Pride Month provides an opportunity to celebrate the resilience, diversity, and achievements of LGBTQI individuals, UNAIDS said in a press release, while also reflecting on continuing struggle for full equality, dignity and recognition.

This momentous occasion also serves as a reminder of the important collective commitment to human rights, equality, and the urgent need to decriminalize same-sex relationships, the agency continued.

Proud to serve

Cleiton Euzebio, Senior Advisor for Communities and Key Populations, UNAIDS said, “As a gay man, and as an activist for social justice for all, I am so proud to work for the UN’s Joint Programme to end AIDS.

“The UN is standing with communities, supporting them in leading the HIV response, confronting stigma, and building societies where every person is valued. This month and every month, may everyone feel pride in who they are.”

Thanks in large part to efforts led by key populations, the world has seen substantial progress in the HIV response, said UNAIDS, creating the real possibility that AIDS can be eradicated once and for all.

But discrimination, violence, and stigma against LGBTQI people persist in many parts of the world, limiting access to essential services, including HIV prevention, treatment, care, and support.

Barrier to justice, equality, health

The agency said that criminalization of same-sex relationships remains a significant barrier to achieving social justice and equality for LGBTQI individuals, and to ensuring health for all.

Laws that criminalize consensual same-sex activity perpetuate stigma, contribute to violence and discrimination, and obstruct access to vital healthcare services, the agency reminded, calling on all governments to urgently repeal discriminatory laws and policies, and to work towards creating an enabling legal and social environment that respects and protects the rights of LGBTQI people.

Decriminalizing same-sex relationships, is a crucial step in the collective push to ends the AIDS pandemic, said UNAIDS.

Progress is real

Significant gains have been won in advancing LGBTQI rights in many parts of the world, including the decriminalization of same-sex relationships in several countries in recent months, from Angola to Singapore to Barbados.

However other countries are imposing harsher criminal laws on same sex relationships, including only this week, Uganda, where the so-called Anti-Homosexuality Act” came into force, with some offences incurring the death penalty, and a sentence of up to 20 years in jail, merely for promoting gay rights.

The High Commissioner for Human Rights, Volker Türk, added his congratulations in a festive tweet, calling on the whole international community to appreciate the richness and diversity of the LGBTIQ+ community, “and honour their immense contributions to the human rights movement.”

The cuts will reduce the value of rations provided to Rohingya refugees to $8 per month, or 27 cents per day.

At the beginning of the year, refugees were receiving a ration of $12 per person per month, which was just enough to meet daily needs, but on 1 March, that was cut to $10 – due to lack of funding support.

‘Extremely concerned’

“We are extremely concerned that WFP has been forced to cut food aid for the Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh”, said the UN Resident Coordinator in Bangladesh, Gwyn Lewis.

“The nutrition and health consequences will be devastating, particularly for women and children and the most vulnerable in the community. We urgently appeal for international support.”

The mostly-Muslim Rohingya, fled by the hundreds of thousands after a military crackdown in Myanmar’s Rakhine State in August 2017, that the UN human rights chief at the time described as a text book case of ethnic cleansing.

Those fleeing persecution joined around 300,000 already sheltering in Bangladesh from previous waves of displacement, and close to a million now live in what is, in effect, the largest refugee camp in the world.

Dependent on rations lifeline

Only 24.6 per cent of the response effort for the mostly-Muslim Rohingya, is funding allocated to provide basic health services, nutrition, food, and education for refugees, who do not have any other source of support.

People living in Rohingya camps are barred from working by Bangladeshi authorities, “and they are completely dependent on international community funding,” added Mr. Lewis.

His call was echoed by three of the UN Human Rights Council-appointed independent experts who are monitoring the situation.

Tom Andrews, Michael Fakhri, and Olivier De Schutter, warned that the cuts will have devastating consequences, and urged donors to provide enough funds to restore rations in full.

“In the span of three months, Rohingya refugees have seen their food rations cut by a third, further eroding the health and security of a population already suffering from severe trauma and deprivation,” the experts said.

‘Devastatingly predictable’ consequences

“The consequences of the rations cuts will be devastatingly predictable: spiking rates of acute malnutrition, infant mortality, violence, and even death.

