As representatives of the Signatories of FOREST EUROPE, we share a vision:

 ”To shape a future where all European forests are vital, productive and multifunctional. Where forests contribute effectively to sustainable development, through ensuring human well-being, a healthy environment
and economic development in Europe and across the globe. Where the forests’ unique potential to support a green economy, livehoods, climate change mitigation, biodiversity conservation, enhancing water quality and combating desertification is realized to the benefit of society.”
2012/06/29

A dozen of experts from different backgrounds, academia, scientist, NGO’s, FOREST EUROPE member’s representatives, gathered today in Madrid in the kick-off meeting set to explore and introduce a pan-European approach to evaluate forest ecosystem services and means to facilitate its implementation.

  _____ 
 2012/06/28

More than 40 members of Forest Communicators Network (FCN) met in Antalya, Turkey, from June 19th to June 21st to share experiences and start collaborative actions on communicating about forests initiatives.
FAO Report Puts Forests at the Heart of a Greener Economy

2012/09/25

The world’s forests have a major role to play in the transition to a new, greener economy, a theme discussed at the Rio+20 Conference. But to spark that shift, governments must enact programs and policies aimed at both unlocking the potential of forests and ensuring that they are sustainably managed.
LUM and Slovak Embassy in Madrid Join Forces to Support FOREST EUROPE
Process

2012/06/08

FOREST EUROPE LIAISON Unit Madrid (LUM) met Slovakia’s representative in
the Madrid embassy this week. The Head of the LUM, Ana Belén Noriega, and Economic and Commercial Adviser of the Slovak Embassy, Rastislav HINDICKY, discussed for more than an hour future collaborations now that Spain holds the Co-chairmanship of FOREST EUROPE.

Slovakia will follow Norway in the co-presidency turn during the second half of this period lead by Spain, and the next Liaison Unit will be located in Bratislava.
FOREST EUROPE Launches International Workshop on Governance and Forest Law Enforcement

2012/06/08

FOREST EUROPE Liaison Unit Madrid announces the launching of the “International Workshop on Governance and Forest Law Enforcement”
jointly organized with the Regional Environmental Centre (REC). The Ministry of Rural Development of Hungary has kindly offered its headquarter offices in Budapest (Hungary) to host this event on the 13th and 14th of November.

Filed by FOREST EUROPE, Liaison Unit Madrid

———-

Fiat Justilia, rual coelum
Translation: “Let justice be done, though the heavens fall.”

By Reverend Lainie Dowell, USA
Politicians, news pundits, lawyers, and citizens are now engaged in vain disputations about what has become known across the nation as the ObamaCare Health law only because of the unlawful actions taken, in turn, by the United States Congress (Legislative Branch), the Obama Administration (Executive Branch), and the Supreme Court under Chief Justice John Roberts  (Judicial Branch).

Despite evidence which points to tyranny and betrayal from every area of government and life throughout America, citizens look on with wonder and appear helpless  to do anything but watch the continued weakening of the United States Constitution spurred on by the man at the helm of this capitalist government who presents as a stranger in the White House by the name of Barack Hussein Obama.

Obama has managed to introduce into the national dialogue his own misguided notion that he is untouchable, beautiful, and above the Constitution, the rule of law, and even our God. He has convinced himself, his “partnerships,” and so many elected officials and even our military that since he is President of these United States of America and the Commander in Chief of the Military, that he is entitled to arbitrarily and “fundamentally transform” America into his image with impunity and without accountability. Furthermore, anybody who challenges Obama more than likely will be labelled as racists, because he used his color, black, as a weapon, to subject any who oppose him to be ridiculed and bombarded with lies about them from Obama and his supporters. And it makes no difference to them what position their “targets” hold.

For decades, Obama and his wife, Michelle, have deliberately, knowingly, and willfully, perpetrated a fraud on the court and the American citizens. In addition, they have both brazenly committed perjury by misrepresenting as truth on official documents they have filed, information they knew to be false, in order to enable both Obamas to campaign for public offices, which have led to his campaign, nomination, inauguration and first term in the Office of President. What’s more, they have made no secret of the fact that they have continued to conspire with this nation’s enemies, foreign and domestic, in order to totally destroy America, and Israel, too.

They have both consorted with many anti-American factions to form their own grassroots coalitions and partnerships in an attempt to set up their own little government inside of this Republic and to enable them to accumulate enough money in their coffers to further tear down every one of our freedoms guaranteed by the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence and to cannabalize and socialize a generational future never imagined on these shores.

