According to a recently released UNICEF report, Tracking Progress on Child and Maternal Development, some 200 million children in the developing world currently suffer from stunted growth, due to chronic undernutrition.  Chronic undernutrition, is a factor in over a third of all deaths in children under five years-old.

This often unnoticed and often silent killer, preys on children most as time and again it rears its ugly head when it has become acute.  The unseen suffering in children who often appear healthy, can lease to serious and even permanent damage to a child’s health and development, or even death. undernutrition in early childhood puts children at greater risk for diseases such as pneumonia and diarrhea, diabetes and heart disease.

The report,  which profiles 24 countries where 80% of the world’s stunted children live, provides information on nutrition strategies, progress made by programs and current challenges, based on the most recent data available.   According to the report there is good news, and that is that we can reduce, or even eliminate undernutrition.   Significant progress has been with the delivery cost-effective solutions, including micronutrients, to vulnerable populations across the globe.  Such successful examples include; providing children with access to iodized salt and vitamin A supplements,which has helped reduce infant and child mortality.  According to UNICEF, in the world’s least developed countries, the percentage of children under five years receiving essential doses of vitamin A supplement has more than doubled, from 41 percent in 2000 to 88 percent in 2008.

“An important factor in almost all of these countries is the situation of women,” noted Schultink. “Women do not have enough decision-making power to either take care of themselves or of their children and, in general, are seen as lower-class citizens” (UNICEF).  Some of the reports noted observation recommendations to this affect include;

• There is a critical window of opportunity to prevent undernutrition – while a mother is pregnant and during a child’s fi rst two years of life – when proven nutrition interventions offer children the best chance to survive and reach optimal growth and development.
• Marked reductions in child undernutrition can be achieved through improvements in women’s nutrition before and during pregnancy, early and exclusive breastfeeding, and good-quality complementary feeding for infants and young children, with appropriate micronutrient interventions.
• Large-scale programmes – including the promotion, protection and support of exclusive breastfeeding, providing vitamins and minerals through fortifi ed foods and supplements, and community-based treatment of severe acute malnutrition – have been successful in many countries. Where such programming does not yet exist,
• Improving child and maternal nutrition is not only entirely feasible but also affordable and cost-effective.

The report highlights more than just the need for urgent action to save the lives of millions of children today, but the futures of millions of children and adults tomorrow, as undernutirition’s affects stretch well beyond childhood. Children who are undernurished are less likely to succeed in school and obtain a higher education, thus limiting their productivity and income as adults and increasing the likelihood that the cycle of poverty and undernutrition in children will continue for generations to come.

UNFPA: Impoverished women bear brunt of climate change
The UN Population Fund has found the world’s primary agricultural workers — impoverished women — will bear the brunt of catastrophic climate change resulting from global warming. The UNFPA called for greater equality for women to relieve the disproportionate burden they are bound to experience from weather-related natural disasters, and their consequences for food, water and energy.

Food summit finds little financing for global-hunger fight A summit on world hunger at the United Nations Food & Agriculture Organization headquarters ended with pledges to increase aid for agricultural development, but no concrete commitments for financing. UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon opened the summit with sobering statistics on the state of world hunger, noting 17,000 children die every day. “Small-holder farmers are the heart and soul of food security and poverty reduction. Our job is not just to feed the hungry but to empower the hungry to feed themselves,” Ban said.

Sri Lanka camps breeding anger
Ethnic Tamils and human-rights groups are growing increasingly frustrated by the extended government use of internment camps to house Tamil refugees. Six months after the government declared victory over the Tamil Tigers, around 200,000 people remain in the camps. Authorities say they are screening for any remaining rebels, but observers worry the continued detention might stoke ethnic tensions.

Tobacco poison surrounds child workers
In Malawi, villagers, including children, exposed to harmful waste from tobacco processors. The children pick through mountainous piles of waste tobacco and sweep it up with their bare hands into giant bags in the hope of scraping a living. From behind a veil of dust, they stare back at us with bloodshot eyes.
- British American Tobacco announces inquiry; Alliance One says it will build wall to keep children away from waste

More than 2,000 Zimbabweans flee, fearing attacks
Fearing a resurgence of xenophobic attacks, around 2,500 Zimbabwean migrants have taken refuge in government buildings in De Doorns, a farming town about 140km from Cape Town, South Africa, after some of their shacks in an informal settlement were attacked and demolished, said a police official.

