MONTEVIDEO, Uruguay, May 25 2023 (IPS) – As a matter of global justice, the climate crisis has rightfully made its way to the world’s highest court.
On 29 March 2023, the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) unanimously adopted a resolution asking the International Court of Justice (ICJ) to issue an advisory opinion on the obligations of states on climate change. The initiative was led by the Pacific Island state of Vanuatu, one of several at risk of disappearing under rising sea levels. It was co-sponsored by 132 states and actively supported by networks of grassroots youth groups from the Pacific and around the world.
Civil society’s campaign
In 2019, a group of law students from the University of the South Pacific formed Pacific Islands Students Fighting Climate Change (PISFCC), a regional organisation with national chapters in Fiji, the Solomon Islands, Tonga and Vanuatu. PISFCC advocated with the Pacific Island Forum – the key regional body – to put the call for an ICJ opinion on its agenda. The government of Vanuatu announced it would seek this in September 2021, and Pacific civil society organisations (CSOs) formed an alliance – the Alliance for a Climate Justice Advisory Opinion – that has since grown to include CSOs and many others from around the world, including UN Special Rapporteurs and global experts.
The campaign made heavy use of social media, with people sharing their stories on the impacts of climate change and emphasising the importance of an ICJ opinion to help support calls for climate action, including climate litigation. It organised globally, sharing a toolkit used by activists around the world, and took to the streets locally. In Vanuatu, where it all started, children demonstrated in September 2022 to call attention to the impacts of climate change as their country’s single greatest development threat and express support for the call for an ICJ opinion.
In the run-up to the UNGA session that adopted the historic resolution, thousands of CSOs from around the world supported a letter calling for governments to back the vote.
[embedded content]
The ICJ’s role
The ICJ is made up of 15 judges elected by the UNGA and UN Security Council. It settles legal disputes between states and provides advisory opinions on legal questions referred to it by other parts of the UN system.
The questions posed to the ICJ aim to clarify the obligations of states under international law to protect the climate system and environment from human-induced greenhouse gas emissions. They also ask about the legal responsibilities of states that have caused significant environmental harm towards other states, particularly small islands, and towards current and future generations.
To provide its advisory opinion, the ICJ will have to interpret states’ obligations as outlined in the 1992 UN Framework Convention on Climate Change and the 2015 Paris Agreement as well as the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and a variety of international covenants and treaties. It may consider previous UNGA resolutions on climate change, such as the recent one recognising access to a clean, healthy and sustainable environment as a universal human right, and other resolutions by the UN Human Rights Council and reports by the Office of the UN High Commissioner of Human Rights and its independent human rights experts. It may also take into account decisions by UN treaty bodies and its own jurisprudence on climate and environmental matters.
Next steps
According to its statute, the ICJ can seek written statements from states or international organisations likely to have relevant information on the issue at hand. On 20 April, it communicated its decision to treat the UN and all its member states as ‘likely to be able to furnish information on the questions submitted to the Court’ and gave them six months to submit written statements, after which they will have three months to make written comments on statements made by other states or organisations.
Civil society doesn’t have any right to submit formal statements, so climate activists are urging as many people as possible to advocate towards their governments to make strong submissions that will lead to a progressive ICJ opinion. After submissions close, the ICJ is likely to take several months to deliberate, so its opinion may be expected at some point in 2024, likely towards the end of the year.
Advisory opinions aren’t binding. They don’t impose obligations on states. But they shape the global understanding of states’ obligations under international law and can motivate states to show their compliance with rising standards. An ICJ opinion could positively influence climate negotiations, pushing forward long-delayed initiatives on funding for loss and damage. It could encourage states to make more ambitious pledges to cut greenhouse gas emissions. It might also help raise awareness of the particular risks faced by small island states and provide arguments in favour of stronger climate action, helping climate advocates gain ground within governments.
A progressive advisory opinion could also help support domestic climate litigation: research shows that domestic courts are increasingly inclined to cite ICJ opinions and other sources of international law, including when it comes to determining climate issues.
The risk can’t be ruled out of a disappointing ICJ opinion merely reiterating the content of existing climate treaties without making any progress on states’ obligations. But climate activists find reasons to expect much more: many see this as a unique opportunity, brought about by their own persistent efforts, to advance climate justice and push for action that meets the scale of the crisis.
