Pakistani women are fighting back against acid attacks and the stigma of disfigurement by pursuing perpetrators in the country’s courts, increasing public awareness and petitioning legislators for action. A piece of legislation that would limits acid sales and impose harsh penalties on those who use acid as an attack weapon was submitted to Parliament, on the heels of the first Supreme Court decision in favor of an acid attack victim.
Lever wheelchair is aimed at users in Third World
MIT engineer Amos Winter devised a wheelchair specifically targeting disabled individuals living in the Third World, where amenities such as ramps and wheelchairs are considered a luxury. Levers allow the user to propel the wheelchair and generate greater torque to navigate unpaved roads, mud and other difficult paths.
Massive polio-vaccination effort is under way in Africa
United Nations agencies and local partners are conducting a massive polio-vaccination campaign targeting 85 million children under 5 in 19 West and Central African countries. A 2008 outbreak that began in Nigeria has spread to neighboring countries, and the disease has re-emerged in areas previously declared polio-free
A “gendercide” afflicts females in China and India
Most people know China and northern India have unnaturally large numbers of boys. But few appreciate how bad the problem is, or that it is rising. In China the imbalance between the sexes was 108 boys to 100 girls for the generation born in the late 1980s; for the generation of the early 2000s, it was 124 to 100. In some Chinese provinces the ratio is an unprecedented 130 to 100. The destruction is worst in China but has spread far beyond. Other East Asian countries, including Taiwan and Singapore, former communist states in the western Balkans and the Caucasus, and even sections of America’s population (Chinese- and Japanese-Americans, for example): all these have distorted sex ratios. Gendercide exists on almost every continent. It affects rich and poor; educated and illiterate; Hindu, Muslim, Confucian and Christian alike.
Sectarian violence roils Nigeria
As many as 500 people, many of them women and children, were killed in ethnic violence in Nigeria near a city that has proved to be a conflict ground between Muslims and Christians. According to reports, Muslim herders known as the Hausa-Fulani attacked and killed members of the Christian ethnic group — a slaughter seen as a reprisal for January violence in which dozens of Muslims died. Police have arrested 95 suspected attackers, who used machetes and animal traps in the village raid.
NIGERIA: Violence delays polio vaccinations
A polio vaccination campaign in the violence-wracked central Nigerian city of Jos has been delayed due to the violence and an on-going health worker strike, aid workers said. IFRC is one of the agencies running a week-long regional campaign to vaccinate at least 85 million children in West Africa against polio. The Nigeria Red Cross has estimated that some 20,000 people were displaced by violence in Jos during January. It is hoped that vaccinations will take place as planned.
Germany: Abuse Investigation Needed ‘Without a Moment’s Delay’
The child-abuse scandal that broke out in Germany in late January has
now spread across the country. As shocked German politicians argue over
whether to lift the statute of limitations or impose civil penalties,
newspaper commentators are unanimous in their call for swift and
concerted action.
Donors are urged to help Global Fund build on progress
Decreased donor funding for the Global Fund to Fight Aids, Tuberculosis and Malaria would quickly erode prevention and treatment gains achieved since the fund launched eight years ago, United Nations AIDS agency head Michel Sidibe said Monday. Advances include the tantalizing prospect of an end to mother-to-child HIV/AIDS transmission by 2015 and a decrease in the number of tuberculosis cases of up to 50%, according to a report released by the fund Monday.
Women still lag behind in Asia-Pacific region
A report by the UN Development Program suggests that despite economic expansion in the Asia-Pacific region over recent decades, women yet face discrimination in jobs, health care, education and political representation. Equality for womenhttp://children.foreignpolicyblogs.com/wp-admin/post.php?action=edit&post=2862 was named as one of the Millennium Development Goals, and the Asia-Pacific Human Development Report suggests that efforts to secure legal rights and political representation for women will help nations achieve the other goals, in particular by boosting national domestic incomes.
UN: Mother-to-child HIV/AIDS transmission can be history by 2015
The United Nations says mother-to-child HIV transmission can be eliminated by 2015 if health programs receive increased investments as planned. Michel Sidibe, the head of UNAIDS, appealed to government and private donors to keep investing in the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria.