Posts Tagged ‘Children’
Monday, July 19th, 2010
19/7/10
Malaysian police have smashed a child-trafficking racket and rescued eight children and babies, an official said yesterday. Police detained 16 suspects, including four Indonesian women, in a sting operation after an Indonesian woman was nabbed last Monday when she tried to sell a 23-day-old baby girl for 10,000 ringgit ($3590). In the latest operation on Friday, police rescued a four-year-old boy and a three-year-old girl and detained two Indonesian sisters, said to be the caretakers of the children. Police said they were yet to determine who was behind the group or whether the eight rescued children involved any foreigners. The eight children, including three infants, are aged between 23 days and 12 years.
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Tags: Children, Human Rights, Indonesia, Malaysia
Posted in Health & Children, Human Rights, Indonesia, Sex Trade | No Comments »
Saturday, May 15th, 2010
15/5/10; A mud-walled village in Iran. Soraya, a 35-year-old mother of seven, is falsely accused of adultery by her violent husband, who wants to be rid of her to marry a 4-year-old girl. He blackmails the local mullah, who sentences Soraya to death by stoning under Sharia law. The crowd cries “Allahu akbar [God is great!]” as Soraya’s two young sons are invited to hurl the first stones. It takes Soraya an agonising three hours to die. The next day an Iranian-French journalist, Freidoune Sahebjam, stops in the village to get his car fixed and is told the horrific story by Soraya’s fearless aunt, Zahra. He makes a narrow escape from the village and goes on to write a book in honour of Soraya that will become an international bestseller in 1994, opening the eyes of the West for the first time to the barbaric practice of stoning in some Islamic countries.
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Tags: Children, Human Rights, Marriage, Religion, Womens Rights
Posted in Gender & Marriage, Health & Children, Human Rights, Religion, Womens Rights | No Comments »
Wednesday, May 12th, 2010
Anna Patty & Dn Harrison; 12/5/10; (2 Items)
Teachers will need to learn how to teach Aboriginal children as part of their training before they can register to work in public and private schools under national plans to lift the standard of indigenous education. Education ministers have agreed to a revised blueprint on how they will tackle disadvantage in schooling. They aim to halve the gap in the literacy and numeracy performance of indigenous and mainstream students by 2018. It is expected that a formal announcement will be made at the next Council of Australian Governments meeting, which is expected to be scheduled in the next two months. But leading indigenous educators have criticised the draft Indigenous Education Action Plan, saying it fails to recognise the crucial importance of cultural pride to success at school.
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Tags: Aboriginal, Australia, Children, Culture
Posted in Aboriginal, Australia, Health & Children, Human Rights | No Comments »
Saturday, May 8th, 2010
Bruce Elder: 8/5/10,
Irvine Welsh and others; Vintage, 189pp, $24,95
If you believe we should all be treated equally, regardless of race or sex, then you will already be appalled by those countries and societies where prejudice against young girls, simply because they are female, is part of the fabric of everyday life. It is easy to register that the life of a female child in Egypt, the Sudan, Brazil, Togo, the Dominican Republic, Liberia and Sierra Leone is far worse than it is for a boy but it is hard to break free from the easy torpor of indifference and attempt to do something about that horrific injustice.
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Tags: Children, Global, Human Rights, Women
Posted in Health & Children, Human Rights, Womens Rights | No Comments »
Saturday, May 8th, 2010
Jo Chandler; 8/5/10
International health literature is loaded with graphs and studies describing, in antiseptic terms, the three obstacles that prevent a pregnant woman from getting the care she needs to survive childbirth.
-First is social: will her family recognise when she is in trouble, will culture allow her to seek help, can she afford it?
-Next is access: are there the roads, communications, vehicles to get her to care?
-Finally there is the quality of care at journey’s end: will she find skilled staff, clean facilities, vital drugs and equipment?
To see these factors at work, step out of the literature into messy reality, into the Tarin Kowt Hospital in Afghanistan.
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Tags: Children, Global, Women
Posted in Gender & Marriage, Health & Children, Human Rights, Womens Rights | No Comments »
Friday, May 7th, 2010
7/5/10
Sexual violence is a devastating weapon in the war-torn North Kivu province of the Democratic Republic of Congo. The Congolese army and rebel groups systematically use brutal gang rape against their enemies, causing crippling injuries and spreading HIV. The numbers speak for themselves. Aid groups estimate one in three women in North Kivu have been raped. Over 30 per cent of these have been infected with HIV. All across this devastated region – in every village, every camp and almost every home – a man-made plague is stealing and destroying the lives of women. In a scale never seen before around the world.
