Entries by Reid Maki

Solis joins President Obama on El Salvador trip to Highlight Solidarity on Combating Child Labor

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ILAB Contact Name: Gloria Della or Lina Garcia Announces $10 million contribution to target root causes of exploitative child labor WASHINGTON — As part of President Obama’s Latin America trip, U.S. Secretary of Labor Hilda L. Solis, El Salvador first lady Dr. Vanda Pignato and El Salvador Minister of Labor Victoria Marina Velasquez de Aviles launched a project to help the country combat exploitive child labor by targeting its root causes. Secretary Solis announced that the U.S. Department of Labor will contribute $10 million over the next four years to support this ambitious initiative.

Somalia: Recruitment of Child Soldiers on the Increase

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Source: Content Partner // IRIN NAIROBI – With the escalation of fighting across Somalia since January, armed groups have reportedly recruited more child soldiers to their ranks, some even forcing teachers to enlist pupils. In a recent offensive against rebel groups in Bulo Hawo town on the border with Kenya [ https://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportID=92070 ], the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) stated on 17 March, “…children were involved as fighters and a significant number of them were killed. According to reports, intense fighting in the area between Dhusamareb and Ceel bur in Galgadud has also resulted in many child casualties.” “The TFG [Transitional Federal Government] forces, their allies, the Ahlu Sunna Wal Jama, and Al-Shabab are all engaged in the recruitment. Al-Shabab [the largest armed opposition group] is the biggest culprit,” said an official working with an NGO that monitors the state of children in the country. The official, who asked not to be named, did not suggest the African Union’s TFG-supporting military mission in Somalia, AMISOM, was also using children.

New York Times: Itinerant Life Weighs on Farmworkers’ Children

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March 12, 2011 By PATRICIA LEIGH BROWN SALINAS, Calif. — A girl in Oscar Ramos’s third-grade class has trouble doing homework because six relatives have moved into her family’s rusted trailer and she has no private space. A boy has worn his school uniform for two weeks straight because his parents are busy with harvest season. And while Mr. Ramos patiently explains the intricacies of fractions, he is attuned to the student who confides, “Teacher, on Saturday the cops came and took my brother.” “I know you still love your brother,” Mr. Ramos gently told him. “But let’s talk about your vision for your future.” In the clattering energy of Room 21 at Sherwood Elementary here, Mr. Ramos, 37, glimpses life beneath the field dust. His students are the sons and daughters of the seasonal farmworkers who toil in the vast fields of the Salinas Valley, cutting spinach and broccoli and packing romaine lettuce from a wet conveyor belt: nearly 13 heads a minute, 768 heads an hour, 10 hours a day. One-third of the children are migrants whose parents follow the lettuce from November to April, Salinas to Yuma, Ariz. Some who leave will not return. “Dear Mr. Ramos,” they write, from Arizona or Oregon, “I hope you will remember me. …” Mr. Ramos, the child of migrants himself, […]

Child labour rescue team attacked, four hospitalized in India

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[from The Press Trust of India] Several activists of a city-based child rights NGO were today allegedly attacked and severely beaten up by some people while they were trying to rescue child labourers. A group of “traffickers” allegedly attacked workers of Bachpan Bachao Andolan (BBA) with knives and iron rods in Khureji area of east Delhi and forcibly took away some child labourers they had rescued from there. Four BBA workers were hospitalised with serious injuries to stomach, head and chest, Kailash Satyarthi, founder of the NGO, said. The attackers also threatened him with a gun. BBA regularly gives tip-off to police and labour department about child labourers being engaged in manufacturing units in the city. Satyarthi said several such incidents targeting them have occurred in recent months. “A mob of hundreds had gathered there.

Global March condemns attack on Child Rights activists in Delhi

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Global March has learned that Chairperson Kailash Satyarthi and four other child rights activists have been injured during a rescue effort to save child bonded labourers from zari embroidery units in an area of New Delhi, India. The BBA rescue team, led by BBA Founder Kailash Satyarthi, was attacked by a group of local people and employers, some armed with knives. The four injured members of the rescue team have been hospitalised and two vehicles were also damaged in the attack. BBA had secured the release of children through the appropriate legal channels and the rescue team was accompanied by the Sub-Divisional Magistrate of Gandhinagar. However, the police presence, consisting of only three officers and no senior officer, was too small given the sensitivity of the area and the tensions that were running high on the street. BBA had informed the police well in advance of the rescue attempt to try and ensure an adequate police presence for protection not only of its own team, but also the children being rescued. Hundreds of people gathered as the rescue team emerged from the work premises with the children to transport them to safety and freedom. It was at this point that the group was attacked and the children were snatched away from the rescue team. The three police officers were overwhelmed […]

