Thought Leader

Since last week, popular SABC1 soapie Generations The Legacy has been running a storyline on human trafficking. The characters of Xolelwa and Lesedi attended a party where Lesedi’s drink was spiked and the two were then taken to Cape Town, where they were held with other young women and used as sex slaves. I am…

By Caroline James This week, South Africa was one of eight countries in the United Nations Committee on Non-Governmental Organisations that voted to deny the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) observer status at the United Nations (UN). South Africa voted against accreditation along with countries like China and Russia who are not known for their…

As the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) expire, the United Nations and the international NGO community are rallying around the conclusion that this has been “the most successful anti-poverty movement in history”. Poverty has been cut in half, they tell us. And hunger has taken a serious hit, falling narrowly shy of the target. It’s a…

By Donné Cameron This is turning out to be a big week of big deals; first Greece, now Iran and very soon Addis. I am writing from within a bubble, albeit a loud bubble, of bureaucracy in the middle of downtown Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, where the UN has chosen to host people to talk about…

Emma Watson invited men into “the movement” and the feminist world is in uproar — split into the yay and naysayers. It’s even gone to the extent of fractures along racial (according to one blogger it’s white feminists who support her), regional or even socio-economic background. But identity aside there is some good and bad…

When the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) recently published its most comprehensive and most drastic report on climate change to date, the president of the United States, Mr Barack Obama, called it a “call to action”. It remains to be seen if the leader of the biggest economy on the planet will live up…

Countries and aid agencies offering aid and assistance to Gaza have blood on their hands. While food and other humanitarian assistance has been pouring into Gaza, the democratically elected ruling party Hamas, has been funneling funds and huge resources into manufacturing and acquiring rockets. Palestinians, and Gazans in particular, have carefully cultivated an image of…

The African continent’s progress in achieving the UN Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) by 2015 has gathered pace and credibility over the past few years. Africa continues to make incremental progress on the majority of the eight development goals aimed at improving social and economic conditions in the world’s poorest countries, which all 193 UN member…

This month marks 10 years since the International Criminal Court first opened its doors at The Hague in Netherlands. The court was created under the Rome Statute to prosecute serious international crimes like war crimes and crimes against humanity. It has 121 member nations, with Guatemala being the latest. With a decade gone since the…

The concept of “peace” has traditionally been abstract in definition. Perhaps the most workable methodology of approaching the concept of peace is to define it in terms of harmony achieved by the absence of war or conflict. This definition applied to nation states would purport that those countries not involved in violent conflicts with neighbouring…