A report published Thursday on the situation in Haiti, which is facing intense gang violence, by the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights found that sexual violence there is “severely underreported.”
The report said that according to the U.N. Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), gangs in the Caribbean country have used “sexual violence to spread fear, subjugate and punish the population.”
“Sexual violence remains severely underreported due to community stigma, the salient threat of retaliation by perpetrators, insufficiency of healthcare and psychosocial services for survivors, and lack of trust in the justice system,” the report reads. ‘Even when such incidents are reported, impunity for sexual violence is widespread.”
In a press release, the OHCHR also referred to sexual violence in Haiti as “largely unpunished.”
The report stated that OHCHR registered the deaths of at least 4,451 people in Haiti in 2023 due to gang violence, with 3,801 of them being men, 538 of them being women and 112 of them being children. Between early January and late February of this year, 686 people “not involved in the violent exchanges taking place” were killed, according to the report.
“Tackling insecurity must be a top priority to protect the population and prevent further human suffering. It is equally important to protect institutions essential to the rule of law, which have been attacked to their very core,” U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk said in the press release.
Haiti’s prime minister, Ariel Henry, announced that he will resign from his position earlier this month as gang violence has raged in the country.
“The government that I’m running cannot remain insensitive in front of this situation. There is no sacrifice that is too big for our country,” Henry said in a statement on video, according to The Associated Press. “The government I’m running will remove itself immediately after the installation of the council.”
For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to The Hill.
Twitch is further limiting sexually suggestive content in yet another change to its rules around the subject.
Starting Friday, the streaming platform will no longer allow livestreams focusing on clothed intimate body parts for prolonged periods of time. They include the “buttocks, groin, or breasts,” according to details in its updated community guidelines.
If that sounds specific, it is — Twitch has emerged in recent years as a popular platform for livestreams of everything from video games to ASMR but also one that has had an uneasy relationship with some creators who have embraced mildly sexual content, such as wearing revealing clothes or streaming from hot tubs.
“Our goal, always, is to make Twitch a welcoming place. We regularly assess our rules to ensure they’re clear and effective, recognizing that online behavior can shift over time,” a Twitch spokesperson wrote in an email Wednesday. “Today’s update was meant to clarify what’s allowed on Twitch, while giving our community time to adjust and ask questions before enforcement begins.”
Twitch,which is owned by the e-commerce giant Amazon, has tweaked its policies several times in recent months as it tries to strike the right balance for what sexualized content is permitted.
The company stirred confusion in December when it decided to start allowing artistic and digital depictions of fictionalized nudity, only to roll back the new policy two days after its announcement.
In a company blog post about the abrupt reversal, CEO Dan Clancy wrote that some streamers had responded to the news with content that violated the policy and that users had also expressed concern about the type of content that would be permitted.
“Upon reflection, we have decided that we went too far with this change,” Clancy wrote. “Digital depictions of nudity present a unique challenge — AI can be used to create realistic images, and it can be hard to distinguish between digital art and photography.”
After the rollback, however, a controversial “topless meta” continued to gain traction: Streamers would imply they were nude on camera by using black censor bars and other objects to block their body parts.
Though that workaround was properly labeled under “Sexual Themes” and didn’t technically violate Twitch policies at the time, the trend prompted Twitch to issue another policy update in early January — now prohibiting streamers from suggesting that they might be fully or partly nude and clarifying that female-presenting streamers can show cleavage only so long as it’s clear they are wearing clothing.
Since its launch in 2011, Twitch has become one of the biggest livestreaming platforms in the world. Streamers on the site, known largely for its gaming and esports communities, have also built sizable audiences through activities such as engaging in casual conversation, cooking meals and performing ASMR, or autonomous sensory meridian response, content.
Some sex workers have also used the platform to engage with viewers who might purchase their more explicit content on outside platforms like OnlyFans. (Though those streamers aren’t permitted to link directly to such content, they can link to personal websites that then lead users there.)
But research has shown that female livestreamers are generally more sexualized regardless of whether they inhabit sexual niches. A study published last month in the peer-reviewed journal Humanities and Social Sciences Communications analyzed nearly 2,000 popular video clips collected in 2022 from Twitch’s video game and IRL directories.
