Here at Enough, we often swap emails with interesting articles and feature stories that we come across in our favorite publications and on our favorite websites. We wanted to share some of these stories with you as part of our effort to keep you up to date on what you need to know in the world of anti-genocide and crimes against humanity work.
NPR’s Gwen Thompkins filed this report following her trip to Darfur with Sudan Special Envoy Major General Scott Gration. She focuses on the immense challenges that remain for the nearly 3 million displaced Darfuris who are unable to return to their homes due to security concerns that General Gration chalks up to “a law enforcement issue.” Thompkin’s also discusses General Gration’s efforts to unite the Darfuri rebel groups and make nice with the ruling party in Khartoum.
To mark the 10th annual international day for older persons, James Copnall of the BBC created this slideshow about ageing in southern Sudan, where, the BBC notes, anyone over the age of 50 is considered old.
With the news this week that the U.N. Security Council would pass a resolution condemning the use of rape as a weapon of war, Public Radio International’s Jeb Sharp spoke with UNIFEM’s Anne-Marie Goetz about whether we can be optimistic about this development or should view it as merely “flowery U.N. language.” Said Goetz: “I think we are seeing a sea change in the way that this issue is being approached by the United Nations. There’s no question that there is an uphill battle… the challenges are huge.”
To provide contrast, Sharp highlighted a key quote from Jan Egeland, the former head of the U.N.’s humanitarian affairs division, who last year described the U.N.’s approach toward wartime rape like this:
“I think it may be one of the biggest conspiracies of silence of history, this. And we treat it at best as a humanitarian problem. So you’ve been gang raped? Have a blanket. You’ve been gang raped again? Have another blanket. Whereas it should be a political and a security and a justice problem.”
Condition: Critical, a project of Doctors Without Borders in eastern Congo, published a new series of photographs from North Kivu, where the organization runs mobile clinics in areas that have faced a backlash of retaliatory attacks since a military offensive began targeting the FDLR in January.
Photographer Robert Polidori narrates this slideshow that offers a look inside U.N. Headquarters. He talks about how the needs of the U.N.’s needs have changed (good-bye Trusteeship Room for Colonies, hello metal detectors), his own approach to photography (“I’m a habitat photographer. I’m interested in how people use buildings”), and the 1950s building’s renovation (“I’m for preservation whether I like the style or not”). Definitely entertaining.