Love is the fuel that gives us life,
that gives us the fight for one more day.
The fuel that gives us hope and strength,
which allows us to continue on the long hard journey.
Love is food for the hungry,
the main nourishment of a child.
The special screening was held in Washington DC last night for the acclaimed film, HOLLY, opened by Ambassador Mark Lagon, and was followed by a question and answer session, with Ambassador Lagon, Guy Jacobson, and Adi Ezroni.
A young girl running desperately through the streets, being chased by two men, her tiny feet taking her as fast as they can. Loosing her breath and her gain over her predators, she is finally caught despite the watchful eyes on the street, no one sees Holly’s (Thuy Nguyen) fate. Her eyes full of fear as she is brought back to her brothel owner, “You run again, I’ll kill you!”, she says. Locked in her room, “Let me out…Let me out…Let me out”, she screams, but Holly knows her efforts are futile and she quickly gives up and again excepts her dire fate.
A bell rings and girls quickly run from all directions to line the streets, a car approaches and they put on their best smiles. “I have new girl, she is virgin…very special!” Holly cowards away from the window as her ‘Mama San’ points to her, her virginity is priced at $1,000 for one week. Today Holly escapes her fate, as the Jon thinks the price is to high.
Patrick (Ron Livingston) is a lost soul, an American expat consumed by the desire to escape life he spends most of his time playing cards and drinking his troubles away. He finds himself stuck in the town laden with young children enslaved in prostitution, sadly this is no shock to Patrick and he continues to look blindly on his surroundings. But this time he cannot escape, and while it may seem like it only begins with a Pepsi, it begins the moment he looks up and into Holly’s eyes.
Shot on location in Cambodia, Holly will send you on an emotional journey through the streets of Phnom Penh an take you right into the heart of the notorious red light district where many scenes where filmed, some in actual brothels, which gives Holly the realness the film needed to drive it’s message home. Holly is not a film made to be a box office hit, it was not made to bring fame and glory to the films actors, producers and director, it was a film made to make a difference and that is exactly what it does. After you see Holly you will not have seen a movie, but you will have stared straight into the world of human trafficking and sexual slavery. Writer/producer Guy Jacobson, set out on a mission with this film, a mission that has now become a tireless life long mission for Jacobson and the rest of the films cast and crew. Holly doesn’t end at the box office, the film is only the beginning of a long journey to save millions of children like Holly.
Can Holly be saved? Patrick is told by Marie (Virginie Ledoyen) who works at AFESIP, a shelter for girls rescued from sexual slavery, when he inquires about what to do now that he saved Holly, from her fate, “You didn’t even save her yet. It takes five minutes to rescue a girl, but five years to reintegrate her into society”. Like Patrick we are often overrun with hopelessness as saving a child from slavery is no easy feat, but like Patrick and those who work tirelessly in the field, we cannot give up hope, we cannot stop working to to save those we can. Most of all we must work at the roots of the problem, demand and poverty, and see that prevention is the number one priority world wide.
As Patrick says in the film, when asked why he was trying to save Holly, “You develop this glazed stare…and as long as you don’t look into their eyes you are fine…, but I stopped, I looked into her eyes!” And like Patrick I too have looked into the eyes of slavery and no longer can I ever look away. I hope Holly gives you the incite you need so that you too can never look away. If we begin to open eyes around the world, then we will begin to see the enormity of the problem of this $12 billion dollar criminal industry. An industry in which more than 1 million children, women and men around the world are sold into sexual slavery every year, according to UNICEF. The U.S. State Department estimates 800,000 victims are trafficked across international borders annually. More than a quarter of the victims of sex trafficking and sexual slavery are children aged 9-15 years old, but children as young as 5, and even a year old are often sent into this world of darkness.
For more information on the film, including interviews with writer/producer Guy Jacobson and producer Adi Ezroni, and Ron Livingston, go to Priority Films
Links:
Red Light Children’s Project
Somaly Mam Foundation
AFESIP
The Facts About Sex Tourism
Related MySpace and Facebook Pages
Share and promote the film to all your friends, and you will all ready be making a difference:
K-11 Project
Red Light Children Campaign
Holly
Child Sexploitation. Expose it. Fight it. End it
The Redlight Children Campaign
Where Can You See Holly?
Here are some locations, but please check your local listings, as the film will make a second launch after the holidays. Some of the cinemas will be holding special screenings with an opportunity to meet the film makers and learn more about the issues.
