2015 | Inter Press Service

/2015

  • Pétrole ougandais : #Total cherche à échapper à l’impôt grâce à un traité de libre-échange
    http://multinationales.org/Petrole-ougandais-Total-cherche-a-echapper-a-l-impot-grace-a-un-tra

    Les mécanismes de protection des investisseurs étrangers inclus dans les traités de libre-échange connus sous le nom d’ISDS – aujourd’hui au centre de la contestation du projet d’accord commercial entre Europe et États-Unis – sont depuis longtemps utilisés par les entreprises occidentales de faire pression sur les pays en développement. Poursuivi l’année passée par Total pour un litige fiscal lié au pétrole, l’Ouganda a rejoint le nombre des nations qui se posent la question : « Comment avons-nous jamais pu (...)

    #Enquêtes

    / Inter Press Service (IPS), #Industries_extractives, #Ouganda, Total, #Industries_extractives, #Accords_de_commerce_et_d'investissement, #accords_de_commerce_et_d'investissement, #industries_extractives, #évasion_fiscale, fiscalité, (...)

    #Inter_Press_Service_IPS_ #fiscalité #transparence
    « http://www.ipsnews.net/2015/12/french-firm-attacks-ugandan-tax-using-isds »
    « http://teamdata.oneworld.nl/projects/isds/movementmap-respondents »
    http:// www.aboutisds.org/

  • Si j’ai bien compris, le « #sandwich_hollandais » ne sert pas seulement à ne pratiquement pas payer d’#impôts http://www.leparisien.fr/espace-premium/fait-du-jour/google-et-la-technique-du-sandwich-hollandais-19-11-2012-2334007.php mais aussi à voler les avoirs des #Etats http://www.ipsnews.net/2015/12/french-firm-attacks-ugandan-tax-using-isds ?

    The problem Uganda now faces has been made possible by the Bilateral Investment Treaty signed in 2000 with the Netherlands. According to the treaty, all Dutch investors in Uganda have the right to pursue arbitration before the World Bank court if they feel treated unfairly. The French company #Total Uganda registered itself as a Dutch company.

    This is known as the #Dutch_Sandwich; you put a Dutch company in between and then you become a Dutch investor. Which turns the treaty into a tool to drag a state before a #tribunal of three men in Washington, having a commercial background and the ability to award billion dollar fines, without a possibility to appeal. If Uganda is condemned to a compensation but refuses to pay, the company has the right to seize Ugandan assets in the world.

    #formidable

  • Companies Sue Developing States through Western Europe
    http://www.ipsnews.net/2015/12/companies-sue-developing-states-through-western-europe

    Canada, the US and Mexico are on the top list of most-sued states. The reason is NAFTA, the free trade agreement of which #ISDS is a part. However, the US has never lost a case. If we exclude the cases won by the state, a completely different picture emerges: Argentina, Venezuela, India, Mexico, Bolivia. In other words, developing and emerging countries. Many of these countries have now come to the conclusion that this arbitration system is unfair, or even #neocolonial.

    Dutch sandwich

    Where do the claims originate from? In the list of home countries of investors the US is still number one, but in the last few years they have been surpassed by Western Europe. In 2014, more than half of all claims were filed by Western European investors. Claimant country number one is the Netherlands, with more claims than the United States.

    However, a closer look at the companies involved shows that more than two-thirds of all Dutch claims have actually been filed by so-called mailbox companies. They choose to settle in the Netherlands for its attractive network of investment treaties, 95 in total, which are deemed investor-friendly.

    “This is known as the Dutch sandwich,” says George Kahale III, an American top lawyer, who defends states in large investment cases. “You put a Dutch holding in between, and you can call yourself Dutch. This is how the system is misused.”

  • Ethiopia: The Biggest African Refugee Camp No One Talks About

    On a sunny November day in Addis Ababa the courtyard of the Jesuit Refugee Service (JRS) centre is packed with people—some attend a United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees reception clinic, others get essential supplies, while students attend classes, and many simply play volleyball, table football or dominoes to pass the time.

