CONTENTS:

1 - AFGHANISTAN: Public space "shrinking" for women - UN official
2 - GLOBAL: How not to fight over scarce resources
3 - SRI LANKA: Freedom of movement for IDPs welcomed
4 - SRI LANKA: Freedom of movement for IDPs welcomed
5 - TIMOR-LESTE: Natercia Martins, "We've had enough conflict"


1 - AFGHANISTAN: Public space "shrinking" for women - UN official

KABUL, 1 December (IRIN) - Eight years after the formal end of Taliban rule in
Afghanistan, women are facing growing challenges in public life and have limited
access to justice, according to the UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan
(UNAMA).

"The space for women in public life is shrinking," warned Norah Niland, head of
UNAMA's human rights unit and a representative of the UN Office of the High
Commissioner for Human Rights.

Under the Taliban, women had few rights, and though efforts have been made since
then to boost them, progress has been inhibited by armed conflict, weak
political commitment, corruption, and strong patriarchal traditions. The
Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission (AIHRC) is concerned that
initial gains made after 2001 are being lost.

The number of women working in the government is "steadily decreasing" and their
participation in other decision-making processes such as voting in elections has
also gone down, according to the UNAMA.

Compared to 2005 fewer women participated in this year's elections and there is
only one cabinet minister now (the minister of women's affairs) compared to
three in 2003-2005.

"It is unrealistic to anticipate significant socio-economic progress when half
the population is denied, or unable to participate in, poverty reduction,
reconstruction or development projects," said Niland, adding that the space for
advocacy campaigns for women's rights had also diminished in recent years.

Gender violence

UNAMA says gender-based violence is still widespread and deeply rooted in
society.

Women face physical and mental abuse in their own homes but have little or no
access to justice, according to rights watchdogs.

Over 1,000 cases of violence against women were recorded in the Violence Against
Women Primary Database (maintained by the government and women's rights groups
in 21 of the country's 34 provinces from March 2006 to October 2007). Incidents
recorded included rape, forced prostitution, forced marriage, physical attack,
polygamy and harassment.

"Some women are even sold and exchanged as commodities," said Zia Moballegh,
acting country director for the International Center for Human Rights and
Democratic Development, a Canadian organization.

"Violence against women thrives in socio-economic conditions that see women as
inferior and, somehow, less entitled to the full respect of their human rights,"
said UNAMA's Niland.

Impunity

"Impunity is one of the biggest problems in Afghanistan from a rule of law and
human rights perspective," Niland told IRIN.

Afghan courts and police are considered corrupt, male-dominated and incompetent
by many women who have suffered violence, according to rights groups.

Some victims of gender-based violence who lack access to justice and support
turn to self-harm, elopement and/or other extreme actions, according to the
above-mentioned database.

Afghan women have one of the lowest literacy rates in the world: UNAMA says 90
percent of women in rural areas cannot read or write and the overall literacy
rate among women is 12.6 percent.

ad/cb

[ENDS]


2 - GLOBAL: How not to fight over scarce resources

JOHANNESBURG, 1 December (IRIN) - In all the talk about adapting to climate
change, "scant attention" is being paid to "the dangers of ... [adaptation
strategies] going astray in fragile and conflict-affected" countries, warned a
report released on 28 November.

Just under three billion people live in 46 conflict-affected countries, where
climate change could create a high risk of violent conflict, said International
Alert, a peace-building NGO, which highlighted the number in its 2007 report, A
Climate of Conflict.

In its new report - Climate Change, Conflict and Fragility - the NGO urged
policy-makers to take into account the interaction between the impact of climate
change and "the social and political realities in which people live that will
determine" their capacity to adapt.

The "political dimension" of adapting to climate change, and "the underlying
causes of vulnerability" in a fragile state unable to "carry out its core
functions" had to be factored in, as "technical fixes will only act as sticking
plasters" in such cases, cautioned the authors, Dan Smith and Janani
Vivekananda, both senior officials of International Alert.

"It is difficult to walk the line between alarmism and complacency," said
Smith. "There is no point in exaggerating the risks, but there is equally no
point in denying that with each year of inaction the risks of climate-related
conflict and political instability increase."

He cited conflict-ridden Yemen, where the water situation is "dire", to
illustrate the impact of stress on essential resources in a fragile country.
Sanaa, the Yemeni capital, is expected to run out of water in 10 to 15 years.

"The consequences for the people of Yemen of worsening water shortage could be
catastrophic. The risk of the state ceasing to be effective cannot be
discounted," he told IRIN.

The ground reality

Policies for adapting to water stresses brought on partly by climate change in
many conflict-ridden countries, particularly in the Arab region, were not being
given priority, said Hosny Khordagui, Director of the Water Governance Program
in Arab States, in the Regional Bureau for Arab States of the UN Development
Programme (UNDP-RBAS).

The Arab region - the Middle East and North Africa - is home to five percent of
the world's population but has access to only one percent of global fresh water
resources; according to the UN it is the most water-stressed region in the
world.

