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	Malagasy children bear brunt of severe drought by UN News, World Food Programme, agencies   Oct. 2016   People in southern Madagascar are living on the brink of catastrophe. (UN News)   Following a report that more than half of the population in southern Madagascar - 840,000 people is experiencing alarming rates of food insecurity, United Nations agencies are responding to the most severe cases of malnutrition and acute hunger to prevent a catastrophe.   The situation follows a third consecutive year of widespread crop failure and scarcity of water. 92 per cent of the country's population lives on less than $2 per day and the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC), a tool to improve food security analysis that has been used in more than 25 countries, found that food security and nutrition could deteriorate further unless there is a rapid humanitarian response.   United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) regional Director Chris Nikoi expressed his alarm: 'These are people living on the very brink.. many have nothing but wild fruits to eat. We must act together now to save lives and give hope for the future'.   Many families are now begging, selling land or possessions, and eating vital seed stocks just to survive. Parents are taking children out of school so that they may look for income, food, wood and water.   According to Leila Gharagozloo-Pakkala, Regional Director for Eastern and Southern Africa for the UN Children's Fund (UNICEF), nearly half of the children in Madagascar are chronically malnourished or stunted. Stunting, she says, risks condemning children to lifelong poor health and increased poverty. She added that children in the southern part of the country are already suffering from acute malnutrition.   'The cost of inaction or further delaying our response is too ghastly to contemplate', said David Phiri, the Subregional Coordinator for Southern Africa of the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO).   According to Mr. Phiri, food stocks from the last harvest, which was also poor, ran out in August. The next harvest will not be until March of next year. He estimates that if efforts are not scaled up now, the people of Madagascar will suffer hunger for another year. 'This would be a catastrophe for a people who already appear to have virtually no food, no seeds and no discernible income', he warned.   WFP, FAO, and UNICEF are expanding their commitments and resources as quickly as possible.   WFP will augment its ongoing food and cash relief operations in order to meet one million vulnerable people by the end of November. It is expanding its nutrition programme to prevent and treat moderate acute malnutrition (MAM) for more than 200,000 pregnant women, nursing mothers, and children under the age of five.   It will also provide hot meals to some 230,000 school children in the southern area of the country in order to encourage families to keep children in school.   Meanwhile, UNICEF is preparing water and sanitation operations to reach an additional 850,000 people. It will offer monthly nutrition screenings for children under five and treat those with severe acute malnutrition (SAM), offer health interventions for those living far away from local centres, and education for 200,000 children to help avoid school drop-outs, child labour, and child marriage - common coping mechanisms under extreme situations such as these.   FAO efforts include assistance for 850,000 people in districts that have been most affected by the crisis. Such assistance includes providing quick-maturing and drought-tolerant seeds and root crops, as well as tools for farmers to replace those that have been lost. The agency will also help feed livestock and ensure animal health.   July 2016   Voahevetse Fotetse can easily pass for a three-year-old even though he is six and a pupil at Ankilimafaitsy Primary School in Ambovombe district, Androy region, one of the most severely affected by the ongoing drought in the South of Madagascar.   'Fotetse is just like many of the pupils here who, due to chronic malnutrition, are much too small for their age, they are too short and too thin', explains Seraphine Sasara, the school's director.   The school has a total population of 348, 72 boys and 276 girls and they range from three to 15 years. Fewer boys stay in school as they spend most of their time helping on the farm or grazing the family livestock.   The tide, however, turns when the girls reach 15 years, at which point most are withdrawn from school and married off.   But in school or out of school, nearly half of the children in Southern Madagascar have not escaped malnutrition. The United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) says that stunting - where children are too short for their age affects at least 47 percent of children under five.   Compared to acute malnutrition, which can develop over a short period and is reversible, stunting has more far-reaching consequences.   'Stunting is a gradual and cumulative process during the 1,000 days from conception through the first two years of a child's life', said Sasara.   'It develops as a result of sustained poor dietary intake or repeated infections, or a combination of both. It is not just about a child being too short for their age, it has severe and irreversible consequences including risk of death, limited physical and cognitive capacities', Sasara said.   Statistics show that two million children in this Southern African country are stunted, placing Madagascar fourth in the Global Chronic Malnutrition table.   In February this year, though the global acute malnutrition level reached an average of eight percent, it is much higher in many regions in Southern Madagascar where most districts have surpassed the critical threshold of 10 percent.   Rainfall deficit and recurrent drought in Southern Madagascar has led to the deterioration of household food security, which has had a significant impact on the nutritional status of children under five.   According to the WFP, which runs a school feeding programme in affected districts, Tsihombe district in Androy region is the most affected, with an average of 14 percent of children under five presenting signs of acute malnutrition.   WFP estimates show that nearly 50 percent of the Malagasy children under five suffer from iron deficiency which causes anemia.   Consequently, of every 1,000 live births, 62 result in children dying before they reach five years.   The lack of clean water and proper sanitation has compounded the situation facing the South.   The education sector continues to bear the brunt of the severe drought, with statistics by various humanitarian agencies including WFP showing that the net primary education enrolment rate in Madagascar is on a downward spiral.   This is the case in Tanandava village, Amboasary district, Anosy region, where hundreds of out of school children gather each day to receive a meal from the village canteen offered by Catholic Relief Services, a humanitarian agency working in the area.   WFP statistics further show that the number of out of school children between six and 12 years is estimated at 1.5 million, with regions in the South of Madagascar which have high rates of food insecurity posting alarmingly low levels of school performance.   