![]() It also produced a change in the public's perception of a conflict once considered distant from everyday reality but now seen as intervening more and more in people’s lives. This increase produced between 1.5 – 2 million displaced persons between 19, composed mostly of female heads of households, children and the elderly. This situation is reflected in the growing number of municipalities affected by military action, rising from 227 in 1990 to 498 in 2002 whilst the number of actions targeting the civilian population rose from 172 to 436. In 1995 there were 92 homicides per 100,000 inhabitants, the highest rate in the world. The total number of homicides is much higher: 9,087 homicides in 1983 increased to 28,284 in 1993, although this trend has decreased marginally in recent years. Between 19 there were 26,985 civilian murders related to the armed conflict whilst there were only 12,887 fatalities in military operations. It’s a a historic moment for equal rights in Nepal, and a victory for those rushing to get their documents together, get married, and celebrate.The Colombian conflict is overwhelming in its complexity and devastating in its impact on the civilian population. “In its latest ruling, the court appears to have lost patience with the government’s delays,” my colleague and HRW’s Deputy Asia Director Meenakshi Ganguly explains, noting how the court has now ordered registrations to begin without waiting for new legislation. However, as we discussed in this newsletter a few months ago, implementation by the government has sometimes been slow. Nepal’s Supreme Court has a strong record of upholding LGBT rights, so this new ruling is not exactly a surprise. He estimated that around 200 same-sex couples may register marriages in the coming months. The words are those of Sunil Pant, previously Nepal’s first openly gay member of parliament and now a leading campaigner on equality, happy to see the country’s Supreme Court clear the way for marriage equality last week. They are rushing back to their villages to collect documents for their marriages.” Many readers will understand foreign governments wanting to help Ukraine defend itself against Russia's atrocity-ridden invasion and occupation of Ukraine, driven by Vladimir Putin, a man who is, after all, wanted by the International Criminal Court for mass abductions of Ukrainian children.īut if the goal of this support is a free Ukraine, where children can grow up in safety and security – where they can run though the fields and forests like children should be able to do everywhere – then using cluster munitions is not the way to get there. I mention the United States because the US government is reportedly close to deciding whether to transfer stockpiled cluster munitions to Ukraine. I mention Russia and Ukraine, because both are using cluster munitions in Ukraine today, harming and killing civilians. There is an international convention against cluster munitions 123 countries have signed or ratified it, but Russia, Ukraine, and the United States are three that have not. What’s more, many of these bomblets fail to explode on initial use, sitting there like landmines for years. ![]() In short, using them is almost guaranteed to be a war crime. It’s nearly impossible for those firing them to aim for military targets without causing civilian causalities, as well. Cluster munitions are weapons delivered by artillery, rockets, missiles, and aircraft that open in mid-air and disperse dozens or hundreds of bomblets over a wide area – like the size of a football field or two. This may be fiction, but the danger is very real. They were never even alive during the war, but they were victims of it anyway, because the warring militaries used cluster munitions. As for the girl who was walking toward him, she’ll survive, but she’ll be undergoing a series of reconstructive surgeries on her face for years. When the ambulance arrives, there’s nothing they can do for the boy. Hundreds of small metal pellets shoot out in all directions. He calls his friend to come and pokes the object with his foot to turn it over. It looks bit like a soda can maybe, he thinks, but it has petals sticking up from one end of it. Until the day one boy sees something under a bush. They sleep soundly at night, and by day, they run through the fields and forests on the edge of the village as carefree as kids anywhere – laughing, shouting, playing tag or hide-and-seek. The war, now long over, still returns as nightmares to those old enough to have lived through it, but for the children born in the hopeful years since, it’s not even a memory.
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