Blog 25:

1 December, 2016

The War in Yemen and the Consequences for Children and the Civilian Population

Reading today the article by Sudarsan Raghavan on the suffering of the civilians and the severe consequences for children in Yemen I wanted to add this comment:

The war in Yemen has produced enormous suffering onto the civilian population – starvation, poverty and many children and adults have been killed in airstrikes and bombings. Remember that the Saudi Coalition forces were listed in this years’ Annex 1 to the annual report on children and armed conflict presented by the UN SG to the UN Security Council (within the UN Monitoring and Reporting Mechanism regarding children in armed conflict, MRM) because children had died in air strikes as a consequence of the Coalition airstrikes – forming part of the MRM violation ’killing and maiming of children’ which is one of the 6 priority violations within the MRM to be focused on. – To which Saudi Arabia engaged in a relentless campaign to have the coalition de-listed from the annex – talking about ’collateral damage’ when referring to the children that had died. Saudi Arabia threatened to withdraw funding for different UN projects if not de-listed – and in the end Saudi Arabia succeeded in its campaign and got de-listed ’temporarily’ which still stands. Denial of humanitarian access is also one priority violation, starvation could have been avoided. The situation is outrageous for the civilian population – where humanitarian concerns and principles as according to humanitarian international law have been thrown aside with the result that the civilian population suffer immensely without protection and with very little support.

See article: Sudarsan Raghavan, In Yemen’s war trapped families ask which child should we save, 30 November, 2016, https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/middle_east/in-yemens-war-trapped-families-ask-which-child-should-we-save/2016/11/30/c2240cf4-7d60-4132-989f-2128b077efbb_story.html?utm_term=.1e5c96bf248b

Blog 24:

Attacks against hospitals, medical personnel and patients in armed conflict

6 May 2016

The outrageous and unlawful intentional attacks against hospitals, medical personnel and patients that for instance were taking place in Aleppo in Syria the past weeks and which have caused an uproar constitute indeed war crimes and cannot be explained away as mere casualties of warfare. In contrast I choose to underline the interpretation of the Geneva Conventions and their Additional Protocols of 1977 and 2005 that the United Nations Security Council uses in its resolution 2286 of 3 May 2016 with regards to civilians such as patients and civilian targets such as a hospital. In this resolution the Security Council is “concerned with the protection of the wounded and sick, medical personnel and humanitarian personnel exclusively engaged in medical duties, their means of transport and equipment, as well as hospitals and other medical facilities, and the obligation of parties to armed conflict to respect and ensure respect for international humanitarian law in all circumstances.”

Further the Security Council in resolution 2286 recalls “the obligation under international humanitarian law to distinguish between civilian populations and combatants, and the prohibition against indiscriminate attacks, and the obligations to do everything feasible to verify that the objectives to be attacked are neither civilians not civilian objects and are not subject to special protection, including medical personnel, their means of transport and equipment, and hospitals and other medical facilities, and recalling further the obligation to take all feasible precautions with a view to avoiding and in any event minimizing harm to civilians and civilian objects.” These are indeed OBLIGATIONS under international humanitarian law! This means that warring parties indeed do have obligations with regards to verifying targets as well as to take precautions as not to harm civilians, and that they cannot indiscriminately attack hospitals and disregard the fact that patients and personnel are either injured or die. As was clearly shown on the CCTV camera from one hospital in Aleppo, the personnel were getting ready to receive patients and injured from ANOTHER hospital that had been attacked and then this very hospital was also attacked with the result that the only pediatrician was killed as were other members of the staff.

Here it is of importance to note that just as is said in the UN Security Council resolution that it is indeed LOCAL medical personnel and humanitarian personnel “exclusively engaged in medical duties” who are the main victims of casualties among all such personnel in war.

The meeting of the Security Council and its resolution 2286 so clearly shows that it is no longer possible to disregard the reality that civilian targets like hospitals and civilians such as patients, medical and humanitarian personnel have absolutely no protection against such attacks and that they become the main victims of these attacks no matter how much the different warring parties disregard international humanitarian law and use such civilian facilities for their own purposes. PROTECTION OF CIVILIANS IS AN OBLIGATION according to international humanitarian law!

Source: United Nations Security Council Resolution 2286, 3 May 2016

Blog 23:

Syrian Women’s Representation in Peace Talks in Geneva and the Office of the United Nations Special Envoy for Syria

February 2, 2016

Fantastic news! Today a decision to set up an independent Women’s Advisory Board to the Office of the United Nations Special Envoy for Syria, Staffan de Mistura, was made to include women’s voices, interests, experiences and concerns into the Syria peace talks. Making reference to the Security Council resolution 2254 adopted in December 2015, in which the Council was “encouraging the meaningful participation of women in the UN-facilitated political process for Syria,” the Office of the Special Envoy finally took note.

The Women’s Advisory Board according to the U.N. Office is to:

”allow Syrian women to articulate their concerns and ideas and present recommendations, covering all topics discussed during the talks, to the U.N. Special Envoy for consideration. The Board will initially be composed of a group of 12 women chosen by several Syrian women’s organizations through their own consultative process.”

Further ”a system of regular rotations’ is to be established which in turn will make it possible for more women’s organizations to assist the Advisory Board.”

A Support Room is being provided to the Advisory Board and for other Syrian civil society organizations.

This was a response to the outrage that previous decisions by the Office of the Special Envoy had presented on what constituted a lack of serious representation of women in the peace talks, and maybe a realization on behalf of the Office that it actually needed to take the lead in bringing in Syrian women and women’s organizations into the peace talks as neither the Syrian government nor the opposition partners saw it as their responsibility.

As new peace talks were set to begin in Geneva on the war in Syria on 29 January 2016 women activists as the U.S. based women’s organization MADRE underlined had “not been guaranteed a real spot at the negotiating table” and ’instead’ the women, which also encompass the partner organizations of MADRE had “been told by the conveners to be satisfied with serving as advisors to Staffan de Mistura, the UN Special Envoy on the Syrian conflict. Or they had heard that the Syrian government and the Syrian opposition teams would be ‘encouraged’ to include women representatives. Or they had been warned by people on De Mistura’s team to ”keep their emotions out of the room” if they were allowed in. However as MADRE stated: “Despite all these obstacles and insults, 25 women, including some of MADRE’s Syrian partners, will be in Geneva this week to demand real inclusion.”

How can this could be acceptable in 2016 after all the work on the necessity to include women in peace negotiations that actually has taken place at the UN for years was mindboggling.

Sources:

1. Support women’s inclusion in the Syria peace talks in Geneva: Support MADRE’s ‪#‎ISupportFeministForeignPolicy! Read MADRE’s demands for women’s inclusion in ‪#‎Syria’s peace talks http://bit.ly/1nw8HCI, 29 January, 2016

2. Office for the Special Envoy for Syria Press Statement, 2 February, 2016, http://www.unog.ch/unog/website/news_media.nsf/(httpNewsByYear_en)/7699AC3D3F5AB5C3C1257F4D0058C528?OpenDocument

3. Security Council Resolution, S/RES/2254, 18 December, 2016, http://www.un.org/en/ga/search/view_doc.asp?symbol=S/RES/2254(2015)

Blog 22:

Sexual Harassment and Sexual Assault Of Women Around Europe on New Year’s Eve

January 8, 2016

The sexual harassment and sexual assaults that took place in Cologne, Dusseldorf, Stuttgart and Hamburg in Germany on New Years Eve also happened in Helsinki in Finland and in Kalmar in Sweden. This is absolutely UNACCEPTABLE, make no mistake. These men that chose to do this, have so called agency, meaning that they know exactly what they are doing and that they are fully capable of choosing to carry out these actions. As is well known by now these criminal acts committed by these perpetrators seem to in addition to have been planned and these perpetrators should be prosecuted thereafter. If indeed there were asylum seekers or individuals who had already received asylum among these perpetrators of course these individuals do not have any ”protection needs” and should after having been prosecuted and jailed be deported to their home countries ASAP. To be considered a refugee according to the Refugee Convention of 1951 one of the basic requirements is that such an individual has protection needs, and of course if an individual claiming to be a refugee or an asylum seeker (for which the same requirement is a must) would willfully engage in criminal behavior such as sexual harassment and assault in the country where this individual is seeking asylum, that individual certainly does not have any protection needs what so ever and should be treated accordingly. That is first prosecution and jail time and then deportation. This kind of undignified and disrespectful behavior is a disgrace to humanity.

Blog 21:

Some Initial Thoughts on the Terrorist Attacks in France

November 14, 2015

France has declared a three-day period of mourning as a result of the terrorist attacks committed Friday night November 13, 2015 in Paris and Saint-Denis.

As ISIS/Daesh is claiming responsibility for the attacks in Paris last night, and as President François Hollande has stated that ISIS is responsible, even as this has not fully been able to be confirmed, we need to remember that this is the third time in 2015 that Paris is under attack from Jihadist extremists including the Charlie Hebdo killings by the Kouachi brothers and the killing of a woman police officer and the killings of four persons during the siege of the Jewish kosher store in Paris by Mr. Coulibaly.

A new development with these attacks in Paris is that while traditionally terrorist targets were well known targets such as for instance the Pentagon in Washington D.C. and the World Trade Center in New York, the Paris attacks show that the way these attacks are being carried out now is that basically any place can be a target. So the target locations were not places such as the Louvre or the Eiffel Tower but ordinary restaurants, cafes, the concert venue Bataclan and the football stadium, Le Stade de France where a football match between France and Germany was going on and where the French President Hollande also were present. ISIS has said that they attacked this match because it was a match between two Christian countries playing.

It used to be that the more the target venue was a well-known place the more attention the attacks would receive. Now more attention is given to when ordinary places are being attacked such as a café. The message here with these latest Paris attacks is that all places can be targets and that there is nowhere to hide, meaning that there is no protection for the civilian population. This message is very effectively installing much intended fear, feelings of uncertainty and lack of insecurity among the civilian population not only in Paris and in France but in European countries. This situation also underscores that today the national authorities cannot really protect the civilian population against these types of attacks because that would practically mean that armed security personnel would need to be present in every café, restaurant, busses, in every metro train car, in stores etc. How would that be practically possible? Of course it is not. This also means that people will need to take responsibility themselves for their own security which is a very difficult thing to do. It is not known how many perpetrator terrorists that were involved either as directly participating in the attacks or in the planning of the attacks and later in the protection of the attackers, or who these individuals were. What is known so far is that 8 terrorists were killed of which 7 detonated suicide belts.

