Children

MOZAMBIQUE: HIV-positive children still not getting treated ‘
According to provincial data, more than 15,000 children are living with HIV, but only 2,000 of them - 13 percent - are being treated, an extremely low percentage compared to HIV-positive adults: more than half the women who need treatment, and 42 percent of the men, are receiving it.’ Why, are so few children treated? The reasons are as varried as they are complex; often parents are fearful of the stigma, children’s antroviral medicines are more expensive and more complex to administer, and there is a sortage of medical staff and support.

BURKINA FASO: Fistula in Sahel region highlighted
‘According to the government’s statistics, there were just 54 cases of fistula in Burkina Faso in 2007. But Aboubakar Coulibaly, a doctor in the national health system, said “Cases are being under-reported.”’, especially in the Sahel region, mainly due to the social stigma of the condition. Fistula, a tearing between the rectum and vagina or the bladder and vagina, is primarily caused by violent rape, pregnancy and labour in young children, and prolonged obstructed labour.

ZAMBIA: Mary Muyunda, “The school should be a safe place for all the pupils”
In a landmark ruling last month Zambia’s High Court, ordered the government to pay some $13,000 compensation to a 15-year-old school girl raped by her teacher, after she brought a civil action against the teacher, the school and the minister of education. ‘The judge also ordered that the Director of Public Prosecutions commence criminal proceedings against the teacher, as the evidence of rape was “overwhelming”. The teacher was arrested, but subsequently released on bail.’

LAOS: Restaurant provides street children with training and hope
‘In one of the first projects of its kind, Friends International started up Mak Phet restaurant to provide vocational training for former street children, with the support of the Ministry of Labour and Social Welfare, in Vientiane, Lao PDR. It is unknown how many children live or work on the streets of Laos. This is partly because the problem was not recognised officially by the government until recently. Often the children were rounded up, returned home or put into detention centres.’

ISRAEL-OPT: Married but without rights
A 2002 temporary order preventing those Palestinians from the West Bank and Gaza Strip from marrying Israeli citizens and residents, and thus moving to Israel, has now become law. The decission has left ’some 15,000 Palestinians who married Israeli citizens in the past decade are illegal or temporary residents’, leaving families physically divided and often unable to support thier children, and leaving an inevitable cloud of uncertanty hanging over the entire family.

LEBANON: Displaced families struggle on both sides of sectarian divide
‘Officials say up to 6,000 families have been displaced, but as of 30 July only those 700 Sunni families from Bab al-Tabbaneh who have found shelter in schools have been formally registered. “Nobody is looking after them. There are many children and they lack the basic everyday needs; food, clothing, medicine,” said Marwan Husseiki, an officer with the UN’s Children’s Fund (UNICEF).’

BURUNDI: Human rights record “shows no improvement”
‘At least 400 people were killed in the first quarter of 2008, which indicates that Burundi’s human rights record has failed to improve this year, according to Iteka, a rights group. The group registered some 455 women and girl victims of rape, the majority younger than 12.’ Instances of rape and sexual violence are only rising in the country as a result of both social sitgmatization and impunity.

This entry was posted on Thursday, August 7th, 2008 at 3:42 pm and is filed under Uncategorized, Children, HIV/AIDS, Displaced Persons, Street Kids, sexual violence/rape. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.