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Tags: Africa, Children, Human Rights, Women
Posted in Africa, Gender & Marriage, Health & Children, Human Rights, Womens Rights | No Comments »
Friday, May 7th, 2010
7/5/10; http://news.theage.com.au/breaking-news-national/breastfeeding-discrimination-move-mooted-20100507-uh65.html
Anyone who discriminates against breastfeeding mothers could face action under proposed changes to the Sex Discrimination Act. Attorney-General Robert McClelland said the government would amend the legislation by extending protections from discrimination on the grounds of family responsibilities to both women and men in all areas of employment. Mr McClelland said the changes would provide greater protection from sexual harassment for students and workers, ensure protections from sex discrimination applied equally to women and men and establish breastfeeding as a separate ground of discrimination. “Ensuring that anti-discrimination law meets the needs of contemporary Australians is an important part of ensuring the promotion and protection of human rights,” he said in a statement. The proposed changes are part of the government’s response to a report of the Senate Standing Committee on Legal and Constitutional Affairs into eliminating discrimination and promoting gender equality. Mr McClelland said the government would also consider other recommendations from the committee report as part of a move towards consolidating anti-discrimination legislation into one single comprehensive law. “Strengthening protections for workers with family responsibilities is an important step toward achieving economic equality between women and men,” he said.
Tags: Australia, Children, Womens Rights
Posted in Australia, Health & Children, Human Rights, Womens Rights | No Comments »
Friday, May 7th, 2010
SMH: 7/5/10 – Column Eight
“Talking of doctors’ waiting rooms,” writes Lance Newsham, of Annandale (as we were on Monday), “I was recently whiling away my time in a waiting room, when a mother arrived with her two young sons. While the elder stayed by mum to play with his toy dinosaurs, little brother wandered up to the receptionist and showed her his toys. “What’s that big scary dinosaur called?” the receptionist asked. “Tyrannosaurus rex,” the boy said. ‘And what’s that one with the tall neck?” “Brontosaurus,” the boy replied. “And what’s that one over there with the spikes on its back?” “Mummy.”
Tags: Children
Posted in Health & Children | No Comments »
Saturday, May 1st, 2010
Jacqueline Maley, 1/5/10
Finally, some good news for Catholic spin doctors: hopeful children with warm but firm parents are more likely to develop religious values, according to a study by Wollongong University psychologists. The study examines the nexus between parenting styles, child development and religiosity and shows that the better the parenting, the more positive religious values the child holds. Researchers questioned 784 year 7 students in Catholic schools about their perceptions of parents’ behaviour, then divided the ”parenting styles” into three groups – authoritarian, authoritative and permissive. Three years later, they revisited the teenagers in year 10 and gave them questionnaires assessing their religious beliefs. The teens were asked to rate the extent to which they adhered to the guiding principles: ”Being saved from your sins and at peace with God”; ”Being at one with God or the universe”; and ”Following your religious faith conscientiously”.
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Tags: Australia, Children, Religion
Posted in Australia, Christianity, Health & Children | No Comments »
Friday, April 30th, 2010
Stephen Fitzpatrick; 30/4/10; http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/world/indonesia-sings-to-end-slavery-and-exploitation/story-e6frg6so-1225860378463
Some of Indonesia’s top rock bands, a bubbly pop starlet who makes teenagers swoon, the music channel MTV and the Australian government’s aid program might seem an unlikely combination. But a series of concerts kicking off this weekend in Pontianak, the regional capital of West Kalimantan, has a serious objective: raising awareness of human trafficking. The five free concerts, which it is hoped will attract about 100,000 young Indonesians, are designed to push the message that being sold into prostitution and forced labour is a major human rights violation. UN figures suggest 2.5 million people are trafficked annually, the majority in the Asia-Pacific. About 100,000 Indonesian women and children are sold into sexual slavery each year, according to Unicef.
AusAID and its American counterpart, USAID, are the concert program’s major sponsors, which is headed up by young former Sydney lawyer Matt Love and spruiked by Agnes Monica, a young pop singer, dancer and soapie actress who sends Indonesian teens delirious. “It takes more than just one person, it takes more than just MTV, it takes more than just the government, it takes everyone to stand up and do their part,” Ms Monica said at the Jakarta launch.
Tags: Children, Human Rights, Indonesia, Sex Trade, Women
Posted in Health & Children, Human Rights, Indonesia, Sex Trade | No Comments »
Saturday, April 17th, 2010
Peter Kirkwood, April 17/4/10
Ten Hail Marys By Kate Howarth; UQP, 302pp, $34.95
Peter Kirkwood is a former producer in the religion and ethics unit of ABC television and the author of several books on religion.