At the time of writing the French authorities have confirmed that 128 people were killed, 300 wounded of which 80-90 were in critical condition.

The attacks took place in 6 locations:

Bataclan – concert venue

Stade de France – football match between France and Germany

Close to Mac Donalds, close to the Stade de France

Le Petit Cambodge – a popular restaurant

Restaurant Casa Nostra – a popular restaurant

Terrasse de la Brasserie Comptoir Voltaire – no civilian killed, one terrorist died in suicide blast.

What can also be understood from these attacks is that the perpetrators had training, that the attacks were planned as these were coordinated attacks also involving taking hostages in the concert venue Bataclan. Then one question that follows from this is, apart from “Who are these individuals,’ ‘Where did these individuals get training?’ ‘By whom did they get training?’ Given that some of the terrorist were heard referring to Syria, some of them might have been fighting in Syria and/or Iraq with ISIS. This remains to be confirmed. Another issue is where did the heavy weaponry come from?

So far Daily Mail reported that one of the suicide bombers outside of the Stade de France was carrying a Syrian passport, however it has not been possible to as of yet confirm if this passport is an authentic passport or a forged passport given the highly lucrative trade in forged passports in Europe today. Another one of the suicide bombers is thought to have been only around 15 years of age. The work on identifying the perpetrator terrorists is continuing. In addition Danish television DR1 is reporting that on November 5, 2015 in Bayern in Germany the authorities have found a man with a car with weapons including Kalashnikovs that they now suspect might connected to the Paris attacks. If this can be confirmed then of course questions about intelligence sharing will be discussed.

Until the authorities are able to definitely identify the perpetrators and the individuals and/or the organizations behind them we need to understand that this is not playtime anymore. We need to understand that these individuals are totally committed to destroying Western democracies and the way we live and this includes all the values involved such as secularism and freedom.

As the President Hollande was stating last night about the attacks that they were “committed by a terrorist army, the Islamic State group, a jihadist army, against France, against the values that we defend everywhere in the world, against what we are: a free country that means something to the whole planet.” U.S. President Obama directly showed staunched support of France and said “France itself stands for the value of human progress.”

Some sources:

CNN International

Danish Television, DR1

Calderwood, Imagen, Hunt for the Isis killers: One terrorist identified as being from Paris by his fingerprints and another found with a Syrian passport, for Mailonline, 14 November, 2015,http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3318379/Hunt-Isis-killers-Syrian-passport-body-suicide-bomber-Stade-France.html#ixzz3rTArE7um

Damgé, Mathilde and Laurent, Samuel, Attaques à Paris: les rumeurs et les intox qui circulent, 14 November, 2015, Le Monde, http://www.lemonde.fr/les-decodeurs/article/2015/11/14/attaques-a-paris-les-rumeurs-et-les-intox-qui-circulent_4809992_4355770.html?utm_campaign=Echobox&utm_medium=Social&utm_source=Facebook

İ100 staff, Isis in 5 charts, İ100 from Independent, November 13, 2015, http://i100.independent.co.uk/article/isis-in-five-charts–ZyEuJ0Z4Fx

Blog 20:

ISIS and Its Toyota Vehicles and the New World Commercial Environment

8 October, 2015

One question so many have asked about ISIS is ‘Where do all these Toyota cars come from?’ We have all seen these white shiny Toyota Land Cruisers and pickups, and strangely enough these Toyota cars have almost become a hallmark of ISIS which in turn has been outside of Toyota’s control. Ruth Sherlock writes in her article “US government asks Toyota: Why does Isil have so many of the company’s vehicles?’ in Daily Telegraph that now the U.S. Treasure Department is asking Toyota how this has come about and what Toyota is doing about the situation. She further writes that the Iraqi ambassador, Lukman Faily, to the U.S. has also said that Iraq has for a long time been asking its neighboring countries how it has been possible for ISIS to get hold of so many new vehicles. As is stated in this article by Ruth Sherlock, Toyota said to ABC News that the company had ”briefed the [U.S.] treasury on Toyota’s supply chains in the Middle East and the procedures that Toyota has in place to protect supply chain integrity.” Toyota also stated that it does not allow for its vehicles to be sold to buyers with the intent to use these vehicles for either paramilitary or terrorist purposes.

My comment to this is that while Toyota has such a policy in place, this reality with ISIS using and showing off Toyota vehicles to the extent that these have become almost synonymous with the group, indeed shows how incredibly challenging this new commercial world environment is. The war zone in which ISIS and its affiliates operate is certainly no longer in a cut-off faraway place as recruits come from all over the world, where cell phones and computers (from manufactures such as Apple, Samsung, Sony, you name it) are ready available and used as tools to further the cause of war taking full advantage of social media (which the whole world uses) in professional ways. Just the opposite the war zone has been extended to be in the midst of the world within which very savvy members of these groups travel easily around and operate being right at home making full use of what the world has to offer.

As we already know ISIS is the terrorist/extremist group that has acquired the most financial resources to date of any such group, and this reality also shows that with money readily available to buy what the group needs such as vehicles just becomes a matter of access. Access to channels that can provide the goods. This is also part of a war economy where boundaries have been lost, where rules and regulations no longer apply, and of course ISIS that grew out of Al-Qaeda in Iraq has for years had experience in how to get hold of and hold on to not only financial resources but how to buy weaponry as well as vehicles with these resources.

See Article: Ruth Sherlock, “US government asks Toyota: Why does Isil have so many of the company’s vehicles?”, 7 October, 2015, The Telegraph, http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/islamic-state/11917994/US-government-asks-Toyota-Why-does-Isil-have-so-many-of-the-companys-vehicles.html?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter

Blog 19:

Why indeed does the distinction between refugees and migrants matter?

2 September, 2015

The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, UNHCR, has now come out explaining the very important difference between REFUGEES and MIGRANTS. (See for information from UNHCR at the end of the blog)

The distinction DOES matter, basically a refugee flees from direct threats to his/her life from armed conflict or persecution and to return home would be too dangerous as well as he/she might risk death upon return, and therefore such a person requires special protection to stay safe and thus needs to be recognized as a refugee.

This is in contrast to a migrant who makes a choice to leave their country in order to for instance find work, or better work or educational opportunities, for the purpose of family reunion – but such a person does not move as a result of any threat to his/her life or persecution and is able to return home and remain safe.

As UNHCR says to confuse the two groups is not helpful at all as this might result in that the persons who are in need of protection and safety might not be properly recognized as the refugees they truly are and therefore not receive the protection that they need.

This is how the UNHCR clarifies the distinction between refugees and migrants:

1. Who is a refugee?

”Refugees are persons fleeing armed conflict or persecution. There were 19.5 million of them worldwide at the end of 2014. Their situation is often so perilous and intolerable that they cross national borders to seek safety in nearby countries, and thus become internationally recognized as ”refugees” with access to assistance from States, UNHCR, and other organizations. They are so recognized precisely because it is too dangerous for them to return home, and they need sanctuary elsewhere. These are people for whom denial of asylum has potentially deadly consequences. (UNHCR)”

”Refugees are defined and protected in international law. The 1951 Refugee Convention and its 1967 Protocol as well as other legal texts, such as the 1969 OAU Refugee Convention, remain the cornerstone of modern refugee protection. The legal principles they enshrine have permeated into countless other international, regional, and national laws and practices. The 1951 Convention defines who is a refugee and outlines the basic rights which States should afford to refugees. One of the most fundamental principles laid down in international law is that refugees should not be expelled or returned to situations where their life and freedom would be under threat. (UNHCR)”

2. Who is a migrant?

”Migrants choose to move not because of a direct threat of persecution or death, but mainly to improve their lives by finding work, or in some cases for education, family reunion, or other reasons. Unlike refugees who cannot safely return home, migrants face no such impediment to return. If they choose to return home, they will continue to receive the protection of their government. (UNCHR)”

UNHCR further explains which laws apply in these two circumstances:

In sum: Regarding refugees – a country’s national laws as well as international law apply, while regarding migrants it is solely a country’s national laws that apply.

– ”For individual governments, this distinction is important. Countries deal with migrants under their own immigration laws and processes. Countries deal with refugees through norms of refugee protection and asylum that are defined in both national legislation and international law. Countries have specific responsibilities towards anyone seeking asylum on their territories or at their borders. UNHCR helps countries deal with their asylum and refugee protection responsibilities. (UNHCR)”

Whether being a refugee or a migrant – all are to be treated with dignity and respect which also UNHCR states.

However the massive numbers of the different armed organized crime fractions and groups that operate around the Mediterranean certainly display every day that this is not the case as these groups are making a lot of money on other people’s misery with no regard to people’s well-being and safety. These organized crime fractions and groups only provide transportation no matter how unsafe this transportation is conducted. This transportation service (what else can one call it?) has become very big business indeed today where no laws or rules apply except the ones the organized crime fractions and groups set up for themselves and/or negotiate/ and/or fight over between and among themselves.

See for more information:

All the information from UNHCR comes from Adrian, Edwards, Geneva, UNHCR Viewpoint: ‘Refugee’ or ‘Migrant’ – Which is right?, News Stories, 27 August, 2015, http://www.unhcr.org/55df0e556.html

Blog 18:

10^th Anniversary of the Security Council resolution 1612

6 August 2015

On 26 July 2015 it was 10 years ago that the United Nations Security Council adopted resolution 1612 on children and armed conflict which established the Monitoring and Reporting Mechanism, the MRM. The MRM mechanism is a very complex structure which basically works to for UN country teams most often chaired by UNICEF in conflict areas together with other UN agencies, international organizations and international and local NGOs gather on the ground information and establish facts about the situation of children affected by armed conflict focusing on 6 priority violations. These 6 priority violations are the recruitment and use of children as soldiers, sexual violence, attacks against schools and hospitals, killing and maiming of children, abduction, and preventing humanitarian aid from coming through. The information that is being gathered in the field goes through the UN country team that sends a report to the UN Office of the Special Representative of the Secretary-General on children and armed conflict that prepares a country report and/or the annual report on children and armed conflict of the Secretary-General that are being presented to the UN Security Council Working Group on Children and Armed Conflict for action. This Security Council Working Group is capable of for instance recommend sanctions on individuals responsible for any of these 6 violations.

