9 August 2005 - CRINMAIL 702
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- AFGHANISTAN: Maternal and Child Mortality Rates Soaring [news]
- IRAQ: Focus on Boys Trapped in Commercial Sex Trade [news]
- CHILD LABOUR: Children in Sugarcane Plantations in the Philippines [report]
- JUVENILE JUSTICE: Rights of Children in the Penal System [conferences]
- CHILDREN AND THE MEDIA: Child Rights Award 2005 [call for submissions]___________________________________________________________
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Your submissions are welcome if you are working in the area of child rights. To contribute, email us at [email protected]. Adobe Acrobat is required for viewing some of the documents, and if required can be downloaded from http://www.adobe.com/products/acrobat/readstep.html If you do not receive this email in html format, you will not be able to see some hyperlinks in the text. At the end of each item we have therefore provided a full URL linking to a web page where further information is available.
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- AFGHANISTAN: Maternal and Child Mortality Rates Soaring [news]
[KABUL, 4 August 2005] - While Afghanistan is progressing from a state of emergency to a focus on development, women and children continue to face an "acute emergency'' because of exceptionally high maternal and child mortality rates. "Infant mortality and under five mortality are very high, girls' enrolment is one of the lowest in the world and malnutrition affects almost half of the country's child population," said Cecilia Lotse, UNICEF's Regional Director for South Asia, after a week-long visit to the region.
About 20 per cent of Afghan children die before their fifth birthday while about 1,600 out of every 100,000 Afghan mothers die while giving birth or because of related complications.
An Afghan child today has a one in seven chance of dying before their first year as a result of illness and malnutrition. Moreover, one child in five dies before his or her fifth birthday as a result of common, but preventable childhood diseases such as diarrhoea, pneumonia, malaria, typhoid and others that could be prevented by simple immunisations and sanitary practices, she added.
Lotse said all children - but particularly girls - were "very vulnerable'' in Afghanistan. Despite the return of several million children to school over the last three years, Lotse said girls' enrolment in secondary schools in Afghanistan was less than 10 per cent. School enrolment for young Afghan girls is among the lowest in the world. With female illiteracy rates as high as 85 per cent in Afghanistan, millions of young women are unable to play a part in the social and economic development of their community, and of themselves. "This represents a tremendous waste of human potential and a tremendous unfulfilled promise,'' she said.
"They [girls] often return home [leave school for good] to help the family - particularly when the mother is a widow," she added. Additionally, the chances of an Afghan girl marrying early was much greater and 40 per cent of Afghan women were married before the age of 18, with a third of these having children before they reached the age of 18.
"In some parts of Afghanistan, maternal death rates are as high as 6,000 per 100,000 women, according to Afghan public Health Ministry figures. "Afghan women don't live long lives,'' she said. "Afghanistan may be the one country in the world where women die before men.''
"It is essential that all of us - the Government, the UN, and others - prioritise investments in education, that we increase the quality and accessibility of health care for women. How well Afghanistan does then, depends on how serious we are today about making the right investments, investments that must start with women and girls," Lotse said.
[Source: UNICEF]
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- IRAQ: Focus on Boys Trapped in Commercial Sex Trade [news]
[BAGHDAD, 8 August 2005] - Hassan Feiraz, a 16-year-old boy, has started a desperate new life since being forced into the sex trade in Baghdad, joining a growing number of adolescents soliciting in Iraq under the threat of street gangs or the force of poverty. "I'm a homosexual and was forced to work as a prostitute because one of the people I had sex with took pictures of me in bed and said that, if I didn't work for him, he was going to send the pictures to my family." "My life is a disaster today. I could be killed by my family to restore their honour," he said, explaining that homosexuality was totally unacceptable in Iraq due to religious beliefs.
Following the conflict in 2003, there has been an increase in the number of commercial sex workers (CSWs) in the country, especially among teenagers, according to local officials. This increase is attributed to economic pressure faced by families countrywide and the presence of new prostitution rings that have sprung up since the invasion. With society in turmoil and a raft of other serious issues to address, child protection has not been uppermost in the priorities of the transitional government. The gangs use money or threats to get teenage boys to work for them, officials said.
"Many of us are working under threat, but others are there because they don't know how to survive and found it as an easy way of getting money," Feiraz said. "Someone should help free us from these criminals."
Saeed Muhammad, a senior official in the Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs, said it was addressing the problem but was under-resourced. "We have been informed about dozens of cases of male prostitution, and all of them [the boys involved] were threatened," he said. "But we don't have the capacity to deal with them."
Muhammad said a special commission had been set up, with help from the Ministry of Interior, to tackle the rings forcing young men into the sex trade. According to Muhammad, unofficial information suggests there could be as many as 4,000 male commercial sex workers. There are no statistics on the number of boys caught up in the business countrywide, but officials fear that it could be in the hundreds.
Boys are said to receive the equivalent of around US $10 for each person they have sex with, with the gangs reportedly taking five times that amount. The leader of a ring of commercial sex workers told IRIN that the livelihood they were offering Iraqi boys was "a job like any other". He insisted that the boys were not threatened and that anyone who came to work for them could leave at any time.
"Iraqis love boys and our work is to offer pleasure to them," the ring leader, who calls himself Abu Weled (or "father of the boys"), said. "They are all gay and, in Iraq, the homosexual is something cheap and bad, but we make them feel special when working with us." Abu Weled's gang also has some girls under 16 years of age soliciting for him, he said.
