In the late afternoon of Apr. 3, 2011, in the Pakistani city of Dera Ghazi Khan, an annual Sufi Muslim religious festival at the shrine of the 13th century saint Ahmed Sultan was hit by twin suicide bomb attacks which killed over 50 people and left more than 120 wounded.

As an eyewitness described the immediate aftermath of the bombings, “people started running outside the shrine. Women and children were crying and screaming. It was like hell”.

The bombers had struck a few minutes apart, instantly turning the atmosphere of festivity and prayer into a scene of carnage and horror. As crowds of worshippers fled in terror, an elderly woman ran into a young boy out of whose hands dropped a grenade. His name was Umar Fidai, a 15-year-old, and he was the third intended suicide bomber that day.

Fidai’s explosive vest had failed to detonate and as his handlers had instructed, he was attempting to kill himself and as many others as possible with the grenade they had provided him as a backup.

The Taliban denied responsibility for this 2011 attack in Pakistan. Credit: Ashfaq Yusufzai/IPS

In his own words in an interview later given to the Pakistani media, “There were three policemen standing close by, and I thought if I killed them too, I would still make it to heaven… At the time I detonated myself, thoughts of my family were not in my mind, I was only thinking about what the Taliban had told me.”

Fidai was shot and wounded by police and failed in his mission. But he is only one of the hundreds of other children that the Pakistani Taliban (TTP) are believed to have brainwashed and utilised as suicide bombers in their ongoing war with the state.

Brainwashing young people

Most are impressionable children from poor families who are indoctrinated through networks of religious schools which provide the only hope of advancement in isolated regions poorly served by the Pakistani government – although many are also procured through outright kidnapping and coercion by armed gangs.

Once in the hands of the TTP, the brainwashing of these sheltered, naive and suggestible young people for the organisation’s military goals proceeds. In Fidai’s words, “I thought that there would be a little bit of pain, but then I would be in heaven.”

A significant majority of suicide bombers in Pakistan are believed to be between the ages of 12 and 18, with some studies putting the number near 90 percent. Pakistani Taliban commander Qari Hussain has boasted that his organisation recruits children as young as five years old for suicide attacks, saying that “Children are tools to achieve God’s will, whatever comes your way you sacrifice it.”

There are an estimated 2,000 madrassas in the border regions of Afghanistan and Pakistan, a small yet significant percentage of which are believed to be involved in the brainwashing and indoctrination of young boys into militancy.

Students in these schools receive free board and education, something which on its face appears to be a remarkable opportunity for poor and isolated children whose parents cannot afford to send them to good schools, but which ultimately comes at a terrible price to both them and Pakistani society.

In one high-profile incident in early 2012, a convoy of cars carrying children, some as young as six, was intercepted while it was en route to religious schools where the children were allegedly to be trained as suicide bombers – the rationale for their utilisation being that they were “gullible” as well as less likely to be physically searched by police at checkpoints.

In a recent study by Hussain Nadim for the Islamabad-based National University of Science and Technology, several interviews were conducted with rescued child suicide bombers whom he described as being “not particularly religious, nor motivated by supposedly Islamic ideas, and (who) had no substantial animosity toward the United States or the Pakistan Army – they knew very little about the world outside their small tribe…

“The lack of access to TV, Internet, and formal education meant they were almost completely oblivious to such massive events as 9/11, and as such they were unaware of where and what exactly the United States was.”

In this context, such isolated and impressionable young people were highly susceptible to intensive brainwashing by Taliban militants who would make young recruits spend weeks watching videos of atrocities and of foreign troops raping women and girls – a fate which they said would await their own female relatives if they did not carry out suicide operations against Western and Pakistani government targets on behalf of the TTP.

‘Fear of losing mothers and sisters’

Furthermore, Nadim’s study concluded that most residents of the tribal areas where the Pakistani Taliban operate had little understanding or knowledge of the “War on Terror” being fought in their region, and were themselves allies of neither the Taliban, the West, or the Pakistani government.

