Children

Sadly the case of infanticide in India is not a new story, but the long term effects of what one may consider the worst form of gender inequality are beginning to rear their ugly head. As a result, showing a noticeable effect on the Indian population, especially in the more densely populated states in the northwest of the country, such as Haryana, Punjab, and Uttar Pradesh. Infanticide and selective abortions of female fetuses has now shown signs that it is tilting the gender ratio in these regions, leaving the female to male ratio out of balance.

India’s population has continually increased over the years, but the ratio of females to males has steadily decreased, leaving over one quarter of Indian states have an adult population with fewer than 900 women for every 1,000 men. The decrease in females has lead many regions missing suitable brides, causing men to look else where for women. Many find themselves in what has become more of a desperate search for a wife, leaving many to marry out side of their class or culture, creating an obstacle that goes beyond language for many new wives. A great majority of the wives sought outside of the region are significantly younger, and are arranged into marriages of what some are now calling “…neither marriages of convenience, nor of choice”.

The following article, Killing of baby girls triggers social upheaval in India, found that “social workers documenting the impact of female infanticide and feticide on society insist that such marriages are on the rise”. Significant studies and research are needed to adequately track the trend, however it appears that the hard search for a wife in many states will continue. With this desperation comes the increase and likelihood of human trafficking, which as well is not new to Indian society. “Which analysts say, is on the rise.” leading to an increase in the number of stories such as that of “Sonia, a young woman from Banaras who was sold for $1,000 before a sea of curious faces. The business in trafficking women for marriages wouldn’t be thriving quite so much if female feticide and infanticide were under control.”

Some researchers have suggested that this decrease in female population could cause an increase in all forms of sexual exploitation and violence of women and girls. “Initially sold as wives, many are then resold into sex work or as slaves,” says Raj Singh Chaudhury, an activist from Shakti Vahini (Gulf News). Women and girls are sold for as little as $40, the younger the girl the higher the price that can be sought, leaving girls as a human commodity fueled by the toxic combination of desperation, gender inequality, and poverty.

India is not alone in it’s preference for males, according to the World Health Organization (WHO), regions where son preference is most apparent include; Asia (China, Bangladesh, India, Korea, Nepal, Pakistan, Taiwan), the Middle East (Iran, Jordan, Syria, Saudi Arabia, Turkey) and most parts of Africa (Algeria, Egypt, Libya, Morocco, Tunisia, Cameroon, Liberia, Madagascar, Senegal), as well as Latin America (Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador, Mexico, Peru, Uruguay). China is likely the most notoriously known for such practices due to its stringent once child policy. “As in India, sex imbalances in China may be exacerbating the trade of women, both internally and across borders. According to official Chinese statistics from 1990 to 1999, on average 8,000 women per year were rescued from forced marriages by authorities (“Broken Bodies - Broken Dreams: Violence against Women (IRIN)).”

The last census in India was done in 2001, the next is due in 2011, the results of this census may be a shocking eye opener to the legacy of infanticide and feticide, as well as to India’s growing internal trafficking problem.

On April 30th, 2008 India’s Infanticide Shame and on October 29th, 2007 I posted India’s Missing Girls, please see both post for more information and background on the topic.

345 suspects, of which an estimated 290 where adult women charged as prostitutes, have been arrested in a child-sex sting.  How many of the women arrested where actually victims of trafficking is unknown.  In addition some 21 children where rescued as a result of the raids. Over a period of five days, in 16 cities, the FBI,  have been conducting sting operations to catch the those involved with these criminal networks, which prey on young and vulnerable children. The cities targeted in the sting operation where: Atlanta; Boston; Dallas; Detroit; Houston; Las Vegas; Los Angeles; Miami; Montgomery County, MD.; Oakland; Phoenix; Reno.; Sacramento; Tampa; Toledo and Washington.

The stings which are dubbed, “Operation Cross Country”, is part of the FBI’s Innocence Lost National Initiative, which combines efforts with the Department of Justice (DOJ) and the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, is now in it’s 5th year. This is the largest operation of this type in the initiatives history, however some 308 individuals have been convicted and more importantly the initiative’s efforts has see the recovery of 433 children. The Innocence Lost Initiative was established in 2003 in an effort to tackle the increasing problem of child sex trafficking and prostitution in the United States.

“Child trafficking for the purposes of prostitution is organized criminal activity using kids as commodities for sale or trade,” said Ernie Allen, President and CEO of the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children. “These kids are victims. They lack the ability to walk away. This is 21st Century slavery. We are proud to have worked hand-in-hand with the FBI and Justice Department in a partnership that is unprecedented, historic, and working” (FBI press release).

