The walk back home: India’s migrant crisis and the plight of Indian labourers

by Shreya Shrivastava

The lockdown imposed by the Indian government on 24 March 2020 forced the labour class to head back to their villages and gave rise to what may now be called the deadliest consequence of this pandemic; the impact on the migrant population of India.  India’s lockdown – considered to be the largest and most stringent lockdown in the world, as ranked by the Oxford COVID-19 Government Response Tracker – brought with it a set of difficulties for already marginalized, excluded, and otherwise vulnerable individuals, groups, and communities.

In light of this, this article will examine the recent migrant crisis in India, and offer analysis into the recent dilution of labour laws by several state governments.  To conclude, I will look at how this pandemic merely lifted the veil upon the lack of recognition of the abuse and neglect of the Indian labour class and the likelihood that their pitiful situation will become even worse post COVID-19.

 

Understanding the crisis

Being the second most unequal society in the world, almost 90% of India’s workforce (up to 450 million people) are employed through the informal sector which consists of low paying positions such as domestic workers, caretakers, street entertainers, and fruit stand owners. With the onset of COVID-19 in March, India registered a rapid increase in the number of cases so a haphazard lockdown was put down by the Modi Government.

For those 21 days, a group that was portrayed as disobeying the rules of the lockdown, and consequently labelled as insensible, and subject to ridicule, was India’s migrant labourers.  Only when heart-wrenching photos, such as one of a child trying to wake his dead mother in a corner of a railway station, gained media attention, did the public give a second thought as to why these people were willing to risk their lives to return home. When the veil was lifted, 110 deaths had been reported of migrants attempting to return home, many of whom were hit and killed in truck and road accidents while the rest were exhausted in terms of money and resources.  Of those who did succeed in returning back, many tested positive for COVID-19.

A question that arises here is why were so many workers moving between two homes, instead of remaining in one?  The answer lies in the unplanned urbanization that India has witnessed.  Even though most migrant labourers in India would prefer to work in their villages or nearby towns, factors such as irregular jobs, huge debt burdens and a lack of better opportunities force them to seek better employment opportunities in the cities. Considering the structural imbalance of opportunities and employment in villages as compared to cities, how could the government not predict this mass exodus when imposing the lockdown?

The reason is quite simple; the lack of a robust ‘updated and comprehensive’ data collection system to record temporary and seasonal migration rendered the government ill-prepared to anticipate the responses of these communities during such a critical moment of crisis.

While migration data from a 2011 census was partly released in 2019, important details such as data about sectors in which migrant workers are employed, are yet to be released.  Also, the only district-to-district migration data available comes from 2001.  In 2017, the inter-ministerial Working Group of Migration report recommended an accelerated time-schedule for the release of data, along with the release of migration data at administrative levels below the districts, so as to identify micro-geographies of movement, but to no avail.

The inappropriate government response

At a moment in time when the government was expected to come to the rescue of these workers, instead they embarked on changes to working conditions branded as “barbarous” by the Centre of Indian Trade Unions.  Rather than providing workers with the resources and job security they were desperately seeking, three Indian states (UP, MP and Gujarat) diluted their labour laws.  As part of what has been referred to as deregulation efforts, the process of hiring and firing has been made easier within firms operating with 50-100 workers in order to enhance labour flexibility.  In addition,  relaxed factory inspections and license regulations have been brought into effect, widening the scope for willful or genuine bureaucratic lapses.

Reversing hard-won labor rights in the 20th century, the working hour shift is now extended from 8 to 12 hours, with minimum interference from labour unions.  MP’s CM Shivraj Singh Chouhan opined that the shift in working hours was brought under section 5 of the Factories Act which allows for exemption from its provisions for up to three months.  The MP state government was hoping that the Centre would give its affirmative nod to such a suspension for a minimum of 1000 days.  However, what remains overlooked is that this exemption can be given only during a ‘public emergency’, a narrow concept which includes within it a threat to security due to war or external aggression.  Uttar Pradesh has approved the suspension of labour laws for 3 years, making certain exceptions for laws related to the abolition of child and bonded labour, women employees, construction workers and payment of wages, as well as compensation to workers who experience accidents while on duty.

All this is being done under the guise of reviving the Indian economy, functioning on the assumption that regulations signify state control whereas deregulations promote economic growth.  The fact that regulation and deregulation are considered to be the antithesis of one another yet are two modes in which state and capital operate together, is being completely overlooked.  No economy is devoid of the state’s presence.  What is construed as deregulation is a controlled form of state intervention which gives a free hand to capital for economic growth.

Law has two aspects to it: one which deals with punitive measures and the other which provides social security, of which the state is the sole guarantor.  The changes being pitched to deal with the punitive measures, is now through the control of private entities thereby minimizing the role of the state. Whatever economic growth India reaps out of this plan will be a result of the deep casualization of labour.  Reports show that ‘contract labour’ has risen dramatically from 7% to 35% over the last thirty years, illustrating a move towards  a system of sub-contracting in which the responsibility from the top shifts downwards to workers subject to reduced labour rights.

