Archive for category: Global Poverty

Key articles and information on global poverty.

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REFUNITE: Reuniting Displaced Refugees With Their Families

In a world where social media makes it easier than ever to know exactly what your friends and family, not to mention complete strangers, are doing, it should not be a luxury to know where your loved ones are. However, the very same world is also witnessing the highest levels of displacement on record.

The U.N. Refugee Agency estimates that there are currently 65.6 million forcibly displaced people worldwide. But those people are more than just a number. Every one of those individuals is someone’s mother, father, son or daughter. And each of them deserves to know where their family is.

After being uprooted from their homes and shuffled back and forth between camps all over the world, refugees know all too well how easy it can be to become separated from your family. Reuniting displaced refugees can be a daunting task. Many of these people do not have regular access to phones or the Internet, let alone official documents of identification.

But the Internet can be a powerful tool. Refugees United, or REFUNITE (RU), is a new kind of platform working to connect family members escaping disasters, persecutions or conflicts who have ended up in different parts of the world, sometimes completely alone. Founded in 2006 by two Danish brothers, Christopher and David Mikkelsen, REFUNITE aims to be a sort of “Google for refugee search.”

In the past, most United Nations agencies have tended to rely on the International Committee of the Red Cross, the global network of Red Cross organizations. However, due to privacy reasons the Red Cross and the United Nations are restricted from looking at one another’s databases, leading to a lot of inefficiencies.

While the Red Cross system has helped tremendously in reuniting displaced refugees with their families, the system requires individuals to apply for help from a third party to conduct the searches. The staff of national Red Cross societies does most of the tracing by responding to requests from other countries. However, without a global database, people looking for family members are forced to guess which countries to search.

“We didn’t want to be the kind of NGO that is a third party providing help to refugees,” RU founder David Mikkelsen said. “We wanted to give them the opportunity to take control of their situations and help themselves – and give NGOs another tool to help.”

RU went live in May 2010. The first words of the registration page read: “We do NOT recommend the service of Refugees United to people at risk of being traced by potential persecutors.” Once a username and password are established, a profile is created. The site stresses anonymity, reminding people “Everyone can see the information in your profile. Use nicknames, initials or information only known by your family.”

Users then input the last known location of family members as well as exclusive information that only loved ones would know, such as birthmarks or favorite foods. These steps can be left blank if desired, and the database can be searched without registering an account. But as a search platform, RU’s success depended on the power of networks: in order to be effective, REFUNITE needed to attract as many users as possible.

As of October 2017, over 750,000 refugees are registered on the platform, making it the largest missing refugee database. Today, REFUNITE operates across 17 countries with 16 technology and mobile carriers with access to around 370 million mobile subscribers. Now, United Nations organizations and refugee groups work with REFUNITE, such as the International Rescue Committee, as well as Facebook.

Getting the word out about REFUNITE is still the biggest challenge in reuniting displaced refugees. However, with the web platform available in 12 languages and text services in five, the organization is making its way to becoming accessible to refugees who speak hundreds of languages across the world.

– Richa Bijlani

Photo: Flickr

10 Things You Didn’t Know About the Albigensian Crusade

the Albigensian crusadeNot many people have heard of the Albigensian Crusade, but if you have, you know that this event was much like a real-life episode of Game of Thrones. Here are 10 things you didn’t know about the Albigensian Crusade.