In an FBI statement Our Criminal Investigative Division partnered with the Child Exploitation-Obscenity Section of the Department of Justice and with the nonprofit National Center for Missing & Exploited Children (NCMEC) to bring together state and federal law enforcement agencies, prosecutors, and social service providers. The initiative’s 24 task forces and working groups have recovered 433 children to date and seized over $3 million in assets.

At a press conference, an excerpt of which can be seen in the video below, FBI Director Robert Mueller said ;

“The sex trafficking of children remains one of the most violent and unforgivable crimes. What is different as we stand here today is that we are faced with the increasing use of social network sites and other advances in technology to carry out these crimes and facilitate these criminal enterprises.”

While the efforts and scale of the Innocence Lost Initiative are grand, the full scale of the problem remains even more imposing than one could imagine. The US government has stated that there are some 17,500 victims of sex trafficking in the United States each year, more than half of which are children. Just how many more have been funneled through this high commodities market over the years is unknown, and each child is one child too many. Please see my previous article,Trafficking and Slavery in the US, for more information.

Please see my other posts on Child Trafficking. Please also see my pages on Modern Slavery and Human Trafficking Links, Human Trafficking and Slavery Related Movies and Documentaries, and Slavery and Trafficking Related Books for more information.


In other US news the Supreme Court ruled on Wednesday, June 25, 2008, that child rape doesn’t merit capital punishment . In a 5-to-4 Supreme Court decision, which overturned death penalty laws in Louisiana and five other states. See more in the NY Times article, Justices Bar Death Penalty for the Rape of a Child.

New polio threat prompts mass vaccination campaign, as seven million children in nine of the 11 provinces in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) are being vaccinated against polio, a disease thought to have been eradicated in the vast country. The campaign, which began on 19 June, targets children up to the age of five, the age group worst affected by polio. One in 200 infections leads to irreversible paralysis, according to the WHO.

Condom use not catching on among youth, in spite of massive spending on efforts to counter HIV/AIDS, experts warn that many young Thais are still having unsafe sex. “Many people know HIV is transmitted by having sex,” he said. “We also know we should stand up and give our seat to old people on the bus, but we don’t do it,” Sittichok Chaisupasin, a 16-year-old peer educator.

Typhoon Fengshen death toll rises to 224, as it moved out of the Philippines on 23 June towards China, leaving at least 224 dead, hundreds missing and thousands homeless, according to the Philippine National Red Cross and Office of Civil Defence. Heavy rains and winds of up to 195km an hour caused landslides, flash floods and storm surges.

Landmines impede civilians’ return to volatile Arghandab, as dozens of landmines have been discovered in Arghandab District, in the southern province of Kandahar. It is estimated that some 60 people, many of which are children, are killed each month in the country by landmines. Millions of landmines were dumped across Afghanistan in the 1980s and 1990s, killing and wounding over 70,000 people so far, according to the United Nations Mine Action Centre for Afghanistan (UNMAC). In other news, insecurity, uncertainty stop return of Afghan refugees, from Pakistan. The UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) has repatriated 3.3 million Afghans since 2002, including 120,000 from Pakistan in 2008, but some two million registered Afghan refugees remain in Pakistan. The number of unregistered refugees is unknown.

US accuses LRA of abuses, calls for a quick peaceful solution. “The United States condemns the recent LRA attacks on Sudanese Peoples’ Liberation Army forces at Nabanga, Sudan, and elsewhere, as well as the LRA’s abductions and other abuses of innocent civilians in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Central African Republic and Southern Sudan,” said a statement issued on 18 June. Along with four of his commanders Kony is charged by the ICC with carrying out abductions, killings, rape and conscription of Ugandan children as fighters among other war crimes. Some 30,000 children in northern Uganda have been abducted and forcibly inscripttion into the LRA. Government welcomes Kony’s “change of heart” but rules out more talks; “We only hope that he will put his pronouncement into practice. We note, however, that negotiations were concluded and there will not be a re-opening of the negotiations whatsoever,” Capt Chris Magezi, spokesman for the government delegation, said on 23 June.

Countries which are involved in conflict and strife are seeing an increasing use of violence against children, including kidnapping, torture and even murder. UNICEF issued a statement on the continued abduction, torture and rape of children around the world, saying;

“It is everyone’s duty to ensure children are safe from harm, and governments have a responsibility to enact and enforce measures that provide a protective environment for all children”.