It found that women on the platform sexualized themselves more often and with higher intensity than male streamers, as they were more likely to wear revealing clothing, focus the camera on sexualized body parts and pose in ways likely to be interpreted as seductive or explicitly sexual. Women also made up the vast majority of the “ASMR” and “Pools, Hot Tubs, and Beaches” categories, both of which included the highest volume of sexualized streams.
Female Twitch streamers still make up a minority of the platform’s creators, which gives incentives for a degree of self-sexualization to compete with male streamers in a “profoundly masculinized environment,” according to the researchers.
“This generates a hostile male-dominated environment in which hate speech towards the female gender is disseminated, including harassment, negative assessment of their competence, and sexual comments about their bodies,” they wrote in their analysis.
While nudity and sexually explicit behaviors are strictly prohibited, Twitch does grant some leeway to certain types of content as long as they are appropriately classified as having “Sexual Themes,” meaning they won’t be recommended on Twitch’s homepage.
Activities that fall under the requirement include performing erotic dances, wearing BDSM-associated attire without engaging in sexual activity and discussing sexual topics or experiences in a non-educational way.
In recent years, the rise of irregular migration has offered the Gulf Cartel another lucrative opportunity: It is kidnapping migrants for ransom and weaponizing sexual violence as yet another form of extortion.
“They undressed me in front of my husband and started beating me because I told them I didn’t have any money,” she said. “‘Then you’ll pay us with your body,’” the cartel replied, she said. NBC News couldn’t corroborate her testimony, but three other migrants interviewed for this article described almost identical experiences.
Throughout the years, organized crime groups have leveraged the long waiting periods migrants have been subjected to on the Mexican side of the border. The waiting periods are the result of policies such as former President Donald Trump’s Title 42, the pandemic-era law that allowed the government to turn away migrants, including asylum-seekers, at the border, as well as the Remain in Mexico program and, more recently, President Joe Biden’s CBP One App process. All of those policies have pushed migrants to wait in some of Mexico’s most dangerous cities until their immigration appointments are scheduled, which may take months.
Jennifer Harbury, an activist and lawyer who has been advocating for human rights in Latin and Central America for over 40 years, denounced the recent policies.
“These are mothers with tiny children, young men who have refused to become drug smugglers, old people who have been pushed out of their homes,” she said. “They’ve been through hell on Earth, and they’re dying because we [the U.S.] keep pushing them back. We’re killing refugees.”
Custom and Border Protection didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment. According to CBP, the “use of the CBP One™ app to schedule appointments at land ports of entry has increased CBP’s capacity to process migrants more efficiently and orderly while cutting out unscrupulous smugglers who endanger and profit from vulnerable migrants.”
Some migrants disagree.
“Right now, many people are getting on buses and asking [passengers] if they are going to their appointments,” said a young Mexican woman who decided to migrate to the U.S. because of escalating violence from cartel factions operating in her region.
She has seen the way the cartels are systemically exploiting the situation. “Some people say yes and they are taken off the bus, their bags are checked, and they are stripped of all their money. They are also beaten so the captors can send a video to their family members and show that they are truly kidnapped. With these appointments, everything is spiraling out of control.”
Taking matters into their own hands
The politics of abortion in the U.S. is affecting migrants who have been victims of sexual assault on their way to the border, such as the Honduran asylum-seeker who was confronted with the Texas abortion ban.
Weeks after she went through her own self-managed medication abortion, she came across an unexpected opportunity in Texas: She found five doses of misoprostol, one of the abortion pills she once used. She knew she could be penalized for distributing the pills, but she decided to break the state’s law and help other women going through similar situations.
“I have two options: Either I harm my record or I help — I said, ‘I prefer to help, and whatever happens happens.’” She gave her last dose to a recently arrived migrant in Texas who also learned she was pregnant after she entered the U.S. “She told me, ‘I just got here, and I am pregnant. I need the pills.’ I said, ‘OK, I am going to drop them off.’”
