Children

Child marriage question riles Saudi society
The issue of child marriages in Saudi Arabia has united an unlikely coalition of opponents including human rights groups, clerics, journalists and intellectuals who decry the practice as harmful to children. Saudi officials now find themselves under increasing pressure to legislate a legal age for marriage, something the kingdom does not currently have.

Agony of Burma’s dumped children
The devastating cyclone that swept through Myanmar also separated children from their families. According to aid agencies such as UNICEF, as many as 2,000 children in Myanmar are displaced. Reuniting fractured families is complicated by the lack of telephones in Myanmar, as well as the disorganized nature of the country’s refugee camps.

Pregnant women a priority for health services in Myanmar
In the aftermath of Nargis, the country’s worst natural disaster, the risk factors for pregnant women have increased. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), the country has a maternal mortality rate (MMR) of 383 deaths per 100,000 live births. Pregnant women are among those in the greatest danger during humanitarian emergencies, with poor nutrition and a lack of access to safe delivery options often having fatal consequences, he explained. Based on fertility estimates, UNFPA estimates that at any given time there are 35,000 pregnant women in the delta, and each month, 4,400 women will give birth; of whom 440 will experience complications, and 220 will require Caesarean sections.

Child mortality rate steady in Asia as income disparity climbs
China and India together account for nearly a third of all child deaths, according to UNICEF. Despite rapid economic growth, particiularly in India, Asian nations have not been able to lower infant mortality rates — owing to a large and increasing gulf between wealthy and poor. Reducing child mortality by two-thirds is one of the Millennium Goals set forth for 2015.

From rebels to soldiers - the SPLA’s transformation
At the new headquarters of the Sudan People’s Liberation Army (SPLA), some 10km north of Juba town, a large scale change is already underway.  “Now, with the signing of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement, the SPLA has been transformed into a conventional army … There is a tremendous change.”  The army, he added, is to create a new child protection unit in the coming weeks to ensure that no children are part of the SPLA’s ranks.

Zimbabwe’s Children follow shoppers to South Africa
Zimbabwean children are being drawn to South Africa to run errands and perform piecemeal jobs for shoppers from their own country - who are heading south because of the unavailability of basic goods in their own country. “Some of the children come in from Zimbabwe in the morning and return in the evening. They go through the border and no one seems to do anything to stop them from crossing,” said the guard, who declined to be identified. “I am worried about the little girls who enter the parking lot for the trucks, one wonders what happens in the dark, the girls can be raped.” A 2007 report by Save the Children (UK): Children on the move - Protecting unaccompanied migrant children in South Africa and the region, said the main pull factors for most of the unaccompanied migrant children living in South Africa stemmed from the belief that they had a better chance of finding work or other income-earning opportunities and going to school than if they remained in their home country.

In Zimbabwe Diamonds are Mutare’s best friends
Zimbabwe economy is in meltdown, with unemployment in excess of 80 percent and annual inflation officially at 2.2 million percent, forcing people to seek alternative ways of making a living. “Cases of children dropping out of school are higher in Marange, where the diamond fields are found,” said an official at the ministry of education, who declined to be identified. “The explanation from the children and their parents is that they see no need to pursue education when diamond panning can provide instant riches.”

UN to host rock band Rudely Interrupted
The six-piece Australian rock band Rudely Interrupted will play at the United Nations for International Day of People with Disabilities, on December 3, 2008. Five of the band members have physical or mental disabilities, ranging from autism to Down syndrome. “It allows us to show off to, well basically the whole world, what we are capable of,” said lead singer Rory Burnside, who is legally blind.

UN treaty for world’s disabled people takes effect A United Nations pact aimed at boosting the rights of the 650 million disabled people around the world took effect Saturday. Twenty-five countries so far have ratified the treaty, which outlaws discrimination based on disability in the workplace and in education.

Mexican journalist Lydia Cacho Ribeiro has been designated the laureate of the 2008 UNESCO/Guillermo Cano World Press Freedom Prize. The investigative journalist exposed the involvement of wealthy Mexican businessmen and politicians in prostitution and child pornography rings. She also wrote about the violence in the northern city of Ciudad Juarez, where hundreds of women have been killed. The prize will be awarded in the Mozambican capital Maputo on 3 May, World Press Freedom Day. The award includes a cash prize of USD 25,000. (Radio Netherlands)

Saudi women are being kept in perpetual childhood so male relatives can exercise “guardianship” over them, the Human Rights Watch (HRW) group has said. The New York-based group says Saudi women have to obtain permission from male relatives to work, travel, study, marry or even receive health care. Their access to justice is also severely constrained, it says. The group says the Saudi establishment sacrifices basic human rights to maintain male control over women. Saudi clerics see the guardianship of women’s honor as a key to the country’s social and moral order.

Study links autism to parents. In another sign pointing to an inherited component to autism, a study released on Monday found that having a schizophrenic parent or a mother with psychiatric problems roughly doubled a child’s risk of being autistic.