Human Rights

Since the start of military operations in January 2009, killings and brutal sexual assaults against women, girls and men have massively increased in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo

Source: Flickr

This forum offers a space where concerned Kenyans can come together with a range of experts, scholars, practitioners, and commentators to discuss fundamental questions about how we got here, and the strategies necessary to move the country forward. This essay provides an overview of recent debates on violence and accountability in Kenya and summarizes the first set of contributions to this forum.

There are competing answers, with both sides using statistics from former world-wide sporting events to support their position. The Future Group recently released a report stating that there was a significant risk of increased trafficking into prostitution in Vancouver during the upcoming Olympics. They cite the comparison of the 2004 Athens Olympics, during which the number of trafficking victims identified in Greece doubled.

The defense for Liberia's former President Charles Taylor, on trial for war crimes, is expected to argue he was trying to broker peace rather than foment violence during the 1991-2002 civil war in Sierra Leone.

Taylor, 61, will be the defense's first witness as it begins arguments on Monday and is expected to take the stand for several weeks beginning on Tuesday. He has pleaded not guilty to 11 counts at the Special Court for Sierra Leone.

Just as we thought we were bridging the divide between us and them, it breaks open again.

The New York Times ran a story the other day about the costs web companies face as they peddle their products—Facebook, YouTube—in developing countries. The ads featured on those sites just don’t produce results, said the story. Profits are impossibly tiny.

I’ve been reading a couple of interesting things on the informal economy recently. The OECD has a new book out with the engaging title ‘Is Informal Normal?’ which gives a pretty decent overview.

Today is the final day of the controversial Durban Review Conference on anti-racism, and, as I've discussed a bit before, so begins the campaign to shape the conference in the public memory. As with "Durban I," and as in the run-up to this week's summit in Geneva, the voices intent on smearing the conference will likely be louder, more strident, and more tendentious in arguing their already foregone conclusions.

Yesterday, the Secretary-General underlined stressed, “it is critical that this team be allowed into the zone as soon as possible and I am asking for strong support and speedy assistance of the Sri Lankan Government,” adding that, for its part, the LTTE must put down its arms and protect civilians.

Meanwhile, the Office for the Coordination (OCHA) emphasized that the humanitarian situation in the embattled Vanni region continues to be critical, calling civilian casualties tragically high and the people’s suffering horrendous.

The UN estimates that some 50,000 civilians remain trapped inside the conflict zone, where fighting continues to be reported, while the Sri Lankan Government says that 109,000 people have fled the war-torn area.