The question arises as to why, instead of protecting the interest of workers, this unfortunate time is being used as an opportunity to relax labour laws which does little to solve the issue at hand.  Why did a crisis that required a supportive response from the government, do the opposite and instead strengthen their capitalist ambitions? This hints at an ulterior motive behind this strategic deregulation, that the government might be using the excuse of this pandemic to further its own agendas. Furthermore, the group to which these laws will be applicable constitutes only a minority of the workforce (about 10% of the formal workforce), as migrants are often in occupations in which labour laws do not even apply.

Conclusion

A two-pronged conclusion can be drawn looking at the state of the labour force in India. The pandemic brought to the forefront the pre-existing economic imbalance and vulnerabilities of India’s labour workforce.  These informal workers weren’t ‘running away’ in a protest against working conditions, wage arrears, or any other work-related grievances.  They were simply returning home to their families during conditions of a global emergency.  Still this caused a major dislocation exposing an underlying structural crisis.  This crisis wasn’t fundamentally due to the pandemic, but rather the pandemic exposed the pre-existing structural fissures which were until now hidden behind the powerful government narratives of a ‘Shining India.’  However, post-pandemic, the workers’ grievances are likely only to increase, given the recent actions of state governments.  Not only will they have to leave their homes again to return to their work, the jobs that will be waiting for them will now be more precarious, more demanding and impose harsher conditions with no job security, thus illustrating that, pandemic or not, the abuse of Indian labourers continues.

 

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Shreya is a 3rd year Student of Dr. Ram Manohar Lohiya National Law University, Lucknow pursuing B.A. L.L.B (Hons) with a keen interest in dispute resolution, public policy, and human rights law. She wishes to pursue the same in the future and believes that ideas are what truly matters.  In future she wishes to build a platform wherein every individual has respect and can freely voice their opinions.

Stranger than Fiction: Opportunities for a new narrative in Dominico-Haitian relations under Covid-19

by Maria Cristina Fumagalli and  Bridget Wooding

In May 2012, the Dominican writer Junot Díaz published ‘Monstro,’ a science-fictional short story which depicts the post-apocalyptic scenario of a mysterious viral outbreak in Haiti and its repercussions on the island of Hispaniola as a whole and in the Dominican Republic in particular. We will not provide a full analysis of the short story itself here — for more on ‘Monstro’ in the wider context of Hispaniola border relation see Fumagalli’s On the Edge: Writing the Border between Haiti and the Dominican Republic (LUP, 2015; 2018)– but, since Díaz’s dystopic future clearly resonated with the present of his 2012 readers and anticipates aspects of our current predicament, we will use it as a springboard to provide a quick snapshot of a ‘life as we know it’ to which, post-Covid-19, the island of Hispaniola cannot and should not return.

Taking place in a non-specified point in the future where most of the beaches of the Dominican Republic are submerged and the countryside is deserted because of the ‘Long Drought,’ ‘Monstro’ suggests that this lethal viral outbreak is concomitant, possibly even directly connected with environmental degradation and what is no longer possible to call ‘natural’ disasters since they are provoked or made much more severe by human action and political choices. ‘Monstro’ then informs us that the first Haitians to be infected are the ‘poorest of the poor,’ foregrounding the pernicious correlation between health and wealth and indirectly denouncing how political neglect increases the vulnerability of those who are not in a position to protect themselves. These poor, in fact, are housed in unspecified ‘relocation camps,’ a reference which evoked the precarious life conditions of those who were relocated in relief camps created in Haiti after the devastating 2010 earthquake which claimed the lives of hundreds of thousands and affected millions. These camps were still open when Díaz published his short story two years after the earthquake and, distressingly, on the tenth anniversary of the earthquake in January 2020, the Director of the International Organisation for Migration (IOM) in Haiti lamented that 30,000 earthquake survivors were still encamped in Haiti, without access to promised housing.

A boy stands at a makeshift camp on the grounds of the Petionville Golf Course in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, January 26, 2010 (Photo. REUTERS).

In the Dominican Republic, Haiti is used as the negative foil in anti-Haitian, racist, and ultra-nationalistic discourses which offer a simplified artificial picture which posits the two countries and peoples sharing the island of Hispaniola as different and incompatible (i.e. Dominicans are white or mixed race; Haitians are black; Dominicans are Catholic, Haitians practise Voudou), demonize Haitians, and disenfranchise Dominicans of Haitian descent.  In the aftermath of the devastating 2010 earthquake, these discourses, capitalising on the strategically fomented fear of a Haitian invasion which (allegedly) perpetually threatens the Dominican Republic, warned that the Dominican apocalypse was impending due to the imminence of a stampede of desperate Haitians crossing the border into the country.  This stampede, which never happened in reality, is represented, in Diaz’s ‘Monstro,’ by a horde of Haitians who, infected by the virus and turned into an unmanageable, bloodthirsty, and homogenous mass of murderers and cannibals, are ominously moving in unison towards the border with the Dominican Republic.

