KENYA: Many sex workers are married, new report reveals

Photo: Siegfried Modola/IRIN

The government says it recognizes the need to create safe access to HIV services for often marginalized high-risk groups like sex workers (file photo)

NAIROBI,  – A new survey of commercial sex work in Kenya, the first to include male sex workers, has revealed that 40 percent of female and male commercial sex workers are in marriages or stable unions.

According to the survey by the National AIDS and Sexually transmitted infections Control Programme (NASCOP), the World Bank, Kenya Prisons and Canada’s University of Manitoba, there are an estimated 200,000 commercial sex workers in Kenya, 15,000 of whom are men.

The study, which covered all the country’s urban areas with the exception of North Eastern Province, found that Rift Valley and Nairobi provinces had the biggest number of sex workers.

“[A] majority of the male commercial sex workers have sex with men, and this puts them at greater risk because anal sex, as is already known, is a catalyst for the spread of HIV, and because of the stigma involved, many do not seek services like HIV testing,” said Nicholas Muraguri, head of NASCOP.

Muraguri said the high number of married commercial sex workers could accelerate the spread of HIV within marriage – statistics show that people in stable sexual partnerships account for 44 percent of new HIV infections.

“Their spouses or girlfriends or boyfriends do not know they are engaged in commercial sex work, which puts marriages and stable unions at even greater risk of HIV,” he pointed out.

The survey did not asses the level of condom use between sex workers and their clients, but Muraguri told IRIN/PlusNews initial studies had shown that “The level of condom use between them [sex workers] and their clients is just slightly above 50 percent, which is worrying. Sex workers tend not to use condoms with their regular clients.”

Their spouses… do not know they are engaged in commercial sex work, which puts marriages and stable unions at even greater risk of HIV

According to the Kenya HIV Prevention Response and Modes of Transmission Analysis, 2009, commercial sex workers and their clients together contribute 14 percent of all new HIV infections, while men who have sex with men and prisons account for 15.2 percent.

The Kenya National AIDS Strategic Plan 2009-13 identifies the most at-risk populations as key drivers of new HIV infections, making up one-third of all new cases.

Muraguri said the government has recognized the need to create safe access to HIV services for often marginalized high-risk groups.

“These are groups that continue to operate secretively because there are no safe conditions for them,” he said. “We must provide this [access] either within the law or through change in societal mentality to ensure they receive services to save them and the general population.”

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source www.irinnews.org

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Climate change and public health are priority areas in the new round of EEA Grants to Portugal. Some NOK 440 million has been allocated for the period 2009-14.

“The new round of EEA Grants will boost cooperation between Norway and Portugal,” said Foreign Minister Jonas Gahr Støre.

The MoU on the Implementation of the EEA Grants was signed in Lisbon on Wednesday. A number of Norwegian public institutions are engaged in developing the various programmes. The Norwegian Institute of Public Health will cooperate with the Portugese Ministry of Health. Health inequalities related to income and living standards pose a challenge. The EEA Grants are intended to help reduce these disparities. The purpose of the grant is also to support Portugal in its efforts to improve its national health systems. About NOK 75 million is earmarked for various measures in the health sector.

Adaptation to climate change is another priority area for the EEA Grants in Portugal. It is important to take climate change into account in social planning. This requires cooperation between many different sectors and administrative levels. The Norwegian Directorate for Civil Protection and Emergency Planning will cooperate with the Portuguese authorities on projects in this area.

The EEA Grants are also intended to improve environmental monitoring in Portuguese marine waters and coastal areas. The Norwegian Mapping Authority will participate in one of the projects in this programme area. Some of the funds will also be used to increase renewable energy production. About NOK 200 million of the EEA funds has been allocated for environmental projects.

The EEA Grants are also intended to support measures to promote gender equality and conserve important European cultural heritage sites. The Arts Council Norway will participate in a project designed to promote cultural diversity and exchanges between Norwegian and Portuguese artists.

Support for civil society has been more than doubled since the previous period. A total of some NOK 40 million has been earmarked for NGOs in Portugal.

With today’s agreement, MoUs on the implementation of the EEA and Norway Grants for the period 2009-14 have been signed with all 15 beneficiary states. A total of some NOK 14 billion has been allocated for this purpose. Norway provides 97% of the funding provided through the EEA and Norway Grants. The rest is provided by Iceland and Liechtenstein. This is Norway’s contribution to reducing social and economic disparities in Europe. It is also intended to strengthen cooperation and contact between Norway and the beneficiary states.

