Children

Today marks the 2008 World Day Against Child Labour, this years theme is: ‘Education: The right response to child labour’. This year the ILO’s International Programme on the Elimination of Child Labour (IPEC) has established the campaign to tackle the right to education for all children to brake the chain of child labour that envelops millions of children worldwide.

According to the International Labour Organization (ILO) there is an estimated 165 million children between the ages of 5 and 14 actively involved in child labour. Children are often forced to work long hours and are often forced to work in harsh and dangerous conditions. Child labour has a direct link to poverty, and provides a substantial barrier to a child’s education…thus enabling a barrier to a child’s education and increasing the literacy gap. Education is often taken for granted in developing nations, however many poor and impoverished families are forced to face the choose to send their child to school or work to help the family…it is that choice that has sent millions of children out of the classroom, often disparagingly girls, to toil in fields, factories, homes and the streets.

This years campaign has three main goals:

• Education for all children at least to the minimum age of employment.
• Education policies that address child labour by provision of properly resourced quality education and skills training.
• Education to promote awareness on the need to tackle child labour.

In order to meet the UN’s Millennium Development Goals by 2015, which has set to see that all children receive and complete a full their primary education, regardless of gender. However if the goals are to be meet then we must work to see that education is free, an issue which many families still struggle to attain funds for or are forced to choose between funds for school or often food for the family. Other issues of major priority include; gender equality in all levels of education, education and awareness about the issues and facts of child labour, and teacher shortages.

Education is not only a human right for all children, but the gateway out of poverty, as education is empowerment and empowerment is the key to brake the cycle of poverty.

For more information and resources on this years campaign see the ILO.

One doesn’t have to think long and hard to realize that children who are born into conflict ridden countries are at a disadvantage to those children born into peaceful nations, however the disparity between the two when it comes to education may very well surprise you. Some 500 times more funding goes into the education of children who are born in countries seen as stable and prosperous than that of their counterparts born into a conflict-affected country, according to Save the Children.

For example: The United States spends more than $9,000 per child on primary education annually. In Luxembourg, some $12,000 is spent on each child for primary education a year. These two wealthy and stable nations tower in comparison to conflict countries such as Eritrea or Burundi, who spend less than $24 a year on an individual child’s education.

There are some 37 million children out of school in conflict affected countries, these children are not just denied their individual rights to education, but also denied a chance at a more prosperous future. Children who are denied an education are not given the opportunity to escape the cycle of poverty for not only themselves, but also their families and their communities. Additionally countries in which children are denied access to education have increased difficulty braking the chains of violence and conflict.

Wealthy and stable countries, donor countries, have a crucial role to play to help children in conflict-affected nations gain access to an education. It is for this reason that Save the Children released a new report, “Last in Line, Last in School 2008″,which shows how “donors are failing to protect children in conflict-affected fragile states”. The report focuses on the fact that wealthy nations are literally causing a deterioration to the lives of children as they fail to support education in conflict countries.

So how much is really needed of wealthy nations? Is it too much? No, in reality the report boils it down to some $45 per child, as Save the Children estimates that $5.2 billion should support children living in conflict-affected fragile states, out of some $9 billion in basic education worldwide.

The denial of education is the denial of a future of peace and prosperity!

Global Action Week is taking place from 21-27 April 2008 on the theme of “Quality Education to End Exclusion”, a top EFA priority. UNESCO is organizing activities world-wide to highlight the issues of quality and inclusion according to the local context. 

The highlight of the week is that Fifteen countries have joined together to plan the launch of the 2008 Education for All Global Monitoring Report (EFA 2008 Report).  The fifteen; Bangladesh, Bolivia, Burkina Faso, Colombia, DRC Congo, Djibouti, Ecuador, Ethiopia, Guinea, Iran, Mali, Niger, Nigeria, Peru and Venezuela are all coming together to see that quality inclusive education will be made accessable to all children. 

The report, “Education for All by 2015: Will we make it?”, is available in the six official UN languages (Arabic, Chinese, English, French, Russian and Spanish) as well as in Farsi.  To learn more about the conference, report and facts about inclusive education click here

Introduced in 2003 Kenya’s free secondary education is now plagued by supply problems. The sudden and dramatic increase of students is causing a strain on resources, and the result is a lack of teachers, CONGO: Arrest over abduction of indigenous family’s child
books and adequate facilities, leaving many to question the quality of children’s education. While many improvements and hurdles need to be made, most agree that any education is better that no education.

