(COMMON DREAMS) Winnie Byanyima — Our world is becoming a more dangerous place. Crises are intensifying. And the people who are most poor and vulnerable are always left suffering the consequences.
That is what we must remember as we mark World Humanitarian Day this year.
Almost 60 million people have been driven from their homes by violence and conflict, more than at any time since the Second World War. After that war, the world laid out fundamental rights in landmark agreements from the Universal Declaration of Human Rights to the Refugee Convention and the Geneva Conventions at the heart of international humanitarian law. Seventy years on, those rights are flagrantly violated in countless humanitarian crises.
Women, men and children have fundamental rights to humanitarian assistance and protection. Yet far too many states block aid and attack their own citizens, and too many others – including some of the world’s wealthiest countries – turn their back on those fleeing conflict and violence.
That is what gives me a passion to change things. What gives me faith that we are the humanitarian heroes who Oxfam works with around the world.