Where will you be in 2040? For Uzbekistan’s President Shavkat Mirziyoyev, the answer is: in the Kuksaroy Presidential Palace. That’s the chief consequence of the referendum held in the Central Asian country on 30 April.
With dissent tightly controlled in conditions of closed civic space, there was no prospect of genuine debate, a campaign against, or a no vote.
Repression betrays image of reform
Mirziyoyev took over the presidency in 2016 following the death of Islam Karimov, president for 26 years. Karimov ruled with an iron fist; Mirziyoyev has tried to position himself as a reformer by comparison.
The government rightly won international recognition when Uzbekistan was declared free of the systemic child labour and forced labour that once plagued its cotton industry. The move came after extensive international civil society campaigning, with global action compensating for the inability of domestic civil society to mobilise, given severe civic space restrictions.
While that systemic problem has been addressed, undoubtedly abuses of labour rights remain. And these are far from the only human rights violations. When one of the proposed constitutional changes announced last July sparked furious protests, the repression that followed belied Mirziyoyev’s reformist image.
Among the proposed changes was a plan to amend the status of Uzbekistan’s Karakalpakstan region. Formally, it’s an autonomous republic with the right to secede. The surprise announcement that this special status would end brought rare mass protests in the regional capital, Nukus. When local police refused to intervene, central government flew over riot police, inflaming tensions and resulting in violent clashes.
A state of emergency was imposed, tightly restricting the circulation of information. Because of this, details are scarce, but it seems some protesters started fires and tried to occupy government buildings, and riot police reportedly responded with live ammunition and an array of other forms of violence. Several people were killed and over 500 were reported to have been detained. Many received long jail sentences.
The government quickly dropped its intended change, but otherwise took a hard line, claiming the protesters were foreign-backed provocateurs trying to destabilise the country. But what happened was down to the absence of democracy. The government announced the proposed change with no consultation. All other channels for expressing dissent being blocked, the only way people could communicate their disapproval was to take to the streets.
Civic space still closed
It remains the reality that very little independent media is tolerated and journalists and bloggers experience harassment and intimidation. Vague and broad laws against the spreading of ‘false information’ and defamation give the state ample powers to block websites, a regular occurrence.
Virtually no independent civil society is allowed; most organisations that present themselves as part of civil society are government entities. Independent organisations struggle to register, particularly when they have a human rights focus. New regulations passed in June 2022 give the state oversight of activities supported by foreign donors, further restricting the space for human rights work.
It’s been a long time since Uzbekistan held any kind of recognisably democratic vote. The only presidential election with a genuine opposition candidate was held in 1991. Mirziyoyev certainly hasn’t risked a competitive election: when he last stood for office, to win his second term in 2021, he faced four pro-government candidates.
A flawed vote and a self-serving outcome
The referendum’s reported turnout and voting totals were at around the same levels as for the non-competitive presidential elections: official figures stated that 90-plus per cent endorsed the changes on a turnout of almost 85 per cent.
Given the state’s total control, voting figures are hard to trust. Even if the numbers are taken at face value, election observers from the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe pointed out that the referendum was held ‘in an environment that fell short of political pluralism and competition’. There was a lack of genuine debate, with very little opportunity for people to put any case against approving the changes.
State officials and resources were mobilised to encourage a yes vote and local celebrities were deployed in rallies and concerts. State media played its usual role as a presidential mouthpiece, promoting the referendum as an exercise in enhancing rights and freedoms. Anonymous journalists reported that censorship had increased ahead of the vote and they’d been ordered to cover the referendum positively.
Mirziyoyev is clearly the one who benefits. The key change is the extension of presidential terms from five to seven years. Mirziyoyev’s existing two five-year terms are wiped from the count, leaving him eligible to serve two more. Mirziyoyev has taken the same approach as authoritarian leaders the world over of reworking constitutions to stay in power. It’s hardly the act of a reformer.
The president remains all-powerful, appointing all government and security force officials. Meanwhile there’s some new language about rights and a welcome abolition of the death penalty – but no hint of changes that will allow movement towards free and fair elections, real opposition parties, independent human rights organisations and free media.
The constitution’s new language about rights will mean nothing if democratic reform doesn’t follow. But change of this kind was always possible under the old constitution – it’s always been lack of political will at the top standing in the way, and that hasn’t changed.
Democratic nations, seeking to build bridges in Central Asia to offer a counter to the region’s historical connections with Russia, may well welcome the superficial signs of reform. A UK-based public relations firm was hired to help persuade them. But they should urge the president to go much further, follow up with genuine reforms, and allow for real political competition when he inevitably stands for his third term.