Presenting A Case of First Impression Lodged Directly Against the Roberts Supreme Court of the United States of America

Early in the morning of Monday, July 2, 2012, I had already begun tweeting messages about the recent Roberts Court decision, with a call for it to be challenged, stating as follows:
http://twitter.com/clergywomen/statuses/219715620785242113
‪#AMERICANS‬ SUFFER INJUSTICES B/C ELECTED LDRS EITHER KNOW & IGNORE, OR DON’T KNOW OR CARE ABT, ‪#CONSTITUTIONAL‬ FDN.-me ‪#freedomfever‬ ‪#obama 

http://twitter.com/clergywomen/statuses/219713055209168896
‪#CHIEFJUSTICE‬ ‪#ROBERTS‬ CREATED A GREATER INJUSTICE THAN ‪#OBAMA‬’S B/C ROBERTS IGNORED ‪#CONSTITUTION‬ FDN *LIMITS.*-me ‪#freedomfever‬ ‪#repubs

http://twitter.com/clergywomen/statuses/219714551678111744

‪#ROBERT‬’S COURT RULING HAS 2B CHALLENGED LIKE NONE OTHER B/C BASED ON ‪#CONSTITUTION‬ IT’S IN ERROR. CHECK IT.-me
‪#freedomfever‬ ‪#repubs‬ ‪#obama

Our entire legal system is broken and all systems of this government have aided and abetted the weakening of the foundation set in place by our forefathers to hold the Constitution “in perpetuity.” However, the legal community has cowardly allowed Americans to limp along on erroneous unconstitutional legal grounds for so long they managed to even convince citizens that all was right in the land when, in fact, nothing could have been any more wrong. However, the June 28, 2012, shocker of the decision from the Roberts Court regarding the Obama Administration Health Care mandated law, has caused a lot of people to sit up and take notice. Even so, many in Congress, the legal professions, and the news media remain of the opinion that we are stuck with that decision and every other improper ruling made by the court. I, along with so many others, disagree. And, it is time for the country to stop being run by corrupt lawyers, judges, and anti-American, anti-Constitutional elected and unelected foes. America is not for sale to the highest bidder and neither are citizens. We are not chattel, property, or what Michelle Obama calls, “ASSETS” to forever manipulate and maneuver, at their every whim; and, God and our Constitution be damned.
Case in point
Obama and his team created a staw man argument in re “tax” vs “penalty” in order to deflect questioners from the relevant material point that he has presented no valid Constitutional evidence that he has the authority to even be in the Office of the President of the United States of America. Despite the recent legal shenanigans, Republicans and news pundits still fail to see the wider picture that reveals how Obama’s Alinsky “Rules,” he used and taught to others as a community organizer, have gotten him what he has wanted in spite of the underhanded way it came about.

Chief Justice Roberts recently overstepped his judiciary limitations when he brushed the USA Constitution aside and rewrote the (already) unconstitutional healthcare Obama law which was pending on appeal before the Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS). Yet Republicans and news media accept that is the way it is and must remain until and unless another event piles on to it.

Now is the time to step up and reject such ongoing repugnancy to this nation’s rule of law and strong standing in the world.

Once SCOTUS had made a valid finding that the government (Obama Administration) did not prove its case under its own presentation and legal arguments (i.e., their stated “penalty” under the commerce law), Chief Justice Roberts became obligated at that point to have declared that issue to be null and void, because it did not meet the Constitutional standard under the government’s own briefed and stated argument. On the contrary, instead of Chief Justice Roberts ruling in accordance with the Supreme Law of the land, he also proceeded to circumvent the USA Congress and he also usurped the Constitutional authority of the legislative branch. And, thereby, Chief Roberts, himself, illegally and unconstitutionally legislated from the bench in violation of the enumerated powers of the Constitution without regard for the limited powers thereto.

Moreover, Roberts was not legally authorized, thereafter, to remand that case to “we the people,” for their determination about the issue at a later date, presumably during the November 2012 Presidential Election.

But for that unauthorized unconstitutional occurrence instigated by SCOTUS, there would be no need to continue this needless confusion and ambivalence about whether or not the Obama Health Care mandate and their “penalty” was created in violation of the constitution. And that is the issue which should have stopped the government’s case in its tracks from becoming the unconstitutional law of the land. Then, SCOTUS could have legally allowed the appropriate course of action to return the issue to the legislative branch for an orderly debate and further action upon it. Remember, too, that not one Republican in either the House of Representatives or in the Senate voted to enact that huge bill into law before it made its way to become law after Obama signed it and on to SCOTUS, following objections to it by the American people.

Congress is the only legislative body given that authority by the Constitution, as the representatives of we the people. Yet, the Obama Administration, along with the Democrat Party in the House of Representatives and in the Senate, now as the Progressive Party, had maintained during the legislative process that they were not passing “a (lawful) tax,” but that it was “a (commerce) penalty” against all citizens who would not comply with the government healthcare mandate to require all citizens to buy health insurance or else face penalties imposed by a newer bulked up IRS.

