Children

Here are some of the headlines from the last few weeks of December:

According to a report entitled, Education Watch 2006, much needs to be done to close the gap between the rich and the poor in the primary educational level. “About 50 percent of primary and 80 percent of secondary level students drop out of school in Bangladesh, according to a report released on 17 December by the Campaign for Popular Education (CAMPE) , a Bangladeshi non-governmental organization (NGO)” (High rate of school dropouts). The report also highlights that the country is not at all on track to meet the Millennium Development Goals (MDG) set for 2015.

The level of malnutrition in West Africa was marginally lower in 2007, and therefore the total aid requests for 2008 are also lower. However concern is not to be put aside as food security remains at an issue of grave concern. “There is less of a malnutrition crisis this year but [structural] problems of food security are still a serious concern,” Hervé Ludovic de Lys the regional head of the UN’s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs told IRIN at the launch of the 2008 CAP which called on donors to provide funds for projects costing a total of US$312 million. The good news is that improving food security is cheaper than treating malnutrition,” he said (Slight drop in malnutrition but food remains scarce).

The Ebola out brake that took hold of the Congo appears to be under control, but many worry it will not last long. Health official Sam Okware, stated that a task force was set up to raise awareness and work to end the use of traditional circumcision rituals in the affected areas, until the epidemic has cleared. Okware also stated that those infected who have been discharged from hospital are being informed about the risks of sex, and the spreading of the disease through semen, thus they are advised to abstain for three months (Ebola under control but experts fear re-emergence in Congo).

In mid December a measles outbreak left at least 200 children in Nigeria dead and hundreds more infected, according to the International Federation of the Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (“Hundreds” dead in measles outbreak). Measles can cause death, and is also one of the major causes of child blindness in Africa. Measles can also lead to brain damage, which can cause deafness and paralysis.

On December 12th the United States Senate unanimously passed the Sudan Accountability and Divestment Act (SADA). The SADA will be sent to the House of Representatives for consideration. In August, the House passed a similar bill, the Darfur Accountability and Divestment Act.

In the 16 days leading up to International Human Rights Day, December 10th, organizations around the globe assisted the the UN Population Fund (UNFPA), raising awareness against gender-based violence (GBV) (Awareness-raising key to tackling gender violence).

Disabilities are always a hindrance to anyone, but in Afghanistan children are being cut by a double edge sword. There is an estimated 24.5 million disabled persons with a disability in Afghanistan, with half under the age of 19. “Over 72 percent of all disabled people over six have not received any education, Afghanistan’s National Disability Survey (NDS) said in 2005. ” (Disabled people have tough time, lack education, jobs). With schools lacking resources and facilities to accommodate those children with a disability, the situation for disabled children looks to remain unchanged until more resources and systems are put into place.

The UN has launched a US$3.8-billion appeal to provide emergency aid to 25 million people next year as they struggle to survive conflict, climate-related disasters and other humanitarian crises. “We live in a world of unprecedented prosperity. But despite this, millions of people continue to endure crises where the essentials of existence - clean water, life-saving drugs, and emergency shelter among others - are denied them and where insecurity is a part of everyday life,” Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon stated in a forward to the 2008 Humanitarian Appeal, launched at the UN’s European headquarters in Geneva on 10 December.

SOMALIA: Aid appeal broadened to cope with massive displacement - The conflict in Somalia has only continued this year, as a result leaving massive displacement, with an estimated 600,000 fleeing Mogadishu, many of which risk death to reach Saudi Arabia and Yemen. Children are facing extreme suffering after years of suffering. “An estimated 83,000 children [excluding those in displaced families] are moderately or severely malnourished in south/central Somalia. These children are at increased risk of death in a country where, already, one in 12 children will die before his or her first birthday and one in seven will die before reaching the age of five,” humanitarian agencies said.

Myanmar deaths higher than U.N. estimate: The death toll following the uprising in Burma has left the a question of the true number lives lost. Posing as tourist a group of Buddhists entered the country in the wake of the September monk-led uprising to research and document the reality of the causalities. Their numbers, at at least 70, appear more than double of the UN’s estimated death toll of 31.