    1. The crusade began in 1209
      The Albigensian Crusade was a 20-year-long endeavor, lasting from 1209 until 1229.
    2. Pope Innocent III started the crusade against the Cathars
      The Cathars were a religious group that rejected the traditional Roman Catholic Church. They committed themselves to the Cathari religious movement, which dominated southern France in the 1200s. The Cathars believed in a dualistic cosmology that partially adapted Catholic thought into a religion of their own and was thus considered heretical.
    3. The Albigensian Crusade took place in southern France
      The geographical scope of the crusade stretched across southern France: Avignon, Castelsarrasin, Termes and Toulouse.
    4. Catharism was virtually eliminated
      The crusade eventually eradicated Catharism by the end of the 13th century.
    5. Crusaders were instructed to have no mercy and no discretion
      During the capture of Béziers, a key Cathar territory in southern France, the papal legate was asked how to distinguish between Cathars and Christians, and allegedly responded “Kill them all. God will know his own.” Everyone in the south of France was at risk of being considered a heretic simply because of where they lived.
    6. Crusaders believed in “crusade indulgence”
      It was believed that “crusade indulgence” officially absolved sins and ensured that no punishment would be issued in the afterlife. The Albigensian Crusade was very popular among soldiers because they believed their sins would be forgiven for taking part in the crusade.
    7. The crusades morphed into a holy war
      By the 12th century, crusading was dedicated to removing religious diversity. The Roman Catholic Church considered the practice of other religions a threat to human salvation. Crusades branched out from those against Muslims and pagans in the Baltic region to the perceived threat of the Cathars.
    8. Pope Innocent III started the crusade but didn’t finish it
      After spearheading the crusade, Pope Innocent III was murdered while trying to recruit an ally. It is generally believed that the count of Toulouse, Raymond VI, murdered the pope after he tried to recruit the count to join the war effort.
    9. Royal intervention ended the crusade in 1229
      Despite papal inception, King Louis VIII brought the Albigensian Crusade to an end in 1229 after officially restoring control over the region.
    10. There were over one million deaths
      It is estimated that at least one million innocent lives were lost throughout the course of the 20-year crusade. Some Cathars were even burned at the stake.

Even though the Albigensian Crusade came to an end in 1229, it led to further persecution of heretics in the following century, including the infamous Spanish Inquisition and various other crusades. Though they occurred many centuries ago, these persecutions and deaths are part of the numerous human rights violations that have taken place throughout history.

– Sloan Bousselaire

Photo: Google

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Hunger in Malta Closely Linked to History of Poverty

Malta is an island nation in the Mediterranean Sea, located off the coast of Italy. Due to its strategic location, it has been ruled by various nations over the centuries and it was not until 1964 that it gained independence from the United Kingdom. Despite being one of the world’s smallest countries, it faces challenges with hunger, which is closely linked to poverty.

A Closer Look

  • Malta has a population of 553,000 and around 90,000 people, or one in five individuals, live below the poverty line.
  • Poverty disproportionately affects children under the age of 18 and adults over 65, with rates of 23% and 29% respectively. 
  • Over the last two decades, the poverty rate has risen from 14% in 2006 to 16% in 2024. 
  • Hunger and food insecurity in Malta are closely linked to poverty, as people cannot afford to feed themselves and their families adequately. The percentage of malnourished individuals has increased from 2.5% in 2018 to 4.6% in 2021, highlighting the seriousness of the situation.
  • The pandemic and the Russian-Ukrainian war, combined with decreased local agriculture, have caused food prices to increase by at least 20%. 

Underlying Factors

  • Dependence on Imports– Malta has limited arable land and climate change has resulted in water scarcity, making large-scale agriculture difficult. The country’s high population density and strong focus on tourism have led to converting agricultural land into recreational areas, further diminishing food production. As a result, Malta imports the majority of its food, making it vulnerable to fluctuations in global prices and supply disruptions.
  • Economic Crisis- Malta’s economy is significantly dependent on tourism, which was severely impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic, resulting in widespread unemployment. Those who had already lost their jobs faced even more difficulties as the global economic crisis and rising inflation further strained their financial situations.

Support Measures

Various organizations and the Maltese government have intensified efforts to support the vulnerable population in combatting poverty and hunger. This section highlights some of these measures to show their importance and effects.

  • Food Banks- Many nonprofit organizations in Malta operate food banks and kitchens, which provide free meals to the food-insecure and vulnerable population. One of these kitchens alone served 27,000 people in 2023.
  • Employment assistance- Jobsplus is a national employment agency that offers training and skills development programs to unemployed individuals, helping them find jobs. Such measures aim to address the root causes of poverty and provide long-term sustainable solutions. 

Path Ahead

In conclusion, Malta is facing challenges, but the government and local organizations are making a positive impact through their initiatives. However, to achieve long-term solutions, continued efforts in promoting local agriculture, economic diversification and unemployment reduction are needed to ensure food security and reduce poverty.