AFRICA: “The fewer the children the better the care”
Africa will fail to achieve most UN Millennium Development Goals unless countries adopt effective family planning programmes and control rapid population growth, experts warn.
“Africa has not done well in areas of family planning,” Khama Rogo, World Bank senior adviser, said. “It is not that we cannot do well; we have not committed ourselves… family planning and population growth have a cross-cutting impact.”

AFGHANISTAN: Schools to reopen for exams after H1N1 shutdown
The government has decided to reopen all schools from 23 November to 12 December to allow 7.5 million schoolchildren across Afghanistan to take exams. On 1 November Afghanistan’s National Disasters Management Commission declared an H1N1 health emergency and ordered a shutdown of all schools and universities for three weeks. Up to nine million students and teachers were affected by the decision which was also criticized by some observers as “politically motivated”.

YEMEN: Malnourished children arriving at al-Mazraq IDP camp
Aid workers at al-Mazraq camp for internally displaced persons (IDPs) in Haradh District, Hajjah Governorate, northernYemen, say more and more children are arriving at the camp in a state of moderate or severe malnourishment. Khalid Shaibani from the UNICEF-run therapeutic feeding centre (TFC) at the camp told IRIN the number of malnourished children was increasing by the day as new IDP families arrived.

VIETNAM: Ethnic minorities lose out on maternal healthcare
The birth rate in rapidly developing Vietnam has dropped in recent years while maternal health and antenatal standards have risen - albeit only for the dominant ethnic groups. Ethnic minorities mostly still give birth at home, without a healthcare worker or midwife, specialists say.

The Foreign Policy Association’s Children’s Blogger, Cassandra Clifford, has a chapter in the newly released ‘At Issue: Slavery Today’, designed for middle and high school students.

Cassandra, who is also the Executive Director and Founder of Bridge to Freedom Foundation, which assists survivors of modern slavery, including victims of sexual and other coerced labor trafficking such as child soldiers, by identifying and bridging the gaps in services and information available to them in corporate and community programs.

Cassandra’s chapter, ‘Slavery Is Different Today Versus Yesterday’, is featured alongside other great abolitionist authors like E. Benjamin Skinner and Ambassador Mark P. Lagon.  Click here to see the books Table of Contents, for a full list of chapters and topics.

“The At Issue series, for grades 10-12, provides a range of opinions on specific social issues, excerpted from online and print articles and speeches by government officials, journalists, doctors, professors, and others. The introduction to each book provides background on the issue and the brief, relatively up-to-date articles are helpfully prefaced by paragraph-long summaries, making the volumes even handier for students doing reports.” - KLIATT, September
2007

The At Issue series includes a wide range of opinion on a single controversial subject. Each volume includes primary and secondary sources from a variety of perspectives — eyewitnesses, scientific journals, government officials and many others. Extensive bibliographies and annotated lists of relevant organizations to contact offer a gateway to future research.   Click here to see other volumes in the series which cover issues such as AIDS, Anorexia, Antisemitism, etc.

Many of you may have heard on the news about a missing five-year-old Shaniya Davis from Fayetteville, North Carolina, which first broke news this week as news of her disappearance led authorities into a desperate search for her safe return.  The young girl was reportedly taken from the mobile-home of her mother while on a visit, the child lived with her father, Bradley Lockhart, who had full custody of the the child.

The story soon took a shocking turn as video was captured of the young girl being carried into a hotel room by a man.  Soon the darker reality of the case began to emerge, and for many in this military town nothing was more paralyzing as the focus turned to the young girls mother, who was arrested for allegedly selling her own daughter into prostitution.  Shaniya’s mother, Antoinette Nicole Davis, was arrested yesterday on charges related to prostitution and human trafficking and felony child abuse.  Authorities on the case reported that the girls mother;

knowingly provide[d] Shaniya Davis with the intent that she be held in sexual servitude,” and she “permit[ted] an act of prostitution (Huffington Post).

