In northern Syria, the Kurds are trying to implement women's rights, but this could prove difficult among the Arab population
A Syrian woman looks at fighters from the Syrian Democratic Forces as civilians gather on the western front after fleeing the centre of Raqqa on 12 October 2017 (AFP)
Wladimir van Wilgenburg-Saturday 21 October 2017
KOBANE, Syria – The battle to take Raqqa, the Syrian capital of the Islamic state (IS) group, is almost over. But one of the main challenges that the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) face after IS is not only the huge destruction but also how to expand their model of women's rights to conservative tribal areas in northern Syria and ban people from marrying more than one wife.
When national security advisor H.R. McMaster wanted to convince U.S. President Donald Trump that Afghanistan was not hopeless, he whipped out a 1972 black-and-white picture of women in miniskirts on the streets of Kabul.
The point of this exercise was presumably to show that the country once embraced Western ideals and could do so again with America’s assistance. McMaster’s trick worked: Trump ultimately reversed his earlier skepticism about the war effort and decided to raise troop levels. But it also showed the continued limits of America’s understanding of the countries it has sought to remake in its image. The snapshot depicts Kabul’s urban elite — an elite that was unrepresentative, even back then, of the wider Afghan population. Not everyone was walking around in a skirt before the Taliban imposed the burqa.
The photograph, however, does capture something that has been lost not just in Afghanistan since the rise of the Taliban, but also across much of the Muslim world in recent decades: the freedom to choose.
Not every Afghan woman wore a miniskirt in the 1970s, but they could do so without fear of an acid attack or a flogging. Other pictures from that era depict the educational and professional opportunities available to Afghan women. But it’s always the clothes that get the most attention. Pictures of Saudi Arabia from the 1960s and 1970s are also making the rounds these days in the Middle East, showing men and women in bathing suits by the pooland on the jetty of a famous beach resort. Most of those in the pictures look like foreigners — some are airline staff on a break in Jeddah. But Saudis also patronized these beaches, and even if some shook their head with disapproval, the option to go to the beach without fear of violence was there.
Beyond skirts and beaches, the 1960s and 1970s were also a time of vigorous intellectual debate about the role of religion in society. Debates between leftists, secularists, capitalists, Marxists, and Islamists raged across the region, from Egypt to Pakistan. Militant Islamists will dismiss those decades of more progressive, diverse thought and culture as decadent Western imports — the lingering after-effects of colonial influence. But if some of it was certainly emulation, much of it was also indigenous. One of the Arab world’s most famous feminists of the early 20th century was Nazira Zain al-Dine, from Lebanon, who had no connection to the Western feminist movement of the time.
Yet over the course of the last few decades, the space for debate and freedom of choice has become increasingly narrow. Pakistan provides a stark and cautionary tale for other countries about how intolerance gets legitimized. It’s not only when a group like the Taliban seizes power violently that a country loses its more diverse, vibrant past. A slow erosion of progressive norms, a slow shift in beliefs can be just as devastating.
In Pakistan from 1927 to 1985, only 10 blasphemy cases were reportedly heard in court. Between 1985 and 2011, more than 4,000 cases were handled. Even worse, blasphemy, real or alleged, can get you killed in today’s Pakistan.
Even worse, blasphemy, real or alleged, can get you killed in today’s Pakistan.
In January 2011, Punjab governor Salman Taseer was killed by his bodyguard for coming to the aide of a young Christian woman who had been charged with blasphemy. Taseer’s killer was sentenced to death, but he was celebrated as a hero by tens of thousands who attended his funeral, and a mosque was built in his name in Islamabad.
The assassination of Taseer — as well as that of Pakistan’s first Christian federal minister, Shahbaz Bhatti, just two months later — shocked Farahnaz Ispahani, a friend of both men. Ispahani, a former journalist, was at the time a member of Pakistan’s parliament serving on the Human Rights Committee. Together, the small group had repeatedly tried to raise the issue of minority rights. In parliament, Ispahani had access to more information than the general public and was shocked about the extent of daily violence against minorities — and that none of her colleagues were willing to discuss the issue.