In the past weeks eyes and ears in Sudan, haven’t been on Darfur, but on a British Teacher who was imprisoned over a blasphemous teddy bear. The bear was part of a primary class project and the out lash arose over the children choice of a name, Mohammad. The act by the teacher was seen as a direct insult to Muslims everywhere, despite many who believed it was a silly or innocent mistake. Crowds in Khartoum called for Gillian Gibbons execution, as uproar over the toy’s insult to Islam ensued. Thankfully for Gibbons, she was pardoned by President Bashir and released on December 6th, while many Muslims and non-Muslims alike waited in anticipation for her save return to the UK. “I have great respect for the Islamic religion and would not knowingly offend anyone and I am sorry if I caused any distress. I am looking forward to seeing my family and friends but I am very sorry that I will be unable to return to Sudan and work in Unity High School as the teacher of 2X.”, stated Gibbons after her pardon (Teddy bear teacher leaves Sudan after pardon).

Anti-polio campaign targets four million children in Yemen, as a three-day national anti-polio campaign began on 15 December in to ensure the complete eradication of the disease. Spearheaded by Yemen’s Ministry of Health - with support from the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF), the World Health Organization (WHO) and USAID - the immunization drive is targeting just over four million children aged five and under.

In Pakistan the eradication of Polio has been a high priority throughout the year, and now the government’s in a further drive to eradicate polio. From December 11th-13th, approximately 14 million children under the age of five, where immunized in 44 high-risk districts, including Swat, where anti-immunization efforts have been met with opposition. The vaccination drive was the joint effort of of the government of Pakistan, WHO and UNICEF.

In South Africa the rules are simple no registration, no benefits and this includes benefits such as child support. UNICEF estimates that only half of the countries children’s births have been registered, which will prohibit many from receiving benefits as a birth certificate is required to obtain an identity document. However a new outreach program is underway, using schools to reach tens of thousands of rural South Africans get grants and benefit services.

According to a new report, The Yemen Poverty Assessment, which was released on 3 December, poverty is severely effecting the children of Yemen. The report which was jointly prepared by the government of Yemen, the World Bank, and UN Development Program (UNDP), reveled that some 30 percent of children aged 2-5 severely stunted. “According to the UN World Food Program (WFP), child malnutrition rates in Yemen are amongst the highest in the world, with infant and under-five mortality rates estimated at 76 and 102 per 1,000 live births, respectively.”

UN launches regional human rights office, The UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) signed an agreement with the Senegalese government on 3 December to set up a regional office in the capital, Dakar. The office which will be the UN’s fourth African regional office in Africa is expected to open in early 2008, and on top of the agenda are issues of human trafficking and violence against women and girls.

Despite years of improvement since the drought of 2005 in Malawi malnutrition is still a threat to the countries children. Inadequate healthcare and food security are largely to blame, as some 39,000 are still being treated for malnutrition and related illnesses. “The scale of the malnutrition problem in Malawi is clearly very large and, given its consequences for economic development and child survival, calls for immediate and large-scale action,” said Aida Girma, UNICEF Resident Representative.

Please find some of the past few weeks news headlines and summaries, related to children:

TACKLING TEENAGE PREGNANCY: UK Women to Get Pill without Prescription - The UK has the highest teen pregnancy rate in Western Europe, and a steadily rising abortion rate, and the government is looking at a new scheme which will allow one to get birth control pills without a prescription, and they are considering letting underage girls onto the scheme. The government also announced that it was looking into making early-stage terminations available in doctors’ offices.

Schoolboy killed in rare Indian school shooting - While school shootings seem to have almost become a phenomenon in the US, in India the thought was seen as absurd, until the unthinkable happened and two boys took turns shooting a fellow classmate to death.

African human traffic is catalyst for child abuse - “There are very few institutions ready to help them … there is no psychological support for these children. Their families do not understand, and sweep it under the carpet,” said Plan’s Serigne Mor Mbaye, who worked on the pilot research program in Togo.

