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The United Nations announced that it has conducted 200 cross-border aid missions into northwest Syria from Türkiye since the devastating earthquakes that struck the two countries in February.
The milestone mission took place on Sunday via the Bab al-Salam crossing, said UN Spokesperson Stéphane Dujarric, speaking during his daily briefing in New York.
Once in Syria, personnel from the World Health Organization (WHO) conducted monitoring visits to health facilities and agency warehouses in the cities of Afrin and Azaz. They also met with local partners.
Immense humanitarian needs
Mr. Dujarric said the UN and humanitarian partners are continuing to deliver urgently needed aid through the Bab al-Salam and Al-Ra’ee crossings, which opened earlier this year as part of the emergency response to the earthquakes.
“Today, 17 trucks carrying humanitarian shelter items from the International Organization for Migration (IOM) and the UN refugee agency (UNHCR) crossed into the northwest via Bab al-Salam,” he said.
Humanitarian needs in Syria are at record highs after more than 12 years of war and in the aftermath of the double earthquakes on 6 February which left more than 50,000 dead.
Lifeline extended
The UN announced earlier this month that an agreement had been reached with the Government of Syria to re-open the main border crossing, Bab al-Hawa, to allow aid to flow into the northwest, the last opposition stronghold.
More than four million people rely on this lifeline, which was established in 2014 when the UN Security Council authorized cross-border relief deliveries.
However, the crossing closed in July after the Council failed to reach consensus on two competing resolutions on its renewal.
The Bab al-Hawa border crossing will now be accessible for the next six months, following the Syrian Government agreement. The deal also authorizes the UN to use Bab al-Salam and Al-Ra’ee border crossings for an additional three months.
Planet Biodiversity is a free educational platform in Belgium for teachers and organizers, offering practical, fun tools to inform and raise awareness among children and young people.
This morning, Zakia Khattabi took part in the activities offered to students of a technical secondary sixth form class in Leonardo da Vinci Athenaeum in Anderlecht. On the program: lesson on the theme of agriculture and a string game to better understand the importance of soils.
An experience that made the Minister declare: » Biodiversity loss affects us all. This is why we must act. The good news is that each of us can contribute to the conservation of nature and ecosystems, even in our eating habits. This is also the message of Planète Biodiversité. The launch of this educational platform in primary and secondary schools gives me hope. It allows young people to discover, thanks to simple tips, how to protect our biodiversity. Tomorrow, the Minister will participate in the presentation session given at the primary school, Pacheco Basisschool.
Who is Planet Biodiversity for?
This free website provides teachers and facilitators with educational contentpractical and fun to raise students’ awareness of biodiversity issues, frominformationscientifically validated. All with a timing designed to correspond to the lesson periods and a practical dashboard to ensure personalized follow-up of the class. These tools are intended for students of 3rd primary cycle (10-12 years old) and 3rd secondary cycle (16-18 years old).
Why this educational platform?
The originality of Planète Biodiversité is to offer fun activities that allow integrating biodiversity into various course subjects. Thus, we calculate the surface of deforestation by doing maths or we retrace the route of the foods that make up a spaghetti Bolognese during Dutch lessons.
The objective is to highlight how our models of consumption impact nature, sometimes thousands of kilometers from home.
A quiz with questions about everyday life also allows you to discover thetotem animal corresponding to her consumption profile and thus get an idea of swe have an impact on biodiversity.
Focus on food
This first module deals with food and discusses topics of Llivestock, farming systems, ultra-processed foods and seafood. Others are already planned.
Intensive agriculture and animal husbandry, industrial processes, ultra-processed foods and overfishing weigh heavily on nature. From the origin of food to its method of manufacture, through its processing and packaging, all these steps can have harmful consequences on biodiversity and … on humans. As we depend on nature and food for our health, it is imperative that our cultivation and breeding methods are sound. The state of biodiversity is also our health report!
Who are the promoters of Planète Biodiversité?
This achievement of FPS Health, Food Chain Safety and Environment was carried out in close collaboration with the WWF-Belgium And GoodPlanetBelgium. “For this project, we pooled our expertise to develop fun educational tools allowing students to understand in a very concrete way the impact of their daily eating habits on biodiversity. We have also made sure to give teachers a popularized scientific summary in order to better appropriate these complex subjects and transmit them in turn easily to their students, whatever the subject. »
The Museum of Natural Sciences of Belgium and UC Louvain also contributed to this initiative.
In the past two weeks alone, 71 people have been killed and injured in capital Port-au-Prince, marking a major escalation, according to UN humanitarian affairs office, OCHA, which Mr. Griffiths heads.
“Entire families, including children, were executed while others were burned alive. This upsurge in violence has caused unspeakable continued suffering of Haitians,” Philippe Branchat, acting UN Humanitarian Coordinator in the country said in a news release on Thursday.