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source mfa.no

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Briefing: War and peace – repeating the cycle

Photo: Tugela Ridley/IRIN

The cycle of violence between north and south has been going on for decades (file photo)

BAMAKO,  – During a visit to Bamako, capital of Mali, on 26 February, French Foreign Minister Alain Juppé observed that the Malian government would be best advised to sit down and negotiate with the MNLA (Mouvement National pour la liberation de l’Azawad), which is fighting to carve out an independent state in the north.

He faced a barrage of criticism for legitimizing a rebel movement seen by many in the south as sectarian opportunists.

The French colonial government would not have sued for peace with the Tuareg insurgents, whose sporadic but often effective resistance delayed the conquest of northern Mali and kept the region a military territory. The French established a fortress at Kidal in the Adrar des Ifoghas in 1908, but struggled to win recognition from the more entrenched Tuareg leaders, who resented France’s attempts to take over trans-Saharan trade, impose punitive taxation, and interfere in the Tuaregs’ relations with sedentary communities. There were accusations from Kidal and Gao of the colonialists using divide-and-rule tactics, and exploiting long-standing feuds and territorial disputes between different Tuareg confederations.

Having seen off a small uprising in Ménaka in 1911, the French faced a much more significant insurrection in 1916 – the so-called ‘Kaocen Revolt’, named after its leader, Kaocen Ag Mohamed – when a Tuareg force, strongly influenced by Sufi anti-colonial religious leaders and suffering from the effects of severe drought, occupied large parts of what is now northern Niger before losing ground and being brutally countered by the French military the following year.

In the run-up to independence in 1960, there were hints from Paris that the Organisation Commune des Régions Sahariennes (or Organization of the Saharan Regions, OCRS), could maintain control of desert areas in Mali and surrounding states. The OCRS was dissolved, but the sporadic recurrence of similar proposals has fuelled suspicions in Bamako of French plots to destabilize Mali and work for a mineral-rich, pliant Saharan state, occupied by Tuaregs but controlled by Paris.

The ‘Alfellaga’ – a rebellion crushed

Well before the French withdrawal in 1960, there were strong signals of discontent from Tuareg leaders about the prospect of integration into a new state. The post-independence administration, led by the fiercely nationalist, Marxist-influenced Modibo Keita, held little appeal for nomadic communities, who encountered unwelcome changes in land ownership rules, a rigid adherence to established boundaries, and new bureaucratic controls. Tuareg trading links were much stronger with Algeria in the north than with Bamako in the south.

The north was very much a country apart, viewed with suspicion and hostility by many in the south. Sparsely populated, but covering a vast land mass, it barely featured in Keita’s plans for national development. Civil servants sent to the north reportedly viewed their deployment there as akin to a prison sentence.

*** The rebellion that broke out in 1962, known as the Alfellaga, was launched from Kidal, and featured a low-intensity campaign of hit-and-run attacks, but triggered an all-out response from Keita’s military. Thousands fled. The well-documented massacres of civilians, poisoning of wells and destruction of livestock have been repeatedly referenced in Tuareg literature and music, and in the manifestoes and programmes of later rebel movements. An Open Letter from Tuareg Women to the European Parliament in 1994 catalogued a series of atrocities from this period, “from the extermination of entire camps to public executions, the burning alive of civilians, and the deaths of women and children in prison”.

Migrating from the margins

President Modibo Keita (1960-1968) and his successor, Moussa Traoré (1968-1991), were both accused of militarizing the north, starving it of resources and clamping down on all signs of an autonomous Tamasheq cultural identity. The region was also hit by devastating droughts in 1972-73 and 1984-85, which decimated livestock, wrecked pasture and crippled livelihoods. Many Tuaregs switched uneasily to farming and forms of hired work, but the growing impoverishment triggered a huge exodus to urban centres in Mali and North Africa..

Many of those leaving were absorbed into the then expanding oil economies in Algeria and Libya, or went further afield to the Middle East. Libyan leader Colonel Muammar Gaddafi, already a self-anointed champion of the Tuareg cause, deployed hundreds of Tuaregs in the failed border war with Chad in 1986.

Returning with guns

Defeat in Chad and economic downturns in Algeria and Libya helped force a return of Tuareg combatants and ordinary civilians to Niger and Mali in the late 1980s.

Migrants in Libya, quite possibly with Gaddafi’s backing, had already formed a new Tuareg rebel movement, the Mouvement Populaire pour la Libération de l’Azawad (MPLA or Popular Movement for the Liberation of Azawad) in 1988, led by Iyad Ag Ghali and later renamed the Mouvement Populaire de l’Azaouad (MPA, or Popular Movement of Azawad).