Some of the world's biggest and longest-running conflicts are also playing out
here: in Somalia, Iraq, the occupied Palestinian territory (oPt) and Sudan.

A rising number of droughts, lower water levels in rivers, stunted agricultural
production, and sea level rise brought on by climate change will turn millions
of people, particularly in the Nile River Delta and the coastal areas in the
Persian Gulf, into "environmental refugees", warned the UNDP Arab Human
Development Report 2009.

Tensions over natural resources not only pose a threat to security among
communities, but also nationally and regionally. The UNDP report cited Sudan,
which has "experienced internal conflicts in Darfur ... between pastoralists and
farmers over access to water sources", and Palestinian farmers, who "suffer
because Israeli settlers monopolize most ground water sources".

What should inform adaptation policy

International Alert recommended that adaptation strategies should be more
conflict-sensitive, so that water management in water stressed countries was
shaped by understanding the systems of power and equity: involve everyone and
avoid pitting groups against each other.

Peace-building needed to be climate-proofed by paying attention to the
availability of resources for livelihoods such as agriculture - which could be
under pressure because of climate change - for returning ex-combatants or people
displaced by conflict.

The International Alert report cited Liberia, which is in the process of
recovery from war. Many returnees and ex-combatants will come back to villages
and make a living from agriculture, but the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate
Change (IPCC), a global scientific body, has projected that crop yields in parts
of West Africa could halve by 2020.

"The prospect arises of returned fighters becoming resentful unemployed
farmers, and thus potential recruits, with their combat experience, in a new
conflict," the authors commented.

The efforts of rich countries to shift to a low-carbon economy must be
peace-friendly and supportive of development. The International Alert report
noted that the diversion of food crops and land use to biofuel production had
played a role in pushing food prices up in 2007/08, causing conflict in many
countries.

Don't have the capacity

UNDP-RBAS's Khordagui said vulnerability to climate change was also about
adaptive capacity, but many countries did not have the money to make themselves
resilient.

The UNDP report noted that the Arab region would need around US$73 billion, an
annual average of $2.6 billion over the next three decades, to enhance its
desalination capacity to provide fresh water.

Khordagui told IRIN that many countries did not have the information or the
capacity to factor the impact of climate change into their policies.

"They need more reliable regional and country-specific data, drawn from the
IPCC projections, to be able to plan; they also need to identify the most
vulnerable communities to help them become resilient."

jk/he[ENDS]


3 - SRI LANKA: Freedom of movement for IDPs welcomed

BANGKOK, 1 December (IRIN) - In a development welcomed by the UN and NGOs,
thousands of internally displaced persons (IDPs), who have been held for months
in camps in Sri Lanka's north, are free to come and go as of 1 December.

"It is a welcome action on the part of the government," Jehan Perera, executive
director of the National Peace Council of Sri Lanka
[http://www.peace-srilanka.org/], an advocacy NGO based in Colombo, told IRIN.
"It is timely and it is something which should have happened earlier, but
nonetheless we welcome it."

The government declared last month that there would be freedom of movement for
more than 100,000 people remaining in the overcrowded, state-run camps, which it
calls "welfare villages" and reiterated the promise on 30 November.

"The villages will be declared as open from this day ... The government has
declared that any civilian will be free to leave the villages once they have
given their personal details to the authorities concerned," according to the 30
November statement. [http://www.defence.lk/new.asp?fname=20091130_04]

Risath Bathiyutheen, Minister of Resettlement and Disaster Relief Services, was
quoted as saying in the statement that there would be no restrictions imposed on
the duration of the IDPs' absence from the camps.

"It's a big step from people being confined to the camps. How it works in
practice, let's wait and see," UN spokesman Gordon Weiss told IRIN.

Weiss said the IDPs would be registered and provided with tokens when they left
the camps, which they would hand back upon their return.

"It serves a dual purpose. They will try to keep track of people and to make
sure camps are not visited by some people who shouldn't be there," he said.

Return concerns

Nearly 280,000 people who fled the fighting in the final months of the country's
bitter civil war this year entered the camps, which were hastily erected as the
conflict ended in May.

Under intense pressure from the international community, the government in
recent weeks has expedited the process of releasing IDPs, who have either
returned to their places of origin or resettled elsewhere.

According to the latest Joint Humanitarian Update on 19 November, 136,242 people
remain in the camps in the northeast, while 112,209 have been returned to their
places of origin and 27,663 have been released to host families or into the care
of elders.

Weiss said he expected a significant number of people would remain in the camps
despite their opening today, but that many were expected to return to their
places of origin in the next few months.

"The return process is not without problems. It's a lot of people to send back
in a short period of time, and areas are not always prepared, but it's been
going reasonably well," he said.

Concerns have been raised over the fate of returnees to war-torn areas, with
NGOs calling for better support for the IDPs, and better access for humanitarian
actors to the areas of return.

