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Although millions of boys and girls worldwide have relied on the internet to play, socialize and learn during the COVID-19 pandemic, time online can also expose them to online sexual exploitation, cyberbullying and other risks, the head of the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) said on Tuesday.

UNICEF Executive Director Henrietta Fore is among experts expressing growing concern for the well-being of children who were already facing these online risks even before the pandemic. 

The emergence of new coronavirus variants has raised major questions around whether currently available vaccines will be effective against them, the head of the World Health Organization (WHO) said on Monday. 

WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus was speaking one day after South Africa announced it was temporarily suspending rollout of the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine after a relatively small study revealed it provided reduced protection against the variant first identified in the country. 

The world is far from achieving agreed goals to reduce global warming in line with the Paris Agreement on Climate Change, the UN Secretary-General warned on Monday in his ongoing bid to secure greater commitment to averting climate catastrophe. 

The United Nations has called for collaboration at all levels, and across all sectors of  society, to protect millions of girls and women at risk of female genital mutilation (FGM) every year. 

The need is even more pressing amid concerns that two million additional cases of FGM may occur over the next decade as the coronavirus pandemic shutters schools and disrupts programmes that help protect girls from the harmful practice. 

The United Nations top disarmament official, on Wednesday, stressed the urgent need to not only identify those who have used chemical weapons in Syria, but also hold them accountable for their deeds.

Key workers and other vulnerable people in 145 countries should receive COVID-19 vaccines in the first half of this year, under the joint UN-led COVAX initiative for fair access to coronavirus-beating jabs, it’s been confirmed.

Najat Rochdi, the UN Deputy Special Coordinator, Resident and Humanitarian Coordinator for Lebanon, today expressed her shock and sadness over the assassination of Lebanese activist and publicist Lokman Slim. Ms. Rochdi extended her deep condolences to Mr. Slim’s family and friends and voiced solidarity with the Lebanese people and society as a whole. “The killing of a courageous and engaged intellectual is a loss to all the Lebanese people,” the UN official said. 

The share of children among detected trafficking victims has tripled while the share of boys has increased five times in the past 15 years. Girls are mainly trafficked for sexual exploitation, while boys are used for forced labour, according to the Global Report on Trafficking in Persons, launched by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) today.

The COVID-19 pandemic has had a “profound” impact on the diagnosis and treatment of cancer around the world, the UN World Health Organization (WHO) said on Tuesday, before highlighting that breast cancer has become the most common type of the disease. 

Although almost 50,000 victims of human trafficking were detected and reported in 2018 by 148 countries, the “hidden nature” of the crime means that the actual number of victims could be “far higher”, the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) said on Tuesday.