Social, Humanitarian & Cultural Committee
Chair: Marina Siliceo 5020
Moderators: Alexia Guillen 4020 & Diego Alonso Gonzáles 5020
Topic A: Crisis in South Sudan Worsening Food and Sanitary Conditions
“The people of South Sudan have already suffered too much - so many lives have been lost to conflict and so many more stand to be lost due to hunger. We can’t morally sit by and watch a public health crisis take additional lives in South Sudan”
-Cecilia Milan Oxfam’s country Director in South Sudan.
South Sudan’s disputes between the government and the opposition have created a great amount of violence causing millions of deaths and displaced almost a million people to UN refuges and neighboring countries risking their lives in the journey.
The violence has made difficult the capacity of the UN, international and non-governmental organizations to provide humanitarian aid to the refugees. The government and opposition forces have stolen supplies that were supposed to get to the refuges.
Today, there are over 7 million people at risk of food insecurity and 4.9 million of them are in urgent need of humanitarian aid. Nearly 4 million people are in crisis levels of hunger due to the conflict. Consequently, the physical health of the people is being affected both inside Sudan and in the countries that provide refuges.
Ethiopia, Kenya, Sudan, and Uganda are some of the countries receiving around 1000 refugees per day from South Sudan, which the majority is women and children. These refugees are traumatized, malnourish and have many health problems.
The UN has installed refuges for people to live and the UN Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) has provided food to these shelters.
Without a global attention, the need of humanitarian aid in Sudan will continue growing, since the basic necessities of the people need to be fulfilled and the insecurity is still rising.
Useful links:
http://www.un.org/News/briefings/docs/2013/131204_OCHA.doc.htm
http://www.oxfam.org/en/emergencies/crisis-south-sudan
http://www.unhcr.org/53bfa7f19.html
http://www.enoughproject.org/conflicts/sudans/conflicts-south-sudan
Topic B: Coercively Sterilized Women: A Discriminatory Practice
Coercive sterilization is the process of removing the reproduction organs in men or women for them to not be able to procreate without their full knowledge of consent.
This is a huge problem going all around the world, which some countries try to excuse with reasons such as trying to control population growth or avoiding an increase in HIV, but coerced sterilization is considered discriminatory, cruel, degrading, a violation of the fundamental human rights and a crime against humanity. In addition, it can have negative health consequences, which can even end in death.
There are countries that sterilize women based on ethnic and racial discrimination, for example the Roma people in Eastern Europe who are recognized as an “undesirable” group. Another target for sterilization are women with mental illnesses or disabilities.
The United Nations Procedures Department (UNPD) join the World Health Organization along with other United Nation agencies (UNICEF, UN Women, UNAIDS, UNFPA) for condemning coerced and involuntary sterilization by enforcing guidelines that ensure that sterilizations will be always conducted with full, free and informed decision-making. Governments and civil society will be monitored by UN agencies to be sure normative guidelines are integrated into national sexual and reproductive health and rights programs and policies.
But the problem has not perished, every men and women have the right to decide if they want to be able to have children, to fully know about any medical surgery practiced in their body, to fight for their human rights.
Useful links:
http://www2.webster.edu/~woolflm/forcedsterilization.html
http://www.opensocietyfoundations.org/reports/forced-sterilization-women-uzbekistan
http://www.osisa.org/hiv-and-aids/namibia/namibia-coercively-sterilised-hiv-women
http://www.stopvaw.org/forced_coerced_sterilization