Aid workers freed after Chad issues pardon French officials on Tuesday freed six aid workers convicted of kidnapping more than 100 Chadian children, following an official pardon from Chad’s President Idriss Deby on Monday. The six had said they wanted only to help place orphans from Darfur, but the children turned out to be from Chad, most of them with still at least one living parent. For more on the story see the following Video ClipSyndicate, BBC , Associated Press

Young and old Tibetans disagree on virtue of nonviolence, as the bloody protests over the past few weeks have shown the widening generation gap. The majority of the elder generation continue to embrace nonviolence, however the younger generations are increasingly moving away from this view and moving towards a more physical approach. “I want peace, but when you are pushed so much, you finally strike back,” said Jigshe Tsering, one of many young activists who say they are tired of not reacting forcefully to China’s abusive ways.

Measles kills 165 children, the outbreak in northern Nigeria’s Katsina state has killed 165 children in the last three months and infected more than 3,000 children, according to health officials.

In the Congo there has been a groundbreaking arrest over abduction of indigenous family’s child. The High Court in southwestern Congo has indicted Omer Gapa, a former local council official on charges of a kidnapping 19 years ago of a child from an indigenous family. Accused of taking a 6 year old girl in 1989 of which her ware abouts have never been discovered.

Education is a vaccine for violence, as it is a vaccine for hunger and disease. The right to education is a basic human right for all children, a right we all too often take for granted. In developed countries we see education as a key to prosperity, to better jobs and economic security. However education for many is a key to life! A key to simply being an adult, to escape the torments of hunger, the pains of disease. Education helps work to brake the cycle of domestic abuse and gender inequality. Sadly some 93 million children are without this precious key to the future, and we must work as a global community to see that all children are given an education, so that we may all revel in prosperity and peace.

Please see my post last Friday, for more information on how lack of education affects children, especially children living in conflict zones.

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has welcomed a proposal for outreach centers throughout South-East Asia to promote the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). “The new center, and its local and regional affiliates, will provide continuity for your initiatives,” he said in a video address to a meeting on achieving the MDGs held by the ASEAN in Bangkok. In reaching the MDGs, Ban stated that South-East Asia has made progress in reducing the number of people living in extreme poverty and the number of children who die of preventable causes. The region has also successfully raised primary school enrollment. However, progress remains uneven between countries and across indicators; income disparities have grown, too many young children are underweight and the environment is threatened, he stated.

Human rights groups sue Ghanaian government over detained refugees , for “gross violation” of the rights of Liberian refugees in reaction to the simmering stand-off over repatriations. Some 630 refugees, mostly women and children, are being detained under heavy police guard following their arrest by the Ministry of Interior on March 17. Of these refugees, 16 have already been stripped of their refugee status and deported to Liberia. The refugees were arrested for holding a protest to draw attention to what they said were unfair condition under which they would be repatriated.

Action Against Hunger’s nutritional surveys indicate alarming rates of malnutrition in Liberia’s capital of Monrovia: more than 12,500 children under five years of age are at risk of severe acute malnutrition. AAH, whose teams run and support nutritional activities in Monrovia, has launched an appeal for funding. AAH/ Action Contre la Faim’s (ACF) latest round of nutritional surveys shows extremely disturbing results that indicate a significant nutritional crisis in Grand Monrovia: of the 800 children weighed, measured, and examined, 17.6% (Z-score) were suffering of acute malnutrition, above the 15% threshold that defines a nutritional crisis. The data indicate that some 12,500 children under 5 years of age are in danger.

Namibian flood victims need more than $1 million of assistance, where floods falling recent above-average rainfall have displaced tens of thousands of people and sparked fears of a surge in infectious diseases. More than 65,000 people could eventually be displaced by the floods, UNICEF said in an update issued this week. UNICEF said it was particularly concerned about the risks faced by orphans and other vulnerable children given that northern Namibia is one of the country’s most densely populated area’s and its HIV rates range from 20 to 40 per cent.

‘Slaves’ saved from Italian circus, two teenage Bulgarian sisters have been rescued by Italian police from a circus in which one of them is said to have been forced to swim with piranhas. Police say that while the 19-year-old sister had to swim in a transparent tank, the 16-year-old had snakes draped across her body and suffered bites. Four members of the family have been freed from what has been described as a “circus of horrors” south of Naples. Three men have been arrested and charged with holding them in slavery.