– Liyanga De Silva and Maria Waleed

Photo: Flickr
Updated: November 12, 2024

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10 Facts About the Libyan Crisis

When the 2011 Arab Spring swept through the Middle East, it left behind a number of ongoing conflicts that still continue to rage. One of the most serious of these conflicts is the Libyan civil war, which began with the ousting and subsequent death of longtime ruler Muammar Gaddafi. The conflict has been a long and complicated one, with many different factions taking their turn in the spotlight. Below are 10 facts about the Libyan crisis:

  1. The current phase of the war is primarily being fought by the House of Representatives government, based out of Tripoli, and the rival General National Congress, elected in 2014, as they both vie to take control of the whole nation.
  2. The U.N. brought the two sides together in 2016 to sign the Libyan Political Agreement (LPA) and form a transitional government, led by Fayez al-Sarraj, that would help bring stability to the nation. It still remains unclear whether the new government will be able to enforce its U.N. mandate.
  3. Khalifa Haftar, general of the Libyan National Army, has aligned himself with the House of Representatives, who voted against the U.N. agreement, and has been aiding them in their struggle with al-Sarraj’s Government of National Accord (GNA).
  4. When the House of Representatives was voted into office in 2014, only 18 percent of eligible voters turned out and cast their ballots. This was largely due to a lack of confidence in the ability of an elected government to make meaningful change.
  5. Considering such low voter confidence and the fact that the original LPA expires in December of this year, the U.N. has begun taking steps to amend the LPA to ease the divisions between the House of Representatives and the GNA, as well as create free and fair elections.
  6. The Libyan crisis is commonly divided into two official civil wars. The first lasted for several months in 2011 and was marked primarily by the deposing and killing of Muammar Gaddafi. The currently ongoing civil war began in 2014 when the national government came into conflict with the General National Congress, a Muslim Brotherhood-backed Islamist government.
  7. The second civil war has already claimed nearly 7,000 lives, with over 20,000 people wounded in the conflict and many thousands more displaced from their homes. Fighting in Sabratha, a city near Tripoli, saw nearly 10,000 people fleeing their homes to seek aid from U.N. groups in Libya.
  8. Fleeing the same fighting in Sabratha, a group of immigrants, as over 100,000 others from all across North Africa have sought to do this year alone, tried to cross the Mediterranean to Italy in a dinghy that subsequently ran out of fuel and capsized. Of the 100 refugees in the boat, more than 50 are feared to have drowned. They join the over 2,400 of that 100,000 that have drowned crossing the Mediterranean while fleeing the fighting in their home countries.
  9. The BBC reports that refugees caught fleeing Libya are thrown into crowded and dirty detention centers where they are held to keep them from fleeing. There are also rumors that the falling numbers of Libyans fleeing to Italy is spurred by the GNA’s use of Libyan militias, who may be involved in human trafficking.
  10. Though representatives of the U.S. government have made statements in favor of the measures being taken to end the crisis, actions such as the United States’ past military involvement with the Libyan oil industry and the inclusion of Libya in President Trump’s travel ban have led many to questions as to what the U.S. is doing to help bring stability to the nation.

The wars in Libya are an increasingly complex, evolving and seemingly convoluted issue. These 10 facts about the Libyan crisis can serve as an overview of the conflict, but there is far more information to be delved into as the world seeks a resolution to the crisis.

– Erik Halberg

Photo: Flickr

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Teachers Key to Improving Education in Samoa

Samoa is an island nation in the central Pacific Ocean. It is said to be the “Cradle of Polynesia” because it is believed that the island of Savai’i is Hawaiki, the Polynesian homeland.

Samoa became independent from New Zealand in 1962, which brought over 100 years of foreign dominance to an end. Internationally, Samoa is thought of as a tropical paradise where the inhabitants are welcoming of tourists, but there are still problems on the small island nation, one of which is education.

The major challenges for education in Samoa include the quality of education and access to early childhood education, according to a 2015 report filed by the government of Samoa. Early childhood education helps get children ready for primary school, but most teachers do not have the skills to fully prepare them. Another concern for early childhood education in Samoa is children’s performance in basic education. A number of children do not gain basic literacy and numeracy skills, which are important for them to further their education.

