Dec 4 2024 (IPS) – CIVICUS discusses threats to the security, rights and ancestral lands of Brazil’s quilombola communities with Wellington Gabriel de Jesus dos Santos, leader and activist of the Pitanga dos Palmares Quilombola community in Bahia state.
Founded by formerly enslaved Africans, quilombola communities represent a legacy of resilience and freedom. But their way of life is increasingly disrupted by harmful infrastructure projects and their members face constant threats from land grabbers and speculators. Community leaders demanding justice and reparations are met with intimidation and violence while public institutions look the other way. The National Coordination of Rural Black Quilombola Communities urges the Brazilian government to grant them protection and ensure accountability.
Wellington Gabriel de Jesus dos Santos
What are quilombola communities, and what’s the focus of their struggle?
Quilombola communities were born out of resistance to slavery. My community, Quilombo Pitanga, was founded by the descendants of those who fought for freedom when slavery was officially abolished in 1888. Even after slavery ended, the struggles continued because former slave owners and landowners continued to exploit and persecute our people.
Today, quilombola communities continue to fight for our land and culture. It’s important to us to preserve our heritage for future generations because it’s a testament to the strength of our ancestors, our survival and our resilience.
We advocate for justice and land rights through a combination of local and international strategies. We work with organisations such as the National Articulation of Quilombola Communities, which brings together quilombo leaders from across Brazil. We also hold protests, develop public awareness campaigns and work with international organisations to draw attention to our struggles.
What threats does your community face and who’s responsible?
My community faces significant threats, particularly from drug traffickers and powerful business interests. These threats became very real when my great-grandmother, María Bernadete Pacífico, was murdered by drug traffickers last year. She fought for the preservation of our culture and the wellbeing of younger generations, and I believe that’s what got her killed. She was part of a human rights protection programme, but the promised protection failed when she needed it most. My father was also murdered in 2017, during a battle against the construction of a landfill near our territory.
After my great-grandmother was killed, I haven’t been able to visit my family or enter the community. I live in constant fear, watching over the community and its heritage from afar.
Our community also faces institutional racism, reflected in the fact that the state built a prison on our land but fails to provide basic services such as schools and hospitals. We lack any public security, as a result of which some believe they can act with impunity. The prison, which was inaugurated in 2007, was supposed to be a shoe factory that would bring prosperity to the community. Suddenly, it was announced that it would be a prison, and it brought rising criminality and contamination of water resources and wetlands. Quilombo Pitanga dos Palmares hasn’t been the same since.
The bigger problem is that many quilombola communities, including ours, own valuable land. My community has a large territory, so we’ve been targeted by powerful interests that view our land as prime real estate for expansion. In 2012 we fought against the construction of an industrial road that would have cut through our land. There were large corporations involved, which made this fight particularly hard.
How do authorities respond?
The state not only turns a blind eye, leaving us vulnerable to exploitation, but it’s also complicit in these attacks because it protects the interests of big business rather than people. INEMA, the agency responsible for granting environmental licences to companies, has been investigated for corruption that has led to the approval of projects that harm communities like ours.
The authorities say they care about our safety, but the reality is different. The laws that are supposed to protect us are ignored and often the government is either unconcerned or in collusion with those causing harm.
What support do quilombola communities need?
Several issues need immediate attention, including securing our land rights, gaining access to basic services such as health and education and preserving our cultural heritage. A practical issue that needs attention is the toll we are forced to pay to enter the city, which constitutes arbitrary discrimination and isolates us from the wider community.
We are fighting the prison built on our land and the expansion of harmful companies that threaten our environment. We need more than words; we need tangible action, including stronger laws to protect us.
We need international support because local and national authorities often ignore or dismiss our struggles. Financial support is crucial, particularly for community leaders under threat. Many of us, including myself, face death threats. Our lives are far from normal and we need resources to ensure the safety of our families and communities.
United Nations human rights agencies could play a vital role in protecting our rights and securing the support we need. Unfortunately, despite local efforts to raise awareness, we often feel isolated in our struggles.
Community health worker in Nepal helping giving polio vaccine to a child. Climate change-induced events are affecting basic health facilities directly. Photo: Tanka Dhakal/IPS
BAKU, Nov 14 2024 (IPS) – Climate change and its impact on public health hasn’t made the top of the agenda even at a forum like the UN Climate Conference, but is should, say the health community.
Understanding the gap, more than 100 organizations from across the international health and climate community came together as the Global Climate and Health Alliance and have called wealthy countries to protect people’s health by committing to provide climate finance in the order of a trillion dollars annually, in addition to global action with leadership from the highest emitting countries to end the fossil fuel era.