10,000 health workers stop polio in one of most dangerous places on earth, according to the WHO. Polio appears to have been wiped out from Somalia, the World Health Organization and its partners in the fight against the paralyzing disease said Monday. The “landmark victory” was the result of thousands of health workers and volunteers vaccinating more than 1.8 million Somali children under five years old, said the Global Polio Eradication Initiative, which also includes UNICEF, Rotary International and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

103 children from Abéché return to their families, four and a half months after the French charity, Zoe’s Ark was accused of child trafficking. Eighty-three of the 81 boys and 22 girls left the Abéché orphanage in Eastern Chad where they had been put up by UNICEF and the Ministry of Social Action since 26 October 2007.

UNICEF sends emergency education supplies to Zambia, as part of its emergency response to assist flood affected schools. UNICEF, has flown in 58 schools-in-a-box, each box contains enough supplies for 100 children.

Nasser Ishtayeh Associated Press
“The Way to School” A Palestinian schoolgirl walks carefully past an Israeli tank during clashes near her school in the West Bank town of Nablus, April 19, 2003.

The right to education is all to often taken for granted, while we often complain about our child’s curriculum and the lack of resources in school, we seldom worry about our child walking through a true war zone on the way to school. Yet every day children around the globe are left to literally fight their way to school, risking their safety and lives for an education…for a chance at a future. Schools, students and teachers are increasingly under attack leaving children even more vulnerable to the effects of war. Low literacy rates heavily impact development and poverty, while also leaving children at increased risk of violence.

According to UNICEF, the 52nd session of the Commission on the Status of Women, which took place last month, approximately 93 million school-age children are not receiving an education, most of which are girls. The majority of the worlds children out of school are children living in conflict zones. According to the UNESCO special report issued in November 2007, Education Under Attack , 40% of the estimated 77 million children not in school are from conflict ridden countries. The worst-affected countries in the survey period from 1997 to 2007 were Afghanistan, Colombia, Iraq, Nepal, the Palestinian Territory, Thailand and Zimbabwe, according to data based on incidents reported by the media and ministries of education worldwide. Education is also directly related to empowerment, and more than half of those children out of school in conflict zones are girls.

According to UNESCO in the report 2008 Education for All Global Monitoring Report: Education for All by 2015. Will We Make It?, the number of children in school has increased in the last decade. The report refers to the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals, and additionally the Education for All Declaration. According to the report primary school enrollment rose from 647 million to 688 million worldwide between 1999 and 2005. However the report also stated that the “gender parity goal has been missed”, and that “gender equality remains elusive”.

One should also note that adult literacy rates dramatically impact the lives of children in multiple ways, including placing children and families at increased risk for human trafficking and enslavement. A mothers education and literacy has a direct impact on a child’s education and literacy, thus it is essential that when looking into education and literacy we do not fail to see that adults as well as children are included in development programs. According to UNESCO , 774 million adults lack basic literacy skills worldwide, and some 64% of which are women.

It is clear that there is much that needs to be done to ensure that all of the worlds children receive a basic education, and that considerable attention needs to be placed on those children in conflict zones. While much progress has been made in recent years, it is still unacceptable that some 93 million children are without access to an education. If we are to see progress and hope for this and future generations of children, than we must place education for all as a top priority as it is the gateway to peace and prosperity.

The global fight against tuberculosis is proving difficult, with the deadly disease spreading as cases go undetected in India and China, the World Health Organization warned Monday. Tuberculosis killed some 1.7 million people in 2006, and an estimated 9.2 million people were infected that year, the WHO said in its annual report on the disease.

Pakistan set to complete world’s largest health campaign, as a massive countrywide effort to immunize 64 million Pakistani children against measles is set to achieve its goal in April. Health officials are immunizing children at schools, hospitals and outreach facilities.

German Court Upholds Muslim Headscarf Ban in Schools, as they announced it would uphold a ban on Muslim teachers wearing headscarves in schools in the state of Baden-Württemberg. A state administrative court of appeal in the city of Mannheim ruled teachers cannot cover their heads in the classroom — at least not if they do so for religious reasons. The court’s decision overturned an earlier ruling in 2006 by a lower court, which decided in favor of a teacher who had converted to Islam. The teacher, who had worn a headscarf since 1995, took her case to court after the school board in the state capital of Stuttgart ordered her to stop wearing a headscarf in the classroom.

