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Weekly Digest for the period 19 to 26 November 2023

  

Welcome to a brief overview of articles that appeared last week on our website.
Please don't stop here - be sure to browse the full list of articles that appeared this week.

The Child Rights Song, by the Lörrach UNICEF Group

Ute Deseniss-Gros takes us to the German town of Lörrach, where the UNICEF volunteers under the leadership of Christine Langen worked long and hard to produce Child Rights Song. The professionally recorded song was ready for 20th anniversary of the Lörrach UNICEF group, and released right in time for the Universal Children's Day. The song is in German, but the language of children's rights is truly international. Click here. 

Our Columnists This Week


In 1930 the Americans Hoagy Carmichael and Stuart Gorrell wrote a song called  "(I've) Got Georgia on My Mind" which became quite popular in the US. Many years later the wonderful Ray Charles sang this as part of his repertory and it became a global hit. Fast forward to autumn 2023 and we can paraphrase this to "The Whole World has Got GAZA on its Mind". This week, again, the main story has continued to be the conflict and its repercussions on civilians, but especially on children. 
 
All the tragedy in Gaza has been happening while on 20 November the international community was supposed to be celebrating Universal Children's Day or World Children's Day in some countries, the date that the UN General Assembly had promulgated the 1959 Declaration of the Rights of Children, and the 1989 Convention on the Rights of Children, both becoming the bedrock of UNICEF's mission towards children of the world. And yet......(see - "Children live in a world that is increasingly hostile to their rights").
 
On this occasion another song comes to my mind, "Parole, Parole, Parole" sung by the Egyptian/Italian diva Dalida with Alain Delon, in which she ironizes his romantic phrases by claiming that they are only words. The relation of this to the crisis in Gaza is that while eminent politicians and world leaders are arguing over the wording of resolutions at the UN and in many world capitals, there are thousands being killed or maimed, most of them civilians and a big proportion of these being children. The arguments on wording such as "lull", "pause", and so forth are contrasted with "cease fire", or "truce", with the humanitarian aspect being touted by all concerned.
 
Meanwhile the game of numbers continues to make the headlines everywhere...on the Israeli side the number of casualties was 1,400 but then downgraded to 1,200, while on the Palestinian side the figures have reached 14,000 plus killed of which more than 5,000 of them children, with many more unaccounted for. What  has probably touched the world most has not been only the sheer number of casualties from the fighting, but the dire circumstances of the millions who were displaced and are deprived of water, food, medicines, shelter and fuel. The bombing of hospitals and schools has been particularly heavy which has elicited much concern from the UN  Agencies and other humanitarian organizations.
 
This conflict has also, perhaps for the first time in memory, caused some major schisms between UN staff and their managers. Both UNICEF and WFP [w1],[w2] leaderships have been confronted with increasing dissension among their personnel, as regards the handling of their respective missions and mandates. Likewise, among our XUNICEF membership we are witnessing a growing split between various opinions about the situation. We do encourage our members to publish their views on the issues, while still avoiding attacks or personalized comments.
 
The week is ending with some positive news , however, as we have seen a four-day humanitarian pause being implemented with the exchange of prisoners from both sides and the increased allowance of vital humanitarian aid being provided to the besieged population. We all hope and pray that this initial stoppage in fighting can be extended to allow progress in the pursuit of more long term political agreements. 

On the positive side, we have the interesting speech by Jeffrey Sachs to the UN Security Council in which he practically lectured members over how to stop not only the Palestinian/Israeli conflict, but also those in Ukraine, Syria and the Sahel. His simple suggestions were bolstered with a proposal to reduce by 10% all military budgets and to use the $160 Billion thus saved for a Peace and Development Fund to support the resolution of these crises....a very dramatic and interesting suggestion that we have not yet seen any reactions to....if you have views, please send them to the Editors.
 
Other important news of the week has been the visit of ED Russell to Gaza, her speech to the UN Security Council and her OpEd in the NYT.  Also on the positive side was the moral stand taken by the Director General of WHO.  Finally, we are heartened by the pronouncements of HH the Pope about the humanitarian disaster enfolding in Gaza and his call for Peace.
Fouad
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