The man in the video, 20 year-old Mario McNeil, was identified and has since been arrested, admitting kidnapping, however has not admitted guilt for any of the other charges.  One other man was also arrested, but has been subsequently released.  Leads and countless searches for the missing girl where tirelessly perused over the next couple of days.  However the frantic search for Shaniya, lead by Fayetteville police and hundreds of volunteers, sadly ended their search today with the discovery of her body in a wooded area off the side of a rural road near Sanford, 30 miles from Fayetteville (MSNBC/AP).

Ironically I was just down in Fayetteville the other weekend visiting friends, one of which said that they could use someone like me down there, however not even they were thinking of victims as young as 5, as they were making note of the barrage of strip clubs that litter the county.  It was a friend who broke the news to me that her body was found as she was driving down Highway 87 and saw the search and rescue crews at the site where the body was found. While sitting at a dinner, not far from where Shaniya’s body was found, I was sitting there discussing my anti-trafficking work with some people when the age old topic of “where” trafficking occurs came up. The expected, “not here” slipped quickly from nearly everyone’s mouth as it does in most small towns, and big ones as well.  Of course I was quick to reply with “trafficking happens everywhere, even here”, little did I know that this story would soon break and the reality of my words, and my life’s work, would be so quickly brought to light in the town soon after my departure.  As the story is breaking national media and hitting the anti-trafficking circles, it  goes to really show that human trafficking really is in every town…big or small.  While I never wanted to see the reality of human trafficking play out so vividly and end so tragically for such a young victim, I am sadly not all that shocked.  Stories of people selling there own children are sadly not new, nor are they rare.  Although one tends to think these are stories that come out of Africa or SE Asia, but this little girl is far from alone in the US.

So how and why does human trafficking happen without bounds?  First you want to ask, as we all do, “How can a mother sale her child…sell her for sex?”, and while the desperation of addiction and poverty have a role to play, the other question we fail to ask is “who could buy a 5 year-old…who could buy another person?”  The heartening reality is that it is the second largest black-market industry in the world, just behind arms and capping that of the drug market, and it is fueled by demand. The market for sex young children exists, in fact it thrives, even in rural American towns.

The average age of entry into prostitution in the United States is 11-13 years-old, a reality I have seen all to often, but one that remains in the shadows of our society.  Our city streets and rural towns will continue to see the innocence of so many young girls, and boys, victimized as long as the demand for sex with children continues and continues to remain in the shadows.  We have to wake to the reality that there are buyers of sex with children along the dusty streets of Phnom Penh, the busy streets of our nations capital and the rural roads of our ‘All American’ towns.

Photo: UNICEF

A series of natural disasters has his Asia in recent months leading to increased concern for child malnutrition, as food security rises.  There is no question that optimal infant and young child feeding is essential for optimal growth and development.   Optimal feeding includes; breastfeeding exclusively for six months, and providing appropriate complementary foods with continued breastfeeding for up to two years or beyond.

However in times of natural disasters, conflict and displacement this is often overlooked.  Often breastfeeding and child health is impeded during emergencies, due to unsolicited, or ‘uncontrolled’ donations of breast-milk substitutes.  These donations, according to UNICEF and WHO, undermined child health efforts, as was seen following the 7.9 magnitude earthquake in West Sumatra on 30 September.  “UNICEF Indonesia, worked with the country’s Health Ministry, and contacted local and national radio stations to broadcast requests to stop milk-substitute donations.”

“It’s a huge problem, and the problem lies in the lack of knowledge among the donors on the potential harm,” said Winoto. (IRIN)

Large numbers of infants are suffering serious bouts of diarrhea, and in some cases dying, from infant formula provided in emergency situations.  Formula is often diluted with unsanitary water, which not only decreases the nutritional value of the formula, but also leads to an increase in the number of cases of diarrhea and dehydration. Additionally this puts a strain on emergency healthcare facilities, only exacerbating the situation, as inundated parents line up at clinics which are already overwhelmed with infants who have fallen ill due to being formula fed with unsanitary water. Therefore all UN agencies, aid groups, and governments are being urged to ensure women are not automatically given infant formula during emergency situations, and are encouraged to breast-feed.

In the wake of rising food prices and soaring malnutrition the need to promote breast feeding has never been greater. While the health benefits of breastfeeding have long since been getting the spotlight in various campaigns, as I have previously reported in post such as; Fighting For Infant Health in Indonesia, Breast Feeding Needed to Fight Child Growing Malnutrition, Infants Rights to Nutrition, Is Breastfeeding heading for extinction in the Philippines?