Those young people who have agreed to take part in suicide bombings have in many cases done so particularly “out of fear of losing mothers and sisters” – a fear impressed upon them by their militant handlers’ extensive psychological manipulation.

Unbeknownst to them when they enrol their children in what are ostensibly religious schools, parents are denied access to their children once in the hands of the Taliban – a separation which is coercively enforced when parents realise that their young sons are being indoctrinated by their religious teachers in preparation for militant operations.

One parent described how he repeatedly pleaded with the Taliban to return his child but was denied. “We were threatened and told that the kids were working for a noble cause,” he said.

Cut off from parental contact, young, isolated children are easily susceptible to the influence of surrogate authority figures such as religious clerics in their madrassas. Many are told that they are acting in the name of Islam and will receive the reward of heaven if they successfully carry out their missions.

Studies of those rescued have also shown that most suffer from physical injuries, nightmares and trauma. Indicative of the cynicism with which they are exploited by militant organisations that see them as expendable, child suicide bombers are often sold to other groups and individuals wishing to carry out attacks for prices starting at 7,000 dollars – a grotesque financial utilisation of manipulated children by armed gangs.

In the words of Lahore-based researcher and psychologist Anees Khan, “These young boys are as much the victims of terrorism as those they kill. They are victims of the most brutal exploitation.”

Umar Fidai, despite losing his arm and suffering extensive burns to his body, is glad that he survived and did not successfully carry out his bombing mission.

After he was made to understand the true nature of the acts he was carrying out and the mainstream Islamic perspective, which stands unequivocally against both suicide and the murder of innocent civilians, he said to a Pakistani reporter from his hospital bed: “I am so grateful, because at least I have been saved from going to hell.

“I am in a lot of pain, but I know there are many people in hospital even more severely injured than me and I am so sorry for what I did… I now realise suicide bombing is un-Islamic… I hope people will forgive me.”

*Murtaza Hussain is a Toronto-based writer and analyst focused on issues related to Middle Eastern politics.

Published under an agreement with Al Jazeera. The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily represent the editorial policy of Al Jazeera or IPS.

A child gets a measles shot at the Jalozai refugee camp. Credit: Ashfaq Yusufzai/IPS

By Ashfaq Yusufzai
PESHAWAR, Pakistan, Aug 14 2012 (IPS)

Measles outbreaks, which have killed at least 100 children in Pakistan’s militancy-hit border areas since May, have prompted calls by experts for better cooperation in territories adjacent to Afghanistan with international immunisation campaigns.

“The latest victims of this paediatric disease are children in the Mohmand Agency of the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) where nine deaths have been confirmed as a result of non-vaccination,” Dr. Anwar Shah, top health officer in the agency, told IPS.

Measles, a highly infectious disease, produces cough, high fever and distinctive rashes as symptoms.

Shah blamed unsettled conditions caused by Taliban militancy as well as poor public awareness of the value of vaccination for the outbreak of measles in the seven agencies and six border regions that make up the FATA and in adjacent Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province.   

“My eight-year-old son died of measles last month. He hadn’t been immunised,” Amir Rehman, a farmer in the Lakaro area of Mohmand Agency, told IPS over telephone.

Rehman said he had to take his three surviving children to Charsadda, one of the 25 districts of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, to have them vaccinated against measles.   

In FATA’s North Waziristan, where the outlawed Tehreek Taliban Pakistan group banned oral polio vaccination (OPV) in June, an estimated 163,000 children are said to be exposed to poliomyelitis.

The result of the ban on OPV is that the FATA is now the only polio-endemic region in the world that harbours two strains of poliovirus, posing a threat to countries certified polio-free, according to the World Health Organisation (WHO) officials.

According to Asghar Ali, a WHO doctor, most of the FATA’s seven agencies have less than 45 percent vaccination coverage against the national target of 95 percent set by the ‘Prime Minister’s Emergency Polio Eradication Plan 2012’.

The situation is worst in the South Waziristan agency where the Taliban has ordered a ban on all vaccinations, leaving the children vulnerable not only to polio but also to measles and other infectious diseases.  