    Benyamin told IPS he came to Ethiopia from Yemen because practising his religion freely just wasn’t an option. After converting from Islam to the Jewish faith, he was put in a psychiatric hospital. “If I’d been sent to court I could have been put to death,” Benyamin adds phlegmatically.

    Guilain, 35, from Guinea in West Africa, has lived in Ethiopia for 11 years, while two years ago his wife and daughter managed to enter the United States, where he hopes to join them—eventually.

    “I miss them but I must keep my heart intact, so I can’t think about it too much,” Guilain told IPS. While he remains in Ethiopia, Guilain has formed a seven-member band of fellow Guineans who practise in the JRS’s small music room. “The music gives me hope. I am happy when I come here; you see people enjoying themselves—it helps you to forget.”

    Now in its 20th year, the JRS compound resembles a microcosm of Africa’s—and even the Middle East’s—troubles, hosting refugees from South Sudan, Congo, Uganda, Somalia, Eritrea, Yemen, Burundi and more. It aims to assist 1,700 people in 2015, Hanna Petros, the centre’s director, told IPS.

    While many European countries bemoan the arrival of refugees, developing countries host 86 per cent of the world’s refugees, according to a 2013 UNHCR Global Trends report. Ethiopia hosts about 680,000 refugees, the largest number of any African country.

    http://www.ipsnews.net/2015/11/ethiopia-the-biggest-african-refugee-camp-no-one-talks-about
    #Ethiopie #réfugiés #camp_de_réfugiés #asile #migrations

  • Shifting Sands: How Rural Women in India Took Mining into their Own Hands | Inter Press Service
    http://www.ipsnews.net/2015/08/shifting-sands-how-rural-women-in-india-took-mining-into-their-own-hands

    [Sujatha] is one of the 18 women who run the Undavalli Mutually Aided Cooperative Society, an all-women’s collective in charge of dredging, mining, loading and selling sand.


    Dealing with a few angry boatmen is not the last of her problems. Powerful ‘sand mafias’ that operate throughout the state are another force to be reckoned with, as are the lurking threats of environmental degradation and poverty in this largely rural state.

    But Sujatha is determined to make this enterprise work. Overseeing the sustainable extraction and transportation of sand in this village has been her ticket to a decent wage and a degree of decision-making power over her own life.

    She also knows that having women like her in charge of this operation is the best chance of avoiding the environmental catastrophes associated with unregulated sand mining, such as depletion of groundwater sources, erosion of river beds, increased flooding and a loss of biodiversity.

    #sable #extractivisme #femmes #mafia #inde

  • #Etats-Unis. #Obama s’attaque au problème des #prisons
    http://www.courrierinternational.com/article/etats-unis-obama-sattaque-au-probleme-des-prisons

    Mais l’#ONU est priée de ne pas s’en mêler,

    U.N. Remains Barred from Visiting U.S. Prisons Amid Abuse Charges
    http://www.ipsnews.net/2015/07/u-n-remains-barred-from-visiting-u-s-prisons-amid-abuse-charges

    Yet the State Department continues to fail to allow the Special Rapporteur on torture access to U.S. confinement facilities to review their use of solitary confinement. It’s as if they missed the President’s speech,” he said.

    « #communauté_internationale »

  • Museums Taking Stand for Human Rights, Rejecting ‘Neutrality’ | Inter Press Service
    http://www.ipsnews.net/2015/07/museums-taking-stand-for-human-rights-rejecting-neutrality

    “Social justice just doesn’t happen by itself; it’s about activism and people willing to take risks,” says Dr David Fleming, director of National Museums Liverpool, which includes the city’s International Slavery Museum (ISM).

    The institution looks at aspects of both historical and contemporary slavery, while being an “international hub for resources on human rights issues”.

