The Human Rights Council this afternoon heard a presentation by the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights of her annual report, and started an interactive dialogue with her.
In her presentation Navi Pillay, United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, said 2013 was a landmark year for her Office as it was the twentieth anniversaries of the Vienna Declaration and the establishment of the High Commissioner's mandate. The High Commissioner announced that the Assistant Secretary General for Human Rights was today travelling to Ukraine, and called for an investigation into human rights violations that had taken place in recent months in Ukraine. She also recommended that the Council establish its own international inquiry mechanism into human rights violations in Sri Lanka. This was her final report as High Commissioner, Ms. Pillay said, and her mandate had seen a number of major accomplishments, grappled with both unexpected and long-lasting challenges, and witnessed some of the most pitiless and implacable brutality that any human being could imagine. Ms. Pillay said her most heartfelt wish was that the Council, with the support of her Office, could find a way to galvanize the international community to act decisively to end the burden on the conscience of humankind.
In the interactive dialogue that followed speakers said work undertaken under the guidance of the High Commissioner ensured that human rights had become one of the pillars of the United Nations system. Speakers shared the High Commissioner’s concerns regarding the lack of efforts to protect economic, social and cultural rights. The international community should commit to put individuals and their dignity at the heart of the post-2015 development agenda, which should include clear and measurable objectives, several speakers said.
Advertising campaign by UN Women. Photo © Ogilvy & Mather Dubai
In May 2013, a campaign led notably by Women, Action and the Media and the Everyday Sexism Project attracted global public attention to the issue of social media content promoting violence against women. Such content included the photograph of a well-known singer with a bloodied and beaten face with a caption celebrating her boyfriend’s assault. The campaign prompted Facebook to react and update its policies on hate speech, which now take better account of an often neglected type of hate speech, that targeting women.
Such hate speech is proliferating, notably on the Internet, with daily calls for violence against women and threats of murder, sexual assault or rape.
Arguably, the most famous case is that of Malala Yousafzai, the young Pakistani girl who, after surviving an assassination attempt prompted by her stance for women’s rights, had to withstand a hostile campaign on the Internet. Malala is now a symbol of women’s struggle worldwide, including in Europe. Recent cases, in fact, remind us that if we believe that hate speech against women is not a European problem, we are profoundly wrong.
A few days ago, for example, an investigation was opened in the UK against two police officers who used denigrating language against a 19-year old woman who intended to lodge a complaint for domestic violence.
In Italy, the speaker of Parliament, Laura Boldrini, has been the target of repeated hate speech since she was sworn in, including recently when the leader of the 5-Star Movement, a political group which obtained a quarter of the votes in last year’s legislative elections, published a clearly misogynistic post on his blog, which was picked up by his social media account and those used by his MPs, and which generated violent, insulting comments against her.
WUNRN Would Be Interested in GENDER FOCUS & DISAGGREGATION for a Report on Humanitarian Assistance.
"In the GHA Report 2013 you will find answers to the basic questions about the way that the world finances response to crisis and vulnerability. How much humanitarian assistance is there? Is it enough? Who provides it? Where does it go? What is it spent on? You will see the increasingly diverse range of actors, the application of technologies, the focus on transparency and access to information, and the relationship with building resilience. But most of all you will see that humanitarian assistance does not exist in a vacuum, either for the recipient or the donor. For most people it targets, vulnerability, poverty, insecurity and crises are inextricably linked in their daily lives. Similarly, humanitarian assistance is just one part of a range of responses from an international community that includes governments, foundations, non-governmental organisations (NGOs), companies and individuals as well as military and security forces."
Global humanitarian assistance report 2013
Извор: WUNRN – 05.03.2013
Child mortality, particularly neonatal mortality (death in the fi rst month of life), correlates strongly with the health and nutrition of the mother, as well as with the accessibility of both basic and emergency health services. There arevery wide differences in the percentage of births attended by skilled health personnel, ranging from nearly 100 per cent in most advanced economies as well as in East and Central Asia, to only 50 per cent of deliveries in South Asia and sub-Saharan Africa (United Nations, 2013). Inequalities in nutritional intake, use of health-care services and access to infrastructural amenities are very important in determining disparities in child mortality.
Inequality matters – Report on the world social situation 2013
Извор: WUNRN – 04.03.2014
It was 9 October 2012. The school bus, a converted truck, had travelled only a few hundred yards from Khushal school in Mingora, north-west Pakistan, when a masked man stepped in front of the vehicle. An accomplice armed with a pistol climbed onto the tailgate at the rear, leaned over and asked which of the 20 schoolgirls huddled inside was Malala. When the driver stepped on the accelerator, the gunman opened fire, shooting Malala in the head.
At a school in Lahore, Pakistan, people hold candles and pictures of Malala Yousafzai, a student shot by the Pakistani Taliban for speaking out against the militants’ destruction of schools and for promoting education for girls, 12 October 2012. © 2012 REUTERS/Mohsin Raza
Malala Yousafzai, 15, had become well known in the area – and a Pakistani Taliban target – after daring to speak out against the militants’ edict banning girls from attending classes and their bombing of schools. Critically wounded by a bullet that tore through her head and shoulder and lodged near her spine, she was rushed by helicopter to a military hospital in Peshawar, along with two wounded school friends. From there, she was taken to England, where she has made a remarkable recovery and now lives.
Hailed by international media and feted by human rights groups for her courage, Malala is today famous around the world. But she is just one of the many thousands of students, teachers, academics and other education personnel in dozens of countries targeted with violence.
This global study charts the scale and nature of attacks on education; highlights their impact on education – including on students, teachers and facilities; and documents the ways that governments, local communities, non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and UN agencies try to reduce the impact of such violence and prevent future attacks.
In doing so, it provides the most extensive documentation of attacks on education to date.
Following earlier studies that UNESCO published in 2007 and 2010, it not only examines attacks on schools, as previous research has done, but also considers military use of education facilities and more closely examines attacks on higher education.
The study’s four main aims are to: better inform international and national efforts to prevent schools, universities, students, teachers, academics and other education staff from being attacked; encourage the investigation, prosecution and punishment of the perpetrators of attacks; share knowledge about effective responses; and help those who have been attacked to recover and rebuild their lives – as Malala is doing – by providing recommendations for action that the international community, governments and armed non-state groups should adopt and implement.
In July 2013, Malala addressed the UN General Assembly and stressed the importance of protecting education. ‘The terrorists thought that they would change my aims and stop my ambitions,’ she said, ‘but nothing changed in my life, except this: weakness, fear and hopelessness died. Let us pick up our books and pens. They are our most powerful weapons.’
Global Study: Education Under Attack 2014
Извор: WUNRN - 03.03.2014