How can world’s poor better be part of global market? The world’s poorest people, almost by definition, typically have little stake in the goods and services offered in the global marketplace — a fact that arguably hurts both them as well as companies that would like to have more customers. In this essay, Christian Seelos, director of the platform for strategy and sustainability at IESE business school, writes about how corporations more effectively can reach the poorest of the world.

Gaza Humanitarian Crisis Worst in 40 Years, according to a report sponsored by eight British-based aid agencies and human rights groups has described the humanitarian situation in the Gaza Strip as the worst in 40 years. And a senior UN official has warned that the entire infrastructure there is close to collapse.

Drive to boost girls’ education in Egypt has started its 2008 arm of the initiative begun 8 years ago. The program started in 2000 with a goal of creating some to build over 1,000 “girl-friendly” schools in seven provinces. From 2003-2007 the initiative targeted villages and hamlets in the provinces of Bani Suef, Assiut, Al-Menia, Al-Fayyoum, Sohag, Al-Beihera and Al-Guiza, which had a disparity between boys and girls attending school gender gap of between 5 and 15.7 percent. Thus far some 1,063 schools have been built and with 27,784 students enrolled. “…by 2015, we hope no Egyptian girl will be out of school”.

Madagascar ratifies statute establishing International Criminal Court (ICC), the independent, permanent court that tries people accused of the most serious crimes, such as genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity. The Malagasy Government deposited its instrument of ratification to the statute on March 14, according to a news release issued by the ICC.

Georgian street children and caregivers trained to deliver life saving aid, as more than 75 street children and 150 social workers and teachers in four regions in Georgia are equipped to deliver life-saving assistance thanks to recent trainings on emergency care conducted by World Vision. The trainings are provided by the “Learning the Principles of First Emergency Care” project, which aims to increase the capacity of street and at-risk children aged 10-16 in Tbilisi, Telavi, Kutaisi and Batumi, as well as among social workers of various youth centers and institutions, to avoid risks and dangers to their health and wellbeing.

Forced labor big part of globalization’s dark side, with over 12 million people worldwide are estimated to be trapped in a massive global market of forced labor that sees workers duped into near-slavery situations, Newsweek reports. These workers have little legal recourse and may have to work decades to pay off brokers who promised them high-earning jobs.

WHO survey shows heavy tobacco use among India’s young, the report shows that about 17% of school-age children in India use tobacco. More than one-third of school personnel also use some form of tobacco, mostly cigarettes, shows the survey, part of a global poll carried out in 140 countries.

Young Tibetans look past Dalai Lama’s recommendations, as the Dalai Lama’s support of peaceful engagement with Chinese to achieve Tibetan goals is not shared by many young Tibetans who believe more drastic, even confrontational action is needed. Yet even among the most radical Tibetan activist groups, respect for the leader is nearly universal.

HIV major factor in rising child deaths in South Africa as “every year 20,000 babies are stillborn and another 22,000 die within the first month of their lives. In total, at least 75,000 children die before their fifth birthday, while 1,600 mothers die due to pregnancy or childbirth complications, according to a report on infant, child and maternal mortality, released at a conference on perinatal care in Johannesburg this week.” The report, Every Death Counts, produced jointly by the Department of Health, the Medical Research Council and the University of Pretoria.

After police raids in June 2007 freed hundreds of child laborers working in China’s kilns, the government took steps to crack down on trafficking. Despite the government crack down, children are still routinely kidnapped from villages in China and pressed into labor in slave-like conditions (The Washington Post).

While Kosovo revels in it’s newly found independence from Serbia, many women and girls in the country find themselves enslaved in the sex trade and many others continually suffer from domestic abuse. It will be a challenge for this newly free nation to improve conditions for women (The Los Angeles Times).

A dangerous type of childhood meningitis has been virtually eliminated in Uganda in just five years after a vaccine was introduced this week. The vaccine could save the lives of some 5,000 children a year, according to a new report. “This is the first time we’ve seen this kind of impact, a 100 percent drop,” said Dr. Julian Lob-Levyt, executive secretary of the GAVI Alliance. The vaccine, known as Hib, protects against haemophilus influenzae type B, a bacterium that can inflame the lining of the brain or cause pneumonia. Each year, it kills 386,000 children globally (The New York Times).

In an effort to lead young men away from armed military groups, Turkey’s government is planning a broad series of investments worth as much as USD 12 billion in the country’s largely Kurdish southeast, in a new economic effort intended to create jobs and draw young men away from militancy, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan said. The program is intended to drain support for the militant Kurdish group, the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, by improving the lives of Turkey’s impoverished Kurdish minority (The New York Times).

