Paraguay’s failure to prevent the toxic contamination of indigenous people’s traditional lands by commercial farming violates their rights and their sense of “home”, the UN Human Rights Committee said in a landmark ruling on Wednesday.
Following the disappearance in Paraguay of a teenage girl and killing of two 11-year-olds, the UN human rights chief has expressed her deep concern, also noting on Friday other disturbing elements of abuse against women and girls, surrounding the cases.
The planned prosecution of Supreme Court judges who acquitted 11 peasant farmers jailed over the death of police officers during a violent land eviction in 2012, known as the Curuguaty Massacre”, could undermine the rule of law, a UN expert said on Monday.
Paraguay has successfully eliminated malaria, the United Nations health agency has announced, highlighting that the major milestone offers lessons to other countries aiming to control the mosquito-borne sickness.
Despite a decade of impressive economic growth in Paraguay, 10 per cent of citizens there are facing hunger and malnutrition.
The warning comes from UN Special Rapporteur on the right to food, Hilal Elver, who added that the nation of seven million also produces enough food for almost nine times its population.
Ms Elver has just completed her first official visit to the South American country.
She told Jorge Miyares that inequality is a root cause of the problem.
Efforts are underway in Paraguay to prepare impoverished people living on the margins of the country’s biggest rubbish dump, for the likely eventuality of flooding.
The Cateura dump is located next to the Paraguay River in the south of the capital Asuncion.
The river floods regularly, driving some of the poorest people in this South American country away from their homes.
Daniel Dickinson has this special report from the dump.
Duration: 3’19”
People living in flood-prone areas of Paraguay are learning how to prepare and cope with annual and sometimes life-changing inundations.
The region surrounding Asuncion, the capital of the South American country, is becoming ever-more susceptible to flooding; this year has been particularly bad because of heavy rains caused by the El Nino weather system.
Daniel Dickinson reports from Nanawa, east of Asuncion.
Duration: 2’55”
The tiny Caribbean island nation St Kitts and Nevis has been working with the UN Development Programme (UNDP) to make sure it is in a “state of readiness” if a tsunami were to hit the low-lying archipelago.
Although a tsunami has never struck St Kitts and Nevis, like other nation sin the Caribbean it is preparing for the possibility.
Older people need to be consulted more consistently when it comes to planning for the eventuality of disasters; that’s according to an expert working for the non-profit organization, HelpAge International in Colombia.
Joost Van de Lest recently attended a UN conference in Paraguay focusing on how best to reduce the risk of natural and man-made catastrophes through what is known as the Sendai Framework.
Daniel Dickinson asked Mr Van de Lest how older people are affected in disasters.
Duration: 3’41”