When the Haitian horde reaches the border, Dominican authorities decide to close it and instruct the army to meet the “invaders […] with ultimate force’ to prevent the viral infection spreading to the Dominican Republic. Similarly, when faced with the 2011 Haitian outbreak of cholera which was to kill thousands of Haitians, the immediate answer of the government of the Dominican Republic was, as it is the case in Diaz’s ‘Monstro,’ to close the border, (allegedly) to prevent the spreading of this potentially lethal disease.  This pathologization of Haiti and the Haitians was not a novelty: in the early 1980s, for example, Haitians were classified by the United States’ Center for Disease Control (CDC) as a ‘risk category’ and HIV-carriers based on an erroneous identification of Haiti as the point of origin of AIDS.

In ‘Monstro,’ the spreading of this mysterious virus in Haiti is facilitated by international neglect: since “it was just poor Haitians types getting fucked up,” Díaz’s narrator explains, “once the initial bulla died down, only a couple of underfunded teams stayed on” to try to better understand the virus and mitigate its consequences.  Haiti had begun its long battle with the cholera epidemic only a year before the publication of ‘Monstro,’ but it was already becoming clear (staunch denials on the part of the UN notwithstanding) that the epidemic had been introduced in the country by a Nepalese contingent of the United Nations mobilised to assist the population after the earthquake. In May, in a letter to the United Nations secretary general, António Guterres, thirteen UN rights monitors strongly criticised the UN for its “deeply disappointing” failure to make amends for having brought cholera to Haiti. After highlighting the inadequacy of the UN response to the Haitian crisis, the lead signatory of the letter, Philip Alston, the UN monitor on extreme poverty and human rights, concluded that the UN’s reprehensible conduct could only be understood by accepting that “racism” must have played a part.

In a move that reveals how racism and colourism also go hand in hand with anti-Haitianism in the Dominican Republic, the popular name of the epidemic which, in Díaz’s short story, begins to manifest itself by making Haitians blacker, is ‘Negrura.’  We are informed that Haitian–Dominicans and Haitians living in the Dominican Republic began to be ‘deported over a freckle,’ a comment that openly criticises the way in which, over many years, the Dominican government has been using arbitrary deportations (often targeting dark-skinned individuals regardless of their legal status) as a means to control and regulate ‘Haitian’ immigration, and, more specifically, of the resumption of deportations after the cholera epidemic as a ‘prophylactic’ measure.

 

Face in limbo, camp Parc Cadeau, Haiti, December 4, 2015 (Photo. Michelle Siu)

Sadly, deportations continued to be used also after the publication of Diaz’s story in 2012.  On the 23^rd September 2013, a ruling of the Dominican Constitutional Court ordered all birth registries from 1929 had to be audited for people who had been (allegedly) wrongly registered as Dominican citizens, de facto denationalizing over 133,000 Dominicans, mainly of Haitian descent.  The 2013 ruling was supported by the same well-established Dominican anti-Haitian racist ultra-nationalistic discourses which in the post-earthquake and post-cholera scenarios –but also on a myriad of many other occasions– had fomented hatred and paranoia, and demonized or pathologized Haiti, Haitians, and Dominicans of Haitian descent. A moratorium on deportations of Haitians with irregular migration status in the Dominican Republic took place during the eighteen months while a national regularization plan for foreigners was operated up until the middle of 2015, when registration for the plan lapsed. Deportations started up again in earnest. Unfortunately, the mix of euphemistically labelled “spontaneous returns” (often motivated by anti-Haitianism whipped up by elite nationalists), extra-official deportations and official deportations evidenced many of the shortcomings seen earlier in the process of deportations, when expulsions of Haitians had happened, en masse, from the Dominican Republic.  The humanitarian crisis derived from this intense cross-border movement is perhaps best exemplified by the camps established on the Haitian-Dominican border, such as the Parc Cadeau complex, where scholars suggest that, from a bio-politic prism, this forced displacement could be included in the “death zones of the world.”

 

Masked mask, part of sculpture, Jean Philippe Moiseau, May 2020

Ironically, in 2020, before the first case of Covid-19 was detected in Haiti, it was the Haitian President Jovenel Moïse who unilaterally closed the land border with the Dominican Republic, mindful of the country’s long struggle against cholera which was only controlled in January 2019.  Paradoxically, Haiti had its lock-down first in the Americas before the arrival of Covid-19 and is one of the last countries assailed by the pandemic in the western hemisphere.  In the final months of 2019, in fact, Haiti was in lock-down, or peyi-lok, a creole epithet which alludes to the nationwide political and economic protests which, precipitated by anticorruption scandals revealed in mid-2018, paralysed the country. The Haiti-Dominican Republic border was not closed but most schools and businesses were shut down.