Alliance endorsed nine recommendations for the summit through a policy brief—‘A COP29 for People and Planet’ which includes financing to community engagement.
In an interview with Dr. Jeni Miller, Executive Director of the Global Climate and Health Alliance IPS asked about the recommendations and why they were necessary.
Dr. Jeni Miller, Executive Director of the Global Climate and Health Alliance.
IPS: How and why the international health and climate community came together—why was it necessary, right before COP29?
Miller: For many years, the UN climate negotiations have been going on. For many years, health was not a part of the conversation. And in fact, the Global Climate and Health Alliance was established because a handful of health organizations felt like this is an important health issue, and we need to get health into that conversation, and we’re not seeing it there. Over the years, more and more health organizations have really begun to understand the threat that climate change poses to people’s health. I think a big contributing factor as well is that we are now seeing those impacts of climate change in real time in communities all over the world—every country, every region, is seeing some combination of extreme weather events.
This is directly impacting the communities that we serve, and we have to raise the alarm bell and make sure that we’re pushing for those solutions that are going to protect people’s health. The report, specifically the policy recommendations, is really an attempt to take what we’re seeing from the health perspective, the concerns that we have. About the threat that this poses for people’s health and the reality of the impacts on people’s health, and somewhat translate that into terms that make sense for negotiators to pick that up, understand it, and use it in the context of those actual decision-making processes in the climate talks.
IPS: Wealth is concentrated on one side of the world or one section of the community, but burden—especially public health burden—is on marginalized communities who don’t have access to basic resources. Is there any way that gap will be narrowed in the near future?
Miller: This is such a critically important issue. And unfortunately, we’re seeing some real extremes of wealth disparity—ironically, in countries that have huge wealth disparity within the country, everyone is less healthy than they would be if there was less health disparity. If people were more equal, that would be healthier for everyone. But the reality is, many people, as you say, don’t have the resources to access the basic necessities of life. Healthy food, clean water, electricity of any kind, but particularly clean energy, even access to education, access to basic health care—all of those things are really vital to growing up healthy and to living a healthy life. And the thing that is so clear is that access to those basic necessities early in life makes a tremendous difference in being able to grow up healthy, resilient, and productive.
It’s a huge impact on the individual that’s growing up without those resources—it’s also an impact on society. So, a society that has people that grow up with enough resources to be resilient, healthy, and well educated is a healthier society. And I would argue that that extends not only within a community or even a country but also internationally. So, if we have huge disparities internationally, that’s also kind of a drain on the world, a challenge for the world as a whole. It leads to conflict, it leads to friction, and it leads to difficulty making decisions to tackle climate change together. I would argue that it’s really in the best interest of wealthy countries to make those investments to help the lowest-income, vulnerable countries have the resource they need to address those basic necessities. I think it’s fundamental. It’s the right thing to do.
I think for so many reasons, it’s important that the wealthy countries do step up and provide this kind of resources.
IPS: While talking about the resources, wealthy countries are already far behind on their climate finance commitment. Do you think they will consider financing to protect people’s health?
Miller: This is a major focus of this year’s climate negotiations. In fact, on the table is a major discussion about a new pot of financing for climate change, and I don’t think we know the answer yet as to how that’s going to come out.
It often gets talked about as we can’t economically afford to put in that money. I think a key question is, what is the cost of inaction? If we fail to act, we’re already seeing. The cost of failing to act on climate change is immense. The cost of failing to enable countries to be better, prepared to be better, to have their systems, their water and sanitation systems be stronger, their hospitals be more prepared, etc. The costs are just staggering. So, when we’re talking about, can we afford to put the money into climate action, I think we also need to ask the question, can we afford not to? I think the answer is no. And then the last thing that I’ll say about this is, and this is also important, we are currently subsidizing fossil fuels more than a trillion a year in direct public subsidies. So that’s public money going into supporting the production and use of fossil fuels, and fossil fuels are the primary driver of climate change.
So again, when we’re talking about, can we afford to or are we prepared to invest in climate action and put money into a Climate Fund? We need to ask ourselves the question. What is the cost of not doing so? And then where else is public money going that could be going into moving us in the right direction, towards clean energy, towards climate resilience?
IPS: You talked about the extreme weather events. In recent years, extreme events contributed by climate change are causing destruction en masse; often its monetary losses will be counted but its public health impact is still to be discussed. How do you see climate and health discussion moving forward especially regarding financing?
Miller: I don’t think it happens by itself. In my own country, the US, we are seeing climate-exacerbated disaster, and yet people not accepting the role of climate change in that and not accepting that the health impacts, the dislocation, and the trauma that they’re experiencing were caused by climate change.