Dupont Theater in Washington, DC
Angelika in Houston, TX
Cinemark Westchase in Houston, TX
L.A. Music Hall in Los Angeles, CA
Regal Garden Grove in Los Angeles, CA
Regal Westminster in Los Angeles, CA
Regal Long Beach Stadium in Long Beach, CA
Uptown Birmingham in Detroit, MI
Kabuki Theater in San Francisco, CA - Nov. 30th Q&A with writer/producer Guy Jacobson
Rialto Cinemas Elmwood in Berkeley, CA
Regal Village Square in Las Vegas, NV
Regal Boulder Station 11 in Las Vegas, NV
Regal Meridian in Seattle, WA - Dec. 2nd Q&A with writer/producer Guy Jacobson
Regal Valley Art in Tempe, AZ
Regal Fox Tower in Portland, OR - Nov. 30th Q&A with producer Adi Ezroni
Regal Arbor Cinema in Austin, TX - Dec. 2nd Q&A with producer Adi Ezroni
Three buses carrying some 140 children leave Guinea-Bissau heading to Senegal, the children are not going on a school trip, but are being trafficked to work in the cotton fields of southern Senegal. Two of the buses where stopped, but the third was never found, the children’s fate is grim. Only weeks before an unnamed police official in Bafata said “A network of child traffickers which was preparing to smuggle 52 children to Koranic schools in Senegal was dismantled…” (Bissau stops 52 children being smuggled to Senegal), the children where between the ages of 6 and 11 years old. So far this year police have intercepted 301 children being trafficked to Senegal from the Bafatà and Gabù regions of Guinea-Bissau.
UNICEF estimated in a 2004 report that around to 400,000 African children where victims of trafficking. Children enslaved as domestics, sexually exploitation, forced to be beggars, or put to work in the cotton fields or on farms. Most of the children trafficked from Guinea-Bissau to Senegal are forced to beg on the streets. UNICEF estimated there were up to 100,000 child beggars in Senegal, most of which come from Guinea-Bissau. The majority of them are talibés, children sent to study the Koran and obtain a religious education with a marabout, a personal spiritual leader and scholar of the Koran. Enslaved the children are forced to beg on the streets, living in fears of beatings, clad in rags they scatter across the city streets day in and day out.
The problem of child trafficking is common in all of West Africa, as borders are poorly guarded the situation is difficult to gage and stop. However as the recent case has shown the police and local governments are beginning to take the issue more seriously and clamp down. And while catching smugglers and trafficking victims as they attempt to cross the borders is a great step forward, education and awareness to prevent children from being trafficked must also be given more substantial efforts.
“We want to fight this. We want our children to remain in our homeland,” said Ousmane Baldé, public protection officer in the women and children section of the regional police force of Bafatà (GUINEA-BISSAU-SENEGAL: On the child trafficking route).
To find out more statistics and information on the issues of child trafficking and labor in Senegal, please see the Worst Forms of Child Labor Data in Senegal
Are the children in the West Africa worse off than they where 15 years ago, despite legislations enacted to safeguard children’s rights. According to a 6-8 November conference held in Burkina Faso, to assess the progress made by governments to implement the Convention on the Rights of the Child. After an assessment of governments in West Africa it was quickly realized that little had been done to improve children’s rights in the region.
“We went through the reports countries submit on their progress every year and realised quickly that nothing really has been done – very few things have improved in the region over the last 15 years,” said Stefanie Conrad at the NGO Plan International in Dakar, which participated in the Ouagadougou meeting ( Region’s children worse off despite legislation).
While participating governments stated they where committed to making a change for the children of their countries, doubts where also high.
“Political will at the highest level of government is needed as they are the only ones with the power to advance things with regard to budget allocation,” she added. “Often they use the excuse that they don’t have money but that is not true as other things get done. The problem is prioritisation.”
Education was on right that appeared to stand out as one of the greatest failures, with little budgetary commitment or follow through. However education is not the only right governments have failed to provide their children, as healthcare, nutrition, abuse, trafficking, slavery, and gender discrimination are also issues of vital concern in the region. One can only hope that this conference will shake governments into sustainable action, and that the children of West Africa will soon see better days.
Here is a great link to photos of children in their daily lives in Cuba, The Children of Cuba
If you are interested into a little insight into Cuba then you may be interested to see the 2005 film, Viva Cuba, in which Malú and Jorgito are in love, but their families don’t see it that way. Her mother is a devout Catholic with strict ideas of who she should associate with. His family are card-carrying communists with a deep sense of party loyalty. Both families are too absorbed in their own problems and hatred for each other to take much notice of the children.After Malu’s grandmother dies Malu’s mother decides to leave Cuba and join her boyfriend overseas.When Malú finds out that her mother is about to take her away, she escapes with Jorgito armed with the savings from her piggy bank. Their search for Malú’s father who can help her stay in Cuba begins.Their journey involves a long journey across Cuba with many adventures along the way. As their families search for them , the two realize that life on the run is not all they thought it would be and a kind of homesickness begins to set in. Viva Cuba is a quirky coming-of-age road movie.