It’s been a time of significant change in Fiji following the country’s December 2022 election. A close vote was followed by the formation of a new coalition government. Frank Bainimarama was out as prime minister after 16 years, replaced by Sitiveni Rabuka.
Rabuka was hardly a new face, having been prime minister in the 1990s, and both Bainimarama and Rabuka had previously led military coups. For Fiji’s civil society, the question was whether this political shift would bring improvements in civic and democratic freedoms. Bainimarama’s government had shown itself increasingly intolerant of dissent.
People who criticised the government were subjected to harassment and arrest. In July 2021, nine opposition politicians were arrested, questioned and accused of inciting unrest. In 2020, opposition party offices were raided by police in response to social media posts critical of the government.
The outgoing government used the Public Order Act to restrict protests, including by opposition parties. The Fiji Trade Union Congress was repeatedly denied permission to march and its leader charged with public order offences. Police often used excessive force against protests, with impunity. There was, in short, much room for improvement.
Positive steps on media freedom
The most encouraging move so far is the repeal of the Media Industry Development Act. This law, passed under the Bainimarama government, established a highly interventionist government-controlled media regulator. Journalists could be jailed for two years and media outlets slapped with heavy fines if their reporting was judged to go against the national or public interest – vague terms open to broad interpretation. This encouraged self-censorship.
The law was one of the main reasons Fiji was the lowest-ranking Pacific Island nation on Reporters Without Borders’ World Press Freedom Index. Media freedom constraints came from the top, with the government favouring state-aligned media, including by withholding advertising from more critical outlets.
Now the media and civil society will be looking for the government to go further. A sedition law that can bring extensive jail sentences remains in need of reform. And beyond this, the government needs to actively support the development of independent Fijian media, including through the fairer distribution of ad spending.
The new government has also moved to rebuild relationships with trade unions. In February it confirmed it would re-establish an effective tripartite forum that brings together government, trade unions and employers; its predecessor was accused of not taking this seriously. The new government has said it will bring to an end the harassment, intimidation and arrest of union leaders. Unions will work to hold the government to these promises.
A fall from grace
These changes have come against a backdrop of continuing political polarisation. It’s been quite the journey for Bainimarama since losing power. In February he was suspended from parliament. This came after he used his first speech as leader of the opposition to deliver a stinging critique of Fiji’s president, Ratu Wiliame Katonivere.
In his speech, Bainimarama appealed to the military to ‘not forsake their constitutional role’. This seemed a coded plea for military intervention: the 2013 constitution, introduced by Bainimarama, gives the military the power to intervene to ensure the ‘safety and security of the country’. When he was still prime minister, as post-electoral negotiations were taking place, Bainimarama had ordered the military onto the streets.
Bainimarama’s response to his suspension was to resign from parliament. But he made clear his intent to stay politically active and remains party leader.
Last month Bainimarama was charged with abuse of office while prime minister. He was granted bail after pleading not guilty. He’s alleged to have intervened to stop a police investigation into alleged corruption at the University of the South Pacific. Police Commissioner Sitiveni Tukaituraga Qiliho, currently suspended, is also charged with abuse of office for the same case and has also pleaded not guilty.
Dangers ahead
The obvious danger is that Bainimarama, no longer confined by parliamentary niceties, could seek to stir unrest through sensationalism and disinformation, which could offer a pretext for his supporters in the military to intervene. The spectre of military rule is never far away in Fiji. There have been four coups since independence in 1970. Rabuka led two in 1987 and then Bainimarama headed coups in 2000 and 2006. In this context, it’s ominous that in January the head of the army expressed concern about ‘sweeping changes’ being introduced by the new government.
On all occasions the pretext for coups has been ethnic unrest, with Fiji’s population broadly divided between Indigenous Fijians and people of Asian heritage. Civil society and the international community will need to stay alert to any attempts to foster division and mobilise one population group against the other.
At the same time the new government needs to beware of fuelling narratives that it’s being vindictive towards Bainimarama and his party. There’s a need to ensure that diverse points of view can be aired – including from the new opposition. As a former coup leader, Rabuka needs to keep proving his commitment to democracy.
What happens next in Fiji is of concern not just for Fijians but for the region, since the country is a major hub and host of key regional institutions. China and the USA, along with Australia, are trying to build closer relations with Fiji as they compete for influence among Pacific Island nations. So whether Fiji becomes more democratic and opens up civic space matters.