In doing so, not only did the Honduran migrant go against the state’s law, but she also risked her own immigration status in a state that is trying to impose criminal penalties on migrants.
Yet she said the urge to help outweighed her fear. It drove her to lend a hand to a group of people trapped in the dangerous overlap of America’s immigration and abortion policies — a gray zone migrants may not fathom as they’re making their way north, toward that so-called American Dream.
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A music producer who filed a lawsuit against Sean “Diddy” Combs last month has now accused actor Cuba Gooding Jr. of sexually harassing and assaulting him, an amended federal complaint filed Monday night shows.
The amended civil complaint was filed in U.S. District Court in Manhattan hours after federal officials searched Combs’ homes. Combs is a subject of a federal investigation, and several people have been interviewed by federal officials in Manhattan in relation to allegations involving sex trafficking, assault, illegal narcotics and firearms, a source familiar with the matter told NBC News.
Representatives for Combs, 54, did not immediately respond to NBC News’ request for comment Monday.
The producer, Rodney “Lil Rod” Jones, filed his original lawsuit against Combs and others in February, alleging that Combs forced him to procure sex workers and pressured him to engage in unwelcomed sex acts with them.
The amended suit alleges that Gooding groped Jones while on Combs’ yacht.
An attorney and representatives for Gooding did not immediately respond to requests for comment late Monday.
Gooding “began touching, groping, and fondling Mr. Jones’ legs, his upper inner thighs near his groin, the small of his back near his buttocks, and his shoulders,” Jones’ the suit states.
Jones “was extremely uncomfortable and proceeded to lean away from Mr. Gooding Jr.,” the lawsuit says. “He rejected his advances and Mr. Gooding Jr. did not stop until Mr. Jones forcibly pushed him away.”
Attorneys for Jones said in the lawsuit that the incident happened on a yacht rented by Combs in the U.S. Virgin Islands in January 2023. It accused Gooding of sexual assault and misconduct.
Gooding has not been charged with any crime.
In a different case, Gooding pleaded guilty in 2022 to a misdemeanor charge that he forcibly kissed a worker at a New York nightclub in 2018.
He completed alcohol and behavior modification counseling, was then allowed to withdraw that plea and then pleaded guilty to a lesser harassment violation, resolving the case with no jail time.
On Monday, federal agents with Homeland Security Investigations executed search warrants at properties belonging to Combs in Los Angeles and Miami, sources told NBC News.
There has been no information connecting Gooding to any of the searches, and it is not clear what the searches entailed.
Combs has been accused of misconduct in civil cases filed by four women. One was quickly settled and three are pending. Combs has denied the allegations in those lawsuits.
“Let me be absolutely clear: I did not do any of the awful things being alleged. I will fight for my name, my family and for the truth,” he said in a December statement.
Jones said in the lawsuit that he worked on Combs’ latest album, “The Love Album: Off the Grid.” The album was released in September 2023 and was nominated for a Grammy.
The suit alleges, in part, that Motown Records, and others, benefited from his work on the album, but that he was not fully compensated.
Monday’s amended complaint filed by attorneys for Jones contains a declaration by former Motown Records CEO Ethiopia Habtemariam who it appears to show her willing to testify about the contract involving “The Love Album.”
A spokesperson for Universal Music Group, which owns Motown Records, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The lawsuit seeks damages, including punitive damages, but does not specify an amount, seeking amounts to be determined at trial.
LOS ANGELES — Sean “Diddy” Combs is a subject of a federal investigation amid a wave of civil lawsuits that have been filed against the rap music mogul since November, a source familiar with the matter told NBC News.
Three women and a man have been interviewed by federal officials in Manhattan and three other interviews are scheduled in relation to allegations of sex trafficking, sexual assault, and the solicitation and distribution of illegal narcotics and firearms, the source familiar with the investigation said.
Four law enforcement sources familiar told NBC News that federal agents with Homeland Security Investigations have executed search warrants at the Los Angeles and Miami properties belonging to Combs. The sources said the warrant is out of the Southern District of New York.
HSI confirmed in a statement that it was also executing “executed law enforcement actions” in New York as part of an ongoing investigation, along with teams in Los Angeles and Miami.