The Security Council Working Group on children and armed conflict is significant because it was the first such working group that works on human rights at the level of the Security Council. Many countries do not want to have human rights on the agenda of the Security Council. One of the greatest challenges to the work of this Working Group even as it is established to protect children affected by armed conflict is the politicalization of the Security Council which at times has the consequence that it takes much time for the Working Group to come to a consensus as the Group works with consensus. That means that all the members of the Group must agree on actions decided upon. Especially those UN member states that are not permanent members of the Security Council many times underestimate how political the work at the United Nations and then especially at the Security Council actually is. Again this is no matter that the issue at hand might be children affected by armed conflict that need to be protected.

Two annexes to the annual report on children and armed conflict are attached where non-state armed actors and governmental forces that are responsible for the use and recruitment of children as child soldiers, sexual violence against children, attacks against schools and hospitals and killing and maiming of children are being listed. In the latest report groups such as ISIS, al-Qaeda, Boko Haram and Al Shabaab are all being listed for various violations. These violations constitute some of the worst violations that a human being can commit and therefore these groups have been listed for their blatant disregard of established international law.

See for instance for more information on the 10th year Anniversary:

Leila Zerrougui hosts 10-year anniversary celebration of landmark Security Council resolution, 24 July, 2015, https://childrenandarmedconflict.un.org/leila-zerrougui-addresses-10-year-anniversary-celebration-of-landmark-security-council-resolution/#

Blog 17:

International Aid and Fragile Health Care Systems in Times of Emergencies such as the Ebola Crisis in Sierra Leone.

20 May, 2o15

An excellent article written by Amy Maxmen about how the donated $3.3bn international aid as a response to the Ebola outbreak in Sierra Leone only reached very few national medical staff, has highlighted the need for international humanitarian aid to health emergencies to also include the strengthening of fragile health care systems. Many observers rightly point out many challenges involved with doing so such as the danger of for instance corruption within existing fragile health care systems, however by totally sideline national health care systems without taking any steps to address corruption in the end is not a sustainable choice. This needs to be taken into account in the context of that literally billions of dollars are paid out in international emergencies, and not to adequately involve and strengthen national health care structures might not be a truly workable option.

As a response to the Ebola virus crisis in Sierra Leone where about so far $3.3bn of international aid have been provided to address the Ebola outbreak, not even 2% has gone to Sierra Leone medical staff directly involved with the treatment of people infected by the virus. Instead money has gone to many international organizations and NGOs, with Sierra Leonean nurses and medical staff looking on how international staff not directly involved in the treatment of patients have been paid and cared for. This while many national medical staff had not and still has not received all the pay they had been promised and there is no accountability as neither the international organizations nor the government want to take responsibility. The end result is that those medical staff that conducted the work with Ebola patients are still there and they are still conducting the most pressing and challenging work and they have still not been adequately paid for work done. Sierra Leone’s health care system was very fragile prior to the crisis, and it is even in a more dire state after the crisis because of the overwhelming needs that the Ebola crisis has demanded. This includes doctors, nurses and other health care workers having died during the crisis as a result of them also getting infected by the Ebola virus when they were treating Ebola patients. Amy Maxmen, the author of this Newsweek article underlines that the Gates Foundation, the UN, the WHO and many other organizations have given recommendations for future outbreaks of disease however ”pay for nurses in fragile health systems” has not been mentioned at all. Given that nurses and other medical personnel are at the frontline of any health care crisis, their pay is one of the most pressing issues as without nurses and other medical staff there will be no treatment or very little treatment available. This is also one of the main reasons to why it is a necessity to find ways to strengthen fragile health care systems.

See: Maxmen, Amy, Frontline health workers were sidelined in $3.3bn fight against Ebola, Newsweek, 19 May, 2015, http://europe.newsweek.com/frontline-health-workers-were-sidelined-3-3bn-fight-against-ebola-327485

Blog 16: Children Orphaned by the Ebola Virus in Sierra Leone

May 20, 2015

The organization Street Child has in a recent report on the children in Sierra Leone that have become orphaned as a result of the Ebola epidemic ”the Ebola Orphan Report.” Street Child reports that 12,023 children lost at least their primary caregiver and that 3,241 lost both parents to Ebola, and that 17% of the Ebola orphan children live in a household of 5 or more orphans. In addition, 57% of the 12,023 children are children living in the rural areas. Street Child points at that these children face stigma, hunger, trauma and marginalization, abuse as well as pregnancies. These children need psychosocial care, humanitarian aid, sustainable livelihood, support and help to return to school.

Street Child’s definition of an Ebola orphan is ”as any child who has lost their primary caregiver to the Ebola virus. This includes children who lost both parents to Ebola/ those who were previously in single-parent households and lost that parent to Ebola; those who were orphaned by their biological parents prior to the Ebola and subsequently lost their non-biological caregiver to Ebola; and also cases where one parent may still be living but may or may not be present or capable to care for children alone.”

Street Child uses this broad definition of an orphan because first of all of “the functional impact of losing a primary caregiver in Sierra Leone during the Ebola crisis.” In addition Street Child means that in order “to capture the scale of the real crisis” in Sierra Leone such a definition has to be broad enough to include all children that need to receive the help and support they deserve.

In April 2015 Street Child published an update on the situation for children orphaned by the Ebola virus, the Street Child Ebola Orphan Update. Street Child conducted a follow-up in Port Loko, Bembali and Bo and found that the most pressing concern was malnourishment of the children orphaned by the Ebola and who live in the rural areas. The reason for the malnourishment arises mainly from food shortages, and this includes that the food aid from Street Child is finished up so as the organizations says “there is an urgent need of food aid.”

Specifically Street Child argues that “Rural communities are in urgent need of seed based grants before the rains come in May” and that if no grants are coming there will be a high risk that the rural orphans experiencing malnourishment will increase. Importantly seeds are planted by May and then harvested in November, which means if there is no money to buy seeds to plant, there will be no harvest in November and much less food available for the coming months ahead.

It is worth remembering that due to the quarantine that so many people had to endure in order to contain the spread of the Ebola, many people also lost their harvest during the quarantine since they could not go out and harvest their crops.

Please consider donating to the projects that Street Child provides. Street Child is a partner of the Sierra Leonean Ministry of Social Welfare, Gender and Children’s Affairs (MSWGCA) and other international organizations and international and national NGOs.

See for further information:

The Street Child Orphan Ebola Report, January-February 2015, http://static1.squarespace.com/static/531748e4e4b035ad0334788c/t/550183e8e4b0fda451312db8/1426162664094/The+Street+Child+Ebola+Orphan+Report+-+Summary+Version.pdf

Street Child Ebola Orphan Update, April 2015, http://static1.squarespace.com/static/531748e4e4b035ad0334788c/t/55315058e4b06c86f250c517/1429295192720/APRIL+EBOLA+ORPHAN+UPDATE.pdf

Blog 15: Human Trafficking in the Mediterranean

21 April, 2015

Human trafficking is a tragedy and a crime – the traffickers are criminals – and what is happening in the Mediterranean is a human tragedy. As is by now well known in the latest of all the boat-trafficking disasters of human beings across the Mediterranean, only 28 people survived the boat trip and more than 900 people died during the boat trip from Egypt through Libya destined to Italy. In another human boat trafficking crisis off the coast of Rhodes in Greece at last three people drowned including a child.

Human trafficking is an inhumane crime where individual criminals and organized crime groups prey on people who need help for whatever reason. New routes open up mainly as a consequence from national and world events. For a long time one route for people from Iraq and Iran for instance went through former Soviet and through Estland and then onto Finland or Sweden, this was in the early 90s. I was working at Amnesty International in Stockholm and some mornings organized crimes groups (we never knew who) dropped migrants off outside Amnesty’s door, and there were times when a person only had about $2 in his pocket. These individuals had come with boat to Sweden through Eastland and then former Soviet through trafficking. Amnesty directly connected these migrants and/or refugees with lawyers who knew how to address these situations in a legal and helpful way. One issue that stood out was that the traffickers did not only take these individuals’ money, unfortunately they also offered so called ‘advice’ which were not helpful at all. This advice was usually the opposite of what was legally required by the Swedish authorities and sometimes when people seeking asylum took this poor advice from the traffickers, they were not given asylum because they had for instance lied about their lack of documents. If they had told the truth they would have been given asylum in some cases.

Then the border to what became Russia closed and as Estland, which did not have any refugee programme at all in place in the early/mid 90s, was building its nation-state including its institutions as well as later becoming a member of the EU that trafficking route closed down. Other trafficking routes that opened up were from North-West Africa to the Canary Islands and south of Spain where many human beings have perished as people have been forced to jump into the water and swim. Many of these individuals were never and have never been identified, and many dead bodies were washed up on the shores of the Canary Islands and southern Spain. As Libya descended into chaos in 2011 after the downfall of the Gaddafi regime, Libya with its Mediterranean shores became a new open trafficking route by boat to mainly Italy. As has been reported many times since 2011 overloaded boats with people trying to make it to the EU have many times capsized and just as what happened off the coast of the Canary Islands and southern Spain, many people have drowned and they have never been identified.

While Italy as well as Greece have for years asked for help from mainly the EU, and there was a EU emergency meeting conducted yesterday in Luxemburg specifically on this human boat-trafficking crisis in the Mediterranean where one decision taken was that the traffickers’ boats would be taken and confiscated, however this short-term solution obviously will not be enough. Further the Captain of the boat from Libya has been arrested by Italian authorities and of course this is one way to go, however as is well known it is only in very few cases that the captains and/or the actual smugglers responsible for these trafficking cases are being caught as they very well know how to keep themselves out of reach from law enforcement personnel in those countries where there is a rule of law system in place. While one approach is to find ways to be able to physically apprehend and arrest more people working onboard these boats including captains, one consequence from this approach is that these people might become even more reckless as to escape being arrested.