The assassination of her two friends prompted Ispahani to write “Purifying the Land of the Pure.” The book, published last year, charts the slow death of minority rights and pluralism in Pakistan, and what it means for the future of democracy. The result is a sweeping but concise chronicle of how things unraveled. A minority herself, as a Shiite, Ispahani was careful to avoid polemic and opinion by delivering a thorough, methodically researched work. She and her husband, former Pakistani Ambassador to the United States Husain Haqqani, have both faced death threats for their work and live in self-imposed exile in Washington.
In her book, Ispahani tracks the unraveling to within a few years of the independence of Pakistan. The country’s founder, Muhammad Ali Jinnah — a secular Shiite — envisioned a country where “you are free, you are free to go to your temples, you are free to go to your mosques or to any other place of worship.” But Ispahani writes that “his hopeful declaration of religious pluralism” remains unfulfilled.
The trend toward making Islam a central tenet of life in Pakistan started soon after independence in 1947, a result of Muslim feelings of being victimized by both Hindus and British colonialism in India. By 1973, Islam was declared as the state religion of Pakistan. In 1974, under the ostensibly progressive Prime Minister Zulfiqar Bhutto, parliament declared Ahmadis as non-Muslims. A Muslim movement that started in the late 19th century, Ahmadis follow the teachings of the Quran and consider their founder to be a prophet, upsetting orthodox Muslims who believe Muhammad is the final prophet.
Bhutto found it hard to redefine Pakistani nationalism away from Islamic ideology. He was, Ispahani writes, unable to manage the “delicate balancing act of implementing liberal ideas and appeasing Islamist sentiments.”
By the mid-1980s, hate literature targeting Shiites was proliferating. It fanned the narrative that they were not Muslims, a dangerous charge in a Sunni-majority nation where Shiites made up around 15 percent of the population. Military dictator Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq acquiesced to Sunni militant attacks on Shiites, paving the way for a systematic campaign to eliminate Shiite doctors, engineers, and teachers in Karachi and elsewhere. Today, Shiites and their mosques are still regular targets of deadly attacks: Since 2003, an estimated 2,558 Shiites have been killed in sectarian violence.
Ispahani identifies four stages in Pakistan’s loss of minority rights and growing intolerance. The first stage was the “Muslimization” of society, with transfer of non-Muslim populations out of Pakistan around the time of independence, followed by the rise of an Islamic identity with the loss of East Pakistan. Then came the Islamization of laws under Zia-ul-Haq in the 1980s, and finally the rise of militant, organized violence.
While there was no sudden, overnight transformation, Ispahani nevertheless identifies Zia’s rule as the point of no return. The military ruler Islamized the laws of the country, introducing sharia courts and new Islamic laws known as hudood ordinances, which apply strict Sharia punishments for specific offenses. It was during his time that the blasphemy laws were strengthened, adding life sentences and the death penalty as punishment.
No aspect of culture was spared from the Islamization drive, as movie theaters were shut from Karachi to Peshawar, artists were driven underground and school curricula redesigned to create a “monolithic image of Pakistan as an Islamic state and taught students to view only Muslims as Pakistani citizens.”
Zia’s legacy remains, entrenched in the system and people’s daily lives. Pakistanis under the age of 40 have never experienced any other lifestyle, while the older generations reminisce about a more diverse past — even as they also gloss over some of that past’s shortcomings. But however it came about, Pakistan’s growing intolerance has taken its toll on diversity: Between 1947 and today, minorities went from 25 percent of the population to 3 percent.
“Its about pluralism, that can only happen when there is room for many kinds of people,” Ispahani said. “You cannot have a pluralistic, democratic state when you believe in the purity of your religion.”
The picture that McMaster showed Trump is a good reminder of what once was, but it does not provide a strategy to restore the pluralism that was once an accepted part of life in Pakistan or other countries like Afghanistan, Iraq, or Egypt. Ispahani’s book serves as a reminder that something far more profound than miniskirts has been lost in these countries. Washington’s counterterrorism policies, which help curb groups like the Taliban, are a good start, but they often fail to go any further toward restoring basic norms like respect for diversity. That will ultimately depend on the efforts of the local population themselves.