It’s not necessarily going to happen just by itself, in in other countries as well. People may be feeling the impacts, but not connecting the dots, and not because of disinformation, not recognizing.
I do think that it’s important for those who know about those connections—the scientists, the advocates, the health professionals who are looking at these issues, the academic departments—to talk about it and articulate what those connections are.
But then I do think that each time one of those extreme weather events does create the opportunity for that conversation to happen, and we need to step up to those opportunities.
And I think that can make a really big difference in changing the nature of the conversation and opening-up possibility for a deeper conversation about what we need to do about this.
IPS: Let’s talk about the report. It talks about healthy climate action for most affected communities. Can you explain it for our audience and what would be the role of the community?
Miller: It’s so often the case that decisions get made without consulting communities affected by those decisions. There can be very good will that is, and good intentions behind that, and yet the results are not going to be as good if you’re not working with the people affected by the issue. The thing that community members know that nobody else knows in the way that they know it is their lived experience of what’s going on in their community, their resources in terms of their own knowledge, their own community relationships, their own resilience, their own techniques. There may be techniques that they know for growing food and their ecosystem.
There may be knowledge you know for forced communities, knowledge that they have of the force that they live in. There is very deep knowledge that communities have about their circumstances, their context, and their needs and what they can bring in terms of solutions, so effectively working with communities means really involving them in the conversation from the get-go when designing programs and projects and all of that sort of thing. And I think when it comes even to financing, thinking about how finance for Climate Solutions reaches that community level.
I think another thing that’s really important to recognize is that climate change puts a huge strain on all of us. It’s a huge psychological strain just to live in the climate era. Enabling communities to come together and be a part of the solution helps to heal that burden.
IPS: You touched on mental health. The report also talks about mental health and wellbeing outcomes—we are seeing people struggling with climate-related post- and pre-event psychological burden in different forms. How do you see this dimension moving forward?
Miller: That is one area where I’ve definitely seen significant progress in the last several years. I think I’ve seen significant progress in increasingly recognizing the health impacts of climate change and the health threat that climate change poses, and then within that, significant progress in beginning to recognize and acknowledge and understand the mental health dimensions of this. There’s a long way to go, but it is a part of the conversation, and it’s an important one.
There are mental health impacts before or after an extreme weather event, and that can show up as kind of anxiety and stress, a variety of things. People who go through major extreme weather events, like the post-traumatic stress of having experienced that and having gone through it, not knowing if it might happen again or when it might happen again.
There’s also the sense of losing one’s world, losing the world that one grew up in, losing the environment that one, the world that one grew up in and seeing those things kind of slip away—this sort of a cultural, ecological and cultural dimension to that. And if you know, failing to acknowledge that mental health dimension both leaves people suffering and also leaves people sort of disempowered.
I think community is important in response to those kinds of mental health challenges—the kind of recognition that there are actions that one can take and ways that one can come together. And some of those actions may be kind of the direct actions of sustainability, working to live a more sustainable lifestyle. I think even, maybe even more important than that, are actions of coming together with the community to influence the kinds of decisions that get made, to call for the kinds of policies that will turn the needle on climate change, to have a voice in the larger conversation. I think that can be even more powerful.
IPS: Do you have anything to add that we may have missed or you wanted to add?
Miller: I think the one thing that I would add is that, right now, every government that’s part of the Paris Agreement is in the process of drafting new national climate commitments.
It’s an important opportunity, not just at the international level, and as at these big international climate talks, but at home, in every single country, for people to call on their governments to make commitments that are aligned with protecting their health from climate change.
Also, I think it’s important to continue to focus on what we can do. The headwinds can feel pretty strong. Addressing climate change will be something that we’re doing for the rest of our lives, not just for the rest of my life—anybody alive today will be dealing with this issue for the rest of our lives. So, we need to maintain our stamina around it and know that this is a long-term commitment and know that it’s worth it.
Oct 15 2024 (IPS) – CIVICUS discusses Afghanistan’s system of gender apartheid with Shaharzad Akbar, Executive Director of Rawadari, a human rights organisation founded by Afghans in exile.
Since regaining power in August 2021, the Taliban have banned women from all education beyond primary school and most jobs. They don’t allow women to travel without a male guardian or be seen in public, with severe penalties for violations. A new law introduced in August 2024 further silenced women by literally banning them from being heard in public. This received widespread international condemnation. Afghan civil society, mostly in exile, continues to document human rights abuses, advocate with international allies and campaign for change.
Shaharzad Akbar
How much space is there for civil society to operate in Afghanistan under the Taliban?