At the same time, the Obama Administration began authorizing waivers to friends, family, and neighbors they deemed to be worthy of escape from that monster. That administration also began to enact regulations, policies, and procedures and increase costs on a law that was not set to go into effect until after 2013 and closer to 2016.

However, once the government entered into the Supreme Court appeals process and realized their “penalty” would not pass Constitutional muster with the court, they switched to another tactic and asked the court to reconsider their “penalty” as being “a tax,” instead. In affect, what that governmental request did was to once again act to circumvent the Congress and ask the court to rule on that legislative issue by fiat from the bench. And, as it turned out, that is just what Chief Justice Roberts did following a public scolding by Barack Obama from the White House Rose Garden and by Senator Patrick Leahy, speaking against SCOTUS from the Senate floor. It was rightly perceived as a means to intimidate and warn SCOTUS to vote in the government’s favor — or else what?!

Was that the case? What is it about the strange relationship between Obama and Chief Justice Roberts that makes Obama feel confident enough to publicly berate the SCOTUS (and to do so privately, as when Roberts went to the White House in January 2009 after the inauguration and quietly gave Obama a second oath of office)?

Historically, the founding fathers wrote the Constitution in such a way that it would stand in perpetuity. And, so it has. Nevertheless, over time, many administrations since have weakened that foundation. However, none has done so as blatantly as the Obama Administration. So we find ourselves in another Constitutional crisis mode in which the court, itself, has publicly and tragically veered from the Constitution for purely political reasons instead of acting within the lawful limitations of the purview of the United States Constitution, settled as the Supreme Law of the Land.
A CASE OF FIRST IMPRESSION EVOLVES AGAINST SCOTUS
It appears the circumstances were created by SCOTUS, itself, which worked to trigger a case of first impression against them. To say nothing of the fact that Obama’s appointed Justice Kagan who was now sitting on that court had refused to recuse herself from the deliberations and ruling in that case, which she did with the blessings of Chief Justice Roberts. But, as a lawyer, she had hands on participation in creating that Obama health care mandate issue which was now pending before the court.

In addition to the Constitutional foundations, individual citizens have the guaranteed right to petition the government for redress via the Declaration of Independence. And, that is among other rights so delineated therein, to remain intact no matter how many various and sundry courts may have watered down those rights. The Constitution gives no person or organization arbitrary authority to do anything that is clearly outside the limitations contained within that founding document, the Constitution and its enumerated powers and limitations, thereto.

A CITIZEN’S PETITION FOR CONGRESSIONAL REDRESS

To my good faith knowledge, information, and belief, there has not been a challenge made directly to any of the past Supreme Court rulings once SCOTUS had read and filed the case as law. But it is clear to me this is one such case which clearly exacerbates those already unconstitutional actions previously taken by the Obama Administration to have created such a law violative of the United States Constitution in the first place. And, as citizens, we need not be burdened by it or stand aside and watch lawyers line their pockets with taxpayer dollars as they litigate their cases knowing the outcome from the beginning.

Researched historical documents present proof of a prima facie case to nullify the Roberts Court’s June 26, 2012 decision. One such case states, in part,

“It is the power of the courts to declare null and void an act of the Congress repugnant to the Constitution, which chiefly distinguishes this government from all other governments, and is the greatest safeguard to its endurance. It is this power in the courts that always has, and always will, secure the equal rights of citizens.”

Americans stand in need of the restoration of trust in American jurisprudence as it adversely touches on every area of our lives throughout this nation. And, if this present SCOTUS error is allowed to stand without further consideration to review and make it right and constitutional, then the American people possibly may be forced to resort to anarchy. They will reject all of these unconstitutional Obama fiats in the near term. They have resolved to be law-abiding citizens but, at the same time they have become more resolved to never relinquish their right to enjoy the fruits of Godly freedom, the Constitution, and the rule of law that come with our being American citizens by and through the foundational documents forged by our forefathers on our behalf and deemed by them to be the case for generations to come “By Divine Providence.”

Further source(s):
Merriam-Webster Dictionary
http://www.m-w.org

The United States Constitution
The Declaration of Independence

The American Law Review (1866-1906) July/Aug 1906, 40. American Periodicals, pg. 566. By Blackburn Esterline, Chicago 1906.
END

http://www.africanpress.me/ didier kussu

<Didier Kussu Says That Africa’s Growth Seems To Be Unstoppable

London, July 2, 2012– It is true that despite the weaker global economic environment, sub- Sahara Africa continue to grow in 2012.