Representatives for Combs, 54, did not immediately respond to NBC News’ request for comment.
News of a federal investigation comes after public scrutiny of Combs’ behavior after his former romantic partner, Cassie, accused him of physically and sexually abusing her for years. She made the allegations in a lawsuit filed in New York under the New York Adult Survivors Act, which offered a one-year window for adult victims of sexual assault to come forward with civil claims regardless of statute of limitations.
Cassie, whose full name is Casandra Ventura, settled with Combs on Nov. 17, the day after it was filed on terms that have not been disclosed.
Since then, three other women have come forward with lawsuits in the Southern District of New York alleging that they were sexually assaulted by Combs. Two of the women alleged they were teenagers at the time of the assaults.
Combs has denied each of the sexual assault allegations, calling them “sickening.”
A producer who worked for Combs between September 2022 and November 2023 also filed a lawsuit in February, alleging that Combs sexually harassed, drugged and threatened him more than a year. The former employee, Rodney “Lil Rod” Jones, also alleged that he had video and audio evidence of Combs, his staff and others “engaging in serious illegal activity.”
Shawn Holley, an attorney for Combs, denied Jones’ allegations and said that Combs’ team has “overwhelming, indisputable proof that his claims are complete lies.”
Combs had a number of legal issues going back before the recent lawsuits, which is not necessarily surprising for a high-profile figure who has been in the public eye for decades. The mogul has rarely faced criminal charges.
In 1999, Combs pleaded guilty to assaulting a record executive and was ordered to one day of anger management. That same year, Combs was accused of criminal possession of a weapon after a shooting at a New York nightclub.
Witnesses told law enforcement they saw Combs with a firearm at the club, but it was rapper Shyne, real name Moses Barrow, who witnesses said fired into the crowd. Combs was pulled over by police in a vehicle with then-girlfriend, Jennifer Lopez, with a gun in the car. Combs was acquitted of weapons and bribery charges while Shyne was found guilty of the club shooting at trial.
Since Cassie’s suit was filed and others have come forward accusing Combs of assault, Combs has been the center of scrutiny. He stepped down from his position as chairman of media network Revolt and Hulu pulled back from a planned reality series centered on his family.
Diana Dasrath and Andrew Blankstein reported from Los Angeles, Doha Madani and Jonathan Dienst reported from New York
This is breaking news, please check back for updates.
In 2016, as the stress of wedding planning bore down on Joseph Sinclair, he got into an argument with his parents and told them something that sent his family into a tailspin: As a child, he said, he was sexually abused by a neighbor they had hired to babysit him.
The revelation wreaked havoc on the family, which sought years of therapy to heal. But now they say they are being forced to relive the trauma.
Maureen Sartain, the babysitter Sinclair has accused of abusing him, has filed a lawsuit against Sinclair’s mother, saying in court documents that Marie Sinclair intentionally caused her emotional distress by telling others about the alleged abuse. The case is scheduled to go to trial next month in New York.
“It keeps me up at night,” Marie Sinclair said of the thought of her son being called to testify in the trial. “Because of this ridiculous lawsuit, he’s being forced to confront some painful memories. It is so unfair.”
Sartain declined a request for an interview through her attorney, Scott Mishkin, who referred NBC News to her deposition from last year. In it, Sartain denied abusing Joseph Sinclair. She is not suing for defamation and some legal experts have expressed surprise that the case is scheduled to go to trial.
“What she’s trying to do is get around the truth test by reframing the case,” said Richard Epstein, a professor at New York University School of Law. “It’s an effort to repackage a defamation case as an emotional distress case to avoid the truth test.”
Unlike in a suit for emotional distress, the plaintiff in a defamation case has to prove that the statement in question was false.
Sartain’s attorney did not return a request for comment about the nature of the suit.
The Sinclair family avoided Sartain for years after they learned of the alleged abuse, Marie Sinclair said.
“Me and my husband, Jimmy, wanted to kill her,” she said of the babysitter, who lived on the same Smithtown street as the couple until they moved last year. But a therapist told them it wouldn’t be good for Joseph Sinclair’s therapy if they confronted her. “He needed to heal. He needed to get over the guilt and the shame of it, and confronting her would only harm him,” Marie Sinclair said the therapist told them.
