Today, women are still in the minority across Vanuatu’s Police Department, but times are changing.

In the final episode of Island Voices, Sergeant Bianca Simeon and her colleagues describe the challenges they face.

Although women now account for more than a quarter of all parliamentarians worldwide, gender parity is still “far, far away”. 

That’s according to Zeina Hilal of the Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU), the UN partner organization working to make parliaments more representative. 

• 1,600 vaccinated in Guinea Ebola virus outbreak but more jabs needed: WHO 
• COVID-19 cases surge in West Bank in February but fall in Gaza  
• Iran: condemnation for killing of Baloch minority protesters 

Holocaust survivor Rabbi Arthur Schneier has spent decades leading efforts toward religious freedom, human rights and coexistence around the world.

In this week’s show, we’re covering UN human rights chief Michelle Bachelet’s appeal for an end to violence in Myanmar, a call by the World Health Organization and the World Trade Organization to boost the COVID-19 vaccine rollout to developing countries, and a new tragedy involving human traffickers and migrants sailing from Djibouti to Yemen. We’ll hear about the plight of detainees in Syria’s prisons and detention centres 10 years since the civil war began - and international efforts to get them out, in an interview with UN-appointed independent rights investigator Hanny Megally.

With Daniel Johnson and Solange Behoteguy-Cortes from UN Geneva.

• Mental health alert for 330 million kids in COVID lockdown: UNICEF
• Suspicion of Muslims at epidemic proportions, Human Rights Council hears
• Migrants drown after being forced into the sea off Djibouti: IOM 

After 10 years of war in Syria, there are likely tens of thousands of detainees across the country, held by the Government and opposition groups – a traumatic waiting game for the families unsure of their fate. 

In an interview with UN News’s Daniel Johnson, rights investigator Hanny Megally from the Commission of Inquiry on Syria, explains what steps the international community is taking to try to resolve the situation – and what obstacles it still faces. 

• COVID-19 crisis forced more than 168 million children to miss class in 2020 
• Condemnation over targeted killing of three women journalists in Afghanistan 
• Nigeria: Children traumatised by abduction need urgent rehabilitation, say UN experts 

Vanuatu’s national parliament doesn’t have a single woman member, but two activists are committed to changing gender politics.

In the second episode of Island Voices, Georgilla Worwor, and Anthea Arukole, a former political advisor to the Vanuatu Government, discuss their political ambitions.

• We must end ‘deadly addiction’ to coal for planet’s sake, urges Guterres 
• Equitable vaccine delivery plan needs more support to succeed: COVAX partners 
• One in four people projected to have hearing problems by 2050