It is evident that the Covid-19 emergency constitutes a huge challenge for the island of Hispaniola, where health services in both countries are far from fit for purpose and containment and control will likely consist in a long haul. Haiti will be hard put to deal with coronavirus, due to a notorious lack of installed health services capacity and social distancing will be virtually impossible in urban areas because of overcrowded housing and informal labour patterns. Similarly, health services are weak in the neighbouring Dominican Republic and containment measures have not been uniformly applied despite a state of emergency having been decreed. On top of that, legislation adopted in the Dominican Republic in 2014 to restore the documents of denationalised persons has been unevenly and timidly applied, such that most of those affected by the operation of the law do not have their Dominican ID, hence have limitations on realising their rights to health and education and have been absent from ongoing social protection measures in place prior to the pandemic.  Likewise, hundreds of thousands of irregular migrants have, since 2014, engaged with the state in a regularisation programme only to find that they currently have a fragile or out-of-status legality. In these circumstances there is little incentive for them to come forward and stake claim to humanitarian aid from the authorities because they may fear deportation when the health crisis subsides.

 

Masked Mask, Jean Philippe Moiseau, June 2020

The Dominican Republic and Haitian authorities have been correct in leaving a certain flexibility with the land border, enabling some 50,000 Haitians to return home since the pandemic was declared.  However, there is the danger that once more the border area between the two countries becomes instrumentalized as a temporary humanitarian corridor for the duration of the health crisis and the long term demands of cross-border workers may be yet again overlooked.

Despite all the challenges that it presents, however, the pandemic also provides opportunities to improve border relations and finally address the predicament of segments of the populations in precarious legality like Haitian migrants and denationalised Dominicans of Haitian ancestry.  Social protection mechanisms activated by the Dominican authorities for humanitarian assistance and those made unemployed by the health crisis, in fact, do not cover persons living and working in the country without a Dominican ID document.  In order to be effective in the Dominican Republic, which has the worst mortality rate in the insular Caribbean, in fact, the Coronavirus response has to include those who have been routinely marginalised and neglected.

We have engaged, since 2013, in the development of artistic and literary projects (i.e. public talks, book launches, workshops, concerts, photographic exhibitions, artistic performances, publications in English, French, and Spanish, YouTube video) aimed at foregrounding and enhancing social and cultural unity in order to counter dominant discourses and pernicious racist and discriminatory practices which deny the existence of collaborative linkages and cultural continuities between the peoples and countries sharing the island of Hispaniola.  We are therefore fully alert to the notion that a post-Covid-19 return to ‘life as we know it’ whereby anti-Haitianism, deportations, and denationalization are the status quo, is to be firmly resisted and avoided and, as many other activists on the ground, we believe that policy advocacy must support different ways of sustainably including these side-lined groups, often ostracised because of their ethnicity, in order that they may fully belong in Dominican society, benefiting from risk management both now and in the future.

 

ABOUT THE AUTHORS

Maria Cristina Fumagalli is Professor of Literature at the University of Essex. She is the author of On the Edge: Writing the Border between Haiti and the Dominican Republic (2015; 2018), the first cultural and literary history of the region, and, more recently, of the chapter   “‘When Dialogue is No Longer Possible, What Still Exists Is the Mystery of Hope’: Migration and Citizenship in the Dominican Republic in Film, Theatre and Performance” in Border Transgression and Reconfiguration of Caribbean Spaces. Moïse, Myriam & Fred Réno (Eds). NY: Palgrave MacMillan (2020). She is Investigadora Asociada of Observatory Caribbean Migrants (OBMICA), Santo Domingo.

Bridget Wooding is a researcher, advocate, writer, trainer, and expert witness on migration related issues. She coordinates the Observatory for Caribbean Migrants (OBMICA), based in Santo Domingo (www.obmica.org), since 2009. She is the author of numerous publications, including books and articles on nationality matters and the migration dynamics affecting the Dominican Republic, the island of Hispaniola, the insular Caribbean, and respective Diasporas. She is the author of the chapter “The seeds of Anger: Contemporary issues in forced migration across the Dominican-Haitian border” in Border Transgression and Reconfiguration of Caribbean Spaces. Moïse, Myriam & Fred Réno (Eds). NY: Palgrave MacMillan (2020).

International Human Rights Weekly News Roundup

by Lauren Ng and Pauline Canham

This week’s stories in focus

Protests against Israel’s plans to annex the West Bank as Coronavirus cases rise again

Thousands rallied in Jericho on 22 June to protest against the plan by Israel to annex large parts of the occupied West Bank and the Jordan Valley.  Those protesting included Nickolay Mladenov, the Middle East UN peace envoy and diplomats from several nations including Britain.  More than 1,000 European MPs, including 240 from the UK, have signed a letter opposing Israel’s plans, which would result in the extension of Israeli authority to 30% of the West Bank, including  235 Israeli settlements considered illegal under international law.  The West Bank and Gaza are those areas considered by Palestinians as a future independent state and if the annexation goes ahead, it would leave Palestinian areas significantly fragmented and some Palestinians effectively living in Israeli enclaves with no rights.

47 human rights experts have released a joint statement calling on the international community to oppose what they call “a 21st century apartheid” that “incites wars, economic devastation, political instability, systematic human rights abuses and widespread human suffering.”  Israel’s Prime Minister Netanyahu is emboldened in his plans by the support of the Trump administration and is trying to push it through before the possibility that the White House might change hands later this year.