She followed that advice for three years. Then, on Nov. 2, 2020, she changed course.
“I see you are friends with Maureen Grennan Sartain on Facebook,” she wrote in direct messages sent to at least a dozen people on the social network, according to the lawsuit, a transcript of her deposition and screenshots of messages Sinclair provided to NBC News. “I want you to know she is a pedophile and raped my child when he was 8 years old. She has never been prosecuted for this crime. If anything I can warn you, your family and your children.”
Marie Sinclair
She also sent the message to Sartain, adding: “I sent this to your friends. I hope someday you pay for your sick crimes.”
The messages, which were sent to Sartain’s friends and family and to the parents of children she may have cared for, are at the center of a lawsuit Sartain filed against Sinclair alleging intentional infliction of emotional distress.
Sartain’s attorney says in the lawsuit that she was “devastated to see that she was being accused of such conduct and was even more mortified over the fact that this false allegation was being sent to her friends and family.”
The suit accuses Sinclair of having launched a “deliberate and malicious campaign of harassment” that was “intentional, reckless, extreme and outrageous.”
But for the Sinclairs, who believe Sartain to be an abuser, the pending jury trial has landed like a punch, adding insult to injuries they had worked to heal.
Joseph Sinclair, 28, was between the ages of 8 and about 13 when the alleged abuse occurred, he said in an interview with NBC News.
“It has affected every relationship I’ve had, in terms of trust, interpersonal communication,” he said. “I was manipulated, and it makes me feel terrible about myself. That I allowed it, or that I didn’t say anything.”
Not long after they learned about the alleged abuse, the Sinclairs also sought advice from the Suffolk County district attorney’s office in July 2017. In a copy of an email sent to the office that was shared with NBC News, they asked whether Sartain could be prosecuted and what the process would involve.
“How can we prevent her from abusing other children in her care,” the email concluded.
The Sinclairs said they never received a response. Marie Sinclair said she had also called the district attorney’s office with the same inquiry and was told that Joseph Sinclair could press charges but that it would be very difficult to win a criminal case against Sartain because the Sinclairs did not have footage or any other physical evidence of the alleged abuse.
A spokesperson for the district attorney’s office said in a statement: “We cannot comment on matters from the prior administration as those in leadership from that time period are no longer employed here.” The spokesperson said the office is willing to speak with the Sinclairs and provided a name and phone number for an investigator. The spokesperson declined to comment further, saying, “sexual assault victims cannot be outed without their consent.”
Joseph Sinclair said he never pursued criminal or civil action against Sartain because his focus has been on trying to heal.
“During my years of therapy, eventually, one of our goals was to come to that decision — whether or not I wanted to,” he said.
But now he plans to testify on his mother’s behalf, he said. Jury selection is scheduled to begin April 22 on Long Island.
“I want her to be held accountable,” he said of Sartain. “And I want her to be seen as the terrible person she is.”
In a deposition taken last year, Sartain testified that she babysat for a handful of other families from approximately 1990 to 2002. After Marie Sinclair told people about the alleged abuse, Sartain testified that she started having panic attacks every couple of days, would sometimes have trouble sleeping, had worsening jaw pain, and felt stressed.
“I don’t like going out,” she said, according to a transcript of the deposition. “I feel like neighbors have shunned me. People on Facebook have unfriended me.”
At Marie Sinclair’s deposition, Sartain’s attorney repeatedly asked Sinclair what her intention was in sending the messages and whether she cared at all about how they would affect Sartain. Sinclair responded that she wanted to warn people about who she believed Sartain to be and was concerned for any other potential victims.
“If she was upset by it, that’s on her,” Sinclair responded, according to a transcript of the deposition. “I was worried about the families that I was sending it to.”
About two weeks after she sent the messages, Sinclair received a cease-and-desist letter from Sartain’s attorney demanding, among other things, that she “immediately publish an apology for her false statements.” The lawsuit was filed three months later, in February 2021.