On Jul. 31, South Waziristan’s chief surgeon Azmat Hayat Khan issued a warning that the Taliban’s blanket ban could result in a measles outbreak and more deaths. “The problem is complex because apart from the ban on vaccination there is a shortage of vaccines,” Khan told IPS.

“Measles-affected children need to be admitted to hospital within 24 hours and this is not possible in the tribal areas where people lack transport or resources to move their children to facilities in KP,” Khan said.

Khan said that besides the 100-odd children known to have died of measles since May about 3,000 have been treated in hospitals.

“When unvaccinated children get measles, they need to be rushed to hospitals if they are to survive,” Muhammad Aman, a pediatrician at the Khyber Teaching Hospital in Peshawar, told IPS.

Dr. Jan Baz Afridi, top immunisation officer in KP, told IPS that additional vaccinators were being deployed in KP districts. “Our staff now visits villages and makes announcements from mosques over loudspeakers to encourage people to get all children up to 15 years of age immunised,” he said.  

Fawad Khan, FATA’s chief health director, said: “Law and order is another problem hampering the government’s effort to promote vaccination. We are looking to the government to ensure security of the health workers to carry out immunisation activities.”  

“Vaccine-preventable ailments do not discriminate between cultures, religions, borders or language,” Michael Coleman, communications specialist with the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), told IPS. “A small number of unvaccinated children could put at the razor’s edge the lives of thousands of children.”

In April, UNICEF joined WHO and the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention of the United States in launching a global strategy to reduce measles deaths to zero by 2015.

But the new strategy relies on high vaccination coverage and close monitoring of the spread of measles as well as rubella, using laboratory-backed surveillance and effective communication – grossly lacking in the FATA. 

Studies by the WHO, published in April, showed that accelerated efforts to reduce measles deaths had resulted in a 74 percent reduction in global measles mortality, from an estimated 535,300 deaths in 2000 to 139,300 in 2010.

The WHO study estimated that during the 2000-2010 period, measles vaccine had saved over 9.6 million children.

“Since April, we have immunised 8,000 children against measles in the Jalozai refugee camp (outside Peshawar), where people displaced by military action against the Taliban in FATA are lodged,” WHO’s Dr. Junaid Shah told IPS. “It is much harder to immunise children in the FATA.”  

Shah said that propaganda by the Taliban against oral polio vaccine had not only harmed the immunisation efforts in the FATA but was now proving to be a setback to global efforts to reduce deaths from measles.  

By Feizal Samath
COLOMBO, Jul 23 2012 (IPS)

A spate of child rape cases in Sri Lanka has angered child rights activists and moved the government to consider tightening the relevant laws and making the offence punishable with the death sentence.

A government statement released in parliament in May said that of the 1,450 female rape cases reported in 2011, child rape accounted for 1,169, alerting authorities and activists to a rising trend.

Earlier this month, police said in a statement that over 700 complaints of rape or abuse of children were filed in the first half of the year, and that, on average, at least four cases were  being reported daily.

But, according to the National Child Protection Authority (NCPA), the situation is far worse than what is being reported to the police and the authority estimates that over 20,000 cases of child abuse may  have occurred in the first half of this year.

Among the reasons for such abuse, as reported in the NCPA statement, are insecurity of children, popularity of mobile phones with internet facilities among the youth, access to pornography, increasing substance abuse and lack of sex education.

An October 2011 study of child abuse in Sri Lanka’s north-central region – where unsettled conditions prevail following the end of three decades of armed separatist militancy in 2009 –  showed that 30 percent of the cases were of female minors (below 15 years) having consensual sex with a male partner.

The rest of the cases were attributed to the “strength, power and dominance of perpetrators who could be relatives, teachers or religious dignitaries,” a senior prosecutor at the attorney general’s office told IPS asking not to be named. “While we do our part, society also needs to take a serious look at this issue,” he said.

The trend of powerful people preying on minor girls is not confined to the north and east of the island country. Recently, a 13-year-old girl identified four men, including a local   politician belonging to the ruling United People’s Freedom Alliance (UPFA), of  gang raping her.

