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	UNHCR warns of looming refugee crisis as women flee Central America and Mexico by UNHCHR, ReliefWeb, agencies   Women in Central America and Mexico are fleeing their countries in rising numbers to escape a surge in deadly, unchecked gang violence, fueling a looming refugee crisis in the Americas that demands urgent and concerted action by the states of the region, the United Nations refugee agency has warned.   "The violence being perpetrated by organized, transnational criminal groups in El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras and certain parts of Mexico has become pervasive," UN High Commissioner for Refugees António Guterres said in Washington as he issued a new report on the situation entitled "Women on the Run."   "The dramatic refugee crises we are witnessing in the world today are not confined to the Middle East or Africa," Guterres said. "We are seeing another refugee situation unfolding in the Americas. This report is an early warning to raise awareness of the challenges refugee women face and a call to action to respond regionally to a looming refugee crisis."   The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) is calling specifically on all countries in Central and North America to:   Recognize the growing refugee situation in the region. Establish adequate capacity at borders to ensure the identification of persons in need of international protection.   Move swiftly towards a coordinated regional approach to this problem aimed at enhancing access to protection and solutions for refugees and at addressing the root causes of forced displacement.   "Women on the Run" was based on interviews conducted with 160 women recently forced to flee their homes in El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras – the "Northern Triangle of Central America", or (NTCA) – and parts of Mexico to escape growing violence in their communities.   They described in detail how criminal armed groups terrorize populations to establish control over large areas of these countries, and how women in particular are targeted by specific and extreme forms of gender-based violence.   "Everything affects you because there a woman is worthless," explained Lana, one of the women interviewed for the report. "It is as though your life is not worth anything. They rape. There is no limit. There is no authority. There is no one to stop them."   While governments in the region have made efforts to address root causes of violence, people continue to flee. The region has some of the highest murder rates in the world, especially of women.   While some of the women flee towards the United States, many others escape to neighboring states in Central America and Mexico where applications for asylum from people fleeing the three NTCA countries and parts of Mexico – have skyrocketed thirteenfold since 2008.   According to U.S. government statistics, 82 percent of 16,077 women from these countries who were interviewed by U.S. authorities in the last year were found to have a credible fear of persecution or torture and were allowed to pursue their claims for asylum in the United States.   http://www.unhcr.org/5630c2046.html   Gang violence in Central America is a humanitarian crisis, writes Kristy Siegfried for IRIN News.   Central America’s Northern Triangle – encompassing El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras – is one of the most violent regions in the world outside of a warzone. Transnational gangs or maras have proliferated in the wake of decades of civil war and are largely responsible for a per capita death rate that rivals that in Syria.   The humanitarian impacts have become increasingly obvious over the last two years as more and more people, many of them unaccompanied children, have fled the violence and sought protection, mostly in the United States. An estimated 10 percent of the Northern Triangle’s population of 30 million has already left.   For those forced to remain, weak and corrupt state institutions have failed to improve their access to health, education, and justice in city neighbourhoods that have been carved up into “territories” by rival gangs, and where schools have become places of recruitment and kidnapping.   Humanitarian agencies, more used to working in classic conflict settings or in the aftermath of natural disasters, are starting to wake up to the need to respond to the Northern Triangle’s epidemic of violence. Organisations like the International Committee of the Red Cross and Médecins Sans Frontières are leading the way, but their programmes are small-scale and, in terms of their reach, “very much the tip of the iceberg”, according to Robert Muggah, director of the Igarapé Institute, a Brazil-based think tank that focuses on security issues.   “There’s still a slow recognition of the scale and magnitude of the problem,” he told IRIN. “There are still considerable apprehensions in the humanitarian world about how best to engage.”   Gangs in the Northern Triangle are financed by a range of organised criminal activities, from more localised extortion and smuggling rackets to the trans-regional trade in narcotics, much of it bound for the United States.   The Igarapé Institute’s projections suggest that homicide rates in the Northern Triangle will continue to rise over the next 20 years, even as they fall in other parts of the world.   “This creates a conundrum for the humanitarian community,” said Muggah, explaining that, in terms of International Humanitarian Law, gang violence is not defined as an armed conflict, even if the consequences for local populations can be just as devastating and deadly.   