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Aug 14 2026 (IPS) -  :
CIVICUS discusses the challenges posed by Paraguay’s ‘anti-NGO law’ with Hugo González, executive director of the Paraguayan Network of LGBTQ+ Artists (REPAR+), a civil society organisation (CSO) that promotes the rights of LGBTQI+ people, which has joined the constitutional challenge against this law.
Hugo González
What are the problems with Law 7363?
The law was enacted in November 2024, and its regulations came into force in October 2025. It applies to CSOs that receive or manage private or public funds from national or international sources and use those funds to influence public policy or state activities. The regulatory decree defines influence broadly, including reports, press releases and other forms of public expression.
The law establishes a public register administered by the Ministry of Economy and Finance and requires balance sheets, minutes, supporting documents and annual reports on programmes, beneficiaries, professionals, staff and affiliated entities. It also prohibits reference to donor confidentiality to circumvent these controls and provides for sanctions ranging from a formal warning to suspension and deregistration.
Civil society doesn’t oppose transparency. We were already complying with civil, labour, tax and anti-money laundering obligations, so this law was unnecessary. We call it the ‘big stick law’ because it duplicates controls, uses broad definitions and turns public advocacy into a risk factor that triggers extraordinary scrutiny for punitive purposes.
In what political context was the law passed?
The bill was passed thanks to the majority held by the ruling Colorado Party. The process moved forward against a backdrop of stigmatisation of CSOs, human rights activists and journalists, and coincided with the work of a congressional committee that framed CSO funding within a narrative centred on money laundering.
The law also reflected the convergence between parts of the ruling coalition and conservative religious networks. Among its main proponents were legislators such as Gustavo Leite and Lizarella Valiente, who have also participated in activities and initiatives linked to evangelical organisations. While this doesn’t prove that these organisations drafted or funded the law, it does highlight an asymmetry in access and scrutiny between groups that influence public policy.
The law treats different groups that influence the same policies very differently. It imposes extensive controls on CSOs but expressly exempts churches and religious groups.
What impact is the new law having?
The impact began even before the first sanctions were imposed. Ever since the Ministry of Economy and Finance launched the registration portal, CSOs have had to devote time, money and staff to complying with the new accounting, administrative and legal requirements. For small organisations or those run by volunteers, this means that a large proportion of their resources is no longer being channelled into activities, assistance, research or support services.
Uncertainty is also a factor. Although sanctions are not yet being applied on a large scale, the law is having a deterrent effect. Donors, organisations and supporters fear the consequences of getting involved or advocating for causes.
The obligation to provide detailed information on beneficiaries and supporters poses privacy risks, particularly in small communities and among vulnerable groups. The safety of these people depends on who has access to the information, for what purpose and with what effective safeguards.
What obstacles do LGBTQI+ organisations face, and how does the new law exacerbate them?
In Paraguay, gender and diversity organisations operate in a context of structural discrimination, characterised by hate speech, exclusion from education and the labour market, barriers to accessing healthcare and difficulties in reporting violence. Added to this is the lack of a comprehensive anti-discrimination law, legal recognition for same-sex couples and accessible administrative procedures for the recognition of gender identity. All this leaves LGBTQI+ people in a particularly vulnerable situation.
Law 7363 exacerbates these difficulties, as it imposes broad and unclear requirements on CSOs that defend these rights. REPAR+’s artistic activities can be regarded as advocacy, culture and support all at once. The vagueness of the law, combined with discretionary powers and the threat of suspension, makes it impossible to predict how these activities will be classified, and could stifle critical voices before any sanction is imposed.
How has civil society mobilised to challenge the law at the Supreme Court?
The response has combined dialogue, international appeals, litigation and technical analysis. Since December, CSOs working on community development, culture, the environment and human rights, as well as rural communities, have filed constitutional challenges against the law and its implementing decree. REPAR+ has joined the effort because we believe freedoms of association and expression are essential for organisations that support LGBTQI+ people, denounce discrimination and engage in public policy.
We hope that the Constitutional Chamber of the Supreme Court will examine these challenges independently and urgently, in the light of the Constitution, the American Convention on Human Rights and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. A favourable ruling would directly protect the organisations bringing the challenges and establish an important precedent. We don’t seek to be exempt from accountability. We seek to prevent a regulatory process from becoming a form of political surveillance, exposing vulnerable people or serving as punishment for dissent.
What action is needed in and outside Paraguay to reverse these restrictions?