The quality of teaching poses a problem for early childhood education in Samoa as well. There are some challenges when it comes to qualifications and certifications, but the main problem is the competence of teachers and principals. Many early childhood education teachers are untrained.

Primary and secondary education in Samoa also has problems. Various schools do not achieve the minimum standards for the quality of learning in the classroom. Many primary school teachers do not have the proper training and support, and teachers seldom have the skills to identify and teach special needs students. Teachers often have a lack of commitment to the profession as well. For many teachers in Samoa, teaching is not their career of choice, and they often leave when the opportunity comes up. This makes keeping good teachers a challenge in both the primary and secondary levels. To improve the quality education in Samoa, high quality teachers must be retained.

Despite this, the graduation rate among high school seniors continues to be above 90 percent, according to the Samoa Observer. Between 2011 and 2014, the graduation rate was 98 percent, but it fell to 96 percent in the 2014-2015 academic year. The CIA reported that the literacy rate among adults was 99 percent, but the country ranks 48th in education spending.

Although education in Samoa has made significant progress, it still faces problems with quality. In order to improve on this, they must they must prepare children for further schooling in their early life. Public awareness of the importance of early childhood education must be raised as well.

For primary and secondary education, marketing for teachers must be more aggressive in order to attract teachers and keep them committed to the profession. Teachers should be encouraged to find creative ways to deliver a lesson in order to keep students engaged.

– Fernando Vazquez

Photo: Flickr

Facts About the Selk’nam Genocide

Selk'nam GenocideAt the southern tip of South America lies the Tierra del Fuego archipelago. The largest island in the chain, Isla Grande de Tierra del Fuego, which today is split between Chile and Argentina, was once home to the Selk’nam tribe. The tribe was first encountered by Europeans in 1580, but did not see regular contact with European settlers until the 1880s. Like many relationships between native peoples and Europeans, tensions and conflicts arose between the two groups. Unlike many relationships, the conflicts led to the complete extinction of the Selk’nam people. A number of reasons show why these conflicts have come to be known as the Selk’nam genocide.

European settlers began to settle the main island in the 1880s. At the time, the Selk’nam tribe had between 3,000 and 4,000 members. In 1883, the government issued the first sheep ranching concession for the island and settlers began establishing sheep farms. With no concept of private property or ownership, the Selk’nam hunted the sheep.

Missionary Thomas Bridges urged the Selk’nam to respect the property rights of the ranchers. This request did not make sense to the group who held no concept of property. The Selk’nam felt entitled to hunt any animals within their territory and continued to hunt the sheep.

Settlers began to chase the Selk’nam off the lands they had claimed, but soon began an extermination campaign with the support of the Argentine and Chilean governments. In addition to hunting the Selk’nam, settlers also poisoned their food.

Large companies offered a reward of one pound sterling per Selk’nam dead. This was confirmed by a pair of hands, ears or a skull. Within 10-15 years, the number of Selk’nam was reduced to 500.

Some Selk’nam who were captured were sent to European “human zoos” to be displayed. Few survived the trip and fewer were returned to their homeland. Remaining Selk’nam were forced into reservations near established missions on the island. There, European diseases spread rapidly through the population.

Missionaries were allowed into the Selk’nam reservations to aid them and attempt to assimilate them, but the culture and people had been largely destroyed. The severe reduction in the population of the tribe caused by the Selk’nam genocide did not initially completely wipe out the tribe. The last full-blooded Selk’nam descendant died in 1974.

The U.N. Genocide Convention defines genocide as any of five acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group. The first of these acts is killing members of the group. With the express intent of the settlers being to kill the Selk’nam, resulting with the extinction of the entire tribe, the Genocide Convention accurately describes the Selk’nam genocide.

– Erik Beck

Photo: Flickr

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Socioeconomic Conditions That Lead to Extremism

Four major socioeconomic factors correlate significantly with the cultivation of extremism in developing nations: youth unemployment, militarization, levels of criminality, access to weapons and corruption.

These factors strengthen the four drivers of radicalization that arise in developed countries: historic conflict, corruption, acceptance of human rights and the marginalization of groups.

