Children of the Earth summit — 1992 and 2012
As young people weigh in with their impressions of the ongoing Rio+20 conference, this documentary series, Zero Ten Twenty, looks back on the lives of children born in 1992–the year of the groundbreaking Earth Summit.
Working to include women in development recipe
The United Nations is hosting events this week at the Rio+20 conference aimed at ensuring that governments not only recognize the essential role of women in sustainable development but also integrate women more fully in future policies. “Culture is difficult to change. There is not a recipe,” said Michelle Bachelet, executive director of UN Women.
Women’s rights in Afghanistan again at fore
The campaign for the Afghan presidency by Fawzia Koofi, a young mother of two, is not only endangering Koofi’s life on a daily basis, but crystallizing in a public way the issues facing women in the country, at least according to this article. The justice minister recently alleged that women’s shelters led to “immorality and prostitution,” a statement rejected by the Afghan office of the United Nations.
Eradication of polio threatened by cases in 3 countries
Polio cases in Afghanistan, Nigeria, and Pakistan threaten efforts to eradicate the disease, according to the World Health Organization. The number of new infections, while small, is creeping up, and budget cuts at the WHO could endanger the campaign. “Polio eradication is at a tipping point between success and failure,” said WHO spokesman Oliver Rosenbauer.
Breaking the cycle of poverty, hunger in Ethiopia
A photo essay depicts the divergent lives of two women in Ethiopia living only 100 miles apart. One mother collects and sells rocks because of drought that has left her fields fallow and cattle and oxen dead, while another — as part of a food-for-work irrigation project — is able to feed her five children even during the long dry months.
Actor starts discussion of sex selection in India
Media coverage of female feticide and infanticide in India has increased after actor Aamir Khan broached the issue in the debut of his TV show, “Truth Triumphs.” Although newspapers and magazines have addressed the issue, India’s movie and TV industries have largely been silent.
Making progress on preventing child deaths
The United Nations Foundation and private and public representatives are meeting to find ways to reduce and eliminate preventable child deaths, writes Kathy Calvin, CEO of the UN Foundation. “In recent decades, the global community has made significant progress in saving children’s lives….Yet, too many children continue to die, and we have more work to do, especially in sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia, where child mortality rates are the highest,” she writes.
Clinton, Affleck back effort to save children
More than 60 organizations from 40 countries are supporting an international campaign to prevent childhood deaths by promoting breast-feeding, vaccines, and other care, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton announced. She was joined by actor Ben Affleck, whose Eastern Congo Initiative has worked to prevent child deaths in the Democratic Republic of Congo. They appeared at the Child Survival Call to Action conference at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C., hosted by UNICEF, the U.S., Ethiopia, and India.
Afghan girls intimidated into abandoning schools
Poisonings and arson are leading to school closings across Afghanistan. Afghan intelligence says some of the attacks are carried out by the Taliban, with others by students who are threatened by the Taliban. Those most affected are girls.
Child-health forum a chance to showcase mHealth
A mobile messaging program developed in part by the the mHealth Alliance has been shown to boost child health in Bangladesh and serves as the kind of “replicable, scalable and sustainable” innovation that should be emphasized at the Child Survival Call to Action forum next week in Washington, D.C., writes Kathy Calvin, head of the United Nations Foundation.
Death as a way out of forced marriages in Iraq
Young women in Iraq are shooting themselves and setting themselves on fire at a high rate in the northwestern Sinjar region. The women are trying to avoid arranged marriages–often to their relatives. Officials say that some of the suicides are actually honor killings.