The overall approach needed now is that it is a necessity at this point given the nature of this humanitarian crisis and the context of from where the migrants come from and the context of the origin of these trafficking routes including issues of organized crime, poverty and war that the European Union, the United Nations, the African Union and the Arab League all sincerely get together to find a solution to this situation. It will not suffice to have only the European states working to find a solution, because in the context of that, what it seems, most of the migrants come from Africa but also from the Middle East, the African Union and the Arab League as well as the United Nations absolutely need to get on board to find solutions to this humanitarian crisis.

Blog 14 : Freedom of Expression and an Individual’s Right to Create Art

29 March, 2015

At the Art Basel fair in Hong Kong now in March many Chinese artist were exhibiting their art and an article by Christopher Beam in the magazine New Yorker, Beyond Ai Weiwei: How China’s artists handle politics (or avoid them), brings up issues concerning art as a tool of self-expression and individuality. Ultimately this is about how to create one’s own space within which to find a way to express oneself without constantly having to defend oneself against outer expectations of what an artist is to do or is able to do. Ai Wei Wei means here in the article that the younger generation of Chinese artists are not political and kind of only pretends that they are free to express themselves and that he gets disappointed. However it is also true that the younger generation in China has indeed grown up in a country that has changed so much since the 70s and they have had to and are addressing new issues and in a new context.

Further in my view some of these younger artists being interviewed in this article at the Art Basel event in Hong Kong also show that they are creating their own space and want to have their own space to explore their creativity without the expectations of either the outside world including the Western media of what art to create – and outside world that often only focuses on the political dimension of art and values only that part – but one needs to ask oneself: What kind of freedom is that and for whom? More relevant questions to ask might instead be: Who creates that space for an individual within which she/he feels free to express herself/himself? – How can a person create that space for herself/himself also in a context that does not allow for total freedom of expression? – Who owns that space? How can a person protect that space and within that space be free to act without the influence of outer expectations of what to think and create? As one of the Chinese artists, Wang Jianwei, says in the article: ”We hate dictatorship in whatever form it takes.” – And one needs to ask again: Who creates that space and who owns it? And Who indeed has a right to define that space for another person? That is not really being open-minded and actually quite oppressive also by those in for instance the Western world where freedom of expression is a protected right. Many in the West including some in the media restrict their own freedoms and it is unfortunate if that extends to individuals who have the actual experience of the lack of the protection of human rights and the lack of the right of freedom of expression, as they are finding their own way to navigate that context and to actually explore their own freedom to create within whatever context they find themselves in. That is a freedom to be protected – including being free from expectations by others including the Western media of what to create. Freedom of thought and freedom of expression are rights that every individual has a right to explore herself/himself and to find that ability within no matter how limited the context might be needs also to be valued and protected.

Source: Christopher Beam, Beyond Ai Weiwei: How China’s artists handle politics (or avoid them), March 27, 2015, http://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/ai-weiwei-problem-political-art-china

Blog 13: The dilemma for media between informing about what is happening and giving space for extremist propaganda.

1 March, 2015

The editorial team of the Italian news group Rai News, including public television and Rai News 24, has made the decision to no longer show any videos that ISIS puts out as Rai News does not want to be made to be any part of ISIS propaganda. This decision was taken also considering that it takes ISIS a considerable time to make their videos and the scenes are re-taken and re-edited multiple times and staged in order to deliberately spread fear and terror and also to be used as a propaganda tool. That Rai News has made this decision not to participate and play any part whatsoever in enabling ISIS to spread their propaganda is in my view an excellent move on the part of the media. The media needs to very deeply consider what it is made to be a part of – and to be exploited to be part of. The sensationalist type of media responds to the sensationalist exploitation of ISIS and seems not to even understand that they are being used and manipulated by the group. Events are not necessarily automatically usefully newsworthy if the media is not consciously aware of HOW it addresses the violence and atrocities committed by extremist groups and HOW media portrays this violence and the perpetrators behind it. That the people behind the Rai News have deliberately considered the fact that the media is being manipulated and exploited by ISIS is a great example of how the media can take deliberate decisions on how to respond to this dilemma of being a news channel and reporting on events and decide what is ’news worthy’ but not to participate in spreading violent propaganda.

The dilemma on how and whether to report on terrorism and violence has been discussed for many years among media and governments, but with the level of the atrocities committed by ISIS and the fact that the group uses deliberate graphic videos and makes these videos with great precision and puts endless hours into making them for propaganda purposes has made this discussion even more urgent and highly relevant and it shows that the responsibility for media on how it chooses to publish events and violence has been made even greater by the new level of violence in our world. Media can absolutely inform without inadvertently giving space for propaganda, but it is really a dilemma, because while media’s role is to inform about what is happening at the same time a group such as ISIS also uses media to spread its propaganda – so it is a thin line indeed. Therefore this decision by RAI News is really important, they take a stand here and they have found one way to address this dilemma for now.

See Source: Courrier International, Television, Une chaîne italienne décide de ne plus diffuser les vidéos de l’EI, 27 February 2015, http://www.courrierinternational.com/article/2015/02/27/une-chaine-italienne-decide-de-ne-plus-diffuser-les-videos-de-l-ei

Blog 12: How to Best Help Children: Do you do more harm than good?  

24 February, 2015

Today I came across on an excellent article in Myanmar Times written by Charlotte Rose with the title “When children become tourist attractions” and this article raised important issues about how best to help children if you are a tourist, but also how tourists can be manipulated if they are not aware and end up not helping children at all. This article shines light on the increase of orphanages that have been established in Myanmar in the past five years and the link between tourists visiting orphanages with the end result that they donate a lot of money and that this first has not contributed to improving the lives of the children, and also that these donations have instead contributed to people opening orphanages because it is good business. This pattern can be seen all over Southeast Asia and tourists working as volunteers in orphanages or giving money to orphanages actually has “fuelled a demand for orphans across Southeast Asia.” James Gray working as a child protection officer at UNICEF says in the article that “what we see in other locations is that people see orphanages as a n opportunity to make money. Tourists go to an orphanage and feel shocked or saddened by what they see, and want to donate money. And when you get large number of tourists donating money it suddenly becomes a good business enterprise for the orphanage director.”

As this article highlights it has been shown that in the last 5 years there has been a 75% increase in tourists coming to Myanmar and at the same time there has been a 75% increase in the number of orphanages that have opened. Studies have shown that 73% of the children still have one or more parents living and that they are not ’orphans’ in the sense that they have no parents or family members living. Further these studies show that poor parents send their children to these orphanages because they think that the children will be better taken care of than at home, while, as James Gray of UNICEF here points out and that research on children and institutional care has established, living in an institutional setting such as an orphanage may have actually a detrimental impact on both the physical and emotional well-being of children and therefore should be used as a last resort. Instead foster care and community-based support are the better alternatives compared to institutional care. As Gray says here: ”Evidence shows that institutions are extremely dangerous for children” – ”It doesn’t matter how poor a family is, a poor family is still infinitely better for a child’s well-being than an institution” and that instead how to find support for the family should be a priority for governments.

The issue is not if one wants to help, the issue is HOW to best help and to find that out one needs to balance emotion with learning and hopefully wisdom! There are many ways to help and with helping also comes responsibility and therefore it is necessary to dig deeper and to find the time and effort to learn about the issue, the context and the country one wants to help. To get informed does indeed help in making more sound choices and is the most useful way to making more sound decisions.

Source:

Charlotte Rose, When children become tourist attractions, 22 February, 2015, Myanmar Times, http://www.mmtimes.com/index.php/lifestyle/13222-when-children-become-tourist-attractions.html?start=1

Blog 11: Children and Armed Conflict and the Annexes I and II Attached to the Annual Reports on Children and Armed Conflict by the United Nations Secretary-General

17 February 2015

That children (under the age of 18 years) are among the main victims of terrorism and extremism is shown by the number of extremist groups that were listed in the latest Annex I to the United Nations Secretary General’s annual report on Children and Armed Conflict CAAC (2014)(A/68/878-S/2014/339) for recruiting and using children see for instance: in Iraq – the Islamic State of Iraq/Al-Qaida in Iraq (AQ-I); Al-Shabaab in Somalia; Al-Qaida in the Arab Peninsula (AQIP)/Ansar al-Sharia in Yemen; and in Syria – the Islamic State of Iraq and Sham (ISIS) and the Jhabat Al-Nusra.

Annex I (situations on the agenda of the UN Security Council) and Annex II (situations not on the agenda of the UN Security Council) which are yearly attached to the UNSG’s annual report on children and armed conflict list those governmental armed forces and/or non-state armed groups that recruit and use children under the age of 18 years – to recruit and use children is UNLAWFUL! Five other violations of the rights of children in armed conflict including attacks against schools and hospitals, killing and maiming of children, rape and sexual violence, denial of humanitarian assistance and abductions are also listed in these annexes.

Unlawful continued recruitment and use of children (under the age of 18 years) is still continuing in Myanmar by the governmental armed forces and seven non-state armed groups. I was in Myanmar in 2014 working on assignment with UNICEF on some of these issues. Myanmar’s governmental armed forces and the 7 non-state armed actors have been listed in the Annex I that is attached to the United Nations Secretary General’s annual report on children and armed conflict since more than 5 years and they are considered to be ”persistent perpetrators”. The fact that in the latest annual report on CAAC (2014) 31 parties out of the 57 parties listed in total were considered persistent perpetrators show not only that some conflict are on-going for many years and that many children grow up in the context of armed conflict and war. This also shows that the rights of children in armed conflict are fundamentally not respected and that the protection of children needs to be the priority concern for all parties.

The fact that the UNSG’s annual report on CAAC is presented to the Security Council and that the Security Council Working Group on Children and Armed Conflict is mandated to not only review the report as well as other country reports on children and armed conflict within the framework of the 1612 United Nations Monitoring and Reporting Mechanism on Children and Armed Conflict (the MRM) but is also mandated to decide on RESPONSES to the violations that are being reported on in order to find a way to stop the violations of children in armed conflict and that way find a way to protect the children should indeed gather a much more forceful response on behalf of the members of the Security Council Working Group and the Security Council as a whole. The 1612 Monitoring and Reporting Mechanism was set up as an acknowledgment of the suffering of the children worldwide who are affected by armed conflict and that indeed they have rights and are to be PROTECTED no matter which country and region they live in.