Countries for which UNICEF has reported similar ochering incident in a number of countries including Central African Republic (CAR), Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), Iraq and Haiti.

In CAR armed gangs have profited from the conflict ridden countries vitality and instability, focusing on rural communities for which their terrorizing often includes kidnapping children and holding them for ransom. Earlier this month both CAR and Chad had agreed to the Release of Child Soldiers , however a number of armed groups continue to increase their ranks of child soldiers.

The DRC has seen thousands of children forcibly recruited by armed militant groups to be used as child soldiers, porters and sex slaves. UNICEF has estimated that some 30,000 child soldiers are in place in the DRC, many are girls and the situation has been noticeably on the increase as seen in my post, Child Soldiers in the Congo are Increasing

In Iraq the number of reports of children recruited and used by militias and insurgent groups are increasing, as is the abduction of girls who “are increasingly subject to murder, kidnapping and rape, or are being abducted and trafficked within or outside Iraq for sexual exploitation”.

UNICEF has paid particular attention to the Impoverished of Haiti, where kidnappings have become all too common. Since the beginning of 2008 alone more than 50 children have been abducted, more than half of which where girls. Earlier this month on June 4th UNICEF made a nation wide call to halt the kidnappings of Haitian children, the call came after a recent incident where a 16-year-old hostage was murdered and other hostages, including infants, where lynched and rape. The call from UNICEF was joined by Haitians demonstrating against the kidnappings in the streets of Port-au-Prince. UNICEF estimates that some 2,000 children are trafficked each year to the Dominican Republic, and another 1,000 are working as spies, messengers or soldiers for armed gangs in the Haitian capital of Port-au-Prince.

According to the Child Soldiers Global Report 2008 issued by the Secretary General of the United Nations, the number of armed groups and government forces using child soldiers increased from 40 in 2006 to 57 in 2007. The issues, such as poverty, disease and economic destabilization that face children in conflict countries are only compounded by the increasing violence against children. As the use of rape as a weapon of war, conscription of child soldiers, and other violence, including gender based violence, that directly targets children, not only exacerbates the conflict itself, but impedes the post conflict recovery for not only the children, but their entire community and the country on the whole. Therefore it is essential that individual states and the international community on the whole end the long running impunity of these violent crimes, and take greater steps to see that children are no longer used as the weapons and pawns of war.

Waging Peace, a British NGO, issued a report stating that between 7,000 and 10,000 Darfurian children abducted from refugee camps in Chad are serving as child soldiers. Please also see my other posts on Child Soldiers. The report comes right after the earlier report this month on the Release of Child Soldiers in Chad.  Please  also see my other posts such as, Despite Increased Aid Efforts We Are Still Failing the Children of Darfur

In other news on the situation Darfur international negotiators have called the prospects for new peace negotiations about Darfur “dim.” In an effort to revive the peace process, the UN and AU are working to appoint a joint mediator, which would replace the current negotiators. All of this comes right as the Sudanese government stated its readiness for a ceasefire and peace negotiations, so long as JEM is banned from participating. The JEM and SLM movements currently reject the idea of peace talks, while the SLM-Unity movement stated its intention to launch attacks on Khartoum. Additionally the civil war between the Northern and Southern regions of Sudan was nearly reignited due to a boundary dispute in the Abyei region. The dispute has left many of the residents of Abyei displaced and the town nearly destroyed.

It is painfully clear that the situations in both Sudan and Chad will not come to a clear peaceful resolution soon, and that the children will continue to be swept up in the ciaos until  a true peace can be found and stability finds its way to the region.

“For millions of people around the world, the fight against human trafficking is a matter of life and death,” she told the debate. “To reunite families that have been torn apart, to restore childhood to kids who have been robbed of their youth, to bring back dignity to all those violated by these abuses – we must act now.” -Deputy Secretary-General Asha-Rose Migiro called on all countries to ratify the UN Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, June 3, 2008.

The US Department of State released the 2008 Trafficking in Persons Report on June 4, 2008. According to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, “The 2008 report covers more countries than ever– 170 total” and for the first time ever examines global prosecution data to unveil new findings regarding the sentencing of perpetrators, see her full comments. For further information visit the U.S Department of State’s Office to Monitor & Combat Human Trafficking.


The UN General Assembly took on human trafficking Tuesday, debating what should be done to best tackle the scourge that is exploiting an estimated 2.5 million people, mostly women and children, around the world. Read the UN News Centre’s release.