The world’s richest continent with enormous deposits of unexploited mineral resources, fertile lands, undiscovered fishes, wild animals and anything else that you could never imagine, is coming back to claim its spot in the world.

The so-called mystery continent is not only the birth place of the first human being and the mother of all civilizations, it is also where practically everything has started.

Sub-Sahara Africa continues to enjoy robust growth as it is practically isolated from the negative factors driving down the economy in most of the so-called “industrial countries”. While confidence

and trust have been shaken in US and Europe by excessive government debt and vulnerable banking systems, sub-Sahara Africa financial system have so far, been insulated from the global financial crisis. According to an article published by RNW: Europe must “bite the bullet” say African finance ministers European finance ministers are busy looking for solutions to the euro zone debt crisis. Their counterparts in Africa, during a meeting in Washington D.C, expressed willingness share debt management experience.

A weekend briefing by African finance ministers at IMF/World Bank meetings in Washington attracted modest media attention, but there was quiet pride in the way representatives from tiny states like Cape Verde and Gambia were able to claim concrete achievements in managing debt and public finances.

“It is not easy, it is painful, and we went through the pain, and the Europeans must be prepared to go through the pain,” African Development Bank President Donald Kaberuka told Reuters in an interview last year (2011)

Despite the economic growth in sub-Sahara Africa, there are few exceptions says Mr Didier Kussu;

South Africa is performing less strongly because of the weakness of its European trading partners and its greater exposure to global development.

Lets take a history lessons that are based on facts and see why I correctly mentioned that “ IS AFRICA COMING BACK TO SAVE THE WORLD AGAIN FROM ECONOMIC DOWNFALL? ” asked Didier Kussu.

African Slaves Helped Build The World Economy said Didier Kussu:

European colonial economies in the Americas and the world from the 16th through the 19th century were dependent on enslaved African labor for their survival. From sugar plantations, tobacco plantations, rice plantations, indigo plantations, to cotton plantations, etc. In the US, banks and financial houses supplied the loan capital and/or investment capital to purchase land and slaves.

Didier Kussu added that Slaves were inexpensive source of labor, enslaved Africans in the United States also became important economic and political capital in the American political economy.

Enslaved Africans were legally a form of property—a commodity. Individually and collectively, they were frequently used as collateral in all kinds of business transactions. They were also traded for other kinds of goods and services.

The value of the investments slave-holders held in their slaves was often used to secure loans to purchase additional land or slaves. Slaves were also used to pay off outstanding debts. When calculating the value of estates, the estimated value of each slave was included. This became the source of tax revenue for local and state governments. Taxes were also levied on slave transactions.

By the final decade of the 19th century, John Boyd Dunlop’s 1887 invention of the pneumatic or inflatable tyre, rubber bicycle tubes and the growing popularity of the automobile dramatically increased the global demand for rubber, Kongo, today the Democratic Republic of Congo and its population have suffered the most from King Leopold II and his associates from their exploitation of the rubber in the Kongo.

However, as history seems to repeat itself said Didier Kussu; today the Democratic Republic of Congo and its population are victims again but this time rubber and ivory are not that popular, instead coltan which is used in mobile phones, DVD players, video game systems and computers.

The Hi-Tech industry is the booming and are the most successful industries of the 21st century and are key drivers of economic growth.

Didier Kussu is the Managing Director of the London based Excellence Management & Consulting Corporation.

End

Thomas Ochieng, (API), reporting from Kenya                                          

The largest referral hospital and medical training facility in East and Central Africa, the Kenyatta national hospital has embarked on an ambitious initiative that is earmarked at making the hospital a tourist destination.

Highlighted as one of the long-term goal of the referral facility, Kenyatta hospital serving almost half of the Africa’s referral cases has set its sight on making the institution not only one of the preferred medical facility but also a tourist destination of the would be scientists,scholars,medics and students from across the globe. The programme was brought forth during the awarding of KS ISO certification by the regions leading standards verification and certification, the Kenya Bureau of Standards KEBS in Nairobi.

Speaking during the award ceremony the Managing director of KEBS Mrs.Eva Oduor challenged the institution to take advantage of Kenya’s geographical and advanced human resource pedigree and advance the objective of attracting Africa to Kenyatta, “Kenya is situated at the most favorable
location in Africa which has a four hours standard time to Nairobi from all of
the Africa’s capital centers, with the exception of only Dakar in Senegal” Mrs
Eva said.She added that by the institution attaining the world standard of
ISO9001:2008 QMS,the institution was rated very highly in terms of quality of
service offered a catalyst for referrals throughout the continent and medical
sojourns globally.

