UN Office on Drugs and Crime

At UN, Momentum Is Gaining to End Modern-Day Slavery and Human Trafficking

• April 11, 2016

Experts on human trafficking and slavery are calling for strong involvement by the private sector in tackling the enormous challenge of these abuses, particularly with girls and women. At the same time, the experts, who spoke at a recent panel discussion held at the United Nations, recognized the daunting task in asking industry to …

Asia, Human Rights, Human Trafficking, Poverty, SDGs, Women

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A New Campaign, #EveryHourMatters, Urges Instant Post-Rape Care

Lori Silberman Brauner

• March 28, 2016

Maureen Phiri, a young girl from a poor family in Malawi, was only 11 years old when she was raped by the man who had hired her to do housework for him and his wife. Not only did Maureen continue to experience sexual abuse from the man she worked for, he left her with another …

Gender Violence, Health and Population, UN Agencies, Women

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The Drug War: A Dangerous Trap for Poor Children and Their Families, a New Report Says

Dulcie Leimbach

• November 20, 2015

In time for Universal Children’s Day, a new report shows how the war on drugs hurts children’s health, puts them into the line of fire amid drug-gang violence and leads them into the netherworld of human trafficking and enslavement. The drug war also destroys families when parents are unnecessarily imprisoned for drug crimes, among …

Gender Violence, Health and Population, Human Trafficking, Latin America, Poverty

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Shadowy Militias Spread Terror in Rural Myanmar

Barbara Crossette

• October 7, 2014

He is a young man whose name or exactly where he lives in the Burmese countryside cannot be published because he fears retribution when he returns to Myanmar from a visit to the United Nations headquarters. Speaking in English, learned from books and private tutors, he details the harsh treatment people away from major …

Asia, Governance, Myanmar

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Ramos-Horta Defends ‘Weak, Poor’ Guinea-Bissau

Dulcie Leimbach

• July 15, 2014

Until recently, José Ramos-Horta led the United Nations’ peace-building mission in Guinea-Bissau, stepping in a year and a half ago as the country reeled from a coup in 2012 and the UN’s former chief there, Joseph Mutaboba, quit his job under concerns for his safety. Ramos-Horta, 64, is a former president of Timor-Leste, which won …

Africa, Governance, Peace and Security

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The Creation and Trafficking of New Illegal Drugs Widens, a UN Report Finds

Barbara Crossette

• June 5, 2014

Confirming recent findings by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in the United States and other agencies around the world, the United Nation Office on Drugs and Crime said in its annual report that new synthetic drugs, sometime compounded or combined with other substances, are becoming a dangerous, often lethal, menace globally. The …

Health and Population, UN Agencies

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Obscured by a Diplomatic Dispute, Slavery Persists in India

Barbara Crossette

• January 13, 2014

Over the last year, as India and the United States headed for an impasse over how to deal with an Indian deputy consul-general in New York indicted for visa fraud for bringing a domestic worker into the country — and then abusing the employee’s rights — numerous reports were emerging on the prevailing extent …

Asia, Human Trafficking, Women

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Nations Reject Gender Violence, but the Suffering Endures

Barbara Crossette

• March 27, 2013

The 57th session of the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women ended in mid-March more with a sigh of relief than with jubilation. The commission, comprising 45 national delegations, managed to reach a final agreement (which it could not do last year) without losing ground on women’s rights that had been gained, …

Gender Violence, Special Report, Women

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GOINGS-ON

Where Murder Rates Soar

Barbara Crossette

• October 19, 2011

The UN Office on Drugs and Crime reported in early October that young men are most at risk of becoming victims of homicide in the Caribbean-Central American region and central and southern Africa. Women in those regions are at high risk of death in domestic violence. The agency’s Global Study on Homicide puts the …