Newly-wed Syrian couple Nada Merhi,18, and Syrian army soldier Hassan Youssef, 27, pose for a wedding picture amid heavily damaged buildings in the war ravaged city of Homs on February 5, 2016. (Photography: JOSEPH EID /AFP /Getty Images)
In Homs, Syria, where entire city blocks have been reduced to rubble by years of civil war, a Syrian wedding photographer thought of using the destruction of the city as a backdrop for pictures of newlywed couples “to show that life is stronger than death,” according to AFP photographer Joseph Eid. Here, Nada Merhi, 18, and her husband, Syrian army soldier Hassan Youssef, 27, pose for a series of wedding pictures amid heavily damaged buildings in Homs on February 5, 2016.
Today marks Human Rights Day, observed annually on 10 December, to highlight the fundamental rights that all people are entitled to as a global community. The day marks the United Nations General Assembly’s adoption and proclamation of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948, the first global enunciation of human rights and one of the first major achievements of the new United Nations. The day was first formed in 1950, when the General Assembly invited all member states and other organizations to celebrate.
The theme for 2014, “Human Rights 365“, is a reminder that everyone is entitled to basic rights with the same ideals and values – all year round.
“I call on states to honor their obligation to protect human rights every day of the year. I call on people to hold their governments to account,” UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said in a statement.
Here’s some facts about ongoing human rights violations and why it’s so vital that we strive to achieve greater equality:
★ An estimated 27 million people are currently enslaved in the human trafficking trade globally.
★ In 2012, 112 countries tortured their citizens and 101 countries repressed their people’s right to freedom of expression.
★ There are 3.5 million children living in poverty in the UK today, which is around 27% of children, or more than one in four. According to UNICEF, 22,000 children worldwide die each day due to poverty.
★ More than 300,000 children under the age of 18 are being exploited as child soldiers in armed conflicts worldwide.
★ Women make up 80% of all refugees and displaced people and are at heightened risk of physical or sexual violence or trafficking.
★ Around 15 million girls are forced into child marriage around the world every year. One in three girls in the developing world are married by their 18th birthday, increasing their risk of isolation and violence, and limiting their chance to have an education.
★ The total number of child laborers remains high, with UNICEF and the International Labour Organisation acknowledging an estimated 168 million children aged five to 17 are involved worldwide.
★ Every 90 seconds, a woman dies during pregnancy or childbirth. Most of these deaths are preventable, but due to gender-based discrimination many women are not given the proper education or care they need.
★ At least 20.9 million people are victims of forced labor worldwide.
★ More than 3.2 million Syrians are currently living as refugees, in the largest displacement crisis in a generation.
A Somali woman holds her malnourished child as they wait for medical tests at the paediatric ward of Banadir hospital in Mogadishu, on April 28, 2014 (Photo: Ismail Taxta/ Reuters).
More than a million hungry Somalis urgently need food aid due to worsening drought and conflict, a 20 percent increase since January, the U.N. said on September 2. It is the first time that the number of Somalis in crisis has increased since the 2011 famine, in which 260,000 people died, the U.N. said.
“Concerted efforts are urgently required to save lives and prevent a free fall,” U.N. humanitarian coordinator for Somalia Philippe Lazzarini told a news conference.
The famine was caused by drought, conflict and a ban on food aid in territory held by the Islamist militant group, al Shabaab.
In 2014, similar factors are at play. Two failed rains have resulted in poor harvests, surging food prices, water shortages and livestock deaths. The August harvest is estimated to be 37 percent below average following delayed and erratic March to June “Gu” rains, which Somalis rely on to grow their crops and water their livestock.
Conflict has cut off trade routes and access to seasonal agricultural work, which poor families rely upon to buy food.
“In urban areas that came under government control following the military offensive against insurgents in March 2014… access roads remain under insurgent control and trade flow is largely blocked, resulting in sharp increases in staple food prices,” the U.N. Food Security and Nutrition Analysis Unit (FSNAU) said in a statement.
African Union-backed government troops have captured many towns in south-central Somalia from al Shabaab over the last three years, but the militants still control swathes of countryside.
“Aid organizations began using air cargo flights to areas with no road access. However, it is simply not sufficient to deliver the volume of humanitarian assistance required,” said Lazzarini.
“Securing road access for commercial and humanitarian supplies in addition to having more resources is indispensable to the sustained delivery.”
In Wajid in Bakool region, cereal prices have quadrupled since January, the FSNAU said, while doubling in other areas like Bakool’s Hudur town.
There are 1,025,000 Somalis in phases three (crisis) and four (emergency) of the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification, used by experts to monitor hunger crises, where phase five equals famine. Of these, 62 percent are internally displaced, while 27 percent are rural and 11 percent urban residents.