It is not uncommon, especially in the wake of the #MeToo movement, for people who come forward to allege sexual assault and harassment to be sued for defamation by their alleged perpetrators. But Sartain’s case differs from many of those in that, while she denies the allegations, she is not suing for defamation nor is she suing the person whom she is alleged to have abused.
Benjamin Zipursky, a professor at Fordham Law School in New York, described this approach as a “backdoor maneuver.”
“Sometimes, people try to take a kind of alternative lawsuit for a variety of reasons,” Zipursky said. “One of the most common reasons is they believe defamation law has been crafted by the courts, including the Supreme Court over the last many decades, to be very protective of speakers and to make it very hard for plaintiffs who have been defamed to prevail.”
Some attorneys who believe there may be too many defenses available to defendants for their client to win may shift to another category, Zipursky said, adding that one of the most common would be intentional infliction of emotional distress.
Zipursky, who specializes in tort law and defamation law, said the jury will have to decide whether Marie Sinclair’s conduct was extreme and outrageous.
“If this is what her boy told her had happened to him, then I don’t think that they’re going to think it was outrageous for her to say so,” he said.
“Sex and the City” actor Chris Noth addressed the sexual assault allegations against him in his first interview since several women came forward with accusations more than a year ago.
Noth told USA Today in an article published on Monday his only offense was cheating on his wife, Tara Wilson.
“I strayed on my wife, and it’s devastating to her and not a very pretty picture,” he said. “What it isn’t is a crime.”
At least four women came forward with sexual assault allegations against Noth in December 2021 after the premiere of the “Sex and the City” reboot series, “And Just Like That…” Three of the women were anonymous, and NBC News was not able to independently corroborate or identify any of the three women and their allegations. Noth has not been criminally charged. NBC News has also reached out to Noth for further comment.
Noth denied the accusations at the time, and told USA Today he stood by his initial statement that said the encounters were consensual, and that adultery was his worst offense.
“You give yourself the same excuses that many men do; it’s just a little side dance, and it’s fun,” Noth said. “You’re not hurting anybody. No one’s going to know about this, you know, and sex is just enjoyable. And suddenly, a lot of people want to have sex with you. It’s like, ‘Well, I’m not going to get this chance again.’”
A week before the allegations became public, the premiere of “And Just Like That…” saw Noth’s character, Mr. Big, suddenly die from a heart attack. Noth’s appearance in the finale episode was cut, and he was dropped from a Peloton ad and fired from the CBS show “The Equalizer.” He also lost a $12 million acquisition deal for his tequila brand, Ambhar.
More than a year after the allegations came out, Noth told USA Today he knows lawsuits against him still remain a possibility, which he called “a money train for a lot of people.”
Gloria Allred, the lawyer representing some of the women, declined to comment to USA Today.
Sarah Jessica Parker, Kristin Davis and Cynthia Nixon, the stars of “And Just Like That…”, released a joint statement in December 2021 supporting the women who had come forward.
“We are deeply saddened to hear the allegations against Chris Noth. We support the women who have come forward and shared their painful experiences,” they said. “We know it must be a very difficult thing to do and we commend them for it.”
USA Today reported Noth initially didn’t want to speak beyond his December 2021 statement, but he spoke of the allegations’ effects.
“There’s nothing I can say to change anyone’s mind when you have that kind of a tidal wave,” he said. “It sounds defensive. I’m not.
“There’s no criminal court. There’s no criminal trial. There’s nothing for me to get on the stand about and get my story out, get witnesses. And there’s even more absurd add-ons that are completely ridiculous, that have absolutely no basis in fact. And I don’t like talking about it because as soon as I do, you’ll get the Daily Mail or someone grabbing a part of it and doing it, and I don’t want my kids seeing that.”
He added he has spoken to his 15-year-old son about what happened, but his 3-year-old son is too young to understand.
“I’m not going to lay down and just say it’s over,” he told USA Today. “It’s a salacious story, but it’s just not a true one. And I can’t just say ‘Well, OK, that’s it for me’ because of that. I’m an actor. I have other things that I want to do creatively. And I have children to support. I can’t just rest on my laurels. So yeah, I have enough to let a year drift, but I don’t know how to gauge or judge getting back into the club, the business, because corporations are frightened.”