LESOTHO: A desire to learn stifled by hunger - Children crowd into school rooms full of ambition, but soon hunger overcomes them and their concentration fades. Drought has left the country with high levels of food insecurity, and it is the children who are paying the heaviest price. The country has a high level of AIDS orphans, and those children are far worse as their guardians leave feeding them to last, if at all. While aid agencies have begun some feeding schemes, they have yet to begin for secondary school students.

IRAQ: Children with serious illnesses abandoned- Children in war torn Iraq have disproportanatly suffered has the war and instablitiy continues, with around 1.6 million children under 12 years old are now homeless according to the country’s Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs. Many due to poverty and violence, however a large portion of children are left as they are sick, and families are abandoning them as they cannot care for them. “The problem is even more serious among new-born babies and there are many cases of children aged 1-12 abandoned,” said Mayada Marouf, a spokesperson for KCA. “Most of them have a life-threatening disease and their families cannot afford treatment.” Many children are not completely abandoned but left with relatives who can bare not to turn them away, and soon find themselves with a house full of children they cannot adequately care for.

DRC: “The blood keeps flowing” -The children of the Congo continue to suffer in large scale numbers as violence continues to tear the country apart. Hunger and disease are taking countless numbers of children, parents are left in fear both from violence and that their children will starve to death. According to MSF’s nutrition center see 40 cases a day - mainly children younger than five, who have been surviving on a diet of sorghum wheat, cassava and maize, which lack the nutrients they need. Additionally the nutrition center runs a ambulatory feeding program, for 1,200 vulnerable children in the district. Save the Children also runs a feeding center for the sickest of the children, children like 8 year old Sekabamdu Utamuleza, who after three weeks of treatment has failed to improve. The aid agencies working in the region are over burdened, and there is not enough medical staff to care for all the needy children.

“Where there is no hope, one must invent hope.” - Albert Camus

Recently I have written a few posts on the situation in Sudan, and I was fortunate enough to attend the prescreening last night of Sand and Sorrow, which premiers on HBO on December 6th at 8pn ET. The event was held Monday, December 3, at the National Cable & Telecommunications Association Theater, in Washington, DC. HBO, in conjunction with Enough and Campus Progress, which is the student arm of the Center for American Progress.

Bodies scattered across the barren land, their outline remains long after they are gone. Blood red sand stained from the bodies who spilled their blood fighting for their land, homes, and futures. Scorched bodies lie like an invisible mass of death, a plague haunting only those who have been forced to bare witness. A plague with no cure in sight!

Images seared on your brain, in your mind, in your heart…They cannot escape your soul, forever etched in your memory, and this is exactly what the films producers want you to walk away with. The film does not gloss over the horrors that plague Sudan, but shows graphic images of the bodies of those who have been burned alive, the faces of those who still cling to life, and burned out villages among the arid land. The film tells the real stories of tragedy from those who have lived to bare witness to the acts of genocide and systematic rapes. For too long the cries of Sudan have fallen on deaf ears, and thus “Sand and Sorrow” “examines the international community’s ‘legacy of failure’ to respond to such profound crimes against humanity in the past.” “Never Again!”, are the words we have failed to live by time and time again. The films Director, Paul Freedman, said in response to our failures to act, even as the ten year anniversary of Rwanda unfolded, and our continuous failure to end the genocide in Sudan;

“We will do it slowly and we will call it Darfur.
Everybody knows, yet we don’t do anything….
we stand idly by and do nothing!”

Narrated by George Clooney, the film relies heavily on the powerful interviews of Samantha Power, John Pendergast and Nick Kristof. However in its brief 93 minutes the producers take you into an American High School, and Capital Hill, to give you some incite into the concern and frustration back home. In the film also follows a contingent of African Union peacekeeping forces in Darfur, which included Sabina Blay, an police woman from Ghana. Blay, organized a forum for rape victims at an IDP camp in Chad, seeing that many sought treatment for the sexual assaults that had been inflicted upon them. “What those children saw is something that human beings should never see”, Blay said with sadness in her eyes.