As we’ve officially entered into the holiday season, and for many the time of gift giving is quickly approaching. As you are running a muck in daze of lights and glitter, forget not the need of so many that plagues our own countries, and so many children across the world. While we can not single handily bring peace to the world, end poverty or save all the children from suffering, we can all reach out to at least one.
Here are a few things you may want to add to your List this year:
Free a child from slavery
Give a child an education
Provide water to a village of children
Provide a child with the gift of sight
Give a child a month of nutritious meals
Provide a sick child with a life saving operation
Vaccinate a child against diseases like Polio
Buy a family a goat
Adopt a family in need and see that the kids get gifts this year
Make a child’s wish come true this year!
To help you out I have put together a list of a few places that can help you do just that:
Angel Wish
The Dream Factory
The Ronald McDonald House
Save the Children Wish List
Free the Slaves
Save the Children
Children in Need
UNICEF
Sight Savers
Give the Gift of Sight
Heifer International
World Vision
BBC Children in Need
Mercy Corps
Toys for Tots
Red Cross
My Two Font Teeth
Salvation Army International
Water Aid
Big Brothers and Sisters International
Give Kids the World
Make a Child Smile
Samaritans Purse - Operation Christmas Smile
Just Give - 50 Ways to Help Children
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.
Hope is in the eyes of a child, hope is the child!
It is the child who sees the light in the darkness, and walks towards it.
The child who reaches out for hope, and readily takes it’s hand.
It is hope that gives us a world of children who stand tall in adversity.
Children who remain strong in the face of war.
A child who conquers disease and poverty.
It is the child that drives man to make a better world for the future.
Hope is a child!
Wishing you all a Happy Thanksgiving!
As you sit down among the warmth of family and friends today, remember not what you don’t have, but all the greatness you have been given in life. Material wealth is a wonderful gift, however it is not the thing happiness is made of. The true gifts to give thanks for are those in your life you have been so blessed to know, to call friends, to have as family.
As I prepare to join my family, I am thankful one, to have the opportunity to be here at home with them. However I am most thankful that I have been truly blessed to have such a wealth of diverse people and love in my life, I am rich in so many ways, and none involve material possessions. I know that even on my worst days I am one of the lucky ones, and for that I give thanks everyday.
Please take a moment today to give thanks for the children in your life!
“Naomi is 15 but looks 10. A horrible burn scar shrivels the skin across her chest and shoulder….She is one of the so-called child witches of Kinshasa, rejected by her family and community at six years old and left to survive on the streets…. ‘Grandfather become sick and my aunt accused me of being a witch. She said, “Why is everyone around sick? They are suffering because of you.”…The neighbours beat me and burnt me….I was caught by some soldiers and they said, you are a witch - we saw you flying with birds. They said they were going to kill me, but I escaped.’” (Thousands of child ‘witches’ turned on to the streets to starve)
Witchcraft is something most of us have quickly forgotten about since Halloween has now passed, and would not venture to think about again until Halloween rolls around again next year. However children are being cast from their homes over fears and actuations that they are witches. No, I am no looking back into the depth of history and embark on a journey back in time to the Salem Witch Trials of 1692. I am talking about children who right this very moment have been, and are being, cast from their homes as fears of witchcraft have taken hold of their villages.
Sadly this is not a recent phenomenon which has only reared its ugly head in recent months, children have been facing alienation and persecution for a number of years due to accusations of witchcraft. “Children in Angola tortured as witches” by Paul Salopek (“The Chicago Tribune,” March 28, 2004), brought to light the horrors that many children in Angola where facing. At the time Matondo Alexandre, a child-protection expert with the United Nations Children’s Fund in Angola, said “This is something new to us, in African culture it is usually the older people who are accused of practicing witchcraft. Now we’re even seeing cases popping up involving babies.” But almost four years has passed and children are still being systematically abused and alienated from their homes, beaten and sent to live on the streets in fear and shame and they are the luck ones, as others have been tortured to death.
In some parts of Angola, Congo and the Democratic Republic of Congo, alarming numbers of children are being accused of being witches. The accused children are beaten, abused, and often abandoned, or driven in fear from their homes and villages. Cast out of their families and villages, children are left with no where to turn but on to the streets. However some children are not as lucky, as they never make it to the streets, as they are killed in the witch hunt or die on their lonely journey of fear and escape.
