Children

YEMEN: Protecting women, children from violence
A Netherlands-funded project is aiming to provide better protection for women and children exposed to violence and sexual abuse. In June 2008 Interior Ministry statistics revealed 2,694 cases of violence against women in 2007, with cases ranging from killing to harassment; 130 women died as a result, 88 of whom were intentionally killed. Across the 2,694 cases, the violence caused 970 injuries. Yemen is ranked bottom among the 128 countries listed in the Global Gender Gap Report issued in 2007 by the World Economic Forum.

In a Fairy-Tale Village, Russian Orphans Thrive
An experimental orphanage in Kitezh is giving Russian children a taste of life’s possibilities and an alternative to the grim, crumbling state institutions where most orphaned Russian children reside. The community’s founders hope their efforts will serve as a model for reform and can be replicated in other parts of Russia.

VIETNAM: Child-led disaster training saving lives
According to Save the Children’s 2008 report, In the Face of Disaster, Children and Climate Change, In the Face of Disaster, Children and Climate Change more than 50 percent of those affected by natural disasters worldwide are children. In addition to the threat of death, they are much more at risk than adults to water-borne diseases and by the loss of adequate sanitation facilities. In Vietnam, Save the Children’s Child-Led Disaster Risk Reduction (CLDRR) programs have been operating for more than five years in seven provinces with more than 600 children in 30 schools have been trained.

PAKISTAN: The darker side of glittering bangles
Eid al-Fitr, the holiday marking the end of the Muslim month of fasting, provides an annual boost for the glass bangles’ industry, but behind the glittering bangles lies another story - one of child labour, poverty, deprivation and hardship. “Usually we work eight or nine hours a day. At busy times like this we work for up to 16,” said Rizwan, as his 11-year-old cousin, Muhammad Fayyaz, looked on. Both boys are from Sahiwal, 160km southwest of Lahore, and were brought to the workshop by a relative. They each earn around 1,000 rupees (about US$13) a month. Pakistan’s huge glass bangle industry is centred on the city of Hyderabad, Sindh Province, and most production is for the domestic market. Dawn newspaper in May 2007 estimated that some 7,000 boys and 3,000 girls worked in the industry nationwide. The International Labour Organization (ILO) reckons 30,000 families are supported by the industry.

Young Iraqi girls turned into perfect weapon
U.S. and Iraqi officials argue that al-Qaida fighters are forcibly recruiting teenage girls as suicide attackers, drugging them and otherwise duping them into service. Rania Ibrahim Mutlib, a would-be suicide bomber, testifies that she was drugged and tricked into strapping on a vest laden with explosives.

Global leaders pledge $4.5B to send kids to school
A group of governments, humanitarian organizations, philanthropists and U.N. agencies last week pledged to donate $4.5 billion in an effort to enroll all the world’s children in school by 2015. The U.N. set that target in 2000, but the pace so far has not been sufficient to meet that goal.

LIBERIA: FGM continues in rural secrecy
Thousands of young girls annually prepare for their initiation into a women’s secret association, Sande Society, which operates mostly in Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea. As part of their initiation, young women take a vow of secrecy after weeks of training in the forest, promising not to not tell uninitiated girls or men what happens to them, to assume new names, and to have their clitorises cut off - known as female genital mutilation (FGM) - according to women in the secret society. About half of Liberia’s some 16 ethnic groups, including the Bassa, Mende, Gola and Kissi, observe the rules of this historically-secret, centuries-old society.

SENEGAL: Malnutrition at crisis level in northeast
Poor rains and rising rice prices have contributed to increasing malnutrition to alarming levels in at least three regions of Senegal. Following a rapid assessment in July 2008 by the UN and the Mnistry of Health, the government has confirmed a malnutrition crisis in three of the five surveyed regions, with the most critical being Matam, where 17 percent of the children surveyed under five years old are malnourished.

AFRICA: Children take on the fight against sexual exploitation
Children should not be seen as victims of sexual exploitation, but rather the front-line fighters against it, said non-profit Save the Children Sweden at a preparatory meeting in Dakar in advance of the World Congress against sexual exploitation of children and adolescents to be held in Rio, Brazil in November 2008. The summit will be co-organised by the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) and NGO End Child Prostitution, Child Pornography and Trafficking of Children for Sexual Purposes (ECPAT). Up to 22 children from 15 African countries joined human rights groups, child specialists and non-profit organisations to debate how children can take on a bigger role in the fight against exploitation.

KYRGYZSTAN: Community kindergartens fill pre-school education gap
According to the head of the State Committee on Migration and Employment, Aigul Ryskulova, there are more than 400,000 Kyrgyz labour migrants, of whom 300,000 are working in Russia and 80,000 in Kazakhstan. In Soviet times, there was a kindergarten in the village but after the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991 it was closed down. Local children were deprived of any pre-school education for many years. Olga Grebennikova, a spokeswoman for the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) Kyrgyzstan, told IRIN that about 11 percent of children in the country were attending pre-schools, while in rural areas that rate was between 2 and 6 percent.

UN: Ugandan rebels holding 90 children in DR Congo
The UN says 50 children were seized from a primary school and 40 children were seized from a secondary school by Ugandan rebels, who are holding the children in northern DR Congo. UNICEF has expressed concerns that the children might be impressed into fighting.

Burma’s secret schools of dissent
Political activists have established a network of schools that serve impoverished students and teach unofficial texts. For decades, the most reliable source of unofficial information has been smuggled books or underground discussion groups. Today, many go today to the American Center, a consulate branch that provides outside publications. The schools exist along the border with Thailand, in monasteries, and in jungles occupied by ethnic rebels.

This entry was posted on Sunday, October 5th, 2008 at 11:25 am and is filed under Uncategorized, Children, HIV/AIDS, Child Soldiers, Abuse, Hunger, Children and War, Child Labor, Education, Female Genital Mutilation (FGM)/Female Circumcision, Child Marriage, Children in Government, Poverty, 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.