    #musée #justice_sociale

  • Somali-Based Pirates Down But Not Out | Inter Press Service
    http://www.ipsnews.net/2015/07/somali-based-pirates-down-but-not-out

    While the economic cost of Somali piracy has fallen and considerable progress has been made in deterring pirate operations, the latest attacks on Iranian fishing vessels by Somali pirates in the Indian Ocean may be another signal that it is too early to cut back international counter-piracy efforts, according to a new report.

    (...) "We still haven’t addressed the root causes of piracy. There are still ungoverned spaces on the coastline. There is still unemployed youth that might be attracted to piracy.” — Jon Huggins

    (...) As reported by Foreign Policy, young Somali pirates in Hargeisa and Bosaso are detained in the same prisons as members of the al-Shabab militant group.

    #piraterie #rapport

  • The U.N. at 70: United Nations Disappoints on Its 70th Anniversary – Part One | Inter Press Service
    http://www.ipsnews.net/2015/06/the-u-n-at-70-united-nations-disappoints-on-its-seventieth-anniversary-part

    Most of the money and energy at the U.N. in recent years has poured into “peacekeeping,” which is typically a kind of military intervention outsourced by Washington and its allies. The organisation, dedicated in theory to ending war, is ironically now a big actor on the world’s battlefields. It has a giant logistics base in southern Italy, a military communications system, contracts with mercenaries, an intelligence operation, drones, armored vehicles and other accouterments of armed might. Meanwhile, the Department of Disarmament Affairs has seen its funding and status decline considerably.

    [...]

    The U.N. has weakened as its member states have grown weaker. The IMF, the World Bank and global financial interests have pushed neo-liberal reforms for three decades, undermining national tax systems and downsizing the role of public institutions in economic and social affairs. Governments have privatized banks, airlines and industries, of course, and they have also privatized schools, roads, postal services, prisons and health care.

    The vast new inequalities have led to more political #corruption, a plague of #lobbying, and frequent electoral malfeasance, even in the oldest democracies. [...]

    Tightening U.N. budgets have tilted the balance of power in the U.N. even more sharply towards the richest nations and the wealthiest outside players. Increasingly, faced with urgent needs and few resources, the U.N. holds out its beggar’s bowl for what amounts to charitable contributions, now totaling nearly half of the organization’s overall expenditures .

    This “extra-budgetary” funding, enables the donors to define the projects and set the priorities. The purpose of common policymaking among all member states has been all but forgotten.

    The U.N. at 70: United Nations Disappoints on Its 70th Anniversary – Part Two | Inter Press Service
    http://www.ipsnews.net/2015/06/the-u-n-at-70-united-nations-disappoints-on-its-70th-anniversary-part-two

    Unfortunately, many excellent U.N. intellectual initiatives have been shut down for transgressing powerful interests. In 1993, the Secretary-General closed the innovative Center on Transnational Corporations, which investigated corporate behaviour and economic malfeasance at the international level.

    Threats from the U.S. Congress forced the Office of Development Studies at UNDP to suddenly and ignominiously abandonment its project on global taxes. Financial and political pressures also have blunted the originality and vitality of the Human Development Report. Among the research institutions, budgets have regularly been cut and research outsourced. Creative thinkers have drifted away.

    Clearly, the U.N.’s seventieth anniversary does not justify self-congratulation or even a credible argument that the “glass is half full.” Though many U.N. agencies, funds and programmes like UNICEF and the World Health Organisation carry out important and indispensable work, the trajectory of the U.N. as a whole is not encouraging and the shrinking financial base is cause for great concern.

    #militarisation #ONU #donateurs #priorités

  • Take Good News on Afghanistan’s Reconstruction With a ‘Grain of Salt’ | Inter Press Service
    http://www.ipsnews.net/2015/06/take-good-news-on-afghanistans-reconstruction-with-a-grain-of-salt

    Among others, official groups like the United States Agency for International Development (#USAID) say that higher life expectancy outcomes, better healthcare facilities and improved education access represent the ‘positive’ side of U.S. intervention.

