December 2020 — Page 3 of 19 — Human Rights & Charity

Netherlands violates nationality rights: UN rights committee

“The right to nationality ensures concrete protection for individuals, in particular children”, said Committee member Shuichi Furuya.

In what they called “a ground-breaking decision”, the Committee’s first on the right of a child to acquire a nationality, the members referred to a petition by a boy named Denny, who in 2010 was born in the Dutch city of Utrecht to a 21-year-old mother from China.

The Human Rights Committee has asked the Dutch authorities to review their decision, as well as the legislation on eligibility to apply for citizenship. 

The right to nationality ensures concrete protection for individuals — UN Human Rights Committe member

Trapped in vicious circle 

In their statement, the Committee explain that Denny’s mother was trafficked to the Netherlands in 2004, when she was 15, and forced into prostitution.

In 2008, she managed to escape and reported to the Dutch police what had happened to her but, because her traffickers could not be identified, the police closed the investigation: her residency status is currently classified as a “illegal alien”.

Moreover, as Denny’s mother was abandoned by her parents and never recorded in China’s civil registry as being born, she herself could not obtain Chinese citizenship nor provide proof of Denny’s nationality.

As a result, Denny is registered in the Dutch Municipal Personal Records Database with the annotation “unknown nationality”.

To complicate matters further, without the conclusive proof required by Dutch law that her son has no nationality, she is unable to change his status from “unknown” to “Stateless”, leaving him unable to apply for international protection for Stateless children.

Reaching beyond Dutch authorities

Denny and his mother filed a petition to the Committee in 2016 in a bid to garner protection.

Meanwhile, both are living under the permanent threat of deportation in a centre for failed asylum seekers.

“States have the responsibility to ensure that Stateless children under their jurisdiction who have no possibility to acquire any other nationality are not left without legal protection”, Mr. Furuya upheld.

The Committee requested the Netherlands to reconsider its decision on Denny’s application to be registered as Stateless as well as on his application to be recognized as a Dutch citizen.

Children hanging in the balance

According to the Dutch Central Bureau of Statistics, as of September 2016, more than 13,150 children under the age of 10 were registered with “unknown nationality”, many of whom had been born in the Netherlands.

The UN Human Rights Committee urged the country to review its legislation to establish a procedure for determining Statelessness status as well on eligibility to apply for citizenship.

UN rights expert urges United States to remove sanctions hindering rebuilding in Syria

Alena Douhan, United Nations Special Rapporteur on the negative impacts of unilateral coercive measures on human rights, voiced concerns that sanctions imposed under the Caesar Syria Civilian Protection Act – also known as the Caesar Act – risk exacerbating the already dire humanitarian situation in Syria, especially in the course of COVID-19 pandemic, and put Syrians at even greater risk of rights violations.

“When it announced the first sanctions under the Caesar Act in June 2020, the United States said it did not intend for them to harm the Syrian population,” she stated.

“Yet enforcement of the Act may worsen the existing humanitarian crisis, depriving the Syrian people of the chance to rebuild their basic infrastructure,” Ms. Douhan added.

After a decade of crisis, humanitarian needs remain extensive and multifaceted across Syria, with millions dependent on international assistance. Thousands of schools have been destroyed and the health system is in tatters, with only 58 per cent of hospitals reported to be fully functional.

Wide-ranging sanctions

According to a news release by the UN human rights office (OHCHR), the Caesar Act contains the most wide-ranging US sanctions ever applied against Syria. It could target any foreigner helping in reconstruction of Syria, including employees of foreign companies and humanitarian operators helping to rebuild.

Since Syria’s economy is largely destroyed, it needs to be able to rely on foreign assistence in accessing vital humanitarian aid and rebuilding essential infrastructure. The fact that the US Treasury designated the Syrian Central Bank as a suspect of money laundering clearly creates unnecessary hurdles in processing Syrian foreign aid and handling humanitarian imports, it added.

High risk of over-compliance

Ms. Douhan also said that the Caesar Act raises serious concerns under international law because of its unfettered emergency powers of the Executive and extraterritorial reach, and results in the high risk of over-compliance.

“What particularly alarms me is the way the Caesar Act runs roughshod over human rights, including the Syrian people’s rights to housing, health, and an adequate standard of living and development,” she said.

“The US Government must not put obstacles in the way of rebuilding of hospitals because lack of medical care threatens the entire population’s very right to life,” the Special Rapporteur added.

