Category: Human Rights

According to Ms, Otieno, policies to tackle these problems include the provision of decent, affordable housing, quality education, and equal job opportunities for all, irrespective of race, religious belief, tribe or political affiliation.  Ms. Otieno travelled to Salt Lake City, Utah, to speak at the UN Civil Society Conference – an annual event which brings together representatives of NGOs and… Read More

The Day was created in response to an increasing number of attacks against individuals and groups, targeted simply because of their religion or belief, around the world. Examples, said the Secretary-General, include “Jews have been murdered in synagogues, their gravestones defaced with swastikas; Muslims gunned down in mosques, their religious sites vandalized; Christians killed at prayer, their churches torched.” We… Read More

The words of 29-year Wala Matari from Cameroon may be uncompromising, but they are a heartfelt and honest window into the suffering she has experienced, and the enduring torment of the unspeakable atrocities perpetrated by ruthless terrorists against this mother of six. Twenty-nine-year-old Wala Matari, a former terrorist hostage, attends church with her children in the village of Zamai in the… Read More

For this final story in our special UN News series, we’ll hear from Fati Yahaya, who is 24-years old and comes from the village of Koghum in the north-east of Nigeria. She and her two young children were taken by armed insurgents in 2015 and spent three years as their prisoners. She has been living in Minawao, a camp for… Read More

Two years after exodus, Myanmar’s ‘desperate’ Rohingya youth need education, skills: UNICEF The daily struggle to survive for Myanmar’s Rohingya people in one of the world’s largest refugee settlements, has caused “overwhelming” despair and jeopardized the hopes of an entire generation, the head of the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF), Henrietta Fore, said on Friday. In a report marking two years since the… Read More

“We are alarmed that the arrest and lengthy sentences handed to these women are directly related to the peaceful exercise of their rights to freedom of expression and assembly in the pursuit of gender equality in Iran,” the experts said in a joint statement on Friday. They called upon the Iranian authorities to quash the convictions and “immediately release all… Read More

The UN Environment Programme (UNEP) will strengthen cooperation with OHCHR, as threats to individuals and communities defending their environmental and land rights intensify. Reports suggest that an average of more than three rights defenders were killed every week last year.  Although more than 150 countries have recognized the right to a health environment in their constitutions or legal frameworks, “significantly more work is… Read More

“We must not accept the suffering of children as the new normal. All parties must stop attacks on children and take all necessary measures to keep them out of harm’s way, in line with international human rights and humanitarian law,” said UNICEF Executive Director Henrietta Fore. She added that children should be going to school and playing with their friends,… Read More

‘Preserve, revitalize and promote’ indigenous languages, or lose a ‘wealth of traditional knowledge’, UN chief says  Secretary-General António Guterres underscored the urgency to “preserve, revitalize and promote indigenous languages” in his message for the International Day of the World’s Indigenous Peoples, Celebrated on Friday.  “Languages are how we communicate, and they are inextricably linked to our cultures, histories and identity”, the UN chief… Read More

“Languages are how we communicate, and they are inextricably linked to our cultures, histories and identity”, the UN chief said, noting that 2019 also marks the International Year of Indigenous Languages.  Indigenous languages are disappearing at an alarming rate, each one taking with it a cultural and intellectual heritage. We must protect languages under threat of extinction. #IndigenousDay pic.twitter.com/GaHSKc6OKN —… Read More