HUMAN RIGHTS - The African Mirror

Sep

07

2020

Mothers, sisters, wives: Kenyan women lead fight against police violence

HUMAN RIGHTS

NEHA WADEKAR The confrontation was caught on film. As three armed policemen try to pull Wanjira Wanjiru away, she clings to the wing-mirror of a parked car and refuses to move. “Don’t touch me!” she yells. “Why are you arresting me?” “Why are you protesting?” one of the steel-helmeted policemen asks. “I’m protesting because you’re killing us,” replies the 25-year-old anti-police brutality campaigner. “Who is killing you?” “You police! You’re killing us in our communities!” Then, as the policemen back off, Wanjira, fist in the air, defiantly chants what has now become an iconic line: “When we lose our fear, they lose…

Sep

03

2020

By The African Mirror

THE LONG READ: What happens to migrants forcibly returned to Libya?

HUMAN RIGHTS

MAT NASHED THE killing last week of three young men after they were intercepted at sea by the EU-funded Libyan Coast Guard has thrown the spotlight on the fate of tens of thousands of migrants and asylum seekers returned to Libya to face detention, abuse and torture by traffickers, or worse. The three Sudanese nationals aged between 15 and 18 were shot dead on 28 July, reportedly by members of a militia linked to the Coast Guard as they tried to avoid being detained. They are among more than 6,200 men, women, and children intercepted on the central Mediterranean and returned to Libya this year. Since…

Sep

26

2020

By The African Mirror

Changing our behaviour to improve food security

HUMAN RIGHTS

JULIAN MAY DESPITE South Africa's food secure status at national level and the evidence that the country produces more food than it needs, there is a worrying degree of food insecurity at household level. The 2017 Statistics South Africa (Stats SA) report "Towards measuring the extent of food security in South Africa: An examination of hunger and food inadequacy" reveals that 20% of households did not have access to adequate food during the period studied. The perturbing reality at this juncture is that the situation has been exacerbated by COVID-19 and the lockdown, and we are therefore more likely to…

Sep

25

2020

By The African Mirror

Could Egypt’s #MeToo movement be the tinder for a ‘feminist revolution’?

HUMAN RIGHTS

MENNA A FAROUK IN just two months, Egypt's burgeoning #MeToo movement has exposed sexual assaults, spurred legal reform and emboldened hundreds of abuse victims including celebrities to speak out, sparking a long-overdue debate about gender inequality. Now, rights activists in the conservative country say keeping the social media campaign's momentum going hinges on taking the message offline to reach poorer women, especially in rural areas, and changing attitudes in the justice system. "I hope this momentum does not remain in the upper- and middle-class segments of society but moves downwards to the lower social classes as well," said Entessar El-Saeed,…

Sep

18

2020

By The African Mirror

Ethiopia brings some migrants home as concern over Saudi camps grows

HUMAN RIGHTS

EMELINE WUILBERCQ ETHIOPIA will repatriate nearly 2,000 migrants from Saudi Arabia in the coming weeks, a government minister has said, amid growing international concern over conditions in migrant detention camps. Ethiopia is estimated to have tens of thousands of workers in Saudi Arabia and is under pressure to bring them home after the coronavirus left many stranded there with no work and no money. But Tsion Teklu, a state minister for foreign affairs, said the country did not have the resources to bring back the estimated 14,000 detained in Saudi camps that the United Nations this week warned were overcrowded…

Sep

17

2020

By The African Mirror

Fear of more coronavirus-like pandemics as land rights ‘under siege’

HUMAN RIGHTS

GOVERNMENTS' failure to recognise the land rights of indigenous communities and their role in protecting biodiversity could lead to more coronavirus-like pandemics, researchers said on Tuesday. A study of more than 40 countries found many local people's land claims were being ignored, amid increasing deforestation and wildlife exploitation, which may be contributing to a rise in diseases, like COVID-19, that pass from animals to humans. "Despite compelling evidence that indigenous peoples, local communities, and Afro-descendants protect most of the world's remaining biodiversity, they are under siege from all sides," said Andy White of the Rights and Resources Initiative (RRI). "Our…

Sep

15

2020

By The African Mirror

Zimbabwe divorce law spurs women’s fight for property

HUMAN RIGHTS

LUNGELO NDHLOVU WHEN Smangele Tshuma got divorced after five years of marriage, her in-laws forced her out of the home that she had been living in with her husband in southwestern Zimbabwe and took the three donkeys she had bought with money from selling blankets. Like most marriages in the country's rural areas, Tshuma's had been a customary, unregistered union in which everything she brought to the marriage was considered her husband's property, the mother of two told the Thomson Reuters Foundation. In a country where women are largely treated as dependents of men, a ruling by Zimbabwe's Supreme Court…

Sep

12

2020

By The African Mirror

Communities ‘left out’ as oil pipeline project set to get underway in East Africa

HUMAN RIGHTS

NITA BHALLA A multibillion-dollar oil pipeline planned for East Africa could spell disaster for local communities, charities said on Thursday, warning of lost land and livelihoods unless oil firms listen up and change tack. French energy giant Total and its partner China National Offshore Oil Corporation plan to exploit oil reserves in Lake Albert in Uganda and construct a 1,443-km (896-mile) pipeline to neighbouring Tanzania for export. Human rights groups say the oil firms involved in the $3.5 billion East Africa Crude Oil Pipeline (EACOP) have failed to fully address concerns raised by many of the 12,000 families who are…

Sep

05

2020

By The African Mirror

Congolese abuse survivors rebuild lives, brick by brick

HUMAN RIGHTS

MALAICKA ADIHE CONGOLESE teenager Aline was left destitute aged only 15 after she was raped, left pregnant and then accused of bringing dishonour to her family and made to leave her home. But just two years later, her life is back on track, thanks to a groundbreaking scheme to teach building skills to survivors of sexual violence in a region ravaged by years of ethnic conflict that have hit women particularly hard. The scheme is the brainchild of Lauren Muntu Kintadi, 36, who wanted to help single mothers and other women in need to find paid work, and realised there…

Oct

01

2020

By The African Mirror

Proposal to ease Malawi’s strict abortion laws faces religious opposition

HUMAN RIGHTS

CHARLES PENSULO LAWMAKERS in Malawi are preparing to debate a bill that would ease the country's tight restrictions on abortion, but they face stiff resistance from powerful religious groups. Malawi currently allows abortion only when it is necessary to save a woman's life and has one of the highest rates of maternal mortality in the world, in part because so many women resort to dangerous backstreet terminations. Now some lawmakers are pushing for a bill that would allow abortions in cases of rape, incest, or where the pregnancy endangers the mother's physical or mental health, to be tabled in parliament…