RIGHTS-COTE D’IVOIRE: Impunity Lays the Ground for Sexual Abuse
Fulgence Zamblé
ABIDJAN, Oct 8 2006 (IPS) – Increasing sexual violence in Côte d Ivoire has prompted rights organisations to call for an end to a culture of impunity which they claim has encouraged this trend particularly as concerns the military.
Since September 2002, Côte d Ivoire has been divided into a rebel-controlled north and government-dominated south. Many rights violations, especially against women, have been reported by non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and victims themselves in the past four years with soldiers amongst those most frequently accused of rape.
While Ivorian legislation provides for jail terms of up to 20 years for rape, the political crisis in this West African country has undermined its judicial system, creating the climate of impunit…
KENYA: AIDS Prevention Amongst Drug Users a Challenge
Susan Anyangu
MOMBASA, Oct 21 2009 (IPS) – The United Nation Office on Drug and Crime (UNODC) claims that Kenya has more drug users than any other East African country. UNODC estimates there are 100,000 cocaine users, 200,000 using opiates like heroin and four million who smoke cannabis.
In the coastal city of Mombasa, Kenya s main port, which has the country s highest concentration of substance abusers, Masudi Omar of Reachout Centre Trust, a drug addiction treatment centre, says it s vital that AIDS prevention programmes reach this demographic.
A research done by our partners USAID in 2005 revealed that 50 percent of injecting drug users who were tested for HIV were found to be positive. The challenge here is passing HIV risk reduction messages to drug and alcohol …
WHO’s Iraq Birth Defect Study Omits Causation
A man holds his ill son in Basra, Iraq shortly after his young daughter had died of cancer. The picture was taken in February 2011. The boy died of cancer a few months later. Credit: Karlos Zurutuza/IPS
UNITED NATIONS, Jul 17 2013 (IPS) – A long-awaited study on congenital birth defects by the World Health Organization (WHO) and the Ministry of Health (MOH) in Iraq is expected to be very extensive in nature.
According to WHO, 10,800 households were selected as a sample size for the , which was scheduled to be released early this year but has not yet been made public.”There is reason why a group of very smart scientists are not exploring the ‘why’ question in their st…
We Must Rise to the Occasion, Now.
NEW YORK, Dec 20 2021 – In 2021, COVID-19 continued to plague the world – a world already burdened by armed conflicts, climate-induced disasters and forced displacement. Communities, nations and people struggled to maintain normalcy in the midst of the abnormal. This was especially notable in the education sector – a sector that is the very foundation for achieving all human rights and all Sustainable Development Goals.
Yasmine Sherif
Countries affected by existing crises also suffered the absence of infrastructure and the omnipresence of extreme poverty, while conflicts raged all around. In 2021, with little, if any means, these countries had to rise to the occas…