Burkina Faso steps up penalties for child as they have enacted new legislation to increase penalties for those found involved in child trafficking. But observers worry that a lack of resources to combat the trade means the battle is far from over.


In Burundi the Forces nationales de libération (FNL) rebels ’still recruiting children’, despite steps to end the conflict. The FNL is the countries only active rebel group remaining, however they continue to hold strong and have increased their recruitment efforts. On 6 May, the Special Representative of the UN Secretary-General for Children and Armed Conflict, Radhika Coomaraswamy, called for the immediate release of all children in the hands of the FNL. Welcoming the release of 232 child soldiers after months of negotiations involving the government, civil society, UN agencies and a faction of the FNL, she said: ‘Grave concern remains for the approximately 500 children associated with the FNL of Agathon Rwasa.’

Chad has agreed to release all former child combatants held in detention, while armed rebel groups in the Central African Republic (CAR) have also committed to freeing any children in their ranks, a top United Nations envoy announced June 2
after a six day trip to the two countries. In Chad the Government has agreed to let UN agencies visit army camps and training centers to verify the releases and identify children, Coomaraswamy told reporters in New York, after completing her visit. A Government task force on reintegration of children will also be created. (UN News Service)

“I have been given assurances that parties involved in conflict have agreed to free children in both countries,” the UN’s Special Representative for Children and Armed Conflict Radhika Coomaraswamy said in a statement.

Coomaraswamy also noted that despite this there still have not been any commitments made non-government armed groups, who continue to “recruit a great many children.”  Coomaraswamy, also stated that the UN was looking to get to the root of the issue of child soldiers in various countries where child soldiers are recruited.  An estimated 300,000 or more child soldiers are actively fighting in at least 30 countries around the world, according to both Amnesty International and UNICEF.


For more information see:
Early to War: Child Soldiers in the Chad Conflict (July 2007) - A 46-page report documenting how the Chadian army, its allied paramilitary militias and rebel forces have used and recruited child soldiers in both northern Chad and along the eastern border with Sudan’s Darfur region. The report is based on interviews with senior officers in the Chadian military as well as current child soldiers themselves.

In my post on August 1, 2007, UN Peacekeepers and the Abuse of Children, I reported on the failings of UN peacekeepers in the wake of recently emerging and wide spread abused in Liberia. However as I reported then then these abuses where not new in the world of the blue helmets, and nor are they isolated. In 2006 the Security Council states that Problem of sexual abuse by peacekeepers now openly recognized, Broad strategy in place to address it, stating that;

“We dishonour these brave men and women when we fail to prevent or punish those from within their ranks who victimize the very people peacekeepers are meant to protect and serve.”

The issues has once again re-emerged in the press and as before one of the issues has been the delay in both reporting and action taken to both prevent and prosecute perpetrators. However in the re-emerging reports of abuse it is not just peacekeepers who have been thrust into the spotlight as abusers, but civilian aid staff. As this past week abuses by UN peacekeepers and aid workers have been brought to light after a report, No One to Turn To: The under-reporting of child sexual exploitation and abuse by aid workers and peacekeepers, by Save the Children UK.

The report was composed of research done over the past year in Haiti, Southern Sudan and Ivory Coast, where the group conducted 38 focus groups with 250 children and 90 adults. Following the focus groups in-depth interviews and other research where conducted to compile the findings which included: children trading sex for food, forced sex, verbal sexual abuse, child prostitution, child pornography, sexual slavery, sexual assault and child trafficking. The age of the victims identified in the report where as young as six years old, however the majority of victims ranged in age between 14 and 15.

The report has made national and international headlines, as the news has left many dismayed and confused by the actions of those sent to protect those most vulnerable by the tragedies of armed conflict. In the recent spotlight individual stories of peacekeepers turned predictors have emerged, such as, Didier Bourguet, a U.N. official from France, who was found to have thousands of photos of him having sex with hundreds of young girls on his computers hard drive.

In a press conference Jane Holl Lute, Assistant-Secretary-General for Field Support, addressed the issue of punishing troops, who must be tried by their home countries, responsible for the sexual abuse of children, stating that the UN was working to increase dialogue and that “We can’t let up. We need to be vigilant.”, until all Member States are seeing the same picture and solution. Lute also made the following statement in response to the report;

“Save the Children has been an effective partner with us in bringing their perspective — which is different from our own — to this problem,” she said, voicing agreement with its call for a better reporting mechanism for victims. “We need to work with community leaders so that children and those who are abused can come forward in safety.”