    From this perspective, the estimated 26,000 civilian casualties as a direct result of U.S. military action must be viewed against the fact that people are now living longer, fewer mothers are dying while giving birth, and more children are going to school.

    But the diligent work undertaken by the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (#SIGAR) suggests that “much of the official happy talk on [reconstruction] should be taken with a grain of salt – iodized, of course – to prevent informational goiter.”

    Formed in 2008, SIGAR is endowed with the authority to “audit, inspect, investigate, and otherwise examine any and all aspects of reconstruction, regardless of departmental ownership.”

    In a May 5 speech, John F. Sopko, the Special Inspector General, called the reconstruction effort a “huge and far-reaching undertaking” that has scarcely left any part of Afghan life untouched.

    Poured into endless projects from propping up the local army and police, to digging wells and finding alternatives to poppy cultivation, funds allocated to rebuilding #Afghanistan now “exceed the value of the entire Marshall Plan effort to rebuild Western Europe after World War II.”

    “Unfortunately,” Sopko said, “from the outset to this very day large amounts of taxpayer dollars have been lost to waste, fraud, and abuse.

    “These disasters often occur when the U.S. officials who implement and oversee programs fail to distinguish fact from fantasy,” he added.

    #etats-unis

  • Le #vieillissement en Europe à l’horizon 2060 - Commission européenne
    http://alireailleurs.tumblr.com/post/119430489849

    La commission européenne publie un imposant rapport (.pdf) sur les projections économiques et budgétaires du vieillissement en Europe à l’horizon 2060. Des projections à long terme pour aider à prendre des décisions et voir les défis et les paliers qu’il faudra relever pour faire face à cette transformation majeure de l’Europe qui s’annonce. La population européenne (507 millions en 2013) devrait croître jusqu’à 526 millions d’habitants en 2050 avant de commencer à décroître (423 millions en 2060). L’espérance de vie devrait s’accroître de 7,1 années pour les hommes sur cette période (atteignant 84,8 ans en 2060) et de 6 années pour les femmes (89,1 ans en 2060). La proportion des gens âgés de plus de 65 ans devrait passé de 27,8% de la population aujourd’hui à 50,1% en 2060, passant de 3 personnes en âge de (...)

    #prospective #travail #seniors

  • Urban Slums a Death Trap for Poor Children | Inter Press Service
    http://www.ipsnews.net/2015/05/urban-slums-a-death-trap-for-poor-children

    Save the Children’s annual report on the State of the World’s Mothers 2015 ranks 179 countries and concludes that that “for babies born in the big city, it’s the survival of the richest.” (...)

    “Our report reveals a devastating child survival divide between the haves and have-nots, telling a tale of two cities among urban communities around the world, including the United States,” (...)

    The document estimates that 54 percent of the world’s population lives in urban areas, and by 2050 the concentration of people in cities will increase to 66 percent, especially in Asia and Africa.

    (...) Globally, under-five mortality rates have declined, from 90 to 46 deaths per 1,000 live births. However, these numbers, says the organisation, mask the fact that child survival is strictly linked to family wealth, and miss addressing the conditions of poverty and unhealthy life of slums.

    Positively, the report has also uncovered some successful solutions found by governments to reduce maternal and infant mortality, and close the inequality gap between rich and poor children in their own countries. The most successful countries are Ethiopia (Addis Ababa), Egypt (Cairo), Guatemala (Guatemala City), Uganda (Kampala), Philippines (Manila) and Cambodia (Phnom Penh).

    #rapport #bidonvilles #santé_infantile #santé_maternelle #enfance

  • Campaign Against #Glyphosate Steps Up in Latin America | Inter Press Service
    http://www.ipsnews.net/2015/04/campaign-against-glyphosate-steps-up-in-latin-america

    Carlos Vicente, a leader of the international NGO GRAIN, told IPS that the #herbicide first reached Latin America in the mid-1970s and that its use by U.S. biotech giant #Monsanto spread massively in the Southern Cone countries.