Not much. Although there’s still some civic resistance, mainly led by women, the Taliban have dismantled almost all civic structures. They have disbanded student associations and teachers’ unions and severely restricted the space for civil society to operate.
Long before they took power, the Taliban targeted civil society activists, journalists and religious and tribal leaders who challenged their rules. But when they regained power in August 2021, they used state institutions to further restrict civic space. It was women who resisted: just one day after the Taliban seized Kabul, they took to the streets to demand their rights. Independent media cautiously tried to cover these protests, but journalists were beaten and tortured. By January 2022, the Taliban were arresting women protesters. Cases of arbitrary detention, torture and intimidation and enforced disappearances have only increased since then.
The Taliban repealed laws protecting journalists and civil society, increased censorship and used intimidation to silence independent media. Anyone who criticises their government, even if it’s a social media post questioning electricity cuts, is likely to receive a phone call from the Taliban’s intelligence agency ordering them to delete it and not to raise the issue again.
It’s now impossible to work openly on human rights or freedom of expression in Afghanistan. The Taliban shut down the organisation I headed, the Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission (AIHRC). Other organisations working on cultural rights, peacebuilding and social issues have either changed their mandates or left.
How have the Taliban responded to women’s resistance?
When they returned to power, the Taliban were surprised to see women take to the streets against them. Given the Taliban’s violent past, many men didn’t dare protest. But women, who the Taliban underestimated because they saw them as weak, stood together and challenged them publicly.
At first they thought the protests would die down, but when this didn’t happen, they responded with increased violence, imprisoning and torturing women activists and targeting their families. They also launched a smear campaign accusing them of not being ‘authentic’ Afghan women. Since then, they’ve tried to impose the idea that Afghan women belong at home, fully covered and without any public aspirations.
Many repressive decrees followed. First, women were segregated from men in universities, then required to cover up even more and finally banned altogether from universities in December 2022. Restrictions on women’s work also increased over time: women were first restricted to the government health and education sectors and they were later banned from working for civil society organisations and the United Nations (UN). The result was a full-blown system of gender apartheid.
But women refused to be erased and found new ways to resist. Some have continued to protest publicly, even at great risk to their lives and those of their families. A notable example is a protester who was detained with her four-year-old son. Others have opted for more subtle forms of resistance, setting up clandestine schools and seeking education delivered via WhatsApp by Afghan diaspora and international educators. Women’s rights activists, both inside and outside Afghanistan, have formed advocacy networks that are very active in international and regional forums.
When was Rawadari founded and what does it do?
Rawadari was publicly launched in December 2022 by a group of exiled former AIHRC staff. We had been documenting human rights abuses for over a decade and were forced into exile when the Taliban came to power. We set up Rawadari because we felt it was important to continue monitoring and documenting the situation, and to counter the disinformation being spread by the Taliban.
Rawadari’s work focuses on three areas. The first is human rights monitoring. To date, we have published nine reports, available in English and Afghanistan’s two main languages, Dari and Pashto. We want to ensure they are accessible to both local and international audiences.
Our second area is advocacy, particularly on accountability and victim-centred justice. We regularly submit reports to the UN and push for the Taliban to be brought before the International Court of Justice and International Criminal Court. We also advocate for additional resources for the UN Special Rapporteur on Afghanistan and are exploring other mechanisms, such as the establishment of a people’s tribunal for Afghanistan.
The third focus of our work is to promote a culture of human rights. This is difficult because, being outside Afghanistan, we have to do it through social media campaigns and online discussions and events. But we try to keep the conversation going and build alliances within the human rights community and beyond.
How are you campaigning for women’s rights?
In June this year, it was 1,000 days since the Taliban banned girls from going to school. To raise awareness and keep the issue alive in people’s minds, we launched the Iqra campaign (‘read’ in Arabic). We worked with Musawer, an organisation led by the renowned Afghan poet Shafiqa Khpalwak.
As we couldn’t use video footage for security reasons, we asked girls to record a short audio clip about how the ban on education affected them. This wasn’t easy, because many girls don’t have their own phones and identifying them could put them at risk. But we managed to gather voices from across Afghanistan.
The campaign was a success because it centred the voices of Afghan girls from every corner of the country and brought them to the fore, and because it gained support from men and women. Girls spoke about the dreams they’ve lost, the friendships they miss and the depression and negative thoughts they battle every day. Some said they’d witnessed early marriages among their friends. They all appealed to the international community to support their right to education. Some clips reached thousands of people, and prominent Afghan singers, TV personalities and other celebrities amplified the message and called for the reopening of girls’ schools.
