This paper argues that there is a real possibility to eliminate child labour. It states that significant progress is being made in global efforts to end child labour, but recognises that much remains to be done and a strong and sustained global effort is still required.

Although Zanzibar's Kataa Malaria initiative has reduced the malaria caseload on the island, misinformation about the safety of insecticide-treated bed nets - a cornerstone of the programme - has left many people exposed to the disease, which kills one million people around the world each year. In December 2005, Tanzania became one of 15 beneficiaries of a US $1.2-billion initiative to fight malaria in sub-Sahara Africa, where 90 percent of all global malaria deaths occur. United States President George W Bush's Malaria Initiative (PMI) is funded through the US Agency for International Development (USAID). As a beneficiary, Zanzibar received 240,000 long-lasting, insecticide-treated bed nets for local distribution to pregnant women and children up to age five years, the groups most vulnerable to the disease.

Rape Crisis Cape Town Trust, the Western Cape Network on Violence Against Women and partners would like to invite you to wear a skirt or white top on Friday 12 May 2006 to show your support for survivors of rape and gender-based violence and join us in asking HOW FREE ARE WE? We will also be gathering at 13h30, in Wale Street, Cape Town, outside St George's Cathedral to raise our voices in asking the question HOW FREE ARE WE?

Public sexual harassment against women has become a pervasive problem in Egypt and presents a significant obstacle both to women's well-being and their participation in public life, which in turn impacts the course of democratic progress in Egypt.

Child labour, especially in its worst forms, is in decline for the first time across the globe, the International Labour Organization (ILO) says in a new, cautiously optimistic report entitled "The end of child labour: Within reach". The ILO report also says that if the current pace of the decline were to be maintained and the global momentum to stop child labour continued, it believes child labour could feasibly be eliminated, in most of its worst forms, in 10 years.

Ashoka’s Changemakers initiative is launching a global search for innovative strategies that provide high-quality, cost-effective, and scalable health solutions reaching low-income and marginalised populations around the world. These health solutions may focus on healthcare delivery, health financing, health education and disease prevention, pharmaceuticals or other key issues. The Changemakers Innovation Awards series is based on a unique ‘open source’ format by which participants compete for best solutions to pressing social issues while collaborating to advance current initiatives.

This 51- page Zambian advocacy resource book is aimed at individuals, community groups, People Living with HIV and AIDS (PLWHA), youth and school pupils, district level organisations, teachers associations, church groups, local government leaders and others concerned and wanting to make a positive contribution to the response to HIV and AIDS in Zambia.

The Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) has restated its opposition to the third term bid of President Olusegun Obasanjo and state governors, saying that it had been steadfast on the issue. Describing politicians as opportunists, the congress also deplored the part played by some former public office holders, including former Chairman of the People's Democratic Party (PDP), Chief Audu Ogbeh, and former Inspectors-General of Police in the abuse of workers' and citizens' rights.

The Labour Chapter in the Bamako Appeal may represent the most radical public statement on the contemporary global labour question to be found so far. Considering the present nature of work and workers worldwide, it recognises the limitations of the trade unions, traditionally considered to be either the sole or the central form of worker self organisation. But it nonetheless suggests a significant role for labour within the new global justice and solidarity movement, thus re articulating labour with the general social movement of our epoch.

Progressio seeks a Development Worker (DW), who will specialise in Communications and Advocacy. This is a two-year contract based in Tegucigalpa, Honduras. The development worker will work with FOSDEH's Communications Department, strengthening its internal and external communication capacity. The main areas of the communications work are related to poverty, external debt, public policies, transparency, corruption, etc. Please note for this post Spanish and English fluency (both written and spoken) is essential.

The dark clouds threaten a downpour. Already, light showers have started, and people in the streets of Kenya's capital, Nairobi, are hurrying to their destinations to avoid getting soaked. But a mother and her two-year-old daughter strapped tightly to her back, is not running away from the rains. She is fleeing the city council "askaris" (guards) who are cracking down on hawkers. Hawking within the central business district is prohibited, but has continued nonetheless with bribes known to make askaris look in the other direction.