Those efforts may be able to draw on the power of nostalgia. When people in Pakistan, Egypt, or Afghanistan rifle through the photo albums of their parents and grandparents and wonder what happened to their country, they see skirts or cleavage — but they desire diversity and freedom of choice.
How workplaces can rid themselves of pests and predators
Oct 21st 2017
“I CAME of age in the 60s and 70s, when all the rules about behaviour and workplaces were different,” said Harvey Weinstein in response to allegations of sexual harassment, by now dozens of them since the New Yorker and New York Times published the first this month. The film producer is an “old dinosaur learning new ways”, said a spokeswoman. Mr Weinstein is reported to be seeking treatment for “sex addiction”.
A throwback who loves women too much, then; a sly old rogue who doubtless holds doors open for women, too? Nonsense. What Mr Weinstein is accused of was never acceptable. It has never been good form to greet a woman arriving for a business meeting while wearing nothing but an open bathrobe. His accusers say he made it clear that rebuffing his overtures would harm their careers. Some accuse him of rape. American and British police are investigating. Mr Weinstein has apologised for his behaviour in broad terms. He denies engaging in non-consensual sex.
Not Safe For Women
Mr Weinstein is right, though, that workplace norms have changed over the course of his career. When he turned 18, in 1970, many offices were a “Mad Men”-style ordeal of leering eyes and roaming hands. When the Harvard Business Review surveyed its readers in 1980 about workplace sexual harassment, two-thirds of the men said it was “greatly exaggerated”—as one had it, a non-issue whipped up by “paranoid women and sensational journalists”. In a case brought in 1989 an American judge ruled that being made to fish for quarters in her boss’s pocket, though unpleasant, would not cause undue distress to any “reasonable woman”.
Such dismissiveness is rarer now (see article). Most men and women agree that demanding sexual favours in return for a job or promotion is harassment; likewise groping and other physical assaults. But disturbingly many men are still blind to the way that personal remarks, lewd jokes and the like can make a workplace hostile. Though most rich countries ban sexual harassment at work, half of all women and a tenth of men say they have suffered it at some point; hardly any make formal complaints. In poor countries, the rate is surely higher, since women whose children are hungry cannot plausibly quit a job with an abusive boss. No industry is immune.
The key elements are power, misused by predatory men; impunity, as those who could call a halt do not; and silence, as witnesses look away and victims fear that speaking up will harm their careers. If firms are serious about stopping harassment, they will need to tackle all three.
The allegations against Mr Weinstein are unusual only in degree, not kind. Power in Hollywood is held by big-name producers and directors; their ability to turn a script into a blockbuster buys the complicity of their entourage. The unknowns desperate for their big break are easy prey. In Silicon Valley investors and boards have a huge incentive to overlook bad behaviour by men whose ideas can be worth billions. Star professors attract research funding and help universities rise in global rankings; graduate students rely on their references when scrambling for a job. The internships and staff jobs that can launch a career in Washington or Westminster are in the gift of politicians. Their only check is voters, who may neither know nor care how badly they act behind closed doors.
Women in manual jobs are also vulnerable. When a hotel cleaner or waitress is grabbed by a customer, her boss may look away rather than lose a client. Multinationals that require their suppliers to keep premises safe and root out slave labour are generally silent on sexual harassment.
The victims often suffer depression, anger and humiliation. Firms where harassment happens are eventually harmed, too. Mr Weinstein’s studio may be sued (see article). The company could even be destroyed by the scandal. Even if one leaves aside all moral arguments—which one should not—failing to deal with harassment is usually bad for business. Firms that tolerate it will lose female talent to rivals that do not, and the market will punish them. The costs of decency are trivial; the rewards to shareholders are large.
Granted, there will always be star employees who wish to abuse their power. But that power need not go unchecked. Firms should ask about harassment in anonymous “climate surveys” to ensure that they get early notice of problems. Making a complaint should be straightforward. It should be handled quickly and proportionately. A first complaint about unwelcome remarks or a creepily tactile style merits a warning. A man who meant no harm will be mortified, and stop.
