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United Nations Fights Human Trafficking September 7th, 2012
In New York, the NGOs (non-governmental organizations) through their Stop Trafficking in Persons Committee is focusing on world sports events where sponsoring businesses can make a big difference in stopping human trafficking. In particular, task force members wrote letters to the London Olympics Organizing Committee and all Olympic sponsors asking them to take a public stand against human trafficking. Companies can prevent human trafficking by evaluating their supply chains in order to end forced labor, child labor, and unscrupulous recruitment practices.
The United Nations Global Initiative to Fight Human Trafficking, UN.GIFT, has as its mission to promote a global approach to the problem of trafficking in persons. Trafficking criminal networks are so extensive that they cannot be dismantled by governments alone. Trafficking is an organized crime so it must be fought in an organized way. UN.GIFT makes an effort to involve all stakeholders — business, academia, governments, civil society and the media – in partnerships against trafficking.
For further details or to support UN.GIFT, go to www.ungift.org/knowledgehub/en/about/index.html
UN News… August 31st, 2012
DID YOU KNOW THAT EVERY DAY THE UNITED NATIONS:
- Provides food to 108 million people in 74 countries
- Vaccinates 40 per cent of the world’s children, saving 2 million lives a year
- Assists over 34 million refugees and others fleeing war, famine or persecution
- Fights climate change and leads a campaign to plant 1 billion trees a year
- Keeps the peace with 116,000 peacekeepers in 17 operations on 4 continents
- Fights poverty and helped 300 million rural poor achieve better lives in the last 30 years
- Monitors, promotes, protects and develops human rights worldwide.
(From the Outreach Division, Department of Information of the United Nations)
ANNUAL MINISTERIAL REVIEW: PROGRESS ON INTERNATIONAL GOALS
Each year the UN Economic and Social Council holds an annual ministerial review, in which various countries share their progress on implementing international goals at a national level, including the Millennium Development Goals. Brazil and Kenya, two countries in which the Missionary Oblates of Mary Immaculate and VIVAT International minister, were included this year. Both countries focused on specific initiatives by which they have promoted full employment and productive capacity, essential for achieving poverty eradication, and acknowledged the many difficulties still ahead.
Support the Call for a Special Rapporteur on HR and Climate Change May 25th, 2012
A group of NGOs, including VIVAT International, has issued a petition calling for a Special Rapporteur on Human Rights and Climate Change at the Human Rights Council. VIVAT International, of which the Oblates are a member, is a strong supporter of this petition and is asking members of our network to support the initiative.
We encourage you to sign on as an individual or on behalf of your congregation, if you are delegated to do so.
To read and sign the petition please visit the following link: http://www.petitions24.com/sr_human_rights_and_climate_change
According to the UN, “global warming will affect, and already is affecting, the basic elements of life for millions of people around the world. Effects include an increasing frequency of extreme weather events, rising sea levels, droughts, increasing water shortages, and the spread of tropical and vector born diseases.”
“Viewing the data through a human rights lens, it is clear that projected climate change-related effects threaten the effective enjoyment of a range of human rights, such as the right to safe and adequate water and food, the right to health and adequate housing. Equally, the human rights perspective brings into focus that climate change is set to hit the poorest countries and communities the hardest.”
“The international human rights standards serve as a guide for measures to tackle climate change, underscoring the fundamental moral and legal obligations to protect and promote full enjoyment of the rights enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and in the core universal human rights treaties.”
Impacts of Mining Exhibit at the UN hosted by VIVAT International May 1st, 2012
The Missionary Oblates and VIVAT International will host a multi-media exhibit on the impacts of mining operations on people and ecosystems around the world on May 8th at the United Nations. This unique exhibit will be up for viewing from 11:00-3:00 pm in the Chapel at the Church Center for the United Nations. May 8th is the second day of the Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues, the theme of which is the Doctrine of Discovery. The exhibit organizers have reached out through their global faith-based networks for stories and images from local communities affected by mining operations. If you are in New York on May 8th, please attend!
Goals of the exhibit include:
- Bearing witness to the suffering of the Earth and its peoples as a consequence of extractive industry abuses;
- Underscoring the necessity of industry standards in preventing mining abuses; and
- Revealing the courageous resistance of peoples all over the world to inadequate extractive industry standards.
At 2:30, there will be a special 15 minute commemoration of those who have been murdered around the world as a result due to their community resistance against the consequences of extractive industry on their communities.
UNCTAD Meeting Overcomes Serious Disagreements April 27th, 2012
At a contentious meeting of the UN Commission on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) ending Thursday in Doha, Qatar, the role of the UN organization in examining trade and development was confirmed, but not after a week of hard debate. The Doha Mandate, adopted by consensus by the member States, requests that UNCTAD continue its work along the three pillars of consensus-building, policy research and technical assistance. “UNCTAD remains the focal point in the United Nations for the integrated treatment of trade and development, and interrelated issues in the areas of finance, technology, investment and sustainable development,” reads part of the agreed text.
Profound discord between industrialized nations and developing countries threatened to ruin the UNCTAD meeting in Doha, and endangered the survival of this United Nations body that defends the interests of the developing nations of the South. Disagreements between the blocs, broadly identified as countries of the North and of the South, have arisen mainly from differing views of UNCTAD’s mandate and different visions of development and how it relates to social, environmental, economic and financial variables. One important area under discussion involved giving UNCTAD a mandate to investigate the current global financial crisis and its effects on the real economy, something for which developing countries and NGOs pressed, but which industrialized countries rejected out of hand.
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