News headlines in 2022, page 247

JOHANNESBURG, Mar 07 (IPS) - The following opinion piece is part of series to mark International Women’s Day, March 8. It was on a visit to Lesotho that I first heard the derogatory term Mmutla – nocturnal hare. It is a word used in some southern districts to insult adolescent girls who have been forced into sexual exploitation and transactional sexual relations for survival.

BONN, Mar 07 (IPS) - When I was a young girl, a friend and I spent our summers building a treehouse. We built it because our older brothers were building one and wouldn’t allow us to help them. So, we asked our parents to support us through the procurement of basic tools, collected scrap wood from the local hardware store, chose a tree, and then spent day after day puzzling beams and boards together into structure in which only people of our small size could fit.

Allowing civilians to safely leave areas under fire in Ukraine, and delivering desperately needed aid to these locations, are among immediate priorities for humanitarians, the UN Emergency Relief Coordinator, Martin Griffiths, told the Security Council on Monday. 

MADRID, Mar 07 (IPS) - The picture is gloomy: not only do women represent 70% of the 1.3 billion people living in conditions of poverty, but also up to 40% of the poorest households in urban areas are headed by women.

DHAKA, Bangladesh, Mar 07 (IPS) - Women around the world play crucial roles in education as formal educators, school staff members, and parents of students. But women are also transforming education as non-formal educators in ways that can be scaled to improve education broadly. As we celebrate International Women’s Day (March 8), it’s important that this transformative role is recognized.

LIMA, Mar 07 (IPS) - "Pachamama (Mother Earth) is upset with all the damage we are doing to her," says Hilda Roca, an indigenous Peruvian farmer from Cusipata, in the Andes highlands of the department of Cuzco, referring to climate change and the havoc it is wreaking on her life and her environment.

PORTLAND, USA, Mar 07 (IPS) - While more than a half century ago the Twist was the craze in dance halls globally, today the Climate Change Shuffle is the craze in government halls and conference sites worldwide as officials dance around the dangers of climate change.

South Sudan’s unity government marked its two-year anniversary against a backdrop of stalled constitutional progress and ongoing cycles of community violence – often fuelled by political groups and armed militias – the senior UN official in the country told the Security Council on Monday.

Unaccompanied and separated children fleeing the conflict in Ukraine must be protected, two senior UN officials said in a joint statement on Monday. 

Greater investment in care services could create nearly 300 million jobs by 2035, the UN’s labour agency, ILO, said in a report published on Monday ahead of International Women’s Day, celebrated annually on 8 March.