Special Rapporteurs are part of what is known as the Special Procedures of the Human Rights Council. The experts work on a voluntary basis; they are not UN staff and do not receive a salary. They are independent from any government or organization and serve in their individual capacity.

Lebanon: UN chief welcomes murder conviction for 1980 blue helmet killings

Deputy UN Spokesperson Farhan Haq said on Monday that Mr. Guterres “took note” of the 22 December verdict by the country’s Permanent Military Court, which convicted and sentenced 76-year-old Mahmoud Bazzi to 15 years in prison for the decades-old kidnapping and killing two UN peacekeepers and causing serious injury to a third.

Mr. Bazzi was handed down a life sentence in prison, which, because of his age, was immediately reduced to 15 years.

Justice at last

The conviction relates to an abduction that took place in Lebanon in April, 1980. Three Irish peacekeepers – Derek Smallhorne, Thomas Barrett and John O’Mahony – serving with the UN Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL), were kidnapped after their convoy was stopped.

Privates Smallhorne, age 31, and O’Mahony, age 30, were subsequently murdered by Mr. Bazzi, reportedly in retaliation for the death of his brother, killed in an earlier firefight involving Fijian and Irish forces.

Mr. Bazzi was reported to have been a member of the South Lebanon Army, a militia group, at the time of the killings.

Using someone else’s passport Mr. Bazzi reportedly entered the United States about 25 years ago and had been living in Detroit, Michigan. Five years ago, he was extradited over immigration offences and tried in Lebanon for the murders.

The virus that shut down the world: The plight of refugees and migrants

“We fled from home to save our lives, to escape war, and now we are faced with this new coronavirus”, said Rozhan, an Iraqi refugee who made a long and arduous journey to the European country of Bosnia-Herzegovina, with her husband, Ibrahim, and their three children. En route, the family dealt with being stopped, searched and detained, as well as cold and hazardous winter weather.

By April they were sheltering in a camp run by the UN migration agency (IOM), where they became aware of coronavirus. “Everyone was talking about it, and there were posters explaining how we should protect ourselves.”

IOM worked hard to prevent the spread of COVID-19 among people in its centres, installing sanitizer stations, educating staff and residents about safety, and closing community kitchens, to avoid large gatherings. Despite the fresh disruption to their lives, Rozhan and her family said that they understood why the new measures are necessary. “We are safe here”, she said.

Sounding the alarm

However, safety and hygiene have been harder to maintain in other camps, particularly in developing countries. In April, the UN sounded the alarm over the fate of refugees, migrants and other displaced people during the pandemic, warning that high-density camps could be the cause of mass COVID infections.

A statement released jointly by prominent UN agencies, including IOM and the UN refugee agency UNHCR, noted that many migrants live in overcrowded facilities, settlements, makeshift shelters or reception centres, where they lack adequate access to health services, clean water and sanitation.

Particular concern was expressed for refugees and migrants held in detention centres, including migrant children and their families, as well as those detained without a sufficient legal basis. “Considering the lethal consequences, a COVID-19 outbreak would have, they should be released without delay”, the statement reads. “This disease can be controlled only if there is an inclusive approach which protects every individual’s rights to life and health”.

Stranded

In May, IOM announced that teams from the agency were providing support to migrants in the desert regions of west, central, and eastern Africa, after they had either been deported without due process, or abandoned by smugglers – just one example of groups of migrants who found themselves stranded, as restrictions on movement began to bite. Many thousands were affected, all over the world, often blocked in border areas, without access to healthcare.

In India, huge numbers of migrant workers had their lives upended in April, when they were forced to leave the cities where they worked at just a few hours’ notice. Reports and images also emerged of police officers apparently beating people, including migrants, with batons, for breaking quarantine rules and allegedly spraying some on the road, with disinfectant.

Lacking jobs and money, and with public transportation shut down, hundreds of thousands were forced to trek hundreds of miles back to their home villages, some dying on the journey. Their desperate situation prompted UN human rights chief, Ms. Bachelet to call for authorities to respect the safety and rights of migrants when applying lockdown measures.

Targeted by organized crime

Following the imposition of COVID-related restrictions in Honduras, El Salvador and Guatemala, a rise in extortion, drug trafficking and sexual and gender-based violence was recorded by the UN refugee agency, UNHCR, in May.

