Category: Governance

Fifty million people around the world are trapped in forced labour or forced marriage, the UN said, warning that their ranks had swelled dramatically in recent years.

The United Nations had set a goal to eradicate all forms of modern slavery by 2030, but instead the number of people caught up in forced labour or forced marriage ballooned by 10 million between 2016 and 2021, according to a new report.

The study, by the UN’s agencies for labour and migration along with the Walk Free Foundation, found that at the end of last year, 28 million people were in forced labour, while 22 million were living in a marriage they had been forced into.

That means nearly one out of every 150 people in the world are caught up in modern forms of slavery, the report said.

“It is shocking that the situation of modern slavery is not improving,” Guy Ryder, head of the International Labour Organization (ILO), said in a statement.

“Nothing can justify the persistence of this fundamental abuse of human rights.”

The Covid-19 pandemic, which worsened conditions and swelled debt levels for many workers, has heightened the risk, the report found.

Coupled with the effects of climate change and armed conflicts, it has contributed to “unprecedented disruption to employment and education, increases in extreme poverty and forced and unsafe migration”, compounding the threat, it said.

It is a long-term problem, the report cautioned, with estimates indicating entrapment in forced labour can last years and forced marriage is often “a life sentence.”

Women and children are by far the most vulnerable.

Children account for one out of five people in forced labour, with more than half of them stuck in commercial sexual exploitation, the report said.

Migrant workers are meanwhile more than three times more likely to be in forced labour than non-migrant adult workers, it showed.

“This report underscores the urgency of ensuring that all migration is safe, orderly, and regular,” Antonio Vitorino, head of the International Organization for Migration (IOM), said in the statement.

Modern slavery is present in basically every country in the world, with more than half of cases of forced labour and a quarter of forced marriages in upper-middle income or high-income countries.

The report found that the number of people – mainly women and girls – stuck in forced marriages had risen by a full 6.6 million since the last global estimates in 2016.

The number of people in forced labour swelled by 2.7 million over the same period.

The increase was driven entirely by more forced labour in the private economy, including in forced commercial sexual exploitation.

But the report also said that 14 percent of those in forced labour were doing jobs imposed by state authorities, voicing concern about abuse of compulsory prison labour in a number of countries, including the United States.

It also pointed to grave concerns raised by the UN rights office about “credible accounts of forced labour under exceptionally harsh conditions” in North Korea.

And it highlighted the situation in China, where several UN agencies have warned of possible forced labour, including in the Xinjiang region, where Beijing stands accused of detaining more than one million Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities.

Beijing has vehemently rejected such charges, claiming it is running vocational training centres to help root out extremism.

A report published by former UN rights chief Michelle Bachelet on Aug 31 said more information was needed, but that labour schemes in the region appeared to be discriminatory and to “involve elements of coercion.”

Monday’s report welcomed China last month having ratified the ILO Forced Labour Convention, creating “renewed momentum for cooperation with the government and social partners to pursue these issues (and) to combat forced labour.”

Source: NAM NEWS NETWORK

Guinea and Vanuatu had their ability to vote at the United Nations restored on Monday, having been denied the right at the beginning of the month over their failure to pay their dues to the world body, a UN spokeswoman said.
“The General Assembly took note that Guinea, Iran and Vanuatu have made the payments necessary to reduce their arrears below the amounts specified in Article 19 of the Charter,” U.N. spokeswoman Paulina Kubiak said.
“This means that they can resume voting in the General Assembly,” she said.
Under Article 19, any country can have their voting rights in the General Assembly suspended if their payment arrears are equal to or greater than the contribution due for the past two full years.
The payment Friday of more than $18 million by Iran, via an account in Seoul and most likely with the approval of the United States, which has imposed heavy financial sanctions on Tehran, had been announced at the end of last week by UN sources and confirmed by South Korea.
For their part, Guinea had to pay at least $40,000 and Vanuatu at least $194 to recover their right to vote.
Kubiak later added three other countries that lost their U.N. voting rights in early January had also recovered them after paying the minimum arrears required last week.
Those countries were Sudan, which had to pay about $300,000, Antigua and Barbuda, which owed some $37,000 and Congo-Brazzaville, with around $73,000 in arrears, said the spokeswoman.
On the other hand, Venezuela, which is facing a minimum payment of nearly $40 million, and Papua New Guinea, which must pay just over $13,000, remain deprived of the right to vote, according to the U.N.
They are the only two countries out of the 193 members of the United Nations that will not be able to participate in votes this year.

