Africa

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Cameroon's Michaely Bihina saves an extra-time penalty and three more spot kicks in a shootout to send her side though to the 2026 Wafcon final at the expense of host nation Morocco.

Cameroon's Michaely Bihina saves an extra-time penalty and three more spot kicks in a shootout to send her side though to the 2026 Wafcon final at the expense of host nation Morocco.

Malawi's fairy tale run at the 2026 Women's Africa Cup of Nations goes on as sisters Tabitha and Temwa Chawinga share three goals in a 3-1 semi-final win over Algeria.

Malawi's fairy tale run at the 2026 Women's Africa Cup of Nations goes on as sisters Tabitha and Temwa Chawinga share three goals in a 3-1 semi-final win over Algeria.

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Some see them as sinister or hunt them for ritual use but these birds play a vital role in nature's cycle.

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Meet Evelyn Okafor – a four-time Nigerian champion, three-time African champion, and the first African woman to qualify for the World Freestyle Football Championship.

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Bei Antonio Morello hat der FC Lugano Nägel mit Köpfen gemacht.

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Trotz stark gesunkener Ankünfte in Europa hat sich die Zahl der Todesfälle von Migranten im Mittelmeer im ersten Quartal 2026 dramatisch erhöht: Sie verdoppelte sich auf der zentralen Route nach Italien und verdreifachte sich auf der östlichen Route nach Griechenland.

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The vessel is said to have overturned after being hit by strong waves.

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Exiled Nicaraguans hold a national flag in the Church of San Francisco in San José, Costa Rica, at a service held on 19 April 2026 to commemorate the anniversary of protests in 2018. Credit: Ezequiel Becerra/AFP

By Inés M. Pousadela
MONTEVIDEO, Uruguay, Aug 12 2026 (IPS)

On 19 July, the 47th anniversary of the Sandinista revolution that first brought him to power, Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega declared that his country would hold ‘no more elections’ so that the opposition could never again try to ‘seize power’. Just like that, he scrapped a presidential vote that had previously been pushed back to 2027, abandoning even the fiction of democratic legitimacy. The move changes little in practice, since no free vote had been possible for years. But it’s still revealing: a government that controls the army, the courts, the electoral machinery and the police, and will still not risk even a stage-managed ballot, is one that has lost confidence in its people.

Civil society dismantled

The abolition of elections is the political capstone of a longer-term project to eliminate every organised space beyond the ruling family’s control. A constitutional overhaul ratified in January 2025 extended Ortega’s term, elevated his wife, Rosario Murillo, from vice-president to ‘co-president’, and handed the couple control over every branch of the state, with their son, Laureano Ortega Murillo, positioned as monarchical heir apparent. Scrapping elections that had already been emptied of any meaning removes the last formal mechanism through which power in Nicaragua might, however unlikely, have changed hands.

Since 2018, the government has shut down over 5,500 civil society organisations, close to 80 per cent of what existed. Its net has encompassed trade unions, women’s groups, universities, independent media and religious bodies, with the Catholic Church a particular target. The legal profession is the latest victim. In early July, some 2,000 lawyers found their licences to practise revoked overnight, without notice or appeal, effectively leaving many Nicaraguans without legal defence.

The Group of Human Rights Experts on Nicaragua, mandated by the UN Human Rights Council, has concluded that the government has weaponised every arm of the state and its abuses amount to crimes against humanity committed as deliberate policy. It has documented chains of command linking the presidency to local officials, and named 54 officials responsible for the repression.

Repression beyond borders

Persecution has forced over 935,000 people, roughly one in eight Nicaraguans, into exile since mass protests in 2018, which security forces suppressed by killing more than 300 people. But exile offers no safety. A 2025 report by the Group of Human Rights Experts shows the regime runs an extensive transnational intelligence and surveillance network using the army, police, foreign service and informal agents to track critics abroad, monitor their communications and threaten their families back home.

For a growing number, surveillance leads to violence. In June 2025, Roberto Samcam, a retired army major turned prominent critic, was shot dead at his home in Costa Rica by an assassin posing as a delivery driver. He was one of at least four exiled opposition figures killed in Central America since 2022. Many more have survived attempts on their lives.