We’ve also recently worked with Femena, a regional organisation, to launch a campaign in response to the recent ban on women’s voices in public spaces. Afghan women, at great risk, began singing as a form of protest. To show solidarity, we asked people around the world to share a song, poem or message of support each week. So we continue working to make sure Afghan girls and women are heard and not forgotten.
What challenges do you face in your work?
One of the main obstacles we face is the complete closure of the physical spaces in which we used to work. We can’t hold programmes in schools, universities or mosques in Afghanistan, nor can we speak openly about human rights issues without putting people at serious risk. This severely limits our ability to have face-to-face conversations, which are crucial for mobilising support and building relationships.
Another major challenge is gathering and verifying information. In the past, when there was a violent attack, we would go to hospitals and other local facilities to get details. Now the Taliban have ordered these facilities not to share sensitive information. Families of victims and survivors are also often afraid to speak out, making it difficult for us to document serious violations such as disappearances. Even when we promise them full and strict confidentiality, families are too afraid to come forward.
It is also a challenge to protect our network in Afghanistan. Something as simple as compensating people for their communication or transportation costs could put them in danger. We can’t organise collective online training sessions because participants could reveal their identities to each other, increasing the risks.
On the advocacy front, our biggest challenge is the lack of political will. Afghanistan has largely fallen off the international agenda and many western countries, particularly the USA, are reluctant to get involved. There’s a general perception that Afghanistan is a failed intervention they want to move on from, which leads to a lack of investment in improving the situation, particularly in this election year. Global attention and resources have also shifted to other crises such as the war in Gaza.
This risks normalising the Taliban regime. Neighbouring countries, including China, Iran and the United Arab Emirates, are gradually developing relations with it. We fear that the Taliban regime, which is not yet officially recognised by any country, may eventually gain the international recognition it seeks despite its policy of gender apartheid.
What international support does Afghan civil society need?
Humanitarian aid is key to meeting immediate needs, but it doesn’t address the underlying problems. There is an urgent need to improve the economy, but the international community must find ways to do this without empowering the Taliban, who don’t really care about the wellbeing of Afghan people.
States must be careful to avoid actions that could be seen as accepting the Taliban’s repressive policies and lead to their normalisation. For example, when they engage diplomatically with the Taliban, they must include women and civil society representatives in their delegations. It’s not about stopping engagement with the Taliban; it’s about ensuring every interaction sends a strong message about the importance of human rights, and specifically women’s rights.
People around the world can also help by urging their governments to take a principled approach in their engagement with the Taliban, prioritise women’s rights, hold the Taliban accountable and support education programmes, scholarships and initiatives for Afghan women and girls. They can also support organisations that campaign for their rights.
Even simple acts of solidarity like singing a song and reading a poem in support of Afghan women, if done collectively, can keep the international spotlight on Afghanistan, give hope to women and girls in Afghanistan and therefore make a difference.
Biodiversity is key to food security and nutrition. IPBES has warned that loss of biodiversity is accelerating around the world, with 1 million animal and plant species threatened with extinction. Credit: Busani Bafana/IPS
BULAWAYO, Oct 11 2024 (IPS) – A holistic approach and transformative change of systems are needed to tackle biodiversity loss and to put the world on a sustainable path, an assessment by the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) has recommended.
The world is facing an interconnected crisis of unprecedented biodiversity loss, food insecurity, and environmental degradation that can no longer be tackled through fragmented and piecemeal solutions, a forthcoming assessment by IPBES will show, calling for holistic approaches instead.
IPBES is set to launch two scientific assessments, the Nexus Assessment and Transformative Change Assessment, in December 2024, which recommend holistic solutions to tackling the connected and converging crises of biodiversity, water, food, health, and climate change because’ “siloed” approaches are proving unsuccessful.’
In addition, the assessment calls for urgent “transformative change” by intergovernmental bodies, private sector organizations and civil society to respond to the nature and climate crises.
IPBES is an intergovernmental organization established to improve the interface between science and policy on issues of biodiversity and ecosystem services.
The historic IPBES Global Assessment Report of 2019 found that meeting global sustainability targets for 2030 and beyond requires a fundamental, system-wide reorganization, including new paradigms.
IPBES Head of Communications, Rob Spaull, said the assessments represent the best science evidence for critical action to tackle biodiversity loss available to policymakers.
“This is the most ambitious science report we have done because these five issues by themselves are complex and this assessment pulls them together,” Spaull said in a pre-report launch media briefing this week.