Iran ‘Using Child Soldiers’ to Suppress Tehran Protests

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By: Robert Tait The Observer Iran‘s Islamic regime is using “child soldiers” to suppress anti-government demonstrations, a tactic that could breach international law forbidding the use of underage combatants, human rights activists have told the Observer. The International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran says troops aged between 14 and 16 have been armed with batons, clubs and air guns and ordered to attack demonstrators who have tried to gather in Tehran. The youths – apparently recruited from rural areas – are being deployed in regular riot police roles and comprise up to one-third of the total force, according to witnesses. One middle-aged woman, who said she was attacked by the youths, reported that some were as young as 12 and were possibly prepubescent. They had rural accents, which indicated they had been brought in from villages far from Tehran, she said. Some told her they had been attracted by the promise of chelo kebab dinners, one of Iran’s national dishes. “It’s really a violation of international law. It’s no different than child soldiers, which is the custom in many zones of conflict,” said Hadi Ghaemi, the campaign’s executive director. “They are being recruited into being part of the conflict and armed for it.” The UN convention on the rights of the child requires states to take “all feasible measures […]

UN Says Reports of Child Soldiers Being Recruited in Libya

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The Canadian Press – ONLINE EDITION By: The Associated Press GENEVA – U.N. officials say they are getting reports that child soldiers are being recruited to fight for Moammar Gadhafi loyalists in Libya — which would be a war crime. UNICEF spokeswoman Marixie Mercado told The Associated Press on Friday there is “a serious concern” that child soldiers are among the mercenaries that Gadhafi is hiring to attack rebel forces. The spokeswoman for the U.N. children’s agency said the mercenaries come from Chad, Niger, Central African Republic and Sudan’s Darfur region, which are all places “with known child soldiers.” The U.N. special envoy for children in armed conflicts, Radhika Coomaraswamy, also says human rights groups and local civilians are providing unconfirmed reports that children are being killed and injured by taking up arms in Libya.

Proposed Changes to Child Labor Law Spark Concern in Maine

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[from Lewiston Sun-Journal. 3/10/11] By Steve Mistler, Staff Writer AUGUSTA — Groups representing restaurants and hotels sparred with worker advocates on Wednesday over a bill that would ease work restrictions within the state’s 20-year-old child labor law. The legislation is sponsored by Sen. Debra Plowman, R-Hampden, and backed by Gov. Paul LePage. Both believe high school-age students should be allowed to work longer hours and more often during the school year. Opponents said the proposal would dial back child-labor protections enacted in 1991 to prevent employers from pressuring minors into working longer hours. They also worried the proposal would shift emphasis from education and school-sponsored, extra-curricular activities.

New Book Provides Recollections of Former Liberian Child Soldiers

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University of California/Berkeley Law School’s Web Site https://www.law.berkeley.edu/10690.htm By Andrew Cohen As a former television producer and humanitarian journalist with extensive experience in Africa, Emily Holland ’12 was no stranger to tales of hardship and devastation. But over the three years she and co-author Agnes Umunna worked on And Still Peace Did Not Come—which reveals haunting, personal recollections of Liberian child soldiers and their victims—Holland admits “not being fully prepared for the emotional impact of these stories.” From 1989–1996 and 1999–2003, Liberia’s civil war killed more than 200,000 people and displaced a million more. A native Liberian now living in Staten Island, N.Y., Umunna fled to relative safety in Sierra Leone. She later returned and hosted a radio program—during which she interviewed victims, warlords, and government officials—and canvassed ghettos and slums to find former child soldiers.

Somaly Mam: Cambodian anti-sex trafficking campaigner and founder of AFESIP, rescuing women from brothels and supporting their recovery

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Emine Saner The Guardian Growing up in extreme poverty under the Khmer Rouge regime in Cambodia, Mam was sold into sexual slavery when she was 12, eventually ending up in a Phnom Penh brothel where she endured unimaginable daily torture and rape. After being made to watch as another girl, her best friend, was murdered, Mam escaped and was helped out of Cambodia by a French aid worker. Instead of trying to rebuild her life in France, where she married, Mam returned to Cambodia to help girls who hadn’t been so lucky. In 1996, she set up her organization Afesip (Action for Women in Distressing Situations), to rescue girls and women from brothels and support their recovery. She has already helped more than 4,000 women and children, some as young as five, escape sexual slavery in south-east Asia and in 2007 set up the Somaly Mam Foundation, to raise awareness, campaign for change and fund projects to rescue and rehabilitate women and children sold into slavery. Mam’s work has come at a terrible personal cost. Her life has been threatened by pimps and brothel owners, and in 2006, her then 14-year-old daughter was kidnapped and raped by three men, as retaliation for the work her mother does. In an interview in 2005 , Mam admitted to periods of desperation, including more than one suicide attempt. […]