Burned bodies, utter carnage, terror and despair…that is the description of Darfur…the lives of millions of displaced children, many now without fathers, others the reminders of their mother violent attackers. But their suffering is far from over as those called to protect them are rendered helpless, only able to watch, video and document the horrors that continue to unfold before their very eyes. The innocent civilians of Darfur are far from safe, as under their watchful eyes the camps burn, and innocence continues to die.

Who will end the terror and sorrow in the sand? The US has condemned the acts in Sudan as genocide, yet still we sit sill, and no policies have yet been made. As South African President Mbeki said, “The solution doesn’t lie in making radical statements.” We can not condemn the crisis and then sit back and hope it will fix itself, for five years later we are only facing a new enemy of disease and hunger. Death and violence is common in every day life in Sudan, as IDP’s spend endless days in unknowing anguish, in fear and in hope, and day after day they wait alone and in silence.

“Human lives are heavy or light depending on where they are!” -John Pendergast

Following the film there was a Q&A discussion featuring John Prendergast, co-chair of the ENOUGH Project, and Director Paul Freedman, who also produced and directed “Rwanda—Do Scars Ever Fade?”. The discussion was moderated by Erica Williams the Issue Campaigns Manager at Campus Progress.

What do we do, well John Pendergast made a great statement which says it simply;

“There has to be a cost for committing Genocide…they want to be accepted internationaly . These guys change their behavior if pressured hard enough, lets pressure them!”

Campus Progress and Enough are encouraging people to have a Party with a Purpose . Gather your friends, family, students and classmates, then register your party and get discussion materials. Following the film you will have the opportunity to participate in ‘Join a Call’ with John Prendergast, Samantha Power and Nick Kristof after the film.

Related Articles and Links:
HBO buys Darfur docu ‘Sand and Sorrow’
Save Darfur
Smallest Witnesses

Have you been bitten by the gift giving bug this season? Was my last post, Holiday Wish List, not enough to keep you busy, or satisfy your unquenchable need to help underprivileged children. Well then here are 20 more ways for you to help make a child’s life better this year. Why not pick a few off the list, or pick one that you can make a year long project!

1. Donate new blankets to kids in homeless shelters at projectnightnight.org.
2. Shop or donate to thrift stores such as, Out of the Closet, which helps support the AIDS Healthcare Foundation.
3. Before you shop online, go to goodshop.com. Then buy from participating retailers and the site donates a portion of your purchase to the charity of your choice.
4. Spend an hour or two a week helping an immigrant learn English (check out literacyvolunteers.org).
5. Donate old cell phones to victims of domestic violence for emergencies (go to ncadv.org and click “donate”).
6. Vaccinate 50 children around the world against deadly diseases such as meningitis, measles or polio with a $50 donation at doctorswithoutborders.org.
7. Provide a month of care for a child rescued from sexual slavery for just $30 at sharedhope.org.
8. Find projects that help children in your neighborhood at dosomething.org.
9. Make a $10 donation to freethechildren.org and a special matching-funds program will turn it into $100 worth of medical supplies for kids around the world.
10. Mentor an at-risk teen online at icouldbe.org.
11. Help an aspiring student pay for college at scholarshipamerica.org.
12. Send a DVD or video game to hospital-bound kids via childsplaycharity.org.
13. Helping students, ages 6-18, with expository and creative writing at 826national.org.
14. Look at your medical history, then donate to a cause that could help your loved ones, be it the American Heart Association (americanheart.org), Susan G. Komen for the Cure (komen.org) or another charity.
15. Train your dog to be a therapy dog for children in hospitals at tdi-dog.org.
16. Sell gifts you don’t need through eBay’s Giving Works program (givingworks.ebay.com), which earmarks a percentage of sales for the charities of your choice.
17. Give to donorschoose.org; a small donation can help create cozy reading nooks for underfunded classrooms.
18. Upgrade your laptop; worldcomputerexchange.org will send your old one to a child in one of 61 countries.
19. Give blood and save a child’s life at givelife.org.
20. Become a bone marrow donor at www.marrow.org, it could be a child’s life you save.