Source: Voice of America

Libya’s election commission said on Wednesday that Saif al-Islam Gadhafi, the son of the former ruler and a major candidate in December’s planned presidential election, was ineligible to run, compounding the turmoil surrounding the vote.
Gadhafi was one of 25 candidates that it disqualified in an initial decision pending an appeals process that will ultimately be decided by the judiciary. Some 98 Libyans registered as candidates.
Disputes over the election rules, including the legal basis of the vote and who should be eligible to stand, threaten to derail an internationally backed peace process aimed at ending a decade of factional chaos.
The military prosecutor in Tripoli had urged the commission to rule out Gadhafi after his conviction in absentia on war crimes charges in 2015 for his part in fighting the revolution that toppled his father Muammar Gadhafi in 2011. He has denied wrongdoing.
Some of the other candidates initially approved by the commission had also been accused of possible violations by political rivals.
Interim prime minister Abdulhamid al-Dbeibah vowed not to run for president as a condition of taking on his present role, and did not stand down from it three months before the vote as is required by a contested election law.
Another prominent candidate, eastern commander Khalifa Haftar, is said to have U.S. nationality, which could also rule him out. Many people in western Libya also accuse him of war crimes committed during his 2019-20 assault on Tripoli.
Haftar denies warcrimes and says he is not a U.S. citizen. Dbeibah has described as “flawed” the election rules issued in September by the parliament speaker Aguila Saleh, who is also a candidate.
U.N. Libya envoy Jan Kubis, who is stepping down from his post, told the U.N. Security Council on Wednesday that Libya’s judiciary would make the final decision on the rules and on whether candidates were eligible.

Source: Voice of America

The U.N. Security Council threatened sanctions Wednesday against spoilers in Libya’s presidential and parliamentary elections scheduled for December 24.
“The Security Council recalls that individuals or entities who threaten the peace, stability or security of Libya or obstruct or undermine the successful completion of its political transition, including by obstructing or undermining the elections, may be designated for its sanctions,” the 15-nation council said in a presidential statement.
The council also called on all Libyan stakeholders to respect the results of the vote and to work together “in the spirit of unity and compromise” afterward for a peaceful transfer of power.
Additionally, members issued a united call for countries to respect the arms embargo imposed against Libya and for all foreign fighters and mercenaries to immediately leave the country. Instability, fighting and foreign interference have proliferated in Libya since the ouster and killing of longtime dictator Moammar Gadhafi in 2011.
Libya is to hold elections in exactly one month — 70 years to the day since the country declared independence in 1951. The head of the High National Election Commission, or HNEC, said Tuesday that 98 people had registered by the deadline to run for president, a list that includes a son of Gadhafi and the commander of an eastern-based militia that tried to seize the capital, Tripoli, in 2019, as well as two female hopefuls.
On Wednesday, it was reported that Gadhafi, who is wanted on war crimes charges by the International Criminal Court at The Hague, was among 25 candidates whose bids have been rejected by the HNEC.
More than 2,000 hopefuls have registered so far to run for parliamentary seats, including 276 women. That registration is open until December 7.
Earlier this month, the HNEC began distributing voter cards to the more than 2.8 million registered voters, with more than 64% of eligible voters having received them so far.
The HNEC has confirmed the first round of voting in both polls will be December 24, with a second round 50 days later, to accommodate counting and tabulating the results, as well as possible electoral challenges and appeals. The final results of both elections will be announced simultaneously.
Envoy abruptly resigns
It was also announced Tuesday the U.N.’s top diplomat for Libya, Jan Kubis, is stepping down. Kubis addressed his abrupt departure after less than a year in the post, in what was likely his final briefing to the council, via a video call from Tripoli.
He said he favors splitting the role of special envoy and head of the U.N. Support Mission in Libya, UNSMIL, into two jobs with the head of UNSMIL being located in Tripoli. This is something that had been discussed earlier but not acted on.
“In order to create conditions for this on 17 November 2021, I tendered my resignation,” he told the council. “In the resignation letter, I also confirmed my readiness to continue as the special envoy for a transitional period to ensure business continuity provided that it is a feasible option.”
However, he said Secretary-General Antonio Guterres accepted his resignation in a letter, effective December 10 before the elections.
“We will continue to work with him while we’re seeking a successor,” U.N. spokesman Farhan Haq said of Kubis when asked about the secretary-general’s choice of date for his departure.
The previous envoy, Ghassan Salame, left the post in March 2020 citing stress on his health, and it took more than a year to find his successor. Now the secretary-general has set himself the Herculean task of finding a new envoy who is agreeable to both of the Libyan parties and the Security Council in less than three weeks.
In his parting briefing, Kubis said the political climate in the country remains “heavily polarized,” including tensions over the existing legal framework for the elections and the eligibility of some candidates.
“Libya continues to be at a delicate and fragile juncture on its path to unity and stability through the ballot boxes,” Kubis said. “While risks associated with the ongoing political polarization around the elections are evident and present, not holding the elections could gravely deteriorate the situation in the country and could lead to further division and conflict.”

Source: Voice of America