For the most serious cases, the law will be needed. Some are not fit for purpose. British employment tribunals take a dim view of a woman who waits more than three months to complain, and regard cordial communications with her alleged harasser as undermining her case. But neither delay nor politeness at work mean she is lying: it is rational to worry about retaliation, and anyone who wants to keep her job cannot sulk. Such obstacles to justice should be removed.
Firms need to take care that, in their zeal, they do not make matters worse. The no-dating policies common in America are intrusive, useless and have perverse consequences. People sometimes fall in love with colleagues. When firms require one half of an office couple to quit, it is usually the woman, who is typically younger and earns less. That is unfair. Likewise, an atmosphere in which senior men are wary of mentoring young women for fear of being misunderstood hurts women’s careers. Perfunctory anti-harassment training, which is also common, can put employees’ backs up and, if it uses absurd examples, can even make them less sympathetic towards victims and less likely to see borderline cases as wrong.
Dinosaur-free zone
Until surprisingly recently, racist and homophobic remarks were rife in the workplace. Now they are rare, and likely to be challenged by anyone who hears them. If sexual harassment is to be stopped, it needs to be called out in the same way—not just by the victims, but by all those who witness it.
People belonging to Rohingya Muslim community sit outside their makeshift houses on the outskirts of Jammu, India,, on May 5, 2017. Source: Reuters/Mukesh Gupta
ATTEMPTS by the Indian government to deport tens of thousands of Rohingya refugees have thrust the country’s laws into the spotlight.
Lawyers representing the Rohingyas have reiterated the constitutional right (of citizens and non-citizens alike) to equality, life and personal liberty in India. Meanwhile, the government has claimed such refugees may pose a security threat to the state.
Both sides have been making their case at the Supreme Court.
What effect does this legal precariousness have on the ground? For one thing, it means the majority of refugees in India head for cities – where there is the possibility of anonymity and opportunities for work.
Delhi is often the preferred destination for refugee groups that fall within the UNHCR’s mandate. In the capital, these groups have the possibility to get refugee certificates and access to certain support services, such as education, health, livelihoods, and legal counselling.
However, these services are limited in number, reach, and budget. They can also be curtailed at short notice. Often, refugees in urban India can only rely on themselves.
A boy belonging to Rohingya Muslim community stands amidst the rubble of a burnt shop, at a makeshift settlement on the outskirts of Jammu, India, on May 5, 2017. Source: Reuters/Mukesh Gupta
Self-help groups
Self-organised social safety nets look different for different groups. In the early 1990s, nearly 50,000 Sikh and Hindu refugees fled Afghanistan following a spike in ethno-religious violence. In 1992, a group of them in Delhi set up their own organisation – the Khalsa Diwan Welfare Society (KDWS) – dedicated to the support of their refugee community. The society is funded through membership fees, and helps other Sikh and Hindu Afghan refugees (numbering around 15,000 in Delhi) struggling to receive the assistance they need from the Indian government.
It focuses on education and skills development, including teaching devotional music, language classes, stitching, and computer skills. More informally it offers reconciliation and support for domestic disputes and grievances. Because of their perceived resilience and community cohesion, they are viewed as a model refugee community. One of UNHCR’s NGO partners has even used their facilities to run other refugee services.
As a Christian community, the church is an important part of their urban social safety net. The same goes for Christian Afghans, who number a few hundred in India’s capital and live in the south of the city. “It’s good,” explained a young Christian Afghan to our research team, “because of the church I have some friends.”
Some of the Rohingyas have also self-organised. A small number of prominent youths
established a Rohingya Literacy Programme and women’s empowerment initiatives, as well as actively networking with the aid community to augment support and services. Their football team the Shining Stars, is an important social initiative offering bridging opportunities to other groups in Delhi, as they play solidarity matches with other teams in the city.
Challenges
The existence of these community organisations speaks of the opportunities that exist in a city. Urban environments more readily provide enough working people in close proximity to enable a membership model (such as with KDWS). Cities also offer malleable spaces, for the transformation of apartments into community centres (such as for the Chins) or wasteland into a football pitch (for the Rohingya Shining Stars).