“It also will contribute to increased regional instability, and some Rohingya may decide that it is better to trust their lives to traffickers and smugglers and risk their lives at sea, than to face hunger and even death in the camps,” the independent UN experts warned.

Child development impaired

“The impact on the Rohingya will be severe and long-lasting, stunting the development of children and dimming the hopes of future generations. Vulnerable populations, including pregnant and breastfeeding women, adolescent girls, and children under five will bear the brunt of the cuts and be further exposed to exploitation and abuse,” they said.

Even prior to the first round of rations cuts, health indicators for Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh were grim, the experts warned.

Forty-five percent of Rohingya families were not eating a sufficient diet. Forty percent of Rohingya children experienced stunted growth, and more than half suffered from anemia.

Cyclone Mocha, which made landfall in western Myanmar on 14 May, damaged or destroyed the shelters of approximately 40,000 Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh, exacerbating suffering and adding to budgetary needs.

Course reversal essential 

“Member States must urgently act to close the $56 million funding shortfall for food rations that has led to these cuts”, calling on those who’ve already scaled back, to reverse course.

“Member States that have not yet provided financial support to the Rohingya should do so without delay,” the experts said.

“The failure to provide Rohingya families in Bangladesh with sustainable levels of food is a stain on the conscience of the international community. They are in Bangladesh not by choice, but because of genocidal attacks by the Myanmar military,” the experts concluded.

Russian attacks overnight, killed three people – including the girl’s mother – and wounded 11 others, according to news reports. It followed a reported 17 strikes on the capital during May, and the fourth this week.

More than 1,500 killed, injured

Ms. Brown expressed her sympathy to the families of “over 1,500 children killed and injured in Ukraine” since Russia’s full-scale invasion began 15 months ago. 

Ms. Brown added that the UN continued to follow closely reports of Ukrainian children being forcibly sent to Russia. 

‘Heavy price’

The head of the UN Human Rights Monitoring Mission in Ukraine, Matilda Bogner, deplored on Thursday that “civilians, including children, continue to pay a heavy price” in the war.

“Behind every death there is an immeasurable human tragedy. This must stop now,” she said.

According to UN monitors, six children were killed and 34 were wounded in the month of May alone.

Towns and cities under attack

The Mission said that a total 535 children were killed and 1,047 injured since the start of the conflict. A vast majority – 87 per cent – of the casualties were caused by “explosive weapons with wide area effects”, including artillery, missile and air strikes, and “loitering munitions” also known as suicide drones.

The findings align with earlier warnings from the UN-appointed Independent International Commission of Inquiry on Ukraine about Russian armed forces carrying out attacks with explosive weapons in populated areas “with an apparent disregard for civilian harm and suffering, failing to take the required precautions”.

“The attacks were indiscriminate and disproportionate, in violation of international humanitarian law”, the Commission wrote in March.

Impact on health

Bringing even more evidence of the suffering of civilians in the war, just two days ago, the World Health Organization (WHO) verified the 1,000^th attack on healthcare in Ukraine since the full-scale Russian invasion.

The agency said that this was the highest number it had ever recorded in any humanitarian emergency.

UN humanitarian coordinator Denise Brown also highlighted the “devastating impact” of the war on the mental health and well-being of children, “including millions who have had to flee for their lives”. 

She pledged the humanitarian community’s support to Ukraine’s children “for as long as it is necessary.” 

Mounting evidence of child deportations

The Commission of Inquiry on Ukraine said in March that cases of transfer and deportation of children which it had examined, amounted to war crimes. 

That same month, the UN’s rights monitoring mission released a report documenting cases of children subjected to forced transfers, arbitrary detention, enforced disappearance, torture and ill-treatment.

The report called on Russia to ensure that any evacuation, including of children, is conducted in full respect of international human rights law and international humanitarian law, and to “adhere to the prohibition of changing the personal status of children displaced from Ukraine, including nationality, and of adoption” during or immediately after an emergency, in line with international standards.

Echoing the allegations, on 17 March, the UN-backed International Criminal Court (ICC) issued arrest warrants for Russia’s President Vladimir Putin and Commissioner for Children’s Rights Maria Lvova-Belova, in connection with possible war crimes concerning the deportation and “illegal transfer” of children from occupied Ukraine.