Meanwhile, cases of coronavirus are on the rise again in the West Bank, since restrictions were lifted in May.  This week saw the number of cases double as the Palestinian Health Minister warned that a second wave could be “more dangerous than the first.”  As a result of a jump in cases and fears of a new emergence of the virus, some areas including the city of Hebron have gone back into lockdown.   Israel have so far reported 308 fatalities and 3 in the Palestinian territories.  Netanyahu is urging people to adhere to social distancing guidelines and has given the police the power to impose a fine, equivalent to $146, to anyone not wearing a mask in public

US Supreme Court bans LGBTQ employment discrimmination

On June 15 this year, the US Supreme Court made a sweeping decision prohibiting employment discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity under federal law. The title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, which bans discrimination on the basis of sex among other things, now protects LGBTQ employees in its discriminatory clause. The decision was written by Judge Neil Gorsuch, nominated by the Trump administration, and will undeniably cause tensions among the judicial conservatives and Republican nominees.

While the bill has expanded LGBTQ civil rights protection in some states, it is expected to face challenges in the Republican-controlled Senate. Although 33 states offer some form of protection against LGBTQ workers, only 22 states prohibit discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity. This leaves 17 states with no protection at all and thus, vulnerable to harassment and abuse in the workplace.

Nevertheless, this ruling remains significant – it is the first time the court has spoken about legal protections for transgender rights.  This issue comes shortly after Trump confirmed his administration would continue to rollback health care protections for transgender people, which is due to take effect on August 18^th and will undoubtedly become a legal battlefield in the upcoming months.  Following the court’s ruling, and as per tradition, Trump immediately went to Twitter to thunder back, avowing:

“These horrible & politically charged decisions coming out of the Supreme Court are shotgun blasts into the face of people that are proud to call themselves Republicans or Conservatives. We need more Justices or we will lose our 2nd. Amendment & everything else. Vote Trump 2020!”

It is expected this decision will have ramifications for the health discrimination rule of the US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS).  The HHS has maintained that the implications of the court’s new ruling will likely not affect their rule as the “binary biological character of sex… takes on special importance in the health context”, which “might not be fully addressed by future [job discrimination] rulings”.  However, legal scholars have countered and stated that the HHS’s argument holds little weight as the legal opinion confirmed that sexual orientation and gender identity is included in category of ‘sex’; thus, leaving the healthcare rule on shaky ground.

 

Other stories making the headlines around the world

 

Americas

• Mexico wont send workers to Canadian farms that ignore COVID rules
• US Supreme Court Allows Dreamers ‘To Breathe Again’ (Human Rights Watch)
• ‘State-sanctioned violence’: US police fail to meet basic human rights standards (The Guardian)
• Rights groups go to court over the US challenge to human rights (Human Rights Watch)

Europe

• New UK ‘Overseas Operations’ Bill decriminalises torture (The Independent)
• Oxford college backs removal of Cecil Rhodes statue (The Guardian)
• Devon and Cornwall police officer investigated over George Floyd meme (The Guardian)
• Windrush scandal: cross-government group aims to tackle ‘terrible’ treatment (The Guardian)
• Syrian doctor arrested in Germany for ‘crimes against humanity’ (Al Jazeera)
• Britain’s big race divide (CNN)
• Marcus Rashford: Manchester United forward’s campaign to make change happen (BBC)

Middle East

• Libya: GNA calls Egypt’s military threat ‘declaration of war’ (Al Jazeera)
• Saudi Arabia condemns attacks by Yemen’s Houthis on Riyadh (Al Jazeera)
• Activist friend of Jamal Khashoggi living in Canada is warned he is a target (Deutsche Welle)
• Remains of Filipino expats working in Saudi Arabia to be flown home (Al Jazeera)

Asia

• Five things to know about the India-China border standoff (Al Jazeera)
• China revealed some details of Hong Kong’s national security law and it may be as bad as critics feared (CNN)

Africa

• ICC hears prosecutor’s appeal against Laurent Gbagbo’s acquittal (Al Jazeera)

• Unrelenting Killings in Congo’s Ituri Province(Human Rights Watch)

World

• COVID-19: New women-led UN initiative aims to save lives and protect livelihoods (UN News)
• Global ban needed on bogus ‘conversion therapy’, argues UN rights expert (UN News)
• Human Rights Council calls on top UN rights official to take action on racist violence (UN News)

International Human Rights News: Weekly Roundup

by Pauline Canham and Lauren Ng

COVID-19 Update – Stories from around the world…

Contact-tracing apps challenge the right to privacy

Countries, like the UK, looking to introduce a track-and-trace app to tackle the spread of coronavirus, would do well to learn the lessons from already-introduced schemes.  There is widespread concern about rights to privacy, freedom of movement and a slide towards totalitarian-style surveillance becoming a permanent fixture.  The Gulf state of Qatar has now introduced a contact-tracing app called EHTERAZ, which, since last Friday, is compulsory to download and use when leaving home.  Those not doing so face a fine of $55,000 or up to 3 years in prison.  Unfortunately, the security vulnerabilities of the app were not ironed out before its release, exposing those who had downloaded it to being easily hacked for extremely sensitive personal data such as name, health status and exact GPS location.  Amnesty International alerted Qatari authorities and have been assured that the issues were dealt with immediately and security fixes released within 24 hours.  Claudio Guarnieri, Head of Amnesty International’s Security Lab, said:  “If technology is to play an effective role in tackling the virus, people need to have confidence that contact-tracing apps will protect their privacy and other human rights.”