    “Its widespread use mainly involves transgenic crops, genetically modified to tolerate glyphosate, such as RR (Roundup Ready) soy, introduced in Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay, Uruguay and other countries,” said Vicente, a representative of GRAIN, which promotes the sustainable management and use of agricultural biodiversity.

    There are 50 million hectares of transgenic soy in the region, and 600 million litres a year of the herbicide are used annually, he said.

    According to Souza, there are 83 million hectares of transgenic crops in Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay alone.

    The WHO report “is very important because it shows that despite the pressure from Monsanto, independent science at the service of the common good rather than corporate interests is possible,” Vicente said.

    Monsanto sells glyphosate under the trade name Roundup. But it is also sold as Cosmoflux, Baundap, Glyphogan, Panzer, Potenza and Rango. And among small farmers in some countries, it is popularly referred to as “randal”.

    It is used not only on transgenic crops but also on vegetables, tobacco, fruit trees and plantation forests of pine or eucalyptus, as well as in urban gardens and flowerbeds and along railways.

    But in traditional agriculture it is used after the seeds germinate and before they are planted, while in transgenic crops it is used during planting, when it acts in a non-selective fashion, thus destroying a variety of plants and grass, according to RAP-AL.

  • Opinion: The World Has Reached Peak Plutocracy
    http://www.ipsnews.net/2015/04/opinion-has-the-world-reached-peak-plutocracy

    We see the evidence of peak plutocracy in:

    • the so far largely successful efforts of business interests to prevent meaningful action on climate change;

    • the push for high-input, high-tech, restricted-ownership #agriculture that excludes smallholder farmers – a great portion of them women — who feed most of the world’s people;

    • the #collusion of governments and companies in taking control of land and natural resources from communities in order to generate profits for privileged outsiders;

    • the “race to the bottom” among governments to sacrifice revenues through blanket “tax holidays” in order to lure foreign investment, even when the benefits are unclear or negligible;

    • the failure of governments to establish laws that protect workers from abuses ranging from trafficking to unlivable wages to unacceptably risky working conditions, with women workers in the most precarious, low-paid and inhumane jobs;

    • the failure to recognise the systematic abuse of women’s rights in many areas – but in particular the deep uncompensated subsidies women provide to all economies with their unpaid and low-paid care work that keep families and societies functioning;

    • the pressure put on countries – and more recently the collusion between governments and companies – to change commercial and consumer-protection laws so that foreign companies can dominate markets;

    • the use of coercion, including violence, by powerful elites in private enterprises, fundamentalist movements, and repressive regimes to control women’s bodies and sexual and reproductive choices, their labour, mobility and political voice;

    • the pressure to privatize schools at the expense of decent public education, despite the complete absence of evidence that the results will be beneficial to anyone beside the owners;

    • the unwarranted scorn directed at the public sector, and the pervasive recourse to the notion of “private sector led development” by most donor countries and inter-governmental institutions, even in the absence of positive models

    • the fetishization of foreign direct investment in low-income countries despite compelling evidence that no country has achieved sustainable development with foreign capital;

    • the increasing congruence of interests among governments, corporations, and elites in limiting the freedom of action of social movements and public interest groups, constricting political space in all parts of the world;

    the increasing domination of wealthy corporations and individuals in United Nations debates and processes.

    • the brazen ideological defense of inequality and massive concentration of power and resources by wealthy individuals and the institutes they fund;

    • the increasing number of disasters and emergencies are turned into profit opportunities, as affected areas are remade according to the plutocrats’ rules.

    • the refusal of governments to combat the global youth unemployment crisis with public jobs programs to address the widely-acknowledged looming crisis of deteriorating infrastructure;

    • the fallacy of scarcity revealed by the capacity of governments to find massive public financial resources for war and bank bailouts, but seldom for programs that would employ people, combat hunger and disease, and foster renewable energy.

