Latest news on the Asia-Pacific region from the United Nations

One third of women in Tajikistan are subjected to violence by their husbands, but very few cases are reported. Social and legal support, provided through the joint EU/UN Spotlight Initiative, is helping affected women to protect their rights.

Experts appointed by the UN Human Rights Council have expressed concern over reports of increased militarization and intimidation surrounding a multi-billion-dollar urban development and tourism project in Indonesia. 

The Myanmar military has continuously used arbitrary lethal violence against its own people amid an expanding humanitarian emergency, and a worsening economic crisis, the UN rights chief told the Human Rights Council on Monday.

Two years since a military coup in Myanmar, the UN rights office, OHCHR, warned on Friday that the generals’ “scorched earth” policy had left thousands of civilians dead, 80 per cent of townships impacted by fighting and the army “stretched so thin” on the ground, that it resorts to airstrikes.

As food rationing begins for Myanmar’s Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh, a top UN-appointed independent rights expert on Thursday urged the international community to step in and reverse the policy as “a matter of life and death”.

Climate change and the economic downturn continue to fuel the crisis in Afghanistan, and there have been no “encouraging developments” towards getting girls back into classrooms, a senior UN official said on Tuesday. 

Cambodian authorities reported two cases of avian flu, including an 11-year-old girl who died of the virus, the UN health agency said on Sunday.

The UN chief on Sunday strongly condemned the launch of yet another ballistic missile of intercontinental range by the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK), as news reports said two more missiles had been launched on Monday.

A senior UN official has underlined the need for unity in the Security Council in the wake of the latest missile launch by the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK). 

UN independent experts on Thursday warned of catastrophic consequences for Myanmar Rohingya refugee families living in camps in neighbouring Bangladesh, if life-saving food aid is slashed.

Roughly one million Tibetan minority children in China have been separated from their families and placed into Government-run boarding schools, forcing their assimilation into the dominant culture, three independent UN human rights experts said on Monday. 

The international community must promptly deny the legitimacy of Myanmar’s military junta, the UN-appointed independent expert on the situation of human rights in the country said briefing at UN Headquarters in New York on Tuesday, launching a critical report as the coup enters its third year on Wednesday.

Increasing numbers of Rohingya refugees have been arriving in Southeast Asian countries by sea and land, the International Organization for Migration (IOM) reported on Tuesday as it scales up support in the region.