The Chief Executive of the referral institution Mr.Richard Lesiyampe while offering his appreciation to the Ministry of Medical services and the board of directors for their wisdom in deciding for the first time in its history of operations by having chief executive of the institution outside the medical fraternity to head the facility.
“The ISO certification process has been rigorous for the staff and management
who burnt the mid night oil to make sure the world standards in quality management was attained, which is glorifying to all of us” Said Mr.Lesiyampe. He emphasized the overall goal of the institution was to reposition the hospital as the premier destination for treatment, research or sabbatical retreat for scholars and researchers worldwide.

Ends.

——-

The attacks in a church in Garissa Kenya on Sunday took the lives of 17 people while maiming many.

Many leaders have condemned the act that many say is committed by the Al Shabaab terrorist group.

The American leadership came out strongly saying;
“The perpetrators of these attacks have shown no respect for human life and dignity, and must be brought to justice for these heinous acts”.

The Al Shabaab is angered by Kenya’s involvement in the war inside Somalia meant to get rid of the terror group and substitute it with a stable government.

End

ADDIS ABABA,  – More than half of all Ethiopians have access to an improved source of drinking water, but the country still has much work to do if it hopes to achieve its goal of providing access to safe water and sanitation for its 83 million people by 2015, experts say.

“Despite an increase in coverage, the number of people that require access to sanitation and hygiene, for instance, are still the highest in Africa, if not the world,” said Kebede Faris, water and sanitation expert for the World Bank’s Ethiopia office. “As a result, a significant number of Ethiopians are still facing WASH [water, sanitation and hygiene]-related health problems and also losing their lives.”

A recently released study by the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) shows that some 271,000 Ethiopian children under the age of five died in 2010 alone, with pneumonia and diarrhoea causing more than one-third of those deaths.

The authors said “basic steps” such as hand-washing with soap, expanding access to safe drinking water and sanitation, along with providing other medical services, could have saved their lives. The problem remains: “An overwhelming majority, nine households in every 10, does not treat their drinking water,” leaving them susceptible to various health problems.

Ethiopia is seeking to meet the UN Millennium Development Goals’ targets on water, sanitation and hygiene through its Universal Access Plan II, which seeks to provide 98.5 percent of the population with access to safe water along with 100 percent access to sanitation by 2015.

Nationally, the proportion of Ethiopian households with access to an improved source of drinking water – categorized as a public tap or stand pipe, borehole, a protected well, spring water and rainwater – has reached 54 percent, according to the Demographic Health Survey 2011. However, there are significant disparities between urban households, where 95 percent of people have access to an improved source of drinking water, and rural areas where just 42 percent access safe drinking water.

Rural-urban divide

Like access to water services, government data shows a wide gap in access to sanitation between urban and rural households. According to the country’s Growth and Transformation Plan 2010, the national coverage of sanitation stands at 60 percent, with rural coverage at 56 percent, compared to 88 percent for urban households.

“Building latrines is not enough. A systematic approach that focuses on quality or building to minimum standards, maintenance and use are equally important,” said the World Bank’s Kebede, adding that there was a need “to invest now to save more future lives and impairments of many kinds”.

Other water-borne diseases are also common as a result of poor water and sanitation. “With more than 65 million people living in the trachoma endemic parts of rural Ethiopia, we need to reach out to more people and fast, with proper sanitation and hygiene practices, as most of the cases are happening in areas where water supply and sanitary conditions are poor,” said Menebere Alemeu, country representative for NGO International Trachoma Initiative. 

The organization reports that more than 75 percent of visual impairment in the country caused by trachoma is related to the lack of sanitation and hygiene.

The government has expressed its ambition to achieve the set targets. “Our eyes are on our own Growth and Transformation Plan targets, but globally we are also committed to achieving the MDGs [UN Millennium Development Goals],” said Minister of Health Tedros Adhanom.

Finding the money

However, the government’s budgetary allocation to the water sector has been decreasing over the years, “declining almost by half – from 4 percent in 2006 to 2.5 percent in 2010″, according to international NGO WaterAid. The inadequate budget for the water sector and the growing cost of establishing water and sanitation services could also see the country pay more for services, according to another recent study by the Ministry of Finance and the UN.

“The budget is calculated based on the current and future cost investment this sector requires and we are on [the] right track of securing the financing,” said Yohannes Gebremedhin an official with the Ministry of Water and Energy. “We are now working on issues related to sustainability of the systems we set up with communities,” he said, adding that this would cut down on the costs of repairing systems.

Recent updates to Ethiopia’s universal water access plan and a new hygiene and sanitation Strategic Action Plan suggest that the cost of meeting the national WASH targets is now closer to US$2.4 billion, with $1.75 billion dedicated solely to the rural water supply.

