Gabriella Jóźwiak - Freelance Journalist

  In a classroom in western Ukraine, a group of teenagers are thinking about their futures. Seventeen-year-old Kira Yukhymenko had always planned to go to university in her home country, but in between sitting her final exams this month, she has been dreaming of leaving to study abroad. “The war has helped us understand who we are,” she said during a discussion in an English lesson at her school, Lyceum 66, in Lviv. “It has broadened our horizons and also made us more independent.” Since the war broke out and martial law was introduced, young men have been banned from leaving Ukraine after they turn 18, but young women like Ms Yukhymenko are free to leave. In three years of conflict, large numbers of them have chosen to do so, swapping war-torn Ukraine for European cities far from the threat of Vladimir Putin’s drones and bombs. Few have returned, and more are leaving with every passing year... Full Story

  About 1 billion children —half of all children globally —  experience violence , according to the  World Health Organization . Ending “abuse, exploitation, trafficking and all forms of violence against, and torture of, children” is a target of the 2030 United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. Fifteen years ago, the U.N. appointed its first special representative of the secretary-general on violence against children to tackle the issue. The post is currently held by Najat Maalla M’jid. In July of this year, she published a  report  warning that despite many actions around the world to address violence against children, progress has not reached the scale or speed needed. To highlight this stubborn problem, the first  Global Ministerial Conference on Ending Violence Against Children  takes place this week in Bogotá, Colombia — hosted by the governments of Colombia and Sweden, WHO,  UNICEF , and M’jid. On Nov. 7 and 8, delegates will ...

When 15-year-old Roshani Tiruwa lay down to sleep close to an open fire in a small mud hut last December, she was unaware that the smoke from the fire would suffocate her. Why was such a young girl sleeping alone just metres from her family home? Because Roshani was on her period. Her death on 16 December was the second within a month in Nepal’s western Achram district caused by women being banished from their family homes because of cultural beliefs surrounding menstruation.  Dambara Upadhyay , 21, was found dead in a hut on 19 November under similar circumstances, according to various news reports. The ancient Hindu practice of chaupadi considers menstruating women to be impure. Those who uphold the practice forbid women and girls from touching men or even entering their own homes, and prohibit them from eating certain foods. Disastrous consequences are believed to follow transgression, such as crop failure… Read the full story on Equal Times .

Before our interview, Simon Bishop — recently appointed director of policy and programs at  Plan International U.K.  — insists that the topic of his previous employer is off-limits. As a special political adviser to the United Kingdom’s former Secretary of State for International Development Justine Greening, Bishop spent two and a half years providing political, policy and media advice that shaped the direction of the government’s development strategy. Although some of the   controversial policies  announced by the  Department for International Development  since Greening and Bishop left in July last year may have been gestating while he was in the post, Bishop refuses to comment on them. “Mischievous journalists can turn that into nice headlines,” he told Devex. “I've got to be careful”… --> Read the full story on Devex.com .

According to the  World Health Organization ,  40 million  new health and social care jobs must be created globally by 2030 to meet Sustainable Development Goal 3 of universal health coverage. At the same time, global youth unemployment reached 71 million in 2016, according to  International Labour Organization  data. Could the two problems be used to solve each other? Director of the Health Workforce Department at the WHO Jim Campbell believes they could. He says it’s time to “join the dots” between the shortage of health care workers and young unemployed people. Campbell told Devex that development practitioners need to approach the solution in a non-traditional way, and create new training models for the next cohort of skilled health professionals. It is already happening in some countries, he says. Afghanistan and Ethiopia have both created accelerated training programs to help get more young people into health care. And whil...

'Fatin (not her real name) is in her twenties and is unemployed. She lives in the rural village of Al Tireh in the West Bank of occupied Palestine, where few job opportunities exist. But having received skills training from a local charity, Fatin and some fellow local women are opening a children’s nursery this month and will earn their own money. “We really needed help to make the transition,” she explains. “We want to improve ourselves, village and community. We can make a difference with skills.” Recent research published by the International Labour Organization (ILO) shows Fatin’s situation is typical of her region, and increasingly, of young people globally. Its  2016 World Employment andSocial Outlook report states that just over 30 per cent of 15 to 24-year-olds in the Middle East North Africa (MENA) region are currently unemployed – more than in any other region...' Read the full story on Equal Times .

"Nongovernmental organizations working in Nigeria have called for renewed focus on supporting women and girls who escape abduction, as the country marked the second anniversary of the Chibok school kidnappings last week. Two hundred and nineteen of the 276 girls abducted on April 14, 2014, from their secondary school in northeastern Nigeria by Muslim militant group Boko Haram are still missing. But aid organizations working in the country say concentrating on their rescue is not enough. Boko Haram has abducted  at least 2,000  women and girls in the country since 2012, according to  estimates  from charities  International Alert  and  Amnesty Internationa l. Those who return from abduction also need support. Boko Haram characteristically forces captive girls to marry its members. Many are raped and become pregnant as a result. Devex spoke to Kimairis Toogood, International Alert’s senior peace-building adviser and The Wel...

My reporting of the Ebola virus outbreak in Liberia was recognised at the Amnesty International Media Awards last night, where I was handed the Gaby Rado Memorial Award. The articles published in the Sunday Times, the Observer and the Independent on Sunday sought to highlight the broader impact of the disease on already impoverished communities. The stories showed how people were dying not just from the virus itself, but from fear and as a result of the government and international community's inadequate response. They also highlighted the vital role local NGOs played in the response, particularly charity Street Child . My entry as presented at the awards ceremony by BBC world affairs correspondent Mike Thomson Part of my acceptance speech The Gaby Rado Memorial Award recognises the work of a journalist who has been covering human rights issues for less than five years. Click here for links to the winnin...