The regime has also stripped hundreds of critics of their nationality, including 222 political prisoners it expelled to the USA in 2023 and 135 it shipped to Guatemala in 2024, and made changes to the Penal Code to prosecute ‘crimes against the state’ committed abroad.

Aware that international bodies offer a route to accountability, the regime is moving to close it off. Having quit the Organization of American States in 2023, Nicaragua withdrew from the UN Human Rights Council and four other multilateral bodies in 2025. Yet some mechanisms do not need its consent. Two months after the government announced it was quitting, the Human Rights Council renewed the Group of Experts’ mandate for a further two years. An Argentine judge, acting under universal jurisdiction, has issued arrest warrants for Ortega, Murillo and other senior officials. The legal instruments exist, but the will to use them is often missing.

Democratic states have supplied little of that will. The USA does not recognise Ortega’s government, yet in September 2025 the Trump administration terminated Temporary Protected Status for Nicaraguans, asserting that the country was now safe for their return, a claim at odds with UN findings. This left thousands exposed to deportation.

Ortega has meanwhile leaned on autocratic friends, with China now his main source of funding and Russia supplying intelligence and security advice and training.

Long-term pressure needed

Ortega will have watched Venezuela closely. In 2024, Nicolás Maduro allowed the holding of an election he was sure he had won in advance, having stopped the main opposition candidate standing, only to see a little-known substitute become the catalyst for years of pent-up discontent. Scrapping elections spares Ortega that danger, at least in the short term.

Over the long term, pressure for the restoration of democracy will depend on the endurance of Nicaraguan civil society, at home and in exile, and on democratic states being willing to hold the regime to account. Neither can be taken for granted. The movement best able to sustain the fight has been driven abroad, where it also faces persecution, and the government best placed to shelter these exiles is busy sending them back home.

Inés M. Pousadela is CIVICUS Head of Research and Analysis, co-director and writer for CIVICUS Lens and co-author of the State of Civil Society Report. She is also a Professor of Comparative Politics at Universidad ORT Uruguay.

For interviews or more information, please contact research@civicus.org

 

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Children play outside their home at a shelter in the Philippines. Credit: UNICEF/Joshua Estey

By Oritro Karim
UNITED NATIONS, Aug 12 2026 (IPS)

On July 7, the United Nations (UN) Secretary-General Antonio Guterres presented a report from the Special Rapporteur on the sale, sexual exploitation, and sexual abuse of children, Ai Kihara-Hunt, to the General Assembly, underscoring her goals and priorities for the implementation of protection measures for children worldwide.

The report, submitted in coordination with the Human Rights Council, highlights the systemic barriers that leave children increasingly vulnerable to sexual exploitation and abuse, including weak government oversight, limited support and justice services for victims, and worsening protracted crises.

“Given the complexity, hidden and transnational nature of the sale, sexual exploitation and sexual abuse of children, the Special Rapporteur believes that robust child protection systems and effective cooperation within each State and across borders are essential to combat the phenomena,” the report reads. “Addressing the sale, sexual exploitation and sexual abuse of children requires a human rights-based approach grounded in the best interests of the child and informed by the dignity, agency and resilience of children.”

Drawing largely from contributions by UN member states, international agencies, civil society groups, and humanitarian organizations, the report outlines key mechanisms for cooperation, accountability, and the prevention of human rights violations against children. The report incorporates global perspectives from diverse stakeholders and the lived experiences of survivors, prioritizing protection, recovery, rehabilitation, and access to justice through frameworks that are gender-responsive, disability-inclusive, victim-centered, trauma-informed, and fundamentally grounded in children’s rights.

This follows the 61st session of the Human Rights Council on March 10, where former Special Rapporteur Mama Fatima Singhateh warned that emerging digital technologies are revolutionizing how perpetrators commit abuse and rendering online spaces increasingly dangerous for children. Singhateh urged closer cooperation between humanitarian actors, governments, and stakeholders to prevent digital advancements from creating “new pathways” for human rights violations.