In 2019, violence in the region had forced some 720,000 people to flee their homes, although almost half of them remain displaced within their own country. As the pandemic took hold in Central America, organized criminal groups began exploiting lockdown measures to strengthen their grip, using forced disappearances, murders, and death threats, to force the local population to submit.

A UNHCR spokesperson said that movement restrictions were making it harder for those that need help and protection to obtain it, while those that needed to flee for their lives, faced increased hurdles in seeking safety.

‘An outsized role on the frontlines’

At the end of what has been a particularly grim year for those forced to leave their homes, countries and families, International Migrants Day, celebrated on 18 December, was an opportunity to highlight the positive contribution that migrants and refugees make to societies, everywhere.

Hassan Akkad, an award-winning Syrian film-maker and refugee, has been hailed for the contribution he has made to his host country, the United Kingdom. Living in East London during the pandemic, he decided to help out by becoming a cleaner at his local hospital.

“It felt like a direct way that I could contribute to the wellbeing of my fellow Londoners”, he said. “It’s where I would go myself if I, or my partner, or the families on my road, got ill. It was my honour to contribute in some small way. The people I met there are, without a doubt, some of the most humble, hard-working, dedicated human beings I’ve ever met in my life. They come from all corners of the world – Ghana, Italy, Poland, the Caribbean, Spain, Iran”.

“Migrants have played an outsized role on the frontlines of responding to the crisis, from caring for the sick and elderly to ensuring food supplies during lockdowns”, said UN chief António Guterres on International Migrants Day. “Just as migrants are integral to our societies, they should remain central to our recovery”.

Bosnia and Herzegovina: Migrant lives at ‘immediate risk’, warn UN agencies

The migrants and asylum seekers lost shelter after the Lipa Emergency Tent Camp, located in the country’s north-west, was closed and subsequently destroyed in a fire on 23 December.

“With the recent heavy snowfalls and temperatures below freezing, up to 500 people currently stranded at the location of the former Lipa camp are at immediate safety, health and protection risk,” the UN International Organization for Migration (IOM) and the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) said in a joint statement on Saturday.

“With no heating at the site, frostbite, hypothermia and other severe health problems are already being reported by those stranded at the location. Despite the efforts of humanitarian actors to provide emergency assistance, their lives are at immediate risk,” they added.

The UN agencies were joined by humanitarian NGOs Danish Refugee Council, Medecins Du Monde, and Save the Children.

Not prepared for harsh winter

The Lipa camp was built earlier this year in response to over-crowding and unsuitable conditions elsewhere. It was never “winterized”, a process that generally includes adding thermal floor mats and insulation to shelters, as well as distributing blankets, heating stoves and fuel, to strengthen resilience.

Humanitarian agencies had been alerting on the risks migrants and asylum seekers would be exposed to unless adequate shelter solutions were identified, underlining the unsustainability of the camp during the cold months, according to the statement.

“Despite our collective best efforts and readiness to immediately support any viable alternative, no solution, temporarily or otherwise, was proposed by the authorities until now,” the UN agencies and partners said.

According to Peter Van der Auweraert, IOM Chief of Mission in the country, migrants at the destroyed camp are resorting to makeshift efforts, such as lighting fires inside the remaining tents to keep warm, raising the risk of another catastrophe.

“We have seen a few days ago how quickly fire can spread. This is a totally unnecessary tragedy,” he said.

‘Immediate solution needed’

In the statement, the UN agencies and partners recognized the delicate situation the authorities are facing with the closure of the camp, and called for an immediate alternative solution.

“It is up to the authorities to provide minimum protection for those stranded outside reception centers in deteriorating winter conditions,” they said, noting that in addition to those stranded at the Lipa location, there are about 2,000 others, “forced to try and survive in abandoned buildings and make-shift camps.”

“Failing to act with the utmost urgency will put lives at risk.”

The agencies and partners also reiterated their readiness to support the authorities’ efforts in finding safe and protective alternative solutions, and to urgently organize provision of assistance.

Young Champions of the Earth: Peru’s elemental innovator

Max Hidalgo has adapted a wind turbine to condense vapour from air to produce water for vulnerable communities affected by climate change in Peru.

The technology he has developed at a cost of $70,000 per unit can provide a village of a hundred people with the water they need to survive; it’s estimated that establishing a piped supply to the same community would cost up to $1 million.