Two major categories of socioeconomic conditions that lead to extremism include relative deprivation and general corruption. These ideas largely capture the four elements that are common among both developing and developed nations where radicalization is most common.

Relative Deprivation
Relative deprivation is the discrepancy between individuals’ expectations of justice and the state and an opposing reality and is a precursor to radicalization.

Kartika Bhatia and Hafez Ghanem argue that unemployment and underemployment can increase the likelihood of violent extremism, explaining the positive relationship between relative deprivation and radicalization. Furthermore, those with secondary educations who are unemployed or underemployed have the highest risk of becoming radicalized.

The Global Terrorism Index discloses that those who move to Syria to become an ISIL foreign fighter experience relative deprivation in that they typically have high educations but low incomes.

Corruption
According to the Global Terrorism Index, acts of terror between 1989 and 2014, “93 percent of all terrorist attacks occurred in countries with state-sponsored terror including extra-judicial deaths, torture and imprisonment without trial” versus only 0.5 percent of countries not experiencing political terror suffering from internal terrorist acts.

Poor socioeconomic conditions like widespread poverty can lead to political instability that reinforces antidemocratic values and the disenfranchisement of citizens. This reciprocal relationship between poor socioeconomic circumstances and corruption negatively influence one another, both factors swelling each other’s occurrence.

The report also notes that “when group grievances against the state are high, and the opportunity cost of joining a rebellion is low, groups are most likely to form”.

Today and the Future
Despite it all, there is good news. In 2016, the number of terrorist attacks and deaths from the attacks have both declined by 10 percent.

A decrease in the number of instances is significant and certainly good news. But getting to the root of what is causing radicalization is the best strategy to ameliorate the socioeconomic conditions that lead to extremism in general.

The creation of anti-corruption measures is being enforced globally. The United Nations Convention Against Corruption recognizes the destructive effects that corruption has on citizens. Postulating corruption as a global issue, the convention proposes a set of regulations that fights to eliminate corruption both before and after it occurs.

Matthew Murray, former U.S. Deputy Assistant Secretary of Commerce for Europe, the Middle East and Africa, takes the position that freedom from official corruption is a human right and international law should reflect that.

The legal advocacy of recognizing corruption as a crime against human rights is a fundamental step toward global initiatives that will combat corruption preying on vulnerable nations.

– Sloan Bousselaire

Photo: Flickr

Young Business Leaders in Tanzania Development

Young Business Leaders in Tanzania Revolutionize DevelopmentIt has been two years since Abella Bateyunga, a 29-year-old woman from Dar Es Salaam, Tanzania, created the foundation to change lives of many young people in Tanzania. The foundation, known as the Tanzania Bora Initiative, aims to connect young Tanzanians that share the ambition to improve their country. The people in the initiative participate in data-involved projects, television shows based on politics and teach young girls to write computer code. The organization is one example of how young business leaders in Tanzania are revolutionizing development.

Sub-Saharan Africa has a lot of countries that are facing ‘youth bulge’ because of high fertility rates. In Tanzania alone, over 73 percent of the population is under the age of 30. With the help of USAID’s Consortium for Elections and Political Process Strengthening and their partner, The International Republican Institute, Abella was able to create the Tanzania Bora Institute.

Bateyunga, a Governance Officer at the BBC Media Action in Tanzania, has been working with nonprofit organizations for over nine years. She also completed the Washington Fellowship for Young African Leaders for Civic Leadership in 2014. Bateyunga, a former lawyer and radio reporter, used her skill sets to develop ways to engage the Tanzanian youth in the driven strategies for employment and as a way to give youth their own voice.

Bateyunga is known for combining education and entertainment to encourage Tanzania’s youth to engage in their communities’ social, economic and political advancements. She encourages young leaders in Tanzania to realize their potential and ability to make a change where they feel it is needed. Abella continues to work on civic education programs in Tanzania today.

Two years after the creation of the Tanzania Bora Initiative, the positive changes can be seen not only in the Tanzanian media but in society as a whole. One of the projects implemented was Data Zetu, a way to make information meaningful and accessible for citizens and prompt them to take action in their communities. The young people of Tanzania gather data from the local government on certain services, analyze it and then determine ways in which it may improve.