In what was to become a recurring pattern in Mali and Niger, rival movements, often with different regional bases and support networks, rapidly emerged.

In Mali the MPLA was joined by the Arab-led Front Islamique Armée de L’Azawad (FIAA, or Islamic Front Army of Azawad), the Front populaire pour la libération de l’Azaoud (FPLA, or the Popular Front for the Liberation of Azawad) and the Armée révolutionnaire pour la libération de l’Azawad (ARLA, or Revolutionary Army for the Liberation of Azawad). All these eventually merged into the Mouvements et Fronts Unifiés de l’Azaouad (MFUA or Unified Movements and Fronts of Azawad) – at least for the purpose of signing a peace agreement – but retained their own identities.

The new combatants announced their presence with an attack on both the prison and garrison at Ménaka in June 1990. They had nothing like the arsenal of the next generation in 2011, but enough guns, vehicles and military savoir faire to quickly embarrass a demoralized, poorly paid army, fighting for a regime facing mass protests in the south, and which would be ousted in March 1991.

The road to Timbuktu – looking for a lasting peace

Algeria brokered a first peace accord in Tamanrasset (in Algeria) in January 1991, but the violence continued. Even after President Traoré’s overthrow and the installation of the Comité de Transition pour le Salut du Peuple (CTSP or Transitional Committee for the Salvation of the People), headed by Amdou Toumani Touré, atrocities continued. For example, over 40 Tuaregs and Arabs were killed by government troops at Léré, near Timbuktu in May 1991.

The CTSP’s programme of nation-building, typified by the National Conference in Bamako in July-August 1991 and the agreement on a new constitution, included dealing with the north.

The ‘Pacte National’ signed by the government and the MFUA in April 1992, went far beyond a straightforward truce. Its recommendations provided for: integrating former rebels into improvised military structures; an Independent Commission of Enquiry to look at human rights violations; another commission to monitor ceasefire arrangements; a special status, or ‘Statut Particulier’, for the north, taking account of past neglect, giving the region its own Commissariat, and new regional and local assemblies. There would be seats in parliament for formerly displaced people, donor-backed funding for growth and investment, roads and schools. The Malian military would pull back, scaling down troop deployments and bases.

Predictably, the Pact was easier to sign than to implement. An extremely volatile four-year period followed, marked by mutinies, inter-rebel disputes and serious outbreaks of inter-communal violence. Tensions in the north between nomadic and sedentary communities, already worsened by the loss of pasture and the scarcity of water, required careful handling.

The Mouvement Patriotique Ganda Koye (MPGK), formed in 1994 as a self-defence militia, drawn mainly from the Songhai community and led by ex-army officers, was a dangerous development. Ganda Koye quickly gained a reputation for indiscriminate reprisal actions against Tuareg and Arab communities, while rebel movements, particularly Front Islamique Armé de L’Azawad (FIAA) sometimes replied in kind.

Huge efforts were made to make the Pacte Nationale work. Mali’s new President, Alpha Konaré (1992-2002), preached peace and coexistence in the north. Tuareg movements began to reject unrealistic promises. An emerging civil society worked tirelessly on peace messages and got peace agreements signed at local level in areas like Ménaka and Gao. Outside experts like former French minister Edgar Pisani, philosopher Ahmed Baba Miské of Mauritania, and Norwegian Kare Lode, lent their weight to peace-building at grassroots and national level.

In March 1996, 10,000 people in Timbuktu watched as some 2,700 firearms were destroyed, symbolizing the end of the conflict, and the rebel movements were dissolved. “Truly, this is a story for our times,” said Kalif Keita, former Commander of Mali’s 5th Military Region, the Timbuktu area.

Ten years later, a new insurgency was announced on 23 May 2006 with raids on garrisons at Kidal and Ménaka, opening up a new cycle of violence and a weary sense of déjà vu for those who had lived through previous rebellions.

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source www.irinnews.org

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ISRAEL: Deportation looms for South Sudan migrants

Photo: Tamar Dressler/IRIN

South Sudanese children at a protest against Israeli government directive to return home by the end of March

TEL AVIV,  – Asylum-seekers from South Sudan living in Israel have until 31 March to return “home” or face deportation, but some have asked to stay, saying conditions are not yet conducive for their safe return.

According to Israeli Interior Minister Sabine Haddad, South Sudan nationals living in Israel will no longer be given protected status after the deadline. Until then, he added, they will be offered voluntary deportation and around US$1,300.