While the battle to see that breastfeeding is made a key element in a child’s early nutritional development, and child malnutrition is decreased, is essential in any climate. In a climate of nothing other than continually rising prices, breast milk is the one staple that is free.

Breastfeeding however continues to be a battle, though one that is increasingly being won, as seen in Mali, where “baby friendly” hospitals have created support groups to increase exclusive breastfeeding, and steer mothers away from feeding infants alternatives such as tea, water, cows milk and formula. 

The centre’s midwife, Djeneba Samaké, told IRIN that at baptisms a mothers’ support group talks about breastfeeding. She said economics helps promote breastfeeding: mother’s milk is free. “But even the richest women here who consider powdered milk as a status symbol and sign of progress are now choosing to breastfeed exclusively.” (IRIN).

FAO: World ripe for another food crisis
More international aid to combat higher food prices and insufficient production in developing countries is needed to stave off another food crisis, warns Jacques Diouf, director general of the Food and Agriculture Organization. “There is a lack of priority in fighting hunger and poverty at the highest political level, not only in developed countries but in developing countries,” Diouf said.

WHO: World’s women face unequal health care
Unequal health treatment provided to women rooted in gender discrimination is damaging societies across the world, the World Health Organization warns in a report. HIV/AIDS is the No. 1 cause of disease and death in women ages 15 to 44 years old, the report noted.

Government limits discussion of Ethiopia’s growing hunger problems
Drought and hunger are plaguing Ethiopian farmers and their families, threatening a countrywide famine. With elections scheduled for May, the government has instituted strict controls on the release of hunger-related information. Aid agencies that speak about famine can be expelled from the country and organizations are prevented from conducting independent assessments.

Kenya takes aim at cervical cancer
Ignorance and a lack of available preventative treatment leaves HIV-positive women particularly vulnerable to cervical cancer, the most prevalent cancer among Kenyan women. Kenyan authorities are planning an early detection screening and treatment program and a countrywide public-awareness campaign.

Breast cancer rising in the developing world
Breast cancer cases are on the rise across the developing world, where nearly two-thirds of women are not diagnosed before the cancer spreads through their bodies. Stigma, fear and poor diagnosis are contributing to the rise. International cancer specialists are meeting this week to prepare a two-pronged strategy to combat the rise by training midwives and negotiating cheaper prices for chemotherapy treatment.

Italy outraged over rights ruling on classroom crucifixes
There was uproar in Italy today over a ruling by the European court of human rights that the crucifixes that hang in most Italian classrooms are a violation of religious and educational freedoms.  The seven judges, whose decision could prompt a Europe-wide review of the use of religious symbols on public premises, said state schools had to “observe confessional neutrality”.

Ban encourages countries to lift HIV/AIDS travel bans
United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon is urging other countries to emulate a decision by U.S. President Barack Obama to lift travel restrictions on people with HIV/AIDS. The Obama administration said it soon would lift the ban on entry for HIV-positive foreigners, which has been in place since 1987.

Column: Obstetric fistulas easily reversed
U.S.-based doctor and Worldwide Fistula Fund founder Lewis Wall promotes a simple $300 surgery that easily reverses the effects of obstetric fistulas, returning women to health and to society. Women who develop fistulas during childbirth often are younger mothers. In many African societies, a fistula is a sentence of ostracism for the women who suffer them.

UN launches pneumonia prevention, treatment appeal
An investment of $39 billion to support efforts to prevent and treat pneumonia could save the lives of 5.3 million children in the developing world by 2015, the World Health Organization and United Nations Children’s Fund said. Pneumonia kills about 1.8 million children every year, but relatively few resources are directed toward countering the disease.

Chad pursues vaccination campaign amid confirmed polio cases
A three-day nationwide polio vaccination campaign began on 30 October throughout Chad, including in the east where according to the World Health Organization the rate of routine immunizations is among the weakest nationwide.

According to the National Center on Family Homelessness, one in every 50 American children experiences homelessness.  Homelessness affects children in a multitude of ways, including both their physical and mental health.  Over two million youths, between the ages of 12 and 24, will experience at least one episode of homelessness each year.  More than 100,000 youth sleep on American streets for 6 months or longer, and many of these children and teens will experience violence and a multitude of abuse.  Children on the streets are at increased risk for commercial sexual exploitation, including forced street prostitution.