Blog 10 Terrorism and Democracy

15 February 2015

Here we go again: Yesterday evening a man who is thought so far to be a so called ”Lone Wolf” Islamist terrorist (it is not clear yet if there were more people involved) opened fire and shot dead one person at an event on free speech where among others the Swedish cartoonist Lars Vilks who is on Al-Qaeda’s death list and the French Ambassador were to speak. The man who was shot dead had just gone outside where he met the terrorist who opened fire. After that shooting where about 40 shots were heard the ”Lone Wolf” took a taxi to Copenhagen’s main Synagogue where a Bat Mitzvah was taking place and where he killed a volunteer Jewish guard, this guard today is widely praised for having averted a massacre by having taken bullets himself. This ”Lone Wolf” is known by the police since before because of his extreme Islamist views, however they have not been able to intervene before because the police had not been able to find out any plans for terror attacks nor had he carried out any before. This Copenhagen terrorist attack shows: 1. How challenging it is for police and security agencies to avert attacks even as they follow known persons with extremist views; 2. Lars Vilks had police protection but it was not enough and it is clear that protection needs to be beefed up at these types of events such as on free speech; 3. That radicalization takes many forms, one of the most effective forms if not the most effective today is through the internet and the social media.

In this Copenhagen case one thinks that the man was ’inspired’ by the Charlie Hebdo shootings in Paris last month – and while there is for sure a copy cat syndrome present with regards to terrorism – to copy the killings is not an easy thing to do. There needs to be an inner psychological process for a human being to find the justification to be able to kill another human being and this goes for terrorists as well: and here radicalization and an extremist ideology together with the very public activities by the multiple Islamists groups such as Al-Qaeda and ISIS that show that it is possible for a human being to live in chaos and terror and carry out horrid brutality and violence – and all these factors taken together make it possible for one person who already is radicalized to carry out such terrorist attacks as were being carried out yesterday and last night in Copenhagen.

France and Denmark are secular democracies where free speech, freedom of assembly, free elections and the freedom of religion are human rights that are respected and where the governance of the countries is based on democracy and freedom and not on a religious ideology. The issue that comes back again and again since especially 9/11 2001 is how to reconcile the freedom of the populace to exercise the human rights and the need for the governments to provide enough security without infringing on people’s rights. This is how for instance the work of the U.S. security and intelligence agencies and the Eric Snowden revelations need to be seen – How to rein in too much government infringement on people’s privacy and how to provide enough security so that people can attend an event on freedom of speech, draw cartoons or go to one’s Synagogue without being afraid of being killed. Are we to live in fear and chaos or can we continue living in freedom? Which values are to be protected? Why are certain values such as tolerance and human rights worth protecting?

However the governments of the European democracies over the years were slow in responding to extremism and extremist views (that was the same with the U.S. before 9/11), and unfortunately it takes events such as the terrorist attacks in London in 2005 and in Paris in January 2015 and now in Copenhagen before governments and people wake up to that this reality of extremist Islamist ideology is an extremely attractive ideology for some people and that they indeed are very willing to risk everything to be able to live by this ideology. The protection of human rights and the democratic living require that both governments and the civil society are ready to look at things the way they are and not be in denial of issues even if it makes them very uncomfortable. Now one of the most pressing issues is for governments that have not already done so introduce laws such as on membership of terrorist groups, laws on whether it should be a crime to travel to countries such as Syria, Libya and Iraq to join terrorist groups, laws on whether passports can be taken from individuals who do so and at the same time allow for a serious open discussion on these issues in the civil society. People need to understand why certain laws might be needed and why if that is the case some of their rights should be infringed upon. However one lesson to be learned again is that foremost it is not possible to take our freedoms and democratic living for granted, a lesson that seems to have to be learned over and over again.

Blog 9 Freedom of Expression and Terrorism, 11 January 2015

The Human Right Freedom of Expression, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, and Terrorism

As a result of the attacks against the cartoonist magazine Charlie Hebdo and the Jewish food store in Paris, the human right of freedom of expression has been much discussed and it is worth taking a look at what freedom of expression actually is about. Freedom of expression is guaranteed in article 19 paragraph 2 in the United Nations International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) of 1966 entered into force 1976. Article 19 reads as follows:

1. Everyone shall have the right to hold opinions without interference.

2. Everyone shall have the right to freedom of expression; this right shall include freedom to seek, receive and impart information and ideas of all kinds, regardless of frontiers, either orally, in writing or in print, in the form of art, or through any other media of his choice.

3. The exercise of the rights provided for in paragraph 2 of this article carries with it special duties and responsibilities. It may therefore be subject to certain restrictions, but these shall only be such as provided by law and are necessary:

• For respect the rights or reputations of others;
• For the protection of national security or of public order (ordre public), or of public health or morals.

Currently the Covenant has 168 State parties and this means that these State parties are legally bound by the treaty. Further the Covenant has 74 signatories and while these governments are not full State parties as of yet and therefore not legally bound by the treaty, they are still to take actions and respect the rights within the Covenant in the spirit of the Covenant and this includes China that is a signatory state.

These are some of the State parties to the Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and this includes respecting the human right of freedom of expression: Afghanistan, Algeria, Bangladesh, Egypt, Nigeria, Ethiopia, Ghana, Uganda, Kenya, DRC-Congo, Burundi, Liberia, Sierra Leone, Mali, Pakistan, Yemen, Iran, Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait, the Syrian Arab Republic, Russia, El Salvador, Guatemala, Colombia, the U.S. and the EU countries.

The United Nations Human Rights Committee has in its General Comment No. 34 on Article 19: Freedoms of opinion and expression of 2011 stated that: 2. Freedom of opinion and freedom of expression are indispensable conditions for the full development of the person. They are essential for any society. They constitute the foundation stone for every free and democratic society. The two freedoms are closely related, with freedom of expression providing the vehicle for the exchange and development of opinions. 3. Freedom of expression is a necessary condition for the realization of the principles of transparency and accountability that are, in turn, essential for the promotion and protection of human rights.

The attack against Charlie Hebdo was a fundamental attack against humanity and what humanity stands for, and it was of course an attack against secularism. Secularism which is about the separation of state and religion (state and church) entails freedom of expression as a human right including as a means to limit government abuses towards their citizens, and this means that individuals are able to express themselves through drawing satirical political cartoons, writing and singing songs, and through any form of art. It is necessary to take into consideration that several governments around the world still jail their citizens for them using their right of freedom of expression, for them just peacefully expressing their views such as through for instance paintings and poems.

In this context the UN Human Rights Committee has stated in its General Comment No. 34 on Article 19 states on the right of freedom of expression that (footnotes omitted):

1. Paragraph 2 requires States parties to guarantee the right to freedom of expression including the right to seek, receive and impart information and ideas of all kinds regardless of frontiers. This right includes the expression and receipt of communications of every form of idea and opinion capable of transmission to others, subject to the provisions in article 19, paragraph 3, and article 20. It includes political discourse, commentary on one’s own and on public affairs, canvassing, discussion of human rights, journalism, cultural and artistic expression, teaching, and religious discourse. It may also include commercial advertising. The scope of paragraph 2 embraces even expression that may be regarded as deeply offensive, although such expression may be restricted in accordance with the provisions of article 19, paragraph 3 and article 20.

2. Paragraph 2 protects all forms of expression and the means of their dissemination. Such forms include spoken, written and sigh language and such non-verbal expression as images and objects of art. Means of expression include books, newspapers, pamphlets, posters, banners, dress and legal submissions. They include all forms of audio-visual as well as electronic and internet-based modes of expression.

In an interview by CNN International with the French counterterrorist expert Fabrice Magnier, it was revealed that French Intelligence service had received information that the terrorists did not consider Charlie Hebdo as a civilian entity but a legitimate military target and that killing the cartoonists and journalists were thus legitimate as according to the terrorists. This is totally wrong and a very screwed sense of reality, cartoonists and journalists are of course civilians and according to international humanitarian law civilians shall under no circumstances be intentionally targeted and this can amount to a war crime or a crime against humanity in conflict settings. This simplistic justification of the terrorists serves the purpose of the fundamentalists to eliminate any free thought that could counter their rigid worldview.

In this current violent global extremist context governments need to seriously consider the concepts of democracy and secularism and the protection of human rights. The concept of democracy requires that the populace is electing the persons who are to govern them and that the populace is allowed to express their concerns and opinions on how they are being governed and secularism includes the right of the populace to express their views on issues such as religion. The Islamist fundamentalist political agenda such expressed through Al Qaeda and ISIS is fundamentally anti-democratic and where human rights such as freedom of expression is non-existent as such human rights inherently stand for something totally opposite of what these groups work so hard to establish.

Blog 8, Children and Armed Conflict, 18 December 2014

The Deliberate Targeting of Children in Armed Conflict

The Pakistani Taliban deliberately targeted and killed the teachers and children in a school in Peshawar in Pakistan on 16 December 2014 and at least 145 children and teachers were killed, and this act constitutes crimes that the United Security Council is obliged to act upon in accordance with Security Council (SC) resolution 1612 (2005) on the Monitoring and Reporting Mechanism and children and armed conflict, the MRM. The MRM specifically focuses on 6 particularly grave violations concerning children in armed conflict, and these are: killing and maiming of children, denial of humanitarian access for children, recruiting or using children, rape and other grave sexual violence against children, attacks against schools and hospitals and abduction of children. Deliberate attacks against and killings of school children and teachers, constitute the crime of killing and maiming of children and attacks against schools and hospitals as according to SC resolutions 1612 (2005), 1882 (2009), 1998 (2011) and 2143 (2014). Further the totally visible actions by ISIS in Syria where the group has set up training camps for children in plain view of everybody to see and with subsequent postings of films or pictures on social media where the group shows its recruitment efforts of children are clearly crimes according to the UN 1612 MRM Mechanism.

In the blatant light of the deliberate targeting of children by ISIS in Syria and Iraq and by the Taliban in Pakistan, the Security Council Working Group on Children in Armed Conflict needs to rapidly arrange for a press conference to absolutely highlight these crimes and take any further VISIBLE action that clearly demonstrates that the United Nations is firmly behind the notion of the protection of children and to take action that demonstrates that the Security Council indeed has the mandate to act as is accorded to it in Security Council resolution 1612 (2005) and all the relevant Security Council resolutions on the situation for children in armed conflict. To deliberately target children by for instance killing and maiming them and/or using children in armed conflict as child soldiers constitute some of the worst crimes that can be committed which the world community has agreed upon and these crimes of deliberately attacking and killing children and teachers and attacking schools and recruiting children all constitute war crimes and crimes against humanity! Act now!