The Nexus Assessment identifies important trade-offs and opportunities within the multi-dimensional polycrisis: To what extent do efforts to address one crisis add to others? And which policy options and actions would produce the greatest benefits across the board? The report will offer an unprecedented range of responses to move decisions and actions beyond single-issue silos. The report was produced over three years by 101 experts in 42 countries.
“Global crises in biodiversity, water, food, health and climate change often intensify each other when addressed separately and should therefore be tackled together,” said Paula Harrison, co-chair of the IPBES Nexus Assessment report, in a statement.
“The Nexus Assessment is among the most ambitious work ever undertaken by the IPBES community, offering an unprecedented range of response options to move decisions and actions beyond single issue silos.”
The Transformative Change Assessment looks at the underlying causes of biodiversity loss, determinants of transformative change and options for achieving the 2050 Vision for Biodiversity. The report also assesses the determinants of transformative change, the biggest obstacles it faces and how it occurs. It also identifies achievable options to foster, accelerate and maintain transformative change towards a sustainable world and the steps to achieve global visions for transformative change.
A statement by IPBES notes that the Transformative Change Report will provide decision-makers, including policymakers, with “the best available evidence, analysis and options for actions leading to transformative change and build an understanding of the implications of the underlying causes of biodiversity loss for achieving the Paris Climate Agreement, global biodiversity targets under the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework, the Sustainable Development Goals and other major international development objectives.”
The 11th session of the IPBES Plenary, the first ever to take place in Africa from December 10 to 16, will discuss and approve the reports. IPBES represents nearly 150 governments and seeks to strengthen the science-policy interface for biodiversity and ecosystem services.
Spaull said the assessments underline the need to find holistic solutions to addressing biodiversity loss.
“The assessments are looking at how when you try and fix one part of the system you have unintended consequences in other parts of the system; for instance, in many countries there is a big push to plant trees to mitigate climate change and for carbon sequestration and with (unintended) consequences for biodiversity. For example, planting one kind of tree may be damaging to the ecology or water supply and also have an impact on health, so it means there is a need to find a balance.”
He said the reports also highlight responding to issues simultaneously, which is also the emphasis on meeting the SDGs, which have to be addressed systematically rather than in silos.
“For example, there has been a big increase in the volume of food production in past decades and an increase in caloric output that has helped global health but on the other hand, this has resulted in biodiversity loss because the massive food production has been done through intensive agriculture methods that deplete water and have massive gas emissions,” said Spaull.
Furthermore, IPBES has influenced and shaped national and international biodiversity policy through providing policymakers with clear, scientifically based recommendations and helping governments make informed decisions about conservation, sustainable development, and environmental protection.
Through its assessments, IPBES highlights the interconnectedness of biodiversity, human health, economic stability, and environmental sustainability, making it a critical player in the global response to the biodiversity crisis.
Spaull noted that IPBES work has been instrumental in informing progress assessments on biodiversity-related SDGs.
Reem Alsalem, the UN Special Rapporteur on Violence Against Women and Girls, at a press conference in which she discusses her findings on prostitution. Credit: Naureen Hossain/IPS
UNITED NATIONS, Oct 3 2024 (IPS) – Reem Alsalem, the UN Special Rapporteur on Violence Against Women and Girls, calls prostitution a “system of violence” that does not benefit society at all, especially the women and girls forced into this system.
Alsalem spoke at the Roosevelt Public Policy House in New York on Wednesday, October 2, to discuss her special report in which she posits that prostitution is a form of violence against women and girls. The report was first made public in June 2024, where it was presented to the Human Rights Council in Geneva. Over 60 member states endorsed the report and its findings, including but not limited to Ghana, South Africa, Egypt, Norway, Sweden, Colombia, France, Bangladesh, India, and Nigeria.
Alsalem received over 300 submissions for the report from multiple stakeholders, including civil society groups, academia, experts, policymakers, and, importantly, women from around the world with lived experience.
Across the world, the exploitation of women and girls through prostitution and sex trafficking is a pervasive issue that threatens their safety and rights. Alsalem remarked that many systems of prostitution are built on patriarchal norms that position the abuse of power at the hands of mostly men, who are largely the ‘buyers’ or the profiteers in the sex trade. Deeper economic inequalities and the complexities of emergency humanitarian situations have only further displaced women and girls from systems that would have protected and empowered them.
Alsalem remarked that efforts to normalize or recognize prostitution as a form of labor, such as referring to it as “sex work,” do more harm by gaslighting the women who have experienced it, and it fails to consider the serious human rights violations that can occur within the system, such as the physical and psychological harm they experience under this umbrella of “labor.”