In these early days of the new government there can be no room for complacency. Fiji’s civil society must be supported and enabled as a vital democratic force. And it must keep on engaging constructively to ensure that government promises are followed by deeds that advance rights.
Matiullah Wesa worked with community and tribal leaders in remote areas in Afghanistan to advocate for education and bring learning closer to communities.
By David Kode JOHANNESBURG, Apr 19 2023 (IPS)
Matiullah Wesa’s crime was to try to ensure young people got an education in Afghanistan. His recent forceful abduction by the Taliban offers the latest stark reminder that global solidarity and coherent action from the international community are needed to prevent the complete loss of the rights of women and girls in Afghanistan.
Matiullah has been at the forefront of advocating for access to education as a co-founder and leader of Pen Path. For more than a decade, Pen Path has worked with community and tribal leaders in remote areas in Afghanistan to advocate for education and bring learning closer to communities. It works to enlighten communities about the importance of education, particularly girl’s and women’s education, organises book donations, runs mobile libraries in remote areas and reopens schools closed by years of conflict and insecurity. Pen Path has reopened over 100 schools, distributed more than 1.5 million items of stationery and provided education facilities for 110,000 children – 66,000 of them girls. This is what Matiullah is being punished for.
The abduction of Matiullah and many others advocating for the rights of education point to a concerted effort by the Taliban to try to restrict women’s and girls’ access to education and silence those advocating for education and an inclusive society.
There are sadly many other instances. In November 2022 around 60 Taliban members stormed a press conference organised to announce the formation of Afghan Women Movement for Equality. They arrested conference participants and deleted all images from their phones.
Immediately after taking power in August 2021, the Taliban instructed women to stay at home and avoid travelling. In December 2022, the Ministry of Higher Education announced it had suspended university education for women until further notice. Taliban officials argued that female students did not wear proper clothing on campus and announced it was enforcing gender segregation in schools. These decisions have been accompanied by others that force thousands of female workers to stay at home and prevent women and girls entering public spaces such as parks.
In December 2022 the Taliban banned women from working for international and national civil society organisations. This was a move that could only be counter-productive, since women play a vital role in providing essential services that people need. Banning women from working for civil society organisations affects millions in dire need of humanitarian assistance and services to women and children, as well as further increasing unemployment. The Taliban urged organisations to suspend female staff under the pretence that workers did not adhere to the regime’s strict dress code.
Most recently, women have been banned from working for United Nations agencies that are operating in Afghanistan. The United Nations may have to pull out.
It has taken just months for the Taliban to reverse the gains made over the years before their return that saw Afghan women claim visibility in public life and work such roles as broadcasters, doctors and judges.
Women in Afghanistan are fighting but can’t succeed alone
These restrictions on women’s rights should be seen in the context of the closing of civic space and attacks on other fundamental rights. As a result, Afghanistan’s civic space rating was recently downgraded to closed, the worst category, by the CIVICUS Monitor, a research partnership that tracks civic space conditions in 197 countries.
Despite the ongoing restrictions against women, the brave women of Afghanistan refuse to back down. They continue to organise what protests they can against restrictions and women human rights defenders continue to advocate for the rights of all women and girls to access education and participate in decision-making processes.
When women protest against restrictions, they risk harassment, physical and psychological torture and detentions. Some have been forcefully abducted from their homes. In January 2022, Taliban gunmen raided the homes of women human rights defenders Parwana Ibrahimkhel and Tamana Zaryab and abducted them.
No society can reach its real potential without the participation of women. The international community must double its efforts to support women and girls in Afghanistan. States should respond proactively to the United Nations 2023 appeal for Afghanistan. Aid should however be made conditional on guarantees to uphold the fundamental rights of women and girls. The international community should accompany aid with a strategy to build a more inclusive and open society.
Not to do so would be to abandon the likes of Matiullah Wesa, the many others like him penalised for standing up for education and rights, and the women of girls of Afghanistan being forced into silence.
David Kode is the Advocacy and Campaigns Lead at CIVICUS, the global civil society alliance.