“With this plan…we need to work on innovative, cost-effective sector-wide approaches along with securing the necessary budget on time so as to meet the target set,” said Daniel Gelan, UNICEF’s WASH expert. “We, along with the government, are working strongly to find the budget sources and are doing well so far.”

bt/kr/cb
source www.irinnews.org

Photo: Mujahid Safodien/IRIN

Linda and Mahleki were trafficked by a woman they knew from their village

QUTHING,  – At the age of 15 and with no money for school shoes or a uniform, Linda* was forced to accept that her education was over and it was time to look for a job. In Lesotho’s southern Quthing District, where she lived, it is accepted wisdom that finding a job means crossing the border into South Africa, which completely surrounds this mountainous kingdom of 1.8 million people and dwarfs its tiny economy.

Linda’s own mother made the move five years ago and never returned. “I don’t know where she is,” said Linda, whose sister also lives in South Africa.

In May 2011, Linda was approached by a woman she knew from her village who had a business about 50km across the border in the town of Sterkspruit. “She invited me to come and stay with her and work for her as a shop assistant,” recalled Linda.

She did not question why she and her new employer had to cross a freezing river to enter South Africa instead of using the nearest border post, and for the first three months she was treated well enough and received a small salary. But when her employer abruptly left, putting a relative in charge of the shop, no more pay was forthcoming and Linda embarked on a relationship with the night watchman. By the time her sister arrived in December to bring her home, she was pregnant.

“I feel so sorry and angry,” said the girl, now eight-months pregnant and living with her ailing grandmother.

Four months after recruiting Linda, her employer returned to the village and met Mahleki*, another 15-year-old school dropout and orphan. This time she offered to help the girl attend school in South Africa.

“I didn’t really believe her,” said Mahleki, “but my brother forced me to go because he couldn’t look after me.”

After another river crossing, Mahleki was put on a bus to Rustenberg, a mining town in the country’s North West Province, and then taken to a tavern where she worked from 7am until midnight for the next seven months. In return she received two meals a day and a one-off payment of R350 ($42) to buy clothes.

In April of this year Maggie Monongoaha, a member of the Lesotho Mounted Police Service’s Child and Gender Protection Unit (CGPU) who happened to live in the same village as Mahleki and Linda, made a phone call to their recruiter demanding she send Mahleki home. The woman complied but remained in Rustenberg where she faces no legal charges.

What happened to Linda and Mahleki is not unusual in Lesotho but until recently, it is unlikely that anyone in their community or even local authorities would have identified them as victims of human trafficking, which the UN’s 2000 Palermo Protocol defines as: “the recruitment, transfer, harbouring or receipt of persons, by means of the threat or use of force or other forms of coercion, of abduction, of fraud, of deception… for the purpose of exploitation”.

Human trafficking survey

In 2010, the Ministry of Home Affairs together with the UN Development Programme (UNDP) commissioned a rapid assessment of human trafficking in Lesotho to try to gauge the magnitude of the problem. The findings did not provide much in the way of hard data, but did highlight some of the conditions that have made the country particularly vulnerable to trafficking both internally from rural to urban areas and transnationally. These include Lesotho’s high levels of poverty and unemployment, the large number of children orphaned by HIV/AIDS, and its porous borders and long tradition of migration to South Africa which began with Basotho men going to work in the mines.

The report noted that men, women and children are trafficked not only for sexual exploitation, but also for forced labour on farms, for cattle herding, construction work and domestic work.

In January 2011, the Lesotho government passed anti-trafficking legislation under pressure from the USA, an important donor which had placed Lesotho on its Tier 2 Watch List for countries not showing sufficient progress in combating human trafficking.

“It’s common knowledge that it was rushed through,” said Sonya Martinez, director of the Beautiful Dream Society (BDS), a faith-based US NGO which runs a shelter and transition programme for victims of human trafficking in Maseru, the capital. “The move to pass the law was very good, but training and infrastructure are lacking.”

Although the CPGU has been tasked with investigating trafficking cases, no budget has been allocated and training of its officers has so far been limited to Maseru. Of 40 cases reported in 2011, only one conviction was made under the new law and the offender was later released from a 15-year prison sentence after successfully appealing the verdict.

The recently released US State Department’s 2012 Trafficking in Persons Report notes that the government has yet to complete a national action plan on human trafficking which would guide implementation of the new law, and that NGOs are the sole providers of protective services to victims.