Nearly one in seven children under five (218,000 children) are acutely malnourished, up by 7 percent since January. This includes 43,800 severely malnourished children who risk death without treatment.
Moving undetected across the front lines, female freedom fighters have become indispensable to the fight.
This slideshow requires JavaScript.
On the afternoon that Syrian soldiers finally forced their way through Raifah Sammie’s front door, they were surprised to find her stomping right toward them, shouting angrily, having just finished putting her headscarf on. “You can’t just barge into someone’s home like this!” Sammie scolded the men. “Don’t you have mothers and sisters? There are women here! We need time to cover up.” The soldiers had been searching homes in the rebellious province of Idlib in eastern Syria, and at first they demanded to know what had taken Sammie so long to open up. They had knocked and shouted repeatedly before her son let them in. But as the soldiers surveyed the scene—four women sat nervously with their kids, while the formidable Sammie stood guard before her 22-year-old son, who she proudly noted was attending medical school—their suspicions gradually eased. “I’m just a housewife,” Sammie said.
Once the soldiers left, Sammie reached between a bedroom window and shade and retrieved the hard drive she had stashed there while the soldiers were busy pounding on her door. She had also been frantically deleting contacts from her two mobile phones, while tearing up pieces of paper with the phone numbers—from Romania, America, Turkey, France—of Syrian contacts living abroad who regularly sent over large sums of money that she then channeled to the rebellion. Sammie was indeed a housewife, just as she’d claimed. She was also a key cog in Idlib’s revolutionary machine, having graduated from organizing demonstrations to distributing funds to rebels who needed money for arms.
On a recent afternoon near the Syrian border in the Turkish city of Antakya, where she took refuge last month, Sammie, who was wearing an elegant pink headscarf and a carefully tailored black abaya, recounted the ruse with a grin. It was just one of many successful operations, which also included helping people to defect and raising cash for the rebels.
“I was a lady with a lot of connections, and people started to pay attention,” Sammie said. “I’ve done everything possible for the revolution.”
When the uprising began early last year, women took part in the peaceful protests right alongside men. But as the conflict turned increasingly bloody, with the Assad regime bombarding rebels and civilians with heavy artillery and fighter jets, and the death toll reaching at least 30,000, according to the activist group Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, men came to dominate the front lines.
Behind the scenes, however, women still play a crucial role, smuggling cash, medicine, and arms, while also manning field hospitals and media centers and organizing humanitarian relief.
“The media are covering the front lines, so you only see men these days. But we’re still out there working in huge numbers. Only now a lot of our work relies on secrecy,” says Rafia Salemah, an activist, using her nom de guerre because she continues to work in Damascus and the regime has begun cracking down on women. Women activists say the scrutiny of women at checkpoints by security forces has increased exponentially in recent weeks, with the regime apparently clued in to their work.
The dissident Suhair Atassi was among the revolution’s first high-profile arrests and has since become a top figure in the opposition. Razan Zeitouneh, another early Damascus organizer, who was forced into hiding, is widely seen as the leader of the Local Coordination Committees, one of the revolution’s most prominent activist groups.
Rama al-Assas, a young activist who friends say was targeted for her extensive relief work in Damascus, has been missing since Aug. 27. Friends say she left her home that day to pick up medical supplies and was instead dragged into a car by regime-loyal thugs. They also say she knew she was being watched but refused to give up her work. “She considered herself a freedom fighter. And fighters never pull back,” one friend says.
A recent report by the Syrian Network for Human Rights estimated that at least 1,900 women have been killed in the uprising so far. And the Observatory’s Sipan Hassan says the regime has also arrested many women, though numbers are hard to come by. “For the regime, it doesn’t matter if you’re a woman or a man,” he says. “Women are playing a huge role in the revolution right now. And many of them have been arrested for it.”
Elissa Montanti is on a mission to make children whole again through a network of volunteers. Scott Pelley reports.
The non-profit, non-partisan Global Medical Relief Fund “Federal Tax ID: 13-3987722” aids children who are missing or have lost the use of limbs or eyes, or have been severely burned, or have been injured due to war, natural disaster or illness.
Since its founding in 1997, GMRF has brought more than 100 children to the U.S. from Europe, Africa, the Middle East and Asia for treatments, surgeries and prosthetic limb and eye fittings. What higher mission is there than aiding innocent, victimized children?
Newly-wed Syrian couple Nada Merhi,18, and Syrian army soldier Hassan Youssef, 27, pose for a wedding picture amid heavily damaged buildings in the war ravaged city of Homs on February 5, 2016. (Photography: JOSEPH EID /AFP /Getty Images)
Silent All These Years 