Food insecurity in Sri Lanka has increased dramatically due to two consecutive seasons of poor harvests, foreign exchange shortages, and reduced household purchasing power. Amidst Sri Lanka’s worst economic crisis since independence, the UN revised its joint Humanitarian Needs and Priorities (HNP) Plan, appealing for more life-saving assistance to aid 3.4 million people. November 2022 Credit: UNICEF/Chameera Laknath
LONDON, Feb 3 2023 (IPS) – On February 4, Sri Lanka commemorates 75 years of Independence. But it will not be the extravaganza of the past years, the minaturised imitations of the grand displays on Moscow’s Red Square or China’s Tiananmen Square.
Still, a critical question has been reverberating in the community ever since the government announced a scaled down celebration to commemorate 75 years since Britain relinquished power in 1948.
After defaulting on the country’s debt servicing last April for the first time in its post-independence history and being forced to resort to massive printing of money to meet state expenditure, does Sri Lanka need to celebrate independence day this year however downsized it would be?
Particularly so, when President Ranil Wickremesinghe’s government itself claims Sri Lanka is struggling economically and it would take years to recover from its current chaos created by leaders who inexorably pushed it to the tip of the abyss with stupid economic policies, wasteful expenditure and wide- scale corruption and fraud.
While imposing unbearable new taxes and other restrictions on the daily lives of the people, driving them further into penury with school children going without meals, fainting in their classrooms and in need of medical treatment which itself is becoming scarce, the country’s leaders don’t seem short of resources for celebrations.
Even the country’s diplomatic missions will be holding their annual independence day celebrations as the invitation I received indicated, feasting their countrymen as best as they could.
Yet over the last couple of months the government has been selling the story that it has no funds to pay for the Local Government elections due in March. A strange enough claim after President Ranil Wickremesinghe, in one of his other roles as finance minister, presenting the budget for 2023 last November allocated funds for the election and parliament, which oversees public expenditure, approved it.
Now, the very persons who allocated money just three months ago claim to lack funds for a constitutionally required election. Punning on the old Harry Belafonte calypso, there is a hole in the budget, said some wag on social media.
It is this contradiction in government conduct that an already enraged people find inexcusable. Having got rid of one elected president– Gotabaya Rajapaksa– who surreptitiously fled the country last July when mounting peoples’ protests demanded the Rajapaksa clan quit the government, they find themselves confronted with what Sri Lankans have come to see as a Rajapaksa clone– and now derisively call him Ranil Rajapaksa– thrust into the presidency to keep the family’s political fires alight.
The Roman poet Juvenal dismissively called the delusionary performances staged by the Roman emperors of the time to distract their discontented citizenry, “panem et circensus”- bread and circuses.
Bread, like some other essentials, might be scarce or priced beyond the reach of many of its 22 million people. A few months back, the UN agency UNICEF reported that 5.7 million Sri Lankans including 2.3 million children, are in need of humanitarian assistance and the numbers are likely to rise in the coming days.
But the country’s leaders are not beyond performing their own circus acts. A few days back President Wickremesinghe appointed two more cabinet ministers bringing the total to 22.
Within hours Sri Lankans with their innate sense of humour were on social media branding the new cabinet “Ali Baba and the 22” with the doors to the cabinet still open for more acolytes chosen not for integrity and competence but loyalty.
Before the two new ministers fattened the cabinet, splicing off the portfolios of two existing ministers, President Wickremesinghe a couple of months ago appointed 37 state ministers leaving room for three more.
Sri Lanka’s bloated ministerial ranks would surely be one of the largest in today’s parliamentary democracies. Not only is it large in numbers but the perks offered to ministers and state ministers is stunningly staggering–salaries, free housing, several expensive vehicles with fuel, free utilities such as electricity, water, telephones up to a point, several personal staff with paid salaries, armed personal security with escort vehicles, a special allowance for each day they attend parliament, state pension after five years and other facilities not generally known.
While the government is prepared to splash state funds on bolstering party cadres and lickspittle who have creamed off state assets, in the last couple of months it has been using every ruse in the books-and some which are not in them- trying to deprive the people of their constitutional right to the franchise, by blocking the Local Government elections due shortly.
This election, last held in 2018, is for 340 municipal councils, urban councils and village bodies is scheduled for March 9—the date set by the independent Election Commission last month.
But as the day for the election, as constitutionally required, neared, the attempts to stymie it began with grandees of President Ranil Wickremesinghe’s United National Party (UNP) and the Rajapaksa clan-run Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna (SLPP) that is propping up Wickremesinghe with its parliamentary majority, asserting that economic recovery must precede elections.
Ministers and even state officials were trotting out excuses that there was no money to fund elections, expecting the populace to have forgotten the budgetary allocation passed by parliament a few months back.
