July 22-28, 2024

NORTHEAST ASIA

Unmasking “labor surplus transfer” in Tibet

An international human rights group has called for an independent investigation into China’s rural labor transfer programs.

Human Rights Foundation (HRF) revealed that Tibetan farmers and herders were possibly being subjected to forced labor in mining under the guise of transitioning them to supposedly more lucrative industries like renewable energy.

In a policy note published July 22, the New York-based rights group said the program – which concerns shifting workers in the primary sector (like farming and herding) into the secondary or tertiary sector (like mining) supposedly as a poverty alleviation program – had certain red flags that indicated Tibetans were being coerced by regime officials into recruitment. 

The report identified two mining companies that focus on minerals for renewables and which have been linked to similar “labor transfers” in the Xinjiang region. Analysis of these companies’ policies found the use of “tifa” – Chinese Communist Party-approved euphemisms for specific labor policies, such as “labor absorption” and “surplus rural labor transfer” – indicating a pattern of forced labor.

Chinese mining companies possibly involved in CCP’s labor transfer program in Tibet

“Given the complete lack of transparency in Tibet, the resulting atmosphere of impunity, and the broader risk factors associated with labor transfer programs and mining, it is possible that the living conditions of Tibetans have not improved under the CCP’s poverty alleviation efforts,” HRF said. 

Rights groups have consistently sounded the alarm against the rural labor transfer policy, which China first wielded in Xinjiang to subjugate Uyghur Muslims and other ethnic minorities there. Reuters first reported on how China expanded the labor transfer program to Tibet in 2020, during which Beijing set quotas for the mass transfer of rural laborers within Tibet and other parts of China. 

But China has been relocating Tibetans as early as 2016 ostensibly to “protect the environment” and “improve their way of life,” but Human Rights Watch said it was an erosion of their culture and way of life.

SOUTHEAST ASIA

Release climate activists or ditch climate pacts

As Vietnam sentences yet another environmental defender to jail, a local rights watchdog has called on European Union foreign policy chief Josep Borell to prioritize securing the release of political prisoners and the repeal of a draconian directive that systematically curbs dissent in the Southeast Asian country. 

Borell was on an official visit to Hanoi on July 29-31 to advance the EU’s partnership with Vietnam, including how to support the socialist nation’s climate change mitigation efforts.

On July 24, The 88 Project – which does campaign work for the freedom of political prisoners in the one-party nation – said it had received reports that Ngo Thi To Nhien, executive director of the Vietnam Initiative for Energy Transition Social Enterprise (VIETSE), had been sentenced to 42 months in prison over charges of misappropriating government documents. 

Nhien, who was a consultant for the Vietnamese government’s renewable energy transition programs before her arrest in September 2023, was the sixth climate activist imprisoned by the government since 2021.

Vietnamese environmental defenders in prison as of July 2024

“The imprisonment of Ngo Thi To Nhien, along with the arrests of other climate activists, has decimated the ability of Vietnam’s civil society to monitor the country’s energy transition (to clean energy). Now, Vietnam has begun to ignore its climate obligations with impunity, and there is nobody left to speak out,’ said Michael Altman-Lupu, The 88 Project human rights researcher. 

Her conviction also comes after the group revealed the existence of Directive 24, a secret order released by the Vietnamese Communist Party in July 2023 which frames policy activism, foreign funding, and reformers as threats to national security. 

This, said group chair Ben Swanton, violates the terms of the EU-Vietnam Free Trade Agreement that govern free trade between Vietnam and the bloc, and the EU-led Just Energy Transition Partnership to help Vietnam decarbonize through funding from developed nations. Both EU groups urged Vietnam to comply with its international rights obligations or risk suspension or termination of these pacts.

SOUTH ASIA

Lobbying int’l community in support of Afghan women

As Afghanistan enters its third year under Taliban rule, Afghan women – who have been systematically removed from public life and stripped of basic rights – have taken stock of what needs to happen to improve their participation in society. 

For one, they told the International Organization for Migration, U.N. Women, and the U.N. Assistance Mission in Afghanistan, that they would like the international community to “facilitate for women to talk directly” with the Taliban while also continuing to reject their legitimacy as Afghanistan’s rulers. 

This call is part of a report published on July 24, which was based on door-to-door consultations with 888 Afghan women. Though feeling more hopeless and despondent about Taliban rule, the women still outlined specific modes by which they could be included in international decision-making forums.

These are: imposing a 50 percent quota for women representatives among Afghan delegates; an exclusively women-delegation at forums discussing Afghanistan; and the establishment of a women’s advisory body to the international community. 

This as the women told the U.N. that they rarely engage with the Taliban on important issues concerning women. They believe that it has in large part affected their access to social services such as health and education.

Gender differences in access to social services (2022-2024)

The international community, for its part, has tried to get the Taliban to change its approach toward women’s rights while also calling for accountability. Among the most prominent voices include Richard Bennett, the U.N. special rapporteur for human rights in Afghanistan, who last June urged International Criminal Court prosecutors to consider whether it could prosecute Taliban officials on crimes against humanity “and other inhumane acts,” the latter of which could underpin yet-unrecognized crimes like gender apartheid. 

However, it has also largely failed to bring the Taliban to back down. Last February, the U.N. organized a meeting on Afghanistan in Doha supposedly to urge the Taliban to reverse all restrictions on women and girls. But the Taliban was a no-show because the U.N. did not accede to their request to be the sole representative of Afghanistan in the forum.

GLOBAL / REGIONAL

Staving off global hunger with more financing 

A new report by the United Nations shows that the global fight against hunger has been set back 15 years with levels of undernourishment harking back to those of 2008-2009.

Last year alone, 733 million people – or one in 11 people – faced hunger across the world, prompting five U.N. specialized agencies to call for increasing financing for poverty and hunger alleviation, especially for developing countries that face the exacerbating impacts of climate change.

“A future free from hunger is possible if we can rally the resources and the political will needed to invest in proven long-term solutions. I call on G20 leaders to [prioritize] ambitious global action on hunger and poverty,” said Cindy Mccain, executive director for the World Food Programme, which along with the International Fund for Agricultural Development, Food and Agriculture Organization, U.N. Children’s Fund, and the World Health Organization, published its annual “Food Security and Nutrition in the World” report on July 24.

The report was published ahead of the G20 Global Alliance Against Hunger and Poverty Task Force ministerial meeting in Brazil this November, which intends to establish a global alliance that can raise resources and brainstorm policies to reduce hunger and poverty. 

The report’s most damning findings shows that over 864 million people experienced going without food for an entire day or more last year. It also revealed that hunger rates have remained stubbornly high for three consecutive years. 

If trends hold, the report warned that 582 million people will be chronically undernourished by 2030 – levels already seen in 2015 when the U.N. Sustainable Development Goals were first adopted. 

SDG 2 relates to achieving zero hunger by 2030.

In Asia specifically, food insecurity levels have remained relatively unchanged since 2005, with 8.1 percent of the region's over 4 billion people still facing hunger last year.

Food insecurity in relation to population, 2023

The report’s recommendations for increased financing echoes a similar call by the U.N. Food Systems Summit Scientific Group in 2021, which estimated that an additional US$33 billion per year was needed to reduce the number of hungry people around the world by just over half. 

The COVID-19 pandemic, however, has pushed the cost estimate to US$163 billion annually to lift over 1 billion from hunger by 2030. 

Currently, Asia alone receives US$30 billion on average (from 2017 to 2021) in official development assistance intended for food security and nutrition – far below the current standards, according to data from the Food Authority Organization cited in the July 2024 report.