Teacher who educated Afghan refugee girls wins UN prize
LONDON (Thomson Reuters Foundation) – A teacher who has dedicated her life to educating Afghan refugee girls, challenging cultural sexism by setting up classes in a makeshift tent, has won a special prize awarded by the UN’s refugee agency (UNHCR).
Aqeela Asifi, 49, left Kabul with her family in 1992, and ended up living in the remote refugee settlement of Kot Chandna in the Punjab region of Pakistan, where most girls were excluded from the classroom. Despite few resources, she won over the community and persuaded parents to send their daughters to school.
New HIV infections in children fall in Asia, more testing for babies needed
BANGKOK (Thomson Reuters Foundation) – HIV testing and treatment for pregnant women has reduced new infections among children in Asia by more than a quarter since 2000, but many babies born to mothers with HIV are still not being tested or given life-saving medicines.
Only one in four children born to HIV-positive mothers in the east Asia-Pacific region were tested soon after birth, and only about half of infants identified as HIV-positive receive the treatment they need, the United Nations said yesterday.
Exiled opposition figure Hama vows to return to Niger
NIAMEY (Reuters) – Niger’s former head of parliament and exiled opposition figure Hama Amadou, who is being sought in connection with an investigation into child-trafficking, vowed yesterday to return home to stand in a presidential election next year.
Some 30 members of the country’s political and social elite, including Hama’s wife, have been charged with acquiring around 30 new-born babies from “baby factories” in neighbouring Nigeria.
Hama, once a close ally of President Mahamadou Issoufou but now considered one of his chief rivals in the February polls, fled to France last year before he could be questioned by investigators.
