Children

Across Latin America, thousands of girls under the age of 15 suffer from sexual violence and are forced to become mothers against their wishes. Credit: YouTube

Where Forced Child Pregnancy is Not Fiction

By Phil Harris

ROME (IDN) - She is 10-years-old when she is raped by her mother’s companion and becomes pregnant. Extremely ill, undernourished and underweight during her pregnancy, her mother requests an abortion and although the law permits termination of a pregnancy if authorities deem the carrier’s health is in danger, the request is denied by the State.

The girl’s mother is arrested and temporarily imprisoned for failing in her duty of care to her daughter, despite having previously reported the abuse to the police, who did not act.

Meanwhile, the State sends the girl to an institution against her wishes, where she is made to stay until the birth of her child. She is not allowed any visitors, apart from an aunt who is allowed to come once a week for two hours.

: Phil Harris; THE WORLD; Latin America & the Caribbean; 09 June 2017

Photo: Enos Masini, (in a grey suit and a tie) head of Kenya’s National Tuberculosis Leprosy and Lung Disease Programme, speaking during an event to mark the 2017 World TB Day in Kiambu Town, Central Kenya. Credit: Justus Wanzala

Kenya Targets Children in Steps to Combat TB

By Justus Wanzala

NAIROBI (ACP-IDN) – In Kenya, a high burden tuberculosis (TB) country, infants and young children are at very high risk of developing severe and often fatal strains of the disease, and are estimated to comprise 10-11 percent of all TB cases.

In order to combat the disease, primarily among children but also the population in general, the country is putting mechanisms in place, including better equipment for TB testing, and in 2016 became the first country in the world to roll out child-friendly TB medicines.

Overseen by TB Alliance, an international non-governmental organisation that supports the development of affordable tuberculosis drugs, the medicines are easier for caregivers to give and for children to take and are expected to help improve treatment and child survival.

: Justus Wanzala; THE WORLD; Africa; 12 April 2017

Image: Enlarged and cropped image on Cover of 2016 UNODC Global Report on Trafficking in Persons.

Children and Women Main Human Trafficking Targets, Says UN

By Jaya Ramachandran

BERLIN | VIENNA (IDN) – Almost a third of all humans traded around the world for the purpose of sexual slavery, forced labour, or commercial sexual exploitation are children, and women and girls comprise 71 per cent of the victims of "human trafficking", according to a new report by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC).

The 2016 UNODC Global Report on Trafficking in Persons is the third of its kind mandated by the General Assembly through the 2010 United Nations Global Plan of Action to Combat Trafficking in Persons.

: Jaya Ramachandran; UN INSIDER; 23 December 2016

Photo: A wood carver in Solomon Islands. Credit: IUCN | Stuart Chape.

South Pacific: Foreign Logging Spurs Child Sex Fears

This is the first in a series of features on the South Pacific produced in collaboration with Wansolwara, an independent student newspaper of the University of the South Pacific.

SUVA, Fiji (IDN) - Two women’s rights activists have raised alarm bells about the need to protect Solomon Island children, especially girls, from being exploited by foreigners, who are involved in the South Pacific island nation’s logging industry.

The activists, Sister Doreen Awaiasi and Lynffer Maltungtung, say there are countless incidents in which under-age girls and young women are given to foreigners by their parents, or are lured by riches, but not much is being done to stop these or to educate the locals against engaging in such illegal acts.

: IDN-INPS Asia Editor; THE WORLD; Asia-Pacific; 20 September 2016

Photo: A portrayal entitled The Taking of the Children on the 1999 Great Australian Clock, Queen Victoria Building, Sydney, by artist Chris Cook. Credit: Wikimedia Commons

Revelations of Australia’s Abu Ghraib Force Gov't to Act

By Kalinga Seneviratne

SYDNEY (IDN) - Screening of secretly filmed shocking footage of abuse of juvenile prisoners in a remote northern Australian prison by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation’s (ABC), renowned investigative reporting program ‘Four Corners’, has outraged thousands of Australians who took to the streets to protest and forced the government to act.

The video material filmed between 2010 and 2014 at the Don Dale youth detention centre in the Northern Territory in Australia and screened on July 25 has drawn comparisons to the treatment of prisoners in the notorious prisons run by the U.S. government in Abu Ghraib in Iraq and Guantanamo Bay naval base in Cuba.

: Kalinga Seneviratne; HUMAN RIGHTS; Indigenous Peoples; 01 August 2016

Photo: Child labour on family farms Credit: FAO/J. Thompson

UN Shows the Way Out for 168 Million Child Workers

By Jaya Ramachandran

GENEVA (IDN) - Child labour is rampant around the world: some 168 million children working in various sectors of the economy – ranging from agriculture to mining, from manufacturing to tourism – are producing goods and services consumed by millions every day.

Marking the World Day against Child Labour on June 12, the United Nations International Labour Organization (ILO) has drawn the focus on the plight of children toiling in some of the most hazardous jobs.

“That child labour has no place in well-functioning and well-regulated markets is evident. But the reality is that today, child labour remains widespread in supply chains,” said ILO Director-General Guy Ryder in a statement that focussed on child labour and supply chains.