So far this year, gang violence in the Caribbean country has claimed more than 2,500 lives, with over 1,000 injured.
At least 970 Haitians have been kidnapped, and 10,000 forcibly displaced from their homes.
The latest wave of violence has also resulted in the forced displacement of over ten thousand people who have sought refuge in spontaneous camps and host families.
Brazen human rights violations
Also on Thursday, the UN Integrated Office in Haiti (BINUH) issued a report outlining the dire human rights situation there, including brutal killings and lynchings.
The report noted that frustrated by lack of security and functioning government, residents armed with machetes, rocks, and fuel cans have resorted to brutal measures to prevent gang members and anyone associated with them from entering their neighbourhoods.
Between April and June, nearly 240 alleged gang members were killed by these self-proclaimed “self-defence groups.”
“While some killings appeared to be spontaneous, others were encouraged, supported, or facilitated by high-ranking police officers and gang members belonging to the G-9 and allies,” the report said.
The report also documented horrifying instances of sexual violence, including collective rape and mutilation, perpetrated by gangs to spread fear, punish rivals, and target women and girls under their territorial control.
BINUH expressed concern about the forced recruitment of children by gangs and the severe mental and psychological toll the violence is exacting on the population.
The office reiterated its call to the international community to deploy a specialized international force to address the crisis.
Massive humanitarian needs
According OCHA, nearly half of Haiti’s population needs humanitarian and food assistance.
Despite access challenges due to insecurity, humanitarian partners are reaching the displaced people with immediate aid such as food, water, shelter, sanitation, health, and psychosocial support, particularly for victims of sexual violence.
“The people in Haiti cannot continue to live trapped in their homes, unable to feed their families, find work and live in dignity,” OCHA said.
The relief agency added that humanitarians are committed to stand with the people in Haiti and assist in providing immediate assistance to alleviate human suffering.
Mozart’s music has a calming effect on babies. It can ease pain during minor medical procedures, according to a first-of-its-kind study from Thomas Jefferson University in Philadelphia.
Before having their blood drawn by a doctor via a standard heel prick procedure, just over half of the babies were played a soothing instrumental lullaby by the famous musician for 20 minutes. The other half waited in silence.
Usually, when newborns are about to undergo a mildly painful procedure, they are given a small dose of sugar as a sedative. Two minutes before the heel prick, all infants were given sucrose to slightly relieve their pain. The lullaby played during the heel prick and continued for about five minutes afterwards. Parents were not allowed to physically hug their babies during the study, Science Alert reported.
A researcher regularly assessed the babies’ pain using facial expressions, crying, breathing, limb movements and alertness. The researcher was wearing noise-cancelling headphones, so he didn’t know if the music was playing or not.
Ultimately, the newborns who were exposed to Mozart showed a “statistically and clinically significant” reduction in the Neonatal Pain Scale (NIPS) scores before, during and after the heel prick.
Today, there is considerable evidence to suggest that music can significantly reduce the perception of pain in adults, yet it is unclear how song accomplishes this amazing feat, and whether it is innate or learned.
Studies among newborns are a good opportunity for further study, especially given that pain medication is often not an option for this group.
In 2017, researchers found that when oral sucrose was combined with music therapy in premature infants, there was greater pain relief during the heel prick test.
However, premature infants are not the best group to study. They are often exposed to pain during their stay in intensive care units, which means they may have an altered perception and physical response to the sensation.
The recent Bronx study is the first to examine full-term babies. The results show that certain types of soothing music can have a powerful calming effect on even the tiniest of human brains. This may be because music distracts babies from their pain. But previous research in adults shows that lively and pleasant music relieves pain more than dark and sad music. And this means that distraction cannot fully explain the results.
The current study did not compare different types of music and their pain-relieving effects—factors that could be explored in future research.
Scientists who worked on the current trial say they are now interested in whether parental voices can be as soothing to newborns as Mozart.
Amid the deepening crisis driven by warring militaries in Sudan, the UN announced on Tuesday an additional allocation of $20 million from its Central Emergency Response Fund (CERF) to aid civilians caught up in the turmoil.
“The draft law could be described as a form of gender apartheid, as authorities appear to be governing through systemic discrimination with the intention of suppressing women and girls into total submission,” the independent experts said.
They stressed that the proposed parliamentary Bill to Support the Family by Promoting the Culture of Chastity and Hijab and existing de facto restrictions are inherently discriminatory and may amount to gender persecution.
“The draft law imposes severe punishments on women and girls for non-compliance which may lead to its violent enforcement,” the experts warned.
It also violates fundamental rights such as the right to take part in cultural life, freedom of opinion and expression, the right to peaceful protest, and the right to access social, educational, and health services, they added.
