaza has decreased by 50 percent. Since then, famine has become all but inevitable.

Remarking on the dual investigations into UNRWA’s operations, Lazzarini stated that the investigations were necessary as an accountability measure. These investigations were announced after it was revealed that he had terminated the contracts of 12 staff members who were allegedly involved in the October 7 attacks. Lazzarini added that the “swift decision” to terminate the contracts, as well as the investigations, would likely reflect the agency’s ability to follow through on recommendations from a risk management review.

Lazzarini admitted, however, that he had not anticipated the swift action that 16 donor countries took to suspend their funding in the wake of the allegations, which he revealed were conveyed to him in an oral manner.  “I have no regret,” he said, referring to his response to the allegations, “but to be honest, I did not expect that… over the weekend, 16 countries would take that decision.”

The UNRWA chief also indicated that most donor countries would consider resuming their support. For those donor countries, the pressure to pull support came from domestic or public opinion that seems divided over UNRWA rather than foreign policy considerations.

There is some promise that UNRWA will continue to deliver on its mandate with the help of donor states, as was seen with the European Commission’s decision to continue funding the agency, starting with a pledge of 50 million euros. However, this will only go partway into filling the gap of 450 million USD left by the 16 donor countries. Lazzarini warned that without additional funding, the agency would be in “uncharted territory” and would have “serious implications for global peace and security.”

The atrocities that were committed on and since October 7 have only resulted in increasing devastation and tragedy. The international community, as embodied by the General Assembly on Monday, seems largely united in their calls for a humanitarian ceasefire in Gaza and for the safe release of all hostages.

Yet the ongoing hostilities in the region have prevented the UN and its agencies from fulfilling their mandate to safely provide critical emergency aid. Five months on, there is a seeming lack of forward momentum within the Security Council to deliver a ceasefire resolution. UNRWA has been contending with compounding existential questions about its survival as an agency from hostile forces in the Gaza Strip and beyond who call for its dissolution.

IPS UN Bureau Report

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From Gas to Ash: The Struggle of Nigerian Women Amidst Surging Cooking Gas Prices

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Energy

Nigerian women returning from the forest with firewood. Credit: Peace Oladipo/IPS

Nigerian women returning from the forest with firewood. Credit: Peace Oladipo/IPS

KWARA, Nigeria, Mar 1 2024 (IPS) – One sunny mid-morning in Omu-Aran village, a community in Kwara State, North Central Nigeria, Iyabo Sunday sat beside a firewood stand observing her pot of beans with rice (a combination enjoyed by many in Nigeria).

The 52-year-old widow used her plastic dirt parker to fan the flames, occasionally blowing air through her mouth for speed and frantically shielding her face from the wisps of smoke that curled from the firewood.

After a hike in electricity tariffs, Sunday told IPS that she abandoned her electric-powered stove for cooking gas. But instability in the “economy has successfully caused me to move back to the firewood since my children and I must eat.”

Oyedele Christiana, a 41-year-old restaurateur who specializes in making fufu, a local delicacy made from cassava, expressed her wish to stop using firewood and charcoal but was constrained by finances. “The smoke enters my eyes and makes me cough a lot.  I usually use firewood for my canteen business, while I use charcoal at home for household cooking.”

Like Iyabo, Christiana made use of cooking gas. The sporadic increase in the price of domestic gas has since pushed her to the traditional cooking method, with its attendant havoc on her eyes and lungs. “I am not as old as I look, but cooking has done this,” Oyedele sighed.

The price of cooking gas in Nigeria has soared wildly amid the country’s inflation woes. The removal of subsidy on petrol products, together with a depreciation of the naira, has resulted in a steep increase in the cost of food and transportation. This hike in the cost of living comes amid a minimum wage of N30,000 ($18), ranked among the lowest in the world, according to Picodi.

The price of 12.5 kg of cooking gas increased from N7,413. ($4) in 2022 to N16,875 ($10) in February 2024 across the country, a price just half the national minimum wage.

Implications on Women, Environment

Women living in grassroots communities who can no longer afford cooking gas have no choice but to bear the harsh method of cooking with firewood. Many, like Ajayi Omole, an octogenarian living in Akungba, a town in Ondo State, have made cooking with firewood a delight due to the lack of alternatives.

“We usually go into the forest, get the trees, sun dry (them), and prepare them for cooking.” However, she said, “I have a stove inside my room but I can’t use it because I don’t have enough to purchase kerosene.”

The nation’s alarming poverty circle, where Iyabo and Oyedele belong, speaks loudly about the reality of clean cooking. Statistics indicate that 63 percent of the entire population mostly relies on traditional method cooking, usually described as ‘dirty’.

The National Council on Climate Change (NCCC) has stated that, aside from the dangers of deforestation and climate destruction, the use of firewood and charcoal for cooking directly affects women’s health. This is in agreement with figures from the Federal Ministry of Environment about how more than 98,000 Nigerian women die annually from smoke inhaled while cooking with firewood.

Aisha Sulaiman, a renewable energy and green hydrogen technologist, said that rising prices of cooking gas have caused many to transition back to the use of firewood and charcoal, leading many women to multiple health issues. She emphasized that women suffer stronger health issues as secondhand smokers.

She said, “In an African setting, women belong to the kitchen; that’s how the narrative is, even if that is not supposed to be. In rural communities, the main source of energy in terms of cooking is the traditional method, which is unsustainable and harmful.

“The traditional methods of cooking involve charcoal and firewood. These are materials that lead to the release of greenhouse gases, particularly CO2, into our environment, and this in turn contributes to global warming, which brings about climate change.”

Speaking on women’s health, Sulaiman mentioned that respiratory diseases could stem from inhaling smoke from charcoal and firewood. “These methods are a source of air pollution, which can cause serious health issues. Overexposure to the smoke also leads to a disease called chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, which is very endemic to women,’’ she said. Sulaiman added that the Nigerian government should prioritize making clean energy accessible and cost-competitive to procure its acceptance by the people in low-income communities.

Ibrahim Muhammad, an energy consultant and team lead at Climate Alaramma Sustainable Development Initiative, a youth-led environmental organization in northern Nigeria, argued that the transition back to the traditional method of cooking would increase deforestation. He said the increase in LPG’s price is connected to the nation’s economic downturn.

In his words, “There is extensive research demonstrating the significant impact of traditional cooking methods on women and children. These methods contribute to deforestation and air pollution, particularly through the emission of smoke.”

Muhammad noted that women’s transition to traditional cooking was a setback in Nigeria’s transition plan to energy, especially in the area of clean cooking.

The Nigerian government and international development partners must find avenues for cleaning cooking infrastructure to be subsidized so that rural communities, mostly affected, can be able to afford it. According to him, “Considering the nature of some communities that are into agriculture, they are expected to be supported with infrastructure that can help them use this agricultural waste to cook.  Additionally, the prices of these clean cooking stoves that are being developed are subsidized.”

Speaking further on alternatives, he added, “Briquettes, produced from agricultural waste, typically resemble charcoal and can perform all the functions of charcoal. They are energy-efficient and made from various agricultural waste materials, thus not promoting deforestation.”

Muhammad added that harmless solutions should be created to fit in Nigeria’s context; electric stoves may be considered impossible due to unstable electricity.

“Solar cookers are typically used when it is sunny, but many people hardly have lunch, they mostly focus on breakfast and dinner. Many women cook early in the morning or evening, so we need to tailor solutions to our specific circumstances,’’ he said.

IPS UN Bureau Report

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