As hostilities rage in Sudan, access constraints and devastating funding cuts are isolating rape survivors and pregnant women from essential health services, the UN sexual and reproductive health agency UNFPA said on Thursday.
It warned that without immediate support, women and girls will continue to pay the price of this crisis with their lives, as hundreds of thousands are being left without access to emergency obstetric care or support after rape.
Constant distress
Often suffering complications from constant distress, malnutrition, and physical exhaustion, more and more displaced pregnant women are arriving at UN facilities in desperate conditions after months without care, UNFPA said.
Due to persistent insecurity, access limitations and inadequate funding, over 1.1 million pregnant women in Sudan currently lack access to antenatal care, safe delivery, and postpartum care, according to the World Health Organization ( WHO ).
As UNFPA recently underwent sharp funding cuts, the organization has had to scale back services to survivors escaping violence, shutting down 11 out of its 61 safe spaces in Sudan. Nearly one fourth of the population, most of them women and girls, are now at risk of gender-based violence.
"The scale and brutality of violations are beyond anything we've previously documented. We have documented numerous cases of adolescent girls who have survived rape and sexual violence," Dina, a gender-based violence specialist in Sudan, told the agency.
"Cuts to humanitarian funding are not just budget decisions - they are life-and-death choices," said Laila Baker , UNFPA Arab States Regional Director. "The world is turning its back on the women and girls of Sudan."
Over 30 million children suffer from 'wasting' in 15 countries: WFP
Two UN agencies are uniting to tackle wasting - the deadliest form of malnutrition - among 33 million children in 15 countries.
The life-threatening condition is caused by lack of nutritious food along with frequent illness.
Children who survive wasting can still suffer "long-term and devastating impacts," said the World Food Programme ( WFP ), highlighting the need to act fast and early.
However, the agency said this is difficult in places where families have been uprooted by violence or extreme weather, such as South Sudan's Unity state - where Nyanene Gatdoor, a 25-year-old mother-of-three, lives in a displacement camp.
Cries of hunger
"When the baby is crying in front of you, and you have nothing to give him, you feel pain in your heart," she said, referring to her two-year-old son, Tuach, who cries with hunger.
More than three million South Sudanese mothers and children are at risk of malnutrition this year - that's more than one-quarter of the country's total population.
To help those most in need, WFP has joined forces with the UN Children's Fund ( UNICEF ) to eradicate wasting in South Sudan and 14 other countries. Together, they represent
The objective includes delivering nutritious food to communities and sharing key messages on healthy eating and cleanliness, to avoid getting sick.
Belarus: Trade unionists repressed by 'climate of fear', rights experts say
Trade unions in Belarus continue to face State repression and detention, top independent rights experts said on Thursday.
The experts called for the immediate release of, and urgent medical care for, imprisoned trade union leaders, stressing that freedom of association at work is "absent" in Belarus.
The rights experts, who include Gina Romero, Special Rapporteur on the rights to freedom of peaceful assembly and of association , allege that trades unions have been disbanded after being labelled "extremist".
Forced into exile
Their leaders and members have also been imprisoned, forced into exile and prosecuted while outside Belarus, Ms. Romero said.
Many unionists have been left without legal protections, their assets confiscated, and their voices silenced, insisted the rights experts, who report to the Human Rights Council .
The development comes amid growing concerns over prison conditions in Belarus for opponents of the Government.
The rights experts who are not UN staff highlighted the human impact of detaining union leaders and called for them to be granted access to independent doctors.
They also called for international missions to be allowed to visit those held in prison.
Guatemala violated child rape victim's rights by forcing her into motherhood: Human Rights Council
On Thursday, the UN Human Rights Committee decided a case against Guatemala, ruling the country violated the rights of a 14-year-old girl who became pregnant from rape by forcing her to continue the pregnancy to term and into motherhood.
The girl was repeatedly raped by an ex-director of the day-care centre she attended as a child who maintained contact with her family.
She was then denied access to an abortion, endured an almost fatal delivery, and was forced to assume parental responsibilities despite not wanting to be involved in the child's care.
The suffering the victim endured led to two suicide attempts. The child now lives with the victim's mother, who is struggling to cover his expenses.
Near-decade of legal proceedings
After nine years of criminal proceedings against the perpetrator, Guatemala did not properly investigate the rape or take effective action to prosecute the perpetrator.
The victim and her family then brought the case to the Committee, claiming Guatemala violated her rights under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights ( ICCPR ).
The Committee ruled that Guatemala breached the girl's right to live with dignity and reproductive autonomy and subjected her to treatment comparable to torture, in violation of the treaty.
The Committee called on Guatemala to establish a system to track and address cases of sexual violence, child pregnancy, and forced motherhood, as the country has one of the highest rates of forced motherhood and impunity for sexual violence.
The authorities also were urged to redress damage done to the victim's life plans, publicly acknowledge responsibility and ensure education and psychological care for her child.