NGO helps victims

Since opening its shelter in April 2011, BDS has helped 21 trafficking victims with trauma counselling, skills training and legal assistance, about half of them Basotho nationals and the rest Ethiopians, Zimbabweans and one Chinese. Martinez noted that the foreign victims were often more visible and tended to be perceived as more serious than the cases involving locals. “I believe there are many more local cases,” she said, adding that orphans and young people with a history of abuse or who were the sole breadwinners for their family were particularly vulnerable.

Martinez said the greatest barrier to prosecuting more traffickers is the lack of resources for the CPGU to travel to South Africa to investigate suspected cases and bring victims home. “Often nothing ever happens to the perpetrators in South Africa,” she told IRIN. “We’ve helped out with funding for rescues on a couple of occasions; the government hasn’t budgeted any funds for this.”

Read more

SOUTHERN AFRICA: Counter-trafficking measures trail commitments

LESOTHO: Food security goes from bad to worse

LESOTHO: Child line offers hope and help

AFRICA: High cost of child trafficking

Senior Superintendent and Head of the CGPU Mamojela Letsie said her unit relied on a good working relationship with the South African Police Service for tip-offs which had resulted in the rescue of several men from Quthing who were promised jobs in a factory but ended up “sold” to remote cattle posts.

However, a CPGU officer based in Mohale’s Hoek, about 50km north of Quthing, said that although his office sometimes received reports of locals promised employment in South Africa who ended up being exploited, it was difficult for them to follow up.

“For us at district level, it’s not yet clear how we can investigate cross-border cases,” he said.

At the level of prevention and awareness-raising, both the CPGU and the Ministry of Home Affairs are conducting campaigns in areas identified as high risk. NGOs including BDS, Lesotho Save the Children and World Vision are also targeting schoolchildren, border officials and radio listeners with information about the threat of human trafficking.

But Letsie admitted that most Basotho still do not know what human trafficking is. “Once people know, we think there’ll be many more cases,” she said.

*not their real names

ks/cb
source www.irinnews.org

Photo: Ann Weru/IRIN

A young boy goes in search of water in the western Chad region of Bahr-el-Ghazal

MOUSSORO/BAHR-EL-GHAZAL,  – In the outskirts of Moussoro, the main town in the western Chad region of Bahr-el-Ghazal, mothers line up with their babies in the sweltering heat waiting to be screened for malnutrition. In another area in the region, women load their donkeys with millet and groundnut seeds – provided by aid agencies in anticipation of better rains this season.

“This is the planting season, I will plant the millet first and when rains come I will plant the other seeds,” Khadija Oche Youssuf, a mother of four, told IRIN in the northern village of Toumia, 60km from Moussoro. “We last harvested in September 2011 and the food finished; the harvest was not good because of the lack of rains and the locusts and birds.”

Before they started receiving food aid, Toumia residents coped by cutting down trees and selling firewood by the roadside in the already fragile and degraded environment.

“We were then going to Moussoro to buy food,” said Khadija, adding that the trip to Moussoro takes three days by donkey.

Bahr-el-Ghazal region is among the areas of Chad lying along the crisis-hit Sahelian belt, which stretches from Senegal to Chad. Like in the rest of the Sahel region, a mix of drought, poor rains and harvests as well as rising food prices have resulted in food insecurity and subsequent malnutrition.

Malnutrition

At the main hospital in Moussoro, severely malnourished children with complications such as infections, diarrhoea and malaria, are attended to, having been referred from health centres further inland.

“I noticed that my baby was having diarrhoea and brought him to the hospital,” Fatuma*, an 18-year-old mother of an 18-month-old baby, told IRIN. After three days at Moussoro Hosiptal, the baby’s health is improving; at home the baby shared the family’s food comprising mainly rice and maize meal.

Chad’s “embryonic” economy is among factors limiting the local diversity of food sources and income, notes USAID’s Famine Early Warning Systems Network (FEWS NET), adding that sociocultural care practices and poor health systems are also to blame.

Fatuma told IRIN she had first opted for her baby’s uvula (fleshy extension of the soft palate which hangs above the throat) to be cut by a traditional doctor, hoping this would improve the baby’s health, before taking the baby to hospital.

Moussoro Hospital does not have a full time doctor. “We have eight nurses who have a heavy workload; they take care of the severely malnourished children, prepare meals and take care of the sick [in the general wards],” Phillippe Tadjion, the medical coordinator, told IRIN, adding that there is a need for more staff.

Fears

But even with the best treatment, for some children it is too little, too late.

“Almost 5 percent will die of complications from malnutrition while in the [treatment] programme,” Richard Currie, a medical coordinator with Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), told IRIN by email. “As you can imagine, the death rate for the thousands of children who do not have access to a therapeutic feeding programme is only going to be considerably higher.”