Sierra Leone maternity hospital’s have become a “last resort” for both patients, do to the shortages of staff and supplies. Sierra Leone has one of the highest levels of maternal mortality in the world because of underinvestment in health programs, malnutrition, and harmful cultural practices, UN children’s agency (UNICEF) Executive Director Ann Veneman told journalists in the Sierra Leone capital. “Child mortality in this country is the worst in the world at 270 deaths per 100,000 children born”.

In Somalia displaced families surviving on less than one meal a day. Large numbers of families displaced by the continuing violence are living on less than one meal a day and spending large proportions of that to buy drinking water, according to the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC). Get more girls in school, activists say, “This is a situation that must change rapidly because the education of girls will shape the progress we want to see for Somalia in terms of peace and development,” Christian Balslev-Olesen, the representative for the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) Somalia, said on 7 March. Somalia has one of the worst overall child educational attendence rates in the world.

Senegal’s leading news agency reports on a newly minted peace deal between the leaders of Chad and Sudan, signed today in Dakar.Voice of America notes that several Chad-Sudan peace deals have failed in the past and it has many looking at theLatest peace pact to revive past failures.

A new report from the International Crisis Group previews Sudan’s 2009 general elections and a planned 2011 South Sudanese independence referendum and questions what the future of North-South relations might look like.

Reports that the head of Kenya’s election commission will face a public probe over the country’s heavily disputed December 27 vote. While some try to return to some form of normality in the face violence many

urban displaced still looking for a home. “My baby is 10 days old, I remain under this tarpaulin tent not knowing what the future holds,” Elizabeth Mueni, one of 263 IDPs camping at the Dagoretti district officer’s (DO) compound.

Authorities in the Republic of Congo have lifted a temporary ban imposed four months ago following the arrest on 25 October 2007 in neighboring Chad of members of a French NGO who were charged with abducting 103 children.

Nutrition experts say governments are not investing enough to prevent and treat malnutrition in women and children in poor countries. “The amount donors have given to combating malnutrition is lamentable,” Saul Morris, one of the authors of a series of reports on child survival published recently by The Lancet medical journal.

In Egypt a drive to boost girls’ education, the drive is sponsored by the government and the UN. The goal is to build over 1,000 “girl-friendly” schools in seven provinces, as there due to the low attendence of girls. Many girls do not attend school due to the proximity of schools, poverty, child labor, gender inequality, and early marriage.

In Sudan around 650,000 or half of all children in Darfur do not receive an education, despite efforts by various organizations to provide schooling in camps and towns across the western Sudanese region, according to Save the Children.

In Chad many young people desperately seeking sex education. Some of the young people who seek help at the Youth Information and Orientation Centre for Reproductive Health (CIOJ) in N’Djamena, capital of Chad, do not understand how they became pregnant or contracted a sexually transmitted infection (STI). Workers at the center blame the high levels of ignorance on the failure of parents to talk to their children about sex.

Burundi’s teachers are calling for more HIV/AIDS education in schools, to ensure that older primary school pupils and secondary school students, many of whom are sexually active, are properly equipped with the facts about the pandemic. Ernest Mberamiheto, deputy minister in charge of primary and secondary education, said government studies in 2004 revealed that 23 percent of school children had had sexual intercourse by the age of 14.

In the Niger Delta there is no lack of youth ready to join militias. And while many young boys want out of the fight disarment will still leave wages twice or three times less, leaving many feeling that the life of a militant is the only hope for economic stability.

Israel sentences man for “honor” killing of sister, the court handed down a 16-year prison sentence Tuesday against a man accused of participating in the killing of his sister, after women in the family stepped forward to testify against the suspect. The sister was the eighth female family member to be killed in recent years, but this was the first conviction in any of the cases. She was 18 at the time, and was the eighth female member of the Abu Ghanem clan to have been killed in seven years

Meningitis is spreading across the region with the death toll reaching 422 since the beginning of 2008 yet, contrary to several recent reports, a World Health Organization (WHO) official said the figures are lower than previous years and that West Africa is well-prepared to contain the disease. Low cost meningitis vaccine developed, which has proven to be highly effective in trials in West Africa, and will be introduced in 2009.

South African schools are the most dangerous in the world, and if the issue is not addressed it will stunt children’s education and jeopardize the future development of the country, according to the South African Institute of Race Relations (SAIRR). However experts warn that safety is part of a more complex problem.