Anti-Muslim protests in Myanmar increase following new government installation
Hundreds of Buddhist nationalists staged anti-Muslim protests ahead of a visit from U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, who took up the issue of the persecution of Myanmar’s Muslim minority with state counselor Aung San Suu Kyi.
“No Muslims allowed” signs and anti-Muslim patrols have popped up in villages like Thaungtan, with those even suspected of being Muslim harassed and assaulted.
State counselor Aung San Suu Kyi reportedly instructed U.S. diplomats not to use the term “Rohingya,” echoing Buddhist nationalists who consider the Rohingya to be illegal immigrants and Muslims and Hindus “associate citizens.”
Citations
Education for Refugees, from Preschool to Professorship
Global emergencies like war, natural disaster, and health pandemics have uprooted families and disrupted education at all levels as displaced students have been deprived of access to schools. Students in early childhood, primary, secondary, and higher education as well as teachers, professors, and other educational professionals have experienced delayed educational and professional development during times of crisis, disabling dreams and prospects for the future. Whether in Malaysia, Greece, or Lebanon, displaced communities have struggled to adjust to lost livelihoods, new cultures, and uncertain futures.
As the average duration of displacement has dramatically increased over the last three decades, international humanitarian organizations have been pressed to develop long-term programs and partnerships to replace short-term emergency educational provision. These challenges have been compounded by the disproportionate burden of education in emergencies shouldered by developing countries, where refugee populations vastly outnumber those in high-income countries. Over time, the educational pipeline has come to look less like a pipe than a funnel, with progressive exclusion and decreasing resources constraining opportunity as refugee children age. Workarounds developed in earlier stages have at times installed barriers for students at more advanced education stages as credentialing standardization and selective admissions disadvantage students from newly developed, temporary, and informal educational institutions outside of the national curriculum.
From connected learning hubs in refugee camps in Kenya to elementary classrooms in Canada, technological innovation and international coordination have worked to connect displaced students to well-resourced institutions and support educational continuity through crises. Meanwhile, new momentum in the development of transnational platforms for educational financing, advising, and service delivery has reinvigorated the global education community and increased commitment to education for all, regardless of circumstance. Here is a look at select recent news, features, and open research on and resources for global refugee education and scholar protection: Continue reading Citations | Refugee Education→
More than 70 arrested in Myanmar after labor demonstration
Police reportedly detained 71 protesters and charged 51 after they attempted to march from their wood-processing factory in Sagaing State to Naypyitaw, the capital.
Protesters organized to call for organizing rights and the re-hiring of terminated factory workers.
Myanmar’s government has come under fire from rights groups for a proposal to retain junta-era restrictions on assembly and free speech, including the exclusion of non-citizens (including the Rohingya minority) from demonstration rights.
Seychelles overturns sodomy law in victory for LGBT rights
The Seychelles National Assembly voted in favor of abolishing a colonial-era law criminalizing sodomy, effectively legalizing same-sex relations in the archipelago nation.
Seychelles joins fellow African Union members São Tomé e Príncipe and Mozambique in recent pro-LGBT legal reform.
As in most countries around the world, the debate over decriminalization was dominated by religious concerns, with Catholics comprising 76% of the Seychellois population and Anglicans, the second largest religious community, comprising 6%.
The International Day Against Homophobia, Transphobia & Biphobia
Commemorating the day when homosexuality was de-pathologized by the World Health Organization in 1990, the 13th-annual International Day Against Homophobia, Transphobia & Biphobia (IDAHOT) stands as an occasion for global mobilization towards LGBT visibility and security. The day, like many global celebrations, is also one many governments choose to speak out on global human rights and minority security, announcing initiatives to support their LGBT citizens and international projects.
Even today, ongoing disagreements between nations over LGBT rights have prompted diplomatic rows and roadblocks to international cooperation, including the recent objection of 51 Muslim countries to the participation of LGBT groups in a U.N. AIDS forum in June. The push to extinguish homophobia, transphobia, and biphobia at all geographic levels remains important to the global mobility of LGBT people worldwide.
LGBT Nigerians have continued wrestling with conflicting legal messages, with the recent passage of the landmark HIV Anti-Discrimination Act doing little to undo the effects of a 2014 anti-homosexuality law.
The Gay and Lesbians Association of Zimbabwe (GALZ) organized events for IDAHOT in Bulawayo, focusing on mental health as ongoing social and healthcare difficulties plague the community.
Though homosexuality remains criminalized in Tunisia, activists have achieved increased visibility and pushed for legal reform amidst ongoing discrimination.
Israel reaffirmed its commitment to LGBT Israelis, announcing funding to support an emergency shelter for LGBT youth and a hostel for trans people who have recently undergone gender confirmation surgery.