 

Community transmission underway in Cox’s Bazaar refugee camps

15,000 Rohingya have been quarantined in one area of the huge refugee camps of Cox’s Bazaar, Bangladesh.  Despite strict limitations on movement which have delayed the onset of the virus, it is now beginning to spread, prompting concern from Chief Health official, Mahbubur Rahman. “We are very worried because the Rohingya camps are very densely populated. We suspect community transmission (of the virus) has already begun,”   Overcrowding makes social distancing impossible and there is a lack of awareness of the virus, because the refugees are not permitted access to information, which adds to the difficulties of preventing the spread of infection.  Another concern is the impact on women of lockdown, with gender-based violence on the increase.

 

The humanitarian implications of COVID-19 in Yemen

With humanitarian aid reduced, funding pledges not being met and hospitals hit by air strikes, the victims of the war on Yemen, especially those living in displacement camps are at increased risk of contracting COVID-19.  Epidemiologists have estimated that coronavirus could infect 55 percent of Yemen’s population, some 16 million people.   Yemen’s health service was already collapsing under the weight of 5 years of intense war, famine, lack of fuel and overwhelming disease such as the annual cholera epidemic.  The UN Office for the Co-ordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) reports that that people are being “turned away due to a lack of oxygen, they do not have enough Personal Protective Equipment (PPE)”.  In a statement on May 14, Save the Children said nearly 400 people in Aden were reported to have died of coronavirus-like symptoms in just one week.

 

COVID-19 Protestors attacked by police in Ecuador

Protestors were beaten with clubs by police in Ecuador as they peacefully protested against the government’s handling of the coronavirus pandemic.  40 protestors were met with force by 15 police, with several protestors being injured, journalists attacked and 4 human rights advocates detained, though they were released the following day after a judicial hearing found them not guilty of any crime.

 

Human Rights part of COVID-19 planning in East Africa

Africa Day was marked this week on 25th May, under the theme ‘Silencing the Guns in the context of COVID-19’, to commemorate the founding of forerunner to the African Union, the Organisation of African Unity in 1963, in Addis Ababa.  In that same city, UN workers are fighting to keep human rights front and central of the plans to tackle coronavirus.   Ensuring healthcare access, while protecting against discrimination is vital, and the office has also organised webinars to support human rights defenders, particularly women’s rights campaigners.  The other important element of their work is to monitor violations and limitations of rights, brought about through exceptional policies during a state of emergency, such as freedom of movement, freedom of speech and association and the right to education and health. Nwanneakolam Vwede-Obahor, Head of the UN Human Rights East Africa Regional Office said the pandemic had “exacerbated all of the issues we had pointed out before it began, such as poverty, the lack of access to quality education and the lack of access to health services.”

 

Other stories in focus…

International Criminal Court’s investigations into the situation in Palestine

Earlier this week, Mike Pompeo, the US Secretary of State, released a statement condemning the International Criminal Court’s (ICC) pursuit on the war crimes committed on Palestinian territory.  Pompeo threatened that the US administration will “exact consequences” if the ICC continues with its investigations.

The ICC judges have yet to confirm their decision as to whether it maintains jurisdiction in Palestine.  Both Israeli and Palestinian authorities have failed to adequately investigate the crimes committed throughout the conflict.  It has been argued that should the ICC be permitted to carry out an impartial examination of these crimes, it would allow measures of accountability to be upheld, ensuring victims are given appropriate recourse to the rights and dignity they deserve.

 

Spotlight on Biodiversity Day 2020

In the midst of the Covid-19 pandemic, the link between health and its interaction within the global ecological system has been highlighted, reminding us of the importance in conserving sustainable resources.

May 22 is recognised as International Day for Biological Diversity. Released on this day, State of The World’s Forests report underscored that nearly 420 million hectares of forests have been lost due to ongoing land expansion, contributing to the destruction of biodiversity.  This deforestation has predominantly been attributed to large-scale agriculture expansion carried out by commercial entities, namely cattle ranching, soy bean cultivation and palm oil.

 

 

Other stories making the news around the world

International

• Can Covid-19 Help Ease the Climate Crisis? (Human Rights Watch)
• COVID-19: New women-led UN initiative aims to save lives and protect livelihoods (UN News)

 

Africa

• Rwanda genocide: How Félicien Kabuga evaded capture for 26 years (BBC)
• Somalia looks to first full elections in 51 years, despite COVID-19 crisis (UN News)
• Victims of intercommunal violence in South Sudan deserve ‘justice, truth and reparations’: Bachelet (UN News)

 

Middle East

• UN welcomes three-day ceasefire announcement by Afghan government and Taliban during Eid al-Fitr (UN News)
• Coronavirus: Sleepless nights for doctors in a war zone (The Guardian)

 