As this was being written, internationally-known legal academic and former foreign minister Prof GL Peiris was telling the media the government had made seven attempts to try and stop the election including an affidavit to the Supreme Court filed by the secretary to the finance ministry claiming the state of the economy precluded holding elections right now.
The latest ruse was a law called the Election Expenses Bill to control spending for elections hurriedly passed by parliament. If, as Justice Minister Wijeyadasa Rajapaksa said, this proposal has been hanging fire for years, why the rush now, the opposition and anxious voters asked.
Like the opposition, the public too smelled a rotten rat. It was seen as another attempt to derail the elections by calling for the provisions of the bill be incorporated which would call for more time.
Despite all the public bravura, both the Rajapaksa-controlled SLPP and Wickremesinghe-led UNP which was swept into oblivion at the 2020 general elections, fear that given the mood of the country which rose in mass protests for some seven months last year leading to the resignation of President Rajapaksa and three of his brothers from the cabinet, they would suffer ignominious defeat.
Especially so the UNP which lost every single seat including that of party leader Wickremesinghe who managed to creep back into parliament one year later through a clause in the electoral law.
Not only would a poor electoral performance by the SLPP and UNP which have now joined hands make governance difficult and troublesome, it would also strengthen public opposition both to the Rajapaksas and President Wickremesinghe who many argue-and rightly so-as a leader rejected by the country two years ago and lacking a popular mandate to rule the country.
So what one sees now is a symbiotic relationship between the executive headed by Wickremesinghe and the legislature controlled by the Rajapaksas, running the country and using outdated laws- some dating back to British times- to beat back public dissent, employing the security forces to trample on the constitutionally guaranteed freedoms of the people- free speech and expression, of association and assembly and peaceful protest.
It also raises issues about the independence of the Attorney-General and some of the independent institutions set up under the constitution which are believed to have come under pressure during the Wickremesinghe presidency.
With two arms of the state- the executive and legislature under the control of the Wickremesinghe-Rajapaksa- led cabal and backed by the security forces as recent event have shown, Sri Lanka’s increasingly beleaguered populace can only rely for justice on the third arm of the state- an independent judiciary.
Over the years the judiciary has, now and then, been under pressure from dictatorial leaders who have not been averse to tamper with justice and the judicial process, sometimes denying impartial, independent judges their rightful place as chief justice or appointing friends or those amenable to the judiciary.
But two recent judgements by the Supreme Court have resurrected public faith that the judiciary could be relied on to safeguard the constitution and the peoples’ constitutional and human rights against state abuse of the law and the battering and brutality by the security forces.
A few months back the government tried to push through a “Bureau of Rehabilitation Bill” ostensibly to help treat and rehabilitate drug addicts and other drug users. Under cover of that it hoped to incarcerate political dissidents, activists and others which state security would identify those they do not like as ‘trouble makers’.
So, it included among those to be included under the law “ex-combatants, members of violent groups, violent extremist person and any other person or group of persons”.
The Supreme Court saw through this as an attempt to round up any person the authorities considered a political nuisance and hold them without recourse to the law. The court struck down the clause.
Holding that the Bill as a whole violated the constitution, it said it could be acceptable if certain clauses were amended. One of the clauses it found repugnant was the one cited above which the court wanted deleted, leaving rehabilitation open only to drug dependent persons and those identified by law as in need of rehabilitation.
In mid-January the Supreme Court delivered a landmark verdict which held former president Maithripala Sirisena, secretary of the defence ministry, police chief and top- ranking intelligence officers, of dereliction of duty and “failure to act” when valid and clear intelligence was passed on by foreign sources of an impending terrorist attacks by Islamic extremists on churches on Easter Sunday in 2019.
Some 270 persons including foreigners were killed and several hundred wounded in these attacks on churches and Colombo hotels.
Since these were civil cases, President Sirisena was fined 100 million rupees and the others lesser amounts. Sirisena as a former president was no longer entitled to immunity, a lesson for other former and future presidents that they too are liable to civil and criminal action such as corruption and human rights violations once they cease to hold office.
These judicial judgments bring some hope to the people that the citadels of power are vulnerable and could be breached by a strong and upright judiciary, the only institution now left to protect and uphold the country’s democratic traditions and norms.
If the judiciary is badgered, the last resort is too bloody to contemplate.