Within Paraguay, the court must rule urgently and prevent irreparable harm while it considers the merits of the case. However, a lasting solution requires Congress and the executive to repeal or comprehensively modify the law, through a pluralistic consultation process. Any regulation should be precise, avoid duplicate registrations and protect beneficiaries, donors, victims and workers. Intrusive requests should be subject to independent scrutiny and sanctions should be limited to what is strictly necessary and proportionate. These criteria should apply equally to anyone who manages public funds or influences policy, including religious organisations.
The international community could continue to monitor the situation at the United Nations, particularly through the Human Rights Council Universal Periodic Review process, and at the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights. It can also take action through embassies and cooperation agencies. Donors should offer flexible support to cover accounting, legal, security and technological costs, rather than withdrawing out of fear of the new regime.
Paraguay also needs a comprehensive anti-discrimination law, effective recognition of gender identity and protection for human rights defenders and journalists.
We are not asking for external guardianship or privileges. We are calling for democratic solidarity to preserve a space where people can organise, question and propose ideas. Transparency should strengthen democracy, not expose vulnerable people or turn criticism of those in power into a cause for suspicion.
CIVICUS interviews a wide range of civil society activists, experts and leaders to gather diverse perspectives on civil society action and current issues for publication on its CIVICUS Lens platform. The views expressed in interviews are the interviewees’ and do not necessarily reflect those of CIVICUS. Publication does not imply endorsement of interviewees or the organisations they represent.
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Paraguay: arbitrary detention of land rights defenders CIVICUS Monitor 24.Apr.2026
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Paraguay: ‘The new law’s purpose is to increase government control over civil society’ CIVICUS Lens | Interview with Marta Ferrara and Olga Caballero 25.Oct.2024
UNITED NATIONS, Aug 14 2026 (IPS) - Pakistan, one of few South Asian countries to oscillate between democratic governments and authoritarian regimes, is cracking down on journalists, including foreign correspondents covering the political situation in the world’s fifth most populous nation, with an estimated population of over 250 million people and ranking behind India, China, the United States, and Indonesia.
According to one report, Pakistan is technically under a nominal civilian coalition government led by Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, but political analysts and experts describe the actual state as being under “constitutional militarism” or deep military dominance, with the military establishment holding sweeping authority
The government’s crackdown of journalists has triggered criticisms from the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), Human Rights Watch, Reporters Without Borders and the Pakistan Federal Union of Journalists.
Beh Lih Yih, CPJ’s Asia-Pacific regional director told Inter Press Service (IPS): Pakistan is tarnishing its own international reputation by restricting journalists from reporting from large parts of the country.
“The latest attempt to censor media coverage highlights the deteriorating situation of press freedom in the country, which remains one of the most dangerous places for journalists, with high numbers of media killings and enforced disappearances”.
“Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif’s government must withdraw the restrictive measures and immediately stop targeting journalists, whether through detention or questioning. Pakistan must uphold its constitutional and international obligations to protect press freedom if it wants to be taken seriously as a democracy.”
According to the New York Times August 10, the government has imposed new restrictions that require all journalists working for foreign news media to seek permission to travel outside Pakistan’s three major cities.
The rules come after a surge of news media, covering elections in the Pakistan-administered part of Kashmir, a disputed region where protesters have been campaigning since early June for more political autonomy.
The Times said reporters in Pakistan have in recent years faced increased censorship and financial pressure, including frozen bank accounts and the suspension of government advertising , forced removal, arbitrary arrests and imprisonment, according to journalists and human rights groups.
In August 2026, UNESCO did not issue a specific statement or direct criticism regarding Pakistan’s latest media restrictions. Instead, a major pushback against Pakistan’s newly enacted Foreign Media Facilitation Guidelines 2026 came from press freedom organizations like the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP), and Amnesty International.
Meanwhile, the New York based Committee to Protect Journalists has called on Pakistani authorities to withdraw draconian new guidelines requiring journalists working for international media outlets to obtain authorization before reporting outside Islamabad, Karachi, or Lahore, in a move likely to censor coverage of unrest in Pakistan-administered Kashmir.
The guidelines, reviewed by CPJ, require international and Pakistani journalists who contribute to foreign media organizations, including social media and web-based platforms, to obtain a no-objection certificate (NOC) from the information ministry for “official assignments, especially for work outside Islamabad, Lahore and Karachi.”
“The Foreign Media Facilitation Guidelines open the door for Pakistani authorities to further restrict international media coverage, prevent journalists from reporting freely outside Pakistan’s three main cities, and risk exposing them to administrative retaliation,” said CPJ Afghanistan and Pakistan Representative Waliullah Rahmani. “These guidelines mark yet another appalling blow to press freedom in Pakistan, where journalists are already facing an intense crackdown, particularly those reporting on unrest in Pakistan-administered Kashmir.”
