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Libya: UN alarmed at Reports of Violence Against Sub-Saharan Migrants

UN News Center

8 March 2011 – The United Nations refugee agency today voiced alarm at increasing accounts of violence and discrimination in Libya against sub-Saharan Africans in both the rebel-held east and the Government-controlled west, including the reported rape of a 12-year-old girl.

The UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) “reiterates its call on all parties to recognize the vulnerability of both refugees and migrants from sub-Saharan Africa and to take measures to ensure their protection,” spokesman Adrian Edwards told a news briefing in Geneva.

Yesterday Sudanese refugees arriving from eastern Libya at the Egyptian border told UNHCR that armed Libyans were going door to door, forcing sub-Saharan Africans to leave. “In one instance a 12-year-old Sudanese girl was said to have been raped,” Mr. Edwards said.

“They reported that many people had their documents confiscated or destroyed. We heard similar accounts from a group of Chadians who fled Benghazi, Al Bayda and Brega in the past few days.”

The number of people who have fled the violence since the start of mass protests against Muammar Al-Qadhafi three weeks ago has passed 212,000, including 112,000 in Tunisia, more than half of them Tunisian and Egyptians migrants; 98,000 in Egypt, over two thirds of them Egyptian; and 2,000 in Niger, mainly Niger nationals.

UNHCR has also heard from the Algerian Government that more than 4,000 people have arrived in Algeria by air, land and sea, including evacuations from Tunisia and Egypt.

UN High Commissioner for Refugees António Guterres is in Tunisia today to meet with officials and visit the border area, where he will meet with local community members who have offered aid, shelter and solidarity to the tens of thousands of migrants and refugees.

Another group that has been facing particular hardship are Bangladeshi migrants, with some 3,500 stranded at the Egyptian border, many of whom have been waiting for up to 10 days for onward transport. They are becoming “increasingly agitated,” Mr. Edwards said, and one Bangladeshi man died over the weekend after a fight over food distribution.

Many are sleeping outside in the bitter cold as available shelter is filled to capacity. Over 14,000 meals were distributed to people stranded at the border yesterday, where overall some 5,000 people are awaiting onwards transport.

At both the Egyptian and Tunisian borders, most of those awaiting evacuation are Bangladeshi single men. There is a critical shortage at present of long-haul flights to Bangladesh, other Asian countries and sub-Saharan Africa, Mr. Edwards said, noting that UNHCR and the inter-governmental International Organization for Migration (IOM) are using cash contributions to charter planes and several donor countries have offered long-haul flights.

“Nevertheless, with an estimated 40 to 50 flights needed to repatriate all the migrants, further support will be needed to ensure that everyone is transported home,” he added.

At the Tunisian border with Libya, the number of arrivals has dropped considerably, compared to a week ago, with 2,485 people arriving yesterday, coinciding with intensified fighting in western Libya that has reduced mobility. Recent arrivals describe numerous military road blocks along the route, with the majority reporting that they are searched for mobile phones, memory cards and simcards,” Mr. Edwards said.

UNHCR’s tented transit camp in Choucha, close to the border, currently holds 15,000 people, 311 of them with protection concerns, including Somalis and Eritreans.

Meanwhile, a convoy of trucks from the UN World Food Programme (WFP) entered Libya last night and is due to arrive in the eastern city of Benghazi today with 70 metric tons of high-energy, fortified date bars, the first delivery of UN food aid to enter the country.

WFP is mobilizing food for the hungry as part of a $39.2 million emergency operation to feed more than 1 million people in Libya, Egypt and Tunisia over a three-month period. Preparations are under way for delivery of another 70 metric tons of the locally-produced date bars, and 150 metric tons of wheat flour, taken from the stocks of WFP operations in Egypt.

A shipment of 1,182 metric tons of wheat flour which turned back from Benghazi on Thursday amid security concerns, set sail for Libya again today.

Some 80 metric tons of WFP high energy biscuits, airlifted to the Tunisian border last week, are now being distributed as part of the food rations for new arrivals there.