Noth said he thinks “people are afraid of all this.”
“Fear is the overriding operative word when it comes to whether they believe it or not. … I have to just continue on,” he said. “It’s rough, because people are scared, and their fear leads them. And I have to just persevere because I still have a creative life.”
UNITED NATIONS (AP) — Eritrean refugees and asylum-seekers report that during compulsory national service they experienced torture, inhumane or degrading treatment, sexual and gender-based violence, forced labor and abusive conditions, a U.N. independent investigator on human rights said in a report circulated Monday.
Mohamed Babiker said Eritrea has a policy of indefinite national service, including a civil service component and a military service component. He said it has ignored numerous calls from human rights bodies to ensure legal limits for the duration of such service and to protect the human rights of all participants.
While Eritrea maintains its national service program is “unfairly judged,” Babiker said he continues to receive “numerous and credible reports of grave human rights violation in the context of forced national/military service.”
Conscientious objection is not allowed in Eritrea, he said, “and deserters and draft evaders continued to be subjected to arbitrary detention in highly punitive conditions, enforced disappearance and torture.”
Human rights groups describe Eritrea as one of the world’s most repressive countries. Since winning independence from Ethiopia three decades ago, the small Horn of Africa nation has been led by President Isaias Afwerki, who has never held an election.
Babiker said Afwerki has refused to implement the 1997 constitution and governs the country without the rule of law and without any division of powers, checks or balances or constraints on his power.
The special investigator said his interviews with Eritrean asylum-seekers and refugees point to indefinite national service as the main driver of people leaving Eritrea.
“The national service program, which was ostensibly put in place for the furtherance of national development, is in practice undermining development by forcing young persons to leave the country,” Babiker said in the report to the U.N. General Assembly covering the 12-month period through April 24.
The report was circulated days after an Eritrea-themed cultural festival in a suburb of Stockholm turned violent when about a thousand anti-Eritrean government protesters stormed the event, and at least 52 people were injured, Swedish media reported. Sweden is home to tens of thousands of people with Eritrean roots.
Eritrea has been accused of widespread human rights violations in neighboring Ethiopia’s northern Tigray region.
Afwerki triggered a war by sending his troops across the border to aid Ethiopian forces in November 2020 after months of political tensions between Ethiopia’s national administration and Tigray’s leaders, who once dominated the government. Fighting ended last November, with a death toll estimated in the hundreds of thousands.
Last year, a U.N. commission of inquiry said it found evidence of war crimes and crimes against humanity committed by Ethiopian government troops, Tigray fighters and Eritrea’s military. In March, the U.S. said it determined that all sides in the brutal conflict committed war crimes and crimes against humanity.
Between mid- and late 2022, Babiker said, he identified an upsurge in forced recruitment of Eritreans “as well as the use of increasingly coercive practices to mobilize the population and force individuals to participate in military action in Ethiopia.”
“Eritrean conscripts continued to be forced to participate in national/military service under threat of severe punishment to themselves and their families,” he said.
Babiker said witnesses reported “the government had resorted to evicting families from their homes, including children, pregnant women and older persons, locking in their belongings, confiscating their livestock and even detaining family members.” This left families destitute, he said.
He said he received information that in the second week of August 2022, Eritrean soldiers targeted families of draft evaders in seven villages. The relatives reportedly “were tortured, evicted from their homes and had their farming equipment, livestock, grain and vegetables confiscated.”
UNITED NATIONS (AP) — Eritrean refugees and asylum-seekers report that during compulsory national service they experienced torture, inhumane or degrading treatment, sexual and gender-based violence, forced labor and abusive conditions, a U.N. independent investigator on human rights said in a report circulated Monday.
Mohamed Babiker said Eritrea has a policy of indefinite national service, including a civil service component and a military service component. He said it has ignored numerous calls from human rights bodies to ensure legal limits for the duration of such service and to protect the human rights of all participants.
While Eritrea maintains its national service program is “unfairly judged,” Babiker said he continues to receive “numerous and credible reports of grave human rights violation in the context of forced national/military service.”
