Minority Rights
Minority Rights Group International campaigns worldwide with around 130 partners in over 60 countries to ensure that disadvantaged minorities and indigenous peoples, often the poorest of the poor, can make their voices heard. Through training and education, legal cases, publications and the media, Minority Rights Group International supports minority and indigenous people as they strive to maintain their rights to the land they live on, the languages they speak, to equal opportunities in education and employment, and to full participation in public life.
Drought threatens women and girls in East Africa
Some months ago aid agencies began ringing alarm bells about the drought spreading across East Africa. The human and environmental toll of this year's prolonged dry season is now very apparent. Less known, however, is the impact the drought has had on women and children. Farah Mihlar, media officer with Minority Rights Group International, recently visited a tiny remote pastoralist village in Uganda's Koboga district, to find out how the drought is affecting people's lives. The rains have finally begun to trickle down but they are late and still unpredictable. The prolonged dry season this year has already begun to affect this small cow-herding community in Kyarubangu village. Many families have lost their cows and faced food shortages. But these pastoralists, women in particular, tell me about the other less foreseen and far-reaching consequences of the drought. ...