The projects implemented by Bateyunga demonstrate the ability of young business leaders in Tanzania to create a positive impact in society and development.

– Chloe Turner

Photo: Flickr

10 Facts About the Porrajmos Genocide

Porrajmos GenocideThe Porrajmos genocide is the term used to describe the attempted genocide of the European Roma during World War II. The name itself is rarely seen in pop culture, so it has been unjustly forgotten despite being a synonym of another word that does have a solid hold of our collective consciousness: Holocaust. But the Holocaust was not, as too many believe, solely a persecution of the Jewish population. In fact, there were many groups who experienced the horrors of Holocaust. Here, the focus turns to the Roma.

Who are the Roma?
The Roma, known widely as the pejorative “Gypsy,” are a traditionally nomadic people who migrated to Europe from Northern India between the eighth and tenth centuries C.E. In the thousand years since that migration. they have lived and worked all over Europe as one of the most oppressed ethnic groups in the history of the region.

The reasons for the massive prejudices held against the Roma people range from a European perception of the people as unclean, thieving and socially different, to the extent that they were believed to be Egyptian migrants (as the etymology of the term “Gypsy” suggests). The unifying factor of these prejudices is quite simple: they are untrue. Nevertheless, it was the hate bred by these misconceptions that led to the Nazi genocide campaign, resulting in the murder of an estimated 220,000 people, or 25 percent of all European Roma.

In the interest of rectifying their unequal representation in the history of World War II, what follows is a list of facts about the Porrajmos genocide, and the “forgotten people” who were its victims.

The Facts

  1. Like the Nazi view of the Jews, the Roma were considered to be an inferior ethnicity.
  2. German S.S. forces began relocating Roma families in 1940. They were moved to the concentration camps at Auschwitz-Birkenau, Chelmno, Belzec, Sobibor, Treblinka, Bergen-Belsen, Sachsenhausen, Buchenwald, Dachau, Mauthausen and Ravensbrück.
  3. To distinguish them from the Jewish population, Roma were made to wear an inverted black or brown triangle (worn by those considered to be “asocial”) while living in the camps.
  4. In one of the first rounds of deportation, a group of 5,007 German Roma were sent to the Lodz ghetto. Nearly half died within the first month due to poor living conditions. The rest were murdered at Chelmno a few months later.
  5. Between 5,000 and 15,000 Roma are believed to have qualified for exemption from incarceration if they were thought to be “pure blooded” or they occupied a higher standing in German society. Authorities often ignored that exemption, meaning that a large number of Roma were sent to concentration camps while on leave from the German armed forces.
  6. In 1944, S.S. officers ordered the killing of an entire compound within Auschwitz. When the Roma discovered their intentions, they armed themselves and refused to exit the compound. This action, though noble, only delayed the eventual execution of 2,000 people, half the compound’s population. The rest were sent to other camps. By the end of the war, nearly 23,000 Roma had died in Auschwitz.
  7. In the Baltics, an estimated 30,000 Roma were shot without ever being deported to a camp.
  8. In Romania, close to 30,000 Roma were forced to leave their homes and relocate to one ghetto.
  9. Between 3,000 and 6,000 Roma were interned by Vichy France in the early 1940s.
  10. In the Independent State of Croatia, an Axis partner, the entire Roma population of 25,000 people was executed.

This list, though nauseating, demonstrates the brutal nature of Roma internment during the war, and brings to light some compelling questions, such as “why has history forgotten them?” and “where are they now?”. The answers to these questions are intimately tied to the prewar European prejudices mentioned above. While the result of the Jewish Holocaust was an opening of the conversation, that of the Roma effectively intensified their dissociation from European identity.

Now, 72 years and a Porrajmos genocide later, Europe has yet to open a healing dialogue about the Roma’s place in European society or offer any concrete policy changes to help the transition of Roma communities out of shantytowns and into proper housing. As a result, unemployment, discrimination, lack of education and racist violence against the Roma have become a devastating norm for Europe’s oldest ethnic minority.

-Katarina Schrag

Photo: Google