But Natalina, a 46-year-old single mother of three who arrived in Israel six years ago after spending 12 years is Cairo, said she would find it difficult to leave. “I don’t want to take [the children] back because I know their lives will change dramatically,” she told IRIN. “I have no one in Sudan, I know no one there – no family, nothing. I haven’t been there in 18 years, I am a single Mum and I cannot afford to pay for medical treatment and education in South Sudan.”

Natalina, whose three children aged 7, 9 and 15 are enrolled in Israeli schools, said she and some 700 other South Sudanese asylum-seekers received notice from the Ministry of Interior three months ago, asking them to report for repatriation by 31 March 2012 or be declared illegal aliens in Israel.

“I do not wish to see my children suffer. We’ve had meetings with the Israeli government but they will not give us answers. If they decide to do this (send asylum-seekers back) by 31 March, I will disappear, I cannot go back,” said Natalina, a prominent leader of the small community of South Sudanese in Israel.

The Israeli authorities, in a January letter circulated among the South Sudanese community, said the new state was safe.

Xenophobia

Over the past two years, some 1,200 asylum-seekers returned to South Sudan under a repatriation programme arranged by NGOs, even before that country got independence. Some sources said the returnees were being encouraged to leave by the harsh conditions in which the community lives, and the xenophobia directed at them by Israelis.

Last week, some South Sudanese and Israelis held a protest in Tel Aviv against “forced repatriation”, saying it was against international treaties and contrary to new information about the state of security in South Sudan. The Israeli Foreign Ministry rejected the claims.

“We are going to be ready, we do not want to go back,” said Simon, a South Sudanese community leader who left his country 17 years ago. “We don’t want to stay in Israel, but our country is not safe, our children know nothing of Sudan.”

Of the 700 asylum-seekers who received notice, he said, nearly 400 were children under 18. Israeli authorities believe the overall number of South Sudanese is around 1,000.

“We are not asking to stay forever, but to be given enough time until the new state recovers somewhat,” Simon explained. “I know of many repatriated community members who were forced to flee again to the north, to Kenya or Uganda. South Sudan is only seven months old and still a failed state.”

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source www.irinnews.org

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SOMALIA: Border town in a fix over water

Photo: Mohamed Amin Jibril/IRIN

Water is getting costlier in parts of Somaliland

HARGEISA,  – Water scarcity in Tog-Wajale, a town straddling the border between northwest Somalia’s self-declared republic of Somaliland and Ethiopia, is threatening the health and livelihoods of locals who cannot afford to buy it.

“One barrel of water [200 litres] was only 20 [Ethiopian] birr [US$1], but the price has now reached about 50 Ethiopian birr [$2.5],” said Ahmed Jama Weirah, a father of seven in Tog-Wajale. “We can’t provide for our families… because our earnings are not enough to provide food and water.”

The Somaliland side of Tog-Wajale has had no official water supply since 1995, following the closure of the town’s only well, which had fallen into disrepair. The town’s main water sources are a seasonal river that acts as the border between Somaliland and Ethiopia, and expensive pumped water from Ethiopia.

“Now the [river] water is over and we can’t afford to buy imported water,” said Weirah.

“While livestock have been moved further north where they can find water, townsfolk face water scarcity,” said Abdillahi Omar, a resident. “Some families use less than 20 litres per day to cook meals, and they don’t take a bath for several days.”

Local officials told IRIN they hoped the rains would start soon, but were focusing on long-term solutions.

The dysfunctional well used to supply less than 2,000 litres of water a day, so repairing it would not provide sufficient water for the town’s estimated 40,000 people (up from 10,000 in 1995), said Hashi Mohamed Abdi, the mayor of Tog-Wajale. 

Currently about 20,000 litres are pumped from Ethiopia every day, “which is not enough”, he said, adding that water was also trucked in from Kalabiat and Gabiley to the northeast of Tog-Wajale.

However, the future looks brighter as the European Union (EU) has agreed to fund a water project in the town.

The EU is funding water projects in several Somaliland towns, including Hargeisa, Burao, Erigavo and Tog-Wajale; the Tog-Wajale water project is due for completion in 2015. 

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SUDAN-SOUTH SUDAN: Hamid Yussef Bashir, “People end up fighting at the water point”

Photo: Hannah McNeish/IRIN

“It took 17 days to walk here”

JAMAM,  – Hamid Yussef Bashir, 30, is one of around 37,000 refugees in Jamam camp in South Sudan’s Upper Nile State, a place beleaguered by chronic water shortages, a diet of sorghum that refugees say is not enough, and where most residents are camped on a floodplain weeks ahead of the rainy season.

