GENEVA PRESS BRIEFING

16 July 2024

Alessandra Vellucci, Director of the United Nations Information Service in Geneva, chaired a hybrid briefing, which was attended by spokespersons and representatives of the World Health Organization, the United Nations Human Rights, the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe, and UNAIDS.

Health situation at the Chad-Sudan border

Dr. Shible Sahbani, World Health Organization (WHO) Representative to Sudan, calling from Port Sudan, said that the previous week he had been to Adré, in the Chad-Sudan border area, as part of a high-level WHO mission. The Sudan crisis was currently the worst displacement crisis in the world, with close to 13 million people in Sudan now displaced: more than 10 million of them dispersed in locations within the country and over two million were seeking shelter in neighbouring countries. The needs Dr. Sahbani had witnessed were heartbreaking: women and children spoke of hunger, illness, violence, and loss, exposed to the elements and with scarce supplies of basic necessities. The refugees he had met said there were multiple reasons why they had fled Sudan, but it was primarily hunger.

The Chad government and the people of Adré had been welcoming, but this system was overstretched. Arriving refugees said that whatever they used to produce locally in their communities had been taken by fighters. The Government of Chad and the host communities were all very welcoming, but the system was truly overwhelmed. Chadians who had welcomed Sudanese refugees in their homes often did not have anything left to share with them. Dr. Sahbani explained that the Darfurs, Kordofans, Khartoum and Al Gezira states were all but cut off from humanitarian and health assistance due to the relentless fighting. The situation in Darfur was particularly alarming, where in places like El Fasher, over 800,000 people were besieged and cut off from access to food, health care and medical supplies.

Access was crucially and immediately needed in order to avert the disastrous health situation, stressed Dr. Sahbani. Urgent action was needed to bridge the huge funding gap – the Humanitarian Response Plan for Sudan was only 26 percent funded, and the health response plan was 36 percent funded. The rainy season in Sudan and neighbouring countries, which had just started, would further exacerbate challenges in accessing healthcare for affected populations, and it would also impact the ability of WHO and its partners to deliver humanitarian assistance. Urgent action and a ceasefire are necessary to contain the unfolding humanitarian catastrophe. Open access from Adré was immediately needed. Protection of civilians, respect for international humanitarian law by all parties, and unrestricted access were all required.

Replying to questions from the media, Dr. Sahbani said that there were good signs from the parties regarding access, but this was not consistent, and continuous advocacy with all warring parties and international partners was necessary. Ceasefire would be the best solution, but in its absence, a humanitarian corridor should be established. OCHA staff were doing their best negotiating with various belligerents to gain access to El Fasher, informed Dr. Sahbani; for the time being, signs were not indicating that the situation would improve soon. The Geneva talks, which were currently ongoing, gave some promising signs; protection of civilians and humanitarian access were two main objectives, explained Dr. Sahbani. There were reports of 500 to 700 Sudanese refugees still arriving to Chad every day, and the resources were woefully inadequate despite the good will by the Government of Chad and local host communities.

Regarding the talks in Geneva, Alessandra Vellucci, for the United Nations Information Service, said that Ramtane Lamamra, the Personal Envoy of the Secretary General, had interacted with both Sudanese delegations in Geneva over the previous weekend, and the proximity talks were continuing this week. Also answering a question, Ms. Vellucci confirmed that the Personal Envoy was working closely with the African Union, and their efforts were complimentary.

Institutionalized forced labour in North Korea

Elizabeth Throssell, for the United Nations Human Rights (OHCHR), informed that the OHCHR had released a report on the institutionalized use of forced labour by the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) against its citizens, which raised a broad range of serious human rights concerns. The report was based on various sources, including 183 interviews conducted between 2015 and 2023 with victims and witnesses of forced labour who had managed to escape and now live abroad. The testimonies in this report gave a shocking and distressing insight into the suffering inflicted through forced labour upon people, both in its scale, and in the levels of violence and inhuman treatment.

