Christian Papesch interviews RONALD MCCALLUM, chair of the Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities
UNITED NATIONS, Sep 9 2011 (IPS) – More than one billion people worldwide live with disabilities, some 15 percent of the world s population.
Ronald McCallum Credit: Christian Papesch/IPS
On Friday, the Fourth Session of the Conference of the States Parties to the (CRPD) wrapped up a three-day session at U.N. headquarters in New York.
Under the overall theme Enabling Development, Realizing the Rights of Persons with Disabilities over 500 delegates of g…
Zofeen Ebrahim
KARACHI, Mar 16 2012 (IPS) – By winning an Oscar at this year s Academy awards, filmmaker Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy has brought home the genius of Pakistan s women as well as the extreme violence they often suffer in a male-dominated society.
Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy. Credit: Bina Khan/IPS.
Chinoy s documentary Saving Face deals with the struggles of the victims of disfiguring acid attacks, both to win justice for themselves and to save others from one of the worst forms of violence against women.
Valerie Khan, who heads the Acid Survivor Foundation (ASF), told…
RIO DE JANEIRO, Apr 26 2012 (IPS) – The 380 families living in Piquiá de Baixo, a small town in the northeastern Brazilian state of Maranhão, are fed up with having to endure high levels of pollution from nearby steelworks in their water, air and soil.
Clouds of iron dust hang over Piquiá de Baixo. Credit: Courtesy of Piquiá de Baixo Residents Association
The town takes its name from the piquiá tree, a species highly valued for its wood, which has beco…
Vulnerable people need support, not stricter laws
APIA, Samoa, Feb 25 2021 (IPS) – Earlier this month, and in December 2020 the Government of Samoa conducted operations that resulted in the confiscation of a total of 1,400 grams of methamphetamine at the border, smuggled from the US.
The law enforcement officials (from the Ministry of Customs and Revenue and the Ministry of Police and Prisons) that intercepted these drugs deserve congratulations for their professionalism and skill. Meth is destructive and harmful and it is good to see this potential threat removed from the community.
Jo Becker is the children’s rights advocacy director at Human Rights Watch
Children eating lunch in the João Baptista Cáffaro School cafetería. Itaboraí, Brazil, 45 km from Rio de Janeiro. Credit: Mario Osava/IPS
NEW YORK, Apr 24 2020 (IPS) – Children may escape the worst symptoms of Covid-19 and suffer lower mortality rates, but for millions, the pandemic will have devastating effects.
The choices that governments make now are crucial for children. Governments can both lessen the worst effects of the crisis on children in the months to come, and also put policies in place that will improve children’s lives long after the pandemic is over.
School shutdown…
Children working on tobacco farms in Chipangali District in Eastern Province of Zambia. Credit: Brenda Chitindi
“Most major tobacco producing countries use child labour in tobacco growing. Almost no cigarette can be
guaranteed to be free from child labour.”
, 2015.
HONG KONG / LOME, May 17 2022 (IPS) – Despite World Day Against Child Labour launched in 2002 by the International Labour Organization (ILO), little has changed over the past two decades for the millions of children who remain .
To rescue children and achieve sustainable human and health rights improvements, laws that make corporations accoun…