Author: Solomon Alaka

“Deep down, I knew what I had experienced was not something any girl should go through,” she emphasised.  FGM was once considered an unavoidable rite of passage for young girls in the Mara region of the United Republic of Tanzania, but communities are making inroads. Busting the myth More than 230 million girls and women […]

He warned Member States that with crises mounting, the world cannot afford a human rights system in crisis.  “The cost of our work is low; the human cost of underinvestment is immeasurable,” he said.  “In times of conflict and in times of peace, we are a lifeline for the abused, a megaphone for the silenced, a steadfast ally to those […]

The development follows weeks of tensions surrounding Iran’s nuclear programme and threats of a US military attack.  Delegations headed by US Special Envoy to the Middle East Steve Witkoff and Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi held indirect talks in Oman, according to media reports.  This marked the first time the sides had met since last June when the US and […]

The development poses a “serious humanitarian risk” to civilians living there, maintained the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), briefing journalists in Geneva. “The use of herbicides raises questions about the effects on local agricultural lands and how this might impact the return of civilians to their homes and livelihoods in the […]

“At the moment, we have an incredibly dispersed and diverse landscape of memory-making, and the more digital we get, the most diverse it gets,” Professor Victoria Grace Richardson-Walden, Director of the Landecker Digital Memory Lab at the University of Sussex, told UN News. As Holocaust survivors age and first-hand testimony becomes rarer, educators, researchers and […]

Here’s what you need to know: Fighting and dire humanitarian conditions triggered by the conflict that erupted among rival militaries in Sudan in April 2023 have so far displaced 14 million people, spilling over to the country’s seven bordering neighbour nations, according to the UN. Few places are feeling the effects of the ongoing war as […]

Matthias Schmale was “appalled” by the attacks in Dnipro, Kharkiv and Kyiv, noting that many more people in several regions – including Dnipro, Odesa and Vinnitsya – are facing power outages.  “Systematic attacks by the Russian Federation Armed Forces on critical infrastructure affect the daily lives of millions and cause life-threatening conditions for the most vulnerable, including older people and children,” he said in a […]