L. P. Hartley’s aphorism that “the past is a foreign country” is amply illustrated by this memoir. It’s the harrowing tale of a teenage pregnancy in the 1960s, the pressures on the mother to give up her baby for adoption — the norm then for single girls in her position — and the psychological trauma of the experience. In December 2000, the NSW Parliamentary Inquiry into Adoption Practices 1950-1998 put out its final report, and it provides a broader context for Kate Howarth’s compelling story.
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Tags: Aboriginal, Australia, Children, Human Rights
Posted in Aboriginal, Australia, Health & Children, Human Rights, Racism | 1 Comment »
Saturday, April 10th, 2010
10/4/10;( 2 Items)
It’s like a death notice wrappen in pink. A pregnant woman in India has an ultrasound, and when her bill drops into her letterbox it’s in a pink envelope, signalling that she’s having a baby girl. In a country where parents-to-be are not permitted to learn the gender of their unborn child, this is one of several means used to sidestep the law. For those desperate to have a son, the letter can mean a trip to an abortion clinic (where the operation will often be justified with the catch-all “foetal abnormality”) or the more ghastly alternative of post-birth infanticide. The traditional preference for male offspring is the driving force behind the now drastic gender imbalance in China (where by 2020 there will be 4o million more boys than girls) and India (where already there are 24 million more boys).
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Tags: Children, Global, Womens Rights
Posted in Health & Children, Human Rights, Womens Rights | No Comments »
Saturday, April 10th, 2010
Liz Gooch; 10/4/10; (2 Items)
Through most of their 17-year marriage, she and her husband observed rituals that she considered integral to their Hindu faith. Each morning they would pray before a shrine and on Fridays they would fast. During festivals they wore traditional outfits to attend their local temple. Those were traditions that M. Indira Gandhi, a teacher in the town of Ipoh, Malaysia, assumed they would pass on to their three children. But nearly a year ago she was stunned to discover her husband had converted to Islam. Her surprise turned to anger when she found out that, without consulting her, he had also converted their children. He then won custody of them through an Islamic court. “If he wants to convert, OK,” Ms Gandhi said. “But these are children that were born from both of us.”
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Tags: Children, Human Rights, Malaysia, Pakistan, Religion
Posted in Asia, Health & Children, Human Rights, Religion, Womens Rights | No Comments »
Friday, April 9th, 2010
9/4/10;
A 13-year-old Yemeni girl who had been forced into marriage died five days after her wedding when she suffered a rupture in her sex organs and haemorrhaging, a local human right’s organisation said. Ilham Mahdi al-Assi died last Friday in al-Thawra hospital in Hajja province, the Shaqaeq Arab Forum for Human Rights said in a statement quoting a medical report. She was married last week in a traditional arrangement known as ”swap marriage” in which the brother of the bride also married the sister of the groom, it said.
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Tags: Children, Marriage, Yemen
Posted in Asia, Gender & Marriage, Health & Children, Religion | No Comments »
Tuesday, April 6th, 2010
Joanna Moorhead; 6/4/10
I am walking along a brightly painted corridor when a couple of young girls catch first my eye, and then my arm. They smile at me, and giggle; they look about the same ages as my elder daughters, 17 and 15. Just like my daughters, these girls have taken a lot of time over their make-up and their clothes, and they look beautiful. In their faces I see the same fun and youthful optimism that I see every day in my own house. But there the comparisons end. Because I am in Faridpur in central Bangladesh, on the banks of the Padma River, and these girls are sex workers. Each day they must have intercourse with four or five men, for the price of about 100 taka, or less than $2, a time. And for most of the girls here, there is no monetary gain whatsoever: because most of the inmates (and it is, in many ways, like a prison) at this Faridpur brothel are chhukri, or bonded sex workers, sold by their families to a madam in return for two or three years in which she, the brothel owner, can pocket all their earnings.
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Tags: Asia, Children, Prostitution
Posted in Asia, Health & Children, Human Rights, Sex Trade | No Comments »
Monday, April 5th, 2010
Review by Carol Major; 5/4/10,
Ten Hail Marys; Kate Howarth
We often assume that young women gave up their babies for adoption in the 1960s because of the social stigma surrounding single motherhood and a lack of welfare options. But Kate Howarth reveals a more sinister scenario in her compelling memoir, Ten Hail Marys.
The story takes in her experiences as a child growing up in Sydney’s slums and the events that led to her confinement in St Margaret’s Home for Unwed Mothers. She exposes, without bitterness, society’s callous sacrifice of young women to notions of morality — notions that were little more than a smokescreen for entrenched misogyny and prejudice at that time. The subject matter is grim but this is not a depressing book. Howarth uses the sometimes tough, sometimes vulnerable voice of the teenager that she was then.
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Tags: Aboriginal, Australia, Children, Human Rights
Posted in Aboriginal, Australia, Health & Children, Human Rights, Racism | 2 Comments »