In response the UN will investigate the sex abuse report, as Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon told reporters he had “zero tolerance” for such behavior and said, “On all these cases which have been raised, we will very carefully investigate” and that the UN would take “necessary measures” where findings warrant.

The recent abuses and the longstanding impunity of those members of peacekeeping forces leave many to wonder who to trust and if there is any real safety from abuse. However the emergence of media and public outrage have once again thrust the issue into the spotlight and hope that the acknowledgment and punishment of those who have committed such grave crimes against vulnerable children will continue and we can brake the silence and impunity of abuse. Both the UN and International community must continues to take further steps to see that children, the most vulnerable victims of armed conflict, are adequately protected, which includes the prosecution of all predators, regardless of affiliation.

Afghanistan has yet to find a strategy to cope with the growing practice of “loan brides,” young girls traded into marriage as a result of the opium trade. While traffickers get rich by loaning money to impoverished poppy farmers, the families are often are unable to pay the debt. Families are thus forced to give their daughters over as a form of repayment for the debt they have incurred. The instability of poppy farmers is ever growing as efforts to eradicate Afghanistan of the opium trade push on, however one battle over good has now only lead to another battle for the countries mainly poor and illiterate rural poor. It is estimated that some half a million families in the country survive off of poppy farming, and as efforts to introduce other crops continue to fail.

The opium brides of Afghanistan not only leave families shammed and torn apart, but blight the nation with the lasting scars of a generation of lost girls. Girls as young as infants have been know to be promised in marriage over debts, others are teenagers who where looking hopefully towards the future until they where ripped away by the drug trades increasing hold on the countries struggling families. Families such as Shah who has now given his 9 year old daughter Khalida in exchange for a debt off some $2,000 which he was unable to repay after a government crop-eradication team destroyed the families two and a half acre poppy field. ” Now the family can only wait for the 45-year-old drug runner to come back for his prize. Khalida wanted to be a teacher someday, but that has become impossible. “It’s my fate,” the child says.”

In Afghanistan reports from the Ministry of Women’s Affairs and UNICEF, claim as many as 60-80% of marriges in the country are forced and 57% of marriages involve girls under the age of 16, which is the legal age for marriage in the country. The Afghan government put a new 15-page formal marriage contract, the ‘Nikah Nama’, in to place this past March. “The new marriage contract is a strong legal instrument that will end child marriages and will empower women’s legal status after marriage,” said Nibila Wafiq, a women’s rights programme officer for German NGO Medica Mondiale (IRIN).

Child marriages are not just a social and gender problem, but also a health problem as they lead to higher instances of domestic violence and early pregnancies, which leave girls at high risk for death in childbirth, complications, and low birth weights. Please see my other posts on Child Marriage

Every year some 800,000 people are trafficked across international borders and some 27 million people remain enslaved across the globe, over half of which are children. Romania is in no way an exception from the scourge of modern slavery, as children, are trafficked internally for sexual exploitation and forced begging. Roma girls are especially vulnerable for victimization from trafficking both internally and externally.

Earlier this month in Romania more than 40 representatives of national and international NGOs, Churches and government committed to combating human trafficking met in Bucharest to establish the most efficient and effective strategies for trafficking prevention campaigns. The conference set out to find the most effective identification programs, efficient and consistent laws, therapy and support systems, as well as reintegration strategies trafficking victims. The program began in February 2008 through World Vision Romania, with a pilot project dedicated to preventing human trafficking in a rural areas, where large scale migration has increased the children’s risk and exposure to trafficking.

‘There are many people interested in working abroad, especially young people who are ‘charmed’ into believing unverified success stories presented by friends or relatives who have already left the country in search of a better life. Our work in this community right now consists of organizing monthly informational sessions for over 180 children and vocational courses for another 60 young people in the community, in order to help them access better jobs, here in Romania’, said WVR project coordinator. (World Vision Middle East/Eastern Europe office (MEERO))

It is fitting that the conference took place in Bucharest, home to thousands of street children, some estimate as high as 10,000. Boys and girls who plague the cities streets begging by day and filling their nights sniffing glue to erase the pains of hunger and abuse that shrouds their lives. Young boys and girls, some only mere toddlers, who often fall prey to sex tourists and traffickers. This months conference is a step in the right direction in working to see these children of the streets, and so many others across Romania and the globe are properly identified, and that successful and sustainable prevention, prosecution, treatment and rehabilitation programs are established.

Links:
UNICEF Romania - Evaluation of Anti-trafficking Policies in Romania
UNICEF - Guidelines on the Protection of Child Victims of Trafficking