Boys from West Africa as young as 14 have been 'trafficked' to an unregistered football academy in Laos, where they are given no salary and made to sleep in 'deplorable' accommodation. One NGO, Culture Foot Solidaire, estimates that 15,000 teenage footballers are moved out of West Africa every year - many of them illegally.
Statistics show that failure to prevent violence against children is resulting in serious economic costs to countries, UNICEF warned at the launch of its ‘End Violence against Children’ campaign in Port Moresby, Papua New Guinea.
A compilation of extracts featuring child-rights issues from the reports submitted to the second Universal Periodic Review. There are extracts from the 'National report', the 'Compilation of UN information' and the 'Summary of stakeholder information'. Also included is the final report and the list of accepted and rejected recommendations.
'This has been a devastating year for those seeking to stand up for human rights and for those caught up in the suffering of war zones. We must hope that, looking backward to 2014 in the years to come, what we lives through will be seen as an ultimate low point from which we rose up and created a better future.'
Most of the the children were trafficked away from their impoverished parents in the states of Bihar and Uttar Pradesh in exchange for 5,000 rupees ($80) as payment.