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Fighting Malaria With Nets Nets, Mandy Moore

Mandy Moore
Singer-songwriter, actress and PSI Ambassador
Mandy Moore, Singer-songwriter, actress and PSI Ambassador

I’m extremely grateful to be invited to share my voice alongside all these incredible women on International Women’s Day. As an ambassador for the global health organization PSI (Population Services International), I’ve been fortunate to have traveled to places like the Central African Republic and Southern Sudan where I have met amazing women who rival the likes of the women on this site today.

Last fall, I traveled to the Central African Republic — a country where malaria is responsible for approximately half of all hospital visits. I was there to help launch a United Nations Foundation’s Nothing But Nets campaign that would provide a net to every family in need in the country.

As part of the trip, I visited a local health clinic in a rural part of the capital city, Bangui. There, I met a woman named Sophie who was with her husband and newborn baby. Her baby was inconsolable, crying from pain and hot to touch with a high fever. This was the second time Sophie had been at the clinic with her daughter. The first time her daughter she was only mildly ill, but the health clinic didn’t have any anti-malaria treatment in stock. So they referred her to the local hospital, which was an expensive bus ride away. When Sophie arrived at the hospital she realized that they couldn’t afford the medication. So she took the little remaining money she had and purchased syringes. Then she walked back to the rural health clinic and begged the doctor there to give them the medication for free. Sophie was willing to inject her daughter herself if she thought it could save her life.

Mandy Moore in the Central African Republic

That’s when I met them. The health clinic had no medication, Sophie had no money, and her daughter’s fever was worsening by the minute. Luckily, in her case, we were able to give her the money needed to return to the hospital by cab and purchase the right treatments.

That was the last time I saw Sophie and her baby. I often think of them and hope that they’re okay. But I can’t help but wonder what will happen the next time her daughter is bitten by a malaria-carrying mosquito, when there’s no group of Westerners at the clinic willing to pay her way.

Thankfully, there’s hope for mothers like her. Long-lasting, insecticide-treated mosquito nets are one of the most cost-effective and cost-efficient ways of preventing malaria. Nets can prevent malaria transmission by up to 90 percent, and through the Nothing But Nets campaign that I helped launch, the government of Central African Republic and its partners at PSI and UNICEF were able to distribute nearly 1 million mosquito nets — one for every family in need.

At the same time, thanks to a grant from the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, the local health clinic where I met Sophie is now able to provide preventative malaria treatment to pregnant women, free of charge. Malaria contributes to the deaths of an estimated 10,000 pregnant women and 200,000 infants each year in Africa, so early and effective treatment can prevent a great majority of deaths.

But tackling malaria in a country like the Central African Republic is a huge uphill battle, and my experiences there have been a healthy dose of reality, fueling my own sense of urgency to do my part in reducing the preventable suffering of the incredible women I met. This year, I will be attending the Clinton Global Initiative University, a meeting for students and national youth organizations to tackle pressing global issues. I am excited about being a part of this growing community of young leaders who don’t just discuss the world’s challenges, but take real, concrete steps toward solving them — real, concrete steps to empower women like Sophie to protect herself and her family.

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21st Century Slavery? It’s Happening as You Watch This

Slavery continues in parts of Africa today. In fact, IRIN (Integrated Regional Information Networks) of the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs reports children being sold to Arab herdsmen in Chad. As part of a new identity imposed on them the herdsmen “…change their name, forbid them to speak in their native dialect, ban them from conversing with people from their own ethnic group and make them adopt Islam as their religion.

These are some of the issues TalkAfrique intends to campaign against as we assemble logistics. Please consider how you can help us to help the people affected by these evils. KAM

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Stopping Early Marriages in Africa

UNICEF helps to begin changing attitudes towards early marriage in Niger

In several communities across Africa, a young girl often does not have a say in whether and whom she will marry. It is the parents, both the man’s and the girl’s, who make the decision. In Niger, 1 out of 2 girls is married before the age of 15. But change is slowly taking place.

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Freedom of Information Bill in Nigeria not Yet Uhuru

 The freedom of Information Bill in Nigeria [FOI] in Nigeria is a bill that is ensured to give Nigerians free access to government information. The goal is to enhance greater transparency in government by giving citizens the right to peruse government documents and also ask questions on how the commonwealth [public funds] has been expended.