Within the fight against poverty, the right to food should be treated as a fundamental right, according to German Development Minister Heidemarie Wieczorek-Zeul. The policy should ensure that the right to food receives priority, Wieczorek-Zeul called on November 6 in Berlin, at the presentation of the World Bank World Development Report 2008. World Bank Vice President for Sustainable Development, Katherine Sierra, emphasized that development programs need to focus on the sector (Reuters).

Developing countries have made much progress in reducing poverty and hunger but have not been as successful in reaching the poorest of the poor, according to the International Food Policy Research Institute’s (IFPRI), recent report “The World’s Most Deprived”. Utilizing household survey data from 20 developing countries, the report found the reduction of poverty has been slower for the “ultra poor”, those who are living on less than 50 cents per day, most of whom are in Africa. The report estimated that some 162 million people could be classified as ultra poor, and if they were concentrated in a single country they would make up the seventh most populous nation after China, India, the United States, Indonesia, Brazil and Pakistan.

It is clear that much needs to be done in the reduction of poverty world wide, and we have clearly not come as far as we thought, however while the World Bank must increase its efforts and focus on poverty, they are not alone. International development organizations as a whole must increase there efforts to find more suitable and sustainable poverty reduction options.

The United Nations Population Fund, will now benefit from the international communities efforts to make maternal health a global priority. Over the last 7 years the US has withheld funding for the agency, which was appropriated by Congress, amounting to $204 million. According to the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) $34 million has been authorized in funding each year since 2002, an an amount Anika Rahman, President of New York-based Americans for UNFPA, says would have allowed the fund “to prevent 244,000 maternal deaths, help 68 million women delay pregnancy and prevent 2.4 million women from suffering adverse health effects during pregnancy and childbirth (Women’s eNews).

According to a new study released on today, November 8, 2007, the World Food Program says that approximately half of Laos rural children, some 255,000, suffer from chronic malnutrition. “The Government of Lao PDR and the donor community should give the highest priority to addressing child malnutrition as a critical aspect of national development,” said WFP Laos Representative Christa Raeder (Bangkok Post (Thailand)/Deutsche Presse-Agentur).

In Uruguay senators voted to ease the country’s tough abortion laws, although the president has vowed to veto any legislation that seeks to decriminalize the procedure. Currently in Uruguay, women are only allowed to have an abortion if they were raped or if the pregnancy endangers their lives. The Nov. 6 vote gives preliminary approval to a bill that would let women have an abortion in the first 12 weeks of pregnancy on grounds including economic or social hardship or “circumstances linked to how the conception took place.” (Reuters)

Hope has now come for many refugees of the conflict in Sudan, who have been desperate for more substantial medical attention. Medair has now completed construction of a permanent Primary Health Care Center (PHCC), to be staffed with eight support staff and 12 health professionals, including clinical officers, community health workers, and nurse midwives, which will provide access to a wide range of health services for up to 50,000 vulnerable Sudanese. In March of 2007, Medair opened a temporary PHCC in Melut Town, in partnership with the Health Ministry and local community authorities. Large tents were set up, and over the course of 34 weeks, 13,000 patients were seen and treated. (Reuters)

More than 3,000 cases of diarrhea have been reported in Bulawayo, Zimbabwe’s second city, in the last two months, as residents struggle with water shortages. Since the outbreak was first reported in August, the city has experienced a 10-fold increase in cases, up to the second week of November. Low rainfall and an inability to keep up with the demands of a growing population in a depressed economic environment have left many of Bulawayo’s 1.5 million residents in the grip of water shortages and often having to obtain water from unprotected sources. (IRIN)

South Africa’s President Thabo Mbeki remains an “AIDS dissident” - doubting the link between the HIV virus and AIDS, according to his new biographer, Mark Gevisser. Gevisser said Mbeki thinks he has “failed on the issue of Aids” and regrets dropping the debate. He also said Mbeki believes that anti-AIDS drugs, now distributed in South Africa, are toxic and doubts their efficacy. But the president’s spokesman refused to comment on the book’s claims, saying the cabinet and Mbeki were united. (BBC)

When fighting hunger and famine, there is no easy way to deliver sustainable amounts of food, nor has the fight to see that the suffering receive balanced nutrition come easy. However substancial improvements have been made, and products have been developed to better aid those suffering from malnutrition. Children no longer have to be taken to feeding centers, and parents can tend to their children at home, which would cause many to have to undergo a substantial journey. Thus the fight against hunger has already won the battle of convenience, but convenient it may be, widely used enough it is not.

