HUMAN RIGHTS - The African Mirror

Sep

23

2021

For many SA women, home is hell

HUMAN RIGHTS

MAGNIFICENT MNDEBELE EARLY on the morning of 25 June, Vuyokazi Yvonne Mathebula, 39, and her neighbour were reflecting on a funeral taking place a few streets away in Block V in Soshanguve, which lies about 30km north of Pretoria. The dead woman had been brutally killed by her son. A few minutes later, around 9am, Mathebula received several calls from different numbers. She ignored them. But when her husband phoned she answered, only to be told that her younger sister, Nonhle Gloria Aphane, 30, had been strangled, allegedly by a close relative. The news left Mathebula disoriented and feeling numb.…

Dec

08

2020

By The African Mirror

What’s driving the deadly migrant surge from Senegal to the Canary Islands?

HUMAN RIGHTS

RICCI SHRYOCK LIKE many compatriots, Abdou Diakaté didn’t feel he had much choice when he boarded a long, wooden boat on the Senegalese coast in October with around 100 others and set off into the Atlantic Ocean. The boat was heading for the Canary Islands, a Spanish archipelago off West Africa that has seen a surge in migration this year. The Atlantic maritime route, considered the most dangerous sea passage for Africans trying to reach Europe, had been mostly dormant since 2006, when a record 31,000 asylum seekers and migrants made the crossing. In 2019, just under 2,700 people arrived…

Sep

17

2021

By The African Mirror

Feared and forgotten, Congo’s Ebola orphans work to survive

HUMAN RIGHTS

KAHINDO SIFA BAHATI SINCE Ebola killed her parents in 2019, Congolese teenager Patience has done various jobs to provide for her three younger siblings, from warehouse work to washing clothes for neighbours. Her mother's dream was for all of the children to finish school, but the oldest three had to drop out and find work after their parents died during the Democratic Republic of Congo's 2018-2020 Ebola outbreak - the country's deadliest on record. "Since our parents died, we don't miss any opportunities to make money," 16-year-old Patience said in the eastern city of Butembo, the epicentre of the Ebola…

Jan

28

2021

By The African Mirror

Hiding from the sun, the stares and the killers

HUMAN RIGHTS

JAN BORNMAN SITTING on the bed in the room he shares with his mother and younger sister, Nsikelelo Mamba, 16, has to squint to better watch a programme on the television less than a metre in front of him. His sister, Samkelisiwe, 12, doesn’t have to squint quite as much, but her eyesight isn’t perfect either. The siblings have been spending most days over the past few months watching educational television and listening to educational radio programmes in an attempt to keep up their schooling. Since joining their mother in Nkomazi, in northeastern Mpumalanga, Nsikelelo and Samkelisiwe have not been…

Sep

11

2021

By The African Mirror

Fighting hunger in Joburg, one meal at a time

HUMAN RIGHTS

MAGNIFICENT MNDEBELE SANNY Mashigo, 48, cooks and sells food to industrial workers around Strydom Park in Randburg, in the northwest of Johannesburg. But when Covid-19 came, with its lockdowns and regulations tearing livelihoods apart, her business and income were not spared. Mashigo stocks up in bulk for her business. With the initial lockdown, unable to cook, move around and sell, she found herself with so much groceries that she knew not what to do with it. But then she looked around her area, a shack settlement of about 600 households called Organic Market near Bramley View. What she saw was…

Jan

26

2021

By The African Mirror

Splintered coalition reflects fate of Egypt’s uprising a decade on

HUMAN RIGHTS

AIDAN LEWIS and MAHMOUD MOURAD TEN years ago protesters surged onto Egypt's streets, emboldened by the success of Tunisia's Arab Spring uprising. Some young activists formed the Revolution Youth Coalition to draw together the uprising's disparate strands and give the protesters occupying Cairo's Tahrir Square a coherent voice. They demanded freedom, dignity, democracy and social justice amid battles with police and state-hired thugs, and on February 11 President Hosni Mubarak resigned. But the coalition fragmented as it faced two much more established forces: the Muslim Brotherhood that swept to power in later elections, and the military that toppled it in…

Sep

05

2021

By The African Mirror

The children who run away to work: Ethiopia’s hidden weavers

HUMAN RIGHTS

EMELINE WUILBERCQ and YARED TSEGAYE FIVE barefoot young boys were walking to town to look for work when they were apprehended by the police, in a cat-and-mouse battle to stamp out child labour among traditional weavers who produce Ethiopia's famous, white 'shamma' shawls. The Gamo and Dorze people of southern Ethiopia have woven the soft, cotton cloth with its delicately embroidered edges for decades, proud of their heritage and of a valuable source of income in the impoverished Horn of Africa nation. Mathewos, a 13-year-old weaver, interweaves threads to create an intricate border on a headscarf at his relative’s home…

Feb

04

2021

By The African Mirror

Nigeria must rethink responses to women displaced by Boko Haram

HUMAN RIGHTS

PEOPLE'S experiences of conflict and violence are shaped in part by sex and gender. Women and girls are especially vulnerable to the threat of sexual violence, owing to cultural practices of gender inequality. Gender norms also have an impact on the roles that both sexes play in conflict contexts. TITILOPE F AJAYI, Researcher, University of Ghana In Nigeria, women and girls make up at least 79% of approximately 2.5 million people displaced across the country’s northeast as a result of the 11-year conflict between the armed group Boko Haram and the Nigerian government. This population is dispersed in camps and…

Feb

01

2021

By The African Mirror

Ten humanitarian crises and trends to watch in 2021

HUMAN RIGHTS

Fraying deals: Who will keep peace on track? MONOTORING and oversight is important for peacebuilding to succeed, but there may be less money and international bandwidth available as a result of COVID-19 and the global recession. Peace agreements from South Sudan to Colombia to Central African Republic are already faltering; political transitions in Sudan, Mali, and potentially Afghanistan look equally wobbly. While each situation is unique, they all share the need for guarantors to keep what peace there is on track. The African Union is one – but it is cash-strapped and will have its work cut out to deliver on all its…

Feb

07

2021

By The African Mirror

The law keeping Ugandans behind bars

HUMAN RIGHTS

STEPHEN KAFEERO HERBERT Solomon Kaddu attempted to attack an Anglican bishop on Easter Sunday in 2018, while the latter was preaching to a packed cathedral. Kaddu was restrained and later charged, but acquitted in June 2019 on account of his mental health impairment. But more than two years later, Kaddu remains in prison. Unlike his fellow inmates, who have been sentenced to specific terms, Kaddu’s incarceration is indefinite, until such a time as Uganda’s minister of justice orders his release. The number of inmates in the same situation as Kaddu is unknown as the government has no known registry of such cases. Documented cases point…