This bill which was initiated by a member of the Nigerian lower house of parliament since the era of former President Obasanjo has generated a lot of controversy and also attracted public interest. This controversy of the FOI bill stems from the eagerness of the public to ensure that the bill is speedily passed into law. For those accustomed with the history of public service in Nigeria, it has been one of profligacy, monumental corruption, and large scale graft since independence till date. Huge sums of oil revenue have disappeared without trace from the public over the years without explanation. Thus, the enthusiasm with which the public welcomed the bill.

However, the FOI bill which has just been passed by the Nigerian lower house of parliament seem to have birthed in still waters. Since the battle for its passage began, it has faced formidable opposition by those who are benefitting from the existing rot, as they have employed all known and unknown subterfuges to kill the bill. The bill was initially passed by the defunct legislature during the Obasanjo administration only for it to get to President Obasanjo’s table and literarily thrown into the “trash can” because he claimed he didn’t “understand what the bill was talking about”

With the passage of the bill once again, by the current legislature, public expectation is on the rise once again, but we hearken to warn that this expectations could be misplaced, as the status quo subsisting during the Obasanjo era is still very much present in Nigeria. As a matter of fact an aide to President Goodluck Jonathan has expressed his readiness to advise the President not to assent to the bill.

For the FOI bill, the last as not been heard, as it looks likely that, it may still suffer the same fate.

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Victims of Sexual Violence in DR Congo Face Bleak Situation, UN Report

Congo has been described as the rape capital of the world

GENEVA (3 March 2011) – A new UN report, based on testimonies by some of the hundreds of thousands of victims of sexual violence in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, paints an extremely stark picture of the at best inadequate, and at worst non-existent, resources and efforts to meet their needs, ranging from medical and psychological treatment, to their socio-economic situation, and lack of access to justice, compensation and other forms of remedies and reparations.

The 55-page report, published Thursday by a special high-level panel appointed by the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay, is the product of a 17-day field visit by the panel’s three members and their support team to seven locations in three different provinces and the capital Kinshasa.

During their visit, the panel heard directly from 61 survivors of sexual violence, ranging from a girl raped when she was three years old to a 61-year-old grandmother, about what they perceived their actual needs to be, and what they felt about the remedies and reparations currently available to them. Many of them also described in graphic detail to the panel members what had happened to them and to other victims in their neighbourhoods. In each location, the panel held talks with provincial and local government officials, and convened roundtables with officials in the justice sector, members of civil society and UN representatives.

The panel met with some individuals and groups, the report says, “including victims who had contracted HIV/AIDS as a result of rape, victims who had become pregnant and had children as a result of rape, victims whose husbands had rejected them following their rape, child victims of rape, victims of rape who had taken their cases to court seeking justice, and victims of rape by civilian perpetrators. Among the victims with special needs whom the panel met were a girl with sensory disabilities, a young woman who is blind, and four men, two of whom were raped and two of whom were sexually assaulted in other ways.”

Peace and security are seen as the precondition to any restoration of normal life, the report says, noting that “victims expressed concern that whatever they are given now to restore their lives can be again destroyed if there is no peace.”

Health care and education were among the highest priorities conveyed to the panel by victims. “They are determined, but in many cases unable, to send their children to school. Those who have contracted HIV/AIDS are deeply troubled by concern over what will happen to their children when they die. Many victims who met with the panel have been displaced from their homes. They expressed the need for socio-economic reintegration programmes.”

“The panel was struck by the difference between the urban centres and the villages it visited,” the report says. “In remote areas there is so little infrastructure that access to any form of assistance or reparation is virtually non-existent. Most women outside the cities are unable to get medical assistance within 72 hours of rape. Nor are there prisons and courts within reachable distance, making detention and trial of perpetrators very challenging and rendering justice unattainable.”

Even in Bukavu, the main city in South Kivu, the panel noted that “the police officer responsible for sexual violence investigations has only a motorcycle, which makes it impossible for her to transport arrested persons to detention facilities.”

Many women never report the rapes, either due to fear of stigmatization or lack of faith in the judicial system. “There is no point in making an accusation,” one woman said. “I learned by example from most people raped before me that there is no justice.”

The panel also met victims who have been able to overcome the many challenges of bringing a case to court and getting a judgment that condemns the perpetrators and awards them reparations in the form of damages and interest.

