Interviews

Mental health, “is not about how the brain works, it’s about relationships.” That’s one observation from UN Special Rapporteur on the right to health, Dainius Pūras, detailing the psychological effects of lacking family unity for children separated from their migrant parents.

With a northbound caravan of hundreds of Central Americans reportedly crossing into Mexico on Saturday, Felipe Gonzalez, the UN Special Rapporteur on the human rights of migrants, has called on states not to sacrifice human rights for security concerns.

The private sector “should not take the lead in poverty alleviation” but it should remain a key obligation of governments to improve the life of the poorest people across the world according to Philip Alston, the UN Special Rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights.

Female peacekeepers are recognized by the United Nations and Member States as being central to the success of the organization’s 14 missions around the world, but substantially increasing the overall number of women remains an elusive goal.

“The world is still plagued by torture,” an independent human rights expert told the United Nations General Assembly this week, noting an “increasing acceptance of the idea” that such an “abhorrent practice should be permissible in certain circumstances, or against certain groups”.

South Sudan must bring to justice the military forces responsible for abducting more than 900 men, women and children from the east of the country, the UN human rights office, OHCHR, said on Thursday.

The UN must do more to prevent counter-terrorism laws from being misused to quash legitimate dissent and limit freedom of expression, says UN-appointed expert on counter-terrorism, Fionnuala Ní Aoláin.

Twice-president of Chile, the trained paediatrician and former political prisoner, Michelle Bachelet, is now UN human rights chief, and promising to raise her voice for women and the vulnerable, across the world.

In her early life, she was detained and tortured under the Chilean dictatorship and later worked as head of the medical department for an NGO helping child torture survivors.

Some 300,000 girls and women die from problems related to childbirth and 90 per cent of these are in developing nations, the UN Population Fund (UNFPA) said on Wednesday.

According to the agency’s State of World Population 2018 report, there are 43 countries where women have more than four or more children, and 38 of these are in Africa.