    #terres #ploutocratie

  • Harry Verhoeven | Why Ethiopia Is Africa’s Next Hegemon | Foreign Affairs

    http://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/143664/harry-verhoeven/africas-next-hegemon

    In 1991, as the Cold War drew to an end, the only African country that had never been colonized by European imperialists was but a pale reflection of the Great Ethiopia that generations of the kingdom’s monarchs had pursued. A million people lay dead following two decades of civil war. Secessionist movements in the provinces clamored for self-determination. The economy was in tatters, and another catastrophic famine loomed. The world came to associate Ethiopia with images hoards of starving children, and the country’s regional and domestic decline opened questions about its very survival.

    #éthiopie

    • En attendant,

      Swelling Ethiopian #Migration Casts Doubt on its Economic Miracle
      http://www.ipsnews.net/2015/04/swelling-ethiopian-migration-casts-doubt-on-its-economic-miracle

      The U.N. Food and Agricultural Organisation (FAO) has estimated that about 29 percent of the population lives below the national poverty line. This explains Ethiopia’s rank at 174 out of 187 countries on the U.N. Development Programme (UNDP) Human Development Index.

      The Oakland Institute, a U.S.-based non-governmental organisation that spotlights land grabs, was recently denounced by Ethiopian officials for its latest report ‘We Say the Land is Not Yours’. According to the government, the institute used “unverified and unverifiable information”.

      In a reply to the Ethiopian Embassy in the United Kingdom on Apr. 22, Oakland Institute challenged the government’s claim that ongoing development was improving life standards in the country.

      The institute maintained that the government’s development endeavours are “destroying the lives, culture, traditions, and livelihoods” of many indigenous and pastoralist populations, further warning that the strategy was “unsustainable and creating a fertile breeding ground for conflict.”

      More than half of Ethiopia’s farmers are cultivating plots so small as to barely provide sustenance. These one hectare or less plots are further affected by drought, an ineffective and inefficient agricultural marketing system and underdeveloped production technologies, says FAO. Several studies indicate that this phenomenon has induced massive rural-urban migration.

      According to Yared Hailemariam, state ownership of land has contributed to poverty and inequality. “People don’t have full rights over their properties so that they lack the motivation to invest,” he stressed. The ruling regime insists that land will remain in the hands of the state, and selling and buying land is prohibited in Ethiopia.

      Yared also pointed out that the ruling party owns several huge businesses which has created unfair competition in the economy. “The party’s huge conglomerates have weakened other public and private businesses” he told IPS. “Only the ruling party’s political elites and their business cronies are benefitting at the expense of the majority of the people.”

  • Deforestation in the Amazon Aggravates Brazil’s Energy Crisis | Inter Press Service
    http://www.ipsnews.net/2015/04/deforestation-in-the-amazon-aggravates-brazils-energy-crisis

    In Brazil water and electricity go together, and two years of scant rainfall have left tens of millions of people on the verge of water and power rationing, boosting arguments for the need to fight deforestation in the Amazon rainforest.

    Two-thirds of Brazil’s electricity comes from dammed rivers, whose water levels have dropped alarmingly. The crisis has triggered renewed concern over climate change and the need to reforest river banks, and has given rise to new debate about the country’s energy system.

    “Energy sources must be diversified and we have to reduce dependency on hydroelectric stations and fossil fuel-powered thermoelectric plants, in order to deal with more and more frequent extreme climate events,” the vice president of the non-governmental Vitae Civilis Institute, Delcio Rodrigues, told Tierramérica.

    Hydroelectricity accounted for nearly 90 percent of the country’s electric power until the 2001 “blackout”, which forced the authorities to adopt rationing measures for eight months. Since then, the more expensive and dirtier thermal power has grown, to create a more stable electricity supply.

    Today, thermal plants, which are mainly fueled by oil, provide 28 percent of the country’s power, compared to the 66.3 percent that comes from hydroelectricity.

