Latest Campaigns

Millennium Development Goals

In September 2010, the world reached the two-thirds stage in the Millennium Development Goals - the 8 goals and 20 benchmarks chosen in the year 2000 to halve global poverty by 2015.

There is much we can be proud of, but much more that needs to be done.

• Following the adoption of the MDGs, the number of people living on less than $US2 a day dropped by 500 million between 2000 and 2007. However, the number rose again by 150 million over the next two years due to the Global Financial Crisis.

• Two billion people have gained access to safe drinking water, but 880 million still rely on nonpotable water to drink.

• The number of children dying from preventable diseases before their 5th birthday has dropped from 12 million per year in 1990 to 9 million per year, but 24,000 deaths a day is still unacceptable.

• The number of children not attending primary school has dropped from 120 million to 72 million; this is still far too many children being denied a future.

While there is some optimism that significant strides are being taken against global poverty, the 12 months to September 2010 has seen immense human suffering from natural disasters – earthquakes in Haiti and Chile, and record floods in Pakistan have left hundreds of thousands dead, and millions of people, who were living on the edge of poverty, have lost all their possessions.
Millennium Development Goals Part VII - Drinking Water and Sanitation - 07 September 2011
There is no easy solution to the world’s increasing consumption of the dwindling supply of water available fordrinking and agriculture. We just know that in the future, people will need to treat each drop as precious. This article will look at the third target of the seventh Millennium Development Goal (MDG) on environmental sustainability - “To halve, by 2015, the proportion of the population without sustainable access to safe drinking water and basic sanitation.”...
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Millennium Development Goals Part VI – Environmental Sustainability - 03 May 2011
In 1950 less than 30% of the world’s population lived in cities. Today it is 51%, and by 2050 it is estimated it will be 70%. Well thought-out sustainable development is badly needed for the billions of people that are, and will be, living in slum conditions. This article will look at the seventh Millennium Development Goal (MDG) - to ensure environmental sustainability. The targets of this goal are to integrate sustainable development principles into government policy and reverse the loss of environmental resources, reduce biodiversity loss, increase sustainable access to safe drinking water and basic sanitation and to achieve a significant improvement in the lives of slum dwellers....
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Ban Asbestos Campaign

Australians know that asbestos kills. We are historically one of the highest per capita miners, manufacturers and consumers of asbestos in the world. Almost all public buildings and around one third of all private houses were built with asbestos. And the toll was heavy - by 2020, Australia will have had 13,000 cases of mesothelioma and over 40,000 cases of asbestos related cancer.

Globally, it is estimated that each year 107,000 workers succumb to asbestos or asbestos related cancers & disease. And the centre of this new epidemic is Asia where the the World Health Organisation estimates that 60% of the 125 million people exposed to asbestos live. And that figure is set to increase - already half of asbestos consumption occurs in Asia with 90% of the global increase in consumption between 2000 and 2004 occurring in Asian countries such as Vietnam, Indonesia and India.

Union Aid Abroad-APHEDA shares the union movement's concern about the continued use of asbestos. It is unacceptable that millions of workers are occupationally exposed every day and that countries such as Russia, China and ,most shamefully Canada, make hundreds of millions of dollars exporting death to developing countries.

We have a long history of working with partners to fight asbestos and asbestos disease. For example, the in the post-war environment in East Timor in 2000, Union Aid Abroad-APHEDA and its partners identified asbestos as a major worker and public health issue. After surveying the situation it emerged that asbestos handling practices were endangering the lives of thousands of workers, we then worked with the United Nations Transitional Authority of East Timor and the Timorese Department of Health to conduct an audit of asbestos use in East Timor and to develop the Guidelines for Asbestos Abatement in East Timor, which was eventually adopted as a national standard. This was possible due to techncial support of Australian unions, especially the Construction, Forestry, Mining and Energy Union (CFMEU).