See for further interest:

New York Times, The Editorial Board, The Taliban’s Massacre of Innocents in Pakistan, December 16, 2014, http://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/17/opinion/the-talibans-massacre-of-innocents-in-pakistan.html

Nilsson, Ann-Charlotte, Children and Armed Conflict, (2013), Martinus Nijhoff Publishers in bookseries The RWI Human Rights Library, Two Volumes

Office of the United Nations Special Representative of the Secretary-General and Children in Armed Conflict, www.un.org

Blog 7, International Criminal Law, 6 December 2014

The decision of the ICC to withdraw charges concerning Kenya’s President Uhuru Kenyatta

The International Criminal Court in the Hague in a decision on 3 December 2014 withdrew the criminal charges against Uhuru Kenyatta because of lack of evidence, while the ICC Prosecutor Fatou Bensouda at the same time said that this does not mean that the case has been terminated and that the ICC could still bring back to life cases again in the future if enough evidence was brought forward to clearly show the responsibility of Uhuru Kenyatta in the post-election violence in Kenya 2007-2008. For VICTIMS this is a very difficult situation, and considering the efforts by Uhuru Kenyatta’s legal team and also Kenyatta’s earlier international campaign at the UN, EU and AU to have the ICC drop the charges, this situation shows the limitations of the work and effectiveness of the ICC in terms of that the ICC is an international court and does not in any way have the ability to seriously neither understand of or have any say in the internal affairs of other countries no matter the game that is being played out within. While the international campaign and articles in different newspapers and other efforts did not work, in the end the issue of lack of evidence came to be the one single issue that Uhuru Kenyatta’s team focused on, which was very smart indeed, and in this regard they succeeded. This decision by the ICC brings into question how effective the tribunal can be expected to carry out its work in the context of very astute political leaders and their teams who on their part know very well how to play their game, in that context the ICC seems to have nothing to counter with. The ICC was supposed to be victims centered, which was a very new development in international criminal law at the time of its establishment, and now a renewed effort to bring back the focus on the victims is needed and how to counter astute political maneuvers needs to be seriously discussed.

For the decision by the ICC please check: 5/12/14 Statement of the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, Fatou Bensouda, on the withdrawal of charges against Mr. Uhuru Muigai Kenyatta, http://www.icc-cpi.int/en_menus/icc/press%20and%20media/press%20releases/Pages/otp-statement-05-12-2014-2.aspx

Blog 6 – Public Health, 17 November 2014

Health Care Workers in West Africa and the Continuous High Risk of Contracting the Ebola Virus

Health care workers in Sierra Leone, Guinea, Mali and Liberia are facing huge challenges every day in their work and not only the health care workers that are directly involved in the care of Ebola patients. The death of the medical doctor Martin Salia who was of Sierra Leone origin but had U.S. citizenship shows the devastating challenges involved with the caring for people in the Ebola stricken countries. Dr. Salia worked since about three years at the United Methodist hospital in Freetown in Sierra Leone, but he was not working in a ward where they treated Ebola patients.[1] Instead he met with and treated patients who were not known to be infectious, and who sought help for many different reasons such as women giving birth. However Dr. Salia and the other health care workers in his ward knew that there could be a risk that some of their patients might indeed be infectious with the Ebola virus, even as they had not been identified to be carriers of the virus. Since it was not an Ebola ward Dr. Salia did not use the full protective gear that needs to be used if a medical staff treats an Ebola patient and only wore gloves, and it is not known when he became infected. He began to feel unwell and had early on an Ebola test however the results came back negative and his colleagues and friends touched and hugged him being so happy about the news. However he did not improve and a second test was taken a week afterwards that showed that he was infected with the Ebola virus. The head of the US Center for Disease Control, CDC’s, Ebola response team in Sierra Leone, Ermias Belay, explains about that tests conducted in the initial stages of the disease are not always conclusive that ”there aren’t enough copies of the virus in the blood for the test to pick up”.[2] Apparently this was not fully understood by the health care workers and the colleagues of Dr. Salia and now they have to themselves deal with the fact that they might also have become infected, and while there have not been any such signs as of yet, they have been quarantined. Dr. Salia who had his wife and children in the U.S. was a very dedicated man and contributed with his skills to build up the public health system in Sierra Leone, he in addition to the Methodist hospital worked at the Connaught Hospital in Freetown and was also lecturing at the only medical school in Sierra Leone.[3]

The World Health Organization, WHO, in its latest ‘Situation Report Update’ on the Ebola response roadmap stated on 14 November 2014 that:[4]

• There have been 14.413 reported Ebola cases in eight countries since the outbreak began, with 5177 reported deaths;
• Case incidence continuous to increase in Sierra Leone, and transmission also remains intense in Guinea and Liberia;
• A total of 4 cases, including 3 deaths, have been reported in Mali.

WHO has set up two categories of its country reports in its WHO Ebola Response Roadmap structure:[5]

• those [countries] with widespread and intense transmission (Guinea, Liberia, and Sierra Leone);
• those [countries] with or that have had an initial case or cases, or with localized transmission (Mali, Nigeria, Senegal, Spain, and the United States of America)

In addition, WHO reports on the outbreak of Ebola in the Democratic Republic of Congo, DRC, which has been a separate outbreak and of a different strain than that in West Africa. In Annex 2 to its ‘Ebola Response Roadmap, Situation Report Update, 14 November 2014’, WHO reports that in DRC “All contacts have completed the 21-day follow-up period” and that “As of 11 November [2014], 33 days have passed since the last case tested negative for the second time and was discharged from hospital. The Democratic Republic of the Congo will therefore be declared free of EVD 42 days after the date of the second negative test if no new cases are reported.”[6] This is very positive news, and as of November 14, WHO reports that DRC has had 66 cases of the Ebola virus disease (EVD), of which 38 have been confirmed and 28 are probable cases. Of all the 66 cases, 49 deaths have officially been registered and this includes the death of 8 health care workers.

It has been said before and it needs to be said again that the health care workers in the Ebola stricken countries such as Sierra Leone and Liberia are bearing the brunt of this disease and without their commitment, dedication and continuous work there would be no health care available at all to provide to the Ebola patients and the health care workers need continuous support. Please continue to donate to organizations that are helping with the Ebola outbreak such as Doctors Without Borders!

Abbreviations:

EVD       Ebola virus disease

HCWs     Health care workers

Sources:

Sieff, Kevin, A Doctor’s Mistaken Ebola Test: ‘We were celebrating. … Then everything fell apart’, Washington Post, November 17, 2014, http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/a-doctors-mistaken-ebola-test-we-were-celebrating–then-everything-fell-apart/2014/11/16/946a84da-6dd5-11e4-a2c2-478179fd0489_story.html

WHO, Ebola Response Roadmap, Situation Report Update, 14 November 2014, http://apps.who.int/iris/bitstream/10665/143216/1/roadmapsitrep_14Nov2014_eng.pdf

WHO, Ebola Response Roadmap, Situation Report Update, 14 November 2014, Annex 2: Ebola Outbreak in Democratic Republic of the Congo, http://apps.who.int/iris/bitstream/10665/143216/1/roadmapsitrep_14Nov2014_eng.pdf

[1] All the information in the blog about Dr. Salia comes from: Sieff, Kevin, A Doctor’s Mistaken Ebola Test: ‘We were celebrating. … Then everything fell apart’, Washington Post, November 17, 2014

[2] Sieff, Kevin, A Doctor’s Mistaken Ebola Test: ‘We were celebrating. … Then everything fell apart’, Washington Post, November 17, 2014

[3] Sieff, Kevin, A Doctor’s Mistaken Ebola Test: ‘We were celebrating. … Then everything fell apart’, Washington Post, November 17, 2014

[4] WHO, Ebola Response Roadmap, Situation Report Update, 14 November 2014

[5] WHO, Ebola Response Roadmap, Situation Report Update, 14 November 2014

[6] WHO, Ebola Response Roadmap, Situation Report Update, 14 November 2014, Annex 2: Ebola Outbreak in Democratic Republic of the Congo

Blog 5 – Public Health, 16 October 2014

The Need for the International Public Health Community and Governments to Learn from the Experiences on the Ground in Liberia, Guinea and Sierra Leone.

New York Times reported on 15 October 2014 that “Infection control experts say many American hospitals have improperly trained their staffs to deal with Ebola patients because they were following federal guidelines that were too lax,” (see NYT article “Lax U.S. Guidelines on Ebola Led to Poor Hospital Training, Experts Say”). There Donald G. McNeil aptly explains why the two nurses did indeed become infected at the Texas Health Presbytarian Hospital in Dallas: improper guidelines and lax routines were the reasons. It is really absolutely astonishing how that could occur when knowledge of proper procedures exists! New York Times quotes the person at Emory Hospital who was overseeing infection control, Sean G. Kaufman, at the time when the hospital was treating the first two cases of the Ebola virus in the U.S., and he stated about the C.D.C. guidelines that they were “[A]bsolutely irresponsible and dead wrong”. It is frankly incomprehensible after all the work that has been done in the Ebola affected countries for months now that improper guidelines have not been replaced long time ago. The question needs to be asked: How is it in other countries? The organization Doctors Without Borders has a set of workable routines and procedures already in place and this organization is now teaching medical personnel from many different countries such as Sweden on how to care for Ebola patients in a safe and proper way. The issue is how it is possible that the C.D.C. and some US hospitals such as the Texas Health Presbytarian Hospital have not been more alert to the reality on the ground in Sierra Leone, Guinea and Liberia where indeed Doctors Without Borders has been working around the clock and where the organization has also discussed which kinds of protective gear to use and procedures medical personnel need to follow in order to safely care for patients and to safely take care of themselves while doing so.

