The WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (WHO FCTC) is an evidence-based treaty that reaffirms the right of all people to the highest standard of health and was developed in response to the globalization of the tobacco epidemic. Member States of the WHO South-East Asia Region have made... attempts to implement the demand and supply reduction strategies for tobacco control as recommended by the treaty. While recognizing the need to accelerate implementation of the WHO FCTC in the Region, this document has been developed to support the Member States in implementing the treaty using a ‘PRACTICAL’ Approach which pertains to identified demand and supply reduction strategies under the treaty.
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Conflicts and disasters, including pandemics, affect women and men in all their diversity differently, and women and girls often suffer the most. Crisis-related hardships combine and compound pre-existing disadvantages, for example, they often cause women’s working conditions to worsen while incre...asing their overall workload and care responsibilities. At the same time, crises can give rise to changes that enable women to take up roles that were previously available only to men, and crises can open opportunities to address existing gender-based discrimination and violations of rights.
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The Arab region in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) represents a substantial area of the terrestrial landmass encompassing several countries and ecosystems. This area is generally drier and warmer compared to the rest of the world and has extreme resource limitations that are highly vulnerabl...e to a changing climate, geopolitical instability and land degradation (Slimani & Aidoud, 2004). Agriculture (crops and livestock) is a critical source of employment and a potential option for engaging rural youth. However, environmental degradation coupled with declining and variable agricultural productivity may pose a massive challenge already beset by instability and declining oil reserves (Tagliapietra, 2017). The Arab region is also subjected to short and long-duration climate extreme events, and the overall impact of their cascading effects on ecosystems, societies and economies is still an open question. Climate change, along with post-war geopolitical complexities, has greatly affected the Arab region in terms of its economy and social balance. Climate change has penetrating effects on the region’s agriculture sector and hence its economy. These are mainly manifested via changes in water resources and extreme weather conditions such as heatwaves and a drastic decline in precipitation.
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Children in refugee situations face many potential dangers, such as violence, abuse, exploitation, discrimination, separation from their families, trafficking and military recruitment. The impact of these experiences can be devastating and long-lasting. Children have different needs from adults and ...these needs can only be identified and met if they are approached in a way that is specific to children.
The impact of the COVID-19 global pandemic has exacerbated the dangers faced by children in refugee situations and laid bare the need for their protection and for ensuring that all their human rights are upheld all the time.
The goal of this publication is to share examples of approaches by members of the Initiative that have proven effective for children.
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The COVID-19 pandemic has been a formative experience for all humanity and a health emergency of global proportions, presenting a huge challenge to national leaders, health systems, and citizens. The findings of a new report by the OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR) sho...ws that it has also been a test to our democracies and the respect for human rights to which countries across the OSCE committed many years ago.
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This is the first version of the INEE technical guideline to support education during the Covid-19 pandemic. It is a living document that will be regularly updated to meet the learning and well-being needs of children, adolescents, youth, teachers, caregivers and other education personnel affected b...y Covid-19.
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How we respond both now and going forward will help mitigate the impact of COVID-19, and to the extent possible preserve children’s rights to Survive, Learn, and Be Protected. We will focus our efforts on the most critical work essential to maintaining these commitments to the extent possible.
UNHCR and its partners implement interventions focusing on adolescent girls and boys, including:
▪ Formation and capacity building of adolescent girls and boys’ clubs as peer groups for awareness raising, and SGBV prevention and response mechanisms.
▪ Community based protection activ...ities and training on child protection
▪ Provision of secondary education for secondary school-aged youth and recruitment of female teachers to encourage adolescent girls to continue education
▪ Introduction of community sharing/ parenting sessions and increasing the number of women support networks
▪ Establishing girls’ friendly spaces, which includes information sharing and psycho-social support
▪ Awareness raising campaigns with all members of the community, including community leaders
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Commitment objective
The Government of Myanmar views family planning as critical to saving lives, protecting mothers and children from death, ill health, disability, and under development. It views access to family planning information, commodities, and services as a fundamental right for every... woman and community if they are to develop to their full potential.
• Increase CPR from 41 percent to 50 percent by 2015 and above 60 percent by 2020
• Reduce unmet need to less than 10 percent by 2020 (from 12 percent in 2013)
• Increase demand satisfaction from 67 percent in 2013 to 80 percent by 2020
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The National Strategic Plan is based on the following guiding principles:
1) Life-course approach: adolescence is a key decade in the course of life that influences the health outcomes later in life.
2) Comprehensive approach: It recognizes the cross cutting health and development needs o...f young people such as intentional and unintentional injuries and violence, SRH, HIV/AIDS, mental health, substance use, violence, substance use and substance use disorders, infectious diseases and common conditions.
3) Equity and rights-based approach: focusing on equitable access to services to all adolescents including vulnerable groups and the recognizing the need to move from aspirations to obligations in fulflling young people rights for the highest attainable standard of health.