More recently, in 2010 we launched a pioneering project in Vietnam, the Vietnam-Australia Asbestos Disease Prevention Project (VAADP) with the National Institute of Labour Protection (NILP), the occupational health and safety insitute of the Vietam General Confederation of Labor (VGCL). The project was supported by AusAID, the Asbestos Disease Research Institute (ADRI) and the Australian Manufacturing Workers Union (AMWU). In just one year, we developed one of Vietnam’s first asbestos training programs for workers and union officials, engaged with workers about their health and asbestos risks, and helped establish Vietnam’s first focal point for asbestos issues - the National Resource Centre for Asbestos and Asbestos Related Disease. We also completed studies on asbestos alternatives and built research alliances that could help propel Vietnam to a post-asbestos future.

Working with Building and Woodworkers International (BWI) we are currently supporting an extension of this project both in Vietnam and into neighbouring countries, focusing on completing the national profile of asbestos use, conducting further research in factories that use asbestos and rolling out training materials for workers and trade union officials. In Lao PDR we are mapping asbestos-using enterprises and convening tripartite conferences to get the issue on the national agenda.

But more needs to be done to ban asbestos in Asia once and for all. Countries like Indonesia, the Philippines and Cambodia continue to accelerate their use of asbestos amidst rapid industrialisation. We envisage a pan-Asian program that works with trade unions, research institutes, governments and NGOs to build coalitions to not only ban asbestos, but put in place the health and social infrastructure required to deal with the coming tsunami of asbestos deaths in the future. We need to harness technical expertise and world's best practice from Australia, including from trade unions, government agencies, health and research institutes, universities and survivor groups as well as retaining the flexibility of our partners to come up with innovative and localised solutions.

Our strategy for fighting asbestos in Asia is to:

• Support local organisations, institutions, coalitions and others to advocate for a ban on asbestos from their country.
• Minimise the exposure of workers currently handling asbestos.
• Build awareness of the health impacts of using asbestos among institutions, government and the community.
• Support and promote the use of non-asbestos materials and technologies.

Read more about asbestos, how it kills, who trades it and what you can do, below in Background Information.
Asbestos in Asia: Breaking Through the Silence in Lao PDR - 09 January 2012
Australians know that asbestos kills. We are historically one of the highest per capita miners, manufacturers and consumers of asbestos in the world. Almost all public buildings and around one third of all private houses were built with asbestos. And the toll was heavy - by 2020, Australia will have had 13,000 cases of mesothelioma and over 40,000 cases of asbestos related cancer. ...
>> READ MORE

Canada: Stop Exporting Asbestos - 26 September 2011
The Canadian government is looking to reopen Jeffery Mine in Quebec. This will massively increase Canada's export of death - asbestos.Will you tell the Canadian High Commissioner what you think of their deadly trade?...
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Fighting Back: A reflection on our pilot asbestos project in Vietnam - 07 June 2011
Late last year, a curious thing happened in Vietnam. After decades of fighting and arguing that white asbestos was safe, the Vietnam Roof Sheet Manufacturers Association (VRSM) embraced the need to move on from asbestos....
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Human Rights in Zimbabwe

Zimbabwe was once a model African country, achieving the highest economic growth rates and the highest levels of education on the continent. But Robert Mugabe, in power since independence, has become increasingly erratic, eccentric and autocratic as he pursues policies which have crushed human rights, repressed opposition and crippled the economy. He and his corrupt allies keep themselves in power through terror and intimidation. On Valentine’s Day several hundred women were arrested and tortured as they were protesting against the unbearable poverty, hunger, unemployment and high inflation.

Burma Campaign

Union Aid Abroad - APHEDA calls on the Australian government to fund cross-border aid programs that work with the most vulnerable and isolated communities in Burma

Currently, the Australian Government provides aid to Burma in cooperation with the Burmese military regime and does not support aid that is delivered across international borders. Cross-border aid is the only effective way to reach people in eastern Burma. We must work in solidarity with those communities to help provide access to medical care and education. Changes are needed in the aid program to support cross-border aid. Because of severe restrictions on humanitarian assistance, aid administered via Rangoon does not reach communities in ethnic minority states, especially in eastern Burma.

In eastern Burma, communities struggle to survive persecution from the military. They are more likely to suffer from infectious diseases, be displaced from their homes and have a higher infant mortality rate than the rest of Burma.

60.0% of deaths in children under 5 are from preventable and treatable diseases.