Doctors Without Borders already on 23 June 2014 declared that the Ebola situation was out of control in Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea, and repeatedly for months now many local personnel and organizations in these countries who also have been working around the clock have explained the absolute need for having adequate Personal Protective Equipment Gear (PPEs), how to put it on and crucially how to safely take it off which can take up to one hour, and also the enormous need for more PPEs as hospitals and medical centers have lacked such gear due to the high number of infected persons. The public health community worldwide and governments such as in the U.S. and Spain (where there also have been concerns about proper and adequate protocol and procedures to be followed) need to wake up to the fact that treating Ebola patients there is not any different from treating Ebola patients in Africa, meaning that the medical personnel need to use the same safety procedures as in Africa. The difference is that in for instance Europe and the U.S. there are functional health facilities and public health infrastructures in place which Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia do not have and still basic procedures have either been outdated or not adequate enough despite all the knowledge and experience that have now been accumulated in West Africa. This whole situation shows the absolute necessity for the international public health community and health authorities to consult with medical personnel in Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia in addition to Doctors Without Borders to adequately learn about the disease, how to treat patients and all the necessary steps and procedures that need to be followed. Learning about the fundamental challenges that are involved in treating Ebola patients and handling an outbreak in countries with very limited resources and in great poverty in contrast to the much richer countries might also inform the international public health community and governments about some valuable lessons including that they are not automatically immune to the disease and that proper and safe protocols and procedures need indeed to be followed also there. Learn the lessons from Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia now!

Sources:

Doctors Without Borders, Ebola: Massive Deployment Needed to Fight Epidemic in West Africa, Press Release, 23 June 2014, http://www.doctorswithoutborders.org/news-stories/press-release/ebola-massive-deployment-needed-fight-epidemic-west-africa

McNeil Jr., Donald G., Lax U.S. Guidelines on Ebola Led to Poor Hospital Training, Experts Say, New York Times, October 15, 2014, http://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/16/us/lax-us-guidelines-on-ebola-led-to-poor-hospital-training-experts-say.html?hp&action=

Blog 4 – Public Health, 2 October 2014

Ebola and its effects on children and possible success in Nigeria

Because of the Ebola outbreak and its fast-paced spread, UNICEF estimates that about 3.700 children in Liberia, Guinea and Sierra Leone have lost one or two parents to the disease. This situation that the children have to deal with needs to be understood in the context of that these children are going through deep grief and confusion in the midst of the Ebola outbreak of which they have no control and/or pending of their age they have no understanding of. It is also a fact that these children who have lost a parent or two to the Ebola virus are themselves exposed to the virus and at high risk of getting infected and who is there to help them? This is one of the main reasons to why some people do not want to help the children because they are themselves afraid of getting infected. As UNICEF also confirms many of these children experience both stigma and rejection.

The CDC, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, stated on 30 September 2014 that the “Ebola outbreak is nearing possible end in Nigeria and Senegal” referring to an emergency operations center (set up by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation to fight polio)[1] and polio eradication experiences as some of the keys to a successful response to the health crisis. The CDC Director Tom Frieden, M.D., M.P.H., stated that “Although Nigeria isn’t completely out of the woods, their extensive response to a single case of Ebola shows that control is possible with rapid, focused interventions.” In Nigeria CDC reported that as of 31 August no new cases of Ebola has been recorded and on 2 October the three remaining patient contacts were to end their 21-day follow-up.

Dr. Faisal Shuaib, the chief of the emergency command center in Nigeria went through some reasons why Nigeria has been successful so far in addressing the Ebola outbreak compared to Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone:[2]

• “It has many more doctors per capita than Liberia, Sierra Leone or Guinea, some educated abroad at top medical schools;
• It has standing teams of medical investigators, with vehicles and telephones, who normally trace outbreaks of diseases like cholera or Lassa fever;
• Lagos University Teaching Hospital was able to get Ebola test results in six hours;
• The hospitals where the patients were treated – in isolation wards normally used for tuberculosis patients – had air-conditioning, making it more comfortable for doctors and nurses wearing stifling protective gear;
• Laboratories were equipped for testing electrolytes and blood proteins, which must be kept in balance as patients are fed orally or intravenously to replace fluids lost to diarrhea and vomiting.”

On 2 October 2014 there is going to be a conference in London on the Ebola outbreak in Sierra Leone, Defeating Ebola in Sierra Leone conference, held by among others the UK Department for International Development and the Foreign and Commonwealth Office. The purpose of the conference is “to get countries and other international donors to pledge beds, medical and staff and money to help end Ebola in Sierra Leone”.

The response to the Ebola outbreak needs to be paced-up significantly and as has been shown in Nigeria with proper rapid response it is possible to contain the outbreak. However the conditions already laid in Nigeria with the emergency command center and the experiences gained from the response to polio all being some of the key reasons to a successful outcome, also need to be laid in Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea which will take time to do. In the meantime innovative and rapid responses in a collaborative way need to be developed to contain the face-paced outbreak as soon as possible.

Sources:

CDC, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Ebola outbreak is nearing possible end in Nigeria and Senegal, Strong emergency operations center, polio eradication experience keys to success, Press Release, 30 September, 2014, http://www.cdc.gov/media/releases/2014/p0930-nigeria-ebola.html

GOV.UK, Defeating Ebola in Sierra Leone conference, 30 September, 2014, https://www.gov.uk/government/news/defeating-ebola-in-sierra-leone-conference

McNeil Jr., Donald G., A rare success in Ebola fight as outbreak subsides in Nigeria, International New York Times, October 1, 2014, page 1 and 5

UNICEF, News note, Thousands of children orphaned by Ebola: UNICEF, 30 September, 2014, http://www.unicef.org/media/media_76085.html

Blog 3 – Public Health, 19 September 2014

The West Africa Ebola outbreak is a threat to international peace and security

On 18 September 2014 the UN Security Council determined in its resolution 2177 that the unprecedented extent of the Ebola outbreak in Africa constitutes a threat to international peace and security. This is the first time ever that the Security Council has held an emergency meeting on a public health crisis, and resolution 2177 has “the most co-sponsors ever for any Security Council resolution in the history of the United Nations” declared Samantha Powers, the US Ambassador to the UN, with the final number of co-sponsors reaching 134. This is a remarkable development given that it has taken a long time for the international community to step up to address this health crisis in West Africa which is now acknowledged to be ‘unprecedented’. The Security Council in its resolution gave credence to the fact that Liberia, Guinea and Sierra Leone all had been affected by war and strife and were engaged in fundamental re-building efforts of their respective countries and that these efforts now risked being reversed. To this effect the Security Council stated that it recognized “that the peacebuilding and development gains of the most affected countries concerned could be reversed in light of the Ebola outbreak and underlining that the outbreak is undermining the stability of the most affected countries concerned, and, unless contained, may lead to further instances of civil unrest, social tensions and a deterioration of the political and security climate.”

Given the vulnerability of especially women to be infected with the Ebola virus as a result of being the main care takers of family members as well as the special risks to pregnant women and midwives that the Ebola virus has so clearly shown, the Security Council expressed concern “about the particular impact of the Ebola outbreak on women”, and hereto also emphasized “that responses to the Ebola outbreak should address the specific needs of women and stresses the importance of their full and effective engagement in the development of such responses.”

Recognizing the contexts of the countries affected with a large number of the populations that neither can read or write and with many people living in communities that are difficult to reach, and that communicating and explaining appropriately the Ebola virus including how to protect oneself and one’s family, such public communication efforts was empathized in the resolution. Especially the Security Council requested the UN Secretary-General “to develop a strategic communication platform using existing United Nations System resources and facilities in the affected countries, as necessary and available, including to assist governments and other relevant partners.”

Addressing the issue about travel bans and banning flights to and from the region, which the WHO has not been in favor of, the Security Council expressed concern that isolation of the affected countries could have detrimental effects, and called on “Member States, especially of the region, to facilitate the delivery of assistance, including qualified, specialized and trained personnel and supplies, in response to the Ebola outbreak to the affected countries”, and here made special reference to that Ghana had given UNMIL permission to resume its air shuttle between Monrovia in Liberia to Accra in Ghana to transport international health workers and other responders to Liberia to help with the Ebola outbreak.

As is today acknowledge the number of people infected and the number of people that have died are highly underestimated as it has so far not been possible to get a satisfactorily estimate. The WHO Director-General, Dr. Margaret Chan, stated at the Security Council meeting on 18 September that over 5.500 people are known to have been infected and that about 2.500 have died. Referring to the scale and pace of the outbreak, she stated that “None of us experienced in containing outbreaks has ever seen, in our lifetimes, an emergency on this scale, with this degree of suffering, and with this magnitude of cascading consequences”.

The World Bank came out with a report on 17 September 2014 where it was stated that the “economic impact [of the Ebola outbreak] could grow eight-fold, dealing a potentially catastrophic blow to the already fragile states [Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone], but that “the economic costs can be limited if swift national and international responses succeed in containing the epidemic and mitigating “aversion behavior”- afar factor resulting from peoples’ concerns about contagion, which is fueling the economic impact.” The report recognizes the power of fear and that when left unchecked may have serious consequences for the societies including economic in stating that “the largest effects of the crisis are not as a result of the direct costs) mortality, morbidity, caregiving, and the associated losses to working days) but rather those resulting from aversion behavior drive by fear of contagion. This in turns leads to a fear of association with others and reduces labor force participation, closes places of employment, disrupts transportation, and motivates some government and private decision-makers to close sea ports and airports.”

The World Bank analysis suggests a comprehensive response to fight the Ebola out break that is made up of four components underlying that it needs to be a collaborative international effort:

• “Humanitarian support: Such as desperately needed personal protective equipment and hazard pay for health workers, emergency treatment units, standardized and universally applied protocols for care, etc.
• Fiscal support: the fiscal gap, just for 2014, is estimated at around $290 million. Increased injections of external support can strengthen growth in these fragile economies.
• Screening facilities at airports and seaports: Policies are required that will enable the flow of relief and encourage commercial exchange with the affected countries.
• Strengthening the surveillance, detection, and treatment capacity of African health systems: Weak health sectors in Africa are a threat not only to their own citizens but also to their trading partners and the world at large. The enormous economic cost of the current outbreak could be avoided by prudent ongoing investment in health system strengthening.”