The five-page guidelines were introduced days after the government criticized international reporting on elections and protests in Kashmir and accused Al Jazeera of engaging in “yellow journalism,” a term for sensational reporting. Access to Al Jazeera’s website has been restricted.
Authorities can suspend or revoke journalists’ accreditation or media outlets’ for “acts against the ideology, sovereignty, security or public order of Pakistan,” the guidelines say.
Authorities have banned coverage of protests demanding electoral reform in Kashmir, after international outlets reported on police brutality during clashes with demonstrators, and suspended mobile and internet services. International media say that at least 40 people died ahead of the vote, which began on July 27, according to CPJ.
CPJ said the information ministry did not respond to emailed request for comment.
IPS UN Bureau Report
NAIROBI, Aug 13 2026 (IPS) - Women’s rights advocates, judges and lawyers have launched a coordinated campaign to reform family laws that discriminate against women and girls in Africa.
While the past decade has brought important legal advances in some countries, progress has also been marked by stagnation and backsliding. Increasingly, influential and often well-resourced and highly coordinated anti-rights actors are promoting regressive conservative ideologies that seek to repeal existing legal protections and obstruct reforms that would strengthen rights for women and girls.
Family law governs some of the most consequential aspects of daily life, including marriage, divorce, child custody, inheritance and property rights. Although national constitutions and regional human rights treaties guarantee many protections for women and girls, those guarantees are often undermined by discriminatory legislation, conflicting customary and statutory laws, and weak implementation.
Deborah Nyokabi, associate manager for economic justice and family law at Equality Now, attends the Africa Family Law Network conference in Nairobi, Kenya. Credit: Chemtai Kirui/IPS
Rights advocates warn that family law has become a key target for coordinated anti-rights campaigns that promote restrictive interpretations of family, gender roles and “traditional values”, because shaping who has rights within the family sets the framework for whose rights are ultimately recognised and protected across society.
“They understand that if you control the family, you control society,” said Irene Mbengue, senior legal officer in the office of the African Commission’s special rapporteur on the rights of women in Africa, in remarks delivered on behalf of Commissioner Janet Ramatoulie Sallah-Njie at the inaugural Africa Family Law Network conference, held in Nairobi, Kenya, from August 4 to 6, 2026.
“If you define who counts as family, who has rights within the family, and who gets to make decisions in the family, you shift the entire social order.”
Anna Mutavati, UN Women regional director for East and Southern Africa, called for stronger regional coordination to counter growing anti-rights movements during the Africa Family Law Network conference. Credit: Chemtai Kirui/IPS
That struggle is playing out in Uganda, where rights advocates say proposed changes to marriage law could leave many divorced women with little claim to the assets built up over years spent raising children, running households and supporting their families.
Jackie Bless Pinyoloya, Strategic Initiative for Women in the Horn of Africa (SIHA) Uganda country coordinator, explained that the bill does not guarantee equal division of assets acquired during marriage and leaves women to prove the value of unpaid care work when claiming their share.
Chikwangu Katana, a village elder from Digirikani village in Kilifi County, Kenya, says legal reforms are more likely to succeed when communities understand why long-standing customary practices are changing. Credit: Chemtai Kirui/IPS
“At the point of divorce, a woman is told she only leaves with what she financially contributed… But who counts the years she spent caring for the family?” she said.
Pinyoloya said weak enforcement of existing protections also left women vulnerable, with domestic violence cases often being resolved informally by families or community leaders rather than through courts, while low penalties failed to deter perpetrators.
Equality Now’s 2024 regional study on African family laws in 20 African countries found that this tension over marital assets extends beyond Uganda. In countries including Kenya, Nigeria and Tanzania, judicial insistence on proving direct financial contribution routinely penalises homemakers, while courts struggle to place economic value on unpaid care work.
Dr Robert Eno, registrar of the African Court on Human and Peoples’ Rights, speaks during the Africa Family Law Network Conference. Credit: AFLN/IPS
The study also found that many countries retain unequal inheritance and property laws, permit child marriage through legal exceptions, do not criminalise marital rape, and continue to recognise customary and religious laws that discriminate against women and girls.
Rehema Namukose, senior regional programme officer for sub-Saharan Africa at Musawah, a global movement for equality and justice in Muslim family laws, highlighted how phrases such as “family values” often raised questions about whose interests and definitions they represented.