The under 5 mortality rate for eastern Burma is almost twice that of Burma as a whole.

41.2% of children are acutely malnourished.

Currently, the UK, USA, Norway, Canada, Denmark, Ireland and Spain all support cross-border aid programs. Without a change in Australia’s aid policy, the lives of internally displaced people and ethnic communities in eastern Burma will continue to be threatened by military attacks and subject to persecution and human rights abuses.

Australia operates under the Principals and Good Practices of Good Humanitarian donor ship, including "the implementation of actions solely on the basis of need" and "the autonomy of humanitarian objectives from the political, economic, military or other objectives that any actor may hold with regard to areas where humanitarian action is being implemented". Current Australian aid practices in Burma exclude and isolate vulnerable people living in ethnic minority states.

Maung Maung, General Secretary of the Federation of Trade Unions – Burma, describes the junta’s ongoing campaign of human rights violations. "The regime uses slave labor, rape and torture to stay in power. Unions are banned and the jails are full with those who have dared to speak out."

What is Cross-border Aid?

Towns such as Mae Sot on the Thai-Burma border are home to organizations such as the Back Pack Health Worker Teams, who travel by foot into eastern Burma in order to provide medical care and support to communities, especially those displaced by the regime. Cross-border aid also means supporting long term community based initiatives run by people and organizations based permanently in Burma’s Eastern States.

Cross-border aid can include health care, education, political cooperation and support and the delivery of other essential services. Cross-border aid also provides a line of communication for communities and displaced peoples. Without that line of communication, those communities will be further cut off from the world and the regime will continue to persecute them without scrutiny.

The Benefits of Cross-border Aid

• Cross-border programs are community-run and therefore strategic and sustainable

  Support and capacity building of these community-based programs is the most sustainable form of assistance, and is laying the foundation for development of a future peaceful Burma.

• Aid provided cross-border to community-run programs is highly cost-effective

  The majority of funds go towards medical and education supplies and target childhood and maternal mortality and combating infectious diseases.

• Cross-border health programs are a key component of any efforts to combat infectious disease in Burma

  Efforts to combat infectious disease will be ineffective if large areas are excluded. In eastern Burma, Malaria is the leading cause of death across all ages. Official treatment and control programs are non-existent or inaccessible, and international assistance, including the 3 Disease Fund, is barred from the most severely affected communities in Eastern Burma.

• Donors can simultaneously support aid cross-border and through Rangoon

  Donors such as the USA, Norway, Denmark and Britain are currently supporting cross-border programs, and this has not had any negative impacts on their programs through Rangoon. In fact, providing aid both via Rangoon and via neighboring countries enables donors to access a greater area of the country, and assess and address needs more holistically. In 2006 a British Parliamentary report on Cross-border Aid concluded that "Burma is a complex problem that cannot be dealt with through a one‐sided approach; it requires a co‐ordinated effort from within the country and across its borders to address the scale of poverty and displacement".

• Cross-border aid programs have well-developed monitoring mechanisms

  The community based organizations running cross-border programs have extensive internal monitoring mechanisms. For example, health programs conduct regular detailed reviews of medical case log books to ensure that treatment is in accordance with internationally recognized medical protocols. Extensive community surveys are also carried out to assess program impacts and prioritize needs.

• Cross-border aid programs benefit Thailand

  The humanitarian crisis in Burma has resulted in high rates of infectious disease near to the border, close to 150,000 Burmese residing in border refugee sites and countless more living illegally in Thailand. Cross-border aid programs support those within Burma and work towards a peaceful and stable Burma in the future.

We call on the government to:

1. Examine AusAID’s Burma Policy and their spending priorities;
2. Investigate if Australia has provided cross-border assistance at other times and what was the criteria used to deem this acceptable; and
3. Raise questions in parliament regarding Australia’s aid to Burma

What can you do?

Send an e-mail to Foreign Minister Kevin Rudd

Here is some suggested text:

Dear Mr. Rudd,

I am writing in regards to Australia’s aid program in Burma. Currently Australia does not support cross-border aid programs. By not supporting cross-border aid, Australia neglects vulnerable communities and efforts towards a peaceful, safe, democratic Burma.

