Geneva (11 February 2015) – The United Nations Human Rights Office has launched a major public online database, http://juris.ohchr.org, that contains all case law issued by the United Nations human rights expert committees, the Treaty Bodies.
“The database is designed to be a key reference tool for scholars, lawyers, civil society organisations, governments and civil servants, our UN partners and the general public,” said Ibrahim Salama, Director of the United Nations Human Rights Treaties Division. “Just as importantly, we hope it may help individuals who are preparing to submit complaints to the committees by giving them access to the views and decisions taken by the expert members on specific human rights issues.”
The database was developed using data from the Netherlands Institute of Human Rights (SIM) of Utrecht University School of Law. Since the mid-1990s, the SIM had developed a comprehensive record on the jurisprudence stemming from the decisions by four Treaty Bodies on complaints brought by individuals. Over 20 years, academics compiled and indexed Treaty Bodies’ case law, making the SIM database the most authoritative online resource on this. Due to budget restrictions, the SIM stopped updating the database from 1 January 2014 and took it offline on 1 January 2015. However, the SIM offered its data free of charge to the United Nations Human Rights Office.
Top United Nations experts on children’s rights and on freedom of expression join the voices of children, parents, teachers, policymakers, law enforcement, industry and civil society in their call to create a better and safe Internet.
Speaking ahead of the global Safer Internet Day, the Special Representative of the United Nations Secretary-General on Violence against Children, Marta Santos Pais; the Special Rapporteur on sale and sexual exploitation of children, Maud de Boer-Buquicchio; and the Special Rapporteur on freedom of expression, David Kaye, call on States and the IT industry to tackle head on online child sexual abuse and exploitation, while protecting the right to freedom of expression of both children and adults.
“Information and communication technologies evolve and spread at phenomenal speed. This evolution represents an amazing opportunity that more and more children are using to learn, play, create, socialize, and express themselves, in particular through the Internet. Indeed, through their access to Internet, children can exercise their right to access to information and to freedom of expression, their rights to be heard, to participate in public debate and develop a critical thinking.
However, without determined and coordinated action, millions of children will continue to be excluded from the benefits of the Internet, child victims of on-line violence, abuse and exploitation will continue to multiply, and impunity for these offences will continue fueling criminality.
Geneva, 9 February 2015 (Issued as received) – Attacks on schools in at least 70 different countries were documented over a five-year period, between 2009 and 2014, with many of the attacks specifically targeting girls, parents and teachers advocating for gender equality in education, a new UN human rights paper has found.
“While significant progress has been made towards guaranteeing education for all in many countries, girls still face additional barriers to the full enjoyment of their rights to, within and through education,” the paper notes. “Attacks against girls accessing education persist and, alarmingly, appear in some countries to be occurring with increasing regularity.”
Several recent cases of attacks against girls accessing education have highlighted the fragile nature of achievements in increasing the accessibility, availability, adaptability, acceptability and quality of education for all, the report notes, citing: the cold-blooded killing of more than 100 children in a Pakistani Taliban attack at an army school in Peshawar in December 2014, the abduction of nearly 300 schoolgirls in April 2014 by the Boko Haram movement in northeast Nigeria, the 2012 shooting of education activist Malala Yousafzai by members of the Taliban in Pakistan, several incidents of poisoning and acid attacks against schoolgirls in Afghanistan between 2012 and 2014, the reported forced removal of girls from schools in Somalia to become ‘wives’ of Al-Shabaab fighters in 2010, and the abduction and rape of girls at a Christian school in India in July 2013.
In Guatemala, it's legal for a girl to marry as young as 14 — though many are married far younger than that. The result: Many girls marry men far older than themselves and become mothers long before they are physically and emotionally ready. Communicating the individual experiences of these child brides across cultural and language barriers became my passion, and, ultimately, my life's work. This project in Guatemala was done in partnership with the United Nations Population Fund. The film below was co-directed by Katie Orlinsky.
Saidi, 16 and 9 months pregnant, at the home of her in-laws. She was married at 15. “My husband left for work in May, 4 months ago. I haven’t heard from him since - Saidi, 16.
Guatemala, the legal age of marriage is 14 with parental consent, but in Petén, in the northern part of the country, the law seems to be more of a suggestion. Underage brides are everywhere. They parade endlessly through Petén’s hospital in San Benito, seeking medical care. Most have traveled from the villages along the mud-soaked roads that flow out in all directions.
I visited almost a dozen of these villages to meet some of the child brides of Petén for the latest Too Young to Wed transmedia project, this one a partnership with the United Nations Population Fund. Guatemala was the 10th country I had worked in documenting the issue of child marriage since 2003, after a chance encounter with several young brides in Afghanistan.
There have been many studies demonstrating why it makes good business sense to have a diverse board, and in some countries legislation has ensured this takes place. Whilst this report agrees that gender diversity has a positive impact on the financial and social success of companies, its purpose is not to make judgement calls on quotas or legislation. Instead, it sets out to identify and analyse the current situation in the mining industry with respect to the number of women on boards and in senior executive positions, the comparison of the size of the companies and the jurisdiction in which these companies are listed, the impact to the financial health of the companies and the board committees that attract women. With that baseline data in place, it will be possible to measure the changes in the industry over the next three years as the debate around the ‘how’ encourages solutions. The top 500 globally listed mining companies were surveyed for this first report, out of a total of 2600 listed mining companies. Together, these companies have a market capitalisation comprising 97% of the global industry, or $1.05 trillion of the $1.09 trillion industry total.
Mining for talent - A study of women on boards in the mining industry by WIM (UK) and PwC
Извор: WUNRN – 11.02.2015
