Online violence, cyberbullying and digital harassment affect over 70 per cent of young people globally, the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) said on Tuesday, calling for concerted action to tackle and prevent this form of violence.

“We’ve heard from children and young people from around the globe and what they are saying is clear: the Internet has become a kindness desert,” said UNICEF Executive Director Henrietta Fore on Safer Internet Day.

A recent one-million-strong UNICEF poll of 15- to 24-year old’s from more than 160 countries prompted the call, along with a series of student-led #ENDviolence Youth Talks held globally, which examined out what parents, teachers and policymakers could do to keep them safe.

In the end, kindness stood out as one of the most powerful means to prevent bullying and cyberbullying.

“That’s why this Safer Internet Day, UNICEF is inviting everyone, young and old, to be kind online, and calling for greater action to make the Internet a safer place for everyone”, stressed Ms. Fore.

Regardless of income level, the Internet has become a mainstay of youth.

According to the UN International Telecommunications Union (ITU), 94 per cent of 15- to 24-year old’s in developed countries are online, and more than 65 per cent of their developing country counterparts – well ahead of the pace of Internet usage among the general population.

Moreover, half of the world’s total population, regardless of age, is online, which brings increased risks.

According to data from the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), the proportion of children and adolescents affected by cyberbullying ranges from five per cent to 21 per cent, with girls at higher risk than boys.

“Cyberbullying can cause profound harm as it can quickly reach a wide audience, and can remain accessible online indefinitely, virtually ‘following’ its victims online for life,” according to UNICEF.

Bullying and cyberbullying also feed into each other, forming “a continuum of damaging behavior”.

Victims of cyberbullying are more likely to use abuse drugs and alcohol, skip school, receive poor grades and experience low self-esteem and health problems. In extreme situations, it has even led to suicide.

On Safer Internet Day, UNICEF is reminding everyone that “kindness – both online and off – is a responsibility that begins with each of us”.

In honor of the UN child-rights convention, which turns 30 this November, UNICEF is also calling for renewed urgency and cooperation to put children’s rights at the forefront of digital efforts.

“Thirty years after the adoption of the  Convention on the Rights of the Child and the creation of the World Wide Web, it is time for governments, families, academia and the private sector to put children and young people at the centre of digital policies,” said Ms. Fore.

“By protecting them from the worst the Internet has to offer and expanding access to its best, we can each help tip the balance for good”, concluded the UNICEF chief.

“Two-thirds of the world’s surface is ocean. Nearly all of that is beyond any State’s territorial waters and largely not subject to a single state criminal jurisdiction,” Yury Fedotov, Executive Director of the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) said as he briefed the Council’s first-ever debate targeting the global challenge of transnational maritime crime.

Speaking via video conference from UNODC headquarters in Vienna, he spotlighted the root causes of transnational organized crime at sea and the linkages between terrorism, piracy and illegal trafficking.

“The high seas are open for vessels of all countries, both coastal and landlocked, to support international trade and economic cooperation, contact among peoples and the responsible use of natural resources” he maintained. “However, in recent years the freedom of navigation is being exploited by criminal groups.”

“Maritime crime by its nature involves vessels, cargoes, crews, victims and illicit money flows from many regions”, he explained, adding that UNODC’s counter-piracy programme grew from its success off the coast of Somalia, which has been plagued by high-seas crimes such as piracy, robbery and smuggling.

UNODC continues to support trials in Kenya and Seychelles, as well as the humane and secure imprisonment of convicted pirates and has completed the first phase of the Mogadishu Prison and Court Complex, which will be handed over to the Somali Government shortly.

He said that through public/private cooperation, UNODC has made advancements through the Indian Ocean Forum on Maritime Crime, which coordinates the response to heroin and charcoal smuggling that is funding terrorist groups and the Contact Group on Maritime Crime in the Sulu and Celebes Sea.

The agency also supports inter-regional cooperation against criminal activities at sea; is working to secure the container trade supply chain; and is combatting terrorism, human trafficking and migrant smuggling, wildlife and fisheries crime, firearms trafficking and emerging crimes.

“All our work at sea, where jurisdiction is complex – crime is often committed unseen and enforcement is difficult – builds on UNODC s long experience and research expertise in addressing all forms of organized crime, terrorism and corruption”, stated the UNODC chief.

Mr. Fedotov emphasized the importance that countries ratify and implementing international commitments, including UN Convention against Transnational Organized Crime and its protocols, and provide technical assistance.

