WEST AFRICA: IRIN-WA Weekly Round-up 360 for 9-15 December
2006
15 Dec 2006 14:15:38 GMT Source: IRIN
DAKAR, 15 December (IRIN) - CONTENTS:LIBERIA: Government lays foundation for legal logging
NIGERIA: Fishing turns dangerous
WEST AFRICA: Girls
getting educated but also abused
LIBERIA: Speaking out about Taylor's son
BURKINA FASO: Rally against impunity
CHAD: Worry mounts over security of displaced, refugees
WEST AFRICA: Gender equality and
child survival linkedLIBERIA: Government lays foundation for legal loggingLiberia's Forestry Development Authority is preparing a new bidding process for logging concessions following the lifting
in October of the United Nations Security Council's three-year ban on Liberian timber exports."We expect this will create about 10,000 jobs," Richie Grear, the government's forest bureau spokesman,
told IRIN. "All the mechanisms are being put into place to ensure that logging activities restart." Revenues from timber constituted 50 percent of the country's export earnings before the UN
Security Council imposed sanctions in July 2003. At the time, the council described Liberia's logging industry as a threat to peace and security with revenue from timber allegedly being used by former
president Charles Taylor to fuel armed conflicts in Sierra Leone and Liberia.http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=56757 and SelectRegion=West_Africa and SelectCountry=LIBERIANIGERIA:
Fishing turns dangerousWaibite Amazi, 42, says life was much easier when he was a boy growing up in the 70,000 sq km labyrinth of marshes and mangrove forests in Nigeria's southern delta. "My
father taught me how to fish - at first in the creeks where we'd catch crayfish and crabs, then we'd go into the sea to catch bigger fish. Sometimes we'd catch young sharks," he said. "We were free to
go about our business with nobody to trouble us."That was before oil began pumping from deep below this watery terrain, most of which is accesible only by boat. Now at night, bright lights flood the
high-tech oil facilities that dot the delta's creeks and byways but the surrounding villages remain without electricity and basic social services.http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=56748
and SelectRegion=West_Africa and SelectCountry=NIGERIAWEST AFRICA: Girls getting educated but also abusedChild rights advocates are increasingly facing a dilemma: How to boost the number of girls
getting an education while reducing sexual violence in school?Sexual violence at school is much more widespread in the region than previously thought because families and education authorities often
hide or tolerate the problem, Jean-Claude Legrand, regional child protection adviser for the UN children's agency (UNICEF), told IRIN."If we want to improve the schooling rate in the region and
restore the credibility of schools, we must tackle the protection frame for children in educational settings very seriously," Legrand said. "Because if being enrolled at school is risky, girls will be
the first to be taken out."http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=56747 and SelectRegion=West_Africa and SelectCountry=WEST_AFRICALIBERIA: Speaking out about Taylor's sonLiberians allegedly
tortured by the son of former president Charles Taylor have started to go public following the younger Taylor's indictment in the United States on charges of war crimes. "It is now time to come out
and to say what Chuckie did to us," Musa Kromah, a taxi driver in the capital, Monrovia, told IRIN on Wednesday. "Some of us are prepared to testify against him and tell the world the kind of inhumane
treatment he did against us. He cannot look into to our faces and deny that he did not commit torture."Charles Taylor Jr., 29, is known in Liberia as "Chuckie". He denied any wrongdoing when the US
Justice Department last week indicted him on charges of torture allegedly committed during his father's rule. Taylor Jr. headed the presidential Anti-Terrorist Unit (ATU) from 1997 through at least
2002, when witnesses say he committed torture, rape and burned people alive.http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=56728 and SelectRegion=West_Africa and SelectCountry=LIBERIABURKINA FASO:
Rally against impunityThousands of people rallied in Burkina Faso's capital, Ouagadougou, on Wednesday to demand an end to impunity and mark the death of journalist Norbert Zongo, whose murder eight
years ago led to constitutional changes that were supposed to improve human rights in the country. "We denounce the [ongoing] extrajudicial killings and we demand that the government undertakes
speedy reforms of the judiciary system to try all criminals and their protectors," Tole Sagnon, vice president of the Coalition Against Impunity, told IRIN. The coalition, made up of political
parties, civil society groups and human rights organisations, was formed after Zongo's death to push for a transparent investigation and the arrests of his killers. His murder triggered unprecedented
street protests in Burkina Faso, a former French colony with a history of military rule and a mixed record on free and fair elections.http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=56726 and
SelectRegion=West_Africa and SelectCountry=BURKINA_FASOCHAD: Worry mounts over security of displaced, refugeesThe army and rebels gave conflicting accounts over heavy fighting in eastern Chad over
the week-end, while the government expressed regret that humanitarian organisations were withdrawing staff from the conflict zone. "The government - as well as the international community - needs to
address what has become a grave humanitarian and security situation," Ahmat Allam Mi, the minister of Foreign Affairs, told diplomats and journalists on Friday.The United Nations refugee agency
(UNHCR) said it had relocated its staff from the eastern towns of Bahai, Iriba, and Guereda in the Biltine region to the main humanitarian hub in Abeche, while other workers have been moved to the
capital, N'djamena. Some 400 international and local humanitarian staff had been relocated in the past two weeks while 100 more were still waiting to be moved from Guereda, UNHCR spokeswoman Jennifer
Pagonis said.http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=56701 and SelectRegion=West_Africa and SelectCountry=CHADWEST AFRICA: Gender equality and child survival linkedImproving the rights of
women can boost child survival, especially in West and Central Africa, which have the highest rates of child mortality in the world, the United Nations children's agency (UNICEF) said on Monday."Gender equality and the well-being of children go hand in hand," Esther Guluma, UNICEF's regional director for West Africa, told reporters as the agency released it's State of the World's Children
2007 report. "Healthy, educated and empowered women have healthy, educated and confident daughters and sons."The report recommends maximising gender equality by boosting education, financing,
legislation, legislative quotas, women's organisations, research and data, and engaging men and boys in dialogue.http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=56700 and SelectRegion=West_Africa and
SelectCountry=WEST_AFRICA