People were forced to work in intolerable conditions, often in dangerous sectors with the absence of pay, free choice, ability to leave, protection, medical care, time off, food and shelter. They were placed under constant surveillance, regularly beaten, while women were exposed to continuing risks of sexual violence. The report looked at six distinct types of forced labour: labour in detention, compulsory State-assigned jobs, military conscription, the use of revolutionary “Shock Brigades”, work mobilizations (see below), and work performed by people sent abroad by the DPRK to earn currency for the State. The report called on the North Korean Government to abolish the use of forced labour and end any form of slavery. It also urged the international community to investigate and prosecute those suspected of committing international crimes, and it called on the UN Security Council to refer the situation to the International Criminal Court.

James Heenan, OHCHR Representative in Seoul, speaking from Seoul, stated that perhaps the most concerning was forced labour extracted from people in detention, be it education camps or prisons or political prison camps. Detainees were systematically compelled to work under the threat of punishment, including physical violence. They did so in inhumane conditions, with no choice, little food, scarce health care and disproportionate work quotas. OHCHR had also found forced labour in the system of military conscription. Military conscripts were required to serve ten years or more and were routinely forced to work in agriculture or construction – usually with little or no link to their military duties. Work was hard, dangerous and exhausting, with few health and safety measures, a lack of adequate food and water, and insufficient healthcare. A former nurse working in a military hospital reported that most soldiers with malnourishment also came down with tuberculosis. After people left military service or schooling, every North Korean was assigned to a workplace by the State. The Workers’ Party of Korea had full and exclusive control over all job assignments, which included assignments to factories, mines, and construction facilities.

Mr. Heenan explained about the other type of forced labour discussed in the report, the so-called “Shock Brigades”, which were State-organized groups of citizens forced to carry out arduous manual labour that were sent often far from their homes to complete particular projects under State supervision. A project could last for months or even years, during which workers were required to live on site, with little or no remuneration. The conditions described in the Shock Brigades were alarming: little concern for health and safety, scarce food, even scarce shelter in some cases, with punishment for failure to meet quotas. The report also looked at the situation of overseas workers: those North Koreas that the Government sent abroad to earn valuable foreign currency for the State. Workers sent abroad reported harsh conditions and hard, dangerous work, as well as losing up to 90 per cent of their wages to the State, being under constant surveillance, with no freedom of movement.

Full report is available here.

Responding to questions, Mr. Heenan said that it was impossible to estimate the percentage of people affected by forced labour. It could be said that forced labour affected most people in the country, and the OHCHR wanted to put spotlight on both the scale and institutionalization of it. Historically, many North Korean workers had worked in Russia, but it was not known how many might still be there; a number of workers in some countries had been converted to people with student visas. It was more likely than not that forced labour in DPRK was also used to manufacture arms. As per established practice, the report had been shared with the DPRK authorities, but no comments had been received. The laws in the country provided quite a lot of protection against forced labour, but they were simply not implemented. North Korean workers going abroad, primarily to China and Russia, had been an established practice for many years; other workers included construction workers in the Middle East, medical staff across Africa, etc. Following the 2017 international sanctions, some individuals had been stuck in their destination countries, lost their jobs, but were still expected to send money back to their home country.

Cote d’Ivoire joins the UN Water Convention

Thomas Croll-Knight, for the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE), stated that, faced with increasing water stress and climate change impacts on the water resources it shared with its neighbours, Cote d’Ivoire had joined the United Nations Water Convention, a UN treaty to improve joint water management across borders. It was the 53^rd Party to the Convention and 10^th African country to join the 1992 Convention on the Protection and Use of Transboundary Watercourses and International Lakes, known as the 1992 UN Water Convention. This further consolidated the strong momentum for water cooperation in Africa, where over 90 percent of water resources were in 63 basins shared by two or more countries.

