Category: News

Misunderstood and misidentified, human trafficking is usually anything but human trafficking. All too often, the lesser crimes of assault, gender-based violence, child abuse or labour violations are what perpetrators are charged with.

 

The result is that relatively few cases of trafficking in persons – which carries heavy prison sentences – make it to court. Reversing this trend requires a high level of awareness on the tell-tale signs of what constitutes trafficking in persons.

 

Yet the best awareness-raising act for this crime is nothing short of a successful investigation and prosecution, according to South African prosecutor Ms Carina Coetzee.

 

“A high profile and successful prosecution will reverberate across society over many years,” she said, urging law enforcement officials to make use of cell phone records, among other forms of digital evidence, to support cases.

 

This is because in recent years traffickers have modified their methods and have taken to recruiting their victims online through the offer of fake job and study opportunities. Individuals can also be targeted on social media with the offer of friendship. Traffickers also use technology and the internet to arrange logistics such as transportation and accommodation for victims, in addition to moving and hiding the proceeds of their crimes.

 

“Everyone leaves an electronic footprint,” said Ms Coetzee. “Digital evidence is extremely important. You must be able to link this information with the accused.”

 

Ms Coetzee was speaking at a meeting of South Africa’s National Inter-Sectoral Committee on Combating Trafficking in Persons (NICTIP) held in Johannesburg.

 

Over the course of three days, government representatives and stakeholders took stock of the gaps, challenges and opportunities in addressing the country’s national policy framework on the crime of human trafficking, and reached consensus on a roadmap for the finalization of a revised framework.

 

The Deputy Minister of Justice and Correctional Services, Mr John Jeffery, spoke of the need for government to bolster its reporting duties on human trafficking, along with strengthening partnerships with civil society organizations.

 

He described the lack on agreed statistics as being among the most “burning issues”. According to Mr Jeffery: “On the one hand the cases being investigated by the police are not that high and on the other hand the cases being reported to the (crime) hotline are high.”

 

Ms Heather Merritt, the Deputy Chief of Mission at the US embassy in Pretoria, commended South Africa for making strides in the fight against trafficking in persons. She said the US supported 13 bilateral and regional projects meant to bolster efforts to confront trafficking in persons.

 

Mr Theodorus Kaspers, Head of Development and Cooperation with the European Union Delegation to South Africa, highlighted the contributions made under the EU-funded Southern Africa Migration Management project in the fight against trafficking in persons. This included boosting capacity among frontline personnel, such as through the production of an anti-trafficking in persons handbook for judges.

 

“Human trafficking usually follows migration patterns, making refugees and migrants more vulnerable than others,” he said. “Women and girls are often the most vulnerable.”

 

Ms Atuweni Juwayeyi-Agbermodji from the UNODC Southern Africa Regional Office cautioned against the thinking that foreign nationals are the primary victims as well as the main perpetrators of human trafficking. “Such thinking could blind us to the crime happening before our very own eyes in plain sight,” she said.

 

Ms Juwayeyi-Agbermodji also referred to the reported rise in kidnappings in South Africa and mentioned the prevalence of beggars often accompanied by young children, who occupy key junctions in parts of the country.

 

“What this means is that we need to pay closer attention to such issues happening in our own neighbourhoods,” said Ms Juwayeyi-Agbermodji. “In some of the big cities the prevalence of so-called ‘guest houses’ calls for more vigilance and scrutiny.”

 

Story by Wilson Johwa, UNODC Southern Africa

 

Source: UN Office on Drugs and Crime

The number of children facing catastrophic hunger in Burkina Faso could skyrocket up to eleven-fold in the next six months as the country faces its worst food crisis in over a decade, Save the Children said.

 

An estimated 10,000 children in the West African country will experience the worst form of hunger during the June-August 2023 lean season, a sharp spike from just 900 earlier this year, according to a new joint survey by Save the Children and other agencies in the region.

 

Conflict, climate shocks and economic decline are fuelling the rapidly worsening hunger crisis in Burkina Faso. Increasing violence in the country has forced nearly 1.8 million people to flee their homes since 2019, leaving behind their crops, basic supplies and livelihoods.

 

Abdou Malam Dodo, Regional Food, Security and Livelihood Advisor for Save the Children in West and Central Africa, said:

 

“2022 has been one of the most difficult years for children and their families on record in Burkina Faso and 2023 is set to be even worse. Hundreds of thousands of people have already been forced to flee to different communities in search of refuge and food. If the hunger crisis continues to worsen, host communities will be pushed to their limits.

 

“Without urgent action in the coming months, we expect to see a growing number of families resorting to increasingly desperate measures to survive, such as selling off the small number of assets they own to afford food, and reducing or skipping meals. The time to act is now. Children’s lives depend on it.”

 

Save the Children is calling on world leaders, donors, members of the UN, and non-governmental organisations to prioritise funding in Burkina Faso for the necessary services to support and protect children impacted by the hunger crisis, and ensure their resilience.