Another UPFA politician, the head of the local council in the southern town of Akuressa, is presently in custody for the alleged abuse of a 14-year-old girl.

The Women and Media Collective (WMC), a campaign group, has denounced these alleged crimes, saying Sri Lanka has become a society where “perpetrators of heinous crimes against women and children can live with little fear of the law.”

Responding to such allegations, Tissa Karaliyadda, child development and women’s affairs minister, told reporters earlier this month that he has drawn up plans to tighten the laws that deal with child abuse, including making it punishable with the death sentence.

Authorities are also trying to sharply reduce the time taken – six years on average – to complete a prosecution, and thereby reduce impunity to offenders who often get easy bail.

Dr. Hemamal Jayawardena, child protection specialist from UNICEF, Colombo, said the number of cases appear to have risen due to an increase in reporting centres, particularly in the former war-torn northern region. People are also more sensitive to this issue and coming forward with information, he said.

“But I think there are many runaways (under-age couples eloping) cases and sex with consent which appear in the first complaint (to the police) as suspected rape and provide somewhat misleading data,” he told IPS.

Under Sri Lankan laws, those under 16 years are defined as minors and sex with a minor is considered rape, with or without consent.

A maximum jail term of 10 years is imposed on offenders while the authorities are examining proposals to enforce the death penalty and make it a non-bailable offence.

Under a project assisted by the United Nations Children’s Fund, law enforcement authorities are experimenting with a rapid three-month process involving selected courts across the island to reduce the time taken to dispose cases of child abuse or rape.

Menaca Calyaneratne, director of advocacy at Save the Children’s Colombo office, warns about a new breed of abusers called ‘professional perpetrators’ who are “professionals in their own fields but carefully choose an area of work that gives them unhindered access to children in order to abuse them.”

Fields such as education, sports, childcare organisations and children’s institutions harbour predators such as principals, teachers and sports coaches who are known to abuse their positions, she said,  adding that about 90 percent of child abuse is perpetrated by someone known to the victim.

“We used to tell children to be careful of strangers, but that does not seem to be valid anymore,” Calyaneratne told IPS.

Lack of awareness of sexual and reproductive health among teenagers in villages is a serious problem. At a village, some 75 km north of Colombo, a social worker said there have been at least five cases reported this month of 13-15 year-old girls striking up affairs with 22-year-olds, mostly soldiers, and eloping.

“When there is a problem, the girls come back and the parents file a complaint, it becomes a case of suspected rape,” the worker said asking not to be identified for fear of repercussions.

Sri Lanka which had about 120,000 soldiers in 2008 more than tripled its troop strength in order to defeat separatist militancy and also ensure that there is no resurgence.

Police blame parents for lack of supervision of their children while also citing women working abroad as domestics and leaving the children under the care of a relative as some of the reasons that lead to child abuse.

Sumithra Fernando, director at Women in Need, a non-governmental organisation (NGO) that works with battered women, says parents are often indifferent. “They are busy with their jobs and often unaware of what their children are up to,” she told IPS.

Women’s groups say it is important for fathers to take an interest in the welfare of their daughters.

“It’s a social obligation for the father to share responsibilities,” argues Sepali Kottegoda, director at the WMC. “When a girl is abused it is the mother who is blamed – rarely the father,” she said.

“Sri Lankan society has also become very violent and the situation is such that women and children have become very vulnerable,” Kottegoda told IPS.

Prof. Siripala Hettige from Colombo University, an eminant sociologist,  has a different perspective and links child abuse to young people steadily migrating from the villages to Colombo and other urban centres.

“The vast majority of school-leavers don’t have proper jobs. They come to the city but can’t hold down stable employment. And with the average age of marriage steadily going up from 22 to 28, there are a lot of very frustrated people around,” Hettige told IPS.

This group of young people keeps moving around, looking for sexual opportunities, Hettige explained.

On May 18, some 800 women in Sri Lanka’s northern region will hold Hindu religious ceremonies for the welfare of thier husbands who disappeared or surrendered to the military as it moved in to mop up nearly three decades of armed Tamil separatism.