In practical terms, this means that humanitarian agencies responding to gang violence cannot expect any special protection and may themselves become targets. Attempts to negotiate access with gang members controlling a particular “territory” where agencies want to work can also be deemed a criminal offense.   “If you meet with a convicted killer and don’t report their whereabouts, you could be charged with a crime of association. It does raise a big red flag for some agencies, because they no longer have the immunity under IHL to engage in these kinds of negotiations formally,” said Muggah.   Joaquim Guinart, MSF’s field coordinator in Tegucigalpa, the Honduran capital, said his organisation does not attempt to engage with gangs in “red areas” of the city where levels of crime and violence are highest and the organisation is providing care to victims of sexual and other types of violence.   “Always the gangs have people keeping watch in different parts of the neighbourhood. When they approach us, we explain what we’re doing and they accept it,” he told IRIN. “We monitor violent events through the media and schools. Now, mass killings of several people at once are increasing and the gangs are often fighting for territory, which is putting us on alert.”   The ICRC, which runs programmes providing assistance to returning migrants and communities affected by armed violence in all three countries, does not rule out talking to the gangs.   “We would at some stage attempt to have some dialogue with the gangs. We don’t talk about what it is we discuss with them,” said Yves Heller, the ICRC’s communications coordinator for the region.   He added that “it is a completely different dynamic” than talking to armed actors in the context of a conflict, where “you’re dealing with some very clear principles”.   The need to coordinate humanitarian efforts with local government departments also raises what Muggah described as “existential questions for agencies that seek to remain neutral and impartial”.   “In urban violence situations, if you don’t have some alignment with different sectors of the government, then you’re just applying light band aids that are quickly ripped off,” he told IRIN. “It means lowering a flag, not necessarily waving your agency identity and engaging in complex negotiations with governments to help them supplement gaps.”   He added that governments in the Northern Triangle have been wary about accepting help from humanitarian agencies because of the message it can send about the dire state of security in their countries.   “It took a lot of communication, clarification, and dialogue between groups like the ICRC and governments to ensure there was a common understanding. There were situations where the ICRC was taken to task for communicating findings that were seen to be reflecting negatively on the country in question,” he said.   The biggest dividend for small-scale humanitarian interventions in this region can be the extent to which local governments attempt to replicate them.   When MSF began providing care to sexual violence victims in Tegucigalpa four years ago, for example, there was no national protocol for treating such patients.   “Now, the government is going to introduce a protocol for sexual violence, and that is something we’ve been fighting for,” said Guinart. “Our work has given us legitimacy to talk about these things.”   Through multi-disciplinary teams consisting of doctors, nurses, social workers, and psychologists, MSF is also “trying to demonstrate to health authorities the need to address this in a more holistic way,” said Henry Rodriguez, the organisation’s head of mission for Mexico and Honduras.   “We don’t pretend to change behaviours or the origins of the violence, but at least we can raise awareness about the need to give more support to this population.”   Encouraging more humanitarian agencies to start programmes in the Northern Triangle will depend to a large extent on finding willing donors.   The only major donor currently funding humanitarian programmes in the region is the EU’s humanitarian aid department, ECHO.   “Development donors are doing great work in terms of violence prevention, but in terms of humanitarian response there’s very little,” said Vicente Raimundo, ECHO’s regional head for Central America. “It’s a paradox, because usually it’s the other way around.”   ECHO is partnering with the UN’s refugee agency, UNHCR, to help displaced populations in El Salvador, and with the Norwegian Red Cross and the Norwegian Refugee Council in Honduras and El Salvador to make schools safer and children less vulnerable to recruitment by gangs.   But major gaps remain, particularly in the health and education sectors. “It’s about psychosocial support, and also the needs of people who can’t get to a hospital because it means crossing certain territory [that belongs to a rival gang]. It’s about kids being threatened, recruited, and extorted in schools,” said Raimundo. “I think that we all have failed in acknowledging that we have a humanitarian problem."   Muggah noted there has been a general decline in aid to Latin America in the last five to 10 years and that many donors view the situation in the Northern Triangle as in “the US’s backyard” and therefore something American donors should be addressing. http://bit.ly/2ctwcvP   http://www.msf.org/central-american-migration http://www.unhcr.org/en-au/news/stories/2019/1/5c41fa414/central-american-women-find-safety-strength-mural-painting.html http://www.unhcr.org/news/briefing/2018/5/5b03d89c4/unhcr-alarmed-sharp-rise-forced-displacement-north-central-america.html http://bit.ly/2TuWMVC http://bit.ly/2Us2k3n http://bit.ly/2TmmRGr http://bit.ly/2Bc1ksZ http://igarape.org.br/en/responding-to-the-murder-epidemic-in-latin-america/ http://igarape.org.br/en/citizen-security-in-latin-america-facts-and-figures http://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/oct/13/central-america-violence-refugee-crisis-gangs-murder Visit the related web page