2005 was a significant moment for development campaigning. The United Kingdom presidencies of the EU and the G8, as well as UN meetings and WTO negotiations presented a unique opportunity to make progress in the campaign against global poverty. This report evaluates the UK’s Make Poverty History Campaign, assesses its impact, identifies its successes and discusses its challenges.

The workshop content centers on Advocacy and Fundraising: The Advocacy part of the workshop is intended to be a hands-on experience focusing on designing, implementing, monitoring and evaluating an advocacy for policy change campaigns.

This paper will attempt to dissect and identify the challenges faced by the wage labour and labour movement in this highly celebrated capitalist era especially by the rich. It would highlight the problems specifically related to wage labour and labour movements and their survival. It will also highlight the constraints resulting from globalised economic policies demands and problems of economic retaliation resulting from a drastic economic reform. The paper will further propose that, the working class organisations missed an opportunity for achieving their perceived goal of socialism in their respective localities.

Reviewed by Shailja Patel

The press release for this book posed two key questions:

1) How can we together better protect the right to culture?

2) How can we do a better job of protecting people from harms caused by cultural practices?

It goes on to say:

"IHRIP's goal in developing ‘The Banyan Tree Paradox’ was to better equip us as activists to do both."

"Activists" is an umbrella term. The book seems aimed as much at NGO workers, legislators, scholars, teachers, students, as grass-roots activists. At US$30 plus postage and handling, it's outside the budget of most individual activists in Europe and North America, much less those in the global South. However, a limited number of copies will be made available free-of-charge to human rights NGOs (details on how to order at end of article). In the next several months IHRIP will publish Spanish, Arabic and French translations of the book.

Mentioning "culture" and "human rights" in the same sentence instantly calls up issues from global headlines in recent years: Female Genital Mutilation in Africa, South Asia's caste system, Amina Lawal. Notice they are all located in the developing world. Far less likely to pop up are the US prison industrial complex, polygamy and child marriage among American Mormons, discrimination against the Sami people of Finland, archaically restrictive divorce laws in Ireland or Italy.

‘The Banyan Tree’ does not, by and large, challenge this bias. It cites, a couple of times, the civil rights struggle in the US. One of the 6 case studies in the appendices is a bold and searching examination of United States Exceptionalism - "the notion that the United States is different from other countries, and that this uniqueness gives the country the freedom to act as if it were exempt from international laws and human rights standards." But all other experiences, insights, and testimonies are from Africa, South Asia, Latin America. East Asia rates one mention. Europe and Australasia are conspicuous by their absence.

That said, simply hitting every continent does not guarantee a book's quality. And in all fairness, The Banyan Tree is the result of a specific convocation: a workshop held by IHRIP at Siem Reap, Cambodia in August 2005. The title itself comes from the location. Over centuries, huge Banyan and silk trees have grown around and through ancient temples at Angkor Wat. "While it would be tempting to kill off those trees whose roots are dislodging large stones in the temples, at the same time other roots of the same trees surround the stones, so that they seem to be holding the stones together…This image seems particularly fitting [in considering] the very fundamental role that culture plays in constructing and maintaining human societies at the same time that various cultural institutions and practices can deeply harm, even kill, human beings."

In its 140 pages, the book delves into questions of universal standards vs. "cultural relativism", challenges notions of monolithic cultures, highlights the conservative religious discourse that designates women (without choice) as custodians of community identity, and bearers of culture. The language is clear and direct and encourages the reader to engage and examine her own assumptions and identities. Frequent questions and exercises enhance this participatory experience. The beautiful design, with illustrations by Jonah Lobe, drawn from traditional art around the world, spacious layout, and consistent use of text boxes and shading, make it an excellent teaching and reference resource, although the index could be more detailed. Particularly useful, from a practical point of view, are the chapters on fact-finding and documentation, and developing strategies - framing terms, advocacy, working with international law, formal and traditional legal systems, translating human rights language to make it accessible.