However the report says “these victims expressed great frustration because their perpetrators have escaped from prison while they have not been paid the damages…even in those cases where the state has been held liable.”

“This is a matter of widespread concern to judicial officers and provincial government authorities, as well as civil society and the victims themselves. The failure to pay these awards is undermining the judiciary and the confidence of victims in the justice system,” the report states, calling for immediate action to pay awarded damages.

The report notes, however, that most victims interviewed were unable to seek justice through the courts because they cannot identify their perpetrators, or in some cases, because perpetrators have not been arrested. “Victims have a right to reparations, which include restitution, compensation, rehabilitation, satisfaction, and guarantees of non-repetition. There is a need to highlight the responsibility of the government in this regard, with support from the international community.”

The panel heard many views on the relative benefits and drawbacks of individual vs. collective reparations, and repeatedly the suggestion was made that both collective and individual reparations should be provided for. The panel recommends that a fund to support reparations be established as a matter of priority, with the governance of the fund to include representatives of the Government of the DRC, the United Nations, donors, civil society, and survivors themselves. Such a fund should benefit victims of sexual violence in all parts of the country.

“Shifting the stigma from the victims to the perpetrators would have a great impact on the ability of victims to reclaim their dignity and rebuild their lives,” the report says. “Breaking the silence and mobilizing public support for these victims could be the single most important form of reparation.”

The organization of the hearings, including the identification and selection of victims who met with the panel, was undertaken jointly by the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights and the Panzi Hospital, in consultation with the Joint Human Rights Office of the UN mission in DRC (MONUSCO). The potential security risks to each victim were assessed, and measures were taken to ensure their safety and confidentiality. Psychologists were hired to pre-screen each witness and to be available to the witnesses before, during and after the hearings.

The panel was composed of Kyung-wha Kang, UN Deputy High Commissioner for Human Rights, Elisabeth Rehn, former Minister of Defense of Finland and co-author of the UNIFEM report on Women, War and Peace, and Dr. Denis Mukwege, Medical Director of Panzi Hospital in Bukavu, South Kivu.

(UNHCR)

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I Prayed That Ghana Never Finds Oil – Otabil Tells Financial Times of London

Rev. Dr. Mensah Otabil

One of Ghana’s popular clergymen, the Rev. Mensa Otabil, Head Pastor of the International Central Gospel Church (ICGC) says for many years he had prayed that Ghana would never find oil. Because he believes that won’t help the country develop the work ethic required to develop a productive society.

Rev. Otabil who also established one of Ghana’s attractive universities, the Central University College told the Financial Times of London that people would become more corrupt when the country finds oil because there will be no barriers.

“For years I prayed we would never find oil. I don’t think it will help us to develop the work ethic we need to structure a viable, productive society. I think people would most likely become very corrupt because there are no barriers,” he told the publication.

Pastor Otabil was quoted saying “I don’t care what America wants and what China wants. I care about what Ghana wants. Because what is going to keep us centered is our values and what we consider is in our best interest. That is what will ground us when this push and shove escalates.”

He indicated according to the publication that he believes one of the best uses of oil revenues would be to give the state the backbone to be a stronger and fairer ar biter of Ghana’s future by investing in the police and judiciary. Yet that will be only one of many competing claims as the pot of petrodollars grows.

Ghana discovered oil in commercial quantities in June 2007 and commercial production began on December 15, 2010.

The country’s Jubilee Oil field has been noted as the largest oil field to be discovered in Africa in the last 10 to 15 years.

In February 2011 Tullow Oil, the major stakeholder in Ghana’s oil sector announced the discovery of oil in its Teak-1 exploration well in the West Cape Three Points license offshore Ghana.

Already, industry watchers are touting the Teak-1 well as another significant find.

Tullow Oil’s Exploration Director, Angus McCoss, said about the Teak-1 well, “Success in all five of the targeted reservoirs, encountering 73 metres of total net pay, is an excellent outcome for the Teak-1 well and a great start to our 2011 multi-well exploration campaign in the West Cape Three Points licence.”

(Gh. Business Review)

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No African Country is Immune to The Call for Change Sweeping Across The Continent, Not Even South Africa

Municipal workers on strike at Cape Town, South Africa

Africans and people of the Middle East have spoken; and in their loud and clear voices, they have unambiguously made it clear to their governments that cronyism, nepotism, corruption, and any abuse of state resources and public power for the benefit of the few will no longer be tolerated. At present, demands for political reforms are mounting in Libya despite deadly threats from the current regime, and the people of Yemen, Bahrain, and Jordan are continuing with their struggle for freedom.  As expected Zimbabwe’s security apparatus is on high alert and no one doubts its readiness to use whatever means available to crush the people’s demands for true democracy and to keep President Mugabe in power. Today, the first of March is Everybody Hates Bob Day (#EverybodyHatesBob on Twitter) and anti –Mugabe protests have been planned for Harare, Bulawayo and there will also be a demonstration outside South Africa’s National Parliament in Capetown. This demonstration is in response to the arrests of 45 Zimbabweans for watching uprisings footage. The arrested pro-democracy activists have since been charged with treason.  Without doubt, only a fearful, paranoid and desperate regimes will respond with such stupidity to a normal act of watching uprisings footage. Unfortunately, this incident and many other instances of violent abuse, intimidation and repression against ordinary Zimbabweans happen under the watch of SADC. Perhaps it is time for SADC to realise that whatever it is trying to do  in Zimbabwe is not working and the grabbing of foreign companies as Mugabe launches his “anti sanctions campaign” tomorrow as part of his election campaign clearly shows that he has little regard whatsoever for the regional bloc.

Tunisia’s wave of change currently spreading like wildfire throughout North Africa and the Middle East harshly reminds the entire African leadership that people will no longer accept anything less from them. The revolution is further proof that the people have had enough of bad governance. Going forward, it can not be business as usual and leaders need to vigorously assess the impact the revolts will have in their own countries. Long-serving leaders many of whom have poor service delivery records and dictatorship tendencies need to go back to the boardroom.  They need to realise that there is nothing they can do about the present situation. People want freedom and they want it now.  Victor Hugo, French poet, novelist, playwright once said “there is nothing more powerful than an idea whose time has come”. This quote captures the mood of Africans at this point in time.  

Democratic South Africa was recently forced to engage with the implications of Tunisia’s revolt. In response to a prediction by Moeletsi Mbeki, political analyst and brother of former President Thabo Mbeki that South Africa’s Tunisia Day will be in 2020, the President’s response was “I can tell you there will never be a Tunisia in South Africa. We have a constitutional democracy here. No-one is being repressed; everyone has the right to say what he wants and to vote.” “It is impossible. I use the word again: It is impossible.”

One thing that the protests have taught us is that anything is possible. South Africans through violent service delivery protests have strongly made it clear to the government and the ruling party that constitutional democracy has to deliver on socio economic rights  and it has to make it possible for all to live a dignified life with access to basic services like water, electricity, sanitation, health care, and so on. There is widespread acknowledgement that substantial progress has been made in the delivery of basic services to South Africans, however, much more needs to be done. The youth who are behind many of the current protests in North Africa are, for example, the main victims of the unemployment crisis in South Africa. Statistics show that about 50%  of young people below the age of 25 are unemployed and have no chance at all of finding a job. Many hope the youth wage subsidy starting in 1 April 2012 will help soften the crisis, but it remains to be seen what its impacts will be. At the launch of the ANC‘s Election Manifesto for the 2011 local government elections to be held before May, the President of the ANC Youth League Mr Julius Malema correctly echoed the sentiments of many including the youth when he said that “this democracy is not a democracy of families; this is a democracy of the people of the South Africa”… “When families are exploiting the resources of this country and are enriching themselves in the name of freedom, when those in political office abuse their power to benefit friends, the youth must rise in defence of the ANC.” This statement comes at a time when there is a strong perception that members of the President’s family especially his 28 year old son Duduzane and the President’s close friends the Gupta family are getting state contracts worth billions of money. Surely it is stories like these that have brought out the wrath of the Tunisian and Egyptian people.

Whether the perception is real or not, what matters is that it exists and it was a contributing factor in the uprisings in North of Africa. South Africa despite its strong democratic institutions and a somewhat better service delivery record is not immune at all to what is happening around it.

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