High seas criminality ‘a threat to Gulf of Guinea and the world’

For his part, Simeon Oyono Esono Angue, Foreign Minister of Equatorial Guinea, which presides over the Council for the month of February, pointed out that in the last decade, piracy in the Gulf of Guinea accounted for 30 per cent of attacks in African waters.

“What is happening in the Gulf of Guinea is important for all of us here”, he spelled out.

Although a security threat, the Gulf also provides the resources that sustain Equatorial Guinea’s economy.

The United Nations and its aid partners, together with the interim Government of Libya, launched on Tuesday a humanitarian response plan (HRP), appealing for $202 million to bring urgent life-saving assistance to some 550,000 women, children and men affected by the ongoing humanitarian crisis.

The protracted political crisis that started in 2011 with demonstrations leading to the fall of long-time Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi has developed into an armed conflict, forcing tens of thousands of families into displacement, and driving over a million people to depend on aid to survive as they are unable to afford the most basic things. 

The UN Humanitarian/Resident Coordinator for Libya, Maria Ribeiro and Dr. Milad Al Taher, Minister of Local Governance, launched the plan at an event in the Libyan capital, Tripoli, alongside Fayez al-Sarraj, President of the Presidency Council, and Dr. Ghassan Salame, head of the UN Support Mission in Libya (UNSMIL).

“Years of instability and insecurity have taken a toll on the wellbeing of many children, women and men in Libya. Each passing year, people struggle to withstand the impact of a crisis that has destabilized the country, put them in harm’s way, and ravaged the economy.” said Ms. Ribeiro.

In the foreword to the HRP, Ms. Ribeiro stressed: “Libya is now producing well over one million barrels of oil a day. However, this has not yet translated into tangible benefits for people. “Many Libyans get poorer every year. Basic health and education services decay, and frustrated citizens cannot understand why oil production and increased government revenue does not lead to improved living standards, security and well-being for all in Libya”.

According to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), today, some 823,000 people, including around 248,000 children, are still in need of humanitarian assistance. This includes internally displaced persons and returnees, conflict-affected people, host communities and refugees and migrants who face grave human rights violations and abuse in the absence of rule of law. 

The majority of people in need are in highly populated urban areas in the western and eastern regions of Libya. However, people with the most critical and severe needs are in the coastal area of Sirt and in the southern parts of the country (Murzuq, Sebha and Alkufra) where access is difficult due to violence and instability.

The funds required in the 2019 HRP are meant to provide food, health care, protection especially from buried explosive hazards which threaten the lives of entire communities, water and sanitation services, shelter, basic household items, and emergency education support for the most vulnerable. 

In terms of food, the plan aims to provide immediate life-saving food supplies, but also support longer term recovery with the distribution of seeds, tools and other inputs for farming and fishing communities.

If adequately funded, humanitarian agencies will set up emergency medical teams and dispatch mobile teams to areas where medical staff is limited, to reinforce disease surveillance and control. 

Water and sanitation is a high priority in detention centres which are crowded and unsanitary, schools in marginalized areas and camps for internally displaced people and refugees. Families in need of shelter will receive construction materials but also cash assistance – in the form of emergency grants, rental subsidies and actual cash. 

“Ultimately, the future of Libya is very much in the hands of the Libyans… and many efforts are ongoing in this regard,” said Ms. do Valle Ribeiro. “But right now, while people are suffering, it is absolutely critical that the international community work together with national partners to make sure vulnerable people are supported and protected.”

An upsurge in violent attacks in crisis-riven north-east Nigeria has displaced nearly 60,000 people in the last three months, the UN migration agency, IOM, said on Tuesday.

Armed extremists, notably Boko Haram militants, have contributed to a decade-long humanitarian crisis in Borno, Adamawa and Yobe (BAY) states, that has spilled over into the Lake Chad region.

“Since November we’ve seen 59,200 [displaced],” IOM Nigeria’s Chief of Mission, Frantz Celestin, said in Geneva, noting that in the last two years, “we have not seen that many people on the move”.

The last two months of 2018 were also marked by “an increased sophistication” of non-State armed groups, accompanied by “an increased number of attacks and success in taking towns”, Mr. Celestin explained.

Decade-long crisis of displacement, abduction and killings

Civilians continue to bear the brunt of conflict that has led to widespread forced displacement and violations of international humanitarian and human rights law.

