Pavol Stracansky

BRATISLAVA, Oct 2 2009 (IPS) – New legislation in Poland introducing compulsory castration of paedophiles has angered human rights groups, who claim its introduction is little more than populist posturing.
They say the new law is open to abuse and is likely to be ineffective in tackling sex crimes. The law was passed by Poland s lower house of parliament last week, and is expected to be rubber-stamped within weeks by the upper house and right-wing President Lech Kaczynski.

Human rights campaigners warn that the law, which has also angered EU politicians who have said it could be challenged in human rights courts, has been brought in as a measure to improve the government s image rather than to help stop sexual abuse.

Andrzej Jaroszkiewicz, spo…

Matthew Berger

WASHINGTON, Oct 20 2009 (IPS) – On Sep. 24, a beachgoer near Swansea, Wales reported a piece of military equipment washed up on the shore. Three days later, the two members of the team that had showed up to dispose of the shell developed symptoms compatible with mustard gas a chemical warfare agent used in the two world wars and other conflicts.
Concern over sea-dumped chemical weapons such as the mustards that washed up in Wales is growing, particularly in the Baltic Sea the site of the dumping of 40,000 tonnes of surplus and seized chemical weapons in the years following World War II and the proposed site of the Nord Stream natural gas pipeline connecting Russia and Germany.

Following presentations at the U.N. last week and meetings on Capitol Hill la…

Emmanuel Chaco

KINSHASA, Nov 17 2009 (IPS) – Kinshasa s population needs an estimated 700,000 cubic metres of water per day. The Régie de distribution des eaux (REGIDESO) produces only 425,000 cubic metres vast neighbourhoods like Kitokimosi and Mpasa receive almost none of this water.

Just 22 percent of Congolese have access to safe drinking water. Credit: Julien Harneis/Creatve Commons

The situation in other parts of the country is similar if not wors…

Thalif Deen

UNITED NATIONS, Jan 19 2010 (IPS) – The United Nations, which has come under heavy fire for its relatively slow relief efforts in earthquake-devastated Haiti, hit back at the international news media for sensational reporting.

Haitians displaced by the powerful earthquake receive water out of a truck in the Canapé-Vert area of Hai…

Mon Mon Myat

RANGOON, Feb 24 2010 (IPS) – When Aye Aye (not her real name) leaves her youngest son at home each night, she tells him that she has to work selling snacks. But what Aye actually sells is sex so that her 12-year-old son, a Grade 7 student, can finish his education.
Every night I work with the intention of giving my son some money the next morning before he goes to school, said Aye, 51. She has three other older children, all of whom are married.

Her 38-year-old friend Pan Phyu, also a sex worker, has a greater burden. After her husband died, she takes care of three children apart from her mother and uncle.

But Aye and Phyu s source of income is fast declining, because it is no longer that easy to get clients at their age. Many younger women are i…

Mohamed Fofanah

FREETOWN, Apr 1 2010 (IPS) – Lying forgotten in the bush somewhere is a sign declaring Ogoo Farm is an open defecation-free community.
This peri-urban community of roughly 3000 people was one of the villages where UNICEF and the Sierra Leone ministry of health implemented the pilot phase of a Community-Led Total Sanitation Programme in 2008.

The programme trains communities on the dangers of open defecation which contaminates streams and other water sources and mobilises action to end the practice.

According to the latest UNICEF and World Health Organization data, only 11 percent of people in Sierra Leone have access to adequate sanitation facilities; in the rural areas it is just five percent. Only about half of the population and less than a…

FREETOWN, Apr 30 2010 (IPS) – A woman alone: Josephine Bangali fetches water from the well to set to boil over a wood fire so she can sterilise her instruments.

At a government hospital in Makeni, Sierra Leone. Credit: Nancy Palus/IRIN

The clinic is built of mud. In one of its three rooms stands a rickety bed where she can admit in-patients; it is also the room where Bangali delivers babies. She relies on a kerosene lamp at night supplemented with a torch when she can afford batteries.

The underlying causes of mat…

Daniela Estrada

SANTIAGO, Jun 14 2010 (IPS) – In Chile, women carry the entire burden of maternity, says teacher Fabiola Quiñones, who applauds the government s proposal to extend pre- and post- natal leave to six months but only if all new mothers who work can have that option.

President Sebastián Piñera and three expectant mothers at installation of presidential commission. Credit: Chilean President …

Fabiana Frayssinet

RIO DE JANEIRO, Jul 13 2010 (IPS) – You can only have one mother, as the saying goes, but in Brazil there are 215 ways of becoming a mother, one for each of the ethnic groups in this South American country. Promoting maternal health while respecting cultural traditions is a major health challenge.

A Marubo woman has her blood pressure checked. Credit: Courtesy of Edmar Chaperman/FUNASA

Silvia Angelice de Almeida, who works at the state National Health Foundation s (FUNASA)…

Emilio Godoy

IZÚCAR DE MATAMOROS, Mexico, Aug 4 2010 (IPS) – People want to get rid of the factory. It has to go. There s already been an accident, a taxi driver said on the drive to the pesticide plant belonging to the Agricultura Nacional company in this southern Mexican city.

After the chemical explosion in March, protesters from Izúcar blocked the factory, now closed. Credit: Emilio Godoy/IPS

On the night of Mar. 24, life ch…