Law and Crime Prevention

Refugee children show their support for a UN refugee agency anti-trafficking campaign at Wad Sharife camp in east Sudan.
© UNHCR/Osama Idriss

First Person: Fighting human trafficking in Malawi

15 November 2020
Africa

Maxwell Matewere, a Malawian crime prevention expert with the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), has been active in the anti-human trafficking field for more than two decades. Today, he trains officials throughout Malawi to prevent and combat this crime: this year alone, despite COVID-19 restrictions, his work has led to the rescue of around three hundred human trafficking victims and 31 arrests.  

Journalists at an event in Kabul, to mark the Afghan National Journalists Day (March 2019), in support of media freedom and solidarity with journalists. Reporters have frequently been targeted during the Afghan conflict.
UNAMA/Fardin Waezi

Journalists covering conflict, essential workers for a ‘durable peace’ says Guterres

11 November 2020

Reporters and other media workers in warzones across the world, are reliable witnesses who contribute to forging peace, and must be better-protected under international humanitarian law, said the UN chief on Wednesday.

Unaisi Vuniwaqa, Police Commissioner with the UN Mission in South Sudan (UNMISS), meets young girls at a school in the capital, Juba.
UNMISS/Eric Kanalstein

UN Police ‘vital’ across spectrum of peacekeeping, Security Council hears

4 November 2020
Global

The Security Council on Wednesday was briefed on the “vital role” UN Police play across the whole spectrum of the world body’s work, from “conflict prevention to peacekeeping to peacebuilding".   

Large numbers of people have fled rural areas close to Yei, in Central Equatoria state, South Sudan due to conflict. (file)
UNMISS/Nektarios Markogiannis

South Sudan rape convictions reaffirm commitment to zero tolerance

3 November 2020
Africa

The top UN official working to end rape during wartime said she was encouraged by recent “positive steps” taken by the South Sudanese army to bring perpetrators to justice, thereby underscoring the Government’s commitment to zero tolerance.  

Ivorians have been living in refugee camps in Liberia for a number of years. (file)
© UNHCR/David Azia

Côte d'Ivoire: UN reports 3,000 flee abroad amid electoral violence 

3 November 2020
Africa

Several thousand people have fled from election-related violence in Côte d'Ivoire to seek sanctuary in neighbouring Liberia, Ghana and Togo, fearing a repeat of the major conflict that followed the election in 2011, the UN refugee agency UNHCR said on Tuesday.  

Nice, in France, where an alleged terrorist attack took place inside a church in the city centre on 29 October, 2020.
Unsplash/Roxana Crusemire

UN strongly condemns knife attack inside Nice church which left three dead

29 October 2020

The UN Secretary-General on Thursday strongly condemned a knife attack inside a French church in the southern French city of Nice, which reportedly left three worshippers dead.

Secretary-General António Guterres briefs reporters at UN Headquarters last February. Alongside him is UN Spokesperson, Stéphane Dujarric (file photo).
UN Photo/Evan Schneider

Both sides obliged to ‘spare and protect civilians’ over Nagorno-Karabakh fighting declares UN’s Guterres

18 October 2020

The UN Secretary-General on Sunday condemned “all attacks on populated areas” in and around the Nagorno-Karabakh zone of conflict, as Armenia and Azerbaijan reportedly accused each other of violating the latest humanitarian ceasefire agreement.

Liberian men march with anti-rape posters (file photo).
UNMIL/Staton Winter

Rape is wrong but death penalty, castration, not the answer: UN rights chief

15 October 2020
Global

While perpetrators of rape and other forms of sexual violence must be held accountable, capital punishment and torture are not the answer, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights said on Thursday. 

The UN says that corruption is criminal, immoral and the ultimate betrayal of public trust.
UN News/Daniel Dickinson

Corruption represents ‘ultimate betrayal’ of public trust: Guterres

15 October 2020
Global

Corruption is not only a crime but immoral and the “ultimate betrayal” of public trust, the UN Secretary-General has said, calling on everyone to work together and stamp out the global scourge, in all its forms. 

(File photo) Firefighters from the UN interim force in Lebanon, UNIFIL, during an evacuation exercise in Naqoura in 2016, the town where maritime border talks were held between Israel and Lebanon on 14 October, 2020.
UNIFIL/Pasqual Gorriz

Talks begin to resolve disputed Lebanon-Israel maritime border

14 October 2020
Middle East

The UN Secretary-General has welcomed the launch of ground-breaking discussions on Wednesday, over the disputed maritime border between Lebanon and Israel in the eastern Mediterranean, following a framework agreement between the two nations at the beginning of the month.