Cote d’Ivoire, the 9^th largest economy in Africa and 5^th fastest growing economy on the continent, shared eight transboundary river basins with its neighbours. Meeting the water needs of the country’s population of some 30 million people, which was growing by 2.5 percent annually, brought significant challenges: its water resources were threatened by urbanisation, climate change impacts including drought and flooding, while water quality was deteriorating due to pollution from agricultural, industrial waste, illegal gold panning, and untreated wastewater.

Mr. Croll-Knight stressed that cooperation was indispensable to address Africa’s water challenges. He reminded that, since the global opening of this treaty to all UN Member States in 2016, Chad, Senegal, Ghana, Guinea Bissau, Togo, and Cameroon had become the first African nations to accede, before being joined by five countries in 2023 – Nigeria, Namibia, and the Gambia, in addition to Iraq and Panama who had become the first Parties in their respective regions. Over 20 more were in the process of joining, the majority of which are in Africa. According to the African Development Bank, one in every three people in Africa currently faced water insecurity, and only 58 percent of Africans had access to safely managed drinking water services, and 72 percent of people lacked basic sanitation services. Water, however, also had huge transformational potential, considering less than 5 percent of cultivated land was irrigated today and only 10 percent of hydroelectricity potential in Africa was utilized.

More information about the Convention is available here.

Global AIDS Update Report

Ben Phillips, for UNAIDS, informed that the Global AIDS Update Report would be launched on 22 July on the State of the epidemic with new global data. The report “The Urgency of Now: AIDS at a Crossroads”, just ahead of the 25^th International AIDS Conference in Munich, would demonstrate that ending AIDS as a public health threat was achievable by 2030 but that success was being threatened by pushes to reduce funding and to restrict human rights. The report and all data could be provided to the journalists under embargo in advance.

The HIV response was at a crossroads: success or failure would be determined by which path leaders took. The report would show that the decisions leaders made this year would determine whether AIDS was ended as a public health threat by 2030. Taking the wrong path, by limiting resourcing or clamping down on human rights, would lead the pandemic to continue to grow, costing millions more lives and undermining global health security. Mr. Phillips stressed that this was the critical moment in the HIV/AIDS pandemic, but everything depended on leaders taking the necessary action this year.

Press launch of the report would take place at 10 am on 22 July at the International Press Club at Marienplatz 22/IV in Munich. This press conference would be immediately followed by another conference focused on Eastern Europe and Central Asia, the region where AIDS deaths were going up. For journalists wishing the join, here was the link, and Zoom details:

Meeting ID: 831 3456 8680; Passcode: 004056. Materials would be available in English, French, Spanish, Russian, and German.

Individual briefings with interested journalists in Geneva could be organized, said Mr. Phillips responding to a question.

Announcements

Alessandra Vellucci, for the United Nations Information Service (UNIS), reminded the media that the second meeting of the Preparatory Committee for the 2026 Review Conference of the Parties to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) would be held in Room XIX of the Palais des Nations from 22 July to 2 August. The Chair-designate of the second session was Ambassador Akan Rakhmetullin of Kazakhstan. At this second Preparatory Committee meeting, States parties would consider specific matters of substance relating to the implementation of the Treaty and relevant decisions. The opening meeting would start in at 10 am on 22 July. The Chair-designate would hold a press conference the same day at 1:15 pm.

She also informed that on 18 and 19 July, the Human Rights Council would hold an intersessional meeting to discuss concrete ways to enhance the participation of Indigenous Peoples in the work of the Council. The meeting would gather UN entities, international organizations, Indigenous Peoples, and civil society organizations. Another intersessional meeting on the same subject would be held on 17-18 October. Following these two intersessional meetings, the meeting co-facilitators would work with OHCHR to prepare a report that would include specific recommendations.

Ms. Vellucci said that the Human Rights Committee was continuing this morning its review of the report of India.

This morning, the Committee against Torture was reviewing the report of Côte d’Ivoire.