    #déforestation #eau #hydroélectricité #énergie #climat

  • Land Seizures Speeding Up, Leaving Africans Homeless and Landless | Inter Press Service
    http://www.ipsnews.net/2015/04/land-seizures-speeding-up-leaving-africans-homeless-and-landless

    There is a new scramble for Africa, with ordinary people facing displacement by the affluent and the powerful as huge tracts of land on the continent are grabbed by a minority, rights activists here say.

    “Our forefathers cried foul during colonialism when their land was grabbed by colonialists more than a century ago, but today history repeats itself, with our own political leaders and wealthy countrymen looting land,” Claris Madhuku, director of the Platform for Youth Development (PYD), a democracy lobby group in Zimbabwe, told IPS.

    Civil society activist Owen Dliwayo, who is programme officer for the Youth Dialogue Action Network, another lobby group here, said multinational companies were to blame in most African countries for land seizures.

    #terres #évictions_forcées #Afrique merci @fil

  • Guards at Australian-Managed Refugee Detention Centre on Nauru Traded Marijuana for Sexual Favours | Inter Press Service
    http://www.ipsnews.net/2015/03/guards-at-australian-managed-refugee-detention-centre-on-nauru-traded-marij

    Guards at a Nauru refugee detention centre managed by the Australian government traded marijuana for sexual favours from detainees, according to the latest damning report into the Australia’s beleaguered refugee policy.

    The report into the Regional Processing Centre on tiny Micronesian island Nauru, found evidence of rape, sexual assault of minors, and numerous other transgressions both by detainees and centre staff.

    Australia’s controversial policy of mandatory detention for arriving refugees, often in offshore facilities, has come under fire in recent weeks. The release of another report into refugee detention centres saw the Australian Human Rights Commission label the Nauru and Christmas Island facilities “dangerous” and “distressing.”

    A further report by United Nations Special Rapporteur on Torture, Juan Méndez, stated Australia’s treatment of refugees in such centres breached the U.N.’s Convention Against Torture.

    The Nauru report, released Friday, found evidence of sexual and physical assaults in the centre, but states figures for such crimes were likely much higher than stated due to under-reporting by victims.

    #australie #rétention #réfugiés #torture #violences_sexuelles @cdb_77 qui a sans déjà vu cette info

  • Palestinian Women Victims on Many Fronts | Inter Press Service
    http://www.ipsnews.net/2015/03/palestinian-women-victims-on-many-fronts

    Israel’s siege of Gaza, aided and abetted by the Egyptians in the south, has aggravated the plight of Gazan women, and the Jewish state’s devastating military assault on the coastal territory over July and August 2014 exacerbated the situation.

    In a resolution approved by the U.N. Commission on the Status of Women on Mar. 20, Israel’s ongoing occupation of Palestinian territory was blamed for “the grave situation of Palestinian women.”

    The 45-member commission adopted the resolution – which was sponsored by Palestine and South Africa – by a vote of 27-2 with 13 abstentions. The United States and Israel voted against, while European Union members abstained.
    The collective suffering of Palestinian women extends beyond death and injury, with forcible displacement and surviving in overcrowded shelters with inadequate facilities, including inadequate clean drinking water and food, lack of privacy and hygiene issues.

    “Women’s suffering doubled in the #Gaza Strip in particular due to the consequences of Israel’s latest offensive, as they have been enduring hard and complicated living conditions,” said Gaza’s Palestinian Centre for Human Rights (PCHR) in a statement released on Mar. 8 to mark International Women’s Day.

    “During the 50-day Israeli offensive, women were exposed to the risks of death or injury because of Israel’s excessive use of lethal force as well as Israel’s blatant violations of the principles of distinction and proportionality under customary international humanitarian law,” said PCHR.

    During the war, 293 women were killed (18 percent of the civilian victims) and 2,114 wounded, with many sustaining permanent disabilities.

    #femmes #Palestine