With some 20 million children around the globe suffering from acute malnutrition, the way we approach their treatment is no small matter. Médecins Sans Frontières, is now calling for a global move in the treatment of child malnutrition, stating that use of therapeutic ready-to-use foods (RUF), such as Plumpy’nut, should be dramatically increased.

Dr Christophe Fournier, the president of MSF’s International Council stated, “It’s not about how much food children get, it’s what’s in the food that counts. Without the right amounts of vitamins and essential nutrients in their diets, young children become vulnerable to diseases that they would normally be able to fight off easily. Given their effectiveness, the use of RUF should not be limited to children with severe acute malnutrition. It should be expanded to address malnutrition in young children before it progresses to a life-threatening stage (MSF urges new approach to malnutrition treatment).”

Fighting malnutrition at early stages is esential in the prevention of many related health issues, not to mention death in many children who are unable to recover by the time they receive care. By working to eliminate mild to moderate malnutrition, we will eventually eradicate severe acute malnutrition, and save millions of children from needless suffering and a million more lives. It is estimated that one million children die each year due to malnutrition, and yet we have the means and strategy to save them.

Ann Veneman, Executive Director of UNICEF, cautioned that the use of Plumpy’nut “cannot be the only strategy to address the issue of severe malnutrition. You’ve got to have an agricultural strategy that provides adequate products for the population,” Veneman also stated the importance of breast-feeding in the fight against malnutrition (Peanut product to combat child malnutrition).

The use of Plumpy’nut has not been as widely used by other aid agencies in the past, as many claimed the high cost hindered the use of the product. However can one put a price on the life of a child? The cost of Plumpy’nut is around $20 per child, per month…it is hardly an extreme expense. While the use of Plumpy’nut and other RUF’s should not be the sole saving grace against malnutrition, their cost should not be a factor.

Additional Links of Interest:
5 facts about starvation that could change the world agenda

The world is always looking for a crystal ball…a window into the future, and the fact that we don’t have one is all too often our scapegoat for not responding quickly to a crisis. “We just didn’t see it coming…We just where not prepared.”, are almost infamous words in the world of international development. The world cannot deny that we miss the signs of crisis time and again, and our failure to act only deepens situations and suffering. Often we do see the impending emergency, and we still turn a blind eye, hopping that when we look back it will all be a dream, or simply just go away. Sadly the world does not just fix it’s self, and mankind depends on their fellow man for assistance in a time of need.

This is not to say that there are not people and groups who are dedicated and working to prevent crisis, there are, and they doing their best with the limited resources they have. However they cannot win the fight alone, and true crisis prevention must come from a global level. It appears that we are not a society which responds as well to ’signs’, as to antiquated predictions, but a society that needs cutting edge statistical predictions and methodology which are fully backed by the international community, in order to collectively work to prevent a formidable crisis. Therefore the question is, if we know it’s going to happen will we act in a more positive and preventative manner?

In recent news a group of economists in Kenya, say they have developed a model which can forecast severe child malnutrition, leading to famine, some three months prior to the crisis. “Our forecasts are likely to be correct more than 75 percent of the time,” said Andrew Mude, the leading author of the study. However early warning experts are cautious to respond, “The key issue for early warning is that it needs to link to response. Producing information with this new approach without understanding the previous obstacles to improved response will only solve half the problem.”, according to Grainne Moloney, Nutrition Project Manager for the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation’s Food Security Analysis Unit in Somalia. (Model to predict child malnutrition)

Therefore while prediction and forecasting are of the utmost necessity in crisis prevention, they are not to be taken as a saving grace, and will do little good if we are not prepared to act, and ready to act. Thus systems and methodologies for quick action in wake or anticipation of a crisis, must be establish worldwide, and the ability to activate such methodologies therefore must contain the capacity to be easily and quickly initiated.