Days before IDAHOT, activists staged a sit-in outside of a Beirut gendarmerie, protesting Lebanon‘s anti-homosexuality legal holdovers from French occupation. Similarly, the Lebanese Medical Association for Sexual Health (LebMASH) issued an appeal to the Lebanese government to decriminalize same-sex relations, arguing for recognition of homosexuality’s presence within the natural variation of human sexuality.
U.S. President Barack Obama released a statement of support as his administration lended its voice to a national debate over the bathroom rights of trans people.
Across Latin America, important gains in same-sex partnership and family rights and gender identity healthcare and legal protections have heartened LGBT Latin Americans, but the region continues to have some of the highest reported rates of violence against the LGBT community in the world.
LGBT organizations held cultural and political events throughout Argentina to highlight conditions facing the Argentine LGBT community, call for an anti-discrimination law, and press for federal recognition of the International Day Against Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity Discrimination, as the day is known.
Cuba celebrated the day fresh off Pride events in Havana, where Mariela Castro, daughter of President Raúl Castro, led a parade of thousands through the city streets.
As the country continues contentious battles including the push for marriage equality and erasure of “gay panic” legal defenses, rainbow flags and celebrations appeared across Australia, including over police stations in Canberra, in the streets of Brisbane, and in the senior-care facilities of Tasmania. In Victoria, officials announced a retreat for Aboriginal gender minorities to be held later in the year.
In China, a study conducted by the U.N. Development Programme, Peking University, and the Beijing LGBT Center, the largest of its kind to date, was released revealing that only 5% of LGBTI Chinese are fully out at school and work, but also showed encouraging levels of acceptance of LGBTI people among China’s youth. The head of Hong Kong’s Equal Opportunities Commission expressed support for anti-discrimination legislation at IDAHOT festivities in the city.
In Fiji, former President Ratu Epeli Nailatikau joined festivities at the French Ambassador’s residence to celebrate the island’s LGBTQI community.
A tug-of-war over LGBT rights between Islamic fundamentalists and pro-diversity moderates in Indonesia has led to mixed messages about LGBT security in the nation, spurring anti-discrimination protests.
A recent Human Rights Watch report on anti-LGBT bullying in Japan served as a reminder of the purpose of the day, highlighting rampant anti-LGBT sentiment even as the government has initiated broad efforts to combat bullying in schools.
The divergent prospects for LGBTI people across Europe, from Western Europe’s distinctive commitment to the protection of gender diversity to ongoing persecution in the East, was further confirmed through a UNESCO report highlighting anti-LGBT violence in schools released as global education ministers met in Paris.
Rainbow colors appeared in the shopping district of Cyprus‘s capital as 22 organizations came together to organize events to launch the country’s third Pride Festival, focusing on the need to increase legal recognition of both sexual and gender minorities in the country.
In Gibraltar, organizers canceled event plans in support of action on marriage equality legislation currently under consideration, arguing that holding a rally in front of the Parliament as uncertainty prevails would undermine pressure on MPs.
Kosovo‘s first Pride march brought out hundreds from the LGBT community to Pristina, including the U.S. and U.K. ambassadors.
Organizations in Luxembourg planned a silent march to call attention to the plight of LGBTI individuals worldwide and call for increased international protections (including asylum).
Organizers in Serbia took the day to announce the date of this year’s Pride parade (September 18) and address concerns of homophobia as right-wing parliamentary representation has increased.
Advocates, allies, and diplomats gathered around the rainbow flag raised at the US Embassy in Latvia.
After advocates scrapped plans for IDAHOT activities in Georgia due to security concerns, a group of activists were arrested for painting pro-LGBT graffiti on administrative buildings. A “Family Day” protest against LGBT rights and visibility, the third such anti-LGBT demonstration, brought together members of Georgia’s conservative Orthodox community and international religious groups.
In the U.K., London’s new mayor promised to make the city a more just place for its LGBT residents as a rainbow flag flew over the Mayor’s Office.
The Hunted Albinism Community of East and Southern Africa
People with albinism, a condition affecting body pigmentation and sunlight sensitivity, have faced ongoing persecution throughout East and Southern Africa, attacked and trafficked by those who believe their body parts hold magical powers. With albinism found to occur more frequently in certain African regions like East Africa than elsewhere in the world, the higher visibility has led to increased discrimination and prejudice. Children in particular have faced heightened vulnerability to kidnapping and violence, leading some families and governments to respond by segregating children with albinism into Temporary Holding Centers (THCs).
Recent years have seen increased attention to the insecurity of the albinism community in countries like Mozambique, Malawi, and Tanzania. Police have worked to crack down on kidnapping and murders while civil organizations have cropped up to provide education, resources, and support to the community. Nevertheless, ongoing black markets and trafficking networks have endangered the community in ways observers worry may be irreversible without aggressive government and community interventions.