“The witches situation started when fathers became unable to care for the children,” said Ana Silva, who is in charge of child protection for the children’s institute. “So they started seeking any justification to expel them from the family (African Crucible: Cast as Witches, Then Cast Out).” However it has not just been poverty and economic hardship that has driven people to accuse their children of witchcraft, the increase of war has also helped to fuel the fire. Former child soldiers have been turned away from their homes and villages for many reasons, including accusations of witchcraft.
“The perception of children started to change very quickly in the 1990s, when you had child soldiers starting to appear with weapons,” says Mr. Aguilar. “So the general perception was that children were a threat. Congolese society is using children as a scapegoat.” (In Congo, superstitions breed homeless children)
In the heart of the DRC, poverty is overwhelming and now it appears that it diamonds are fulling a new battle. In the diamonds minds it is children who do the majority do much of the labor for these sparkling jewels of the earth. And it is the children who are and many are killed in the fight for diamonds, and through the poor conditions in witch they are forced to labor in. It is the death of so many children that has begun to pull entire communities apart and has led to superstitions, which have caused thousands of children to be accused of witchcraft. “Many people here believe in witchcraft. It’s part of Luba tradition…what is happening today…is new. Before, if someone was accused of having demonic powers the village would take the person and make them go through a purification ceremony. No one would ever be thrown out of their homes; certainly not a child. What’s happening today is a result of urbanization and desperation caused by diamonds, says Charles Tchibanza, a sociologist from Mbuji Mayi University (Diamonds, children and witchcraft).
It is clear that the governments of Angola, Congo, the Democratic Republic of Congo, and the international aid community must take a stand against these acts. Hands on efforts must be made in the local communities to educate them on the realities of their actions, and brake the cycle of these superstitions once and for all. We must also establish programs and awareness campaigns that work to remove the stigma from those children who have already suffered too long and needlessly.
Other Articles of Interest:
Poor Children: Child “Witches” and Child Soldiers in Sub-Saharan Africa - This article examines two different aspects of the accountability of children: those children who are thrown away by their families because they are “sorcerers,” and those children who become soldiers and, through their involvement in armed conflict, inflict violence and death on others, including children.
The exact figures of children turned onto the street, or killed, as fears of witch craft continue to spread are unknown, and all are too high. Some figure I have seen include: 20,000 in Brazzaville, Congo’s capital, 14,000 in Kinshasa, the capital of the DRC, one northern Angolan town identified 432 street children.
As the plight of children around the world seems not to be lessening, and one easily struggles to bring you the all the stories related to children’s rights around the globe. I wanted to leave you with a list of recent article headlines and links, especially as I have been unable to post for a few days. I felt it better you are informed in some small way, instead of letting all the headlines go unnoticed by myself.
It is sadly quite easy to be overrun with news wires and headlines regarding the rights of and abuses against children, and by the time I begin to post again there will be a plethora of events and news of which I will not be able to fully cover. Therefore I apologize that I am unable to provide you with a summary of all the recent news on a regular basis, as it is a daunting chore and just not practical.
BANGLADESH: Cyclone death toll likely to climb, as the November 15th Cyclone, which recent estimates where as high as 3,000, devastation continues to be felt.
YEMEN: Efforts to reduce rising number of female qat chewers - Qat/Quat, also referred to as Khat, a plant stimulant, can lead to malnutrition, low birth weight and have other effects on the unborn. Approximately 70% of women in Yemen are Quat chewers.
AFGHANISTAN: Oxfam calls for aid to be more effective, transparent
SWAZILAND: Declare HIV/AIDS a “humanitarian emergency”
BANGLADESH: Primary-school dropout rate rises to 47 percent
PAKISTAN: Opposition to anti-polio drive weakens
SOUTH AFRICA: President ‘failed on Aids’
HAITI: Haitians plan to vaccinate every child
RUSSIA: Study Finds 37.4% HIV Prevalence Among Street Youth
IRAQ: Two die of cholera in Baghdad orphanage
AFGHANISTAN: Six million schoolchildren to receive landmine coaching
PAKISTAN: Final push in measles campaign
TURKMENISTAN: Vaccination drive targets three million people
DRC-UGANDA: Cholera prompts evacuation of Lake Albert island
PAKISTAN: Opposition to anti-polio drive weakens
DRC-RWANDA: Putting the past behind them - former child soldiers prepare to go home
FPA Job Board Listings