As the world scrambles to help Ukraine, many have noticed a so-called Ukraine Effect. The effect is two fold. On one hand, countries began to focus more efforts and aid to Ukraine, while on the other, taking aid away from other countries. In Europe, Ukrainian refugees have gained access to health care, education and job opportunities while the repatriation of refugees from Syria and other Middle East countries has been instated. Recently, Hungary offered aid to around 600,000 Ukrainian refugees, but expelled thousands of Syrian refugees. Syria has been at war for 11 years and donors are losing interest in the cause while they rush to help Ukraine. This can be seen within UN funding as Ukrainian aid is 78% funded while Syrian aid is only 47% funded. While some tie the suddenness of Ukraine’s war to the amount of aid, other countries have also been suddenly thrown into peril. Afghanistan underwent a sudden dramatic change in 2021, yet aid is only 59% funded. These slashes in funding have real time effects. Food rations have been instituted in Yemen, a nation already dealing with famine and food insecurity. Somalia almost declared an official famine in 2022 with 7.8 million people in crisis levels of hunger and 700,000 starving in 2023. Despite this, the UN received only 57% of the 2.3 billion dollars of aid requested, and the money came in late.

Other problems have also been heightened because of the war in Ukraine. Russia has fueled another global food crisis by driving up prices and wheat supplies. This affects countries in the Black Sea and worsens problems in Yemen and Somalia. Additionally, as Russia causes inflation in countries like Lebanon and Turkey, it takes away from their spending to Syrian refugees.

While Europe has accepted the most Ukrainian refugees, other powerful countries’ treatment of refugees has been brought to light.  Within the US, there is discrimination against refugees, especially from South America. The number of people displaced by the Venezuelan refugee crisis is very similar to the amount of refugees from Ukraine, at 6.8 million refugees and migrants. However, in 2022 the $1.79 billion regional response plan was less than 14% funded by the time that the $1.85 billion Ukraine regional plan was 62% funded. Despite this, the conflicts between Ukraine and Venezuela do have stark differences. While Ukraine’s refugee crisis appeared suddenly and in the face of a war, Venezuela’s crisis developed over years and has been affected by many factors, not just war. Venezuelan refugees leave because of a lack of food and medicine and an increase in violence and death, all worsened by the COVID-19 pandemic. Still, many refugees do not get the help they need in the US because of the politicalization of the issue. 

Migrants and refugees are being used as political stunt props as they are sent on buses from state to state. While President Biden extended Temporary Protected Status to Venezuelan refugees in 2021, the project is still very underfunded. 

Going forward, the US must work to depoliticize the issue of immigration and refugees. Countries across the world must work to help refugees from all countries and follow through on their promises.

Ultimately, the Ukraine Effect demonstrates the need to reform systems of global aid and assistance. It should go beyond temporary food provisions that can be taken away if funds are reallocated and center long-term goals like building infrastructure, making transportation accessible and strengthening equal education systems. Long-term aid must focus not only on providing necessities, but also providing training and opportunities to empower those who need it.

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Krisna Kumar is a senior at Friends School of Baltimore. She is interested in human rights and diplomacy and has been a member of STAND’s Yemen, Burma, United States, and East Turkistan action committees since last spring.

However, the real human impact goes far beyond statistics. Every day, another Indigenous woman goes missing. Families and communities are torn apart when they lose someone they care about. It is devastating to lose a friend, relative, or community member. Countless Native women across generations have grown up with the fear that they could be assaulted, kidnapped, or murdered simply for being an Indigenous woman. Even young girls are aware of the danger they are in. For them, MMIWG2S is impossible to ignore, yet much of the rest of the country pays little attention to it.

Canada has recognized the crisis of MMIWG2S as a genocide, but the US government has yet to do so. Systemic state violence and the legacies of colonialism and gendered colonial oppression all work to perpetuate this crisis. Institutions that claim to protect the people, such as the police, the legal system, and the entire federal government, fail to do so, and often are active perpetrators of violence. Proportionately, Native people are killed by police more than any other group. They face racist, discriminatory courts when trying to get legal justice for their relatives and community-members, and MMIWG2S are given little media attention.

MMIWG2S is a continuaion of the initial genocide and settler colonialism that founded the United States centuries ago. Since the late 15th century, Indigenous people have been attacked, killed, enslaved, stripped of their lands, forcibly sterilized, sent to reservations and residential schools, and forced to abandon their culture. Today, the legacies of this injustice are ongoing. Voting rights restrictions, the building of environmentally-destructive pipelines in sacred lands, and attempts to overturn policies like the Indian Child Welfare Act all serve as extensions of colonial violence. MMIWG2S exemplifies this along multiple axes of oppression. Colonial racism and gender-based violence intersect to create this crisis. It is not simply violence against women or Native people, but specific violence targeting Native women at the intersections of these identities, along with queer, nonbinary, and Two-Spirit people who also face gender-based oppression. 

It is clear that action is needed. Here at STAND, we stand in solidarity with the Indigenous communities working to protect themselves from systemic racist violence and honor the memory of all MMIWG2S. This list of resources provides hotlines for Indigenous women and all people experiencing violence, relevant government reports and scholarly articles, and a list of organizations currently taking action. You can also attend one of the National Indigenous Women’s Resource Center’s virtual events today to learn more or take action to support Indigenous women here. If you want to learn more about the work that STAND does to address atrocities against Indigenous communities, you can sign up for our United States Action Committee here.

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Grace Harris is a second-year International Development Studies major at UCLA who serves as the United States Action Committee Lead for STAND. She is also an Education and Outreach Co-Lead. This is her third year on STAND’s Managing Committee.