Neville de Silva is a veteran Sri Lankan journalist who held senior roles in Hong Kong at The Standard and worked in London for Gemini News Service. He has been a correspondent for the foreign media including the New York Times and Le Monde. More recently he was Sri Lanka’s Deputy High Commissioner in London.
Women receive food rations at a food distribution site in Herat, Afghanistan. Credit: UNICEF/Sayed Bidel
NEW YORK, Jan 12 2023 (IPS) – Can you imagine what it would be like if women were simply not allowed to step outside of their homes, let alone to work for a living? When women choose to do so, and they can afford it, then it is a matter of choice. When women mostly cannot, as is the case in Afghanistan now, not only is half the population imprisoned, but children go hungry, and communities sink deeper into poverty.
World Bank data (as incomplete as it is), indicates that the average number of female-headed households (i.e. households where women are the primary – if not the only – breadwinners), is around 25%.
What that means is, that on average, a quarter of all households around the world depend on women earning an income. Children, families, communities, and nations –depend on women’s work, to the tune of a quarter of their labour force.
Economists are still pointing to the obvious challenges of counting female labour, which often lies disproportionately on the frontiers of the formal economy, such that women continue to serve as reserve armies of labour and frontline workers during industrialization.
Economists who work to document these specificities, also point out that as soon as these frontiers expand or change, women are expelled or relegated to the shadows of the informal economy and piece-rate labour, identifying this as an all too frequent failure to recognize the importance of the kind of work many women engage in, which both keeps an economy running, and enables its expansion and growth.
The Covid-19 Pandemic should have resulted in a clear realisation that all hands are necessary on deck, with so many women actually needed as first responders–the backbone of the public health crisis – everywhere in the world.
As economies take a nosedive and the realities of recession hit many of us, all economies need to be kept running, if not to expand and grow.
And beyond these very real challenges to counting women’s work – and making that work count – there is another very critical reality: culture. Lest we think only of the vagaries of women who take over “men’s jobs” (whatever that means in today’s world), we need to stop being blind to the fact that women are needed to serve other women.
In fact, in many parts of the world, including the supposedly liberal and ‘egalitarian’ Western world, many women still prefer to receive life-saving direct services from other women – in public health, in sanitation, in all levels of education, in nutritional spaces, and many, many others.
Now let us pause a moment and consider humanitarian disaster zones, where women and girls often need to be cared for – and this can only be done by and through other women.
Then let us envision a reality one step further – let’s call it a socially conservative country, which is facing humanitarian disaster, and is heavily dependent on international organisations (governmental and non- governmental) for the necessary humanitarian support.
How is it conceivable that in such a context, women can be excluded from serving? And yet this is precisely what the Taliban have decreed on December 24, when it barred women from working in national and international NGOs. And this is after they banned women from higher education.
Many international NGOs halted their work in Afghanistan, explaining that they cannot work without their women staff – as a matter of principle, but also as a question of practical necessity. Yet, the United Nations – the premier multilateral entity – continues to see how they could compromise with the Taliban rule, for the sake of ‘the greater good – real humanitarian needs’.
Thank goodness they are letting the UN continue to work with their women employees, runs one way of thinking. We will not fail to deliver humanitarian needs, runs another UN way of thinking.
Of course, humanitarian needs are essential to human survival – and thus, should never be held hostage. But why is the United Nations being accountable for humanitarian needs only?
Meanwhile, the Taliban claim that these edicts about womens’ work and education are a matter of religious propriety, a claim which, as of this moment, is not strongly challenged by another multilateral entity – the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), encompassing 56 governments and members of the United Nations.
While individual governments have spoken out, this multilateral entity has remained relatively silent on the Islamic justice of such a decree. Is it because this multilateral religious entity sees no need to speak to humanitarian needs?
Or is it because it sees no value to hard economic realities where women’s agency plays a central role? Or perhaps it is because there is no unanimity on the Islamic justification behind such decrees?
Multilateralism is supposed to be the guarantor of all human rights and dignity, for all people, at all times. But as governmental regimes weaken, so do traditional multilateral entities heavily reliant on those governments. Time for community based transnational networks based on intergenerational, multicultural, gender sensitive leaders.
Rev Dr Chloe Bryer is Executive Director, Interfaith Center of New York; Prof Azza Karam is Secretary General, Religions for Peace; Ruth Messinger is Social Justice Consultant, Jewish Theological Seminary; and Negina Yari is Country Director, Afghans4Tomorrow