	Draft United Nations declaration on the right to peace by Christian Guillermet, David Fernández Puyana IPS, OHCHR, Working Group on the Right to Peace   Paying Real Tribute to All Victims of War and Conflict.   In this column, Christian Guillermet Fernández and David Fernández Puyana describe the background to negotiations on a United Nations declaration on the right to peace.   The international community will have the opportunity to jointly advance on the world peace agenda when a United Nations working group established to negotiate a draft U.N. resolution on the right to peace meets from Apr. 20 to 24 in Geneva.   In July 2012, the Human Rights Council (HRC) of the United Nations adopted resolution 20/15 on the “promotion of the right to peace” and established the open-ended working group to progressively negotiate a draft United Nations declaration on the right to peace.   High on the agenda of the working group has been giving a voice to victims of war and conflict.   Chaired by Ambassador Christian Guillermet, Deputy Permanent Representative of Costa Rica to the United Nations in Geneva, the working group has been conducting informal consultations with governments, regional groups and relevant stakeholders to prepare a revised text on the right to peace.   This text has been prepared on the basis of the following principles: the principles of the Charter of the United Nations, such as the peaceful settlement of disputes, international cooperation and the self-determination of peoples. Elimination of the threat of war. The three pillars of the United Nations – peace and security, human rights and development. Eradication of poverty and promotion of sustained economic growth, sustainable development and global prosperity for all. The wide diffusion and promotion of education on peace. Strengthening of the Declaration and Programme of Action on a Culture of Peace.   The draft Declaration on the right to peace solemnly invites all stakeholders to guide themselves in their activities by recognising the supreme importance of practising tolerance, dialogue, cooperation and solidarity among all human beings, peoples and nations of the world as a means to promote peace through the realisation of all human rights and fundamental freedoms, in particular the right to life and dignity.   To that end, it recognises that present generations should ensure that both they and future generations learn to live together in peace and brotherhood with the highest aspiration of sparing future generations the scourge of war and ensuring the maintenance and perpetuation of humankind.   The main actors on which the responsibility rests to make reality this highest and noble aspiration of humankind are human beings, states, United Nations specialised agencies, international organisations and civil society. They are the main competent actors to promote peace, dialogue and brotherhood in the world.   It follows that everyone should be entitled to enjoy peace and security, human rights and development. In this case, entitlement is used to refer to the guarantee of access of every human being to the benefits derived from the three U.N. pillars – peace and security, human rights and development.   This draft Declaration could not have been achieved without the extensive cooperation and valuable advice received in recent years from academia and civil society. In fact, this process has involved consultations with prestigious professors of international law from over ten universities and research centres.   Since the beginning of the negotiation process, the working group has based its approach on the TICO approach – transparency (T), inclusiveness (I), consensual decision-making (C) and objectivity (O) – and a little realism.   Consensus is a process of non-violent conflict resolution in which everyone works together to make the best possible decision for the group. Consensus is the tendency not only in international relations, but the United Nations.   For important issues affecting the life of millions of people, the United Nations, including its multiple entities and bodies, works on the basis of multilateralism with the purpose of reaching important consensual decisions.   The working group on the right to peace will meet as the United Nations is commemorating its 70th anniversary and the most important message that should be given is the adoption by consensus of a declaration which, among others, pays real tribute to all victims of war and conflict.   * Christian Guillermet Fernández is Deputy Permanent Representative of Costa Rica to the United Nations in Geneva and Chairperson/Rapporteur of the Working Group on the Right to Peace. David Fernández Puyana is Legal Assistant of the Chairperson/Rapporteur, Permanent Mission of Costa Rica in Geneva.   http://www.ipsnews.net/2015/04/opinion-paying-real-tribute-to-all-victims-of-war-and-conflict/ http://libraryresources.unog.ch/peace http://peacetalks.net/peace_talks/stockholm-peace-talks-2015/ http://www.un-documents.net/a53r243a.htm http://www.ohchr.org/EN/HRBodies/HRC/RightPeace/Pages/Backgroundocuments.aspx
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