4) Multisectoral approach: recognizing cognizant of the fact that holistic development of young people requires multisectoral approach involving education, social welfare.
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In recent decades, there have been concerted efforts to improve mental health services for youths alongside the challenges of rising healthcare costs and increasing demand for mental health needs. One important phenomenon is the shift from traditional clinic-based care to community based mental heal...th services to improve accessibility to services and provide patient-centred care. In this article, we discuss the child and adolescent community mental health efforts within the Asia-Pacific region.
Brain Sci.2017,7, 126; doi:10.3390/brainsci7100126
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Save the Children in Albania is establishing and strengthening structures and mechanisms which monitor and advocate for children’s rights, promote ways to protect children from all forms of exploitation and violence and also empower and support children and their representatives to meaningfully ad...vocate for implementation of their rights and influence decisions that bring about changes in their future lives.
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This study of Adolescent Boys and Young Men highlights the importance of engaging adolescent boys and young men in sexual and reproductive health and rights (srhr) and gender equality. This paper establishes a conceptual framework for engaging adolescent boys and young men. It reviews current resea...rch on boys’ and young men’s specific risks and realities in relation to their general health status, violence, sexuality and sexual and reproductive health, media violence, sexual exploitation, and other vulnerabilities.
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Gender-based violence is a life-threatening, global health and human rights issue that violates international human rights law and principles of gender equality. It is also a threat to lasting peace and an affront to our common humanity. United Nations Member States have called for urgent action to ...end GBV in emergencies, recognizing that in crises, the risk of GBV is heightened, particularly for women and adolescent girls.
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Slavery on fishing vessels, degradation of ecosystems, overfishing, debt bondage, human trafficking and child labour in peeling sheds – the scandals surrounding the Thai fishery and shrimp industries have garnered international censure. Farmed and processed at the cost of extreme exploitation of b...oth people and the planet, Thai shrimp ends up on plates around the world. The former delicacy can now be bought cheaply everywhere. But how high is the price really? And who has to pay it?
This report by seeks to remind governments in the countries of production that it is their duty to enforce human rights and living wages, rather than to compete for the favour of large companies to the detriment of people and the environment. It also appeals to consumers and their governments – and to importers – to send a clear message to suppliers in Thailand and elsewhere: If you want to survive on the global market, you need to respect human rights and child rights, and uphold social and environmental standards.
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The State of the World’s Children 2013: Children with Disabilities examines the barriers – from inaccessible buildings to dismissive attitudes, from invisibility in official statistics to vicious discrimination – that deprive children with disabilities of their rights and keep them from partic...ipating fully in society. The report also lays out some of the key elements of inclusive societies that respect and protect the rights of all children, regardless of disability, and progress in helping all children to flourish and make their contribution to the world.
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The education sector forms an important part of the child protection response in refugee settings, and UNHCR’s Education Strategy (2012-16) reflects a focus on refugee education as a core component of UNHCR’s protection mandate. The right to education for all children also forms part of the Unit...ed Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child. UNHCR’s Education Strategy promotes the importance of schools as safe learning environments, emphasises improving access to quality education for refugee children and maximises the protective benefits of participation in school. It advocates for the integration of refugee children into national education systems.
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Children with disabilities in South Africa: The hidden reality is part of a multiple-country study conducted by ACPF. The study seeks to analyse how cultural, social, physical and other societal barriers prevent children with disabilities from enjoying their constitutional rights to equality, freedo...m and human dignity. It also seeks to establish opportunities and practices that could be used to address these barriers to enhance disabled children’s participation in society.
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Modern healthcare has given rise to extremely complex and multifaceted ethical dilemmas. All too often physicians are unprepared to manage these competently. This publication is specifically structured to reinforce and strengthen the ethical mindset and prac...tice of physicians and provide tools to find ethical solutions to these dilemmas. It is not a list of “rights and wrongs” but an attempt to sensitise the conscience of the physician, which is the basis for all sound and ethical decision-making. To this end, you will find several case studies in the book, which are intended to foster individual ethical reflection as well as discussion within team settings.
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In 2006, the Special Session of African Union Health Ministers adopted the Maputo Plan of Action for implementing the Continental Policy Framework on sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR), which expired at the end of 2015. The goal was for all stakeholders and partners to join forces and ...re-double efforts, so that together, the effective implementation of the Continental Policy framework including universal access to sexual and reproductive health by 2015 in all countries in Africa can be achieved. The Revised Maputo Plan of Action (MPoA) 2016 – 2030 was subsequently endorsed by the African Union Heads of State at the 27th AU Summit in July 2016 in Kigali, Rwanda. The plan reinforces the call for universal access to comprehensive sexual and reproductive health services in Africa and lays foundation to the Sustainable Development Goals, particularly Goal 3 and 5, as well as the African Union Agenda 2063.
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