However, it would be a mistake to laud these community initiatives as solutions to the problem of ensuring adequate refugee protection in India. Many arise due to severe access gaps in Indian public services.
It was the discrimination they experienced in Indian schools and clinicsthat led the Chins to establish parallel schools and a health clinic. Moreover, not only is sustainability precarious (the clinic run by a Chin refugee doctor had to close when he was resettled), it also reinforce also spoke about such difficulties. He said: “It is unlucky to be stuck in such a situation [as a refugee] … the loneliness is different.”
People hold placards during a protest against what they say is Myanmar’s persecution of Rohingya Muslims, in Chennai, India, on Sept 23, 2017. Source: Reuters/P.Ravikumar
The Rohingya youths have established their literacy and empowerment initiatives partly because of gaps in services and lack of staying power of many aid organisations. They describe a lack of funds as preventing sustainability and expansion. “The challenge with this job is that for me to help such people, it requires money,” one explained, “but in my community people are illiterate and poor. How will they pay?”
Moreover, these self-organised communities can exacerbate – or create – community hierarchies, discrimination and exclusion. As another refugee in Delhi explained: “The community leaders are selected on the basis of their connectivity with the NGOs.” This so often means men with a command of English.
While self-organised groups provide essential safety nets for refugees in Delhi, they are clearly not a replacement for governmental and NGO services. India not only urgently requires a robust, inclusive legal framework that protects refugees, the government and NGOs also need to re-approach how they can better support vulnerable communities to access wider public and aid services.
This increased support requires the government to change its restrictive position on humanitarian and development NGOs. Too many, especially those with international connections, are being weakened or closed down with recent changes in laws regulating foreign funding. Many argue this is driven by ideological motives to quash dissent.
This is exacerbating the pressure on already vulnerable refugee communities to make their own safety nets.
By Jessica Field, Assistant Professor, Jindal School of International Affairs at O.P. Jindal Global University. This article originally appeared on The Conversation.
Pollution has been linked to nine million deaths worldwide in 2015, a report in The Lancet has found.
Almost all of these deaths occurred in low- and middle-income countries, where pollution could account for up to a quarter of deaths. Bangladesh and Somalia were the worst affected.
Air pollution had the biggest impact, accounting for two-thirds of deaths from pollution.
Brunei and Sweden had the lowest numbers of pollution-related deaths.
Most of these deaths were caused by non-infectious diseases linked to pollution, such as heart disease, stroke and lung cancer.
"Pollution is much more than an environmental challenge - it is a profound and pervasive threat that affects many aspects of human health and wellbeing," said the study's author, Prof Philip Landrigan, of the Icahn School of Medicine, at Mount Sinai in New York.
The biggest risk factor, air pollution, contributed to 6.5 million premature deaths. This included pollution from outdoor sources, such as gases and particulate matter in the air, and in households, from burning wood or charcoal indoors.
The next largest risk factor, water pollution, accounted for 1.8 million deaths, while pollution in the workplace was linked to 800,000 deaths globally.
About 92% of these deaths occurred in poorer countries, with the greatest impact felt in places undergoing rapid economic development such as India, which had the fifth highest level of pollution deaths, and China, which had the 16th.
UK faring worse
In the UK, about 8% or 50,000 deaths are estimated to be linked to pollution. This puts the UK in 55th place out of the 188 countries measured, placing them behind the US and many European countries, including Germany, France, Spain, Italy, Denmark.
Dr Penny Woods, of the British Lung Foundation, said: "Air pollution is reaching crisis point worldwide, and the UK is faring worse than many countries in Western Europe and the US.
"A contributing factor could be our dependence on diesel vehicles, notorious for pumping out a higher amount of poisonous particles and gases.
"These hit people with a lung condition, children and the elderly hardest."
The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) said a £3 billion plan had been put in place to improve air quality and reduce harmful emissions.
A spokesman said: "We will also end the sale of new diesel and petrol cars by 2040, and next year we will publish a comprehensive Clean Air Strategy which will set out further steps to tackle air pollution."
