Afghan women fear a retreat to dark days
Human rights observers have warned Afghan President Hamid Karzai against rushing into a political agreement with elements of the Taliban, lest the nation risk rolling back the hard-fought and potentially tenuous rights restored to women after the fall of the Taliban. At the country's largest-ever women's conference, Afghan Minister of Women's Affairs Hasan Bano Ghazanfa warned Karzai that the dangers to women's rights would be palpable if the leader enters into negotiations with the Taliban.
America won't sign a treaty banning cluster bombs. But can it use them now?
Although the U.S. refused to a sign a treaty banning the use of cluster bombs — a treaty ratified by 94 countries, including such traditional U.S. allies as Britain, Germany and France — the nation may still find itself bound by the treaty in the future. Although the treaty does not rule out joint operations between signatories and non-signatories, signatories are nevertheless discouraged from assisting in military campaigns in which cluster bombs are used, and the treaty itself provides an effective negotiating point for outlining military actions between the U.S. and its allies.
ZIMBABWE: Call to suspend diamonds from the Kimberley Process
Civil society is calling for the suspension of Zimbabwe from the Kimberley Process, an international certification scheme to prevent conflict diamonds from entering the multibillion dollar market. Global Witness, a non-governmental organisation (NGO) that led the campaign to set up the system, said in a statement on 12 December: “Members of the Kimberley Process Civil Society Coalition are calling upon the Kimberley Process to suspend Zimbabwe from the rough diamond certification scheme, in light of recent violence used by the government to take control of the Chiadzwa diamond fields [in Manicaland Province].”
PHILIPPINES: Muslim rebels agree to end use of child soldiers
Muslim separatist Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) rebels have agreed to end the recruitment and use of child soldiers, the UN special representative for children and armed conflict, Radhika Coomaraswamy, has announced. “When we met with the leadership of the MILF, they agreed that they had children in their midst and they agreed to enter into an action plan with a UN country team to ensure the separation of the children from their ranks and their return to civilian. The negotiations will begin for an action plan. The action plan has to be time-bound, concrete, and has to have a process of verification,” she said.
PHILIPPINES: Rebel reproductive health law
The bustling northern Philippine city of Olongapo has defied the politically influential Roman Catholic Church by passing its own reproductive health code advocating sex education for high school students and the mass distribution of condoms, among other things.
AFGHANISTAN: UN calls for more action to protect children
The UN Children's Fund (UNICEF) has called on all warring parties in Afghanistan to consider children as “zones of peace” to help protect them against the ravages of war. UNICEF says children are among the most vulnerable groups in the conflict; they do not have the capacity to influence the decisions of warring parties and should not be affected by the conflict. "Children have been killed, maimed, sexually abused, arbitrarily detained, recruited as foot soldiers, used as suicide attackers and deprived of development and education," UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said in a report to the Security Council in November. From July 2007 to July 2008 the UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) recorded 1,722 civilian deaths in the conflict.