Earlier this year the National Center on Family Homelessness published the report, Homeless Children: America’s New Outcasts, the report highlighted America’s hidden shame and showed the devastating numbers of Americas growing problem. In the report, which surveyed 2005-2006, it was found that child homelessness has now capped that of anytime since the Great Depression.

Homeless children are more likely to be sick, go hungry, fall behind in school and twice as likely to have learning disabilities than children who are not homeless.  According to studies our biggest problem is our lack of preparation to address the increasing and serious nature of homelessness in the United States, leaving most states unable to adequately assist those in need and leaving homeless children even more in the dark.

As we continue down the path of the recession the case for child homelessness only looks to deepen, and the issue is one that still rings low on the political radar and wills.  Homelessness effects children in all states, including our own Capital, which only last month had a huge blow for the homeless population thanks to major budget cuts (some $20 million) that is only to result in the closing of more shelters.  Those shelters that will not face closure will be unable to continue serving the numbers they have been currently serving, and all and all it is once again those in need who will be hit the hardest, including the cities children.

According to the Community Partnership for the Prevention of Homelessness, who does estimated monthly counts, there were more than 6,000 homeless persons in DC during the month of August. The group says that the figures include approximately 703 families which includes some 1,400 children.   At current DC only has 164 city-funded beds set aside for families, leaving the waiting list numbers rising to inconceivable numbers.  And DC is not alone!

Do you live in DC?  Do you want to learn more about the problems in your city and what you can do?  Come hear from local community and government leaders as we discuss the impact of youth homelessness in the District and what you can do to support local efforts to address youth homelessness.
Join FAIR Fund and the DC Alliance of Youth Advocates, with Cosponsors Councilmember Tommy Wells and Councilmember Michael A. Brown for “inVISIBLE: Shining a light on DC’s homeless youth”.

Location:
The True Reformer Building
(1200 U Street, NW)

Date: Tuesday, November 10, 2009

Time: 10:00 a.m. to 1:00p.m.

Please rsvp to  ife at dc-aya.org

Just Give - 50 Ways to Help Children
Global Girlfriend “Gifts that Do More”

This list is only a small list of charities and organizations that will help you to directly help a child in need, but remember the child in need may be closer than you think. You do not have to have money to make a child’s wish come true, time is a wonderful gift. Remember the child down the street who lives with only an elderly grandparent, the children in need of foster care, the boy down the street who is desperately trying to learn a sport but his single mother doesn’t know how to teach him, the family who this year hasn’t enough to buy presents for their children, etc… The list of possibilities goes on and on, and so do the children in need.

A story sure to give you nightmares is the harrowing story behind child labor across the globe.  Whether it is costumes made from cotton picked by child labors in Uzbekistan or clothing sewn by child labors, ghoulish make-up with minerals mined by child labors, chocolate candy-bars made from cocoa picked by the hands of child labors in West Africa, or another hideous form of child labor that haunts our consumer market the stories are all eerily similar and all will leave you tossing and turning at night hoping that when you open your eyes it will all have been a dream.  But this is no nightmare dredged up to give you a mischievous fright.  No, stories of child labor are the true daily nightmares of children around the world cannot be erased by when you open your eyes, but this is one scary story we all need to open our eyes to and face.

Products which are often made by the hands of child slave labor include; cotton, tea, silk, coca, sugar, steal, carpets, diamonds, etc.  Products like cocoa/chocolate have been known to be produced with the efforts of child slaves, many who have been trafficked in Western Africa.  In the report, Combating Child Labor in Cocoa Growing, conducted by the ILO (International Labor Organization), they estimate 200,000 children work on cocoa farms in the Ivory Coast.

Some current campaigns against child labor are being done by the International Labor Rights Forum.  See the following links to learn more, and for updates and ways to take action on these campaigns:

• Chocolate: Child labor in West Africa’s cocoa farms
• Cotton : Forced child labor in Uzbekistan’s cotton fields
• Dole : Invest in worker rights, not exploitation!

Don’t forget its not too late to take a stand this Halloween, there is still time for Fair Trade Trick-or-Treating!  Please also see my previous posts on Child Labor and Fair Trade and Slave Free Links .