Conscientious objection is not allowed in Eritrea, he said, “and deserters and draft evaders continued to be subjected to arbitrary detention in highly punitive conditions, enforced disappearance and torture.”
Human rights groups describe Eritrea as one of the world’s most repressive countries. Since winning independence from Ethiopia three decades ago, the small Horn of Africa nation has been led by President Isaias Afwerki, who has never held an election.
Babiker said Afwerki has refused to implement the 1997 constitution and governs the country without the rule of law and without any division of powers, checks or balances or constraints on his power.
The special investigator said his interviews with Eritrean asylum-seekers and refugees point to indefinite national service as the main driver of people leaving Eritrea.
“The national service program, which was ostensibly put in place for the furtherance of national development, is in practice undermining development by forcing young persons to leave the country,” Babiker said in the report to the U.N. General Assembly covering the 12-month period through April 24.
The report was circulated days after an Eritrea-themed cultural festival in a suburb of Stockholm turned violent when about a thousand anti-Eritrean government protesters stormed the event, and at least 52 people were injured, Swedish media reported. Sweden is home to tens of thousands of people with Eritrean roots.
Eritrea has been accused of widespread human rights violations in neighboring Ethiopia’s northern Tigray region.
Afwerki triggered a war by sending his troops across the border to aid Ethiopian forces in November 2020 after months of political tensions between Ethiopia’s national administration and Tigray’s leaders, who once dominated the government. Fighting ended last November, with a death toll estimated in the hundreds of thousands.
Last year, a U.N. commission of inquiry said it found evidence of war crimes and crimes against humanity committed by Ethiopian government troops, Tigray fighters and Eritrea’s military. In March, the U.S. said it determined that all sides in the brutal conflict committed war crimes and crimes against humanity.
Between mid- and late 2022, Babiker said, he identified an upsurge in forced recruitment of Eritreans “as well as the use of increasingly coercive practices to mobilize the population and force individuals to participate in military action in Ethiopia.”
“Eritrean conscripts continued to be forced to participate in national/military service under threat of severe punishment to themselves and their families,” he said.
Babiker said witnesses reported “the government had resorted to evicting families from their homes, including children, pregnant women and older persons, locking in their belongings, confiscating their livestock and even detaining family members.” This left families destitute, he said.
He said he received information that in the second week of August 2022, Eritrean soldiers targeted families of draft evaders in seven villages. The relatives reportedly “were tortured, evicted from their homes and had their farming equipment, livestock, grain and vegetables confiscated.”
A United Nations working group has voiced its support for what it says are “several hundred” sexual assault victims of late Japanese boy band producer Johnny Kitagawa, urging the Japanese government to deliver them justice.
Background: Kitagawa, a U.S.-born Japanese talent manager, was credited for launching the careers of some of Japan’s biggest male acts, including SMAP, KAT-TUN and Arashi.
Allegations of his sexually abusive behavior toward his talents have been around for decades, but they were largely ignored by Japanese mainstream media. Earlier this year, those claims saw a revival in global headlines after a BBC documentary presented them in detail. One alleged victim who came forward later is former J-pop idol Kauan Okamoto, who claimed that Kitagawa had sexually abused him at least 15 times over a course of four years beginning in 2012 at age 15.
What the U.N. is saying: The U.N. Working Group on Business and Human Rights first announced its plans to investigate the sexual abuse claims against Kitagawa last month. They arrived in Japan on July 24 and have since met government officials, companies, trade unions and human rights advocates.
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On Friday, the group’s chair, Damilola Olawuyi, told reporters that Kitagawa’s alleged victims may total several hundred, as per the Associated Press. Meanwhile, group member Pichamon Yeophantong urged the Japanese government to do more, calling for “transparent investigations of perpetrators” and “effective remedies” in the form of an apology or financial compensation for the victims.
What’s next: The working group is expected to present their full report to the U.N. Human Rights Council next June. While the head of Johnny & Associates — Kitagawa’s founded agency — has apologized in May, it remains to be seen whether the late producer’s alleged victims will find justice.
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