Good News for Girls' Right to Education: Daily Brief
Progress towards protecting pregnant students' rights in Africa; pushbacks at the Poland-Belarus border break EU laws; investigate the killing of a Rohingya leader in Bangladesh; African Union leaders shouldn't turn a blind eye to abuses in Tigray; and the UK government may put millions at risk of hunger.
African governments are showing leadership in supporting girls' rights to education, despite the increase of teenage pregnancies caused by the Covid-19 pandemic. At least five sub-Saharan African countries improved regulations that allow pregnant students and adolescent mothers to stay in school, bringing to 30 the number of African Union countries having laws, policies, or strategies in place to protect girls' rights to education. Only three African Union countries still bar pregnant girls and teenage mothers from access to school.
Amnesty International has released an investigation into the suspected illegal pushback of a group of 32 Afghan migrants from Poland into Belarus. Using satellite imagery and photographs, the analysis shows how the group’s position shifted from Poland to Belarus in late August, to then be trapped in a small area on the border for over a month without food, clean water, shelter, or medicine for weeks, despite their attempt to claim asylum in Poland. Already five people have died over the past weeks in the area.
Unidentified gunmen have shot and killed Mohibullah, a leader among the nearly one million Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh, in Kutupalong camp in Cox’s Bazar. Mohibullah defended the rights of the Rohingya to a safe and dignified return and to have a say in the decisions concerning their lives and future. His killing is a stark reminder of the risks faced by the Rohingya community in the camps.
Since November 2020, rights organizations have documented massacres, widespread sexual violence, forced displacement, and deliberate attacks on civilian infrastructure in the conflict in Ethiopia's northern region. During a media briefing today, Human Rights Watch called on heads of state preparing to gather in Addis Ababa next week, ahead of the establishment of a new government, to come up with a more robust response to the ongoing crisis, and to urge Ethiopian leaders to lift the de facto blockade on Tigray, facilitate humanitarian assistance, and demand an end to human rights violations.
In the UK, the government wants to cut off a lifeline millions of families and children rely on. As the country faces rising food price, energy costs, and other economic consequences of the pandemic, poverty and social security organizations warn that what they call "the biggest overnight cut to social welfare since World War II", planned for October 6, will have a severe impact on people's access to food.