August 19, 2020 - Mendy Marsh, VOICE - Sarah McCook and Emma Fulu, The Equality Institute, Melbourne, Australia
While sexual exploitation and abuse (SEA) in the aid sector have been the focus of numerous assessments, reviews and investigations, the problem continues unabated. This article examines how notions of aid worker altruism, and a related patriarchal culture of saving face in aid agencies, characterize organizational and public responses to SEA. At all levels, including senior management, aid workers are often inclined to ignore or hide the problem—including their own perpetration and abuses of power—for the sake of protecting their agencies’ reputations and their own positions. This emphasis on saving face and maintaining the status quo reinforces a culture of tolerance for perpetration and a climate of fear that silences victims. Inaction is obscured by a public faith in ‘altruistic aid’; the sector has not been held accountable for bad behavior, or for failing to pursue system-wide change.
Reflecting its colonial and missionary roots, the aid sector is imagined to be built upon the altruistic desire to help the ‘needy’ and ‘vulnerable’ (Redfield, 2008; Stirrat, 2008; Hirsch, 2018). This imagining provides a “mirage of morality” (Enria, 2018); there is an ongoing reluctance to acknowledge the inherent power structures through which that desire is operationalized (Fechter, 2012). In the context of SEA, this includes the gendered and unequal power that characterizes the aid sector. There are clear parallels with other faith-based systems and institutions, like the Catholic Church, where many people purposively join because of the power it affords them over others (Dale & Alpert, 2008). This ‘halo effect’ creates an environment ripe for the abuse of power with impunity (Duggan, 2016).
GENEVA (28 August 2020) – Lawmakers, lawyers, judges and prison officers today received much-needed support from UN experts to make sure people with disabilities can use justice systems around the world as easily as anyone else, in line with international standards.
The three UN bodies that deal with disability rights teamed up to issue the first-ever guidelines to help countries implement existing obligations to ensure effective access to justice for people with disabilities.
“The guidelines respond to the challenges that people with disabilities face in accessing justice on an equal basis with others,” said Catalina Devandas, UN special rapporteur on the rights of persons with disabilities. “Many barriers prevent that access. Just to name a few, court houses or police stations are often not accessible, or court officials and police officers may not think that those with disabilities can take part in legal proceedings or have the capacity to instruct a lawyer. We want to help countries dismantle obstacles and parallel systems that prevent access to the existing guarantees and rights by all people.”
Direct Link to Full 18-Page 2020 Save the Children Publication:
https://resourcecentre.savethechildren.net/node/17911/pdf/sc_covid19_gbv_brief_english.pdf
Beyond the Shadow Pandemic: Protecting a Generation of Girls from Gender-Based Violence through COVID-19 to Recovery
COVID-19 is exposing and exacerbating the existing inequalities that put girls at increased risk of gender-based violence (GBV).
This policy brief includes concrete recommendations for UN actors, donors, national governments, humanitarian actors, and the media to ensure that these risks are prevented, mitigated against, and responded to as an urgent priority through COVID-19 to recovery.
Извор: WUNRN – 31.08.2020
As well as sustaining themselves in foreign countries, these workers also send money home to their families left behind, in the form of remittances. A whole global industry has grown up around the business of transferring money, ranging from banks to money transmitters like Western Union to online services like Paypal and WorldRemit. In 2019 a whopping $554 billion was repatriated by migrants around the globe. That far exceeds all combined international aid budgets.
REMITTANCES: A LIFELINE UNDER THREAT
July 23, 2020Written by Colleen Kelly, Concern Worldwide U.S. CEO
International aid for poor communities in developing countries is something that most people are familiar with. But there’s another — bigger — source of support that gets little attention. It’s called remittances… and it’s in trouble.
Direct Link to Full 56-Page 2020 Report:
https://women-as-levers-of-change.herokuapp.com/static/pdf/Women-As-Levers-Of-Change.pdf