Under Shari'ah or Islamic law, homosexual practise is a religious crime that carries the death sentence. The transition constitution in place in Iraq for the past two years does not address homosexuality. A new constitution is currently being drafted. Whether or not homosexuality is illegal, it is a taboo subject in Iraq and homosexual acts are strongly condemned by Muslims. Yet, these prostitution rings suggest, there is a demand for commercial sex workers to engage in homosexual acts.
[Source: IRIN. To read the article in full, go to: http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=48485&SelectRegion=Middle_Ea...
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- CHILD LABOUR: Children in Sugarcane Plantations in the Philippines [report]
[THE HAGUE, July 25 2005] - Children are exposed to toxic pesticides while working on sugarcane plantations in the Philippines. This is what child rights organisation Terre des Hommes Netherlands found in its research into hazardous child labour.
Worldwide, 60 children die as a result of hazardous labour. 170 million children perform work under dangerous circumstances in quarries, mines and in agriculture. Terre des Hommes Netherlands calls for an immediate halt to the involvement of children in these worst forms of child labour.
In the research report 'Sweet hazards: Child Labour on Sugarcane Plantations in the Philippines', launched last week, Terre des Hommes concludes that seemingly harmless work done by children in agriculture causes substantial health problems. One of the findings of the research is that children who work on commercial sugarcane plantations in the Philippines are exposed to pesticides which the WHO classifies as highly hazardous.
Exposure can lead to dizziness, nausea, lung problems and cancer. The most serious health problems surface after childhood. The working children are exposed to the burning heat of the sun for nine hours a day, they do not have the time to go to school. Some of them are injured by the big machetes they use in the sugarcane fields.
Working with pesticides is just one example of the many forms of hazardous child labour that children face. Many governments have signed and ratified the ILO 182 convention, in which the elimination of the worst forms of child labour is given absolute priority. However, this promise has not yet been fulfilled.
On 7 October 2005, Terre des Hommes Netherlands will hold a seminar to discuss the impact of ILO convention 182 on children engaged in the worst forms of child labour. The seminar will be held in The Netherlands.
For more information, contact:
Terre des Hommes Nederland
Zoutmanstraat 42 - 44, 2518 GS Den Haag, The Netherlands
Tel: + 31 70 310 5000; Fax: + 31 70 310 5001
Email: [email protected]
Website: http://www.terredeshommes.nl
Visit: http://www.crin.org/resources/infoDetail.asp?ID=6018
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- JUVENILE JUSTICE: Rights of Children in the Penal System [conferences]
The Howard League for Penal Reform is organising a series of conferences on the legal and human rights of children in the penal system, to be held in London, UK, at the end of the year:
- Children, crime and the community (7 October 2005)
- Mental health and children in the penal system (4 November 2005)
- Children in custody (2 December 2005)
The conferences will address youth offending teams, local authorities, youth and social workers, probation practitioners, sentencers, lawyers, voluntary sector organisations, academics and anyone working in the criminal justice system and concerned about reform. They will consist of plenary sessions with keynote speakers, questions and debates, and breakout sessions to explore good practice and further discussions.
For more information, contact:
Barbara Norris, Events and Promotions Officer
The Howard League for Penal Reform
1 Ardleigh Road, London N1 4HS, UK
Tel: + 44 20 7249 7373; Fax: + 44 20 7249 7788
Email: [email protected]
Website: http://www.howardleague.org
Visit: http://www.crin.org/resources/infoDetail.asp?ID=6001&flag=event
Visit: http://www.crin.org/resources/infoDetail.asp?ID=6002&flag=event
Visit: http://www.crin.org/resources/infoDetail.asp?ID=6003&flag=event
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- CHILDREN AND THE MEDIA: Child Rights Award 2005 [call for submissions]
The Asian Broadcasting Union (ABU) and the Cable and Satellite Broadcasting Association of Asia (CASBAA) are now calling on Asia-Pacific broadcasters for entries for the ABU CASBAA UNICEF Child Rights Award 2005. The Award is made each year to the best television programming on children's rights produced in the Asia-Pacific region.
It recognises the efforts of broadcasters in pursuing both the production of top quality children's programming, better news coverage of children's programming, and better news coverage of children's issues. There is one category and one winner.
Television plays a significant role in shaping children's social and emotional development. Almost 90 percent of Asian homes and children in the region watch an average of 2-5 hours of television per day, and in some countries they watch as many as 20 hours per week.
Programmes both for children and about children are eligible and can cover any child rights issue. Entries can include documentaries that detail the plight of children, dramas that help break down stereotypes and discrimination, or animation that teaches and entertains.
Entries must have been broadcast between August 2004 and August 2005 and should not exceed 60 minutes in length. The Award will be presented at the CASBAA Convention in Hong Kong 28 October 2005.
Submission deadline: 26 August 2005
For more information, contact:
Urai Singhpaiboonporn, Assistant Communication Officer
UNICEF East Asia and Pacific Regional Office
19 Phra Atit Road, Bangkok 10200, Thailand
Tel: + 662 356 9400; Fax: + 662 280 3563
Email: [email protected]
Website: http://www.abu.org.my
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