Pornography should also be classified as a form of prostitution and violence against women at large, according to Alsalem. She noted that its proliferation has only normalized acts of violence and harmful attitudes towards women and girls. Alsalem told IPS that the online platforms that host pornographic material only further incentivize and promote these acts and other forms of coercive and nonconsensual sexual acts.
Regardless of the platform, how it is branded or how one enters the trade, the system of prostitution is based on the commodification of the body to undergo physical activity and under that there cannot be consent, Alsalem argues.
“Trying to pretend that there is somehow consent in prostitution, that women want to do this, is actually meaningless in context like prostitution because the concept of consent is actually not relevant when there are systems of exploitation and violence,” she said. “And when the term of consent is being weaponized while we fully know that whatever notions of agreement that women may have—or at least some of them—is extorted through physical coercion, manipulation, and violence.”
When it comes to the legal frameworks around prostitution, this also reveals the contradictions within countries on the letter of the law versus its regulation in practice. The report indicates that under certain approaches, little is actually done to de-incentivize “buyers” or “organizers” in engaging in prostitution systems.
Criminalizing prostitution is more likely to punish the prostituted persons through persecution and incarceration, social ostracization, and even further abuse at the hands of law enforcement. In fact, under this approach, it is rare that the ‘buyers’ are punished or that the third parties are held accountable. Under the regulation approach, legal prostitution ensures control to the state through commercial establishments and federal or national laws, including tax laws that they profit from, often at the expense of the sex workers. Decriminalizing prostitution allows for all parties to operate without the fear of persecution; however, this has also resulted in an increased demand, and it does not stop exploitative parties from profiting off vulnerable women and girls and leading them into the sex trade.
The report speaks in favor of the abolition approach, otherwise known as the “Equality model” or the “Nordic model.” Under this model, third parties (the ‘organizers’) and the buyers are criminalized for engaging in the buying and promotion of sex, while the sex workers do not face criminal persecution. Instead, more investments are made in exit pathways for sex workers to ensure alternative work, economic stability, housing, and support to address trauma and even substance abuse where needed. In the report, Alsalem notes that the Nordic model maintains the international standard on sexual exploitation and trafficking in persons by criminalizing third parties, and that it recognizes the majority of prostitutes are women and girls.
This approach could have its limitations, however, as one report from the London School of Economics (LSE) notes that sex trade legislation still varies across the different countries that implement this model, the safety of sex workers remains uncertain and they still face the risk of policing. For migrant sex workers, their status prevents them from accessing social protections, and under immigration laws, prostitution can be grounds for deportation.
The issues present in the current legal models for prostitution reflect some of the institutional structures that maintain the status quo where sex workers are exploited and left unprotected. At the same time, they also reflect a wider cultural issue on how prostitution, and more broadly, sex, is discussed and perceived.
“In addition to being a human rights violation that needs legal solutions, what is mentioned very clearly in the report is that we are dealing with a cultural issue,” said Taina Bien-Aimé, Executive Director of Coalition Against Trafficking in Women. She added that other acts of violence against women, such as intimate partner violence, sexual violence, and harassment, are now recognized as forms of abuse.
“But for some reason, because money is exchanged in prostitution, somehow it is seen outside of the context of male violence and discrimination, particularly against women and girls.”
In her report, Alsalem offers recommendations to governments on how they can reshape their legislation and policies on prostitution towards a direction that is more conscionable of human rights and that centers the experiences of the women and girls who are forced to participate. Governments also need to take measures to address the root causes behind prostitution and the factors that leave women and girls at a higher risk of it.
“The importance of this report is in its recommendations as well, where the Special Rapporteur is asking jurisdictions and member states around the world to find legislative and policy solutions to this egregious human rights violation,” said Bien-Aimé.
When asked to elaborate on the steps that need to be taken by international actors like the United Nations, Alsalem referred to the recommendation that UN agencies should also adopt a rights-based approach to prostitution. Alsalem commented that she had reached out to several UN agencies. In particular, she is having “continuous conversations” with the World Health Organization (WHO) and the International Labour Organization (ILO), on her recommendation for these agencies to conduct studies into the wider impacts of prostitution on survivors within their focus of health and labor.
Nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) such as the Frontline Women’s Fund, and local civil society groups play an important role in spotlighting the issue. Alsalem told IPS that they need to come together to listen to the survivors of prostitution, as well as engage with all actors working on the matter.
“We see that in decision-making places, including governments, parliaments, whenever the issue is discussed, the law is being prepared or the policy is being revised, some have privileged access to these decision-making places, and that can be those that are advocating for full legalization of all aspects. Whereas those that are advocating for the abolition model… cannot get the same access, and that includes survivors.”