Australia’s current program of aid to Burma fails to address the needs of some of the most vulnerable people in Burma. Aid directed through the Military regime in Rangoon does not reach persecuted and displaced peoples in conflict areas. In the ethnic minority states of eastern Burma, 41.2% of children are acutely malnourished. If Australia is truly committed to the Principals and Good Practices of Humanitarian donor ship then you will reevaluate the current policy and support cross-border aid.

The current review of Australia’s aid practice is an excellent opportunity to make sure aid going to Burma is as effective as possible and helps those most in need. I hope that you take this opportunity to support cross-border aid programs.

Sincerely,

Other Contacts

Contact your local, state or federal representatives with your concern for the situation in Burma and why Australia does not support cross-border aid.

Groups

Meetings, events and actions can be used to raise awareness and put pressure on the government to change Australia’s aid policy. If you are interested in holding an event, such as a film screening, discussion group or talk, important reports, news articles and links to videos are provided below.

Important Reports

In 2010 the Back Pack Health Worker team released Diagnosis Critical: Health and Human Rights in Eastern Burma. The report, compiled with data collected through cross-border work with local communities and organizations, documents the health and humanitarian crisis in eastern Burma.

Published May 2009 by the International Human Rights Clinic at Harvard Law School, Crimes in Burma examines more than 15 years of the documentation produced by the United Nations of human rights abuses in Burma. On the basis of its review of the UN’s own documentation, the report calls for the UN Security Council to establish a Commission of Inquiry into potential war crimes and crimes against humanity in Burma.

Village Agency: Rural Rights and Resistance in a Militarized Karen State, released by the Karen Human Rights Group in November 2008, documents the success of villagers in Karen State and elsewhere in rural Burma in resisting abuse and transforming their own lives for the better. The report argues for the inclusion of villagers in the political processes that affect them.

In 2002 the Shan Women’s Action Network and Shan Human Rights Network jointly released the License to Rape Report, which documents the Burmese military regime’s systematic use of sexual violence in Shan State.

Videos

Filmed in 2005, Season of Fear documents the communities in eastern Burma displaced by the military. Troops burned villages and food stores, and tortures and killed villagers. The displacement of these communities continues today.

The film Crossing Midnight is about cross-border aid and displaced communities along the Thai-Burma border. This is the trailer for the film.

Always on the Run documents the Internally Displaced People of Karen State. The video, produced in 2005, includes interviews with three Internally Displaced People.

Burma is world's only landmine user - 09 December 2010
Burma is now the only government still laying landmines after Russia stopped using such weapons....
>> READ MORE

UN Official Meets Aung San Suu Kyi - 09 December 2010
Aung San Suu Kyi speaks to UN official about political prisoners in Burma...
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Interview with Aung San Suu Kyi in Irrawaddy - 09 December 2010
Interview with the Pro-democracy leader after her release in November 2010...
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Education on the run in east Burma - 09 December 2010
Military attacks prevent children from getting an education in eastern Burma. ...
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"Elections Are a Sham" says ITUC, with ETUC and Human Rights Organisations - 09 December 2010
International Trade Union Confederation and others criticise Burma's 2010 election...
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Workers Rights are Human Rights

Article 23, Universal Declaration of Human Rights:

• Everyone has the right to work, to free choice of employment, to just and favourable conditions of work and to protection against unemployment.
• Everyone, without any discrimination, has the right to equal pay for equal work.
• Everyone who works has the right to just and favourable remuneration for ensuring for themselves and their family an existence worthy of human dignity, and supplemented, if necessary, by other means of social protection.
• Everyone has the right to form and to join trade unions for the protection of their interests.

These rights are not granted or given to workers by governments or employers - they are basic universal human rights that we all are entitled to by virtue of our humanity.

Please note that the salary figures for the Global Teaching Industry and the Global Nursing Industry Comparative are for the year 2000, and the figures for the Global Manufacturing Industry Comparative are for the year 2001. The figures are all in US dollars, which have been calculated using the average $US/$AUS exchange rate for 2000 of .5771 US cents.

© Union Aid Abroad - APHEDA 2003.

Last Modified: Friday, 13-Jan-2012 10:33:49 EST
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