UN Interviews

Persons with disabilities living in institutions face a heightened risk of being trafficked as their reliance on others for daily support can be manipulated; that’s according to an expert in disability rights speaking at the United Nations.Eric Rosenthal leads Disability Rights International. He told a side event at COSP, the UN’s largest annual meeting focusing on issues that persons living with disabilities face, that people isolated from their families are easier targets for exploitation.  The number of trafficking victims of all types has seen a troubling rise since the COVID-19 pandemic, with a 25 per cent increase in global detections between 2019 and 2022.UN News' Anna O'Donnell sat down with Mr. Rosenthal and began by asking him to explain why people with disabilities are being trafficked. 

Since the fall of the Assad regime in December 2024, 1.9 million Syrian refugees have headed home to Syria. After 14 years of civil war, much of the country is in ruins, while over 90 per cent of the population lives below the poverty line.Yet, Syrian refugees are not losing hope: UN refugee agency, UNHCR, has found that more than 80 per cent of the diaspora hope to return one day, a major shift compared to surveys conducted before the fall of the old regime.  There are more than six million Syrian refugees, and over seven million are internally displaced. UNHCR is committed to helping all those who want to return home.UN News’ Emma Trager-Lewis spoke to agency spokesperson in Syria Céline Schmitt, who’s just returned from a field visit to Dara’a, birthplace of the Syrian revolution in 2011. 

Ensuring that parents have opportunities for “decent work” is essential to reducing the number of young people, currently estimated to be 138 million globally, who are engaged in child labour, according to the UN.The internationally-agreed goal was to end child labour by 2025 and while the number has decreased by 12 million since 2020, millions of children are still working in dangerous or unregulated work places and are being denied the right to an education and a safer, more secure future.The Child Labour report released by the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) and the International Labour Organization (ILO) highlights the trends in jobs involving young people and suggests how the practice can be brought to an end completely.UN News’ Naima Sawaya sat down with Benjamin Smith, an expert at the ILO and began by asking him to explain what constitutes child labour. 

Ocean phytoplankton may be tiny, but their impact on the planet is enormous.These microscopic organisms form the foundation of marine food chains and play a vital role in carbon sequestration and climate regulation.At the UN Ocean Conference taking place on the French Riviera, UN News’s Fabrice Robinet spoke to Alexandra Worden, a Boston native and plankton specialist at the world-renowned Marine Biological Laboratory in Woods Hole, Massachusetts, who is working at the intersection of science, technology, and policy to better understand how nature-based solutions can support climate action.  

In response to rising anti-Muslim hate, the UN General Assembly adopted a resolution last year. Among other measures, it called for the appointment of a Special Envoy to Combat Islamophobia.Miguel Ángel Moratinos, High Representative for the UN Alliance of Civilizations (UNAOC) – which promotes intercultural and interfaith dialogue – will be stepping in to the role.He spoke to UN News’s Abdelmonem Makki about the importance of addressing Islamophobia worldwide, including by promoting better understanding of Islam as well as legal reforms. 

Ukraine’s Kakhovka Dam was destroyed exactly two years ago on Friday, representing the most significant environmental disaster so far resulting from Russia’s ongoing invasion. Its collapse directly impacted over 100,000 people and submerged more than 620 square kilometres under water.In addition to causing widespread displacement, the disaster created a humanitarian and ecological crisis – threatening disease outbreaks and prompting the collapse of ecosystems. The loss and damage from this event is estimated to be $14 billion. UN News’ Evgeniya Kleshcheva sat down this week with Roman Shakhmatenko, a team leader with the UN Development Programme (UNDP) in Ukraine, to discuss the “far-reaching” consequences of the collapse. 

Nobel Peace Prize nominee and Palestinian photojournalist Motaz Azaiza grew up wanting to be a travel reporter; instead, he became a war correspondent in Gaza.His images gained worldwide attention soon after war broke out in the enclave, following the Hamas-led terror attacks in Israel in October 2023.Today, Mr. Azaiza lives outside Gaza. But he continues to campaign for the people of Gaza who like him have experienced airstrikes, hunger and the breakdown of society under prolonged starvation and theft driven by desperation.In an interview with UN News’s Nancy Sarkis, Mr. Azaiza says that the memory that haunts him the most from the war is of mothers searching for their children's bodies that had vanished in missile strikes.Those women “could not even weep on their children’s bodies” he says. 

In recent years, development efforts have been set back by long-standing obstacles made worse by the COVID-19 pandemic, ongoing conflicts, climate change, rising debt, lack of digital access and growing inequalities.Dima Al-Khatib, Director of the UN Office for South-South Cooperation (UNOSSC) says there’s an urgent need to accelerate progress towards the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals – only 17 per cent of which are on track.In pursuit of that, more than 120 Member States gathered this week at UN headquarters in New York to discuss how South-South and triangular partnerships can boost future sustainable development for all.UN News’s Emma Trager-Lewis sat down with Ms. Al-Khatib and began by asking her to explain what South-South collaboration means in practice. 

"I saw people coming from different parts of the world just to help bring peace in my country,” said Chief Superintendent Zainab Gbla, speaking to UN News just ahead of receiving her award this week for UN Woman Police Officer of the Year.She’s been serving in Abyei, a disputed oil-rich region straddling Sudan and South Sudan, since April 2023, as the Chief Police Training Officer for the interim security force there, UNISFA.Ms. Gbla’s award recognises her innovative community engagement initiatives which have strengthened relations between host communities and the UN mission.UN News' Emma Trager-Lewis sat down with her ahead of the award ceremony and started by asking what drew her to serve as a ‘blue helmet’.

Squadron Leader Sharon Mwinsote Syme of Ghana is this year’s UN Military Gender Advocate award winner for her work boosting gender equality while serving with the UN peacekeeping mission in the disputed Abyei region (UNISFA) between neighbouring Sudan and South Sudan.  She trained over 1,500 UNISFA personnel on gender-responsive peacekeeping in addition to working closely with local communities, including coordinating a highly effective health campaign to counter child marriage and female genital mutilation.  UN News’ Naima Sawaya sat down with Squadron Leader Syme ahead of Thursday’s award presentation.