“After months of nationwide protests over the death of Jina Mahsa Amini and against restrictive veiling laws, the authorities have introduced a tiered system of punishments targeting women and girls,” the experts said.
The 22-year-old was arrested in Tehran and taken into custody nearly a year ago by the so-called morality police for her alleged failure to comply with the already strict hijab laws.
She reportedly fell ill at a police station with witnesses testifying that she had first been severely beaten, and later died in hospital. Iranian authorities denied that she had been assaulted.
Culture war
The UN-appointed added the proposed new punishments under the draft legislation would “disproportionately affect economically marginalised women”.
The use of culture by the Iranian government as a tool to restrict the rights of women and girls is misplaced, the experts warned, noting that “culture is formed and evolves with the participation of all”.
By using terms such as “nudity, lack of chastity, lack of hijab, bad dressing and acts against public decency leading to disturbance of peace”, the draft law seeks to authorise public institutions to deny essential services and opportunities to those who will not comply.
Directors and managers of organisations who fail to implement the law could also be punished; the independent experts warned.
‘Weaponizing’ morality
“The weaponization of “public morals” to deny women and girls their freedom of expression is deeply disempowering and will entrench and expand gender discrimination and marginalisation, with wider negative consequences for children and society as a whole,” the experts said.
They note that the so-called morality police have also been reportedly redeployed in some areas since early July, potentially to enforce compulsory veiling strictures.
The bill was submitted to parliament by the Government and the judiciary on 21 May. Since then, it has been amended several times, with the latest draft significantly increasing the number of punishments for non-compliance.
“We urge authorities to reconsider the compulsory hijab legislation in compliance with international human rights law, and to ensure the full enjoyment of human rights for all women and girls in Iran,” the experts said.
Experts’ mandate
Special Rapporteurs and other independent human rights experts are appointed to monitor and report on specific country situations or thematic issues.
They serve in their individual capacity, are not UN staff and do not receive payment for their work.
The political crisis in Niger has created uncertainty for scores of vulnerable displaced people, with restrictions on humanitarian operations limiting aid and protection, the UN refugee agency (UNHCR) said on Tuesday.
Ugochi Daniels, Deputy Director General for Operations with the UN’s International Organization for Migration (IOM), vividly describes what it was like spending a week in Ukraine and Moldova, meeting some of those most affected by Russia’s ongoing full-scale invasion.
He called on the Canadian Government to intensify its efforts to safeguard workers’ rights and offer a clear pathway to permanent residency for all migrants.
“I am deeply disturbed by the accounts of exploitation and abuse shared with me by migrant workers,” he said
“Employer-specific work permit regimes, including certain Temporary Foreign Worker Programmes, make migrant workers vulnerable to contemporary forms of slavery, as they cannot report abuses without fear of deportation,” Obokata said.
He acknowledged recent policies enacted to promote human rights across the business sector such as the creation of a Canadian Ombudsperson for Responsible Enterprise (CORE) and other codes of conduct.
But he emphasized the need to regularize the status of foreign migrant workers, citing their valuable skills the bring to the economy.
“I urge the Government to bring forward legislation requiring Canadian companies to implement mandatory human rights due diligence, and expand the independence, powers, and mandate of the CORE,” he said.
Trauma twice over
While visiting, Mr. Obokata noted that the communities at the highest risk of contemporary slavery and exploitation were those already experiencing structural discrimination and violence.
This included individuals with precarious migrant status, Indigenous Peoples, those with disabilities, individuals of African descent, former prisoners, and the homeless.
He drew a line between Canada’s colonial history and the disproportionate effect of contemporary forms of slavery on Indigenous Peoples, such as First Nations, Métis, and Inuit, who have reported instances of unresponsiveness from law enforcement over the issue.
“I am extremely concerned by the extent to which Indigenous women, girls, and Two-Spirit people go missing or are murdered, often as a result of being trafficked for forced labour or sexual exploitation,” Mr. Obokata said.
He said they were reportedly targeted by traffickers when traveling to seek employment or services.
Legal challenges and solutions
Canada’s efforts to address slavery within domestic frameworks have improved. However, the independent expert said he had witnessed a lack of trauma-informed personnel and human rights-centered approaches within law enforcement and the judicial system.
“Victims and survivors are forced to relive their trauma in their interactions with law enforcement and the court systems, and the outcome of legal proceedings often fails to provide adequate compensation,” he said.
He said there was not enough consultation with survivors over policymaking and insufficient protections and remedies for victims.
“I am also seriously concerned about the misuse of anti-trafficking legislation to target sex workers, which seriously impacts their human rights,” said Obokata. “Full decriminalization of sex work is necessary to prevent further abuses.”
Special Rapporteurs and other UN experts are not UN staff and are independent from any government or organisation. They serve in their individual capacity and receive no salary for their work.