Mike Hawes from the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders said the latest diesel cars were the cleanest in history. He said the biggest change to air quality would be achieved "by encouraging the uptake of the latest, lowest emission technologies and ensuring road transport can move smoothly".
In the United States, more than 5.8% - or 155,000 - deaths could be linked to pollution.
The authors said air pollution affected the poor disproportionately, including those in poor countries as well as poor people in wealthy countries.
Study author Karti Sandilya, from Pure Earth, a non-governmental organisation, said: "Pollution, poverty, poor health, and social injustice are deeply intertwined.
"Pollution threatens fundamental human rights, such as the right to life, health, wellbeing, safe work, as well as protections of children and the most vulnerable."
The results were the product of a two-year project. The authors have published an interactive map illustrating their data.
Dissatisfied with the solutions given by president Maithripala Sirisena to the issue of political prisoners, students of all faculties of Jaffna University are boycotting classes until October 25. The exam for the fourth year students of the science faculty did not take place as scheduled today.
The students union of the university had meeting from 7.30 to 9.30 this morning and elaborated on their discussion with the president yesterday and decided to boycott classes.
October 25 is the day given by him to solve the issue of political prisoners. If no positive solution is forthcoming, all students will start a fasting, the union decided.
In a major step towards building a just, fair and all-inclusive society, the National Government yesterday launched a historic Gramashakthi People’s Movement with the vision of alleviating poverty by 2030.
President Maithripala Sirisena who has declared 2017 as the year of beginning the poverty alleviation mission launched this village empowerment programme at a ceremony held at the Sugathadasa Indoor Stadium and was broadcast countrywide.
According to the Presidential Media Division (PMD), the Gramashakthi people’s movement is the flagship mission of the national government for a sustainable, eco-friendly and largely village-based development programme. One of the main aims is to empower the majority of the economically and socially marginalised people and make freedom a reality for them and all Sri Lankans.
The PMD says priority will be given to districts where the number of low-income families is high. Initially about 1,000 such villages will be developed and by 2020 it will hopefully expand to about 5,000 villages.
Another objective of this mission is to create a fair society which provides equal opportunities for every community. The mission will focus on the livelihood requirements of totally and relatively poor families in grama niladhari divisions, the needs of women and unemployed youth, the needs of those badly affected by the war in the North and the East, the needs of those who should be empowered, needs of entrepreneurs and people who wish to be entrepreneurs, opportunities to free the people from debt burden and sustain their livelihoods.
Significantly the October 16 World Food Day had a similar theme -- rural development to prevent people from moving to cities or other countries. The Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) says three-quarters of the poorest of the poor base their livelihoods on agriculture or other rural activities. Creating conditions that allow rural people, especially the youth, to stay at home when they feel it is safe to do so, and to have more resilient livelihoods, is a crucial component of any plan to tackle the poverty and migration challenges.
A meeting was held today between the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the promotion of truth, justice reparation and guarantees of non-recurrence Pablo De Greiff and the Leader of the Opposition and the Tamil National Alliance R. Sampanthan in Colombo.
Sampanthan highlighted the important issues faced by the Tamil people with regard to the release of Lands belonging to civilians, Missing persons and the political prisoners.
Apprising on the land issues to special rapporteur Sampanthan pointed out “that our people have strong attachment to the lands not merely a sentimental but much beyond that and people are protesting demanding the release of their lands in some areas for more than three hundred days, they are in the sun in the rain and they are exposed to all kinds of elements but they are determined that they want their land to be returned”.Sampanthan highlighted that the government must understand that this is a matter that they are dealing with feelings of people and the rights of people and it must be resolved without any further delays. He further added if we are seeking for a genuine reconciliation these realities must be recognized.
Speaking of the Missing persons Sampanthan said “if a mother handed over her son to armed forces or a police officer she wants to know what happened to him it is a legitimate demand, these demands cannot be ignored”. Highlighting the delay in operationalizing the Office of the Missing Persons, Sampanthan pointed out the importance of having this office established in the Northern and the Eastern provinces as well.