Dr. Natalia Kanem, UNFPA’s Executive Director. Credit: UNFPA
UNITED NATIONS, Sep 26 2024 (IPS) – On the heels of the Summit of the Future and the sidelines of the United Nations High-Level Meeting Week, governments and philanthropies pledged to commit at least USD 350 million to boost family planning, sexual and reproductive health and supplies on the national and global level. As enshrined in the newly-adopted Pact for the Future, seeking new international finance models is critical to solving the issues that the world faces today. The decision to pledge forward is a demonstration of commitment to ongoing health issues.
On September 24, the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Family Planning 2030 (FP2030) and the Children’s Investment Fund Foundation (CIFF) invited prominent figures across the private, development and government sectors to promote political will on the matter of sustainable investments towards sexual and reproductive health (SRH).
“Investing in reproductive health supplies is a ‘best buy’ for development, empowering women, improving maternal and newborn health outcomes, and uplifting economies,” said Dr. Natalia Kanem, UNFPA’s Executive Director.
When speaking on UNFPA’s partnerships with the co-organizers, Kanem remarked: “What we’re doing is transforming lives. The life of a girl in her community, the life of an adolescent in her city, and empowering communities and families to be able to harness and take control of their futures.”
“So much of our world has been made possible by family planning,” said Dr. Samukeliso Dube, Executive Director of FP2030. “By enabling more women to shape their lives and futures, family planning has helped women to finish their education, join the workforce, ascend to leadership positions, and achieve their dreams.”
Donor countries, such as the United Kingdom, Canada, Norway, and Spain, announced pledges to the UNFPA Supplies Partnership, which delivers modern contraceptives and maternal health supplies to women and girls in low-income countries. Through this partnership, UNFPA has helped to prevent 1.6 million child deaths, 254,000 maternal deaths, and 2.6 million unsafe abortions. The contributions to UNFPA could potentially save up to 9000 women and girls worldwide. As Anneliese Dodds, UK Minister for Development and Women and Inequalities, remarked, investing in SRH was “critical to making sure that women have the power.”
Speakers representing their countries’ governments pledged their support through domestic financial investments. The governments of Madagascar, Nepal, and the Kyrgyz Republic, for example, announced domestic financial commitments that would invest in SRH services in their countries.
Madagascar announced a contribution of USD 15 million to procure health supplies through UNFPA. Their minister of public health, Zely Arivelo Randriamanantany, added that their goal was to increase access to contraceptives by over 50 percent. Arzu Rana Deube, foreign minister of Nepal, announced the government’s commitment of USD 600,000 to purchase high-quality contraceptives. Renat Mavlyanbai Uulu, Advisor to the Minister of Health, of the Kyrgyz Republic, announced a commitment of USD 119,000 to domestic resources for family planning commodities.
Feri Anita Wijayanti, a registered midwife from Indonesia. Credit: UNFPA
As UNFPA Chief of Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights Ayman Abdelmohsen told IPS, the commitments to domestic financing are significant; it shows that in “allocating from their own resources… and [making] budgetary allocations,” these governments will prioritize SRH without relying on foreign donors. It is in line with UNFPA’s compact agreements with 44 countries, through which countries will build up their capacity to provide comprehensive reproductive health through their own resources.
Despite the predicted growth in contraceptive access and maternal health by 2030, the current financing gap why this is still far off in the future. The gap currently sits at at least USD 1.5 billion in the world’s poorest countries.
Throughout the event, the speakers emphasized the ‘transformative’ power of SRH in countries. That to invest in SRH is to invest in girls’ and women’s’ agency over the health and life choices. In guaranteeing women’s sexual and reproductive health, it pays forward in protecting families and communities. In terms of financing, every dollar spent on family planning can yield more than 8 dollars in benefits for families and societies.
Investing in healthcare also goes forward to the practitioners within the sector. As Feri Anita Wijayanti, a registered midwife from Indonesia, explained to the panel, many communities rely on the expertise of midwives, whose responsibilities extend “far beyond delivering babies,” for they are at the frontlines to address other health issues.
“Every second in every corner of the world, midwives work tirelessly to protect the lives of women and babies, and to provide sexual and reproductive health services,” she said. Midwives have the power to save an estimated 4.3 million lives each year by 2025. We urge you to invest in us, to believe in the transformative power of midwives and to begin by investing in sexual and reproductive health.”
The commitments made by countries and the private sector are a step forward in closing the considerable financing gap. They come at a time where senior leadership within the UN, namely the Secretary-General, has called for countries to explore innovative and sustainable financing to address global inequalities. The commitments made at this event demonstrate that despite the challenges to SRH, there is political will in support of, and it can be mobilized to ensure this care for all.