Asia

• Hong Kong: Beijing Threatens Draconian Security Law (Human Rights Watch)
• Japan lifts coronavirus emergency in all remaining areas (ABC News)
• Doctor who raised concerns over PPE shortage admitted to mental hospital (BBC)
• Myanmar: Imagery Shows 200 Buildings Burned (Human Rights Watch)

 

Europe

• Marie Cau: First transgender mayor elected in France (BBC)
• Malta: Disembark Rescued People (Human Rights Watch)
• Has coronavirus changed the UK justice system forever? (The Guardian)

 

South America

• In pictures: Indigenous nurse on frontline in virus fight (BBC)
• Venezuela: Urgent Aid Needed to Combat Covid-19 (Human Rights Watch)

 

North America

• Trans Mountain pipeline: Protest ban is ‘great time’ to build, says minister (BBC)
• Investigators Say One Man Shot Ahmaud Arbery. Why Are Three Charged With Murder? (New York Times)
• Why Native Americans took Covid-19 seriously: ‘It’s our reality’ (The Guardian)

 

Poignant memories of Yemen after 5 years of war

by Pauline Canham, Student Editor

I stepped off the Yemenia Airways flight, and onto a bus, transporting me and a dozen or so Yemeni nationals the short distance to the arrivals terminal at Aden International Airport.  It was April 2014 and my brief visit to the country, once dubbed ‘Arabia Felix’ or ‘fortunate Arabia’, came amidst a build-up of political tension.  Just 11 months after my visit, Yemen would tragically descend into what is now described as the world’s worst humanitarian disaster.

The coming week marks the 5^th anniversary of the launch of ‘Operation Decisive Storm’, the Saudi Coalition offensive against Houthi rebels on 25^th March 2015.  The anniversary was marked with the closure of airports to all traffic, except for humanitarian aid, due to concerns that the coronavirus would exacerbate what is an already catastrophic situation.

Yet again at the top of IRC’s Emergency Watchlist for 2020, the fragile hope brought about by a recent de-escalation in the conflict was rocked by a renewed surge in fighting in some provinces.  The UN Special Envoy to Yemen, Martin Griffiths said last week that Yemen is at a “critical juncture” and urged warring parties to “de-escalate now” to prevent a slide back to greater violence.   His statement came after what he described as “the most alarming military escalation” which included a Saudi air strike in February that killed more than 30 civilians.  He also reiterated calls for access to the Safer Oil Tanker, as fears of an environmental disaster grow.  The ship, anchored in the Red Sea, contains 1.15 million gallons of crude oil, and experts fear it could explode at any time, due to a lack of maintenance.

In a statement to the Security Council on 12^th March, the UK Permanent Representative to the UN, Karen Pierce said that the crisis “cannot be allowed to deteriorate any longer”.  The renewed violence has pushed even more people out of their homes and into camps around the country with three quarters of the 4.3 million internally displaced being women and children.

 

UK arms sales to Saudi Arabia unlawful

The civilian death toll in Yemen led to a British High Court ruling in 2019 that declared UK sales of arms to Saudi Arabia unlawful.   Despite this, the Government has continued to grant arms licenses to the Saudi Kingdom, in what were described as “inadvertent breaches” of the ruling.   The UK, US and other European Governments came under pressure to cease arms trading with Saudi Arabia after a number of so called ‘targeted’ attacks resulted in high civilian casualties.  One such attack killed 40 children and injured 56 while they were travelling on a school bus in the Sa’ada district in 2018.

Despite Human Rights Watch describing that incident as a war crime, Saudi Arabia has increased its arms purchases and those involved in the business of selling them have been accused of having blood on their hands.  In what appeared to be an eerie echo of German-American political philosopher, Hannah Arendt’s theory of the ‘banality of evil’, an official working at the UK Export Control Joint Unit, which signs off on shipments of weapons to Saudi Arabia said “I’m doing what I’m told and doing my job, but I’m uncomfortably aware that Adolf Eichmann said the same thing.”

Amnesty International is calling on the International Criminal Court (ICC) to investigate executives and officials involved in the sales of arms used in alleged war crimes in Yemen.  Working alongside the European Centre for Constitutional and Human Rights (ECCHR), they are requesting an investigation into 26 specific airstrikes which resulted in the unlawful killing or injuring of civilians “and destroyed or damaged schools, hospitals and other protected objects.”

 

Memories of a different Yemen

My flight from Qatar to Yemen’s southern coastal city of Aden in 2014 had felt unexpectedly like a family outing, with me in a role akin to visiting cousin from a distant land.  There was a fair amount of curiosity as to why I might want to visit Yemen during such a ‘delicate’ moment in time.  Though the Saudi-led intervention was still almost a year away, sporadic violence was commonplace and protests by Al Hirak Al Janoubi (Southern Secessionist Movement) were held regularly in Aden.  Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) had been very active in Yemen and there had been kidnappings of Westerners by the group or their affiliates.

But whatever apprehension I had before my departure was quickly soothed.  I was welcomed warmly from the very moment I stepped on the Yemenia jet in Qatar all the way through to my eventual departure from Aden.  I was embraced by the famously generous Arabic culture of my hosts, Yemeni people considered by many as the friendliest and most welcoming to visitors in the world.