Aid agencies are also battling problems of drilling enough boreholes and pre-positioning enough food before the rains come. The USA has warned of famine-like conditions in Upper Nile and neighbouring South Kordofan State in Sudan where government forces are battling rebels and Sudanese President Omar al Bashir has restricted humanitarian aid. Jamam’s population is expected to swell to up to 80,000 when food north of the border runs out, if people can make the arduous journey through battlefields and escape aerial bombardment.

Huddled next to a makeshift tent with his five children crouching round the embers of a morning fire, Hamid Yussef Bashir recounts the story of how and why he fled Sudan’s war-torn Blue Nile State:

“When we see the Antonov [plane] activities we’re not really comfortable, that’s when we took the decision to leave because we were really in fear.

“When we saw the soldiers killed by the bombardment, that’s when we got scared and decided to go for hiding. A lot of people died on the way when they tried to escape. It was raining. There were no shelters, so most of them lost their lives trying to come this side.

“It took 17 days to walk here.

“We were facing hunger on the way, and that’s how other people starved to death, and with the rains, a lot of people lost their lives from pneumonia.

“The water here is not enough… People end up fighting at the water point. People stay at the long queue all day, so you end up only doing one thing and not doing any other activities – only fetching water. 

“We used to have an income from goods, we used to have livestock. When we were coming here most of them died on the way, and now we are living only on sorghum. 

“We don’t have anything extra to do to bring money in, so we only wait for the sorghum, nothing else. It’s not enough.

“If I go back home I will suffer, as I know there is nothing to eat. So I don’t think that I will go back, as I won’t survive.

“I only hope for the best life for my children. If they can get education and feed well that will be better for them.”

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source www.irinnews.org

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Norway calls on Sudan and South Sudan to refrain from using military force along the border between the two countries.

“We are deeply concerned about reports of military clashes in the border areas between Sudan and South Sudan. The parties must immediately halt all use of military force and withdraw to areas well within their own borders,” said Foreign Minister Jonas Gahr Støre.

On Monday, fighting broke out between troops from Sudan and South Sudan in the disputed oil region along the border. This has come just before the planned summit between President al-Bashir of Sudan and President Kiir of South Sudan scheduled for early April. The summit is important in order to increase momentum in the negotiations between the two countries on oil transport, border demarcation, citizenship and other issues. The military clashes could upset plans for the meeting between the two heads of state. This could have a negative impact on the difficult  negotiations taking place in Addis Ababa under the leadership of the African Union and former President Thabo Mbeki.

“We will contact with the leaders in both countries and in the region with a view to persuading the parties to show restraint and refrain from further provocation. It is important that the summit goes ahead according to plan,” said Mr Støre.

Norway is supporting the negotiations, among other things by making Norwegian petroleum expertise available to the AU’s negotiating panel.

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source mfa.no

SOMALIA: Hargeisa stall demolitions infuriate traders

Photo: Mohamed Amin Jibril/IRIN

Out of business – thousands of stalls like this have been demolished in Hargeisa

HARGEISA,  – Thousands of traders in Hargeisa, capital of the self-declared republic of Somaliland, are incensed at having their businesses demolished in a city beautification drive, and some fear the move could lead to a crime wave.

An estimated 5,000 traders have lost their only source of livelihood, Abdillahi Hassan, a human rights activist in Hargeisa, told IRIN. 

“Every small business was a source of income for a family… The local government used force destroying the buildings, as well as the property inside. For this reason a lot of families have also lost their capital,” he said.

On 6 March, at least one person was shot dead and several others injured when traders confronted the police.

Zahra Hussein Ismail, 60, who had her stall bulldozed, said she now has virtually no income and fears the demolitions might lead to an increase in crime.

“I come from a family of 20. We used to get our livelihood from an eating house in down-town Hargeisa. After it was demolished we lost about 90 percent of our income… We are afraid our teenage youngsters who used to do business in the streets may become gangsters due to the closure of their businesses.”

Government officials say a growing population and an increasing number of vehicles have made movement within the city difficult, hence the need to demolish makeshift stalls along crowded city streets.

Hussein Mohamoud Ji’ir, mayor of Hargeisa, told IRIN part of the project to revamp the city required the removal of makeshift stalls: “We are not accepting in the street smaller vendor-businesses.”

The stallholders say they have received no compensation and that the government is not offering any alternative vendor sites, despite previous promises.

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source www.irinnews.org

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