By IRNA, Tehran : Eleven new countries have added their names to a growing United Nations-backed list of states that have pledged to halt child recruitment, …See all stories on this topic »
According to UNICEF, every year around 1,000 Mozambican women and children are sold to brothels in South Africa and other countries. Thousands of girls from Ethiopia are trafficked to the Middle East to work as domestic servants.
[from allAfrica.com/Lubanga Trial Website (The Hague):] ——————————————————————————– Irrespective of how Thomas Lubanga’s trial at the International Criminal Court (ICC) concludes, it has indisputably helped to catapult into the global limelight the phenomenon and plight of child soldiers. By taking former child soldiers to The Hague to recount how they were conscripted, the grueling training they endured, the battles they fought, and how they saw their fellow children kill and get killed in battle, the trial has given the world a vivid picture of the horrors of using child soldiers. Besides the ten former child soldiers who testified, there were also expert witnesses that gave testimony on the use of child soldiers at the invitation of judges and prosecutors. The high levels of post-traumatic stress disorder among former child soldiers, why many armed groups took to using underage fighters, and the reason some families in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) shunned their children who abandoned the military were some of the issues experts described to the court.
Four in 10 African children work. There are an estimated 80 million child workers in Africa and the number is growing.
India is home to one-fifth of the world’s child population.
The number of every 20 children born in Somalia and Liberia that have their birth registered: One [According to the United Nations, ‘without a birth certificate, youngsters are more vulnerable to sexual exploitation, trafficking, and illegal adoption.”]
Asia and the Pacific still has the largest numbers–almost 78 million or 9.3% of child population, but Sub-Saharan Africa continues to be the region with the highest incidence of child labor–59 million, over 21%). Source: ILO
The average cost of a human slave around the world today: $90
The estimated number of slaves trafficked into the U.S. each year: 14,500
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