“When they throw around these words, you have to also ask yourself, what is the measure of what family is? How are they defining words like family? Values?” she said.
Rehema Namukose, senior regional programme officer for sub-Saharan Africa at Musawah, says competing definitions of “family values” are increasingly shaping debates over family law reform across Africa. Credit: Chemtai Kirui/IPS
For rights advocates, the argument is not only over individual laws but also over who gets to define the family those laws are meant to protect.
“Family values mean that the only type of family anti-rights actors believe should exist is a heteronormative, nuclear, patriarchal family consisting of a man, a woman and children,” remarked Deborah Nyokabi, Associate Manager for Economic Justice and Family Law at Equality Now.
Nyokabi added that those arguments were being used to justify restrictions on women’s reproductive autonomy, divorce, inheritance and property rights, while excluding sexual minorities from legal recognition.
Jackie Bless Pinyoloya, Uganda country coordinator at the Strategic Initiative for Women in the Horn of Africa (SIHA), says proposed changes to Uganda’s marriage law could weaken women’s rights to marital property after divorce. Credit: Chemtai Kirui/IPS
Those speaking at the Africa Family Law Network’s conference made clear that defending existing legal gains will require stronger regional coordination, strategic litigation and sustained advocacy.
Anna Mutavati, Regional Director, UN Women, East and Southern Africa, spoke about taking the initiative to set the agenda, explaining, “We should not be playing catch-up, nor should we be playing defence.”
Mutavati urged advocates to coordinate across countries to counter increasingly organised anti-rights movements, and she highlighted the need to “…keep pushing for more rights and expansion of rights rather than just safeguarding what we have,” as defending past legal gains is no longer enough. The greater challenge now, she added, was ensuring that legal protections reached the women they were intended to protect.
Dr Robert Eno, registrar of the African Court on Human and Peoples’ Rights, described how many of Africa’s strongest legal protections for women and children had yet to translate into everyday life, with constitutional guarantees and regional treaties often failing to change what happens inside families.
“Important reforms exist in constitutional provisions, statutes and regional commitments,” Eno said. “Yet, in many communities, the distance between law and lived reality remains significant.”
He pointed to the African Court’s landmark judgment against Mali, which rejected the government’s argument that customary or religious law could override its obligations under the Maputo Protocol. The ruling affirmed that marriage requires the free consent of both spouses and that equality within the family cannot be separated from equality before the law.
Members of the Africa Family Law Network gather during the inaugural conference in Nairobi, Kenya, on August 4, 2026. Credit: Chemtai Kirui/IPS
But court judgments alone could not dismantle entrenched discrimination, Lady Justice Mumbi Ngugi, a judge of Kenya’s Court of Appeal, told IPS News.
“The law has advanced considerably. Jurisprudence is pro-women’s rights and pro-children’s rights. Implementation is a problem,” she stated.
Many women, particularly in rural communities, either did not know those rights existed or could not afford to enforce them, she said, adding that constitutional guarantees meant little if women could not access the courts or exercise the rights they already had.
Chikwangu Katana, a village elder from Digirikani sub-location in Kenya’s Kilifi County, said many families continued to resolve family disputes through customary systems.
“People have to understand why things are changing. If they don’t understand, they won’t accept it,” he said.
Nyokabi advised that translating legal protections into everyday life would require governments and civil society to work with religious and traditional leaders while strengthening regional networks, such as the Africa Family Law Network, which enables campaigners to share legal strategies and advocate for more equal family laws that are compatible with African societies.
One such effort is already under way through the East African Law Society’s Family Law Committee. Lawyers from eight countries are documenting common legal challenges, from cross-border child custody disputes and adoption to assisted reproductive technologies, mediation and arbitration, with the aim of developing recommendations for law reform agencies across the region.
Patricia Mundia, who chairs the committee, said the process would also help practitioners develop shared approaches to family law issues that increasingly extend beyond national borders.
Sustaining those efforts, however, will require resources as women’s rights organisations compete for shrinking pools of donor funding.
Rose Buabeng, senior programme officer for resourcing at the African Women’s Development Fund, said funding for women’s rights and feminist activism was becoming increasingly constrained amid a growing backlash, adding that AWDF had adapted its funding processes to respond more quickly to the needs of women’s rights organisations.
IPS UN Bureau Report
Excerpt:
Campaigners say anti-rights movements are increasingly using family law to challenge women's rights to inheritance, property, divorce and child custody.