MSF is addressing malnutrition primarily in the Sahel region of Chad but is also actively screening areas throughout the country for alarming rates of malnutrition. In one of its projects in the Salamat region, slightly south of the Sahel, “an area where one would otherwise expect adequate rainfall, an adequate harvest, and an absence of malnutrition, the reality on the ground, however, is quite different,” Currie said.

In just one site in Salamat, MSF has admitted almost 4,000 severely malnourished children into its programmes in 2012 –  in 2011 just over 5,100 children were admitted. ”As the worst of the `hunger gap’ approaches, we have over 50 critically ill malnourished children in our hospital at the moment,” he added.

According to Currie, there are a number of reasons why an otherwise `safe’ region might fall into a nutrition crisis, such as the diversions of harvested crops to more affected areas of the Sahel. “The situation in Salamat emphasizes that the global understanding of the nature and causes of the Sahel crisis – and our ability to predict its evolution – is far from easy,” he said.

Many of the high-risk children live in rural areas without access to medical care. When the rains start, reaching them will be harder. “Proper roads don’t exist or where they do, they become impassable due to mud or they cross a wadi that is a raging river in the rainy season,” he explained. “It is tremendously rewarding to discharge a previously critically ill child from our programme as ‘cured’, but in the absence of adequate nutrition in the home and an improved food security situation in the community, the child remains at risk of falling back into illness later and eventually re-entering the programme.”

High food prices

In May, at least 2.4 million people, mainly in Chad’s central agro-pastoral zones of Guera, Kanem, Bahr-el-Ghazal, Batha and Sila were classified as being in the “stressed” food insecurity phase, with the lean season having started two months earlier than usual. Under the “stressed” phase, household food consumption is reduced but minimally adequate without having to engage in irreversible coping strategies.

“A lot of animals have died especially sheep and goats. Some camels have also died,” Koisse Bichara, an auxiliary veterinary officer, told IRIN in Toumia. “Most of the other animals are far away and it is not easy to get milk, it is also dry.”

Photo: Ann Weru/IRIN

A mother and her child at the Moussoro Hospital in Chad’s Bahr-el-Ghazal region

Koisse said at present 1.5 litres of camel milk is selling at 1,000 CFA (US$2) – double the normal price. “At this price, the quantity is not enough. Who will drink [the milk] – the father, the children or the mother?”

The 1,000 CFA price, she added, is just for the sale of milk to the local population – visitors have to pay more.

Rains that have started earlier than usual in the regions of Guera, Salamat and part of Chari Baguirmi are expected to improve livestock body conditions as well as the population’s purchasing power in the coming months, according to FEWS NET. However, cereal prices, which rose between March and May and are higher than the five-year average due to high demand, are expected to continue to rise until the September harvest.

Response

The UN World Food Programme (WFP) aims to assist at least 1.5 million people in Chad, among them children younger than two years and their mothers. In addition, more than 205,000 schoolchildren will receive school meals in 2012. In April, the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) also launched a three-month programme to distribute Plumpy’Doz, a highly nutritious therapeutic food, to 200,000 children aged 6-23 months. UNICEF estimates that at least 127,000 children will be at risk of severe acute malnutrition in Chad in 2012.

NGO Intermón Oxfam is involved in activities such as general food distribution, cash transfers, cash for work and the provision of seeds and water as well as hygiene services, according to its emergency response manager, Christian Munezero.

At present though, not all of the needs are being met.

On 19 June, humanitarian organizations appealed for $1.6 billion to help 18.7 million crisis-affected people – up from 16 million – in the Sahel. The appeal reflected an increase in the population in need in countries such as Chad, where between January and April the number of food insecure people shot up by 125 percent to reach 3.6 million. The 2012 Consolidated Appeal by humanitarian agencies for Chad  had estimated that 1.6 million people there would be food insecure due to below average 2011 harvests and erratic rains.

Challenges

Land-locked Chad faces logistical challenges when it comes to moving food aid, notes WFP. The crisis in Libya has also affected local trade with northern Chad, while radical Nigerian Islamist group Boko Haram activity in northern Nigeria has also slowed down trade in neighbouring western Chad and Niger.

The Chadian government has announced the subsidized sale of cereals but aid officials say more needs to be done.

“It is true that the government recognized the crisis… and announced a certain number of measures, but they remain declarations,” said an aid official who preferred anonymity.

“We need to work better on the causes of the [food] crisis – not only the consequences because there will always be drought in Chad,” added Oxfam’s Munezero.

“…Malnutrition is a real problem of public health care, which requires medical and nutrition measures and should be integrated into primary health care, such as vaccination,” said MSF’s Currie. 

*not her real name

aw/cb
source www.irinnews.org