 

Source: Save the Children

Luanda — The International Organization for Migration (IOM) and the Organization of African, Caribbean and Pacific States (OACPS) signed today a cooperation agreement on enhanced and more strategic cooperation on migration in Africa, the Caribbean, and the Pacific.

 

“This renewed partnership will encourage a broader participation of all relevant state and non-state actors to design and implement evidence-based and gender-responsive policies and migration frameworks to empower migrants and achieve inclusive, sustainable socio-economic development,” IOM Director General António Vitorino said after signing the agreement at the 10th Summit of the Heads of State and Government of the OACPS in the Angolan capital.

 

The agreement marks a new page in the long-standing OACPS-IOM partnership, expanding cooperation to all areas of migration governance. This includes regional integration, migration and development, migrants’ rights, labour migration, migration data, migrant health, climate change, gender and youth aspects of migration, countering discrimination, xenophobia, human trafficking, and migrant smuggling.

 

IOM’s role in supporting policy dialogue on migration in particular within the OACPS — EU Dialogue on Migration and Development is reinforced as an observer organization and co-secretariat of this Dialogue.

 

This new partnership will allow OACPS and IOM to jointly promote convergent approaches to migration governance and well-managed migration policies across the continents and regions.

 

Source: International Organization for Migration

The United Nations published its Global Humanitarian Overview 2023 today: one in 23 people on this Earth needs help in order to survive.

 

Conflicts, the climate crisis and Covid are leading to growing hardship

 

Today the United Nations is presenting its Humanitarian Response Plans for 2023. They provide an overview of the humanitarian situation in the world. The United Nations estimates that 339 million people worldwide are in need of humanitarian assistance. Only a year ago, it was 274 million people. Conflicts, the climate crisis and Covid are leading to growing hardship

 

In particular Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine is responsible for the sharp rise in hardship this year. Not only people in Ukraine directly affected by the attack are suffering. Global price increases and food shortages are also potentially life-threatening for people who live thousands of kilometres away from the war.

 

The effects of the climate crisis are also increasing hardship around the world: in Pakistan, for example, floods have left a third of the country under water. The consequences of the dramatic floods are still far from remedied. The Horn of Africa is experiencing its fifth consecutive summer of drought with disastrous consequences for people, animals and vegetation.

 

The effects of the pandemic are also still very apparent: they have been triggering global price increases on the food and energy markets for almost three years now.

 

3.2 billion euro for humanitarian assistance

 

During the last few years, Germany has increased its humanitarian commitment considerably. In 2022, the Federal Foreign Office has made available 3.2 billion euro for humanitarian assistance. This has enabled our partners to alleviate the most acute hardship of many people. Humanitarian assistance means, for example:

 

warm blankets and emergency care for people in Ukraine via the UNHCR

 

tarpaulins, tents and food packages for the families hit by the floods in Pakistan

 

grain supplies for those affected by drought and hunger in the Horn of Africa

 

Particularly given the growing hardship around the world, the German Government is keen to continue Germany’s strong humanitarian engagement. Germany is the world’s second-largest humanitarian donor and remains a reliable partner for the planet’s most vulnerable people. However, it is also clear that one country alone cannot meet the global need for humanitarian assistance. That is why we are encouraging more countries to become humanitarian donors. At the same time, we are calling for the assistance to be used more efficiently. When assistance is planned and implemented efficiently and as anticipatory as possible, more people can be helped with the same amount of money. We are working on this with our international partners in the Grand Bargain. One way forward is to expand the share of flexible funding pledges. The Federal Foreign Office is also working to provide more anticipatory humanitarian assistance. This assistance is supplied before a disaster is expected to happen. For, just as in other spheres, prevention is more effective and less expensive than cure in humanitarian assistance. In 2023, the Federal Foreign Office will make available five percent of its funds for anticipatory humanitarian assistance.

 

Source: Government of Germany

PENTAGON — A Pentagon report warns that China now has more than 400 nuclear warheads, approximately doubling its nuclear arsenal in just two years, while its military has increased “unsafe” and “unprofessional” military behavior toward the United States and its allies in the region, especially Taiwan.

 

The pace of China’s accelerating nuclear expansion may enable Beijing to field a stockpile of about 1,500 warheads by 2035, according to the Pentagon’s annual “China Military Power” report to Congress that was released Tuesday.

 

The United States’ nuclear arsenal, with an estimated 3,800 warheads in active status, would still dwarf China’s.

 

The People’s Liberation Army Rocket Force (PLARF) launched approximately 135 ballistic missiles for testing and training in 2021, “more than the rest of the world combined, excluding ballistic missile employment in conflict zones,” according to the report. It also continued to construct three intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) silo fields, which will contain at least 300 new ICBM silos.

 

The Pentagon report was based on information about China’s military capabilities that was collected through December 2021, but it also accounted for some major events in 2022, including Russia’s war in Ukraine and Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan in August, according to a senior defense official.