Of course security was tight, there were checkpoints all over the city, we had several power cuts, and on one occasion Aden Mall was evacuated due to an escalating skirmish in the surrounding streets, but what I witnessed was a resilient community continuing with life undeterred.  The beaches were busy with families enjoying the spring sunshine, children swimming, young men riding horses along the sand and women having lunch with friends.  It was a happy atmosphere with no hint of the tragedies yet to come less than a year later.

My hosts took me to Aden’s historic sites, long since abandoned by visitors from around the world who used to flock to the South Arabian coast for winter sun.   The stunning 11^th Century Sira Castle, embedded into a rocky peninsula in a prime defensive spot in the Gulf of Aden, and the incredible Cisterns of Tawila, estimated to be 1500 years old.  But my lasting memories were not of rock and stone, but rather of joy, laughter, friendship and a sense of living life in the moment that I realised I had lost.

On the way back to the airport, as I stressed about getting there on time, my friends pulled over at a small roadside tea stand.  Little glass cups of red tea were passed through the window and as I sipped at the sweet hot liquid, my friend turned up the car stereo, stepped out into the middle of the road and began to dance.  These poignant memories have become more precious with every anniversary of the war that passes.

What now for Yemen?

This anniversary brings with it the threat of coronavirus on top of an already perilous humanitarian situation.   But for Yemen’s collapsing health system, coronavirus is simply another issue on a growing list of threats.  Among the immediate concerns, in addition to the escalation in violence, is the impending rainy season, which every year heralds the onset of a rise in cholera cases.  In 2019, Yemen recorded 860,000 cases of the disease and 56,000 cases have already been recorded in 2020.  Oxfam’s Yemen Country Director said “This is a health crisis hiding in plain sight.  It’s shocking that this ongoing crisis is getting so little attention.”   With health workers needed evermore urgently, they too are coming under attack, being targeted by all warring parties in a blatant violation of humanitarian law.

The situation on the ground in Yemen is incredibly complex, with various proxy battles playing out between vying Gulf neighbours, most notably Saudi Arabia, UAE and Iran.  The UAE, officially part of the Saudi Coalition, recently tested the relationship with the Kingdom when it backed Al Hirak Al Janoubi to seize Aden from forces loyal to President Hadi, still internationally recognised as Yemen’s leader.   The Yemeni people, as always are caught in the cross-fire between major global powers, hungry to secure their positions in such a strategic location on the Bab al-Mandeb strait at the mouth of the Red Sea.

As we hunker down to protect each other from coronavirus, Yemen slips silently into a 6^th year of war, unreported by a world focused on an unseen enemy of a different nature.

About the Author:

Pauline Canham is the HRC Blog’s student editor.  Pauline is studying a Masters Degree in Human Rights and Cultural Diversity at Essex, after 20 years in the broadcasting sector, working for the BBC and AlJazeera, with a focus on large change projects including the BBC’s move into the new Broadcasting House in 2013, and the re-launch of Al Jazeera’s Arabic Channel in 2016.

Human Rights in Asia Conference 2018

By the Human Rights in Asia conference Team

Postgraduate students from the University of Essex Human Rights Centre are proud to announce that the tenth edition of the annual Human Rights in Asia Conference will take place on 24th March, from 10:00AM to 5:00PM in the Essex Business School (Auditorium 2.2) at the Colchester campus, University of Essex.

Prevention, Protection and Solutions in relation to Displaced Persons: Three Dichotomies

By GS Gilbert

Given that there are approximately 65 million forcibly displaced individuals of concern to the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR), respect for international refugee law, international human rights law, the international law of armed conflict, international criminal law and the rule of law generally has never been greater if the need for flight is to be prevented or at least lessened. As for protection and solutions, though, they are often considered to be separate elements of UNHCR’s response to displaced persons and stateless persons, yet that is a false dichotomy. Traditionally, protection consists of documentation, registration, non-refoulement and status determination; solutions used to be three durable solutions of voluntary repatriation/ return, resettlement/ relocation, and local integration. However, when the modal average time spent as a displaced person is twenty years, the concepts of protection and solutions have to be reconfigured so that they are recognised as coterminous, that solutions begin at the point of protection and that ongoing solutions promote protection. To explain, the documentation and registration of new arrivals and of stateless persons is often seen as the start of international protection and, to be sure, it is, but they are also the gateway to solutions. They provide access to the ongoing solutions of employment, education, health care and legal services, all rights provided for in the Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees, 1951, and its 1967 Protocol, they empower the displaced and stateless person and make them readier to enter durable and sustainable solutions such as voluntary repatriation/ return, resettlement/ relocation or local integration. “Warehousing” refugees and internally displaced persons (IDPs) in camps miles away from all other population centres leaves them at risk, particularly women and children of sexual and gender based violence (SGBV), and denies them chances to promote their own solutions. Where refugees and IDPs are integrated with the local population, the UN agencies can provide an integrated and comprehensive response that benefits the displaced and the local population as well as the government, central and regional.