Since the start of the crisis, more than 27,000 people have been killed in the three north-eastern BAY states, according to UN humanitarian coordinating office, OCHA, and thousands of women and girls have been abducted.

Government efforts to drive back the non-State armed groups that operate in the north-east of the vast country have been hindered by the Harmattan dust cloud – an annual phenomenon that sweeps across west Africa from approximately November to March.

Humanitarian hubs destroyed

In the town of Rann, which was attacked twice last month, “nobody was spared” in one assault, Mr. Celestin said.

“The MSF (Médecins Sans Frontières) clinic was burned down, (the) IOM hub was attacked, the UNICEF clinic was attacked, the WHO/ICRC’s compounds were attacked,” he added.

Amid ongoing insecurity, humanitarian access is limited, hampering the ability of aid agencies to assess needs comprehensively.

Tens of thousands of civilians have fled into already overcrowded camps, mainly in Maiduguri, the capital of Borno state.

Overcrowding in protection camps ‘one of our biggest problems’

“One of our biggest issues in north-east Nigeria in addition to the security issues is the land, access to land,” Mr. Celestin said. “We have a number of camps that are overcrowded, in fact, if we were to take all of the camps together, we would have more than 249,000 people in camps that are completely congested, with Monguno (Borno) being the largest one of them.”

Rumours of imminent attack are enough to convince communities to flee, the IOM official explained, noting that people had sought refuge in neighbouring countries of the Lake Chad region.

“There were a number of people who moved across a number of villages in Cameroon,” Mr. Celestin said. “Some of them were returned…they crossed the border and they were turned back. And for the recent (displacement) one, I don’t have the specific numbers; I’ve heard 30,000, but I have not been able to prove it.”

In 2018, according to the UN humanitarian wing, OCHA, 7.7 million people in Nigeria were in need of humanitarian assistance, and 1.7 million people were classified as “food insecure” between October and December.

According to a statement from the Office of the UN Special Envoy, Martin Griffiths, representatives from the Government of Yemen and the Houthi opposition, Ansar Allah, will attend at a meeting in Amman, Jordan, on Tuesday.

A prisoner exchange agreement was signed in Sweden last December and represents the first accord between the two parties since the downward spiraling conflict began in Yemen nearly four years ago – sparking the world’s worst humanitarian crisis.

The UN Special Envoy’s office describes this round of meetings as “technical”, adding that those present will discuss steps to finalize the lists of prisoners to be released, “to advance the implementation of the [Stockholm] agreement”.

The development follows a meeting on Sunday between the UN Mission to support the HudaydahAgreement (UNMHA), and Yemen’s belligerents in the embattled Red Sea port of Hudaydah.

A statement by the mission noted that the head of the taskforce, retired Dutch General Patrick Cammaert, underlined the importance of the ceasefire agreement, which came into effect on 18 December.

The General also warned the parties about the fragility of the ceasefire and urged them to instruct their commanders on the ground “to refrain from any further violations that would jeopardize … the broader peace process for Yemen”.

In what are described as “cordial and constructive” talks, both the Yemeni Government and Houthi delegations also reiterated their “commitment” to open up the Hudaydah to Sana’a road to allow humanitarian access to the Red Sea Mills.

Progress towards political agreement ‘vital’

Meanwhile, the Security Council stressed the “vital importance” of making progress towards a political agreement to end the conflict and “relieve the humanitarian suffering of the Yemeni people”.

Welcoming the release of both parties’ prisoners, the Council called on each side to work “urgently” with the UN Chair of the Redeployment Coordination Committee (RCC), and the UNMHA to implement “without further delays” the agreed-upon plan to mutually redeploy forces from Hudaydah city and the ports of Hudaydah, Salif and Ras Issa.

They also called on the parties, particularly the Houthis controlling the ports, to ensure the security and safety of UNMHA personnel and unhindered movement of personnel, equipment, provisions and supplies into and within the country.

Progress must be made towards “a comprehensive political settlement to the conflict” with the full participation of women and youth, they stressed.

They reiterated their “grave concern at the continued deterioration of the humanitarian situation” and called for the rapid, safe flow of supplies and personnel into and across the country.

Reaffirming their “full support” of the RCC Chair and Special Envoy, the Council called on all parties to engage with them, asking Mr. Griffiths to “keep them closely informed of developments so that they may consider further action as necessary in support of a political settlement”.