Since 2005 WFP has implemented a school feeding programme, providing daily fortified meals to nearly 300,000 children in 1,300 primary schools in the south of the country but also in the urban slums of Antananarivo, Tulear and Tamatave.   'The meals are fortified with micronutrients and are crucial in breaking the malnutrition cycle in this country', Sasara said.   The school feeding programme is a joint community effort where parents are involved in the preparation of the food, therefore providing a platform for the implementation of other interventions geared towards improving the health and nutrition of vulnerable children.   'Treating children affected by moderate acute malnutrition can reduce drastically the number of those affected by severe acute malnutrition and to restore an adequate nutritional status', says Yves Christian, Head of Regional Office for Nutrition.   WFP is further providing technical assistance to the government at various levels that is expected to result in a nationally owned school feeding programme.   http://www.wfp.org/countries/madagascar   July 2016   We go to bed hungry so the children can eat, says mother in Swaziland   Emergency relief distributions have begun in Swaziland in response to drought which has resulted in hundreds of thousands of people not having enough to eat.   On the way to Sithobela in central Swaziland, we came across two dried-up rivers with only thin trickles of water running along their sandy courses. In places, people had dug holes in the river bed to collect some water for themselves or perhaps for their cattle.   'We worked in our fields but didn't harvest anything', says Vuyisile Shabangu (40). 'The situation is really very bad, we don't know what we're going to eat from one day to the next'.   On a piece of open ground near the road, a few hundred people had gathered for a distribution of rations - maize, yellow peas and vegetable oil - from the World Food Programme. The supplies were being handed out by WFP partners, Save the Children, then measured out and divided up according to household size. Most of those who had gathered there were women, who went about their tasks with efficiency and good humour.   WFP has launched its relief operation in response to the worst food security crisis in the region in more than two decades. It has been caused by two consecutive years of drought, most recently as a result of the El Nino weather event which meant reduced rains during the growing season.   Swaziland is one of five countries in the region that has declared a state of disaster and appealed for international assistance. Because the drought is so widespread, casual work in neighbouring South Africa has also dried up and incomes have fallen. Also causing hardship is a rise in prices, maize now costs more than twice what it did a year ago in the Kingdom.   In Swaziland alone, some 350,000 people are in need of urgent food assistance, that's nearly a third of the population.   'It's been very difficult', explains Vuyisile. 'Since I was born, this is the worst drought I've ever experienced. As parents, we often go to bed hungry so our children can eat. Sometimes if they have some food, the neighbours will give us something to eat'.   For now at least, the people who have gathered here will have some food for themselves and their families. But the harsh fact is that the lean season has come early this year and it will be a long time till the next harvest in April.   To meet the growing needs, WFP is working to scale up its relief operations in support of the government. It will only be able to do so, however, if the necessary funding is secured.   http://www.wfp.org/emergency-relief http://www.wfp.org/news/news-release/un-seeks-boost-response-el-ninos-dire-impact-africa-and-asiapacific-urges-la-nin-p Visit the related web page
	Debt bondage remains the most prevalent form of forced labour worldwide by Urmila Bhoola Special Rapporteur on contemporary forms of slavery   Sep. 2016   Debt bondage remains one of the most prevalent forms of modern slavery in all regions of the world despite being banned in international law and most domestic jurisdictions, today warned the United Nations Special Rapporteur on contemporary forms of slavery, Urmila Bhoola.   “Even though it takes place worldwide across many sectors of the economy, and is a form of enslavement with deep historical roots, debt bondage -also known as bonded labour- is still not universally understood,” Ms. Bhoola said during the presentation of her latest report* to the UN Human Rights Council.   Currently, there is no authoritative estimate of the number of people enslaved in debt bondage globally. However, the expert pointed out to an estimate of 21 million in forced labour, according to the International Labour Organization: “This figure provides an indication of the extent of bonded labour, given the close inter-relationship between the two phenomena affecting victims of multiple forms of discrimination.”   Poverty, the lack of economic alternatives, illiteracy and the discrimination that people from minority groups suffer leave them with no other option than to take a loan or advance from employers or recruiters to meet basic needs, in exchange for their work or the work of their families.   “The poor and marginalised, those migrating, trafficked or discriminated against - including women, children, indigenous peoples, and individuals from caste affected communities- are the most impacted, entering into this form of slavery when they have nothing left to give in repayment of debts other than their physical labour,” the human rights expert noted.   People in debt bondage end up working for no wages or wages below the minimum in order to repay the debts contracted or advances received, even though the value of the work they carry out exceeds the amount of their debts.   Furthermore, bonded labourers are often subjected to different forms of abuse, including long working hours, physical and psychological abuse, and violence.   Some of the factors pushing people and families into this form of slavery include structural and systemic inequality, poverty, discrimination, and precarious labour migration.   Weak or non-existent financial and other regulatory frameworks, lack of access to justice, lack of law enforcement and governance as well as corruption are some of the factors that prevent release from bonded labour and rehabilitation of individuals and families trapped in this intergenerational cycle of poverty.   In her report, Ms. Bhoola recommends that more must be done to understand debt bondage and outlines how UN Member States should take a varied approach based on universal human rights to eradicate the phenomenon.   “In order to effectively eradicate and prevent this practice, States should develop comprehensive and integrated programmes of action based upon international human rights standards, which address the needs of those affected and eliminates the root causes of such practices,” she stresses.   “Their approaches must be multifaceted and include legislative and policy measures that are effective, properly enforced and provide for protection, prevention and redress for rights violations,” the Special Rapporteur urges in her report. Visit the related web page
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