Profiting in a Pandemic: Daily Brief

Breaking news on the opening day of the World Economic Forum in Davos, via Oxfam: the world’s ten richest men have more than doubled their fortunes during the pandemic, from $700 billion to $1.5 trillion. In the same period, the incomes of 99 per cent of humanity have fallen, with over 160 million people forced into poverty and inequality contributing to the death of one person every four seconds. 

When Covid-19 began spreading, the shared fate of the globe’s nearly eight billion people came sharply into focus. The virus could infect anyone; leaving anyone unprotected meant making everyone vulnerable. But any hope of solidarity was soon undermined by the harsh reality of our deeply unequal global economic system. It is essential to rethink skewed policies and approaches that take resources away from those who need them the most—whether through abusive austerity, revenue collection that disproportionally burdens those with low incomes, or other measures—to the benefit of those who do not, and build more rights-respecting economies that work for everyone.

The first speaker at the virtual Davos sessions was China's President Xi Jinping. In his introduction, founder and executive chairman of the World Economic Forum Klaus Schwab, lauded China's economic progress but said nothing about Xi's repression, the crimes against humanity that his regime is committing against Uyghur/Turkic Muslims in the Xinjiang region, or the need for an independent international inquiry into its origins.

Speaking of inequality and violations of human rights: children in London are growing up in substandard and uninhabitable “temporary accommodation” as a result of persistent policy failures by central and local government, according to a new report by Human Rights Watch and the Childhood Trust. The government of the United Kingdom is failing in its duty to ensure the right to adequate housing for homeless families. 

Child marriage remains prevalent in Nigeria because the federal and state governments have not adequately enforced laws to prevent it. Nigeria’s rates of child marriage are some of the highest on the African continent. Although the 2003 federal Child Rights Act prohibits marriage below age 18, the Nigerian constitution contains provisions which appear to conflict with this position. States with Islamic legal systems have also failed to adopt both the federal law and 18 as the age of majority for marriage. Some southern states which have adopted this position have failed to take adequate steps to carry it out. “It is disturbing that almost two decades after the Child Rights Act was passed, Nigerian girls are still being forced into child marriages,” said Mausi Segun, Africa director at Human Rights Watch.

Today, the US marks Martin Luther King Day. What is Martin Luther King’s message for 2022? Nicole Austin Hillery, executive director of the US program at Human Rights Watch, has published this comment:

"On Martin Luther King Day 2022, the stakes are too high for mere commemoration. The US Congress has an opportunity to pass critical voting rights legislation. The Freedom to Vote Act and the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act, if enacted, will implement protections for all voters that build upon the foundation established by the 1965 Voting Rights Act.  MLK Day this year is rightly about putting the spotlight on the need for the US to guarantee the right to vote, free of suppression and free of interference, for everyone because the future of its democracy depends upon it."

The government of the Philippines should end the “red-tagging” of activists as rebels or supporters of the communist insurgency, Human Rights Watch says today, as it released new research and a video about the threatening practice and its impact. The video features a human rights activist, a workers’ rights advocate, and a journalist whom the authorities have red-tagged.

And the soap opera around tennis star Novak Djokovic in Australia has ended, as the authorities have deported him just before the Australia Open tournament began on Monday. The saga put a welcome new spotlight on cruel migration and refugee policies in the country, and the government's "outright lies" about how they affect the most vulnerable people.