Appendices include six case studies presented at Siem Reap: Amina Lawal in Nigeria, the 2004 Communal Land Rights Act in South Africa, Female Genital Mutilation across Africa, the Peruvian Truth and Reconciliation Committee, concessions in Cambodia of land and resources to private companies in Cambodia, and US Exceptionalism.

Perhaps the most important thing about "The Banyan Tree" is that it presents, without simplifying, the complexity of the myriad ways in which culture and human rights intersect, merge, diverge, and clash. At one end of the spectrum, Dalit (untouchable) women in India speak of the most important right as "the right to survive…access to food, clothing, housing, education, and secure life, but not at the expense of their personal and community honour."

At the other, South African researcher Aninka Claassens attacks the "false dichotomy" between rights and culture posed by the fiercely-opposed 2004 Communal Land Rights Act in South Africa. "Most dangerous of all, however, is the fact that a discourse which says that human rights are foreign to Africa denies the existence of and potential inherent in, sophisticated African systems of relative rights, which, in balancing needs and entitlements, prioritise meeting basic needs. These systems should be assessed on their merits, not through the prism of Westerm pre-conceptions about the nature of human rights. They have much to teach about the realization of socio-economic rights and survival mechanisms in a hostile world. To ignore them makes it easier for them to be destroyed by a variety of forces, including elites cloaked in ‘tradition’.”

‘The Banyan Tree’ posits that human rights are fundamentally about power – protecting individuals from the power of the state, or maintaining an equal balance of power among individuals and groups. It suggests that: "Human rights standards represent the best current understanding internationally of what is needed to protect human dignity." Perhaps this is nothing more than the latest, most codified incarnation of the innate human need for justice, that goes back to the dawn of time. But for anyone seeking a preliminary understanding of why this is so hard to achieve, ‘The Banyan Tree’ is a good place to start.

To order a copy of "The Banyan Tree Paradox", contact IHRIP at:

e-mail: [email][email protected]
tel: (1 202) 326-7725
fax: (1 202) 326-7763
web: http://www.hrea.org/lists/hr-education/

* Please send comments on this review to [email protected]

* Shailja Patel is a Kenyan Indian poet and spoken word artist. Visit www.shailja.com

The One in Nine Campaign was launched in February 2006. The purpose of the campaign is to ensure that the courage and action of Khwezi, the woman who has filed a rape charge against the former Deputy President of South Africa, Jacob Zuma, is affirmed and supported through direct action, the mass media and through strengthening the level of debate and analysis in society of the gender dimensions of the case.

Though the majority of Ugandans during the Feb 23rd presidential polls voted for President Museveni, there is massive growing discontent amongst the minority. Whereas Museveni won the 1996 presidential elections with a landslide margin of 75 percent, his support declined to 69 percent in 2001 and then to 59 percent in 2006. With an economy grappling with drastic donor cuts and power shortages, the next term of office for President Museveni could be the most challenging.

Delegates to a workshop held recently in the Kenyan capital, Nairobi, have highlighted concerns about how child labour is undermining efforts to achieve universal primary education. "Child labour is a major obstacle to EFA (Education for All), and the elimination of child labour is key to realising the EFA," said the World Bank’s Bob Prouty, who also told the gathering that 11 percent of children below 14 years in Africa are engaged in some form of labour.

Even as the three presidents of the East African states exude confidence about the future of the East African Community, promising a political federation for the region in five years, the reality is that the 10-year-old trading bloc is entering its most difficult period. Last week's meeting in Arusha between President Mwai Kibaki of Kenya, Yoweri Museveni of Uganda and Jakaya Kikwete of Tanzania took place against the background of rising tension among the member states over restrictive immigration regulations, especially the issuance of work permits. Restrictions on the movement of labour remains a major problem and citizens of the region have had no advantage over other foreigners either in the issuance of work permits or the fees charged.

The international Publish What You Pay coalition is deeply concerned by the arrest in the Republic of Congo (Brazzaville) of two prominent campaigners against corruption and human rights abuses, Christian Mounzeo and Brice Mackosso. The arrests follow a campaign of intimidation and threats against the two men, who have spoken out courageously against the misuse of oil revenues in their country.