On the issue of political prisoners, Sampanthan pointed out that “they are in custody not because they robbed or stole for personal gain. Every one of their cases has a political dimension, therefore their cases need to be looked at in that context and resolved. Further, he said, the Sri Lankan Government has failed to understand this fact. He further said, “the government has already accepted the fact that the PTA is a detrimental law and a law that should be removed from the statutory books”. He raised the question how come any government could keep someone in custody under such law. All these prisoners should be released Sampanthan added.
Sampanthan brought to the notice of the special rapporteur that these matters must be resolved, and cannot drift if it drifts it will create a serious impediment to the reconciliation process. There are people waiting to disturb the reconciliation and the political solution process and we must not play into the hands of those people he said.
Sampanthan urged the Special rapporteur to ensure that the voluntary commitments made by the Sri Lankan government to the people of Sri Lanka and to the international Community are implemented fully. He highlighted that these commitments were made by the government for the betterment and the advancement of the country and for its people, therefore, the government must honor its commitment and deliver so that the commitments do not end with just blueprints.
The New York-based Human Rights Watch has made a submission to the 77th Working Group of the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child focusing on the use of educational facilities by the military during the armed conflict in Sri Lanka.
This submission relates to Articles 28 and 38 of the Convention on the Rights of the Child, and focuses on the protection of students, teachers, and schools during armed conflict.
In its 2010 Concluding Observations under the Optional Protocol on the involvement of children in armed conflict, this Committee called upon Sri Lanka to:
a) Immediately discontinue military occupation and use of the schools and strictly ensure compliance with humanitarian law and the principle of distinction and to cease utilizing the primary section of V/Tamil MV school and the Omanthai Central College in Vavuniya to host separatees; and
(b) Ensure that school infrastructures damaged as a result of military occupation are promptly and fully restored.[1]
As of August 2017, Sri Lanka was contributing 456 troops and 21 military experts to United Nations peacekeeping operations around the world. Sri Lanka’s peacekeeping troops are deployed in the Central African Republic, Lebanon, and South Sudan. All three of these countries have endorsed the Safe Schools Declaration, an inter-governmental political commitment that provides countries the opportunity to express political support for the protection of students, teachers, and schools during times of armed conflict; the importance of the continuation of education during armed conflict; and the implementation of the Guidelines for Protecting Schools and Universities from Military Use during Armed Conflict. As of October 2017, 69 countries have endorsed the Safe Schools Declaration, but not Sri Lanka.
Sri Lanka’s troops deployed on peacekeeping missions are required to comply with the United Nations Department of Peacekeeping Operations’ UN Infantry Battalion Manual (2012), which includes the provision that “schools shall not be used by the military in their operations.”[2]
Moreover, the new 2017 Child Protection Policy of the United Nations Department of Peacekeeping Operations, Department of Field Support, and Department of Political Affairs also notes:
United Nations peace operations should refrain from all actions that impede children's access to education, including the use of school premises. This applies particularly to uniformed personnel. Furthermore, recognizing the adverse impact of the use of schools for military purposes, in particular its effects on the safety of children and education personnel, the civilian nature of schools, and the right to education, United Nations peace operations personnel shall at no time and for no amount of time use schools for military purposes.[3]
Earlier, in June 2015, the United Nations Security Council unanimously adopted resolution 2225 (2015) on children and armed conflict, which:
Expresses deep concern that the military use of schools in contravention of applicable international law may render schools legitimate targets of attack, thus endangering the safety of children and in this regard encourages Member States to take concrete measures to deter such use of schools by armed forces and armed groups.[4]
Human Rights Watch recommends to the Committee that it ask the government of Sri Lanka:
-On what date did the military use of the primary section of V/Tamil MV school and the Omanthai Central College in Vavuniya cease?
-On what date were restoration efforts completed to restore damage caused by the military use of the primary section of V/Tamil MV school and the Omanthai Central College in Vavuniya?
-On what date were students able to commence studies at the primary section of V/Tamil MV school and the Omanthai Central College in Vavuniya, following their use for military purposes?
-Are any schools, anywhere in the country, currently being used, held, or occupied for military purposes?
-What steps has Sri Lanka taken in line with UN Security Council Resolution 2143 (2014) and 2225 (2015) to deter the use of schools for military purposes?
-Are protections for schools from military use included in any policies, rules, or pre-deployment trainings for Sri Lanka’s armed forces?
Human Rights Watch asks the Committee to:
Congratulate Sri Lanka for attending the Buenos Aires Safe Schools Conference in March 2017.
Call upon the government of Sri Lanka to endorse the Safe Schools Declaration, and take concrete measures to deter the military use of schools, including by bringing the Guidelines for Protecting Schools and Universities from Military Use during Armed Conflict into domestic military policy and operational frameworks.
(AHRC) 14-year-old Kahingala Waduge Kanidu Minsara Silva, who was illegally arrested, detained and tortured by the Moratuwa Police Station on 10 October 2017. Minsara is a student at Uyana Kanishta Vidyalaya. On October 8, he had a non-violent dispute with a senior student, after which, Minsara was called to the police station and tortured. After he was produced in court, the Magistrate ordered a medical report and the police to investigate. Until now however, no investigation has been conducted.
Kahingala Waduge Priyantha Dunsiri Silva of No: 201/6, Riverside Gardens, Angulana, Moratuwa is married and the father of 14-year-old Kahingala Waduge Kanidu Minsara Silva. Minsara is studying at Year 10 of the Uyana Kanishta Vidyalaya in the Moratuwa Police Division.
On 8 October 2017 Minsara participated in a religious pageant organized by the Buddhist Temple of the village to celebrate the end of Buddhist monks’ raining season precepts (‘Katina’ Perahera). While the pageant was proceeding, Minsara had a small dispute with a fellow school student of the upper class. After the pageant ended, Minsara went home.
On October 10, Priyantha received a police message to appear before the Officer-in-Charge (OIC) of the Moratuwa Police Station, along with his son Minsara. When he questioned the police officer for the reason, he simply stated that they needed to record a statement. At 3:30 p.m., both the son and father went to the police station. Inside the police station they observed that the parents of the upper class student along with a local politician were also present, talking to the senior police officers.
The police officers called both parties for an inquiry before the OIC. The OIC questioned the parties for the dispute among the children. Then he suddenly informed Priyantha that they are arresting his son and later producing him before the Moratuwa Magistrate’s Court. Shocked, Priyantha pleaded with the officer that his son is innocent, and a minor. He further explained that although the children have a dispute, it was not violent or with any damages. However, the OIC insisted that Minsara needed to be arrested, detained and will be produced before the magistrate only on the next day. Later Priyantha left the police station while Minsara was crying. Priyantha wanted to consult an attorney-at-law.
At 5:30 p.m., Priyantha received a telephone call from an unknown number, and his son Minsara pleaded with him to come to the police station as he is in fear of his life. He was crying continuously. Priyantha again visited the police station, where Minsara informed him that, with the help of a woman visitor, he called him. Minsara explained that he was tortured by the police officer who took him to the rear of the police compound. Minsara narrated that, the officer first came with uniform and then later came in civilian clothes. Then he was beaten with fists and kicks. When Minsara fell down, the officer kicked his chest three times. Minsara clearly mentioned that while being tortured, the officer was blaming him for having a dispute with the other child. The torturer never questioned him for any information. It was clearly for revenge taking and proved as a punishment.
On October11, Minsara was produced before the Moratuwa Magistrate’s Court in case no. B/1667/17. His lawyer, Manoj R Gamage, appeared before the Magistrate and explained that the child was tortured, and the circumstances of the torture. When Minsara was questioned, he was still suffering from chest pain.
The Magistrate questioned the police for the identities of the individual officers responsible for this kind of torture to a child. Later, the Magistrate granted bail to Minsara and ordered the Judicial Medical Officer of the Panadura Base Hospital to examine the child and report to the court on his medical condition.
Priyantha states that his son was illegally arrested and detained at the police station. He explained that the police unnecessarily detained Minsara, even though there was a possibility to produce him before the Magistrate within several hours after the arrest. Even though the Magistrate directed the police to investigate and report on the incident of torture, the police have still not initiated any investigation.
( Above cartoon courtesy of the Indian Express)