Carly Fabian is a participant in STAND’s Guide to Navigating the Blogosphere. Interested in getting lessons on best practices for blogging and writing on conflict and mass atrocities prevention issues? Join the program! The program is intended to train students to effectively express their own views on international human rights issues; consequently, the views expressed in Blogging Bootcamp posts are those of the participants and do not necessarily reflect official STAND policy stances.

Trigger Warning: this content discusses violent sexual assault.

Last Thursday, the United States recognized the government of Somalia after twenty years of violent anarchy. A new Somali administration took over last year, marking the transition from a temporary government to a government that is supposed to be both stable and permanent. The African Union, allied with government, Ethiopian soldiers, and contracted soldiers, has been slowly taking back land and important towns from the terrorist group, al Shabab, that has ravaged the country in recent years. Hillary Clinton, after speaking to the Somali president, said that this was a “milestone.” But despite the Somali government’s advances, it has failed to appropriately respond to the serious problem of sexual violence against women in it’s war-torn regions. The government cannot command the loyalty and respect of it’s people if it does not fully protect half of its population, particularly from its own military. The state has a responsibility to protect its citizens, particularly those in war zones, from endemic violence. If the new Somali government is to be viewed as the legitimate representative of its people it must fulfill this responsibility.

Years of fighting have left most women as the sole caretakers of their families, leaving them without protection in IDP camps that are often controlled by Shabab militants. Women who venture out, either on a journey to another IDP camp or just to the bathroom, are vulnerable to attack. And the Shabab, lacking money and supplies, have been paying soldiers with “temporary wives,” abducted young girls who are given to the soldiers for several weeks in the place of payment. The girls are often as young as twelve, and if they refuse, they are given two options: death by bullet or death by stoning.

Only days after the US recognized the Somali government, a new rape case involving the government made international headlines. A rape-victim contacted an Al Jazeera reporter and told the reporter that a group of men in government uniforms had gang-raped her. This is not a rare case in the fact that the woman was attacked or in the fact that it was by men affiliated with the government, but rather in the way of the government’s response. Rather than investigating her claim, the government placed a Somali journalist connected with the story in jail, and began a campaign of harassment aimed at the rape victim as well as anyone who was thought to be aiding her.

Sister Somalia, a sexual violence crisis center, is now fearing not only intimidation by the government, but also that this incident will make victims of sexual violence more afraid than ever to come forward. Sister Somalia has worked for years to encourage women, who already harbored rational fears of retribution, rejection, and violence for speaking out, into treatment and rehabilitation. But they fear that their progress might be set back by renewed government intimidation.

The next few months will determine the seriousness of the new American involvement in Somalia. The US should remember that despite Somalia’s advancements, its treatment of women should be a reason why aid cannot be given free of requirements, but instead must be given in return for greater advancement and protection of women and young girls. By ignoring and even attempting to silence the plight of women and young girls within its borders, the new Somali government will lose legitimacy both internationally and internally. While US recognition offers great financial assistance to the governments and economies of struggling countries, the US should also use its leverage as a major donor nation to ensure that the new Somali government fulfills its obligation to control its armed forces and protect IDP camp residents from harm.

Blogs

Dart-Throwing Chimp: Jay Ulfelder (see the Twitter section), who the Twitter community unfairly refers to as the “Nate Silver of Political Instability,” is a democratization expert, whose forecasting capabilities lend helpful insight into trends in conflict, mass atrocities, and regime transitions.

Democracy Arsenal: A committed cabal of progressive foreign policy practitioners, Democracy Arsenal’s list of contributors spans key participants in foreign policy decision-making under the Clinton and Obama administrations, including Rosa Brooks (see the Twitter section), David Shorr, and Heather Hurlburt.

Abu Muqawama: Straight outta NW DC, Dan Trombly and Adam Elkus have proven among the more insightful commentators on military strategy, operations, and policy. For human rights advocates looking to understand the larger context for policy conversations on political violence and light-footprint interventions, the Trombly/Elkus duo’s perspective is indispensable.

Duck of Minerva: A grab-bag of political science-based commentary on contemporary affairs. Interested in a gendered analysis of comparative politics? Check. Science fiction-oriented perspectives on counterinsurgency? Check. Plus, their daily “linkage” posts are a valuable collection of popular insight into international relations.

Reinventing Peace: The official blog of the World Peace Foundation, Reinventing Peace features insightful and diverse case studies on peacebuilding, mass atrocity prevention, and human rights policy. The blog is curated–and often written–by Alex de Waal, a well-established Sudan expert, and Bridget Conley, the former research director of the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum.

Twitter

@zackbeauchamp and @HayesBrown: This tag-team of progressive bloggers packs a powerful punch for rights-minded advocates. Beauchamp is a fervent and nuanced blogosphere defender of global ethics and the “responsibility to protect” doctrine, while Brown knows more about the United Nations than is healthy for a twentysomething.

@jay_ulfelder: As mentioned above, Jay is a veritable wizard of political instability, and is widely known as “that guy who predicted the Mali coup before it was cool.”

@brooks_rosa: Rosa Brooks, a former policymaker at the Department of Defense’s human rights office, is a committed “responsibility to protect” advocate, and is among the most familiar with the policy challenges and opportunities presented by human rights norms. Plus, she’s been fighting the good fight on gender imbalances in foreign policy institutions, often to much controversy.

@charlie_simpson: As Ben Valentino has observed, most mass atrocities occur within a broad context of counterinsurgency. So, if you’re interested in preventing mass atrocities, you should beef up on your understanding of insurgent and counterinsurgent violence. Look no further than Erin Simpson, who’s played a decisive role in shaping the last decade of policy discourse on counterinsurgency operation. And with a dry wit, too.

@brainpicker: Because sometimes, all we need is a little inspiration.