Kenya announces plans to close refugee camps, including world’s largest
If carried out, the decision would impact hundreds of thousands of refugees (most Somali), including more than 300,000 at Dadaab, the largest refugee camp in the world.
The government has cited national security concerns for the abandonment of a repatriation agreement with Somalia and the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, taking the initial step of disbanding the Department of Refugee Affairs and calling on the international community to support the transition.
In the lead up to the announcement, the camps experienced major reductions in resources, including food and healthcare.
Kyrgyzstan Parliament blocks bill targeting foreign NGOs for increased government oversight
The controversial bill, modeled after Russia’s, originally sought to have foreign-funded organizations labeled “foreign agents” and increase bureaucratic oversight of international NGOs, deterring their operation in the country.
International or internationally funded NGOs in the country support public health and human rights development—particularly for vulnerable minorities—and serve as monitors of government corruption.
The bill had been revised to excise the “foreign agent” label and decrease financial reporting requirements, but the persistence of other large bureaucratic burdens led to the bill’s defeat as legislators worried over the bill’s impact on Kyrgyzstan’s international reputation.
Massive protests against French labor reform bring about violence, arrests, strikes
Demonstrations have been ongoing since March, when labor and student unions organized against government proposals perceived as decreasing job security and negotiating power for workers.
More than 1,000 have been arrested during clashes with police in cities like Paris and Nantes that have seen more than 300 officers injured as protesters have alleged instances of police brutality, with police unions organizing counter-protests against anti-police violence.
After President François Hollande’s government survived a no-confidence vote, union leaders planned rolling strikes and continuing demonstrations across the country.
France’s leading political women, journalists, and activists confront sexism in French politics
Two op-eds appeared over the last week as protests have grown confronting what many women in French politics—politicians, reporters, and petitioners alike—report is a culture of silence and impunity towards sexual harassment.
Appearing in the Journal du Dimanche and Libération, the op-eds called for women who have experienced sexual harassment to speak out and register formal complaints and for an expansion of investigative capacity to ensure the behavior does not go unpunished.
The effort comes as a number of scandals have engulfed male politicians, including the most recent leading to the resignation of Denis Baupin, vice president of the National Assembly, following multiple allegations of sexual harassment.
“Ce n’est pas aux femmes à s’adapter à ces milieux, ce sont les comportements de certains hommes qui doivent changer.”
Translation: “It’s not on women to adapt to these environments; it’s the conduct of certain men that must change.”
Ethnic tensions erupt into fatal brawl at Moscow’s biggest cemetery
Three were killed and nearly two dozen hospitalized among the 200 embroiled in clashes over service areas at the Khovanskoye cemetery in southwest Moscow.
Officials reported the fighting was primarily between Chechens and Dagestanis from the Russian Caucasus on one side and Central Asian migrants on the other, primarily ethnic Tajiks and Uzbeks.
Tensions have simmered in the country between migrant and other low-paid workers as Russia’s economic woes have led to a constricted job market.
Militant arrested in connection to murder of LGBT activists in Bangladesh
Shariful Islam, also known as Shihab, was arrested in the district of Kushtia in connection with the deaths of Xulhaz Mannan and Mahbub Rabbi Tonoy.
Though Al Qaeda claimed responsibility for the murders, Dhaka police say Islam was affiliated with the banned local militant group Ansarullah Bangla Team.
Since 2013, only one in the series of killings of atheists, moderates, and foreigners in Bangladesh has been prosecuted.
Hazara communities in Afghanistan protest changes to new electricity line route
Thousands from Hazara communities in the country are expected to protest after officials outlined a new route away from provinces with large Hazara populations for what they argue are technical and economic reasons.
The electricity project is a part of the Asian Development Bank’s plan to connect energy-rich Central Asia with the energy-deprived countries of the western subcontinent.
The resource row comes as the government has pledged increased protection for the Shiite Hazara minority, who have faced kidnapping and murder at the hands of militants in the Sunni-majority country.
Since the dawn of the new century, the role of international institutions and cooperation in efforts to promote gender equality has grown as economies, migration, and environmental conditions have continued intertwining peoples around the world. The Thomson Reuters Foundation recently interviewed Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka, the head of U.N. Women, about efforts to coordinate global efforts to promote women’s rights and security.
Ahead of the upcoming Women Deliver conference set to bring together 5,000 attendees from 150 countries, Mlambo-Ngcuka discussed the challenges of securing long-term investments in gender equality worldwide and the ambitious new agenda set through the new Sustainable Development Goals for 2030. The redress of structural inequalities, ongoing gender-based vulnerabilities, and the continued generational and gender outreach work necessary for equality continue to drive new programs in U.N. Women even as the work is met with derision or indifference from global political and business leaders.
Outlas 