Singhateh also issued a child-friendly version of her final report to the Human Rights Council on April 20, emphasizing the importance of accessibility so that children can engage meaningfully in the discussions that affect them most. Moving forward, Kihara-Hunt aims to build upon her predecessors’ work by addressing issues that have not received adequate attention or sustained engagement from the UN. Key priorities include the “complex or rapidly evolving” challenges linked with intersecting global crises and the alarming rise of sexual exploitation across digital contexts.

The Special Rapporteur notes that online spaces allow children to express consent and agreement based on their evolving capacities, which may grow increasingly complex amid the introduction of emerging technologies. The rise of artificial intelligence has been a major concern for humanitarian organizations as these technologies have streamlined the production and dissemination of harmful child material, as well as the collection of unauthorized images and the misuse of personal data.

Additionally, the report highlights how digital technologies—such as social media platforms, messaging applications, and cryptocurrencies—have streamlined recruitment into armed groups and trafficking and exploitation, while simultaneously helping perpetrators evade law enforcement.

“Child sexual exploitation and abuse are driven by a range of factors, including harmful social norms, stigma, gender inequality, power imbalances, poverty, and weaknesses in child protection and support systems,” Afrooz Kaviani Johnson, UNICEF Child Protection Specialist, tells Inter Press Service. “Today, the digital environment is increasingly implicated in these harms. Children face risks such as grooming, coercion, sexual exploitation, and abuse facilitated through digital platforms. Emerging technologies, including generative AI, are also expanding the scale and severity of risks.”

A core pillar of Kihara-Hunt’s mandate is to urge the private sector to adopt stricter safety policies rooted in human rights and children’s privacy—a responsibility that extends across organizations, from employees and volunteers to business partners. The report notes that market incentives and commercialization and profit-driven systems will be monitored in the ways they may or may not be contributing to a harmful environment that facilitates the sexual exploitation of children, particularly online.

“A safety-by-design approach involves assessing and mitigating foreseeable risks that platforms, messaging services, gaming environments or artificial intelligence systems may facilitate the sale of children, child sexual exploitation and abuse, and to actively detect, report and remove child sexual abuse materials,” the report states. “Beyond these responsibilities, the Special Rapporteur intends to examine how business actors can play proactive roles, in collaboration with States and other relevant stakeholders, in prevention, safeguarding, reporting and support for children.”

The report also noted that children residing in areas affected by armed conflict and humanitarian crises face heightened risks of sale and sexual exploitation, leaving them roughly twice as likely to experience rape and sexual assault during childhood compared to the global average. Other related drivers of sexual exploitation include forced displacement, natural disasters, and climate change. In these contexts, humanitarian aid is significantly limited, which often leads to constraints on protection measures and civil society intervention.

“Humanitarian crises such as conflict, displacement, climate-related shocks, and public health emergencies can disrupt the systems that help keep children safe,” said Johnson. “They can increase children’s exposure to risk while reducing access to essential services and support.”

“Poverty and financial hardship can also increase vulnerability, particularly in situations where exploitation involves an exchange of money, goods, or other benefits. Children who are displaced, on the move, living with disabilities, or affected by humanitarian crises often face multiple and overlapping risks.”

Economic instability and inequality also serve as primary drivers of child sexual exploitation. According to the report, children who are “outside the formal protection networks”—such as those experiencing statelessness—frequently are the victims of abuse from adults, peers, and in some instances, even law enforcement officials. Displaced children are similarly vulnerable, often barred from reporting crimes out of fear of detention or deportation. Without official identity documentation to access support services, and frequently separated from family members, stateless and migrant children face reduced adult supervision, which drastically increases vulnerability.

To build on her predecessors’ initiatives, Kihara-Hunt intends to prioritize youth participation and develop a mandate that empowers children. She aims to urge governments, tech companies, and stakeholders to build safer online spaces. Furthermore, Kihara-Hunt is committed to pressing for stronger cooperation between sectors, particularly within public health and education.

“The role of the public health sector in the rehabilitation of child victims and survivors extends beyond recovery and reintegration and includes promoting a shift from a criminal justice response towards one centered on the health and well-being of the child. Meanwhile, the education sector contributes across all stages of prevention, protection and response, as further elaborated on below.”

IPS UN Bureau Report

 

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