"The infrastructure is in a state of destruction and disrepair. [The IDPs] are
released with hardly any resources, and the resources that are provided to them
need to be supplemented and increased," said Perera of the National Peace
Council.

ey/ds/mw

[ENDS]


4 - SRI LANKA: Freedom of movement for IDPs welcomed

BANGKOK, 1 December (IRIN) - In a development welcomed by the UN and NGOs,
thousands of internally displaced persons (IDPs), who have been held for months
in camps in Sri Lanka's north, are free to come and go as of 1 December.

"It is a welcome action on the part of the government," Jehan Perera, executive
director of the National Peace Council of Sri Lanka
[http://www.peace-srilanka.org/], an advocacy NGO based in Colombo, told IRIN.
"It is timely and it is something which should have happened earlier, but
nonetheless we welcome it."

The government declared last month that there would be freedom of movement for
more than 100,000 people remaining in the overcrowded, state-run camps, which it
calls "welfare villages" and reiterated the promise on 30 November.

"The villages will be declared as open from this day ... The government has
declared that any civilian will be free to leave the villages once they have
given their personal details to the authorities concerned," according to the 30
November statement. [http://www.defence.lk/new.asp?fname=20091130_04]

UN spokesman Gordon Weiss said the IDPs had been given 10 days to return to the
camps if they leave.

"Around midday almost 6,000 people were able to leave the camps. It's
progressing in an orderly fashion," Weiss told IRIN.
"It's a big step from people being confined to the camps," he added.

Weiss said the IDPs are registered and provided with tokens when they leave the
camps, which they would hand back upon their return.

"It serves a dual purpose. They will try to keep track of people and to make
sure camps are not visited by some people who shouldn't be there," he said.

Return concerns

Nearly 280,000 people who fled the fighting in the final months of the country's
bitter civil war this year entered the camps, which were hastily erected as the
conflict ended in May.

Under intense pressure from the international community, the government in
recent weeks has expedited the process of releasing IDPs, who have either
returned to their places of origin or resettled elsewhere.

According to the latest Joint Humanitarian Update on 19 November, 136,242 people
remain in the camps in the northeast, while 112,209 have been returned to their
places of origin and 27,663 have been released to host families or into the care
of elders.

Weiss said he expected a significant number of people would remain in the camps
despite their opening today, but that many were expected to return to their
places of origin in the next few months.

"The return process is not without problems. It's a lot of people to send back
in a short period of time, and areas are not always prepared, but it's been
going reasonably well," he said.

Concerns have been raised over the fate of returnees to war-torn areas, with
NGOs calling for better support for the IDPs, and better access for humanitarian
actors to the areas of return.

"The infrastructure is in a state of destruction and disrepair. [The IDPs] are
released with hardly any resources, and the resources that are provided to them
need to be supplemented and increased," said Perera of the National Peace
Council.

ey/ds/mw

[ENDS]


5 - TIMOR-LESTE: Natercia Martins, "We've had enough conflict"

NAUMENARO, 1 December (IRIN) - More than 150,000 Timorese were displaced in the
2006 crisis, and several thousand more in a second round of political violence
in 2007. Because of her husband's political affiliation, Natercia Martins, 34,
was driven from her home in Ermera District in June 2007, only to return six
months later to find it in ruins.

Reintegration for her and thousands of others remains a challenge almost two
years later. The mother of nine told IRIN about her experience:

"I will never forget when they came. There were 60 of them - men from my very
own community - looking for my husband. From outside our home they shouted his
name, waved sticks and knives and demanded that he come out. But he wasn't
there; he had fled to Dili days earlier.

"When they started throwing stones, all the windows in our house shattered.
There was glass everywhere and the children began to cry. We were terrified and
I knew we had to leave.

"I took the children and fled into the jungle from where we made our way to
Dili. When we arrived, we met my husband and settled into Jardin camp. Many had
fled with only the clothes on their backs. And though it wasn't our home, at
least we were safe and we received help.

"Those first few weeks were tough; the atmosphere tense. We wondered whether we
would ever be able to return to our homes and what we would find once we did.

"But after some time, things became calmer and we were told we could return. Of
course we were hesitant, but we knew we had to. The government gave us around
US$1,500 to help us but when we returned, we soon learned it wasn't enough.

"After we fled, our home had been ransacked and looted, while others found their
homes burnt to the ground. How could we ever rebuild?

"And then of course there were our neighbours; the same ones who came to my home
that night for my husband and who somehow I would have to live with again. How
could we live in peace?

"After we arrived, a nahe biti boot, [a traditional Timorese peace and
reconciliation ceremony called by village elders] was held and everyone from the
community was invited.

"Strangely, we were supposed to feel happy about this, but I felt resentment. In
addition to having to pay for the party, we also had to give small amounts of
money to some of the very people who had threatened my family - from the money
the government gave us to rebuild.

"I see these people every day. Naumenaro is a small community. When I look at
them, I see the shame in their eyes, but I no longer feel threatened. All of us
face much bigger problems and need help. My husband is a simple farmer and can
barely provide for us.

"I remember that day vividly, but I also know it's time to move on. If we are
ever to find true peace, we need to move forward and think about the bigger
problems we all face like food, water, schools, health and jobs.

"We've had enough conflict."

ds/ey/mw

[ENDS]


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