DHAKA, Bangladesh, Aug 13 2026 (IPS) - Dhaka’s recent and recurrent flooding is often treated as a natural disaster, but rain is only the trigger. The deeper causes are political, planning and ecological failure: wetland loss, canal encroachment, unplanned growth, weak enforcement, fragmented institutions and short-term engineering fixes. Dhaka is not drowning because it rains; it is drowning because it has been built as if water had nowhere to go.
Historically, Dhaka was part of a watery landscape of rivers, canals, ponds, floodplains and low-lying retention areas. These were not vacant lands; they were essential drainage infrastructure that stored rainwater, slowed runoff and carried excess water toward surrounding rivers. As the city expanded, this blue-green network was filled, narrowed or severed, leaving drains unable to cope even with moderate rainfall.
Mohammad Zaman
Drains and canals have also deteriorated. Many are clogged with waste, narrowed by illegal structures or disconnected from smaller drains. Box culverts, often promoted as modernisation, have in some places buried waterways rather than restoring them as living drainage corridors. Drainage fails not only because pipes are small, but because the wider hydrological system has been cut apart.
Climate change adds pressure through shorter, heavier and less predictable rainfall, but it should not excuse bad planning. World Bank work on urban flooding in Greater Dhaka has warned that the city already has an adaptation deficit. The real problem is that Dhaka has reduced its own capacity to absorb shocks, treating flooding as a pipe-sizing seasonal issue rather than a citywide water-management challenge.
The consequences appear first in transport paralysis. When major roads in Mirpur, Dhanmondi, Green Road, Motijheel, Shantinagar, Old Dhaka and other areas go underwater, commuters lose hours, public transport stalls and businesses suffer. The cost includes damaged vehicles and inventories, delayed logistics, lost productivity and the daily stress of moving through a city that cannot function after rain.
Flooding also deepens inequality. Low-income residents in informal and low-lying settlements face contaminated water entering their homes, loss of daily income, damaged belongings and higher disease risk. Floodwater mixed with sewage, waste and pollutants increases infections and waterborne illness. The poor pay twice: through greater exposure and weaker access to healthcare, savings and political voice.
The scale of impact shows this is not a seasonal inconvenience. A 2023 GIS and remote-sensing study found that almost 35 percent of Dhaka falls within high or very high waterlogging-vulnerability zones, with slum households disproportionately concentrated there. Recent rainfall confirms the risk: Dhaka recorded 130 millimetres of rain in six hours on 12 July 2024, while another episode brought 196 millimetres in 24 hours in 2025, submerging major roads despite large drainage investments.
Infrastructure spending has not produced resilience. The two Dhaka city corporations reportedly invested more than Tk 262 crore over four years up to 2024 to build 334.19 kilometres of drains, box culverts and related infrastructure, yet large areas still flooded. Planning data show that Dhaka lost 3,440 acres out of 9,556 acres of designated flood-flow zones, retention areas and waterbodies since the 1995 Detailed Area Plan, while central-city waterbodies reportedly fell from 20.57 percent in 1995 to 2.9 percent in 2023. The city is paying to drain water while allowing the systems that make drainage possible to disappear.
This failure is reinforced by institutional fragmentation. Responsibility is divided among Dhaka WASA, the two city corporations, RAJUK, the Bangladesh Water Development Board and others. Each controls part of the problem, but no single body manages the full catchment: drains, canals, retention areas, pumps, river outfalls and land-use control. The result is scattered action followed by renewed flooding.
Weak enforcement makes plans meaningless. Master plans and Detailed Area Plans have identified flood-flow zones, retention ponds and wetlands, yet these areas continue to disappear under housing, roads and commercial development. Encroachment survives because it is profitable, politically protected or administratively tolerated.
Accountability is also weak. Spending is reported, but outcomes are rarely evaluated. Dhaka does not need another narrow drainage project; it needs the political courage to enforce existing plans, recover waterways and protect the remaining wetlands.
The city must treat canals, wetlands, ponds and flood-flow zones as critical public infrastructure. Remaining wetlands should be protected, encroached canals demarcated and recovered, and major waterways restored as open drainage corridors connected to surrounding rivers. Dhaka also needs an integrated flood-management platform with clear authority over land-use approvals, canal recovery, drainage investment, pump operation, solid-waste control and emergency response.
Future planning must also centre vulnerable communities. Informal settlements, low-income neighbourhoods, street vendors, schoolchildren and daily-wage workers face the harshest effects but are rarely treated as planning partners. Community reporting of blocked drains, health warnings, emergency transport plans and compensation for repeated losses should be part of resilience policy. A flood-safe Dhaka requires ecological restoration, institutional discipline and social justice.