 

Bradley Bowman, a veteran and senior director of the Center on Military and Political Power at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, said the “quantity and quality” of Chinese missiles is “particularly concerning.”

 

“If one looks at the capability and capacity of China’s missile arsenal, it’s breathtaking,” Bowman said, adding that China’s military modernization has “methodically and deliberately gone after capabilities specifically designed to defeat the United States.”

 

South China Sea

 

China also has increased the number of “unsafe and unprofessional” encounters with the U.S. military and its allies and partners in the region, including Australia.

 

“We’ve seen more coercive and aggressive actions in the Indo-Pacific region, including some of which we would highlight as being dangerous,” the senior defense official said, citing aircraft aerobatics, lasing and discharging objects as examples.

 

On Tuesday, China said it had “tracked and dispelled” a U.S. warship from waters near the Spratly Islands in the South China Sea. Beijing considers much of the resource-rich sea its territory — despite the territorial claims of other nations — and has created hundreds of hectares of artificial islands to bolster its claims.

 

The U.S. Navy confirmed to VOA the USS Chancellorsville guided-missile cruiser conducted a freedom of navigation operation (FONOP) near the Spratly Islands Tuesday but described China’s statement about the mission as “false.”

 

“USS Chancellorsville (CG 62) conducted this FONOP in accordance with international law and then continued on to conduct normal operations in waters where high seas freedoms apply,” the Navy said in a statement.

 

“The United States is defending every nation’s right to fly, sail, and operate wherever international law allows, as USS Chancellorsville did here. Nothing the PRC says otherwise will deter us,” the Navy added, describing China’s claims to the Spratly Islands as “excessive” and “illegitimate.”

 

The U.S. frequently conducts these operations in the South China Sea to challenge the territorial claims of China and others and to promote free passage through international waters that carry half the world’s merchant fleet tonnage, worth trillions of dollars each year.

 

An international court ruling in The Hague held that China had no historic title over the South China Sea, but Beijing has ignored the decision.

 

‘New normal’ around Taiwan

 

China has stated it wants to have the ability to control Taiwan, by force if necessary, by 2027, and officials have seen an “elevated level of new, intimidating and coercive activity” around the island. China considers Taiwan a wayward province.

 

“I don’t see an imminent invasion. I think what we do see is sort of the PRC (People’s Republic of China) establishing kind of a new normal in terms of the level of military activity around Taiwan following the speaker’s visit,” a senior defense official told reporters at the Pentagon.

 

China executed a high number of missile launches and military demonstrations around the Taiwan Strait during and immediately after Pelosi’s trip, which the speaker said was made to “stand by” the democratic island and honor the U.S. commitment made to Taiwan under a 1979 law.

 

Since then, China has lowered the number of aggressive actions around Taiwan but has not reduced its aggressive behavior to the level it was prior to her visit.

 

“Strait centerline crossings have become increasingly, you know, sort of routinized. In contrast, those used to be something that the PRC reserved for relatively rare occasions where they wanted to send sort of more of a political signal,” the senior defense official said.

 

Chinese Defense Minister Wei Fenghe told U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin in Cambodia last week that Beijing considers Taiwan to be a “red line,” according to a statement provided by the Chinese Ministry of Defense.

 

“Taiwan is China’s. Taiwan and the resolution of the Taiwan issue is China’s own affair in which no outside force has the right to intervene,” Wei said, according to the statement.

 

Russia and beyond

 

China has continued its military cooperation with Russia. In 2021, a large-scale joint exercise with Russia’s army was conducted on Chinese soil for the first time. The drills were known as Zapad/Interaction.

 

Since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February, a senior defense official said Beijing has not provided direct military assistance to Moscow but has supported Russia by amplifying Russian disinformation and propaganda.

 

“Russia’s value as a partner to the PRC remains high,” the official said.

 

China has the world’s largest navy in terms of ship numbers, with a battle force of about 340 ships and submarines. China’s army, according to the report, has 975,000 active duty members, and Beijing’s aviation force is the largest in the region and third-largest in the world, with more than 2,800 aircraft.

 

The report added that in addition to China’s base in the small African nation of Djibouti, Beijing has considered several other nations for future Chinese military facilities ranging from Cambodia to Tajikistan to Kenya.

 

Cyber-enabled espionage by China also remains a “sophisticated, persistent threat,” according to the report. The Pentagon accuses China’s military of attempting to take radiation hardened integrated circuits, gyroscopes, syntactic foam trade secrets, military communication jamming equipment, aviation technologies, anti-submarine warfare capabilities, and other technologies.

 

Responding to VOA at the Pentagon earlier in November, General Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said, “China is the one country out there that geopolitically has the power potential to be a significant challenge to the United States.”

 

He added that China wants to have the top military in the world by 2049 and has made gains in cyber, space, land, sea and air, but stressed that the United States’ military will not let the Chinese military surpass it.

 

“And as long as we remain No. 1, then we will deter the war that people worry about, a great power war between China and the United States,” Milley said.

 

Source: Voice of America