By Emma Farge and Cecile Mantovani
GENEVA (Reuters) -Hundreds of U.N. staff protested outside the United Nations’ European headquarters on Thursday at job losses within the global body due to major aid cuts by U.S. President Donald Trump and other donors.
Switzerland’s Geneva, which calls itself the ‘City of Peace’, is a humanitarian and diplomatic hub, employing over 30,000 people in the sector, according to cantonal authorities.
Protesters from the U.N. and its specialist agencies held banners reading: “STOP FIRING UN STAFF NOW!” and chanted: “U.N. staff are not a commodity”. Smaller protests also occurred in Thailand and Myanmar on May 1, U.N. staff said.
While short-term contractors and employees at some agencies like the International Organization for Migration have already been informed of redundancies, many thousands more are coming.
The deepest cuts are expected at agencies heavily reliant on voluntary funding from former top donor the United States, like the World Food Programme or the U.N. refugee agency.
“They tried to keep me but it was impossible,” said An Cuypers, a human rights lawyer, whose temporary contract at the U.N. Human Rights Office was not renewed. “So we are here now: hiring freeze, no budget.”
Séverine Deboos, Chairperson of the International Labour Organization Staff Union, said that up to 250 ILO employees had been made redundant since January.
“We feel lost. We don’t know how to face this,” she said.
“What is complicated and very stressful, there is no real safety net,” she added, saying some did not have access to Swiss unemployment benefits and face expiring visas. An ILO spokesperson was not immediately available for comment.
Grace, a U.N. employee who declined to give her last name, said it was important to stand up for aid workers who had sometimes risked their lives to help people in conflict.
“The U.N. stands for everybody else but nobody stands up for the people behind the U.N.,” she said.
(Reporting by Emma Farge and Cecile Mantovani; Editing by William Maclean)