Dhaka’s flooding is a warning about planning against nature. The city has tried to engineer its way out of a crisis created by land conversion, institutional weakness and ecological neglect. Until it restores and governs its blue-green network as essential infrastructure, each monsoon will bring the same result: a megacity halted by rain it once knew how to live with. The choice is no longer between development and drainage; it is between protecting people and flooding them in the name of progress.
Dr. Mohammad Zaman is an international development consultant whose work across Asia and Africa focuses on social safeguards, displacement, resettlement and inclusive development. He lives in Vancouver, Canada, and can be reached at: mqzaman.bc@gmail.com
IPS UN Bureau
UNITED NATIONS, Aug 13 2026 (IPS) - Global goods trade reached approximately USD 13.7 trillion in the first half of 2026, up 12.5 percent from the same period in 2025, while services grew 10.5 percent, together adding USD 2 trillion to global trade. While these figures point to continued expansion, much of the increase reflects rising prices rather than stronger trade volumes.
According to UNCTAD’s Division on International Trade and Commodities, disruptions to shipping through the Strait of Hormuz have strained energy supplies, increased fuel costs, disrupted maritime logistics, and raised production costs across a wide range of industries. Prices for traded goods rose 3.6 percent year-on-year in the first quarter of 2026, accelerating to 5.1 percent in the second quarter. Although merchandise trade continues to expand, UNCTAD’s nowcast, its data and model-driven predictions of global trade over period growth, estimates that trade by value will grow by 4.2 percent in the third quarter of 2026 compared with the same period last year, suggesting that higher prices continue to account for a significant share of trade growth.
This inflation is driven by a roughly 160-day disruption of the Strait of Hormuz, where 25 percent of the seaborne oil trade, 20 percent of global liquefied Natural Gas (LNG), about one-third of global seaborne fertilizer trade, and significant petrochemical supply chains have been almost completely shut off from maritime trade flows. According to the Strait of Hormuz Tracker, roughly 7 ships have transited on August 7, 11.7 percent of traffic compared to normal pre-crisis levels: limiting daily throughput to 1.2 million compared to pre-levels of 10.3 million.
According to Freightos, the cost of a 40-foot equivalent unit (FEU) on a China/East Asia to North America East Coast voyage was roughly USD 9,100 in July, up from USD 4,300 in May. Similarly, on a China/East Asia to North America West Coast voyage it cost USD 7,550 in July, up from USD 2,828 in May.
This drastic price volatility for a FEU reflects the consequences of heightened fuel costs. Both the passages mentioned do not go near the Strait of Hormuz, both thousands of miles away. Yet, the effects of a disruption to the Strait cascade across global shipping. Logistics is the backbone behind every industry, with shipping a FEU becoming more expensive by more than double in multiple passages, the price of the items within those FEU also must rise in price to cover the costs.
The effects are particularly evident in East Asia, the world’s manufacturing hub and the center of the global semiconductor and artificial intelligence (AI) supply chain, where demand for AI infrastructure, digital technologies, and electric mobility continues to accelerate. According to UNCTAD, trade in critical minerals increased 38 percent during the first quarter of 2026 compared with a year earlier, and semiconductor trade rose 25 percent, batteries 15 percent, information and communication technology (ICT) products 14 percent, and electric vehicles 11 percent.
Yet despite being geographically distant from the Strait of Hormuz, semiconductor fabrication facilities in Taiwan and South Korea remain heavily dependent on reliable global shipping networks, affordable energy, and petrochemical inputs. As higher fuel prices increase the cost of transporting components between suppliers and manufacturers, and rising electricity, natural gas, and petrochemical prices raise production costs, the value of these high-tech exports continues to climb—even when the volume of goods traded grows far more slowly.
The Strait of Hormuz disruption demonstrates the interconnectedness of the global maritime system. A constriction in this strategic maritime chokepoint raises oil and LNG prices, increasing transportation and industrial energy costs, heightening manufacturing expenses, and ultimately raising the price of internationally traded goods. Consequently, manufacturers in East Asia, importers in North America, and consumers around the world all experience the effects of a disruption occurring thousands of miles away. As these costs accumulate across increasingly interconnected supply chains, the nominal value of global trade rises, even when underlying trade volumes and real economic output grow much more slowly, illustrating that higher trade values do not necessarily represent stronger economic performance.
IPS UN Bureau Report
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
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 sixty-first 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