Can one truly imagine the feeling of hunger, when they have not felt the desperation and pain that it causes a child. The prolonged agony of constant hunger drives children into desperate circumstances, and it drives many to get high in order to forget the hunger that rages in their young bellies.

In Nepal extreme poverty is driving children from their homes and onto the streets, many are children from rural areas, who left for Kathmandu for the promise of work. Sadly the children find themselves on the streets, hungry and desperate, for which they have begun to turn to sniffing solvents, such as glue for escape. “You know, this helps us to get rid of our hunger”, said 14-year-old Rajen Subba, who fled his home in Jhapa district in southeast Nepal due to grinding poverty and started to work as a rag picker (street children sniff glue to beat hunger pangs).

Street Children in Thailand Sniffing Glue

However the street children in Nepal are not alone in their suffering, or their addictions to sniffing glue to escape from the dark reality that is their daily lives. Street Children around the world haven falling into this world of glue sniffing, to escape the streets, if only for a moment. Russia, Kenya, Pakistan, Ukraine, Morocco, Brazil, Thailand, Romania…the list goes on and on. The abuse of glue sniffing is a substantial, and growing problem in Asia, and around the world.

Furthermore the problem that was once seen as a American phenomenon , and now many claim is an Asian phenomenon is truly a global problem, as the Advocacy Project in Kenya estimates that some “60,000 children live on the streets of Nairobi, and almost all are addicted to some sort of inhalant” (Glue Sniffing Ruins young Lives in Nairobi).  In the Pakistani city of Karachi alone there are an estimated 14,000 street children, an estimated 90% of which are sniffing sniffing glue or another solvent, according to Aksa Zainab, a social worker working with street children at a drop-in center run by the Azad Foundation in cooperation with UNICEF (Pakistan street kids plagued by glue sniffing).  It is estimated that 98% of street children in Morocco also participated in glue sniffing, thus the high percentages of street children sniffing glue, appear equally high globally (Child glue sniffing rises in Morocco).

The effects of repeated glue sniffing include; suffocation, long term mental/brain damage, fatigue, loss of weight, dehydration, exhaustion, liver damage, kidney damage, as well as blood and bone morrow damage, and death.  Abuse and intoxication, can also lead to anger anger violence, which can often lead to increased crime.Children turn to get high on glue to forget not only hunger, but the sexual predators they have been forced to face. Glue sniffing takes children from the the cold, hunger, desperation, loneliness, and violence of the streets. However glue sniffing sadly takes the children’s lives and minds, and it is for that reason that more efforts into the awareness and prevention of solvent abuse must be increased globally.  One step forward is to restrict the age of purchase on solvents, to limit the number of children purchasing them.  However restricting the purchase of solvents is will not be a main deterrent, and thus awareness and outreach problems for street children must be put in to place, and increased.  Working to elevate the root causes, such as rural  poverty and abuse, of children turning towards the street is also a must to end this growing cycle of abuse.

“Sergey Kushnir, 14, holding a plastic bag filled with glue for sniffing, screams in the sewer where he lives on the outskirts of Odessa, Ukraine, on Tues., June 6, 2006. According to the Ukrainian NGO “The Way Home,” there are more than 3,000 homeless children living on the streets of Odessa. Almost all street children use drugs.”
(Street Kids in Odessa)

Links and other articles of Interest:
Fact Sheet on Glue Sniffing Among Street Children in Nepal
Street Kids in Odessa
Pakistan street kids plagued by glue sniffing
Nepal: street children sniff glue to beat hunger pangs
Street Children In Morocco: An Analysis of the Situation

The Street Kids of St.Petersburg
Glue Sniffing Among Street Children In the Kathmandu Valley
Pakistan street kids plagued by glue sniffing
For Kenyan street kids, glue sniffing is a way of life