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World closer to ending modern slavery as UN-backed protocol on forced labour comes into force

10 November 2016 – An international protocol on forced labour has entered into force, a major milestone in the fight to end the practice, which the United Nations labour agency estimates victimizes 21 million people worldwide. The International Labour Organization Forced Labour Protocol “requires countries to take effective measures to prevent and eliminate forced labour, […]

UN agency responding to severe health risks women and girls face amid Mosul military operation

The United Nations estimates that 1.2 to 1.5 million people are currently being affected by the military operations underway to retake Mosul from the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL/ISIS or Da’esh), some quarter million of which are women who potentially need reproductive health services and care for gender-based violence. Since 17 October, […]

MARRAKECH: UN conference spotlights water, the ‘first victim’ of climate change, as part of the solution

In a first for United Nations climate change conferences, a special day was devoted to action on water issues, providing stakeholders gathered in Marrakech, Morocco, for the so-called ‘COP 22’ an opportunity spotlight water as a way of providing solutions to help implement the Paris Agreement. “Water is one of the most impacted resources, but […]

International conference urges alternative online narratives to extremist propaganda on the internet

Participants at the international conference, Internet and the Radicalization of Youth: Preventing, Acting and Living Together, organized by UNESCO and the Government of Quebec in Quebec City, Canada, from 30 October to 1 November, have reaffirmed the positive potential of information technologies to build bridges among people and convey narratives that counter hate speech and […]