Max Hidalgo is one of seven innovators who have been recognized as United Nations Environment Programme’s Young Champions of the Earth for 2020.

After year of ‘trials, tragedies and tears’, UN chief sends message of hope for 2021

Praising the kindness shown by people around the world, the tireless efforts of frontline workers, the scientists who have developed vaccines in record time, and the countries making new advances to save the planet from climate catastrophe, Secretary-General António Guterres expressed his wish for a year of healing.

Against the backdrop of persistent suffering and grief, in a year when the COVID-19 pandemic marked everyone’s lives, Mr. Guterres said in his New Year’s message that we shall work together “in unity and solidarity”, so those “rays of hope can reach around the world”.

“So many loved ones have been lost — and the pandemic rages on, creating new waves of sickness and death”, he noted. Adding that poverty, inequality and hunger are on the rise, with jobs disappearing, certain sectors struggling to survive, debts mounting and children struggling, Mr. Guterres raised his concerns regarding the increased violence in the home and insecurity.

A transition to a sustainable future

But a New Year lies ahead, he continued, and if we work together in unity and solidarity, the rays of hope can reach around the world: “people extending a helping hand to neighbours and strangers; frontline workers giving their all; scientists developing vaccines in record time; and countries making new commitments to prevent climate catastrophe”.

“That’s the lesson of this most difficult year”, he said, “both climate change and the COVID-19 pandemic are crises that can only be addressed by everyone together – as part of a transition to an inclusive and sustainable future.”

Resolutions and goals for next year: time for healing

As for the UN’s plans for 2021, a central ambition is to build a global coalition for carbon neutrality – net zero emissions – by 2050, Mr. Guterres spelled out, adding that “every government, city, business and individual can play a part in achieving this vision”.

Urging the world to act together, the UN Secretary-General called on people to make peace not just among themselves, but also with nature, tackling the climate crisis, stopping the spread of COVID-19 and making 2021 a year of healing: “healing from the impact of a deadly virus. Healing broken economies and societies. Healing divisions. And starting to heal the planet”, he noted.

“That must be our New Year’s Resolution”, the UN chief concluded, sending his wishes for a happy and peaceful 2021.

25,000 refugees in unsettled Tigray region receive urgent UN food supplies

“Families, women, men, children — even new-borns — have been cut off from supplies and essential services for many weeks, so this distribution was urgently needed,” said Ann Encontre, the United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR) Representative in Ethiopia.

In coordination with federal Ethiopian authorities, a convoy of 18 trucks delivered nearly 250 metric tons of corn soya blend, grains, pulses and vegetable oil to local humanitarian partners for distribution to 13,000 Eritrean refugees in Mai Ayni camp.

Another nearly 240 metric tons of food were delivered to Adi Harush refugee camp to support 12,170 refugees there. The supplies were distributed by the UN World Food Programme (WFP), UNHCR, and Ethiopia’s Agency for Refugees and Returnee Affairs (ARRA).

Some 96,000 Eritrean refugees registered in four camps in the Tigray region, are dependent on WFP food assistance for survival. The UN agencies are now working to ensure that sufficient food aid is supplied to the other camps in the region, as well as critical protection services and basic needs such as shelter.

With armed conflict, and reports of mass killings in Tigray, concern has grown for the safety of the refugees. For the last seven weeks, there has been fighting between central Government soldiers and Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) forces, and tens of thousands of people have been displaced as a result.

On Tuesday, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Michelle Bachelet, announced that her office had received allegations of international humanitarian law and human rights law violations, including artillery strikes on populated areas, the deliberate targeting of civilians, extrajudicial killings and widespread looting.

FROM THE FIELD: Misunderstood and mistreated; transgender women in Mexico

The Women of “Casa de las Muñecas Tiresias” shelter, have been providing up to 80 free meals a day to some of their most vulnerable neighbours.

Lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people are often indiscriminately attacked, or, according to media reports, murdered in Mexico and have been experiencing heightened stigma during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Read testimonies here from transgender women who feel misunderstood and mistreated but who are hoping to play their role in creating a fairer and more equal world.

FROM THE FIELD: India’s pandemic of violence against women

Many women, who have been forced to stay at home due to lockdown measures, have been cut off from support services and have suffered at the hands of abusive partners.

In Assam, in tea-growing country in the northeast of India, women are now getting help from groups supported by the UN.

Read more here about how women are empowering themselves to confront gender-based violence.

Month: December 2020