The world is scaling up its efforts to assist the affected countries in West Africa affected by the Ebola outbreak, this includes the decision by President Obama on 16 September 2014 to send 3.000 armed forces personnel to the West African region to help with the crisis and this includes sending engineers and medical personnel. In its Ebola Response Roadmap Situation Report (18 September 2014) WHO reported the total number of probable, confirmed and suspected cases of the Ebola virus in West Africa to be 5.335 in total of which 2.622 persons had died as of 14 September 2014, and that Guinea, Liberia, Nigeria, Senegal and Sierra Leone are the countries affected. WHO stated that Liberia, Guinea and Sierra Leone are the countries with widespread and intense transmission with Liberia being the worst affected country amongst them with 2.710 persons affected and with 1.459 deaths (confirmed, probable and suspected cases infected and deaths). Nigeria has as of 14 September 2014, 21 confirmed, probable and suspected cases of affected persons and 8 deaths, and Senegal has 1 case of a person affected and no deaths. The current outbreak of Ebola in the Western part of the Democratic Republic of Congo is a separate strain from the outbreak in West Africa.

With the Security Council now having determined the Ebola outbreak in West Africa to be a situation of international peace and security, hopefully this attention will result in the swift implementation of a massive response to the whole region, also taking into account the fundamental need to develop the health care system sector in all the affected countries for the future.

Sources:

Christensen, Jen and Liptak, Kevin, Obama: U.S. ready to take the lead in Ebola fight, September 17, 2014, CNN, http://edition.cnn.com/2014/09/16/health/obama-ebola/

Remarks by Ambassador Samantha Power, U.S. Permanent Representative to the United Nations, at an Emergency Security Council Meeting on Ebola, September 18, 2014, www.usun.state.gov/briefing/statements/231829.htm

United Nations, Security Council Resolution 2177 (September 18, 2014), www.un.org

UN News Centre, UN announces mission to combat Ebola, declares outbreak ‘threat to peace and security’, 18 September, 2014, www.un.org

WHO, WHO Director-General addresses UN Security Council on Ebola, Dr. Margaret Chan, Director-General of the World Health Organization, Address to emergency session of the UN Security Council, Peace and Security in Africa (Ebola), New York, USA, 18 September, 2014, www.who.int

WHO, WHO: Ebola Response Roadmap Situation Report, 18 September, 2014, http://apps.who.int/iris/bitstream/10665/133833/1/roadmapsitrep4_eng.pdf?ua=1

World Bank, Ebola: Economic Impact Already Serious; Could Be “Catastrophic” Without Swift Response, September 17, 2014, Press Release, http://www.worldbank.org/en/news/press-release/2014/09/17/ebola-economic-impact

Blog 2, 24 July 2014: 

The UN Security Council Working Group on Children and Armed Conflict needs to act now to protect children in the Gaza Strip!

The Palestinian Center for Human Rights reports that as of 24 July, 2014, 176 children have been killed in the Gaza Strip and this number constitutes 29% of the total number of civilian victims killed since 8 July when the current round of conflict began. The civilians constitute the absolute largest number of persons killed, 605 civilians have been killed out of the total number of 743 people killed in the Gaza Strip since 8 July, that s 81.5 % of all victims killed since 8 July are civilians. 37 Israelis have been killed of which 2 are civilians.

The civilian population of the Gaza Strip is fundamentally in the middle of the conflict and it needs to be understood that the Gaza Strip has been under siege since 2007 which means that the civilian population of Gaza has nowhere to flee or go to than to trying to find a somewhat safe place within the Gaza Strip. At this time 83 UNRWA run schools are used as shelters for about 141,338 displaced civilians but they are not necessarily safe havens. OCHA has reported that ‘6 more UNRWA schools’ had been damaged by shelling, and UNRWA has reported that it has found rockets hidden by Hamas in its schools in Gaza at least twice. On 24 July an UNRWA run school in Beit Hanoun was directly hit by a rocket attack and 16 civilians were killed and up to 200 injured, and many children were injured. At the time of writing it is not clear who is responsible for the rocket attack, Hamas or the Israeli military. This means that people have to find a way to fend for themselves and their families, but what and who can they rely on? Where are they to turn? UNWRA reports that the number of displaced persons is ‘nearly triple the peak from 2008-2009’ Cast Lead operation, which certainly speaks to the worsening of the security situation over the years.

Killing and maiming of children and attacks against schools and hospitals, absolutely constitute some of the six priority violations that the United Nations through its Monitoring and Reporting Mechanism, the MRM, regarding children and armed conflict, is to not only report on but to act upon. MRM reports prepared by the Office of the UN Special Representative of the Secretary-General for Children and Armed conflict are to be presented to the UN Security Council Working Group on Children and Armed Conflict for the Security Council through its Working Group to decide upon which action to take to protect children. It is important to remember that the second UN Special Representative of the SG for Children and Armed Conflict, Ms. Coomaraswamy, stated after her visit to the Occupied Palestinian Territory in 2007 that “there is a palpable sense of loss and a feeling of hopelessness that places the children of the West Bank and Gaza apart from all other situations the SRSG has visited to date”.  With the renewal of armed conflict and all of the violence that affect the children so much the sense of loss and feelings of hopelessness risk being reinforced, and those that were children in 2007 but are now adolescents risk being re-traumatized. The children are innocent and have done nothing wrong. At this moment the UN Security Council Working Group on Children and Armed Conflict needs to arrange for a press conference and an emergency meeting to firmly ensure that the safety of children and their families in the Gaza Strip and in Israel be guaranteed NOW!

See for sources:

– Deadly Strike on Gaza School, CNN International TV, 24 July 2014

– Gaza UN School shelter hit, ‘killing 15’, www.bbc.com, 24 July 2014

– OCHA, Occupied Palestinian Territory: Gaza Emergency Situation Report (as of 23 July 2014, 1500hrs)

– Palestinian Center for Human Rights, www.pchrgaza.org

– United Nations, Visit of the Special Representative for Children and Armed Conflict to the Middle East, Lebanon, Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territory, 9-20 April 2007, p. 14

– UNRWA, UNRWA condemns placements of rockets for a second time in one of its schools, 22 July 2014

– UNRWA, Gaza Situation Report 16, Issue No. 16, www.unrwa.org

Blog 1: The invisibility of children in armed conflict, 16 July 2014

One of the most striking facets of the situation for children affected by armed conflict is the invisibility of these children. We often discuss that lack of access to areas in control of sometimes the government and its armed forces or in control of non-state armed groups hinder proper evaluations of the situation of children in these areas. What this really means is that the experiences of these children are not known and that there is not much knowledge and recognition of the actual experiences of these children. Nor does one know how many children are affected, who these children are, the ages of the children, or when and where they are being most victimized. The often generalization in public discourse of that most victims of armed conflicts are women and children neglects to acknowledge the actual experiences children go through and in this way reinforces the invisibility of the children.

The renewal of armed conflict and violence such now in the Gaza Strip and in Israel does have consequences for the children and youth that grow up in these areas. This constant unpredictability and sudden change of circumstances where fear is very much present requires us to think deeply about how all of this actually affects children and youth. Children and youth in countries such as South Sudan, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria need attention now.

As a response to all the violence children experience everything from bedwetting, nightmares, anxiety, worries, eating problems, an extra need to stay close to family members, laughing hysterically, crying and screaming, apathy, in addition to all the many children and youth that are abused, injured or killed. Bedwetting for instance among children is very common because the children with their sensitivity become so afraid of the bombings and the chaos around them. It is important to understand that in these situations neither the parents nor adults in general are able to protect the children, because they are themselves defenseless.

With the renewal of armed conflict in the Gaza Strip and in Israel since 8 July 2014, it needs to be reminded that during the Operation Cast Lead in 2008-2009, it was reported how symptoms of trauma were directly noticable among the children in the Gaza Strip as a response to the constant bombings, and that the children were crying hysterically when a bomb was exploding close to their homes. The children wanted to stay very close to their older relatives, they wanted to die together with their older relatives (they did not want to die alone) and they did not want to be left alone in a room even for a short period of time. Dr. El-Sarraj of the Gaza Community Mental Health Programme explained during the Operation Cast Lead in 2008-2009 that it is the children that suffer the most because they see fear in their mother’s eyes at a time when they need to see and sense security. The children both see and experience a fear that they cannot shield themselves from. It needs to be asked what is the difference now?

It is worth noting that this is a situation that has been continuing for a long period of time in the Gaza Strip, and with the renewal of armed conflict many are being re-traumatized again. It is important to understand that it is the children that suffer the most in war because they are especially exposed just because they are children and they do not have the intellectual abilities to understand what is taking place around them.

Dr. el-Sarraj has explained that fathers are lost as a symbol of security for their children because they are not able to protect their children. In this situation there is a bigh risk according to Dr. el-Sarraj that these children when they become older will join for instance Hamas because they search for someone or something that can replace their father figure, someone that is capable of providing both food and physical protection.

It is also true that many children in Israel are also suffering and are also being very scared by the rockets that Hamas keeps launching into Israel, especially in the south. This is also a situation that has been going on for years, and for instance a research study on the consequences of terrorism and war conducted by R. Pat-Horenczyk in Sderot, Haifa and Kiryat Shmona (KS) in Israel between 2007-2008 with parents and their toddler children (aged 1-6 years), found that among the mothers surveyed in Sderot, around 40.95% had full PTSD (post-traumatic stress disorder), and that 32.5% of the fathers surveyed in Sderot had full PTSD and that around 44% of the toddlers had PTSD symptoms and around 24% of the toddlers had development problems. This was as a result of and in the context of that more than 7.400 rockets had been launched into the Sderot area between 2000-2008. During that period of time, 4 children had been killed, 10 civilians in total had been killed and 435 civilians had been injured.

The Palestinian Center for Human Rights reports that as of July 16, 2014 since 8 July 2014, 195 people have been killed of which 158 are civilians, that is 81% of all people killed. 36 children have been killed, that is 18.4% of the total number of victims killed and 22.7% of the total number of civilian victims killed. 401 children have been wounded, that is 30% of all the people wounded. In total 1.337 have been wounded. 1 person in Israel has been killed at the time of writing.

+ For information on the study conducted in Sderot, Haifa and Kiryat Shmona (KS) see Pat-Horenczyk, R., Treating traumatized children: Risk, resilience, and recovery; Hebrew University of Jerusalem, June 29, 2009, and for further information “Children and youth in armed conflict” (2013), by Ann-Charlotte Nilsson, publisher Martinus Nijhoff.

+ Please see for further updates from the Palestinian Center for Human Rights, www.pchrgaza.org