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UN reports three sex cases involving Indian peackeepers

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United Nations: A UN report says that Indians in its peacekeeping operations were involved three substantiated cases of sexual exploitation or abuse between 2010 and 2013.

During those four years, there was a total of 64 substantiated cases of sexual abuse by UN peacekeepers, according to the report released Friday. More than 100,000 uniformed personnel serve in UN peacekeeping operations.

For context, the UN Office of Internal Oversight Services (OIOS), which looked into allegations of sexual exploitation and abuse in peacekeeping operations, however, noted in its report that largest contributors of troops to the UN like India had lower incidence of cases of abuse.

India, which currently has over 8,000 personnel in the peacekeeping operations, is one of the largest contributors to the UN.

The other largest contributors of uniformed personnel to the UN are Pakistan, which has more than 8,750 in UN operations and had four substantiated cases, and Bangladesh with over 9,000 personnel and two such cases.

“While many variables, including contingent size, could affect the numbers of substantiated allegations, it appears that the largest TCCs (troop contributing countries) do not have the highest number of substantiated allegations against their personnel,” the report said.

Britain, which has fewer than 300 personnel serving in UN operations, had one substantiated case. South Africa with 2,160 had the highest number of cases, nine. Uruguay with under 1,500 personnel had eight cases.

The UN Department of Field Services, which deals with the deployment of personnel in peacekeeping operations, said in response to the report, that given the huge number of troops deployed “it can easily be argued that such data would more appropriately point to individual failings than to the overall attitude of a member state’s military forces towards SEA (sexual exploitation and abuse).”

The report lacked specific information about the incidents, except for one case against Pakistani police personnel in Haiti involving the abduction and rape of a 13-year-old boy.

According to the report, besides outright violence and rape, many cases involved troops providing gifts to women and girls, exploiting their poverty. In some of the instances, the women were given food and supplies for babies and in others, gifts like jewelry, clothing and electronics.

One of the areas of concern in the report was the lack of action by many countries sending personnel to the UN operations when complaints of sexual abuse were made. It would appear that India has been cooperating with the UN when complaints arise and taking action as it was not listed among the nations that had not complied with its requests for reports on follow-up actions.

In an earlier case involving Indian peacekeepers in Democratic Republic of Congo in 2008, India ordered 12 officers and 39 soldiers to undergo DNA tests to see if they had fathered children with local women.

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Lockdowns in China Force Urban Communities to Defy Censorship and Vent Frustration Online

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Anyip Mobile Proxies

Shanghai’s rich middle class is leading a wave of online dissent over the strict and prolonged lockdowns imposed in various parts of the country. Chinese internet censorship is struggling as patience is wearing thin in many urban centers, coming up with creative forms of online protests.

Social Media Posts Revealing Lockdown Tension in Shanghai

Drawn-out lockdowns are nothing new in China as authorities insist with the nation’s zero-Covid policy since the start of the pandemic. Currently over This time around, however, metropolitan areas like Shanghai are increasingly difficult to keep quiet, given that its more than 25 million residents have seen weeks of total isolation along with food shortages and many other service interruptions.

Dozens of towns and reportedly over 300 million Chinese citizens have been affected by lockdowns of different severity. As expected, urban netizens have been most outspoken over their difficulties by finding creative ways to get around state censorship and bans placed on topics, news comments and spontaneous campaigns.

Shanghai residents have been using mobile proxies and hijacking seemingly unrelated hashtags to talk about healthcare issues, delivery failures and the overall severity of their situation. The “positive energy” that the Chinese government wants to transmit during the recent prolonged series of lockdowns does not come naturally to those counting food supplies and online censors are working hard to filter words, trending topics and undesired social media sharing.

WeChat groups and message threads are under constant monitoring. Posts questioning the zero-Covid approach have been quickly deleted, including by leading Chinese health experts like Dr. Zhong Nanshan. Video footage is soon censored and protests and investigations are quickly made to disappear.

Where this has not worked, officials have exposed banners with warnings and outright threats like “watch your own mouth or face punishment”, while drones have been patrolling the city skies. Yet, if anything, this has led to further tensions and unspoken confrontation with Shanghai’s educated and affluent middle class.

Creative Online Solutions Harnessing Civic Energy

Announcements by Chinese social media that they would be publishing the IP addresses of users who “spread rumors” have not helped either. Tech industry research has shown that much of Asia’s tech-savvy population has a habit of using mobile proxies and other privacy tools, quickly finding workarounds to browse the internet freely and talk to the world about the hottest topics.

The sheer volume of forbidden posts is already a challenge for the very censorship system, experts explain. Unable to track all trending hashtags, state workers overlook topics that speak about the US, Ukraine or other popular news. Linking human rights elsewhere to their situation, Chinese online dissidents establish their informal channels and “hijack” the conversation to share personal or publicly relevant information about the Covid suppression in their town.

Sarcastic and satirical posts still dominate. Others hope to evade the censors by replacing words from famous poems or the national anthem. One thing is certain – social media, when harnessed with the right creativity, has proven its ability to mount pressure on the government in even some of the most strictly controlled tech environments like China.

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