“These women continue to live in hope even though many of those Tamil men may have died in the last days of the fighting,” says Shreen Abdul Saroor, a prominent rights activist working with conflict-affected women in northern Sri Lanka.

“On the other hand, even if they do acknowledge that their men have died, they don’t want to be known as widows as that could result in them being seen in a negative light in the community,” Saroor explained to IPS. “They prefer to be known as single women or as women heading households.”

Traditionally, Hindus consider widows to be inauspicious and the religion does not favour remarriage. Tamils, who form 12 percent of Sri Lanka’s 20 million population, mostly follow Hinduism while Sinhalese, who make up 74 percent of the population, are predominantly Buddhist.

According to government estimates, the ethnic conflict has widowed 59,000 women, the bulk of them in the Tamil-dominated north and east.

With rehabilitation tardy and options to earn money few, many women have been compelled to resort to sex work to earn a livelihood and provide for their families.

“We try to wean them away from sex work but they say they have no choice,” says an activist asking not to be named for fear of reprisal. “We provide the women with condoms and give advice on contraception as protection.”

The government is selective about permitting non-governmental organisations (NGOs) to work in the north. Only NGOs involved in development work – housing, livelihood development and infrastructure – are allowed in, while those that raise awareness on issues like peace, trauma or women’s rights are discouraged.

“The moment you say you are from an NGO, there are issues,” says Saroor who is founder of the Northern Mannar Women’s Development Federation and the Mannar Women for Human Rights and Democracy.

Saroor, one of four winners of the first ‘N-PEACE’ award, instituted by the United Nations Development Programme last year, says abuse of girl children is now a major problem in the north and with 26 cases recorded in the last three months alone. Many more cases go unreported.

The N-PEACE (Engage for Peace, Equality, Access, Community and Empowerment) strategy supports women in leading community recovery and peace building in the networked countries of Nepal, Indonesia, Sri Lanka and Timor-Leste.

There is concern that the atmosphere of uncertainty, caused by lack of resources, broken families and the absence of responsible males, has impacted the security of young girls.

“In one case, a nine-year-old was abused. Women say they are scared to leave their homes fearing for the safety of their children. So how do we provide them a livelihood?” Saroor asked.

The problems of women in northern Sri Lanka are enormous with their inability to speak out a major hurdle in the post-conflict healing process.

“They have no opportunity to tell their stories,” says Shanthi Sachithanandam, executive director of the Viluthu Centre for Human Resource Development that works with conflict-affected women. “There is an urgent need for counselling.”

The government has repeatedly denied charges by Western countries and international human rights groups that large numbers of civilians were killed in crossfire and aerial bombing in the months leading to May 2009.

Journalists were not permitted into the war zone and NGOs and humanitarian agencies asked to leave, with the result that there are no independent versions of what may have happened in the killing fields of the north.

In March, the Geneva-based U.N. Human Rights Council passed a United States-proposed resolution calling for implementation of recommendations made by Sri Lanka’s Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation Commission (LLRC) as a measure of accountability.

The LLRC, appointed by the government to look into issues relating to the conflict from February 2002 to May 2009, called for a probe into allegations of deliberate attacks on civilians and the prosecution of those responsible.

Rights groups working with war widows and mothers who lost their loved ones, fear repercussions if they dare to speak out publicly on sensitive issues.

When Seela (not her real name) spoke to reporters some weeks ago about a northern village where women have turned to sex work en masse, she and other members of her organisation received threats.

“These women are very vulnerable. We are very concerned about their plight and want to help them liberate themselves from this trap but there is not much we can do without support from the state,” she told IPS.

Seela said the lack of awareness of birth control methods has led to illegitimate babies being born and reports of spread of HIV/AIDS and other sexually transmitted diseases.

Visaka Dharmadasa, founder and chair of the association of war affected women and parents of soldiers missing in action, said a clearer picture would emerge when a survey being conducted by her organisation is completed in June.

“No comprehensive study has been done on the software issues (fate of the missing and trauma) in the north and the east. Only the hardware (infrastructure and development) is being addressed,” she said.

“Widows of (government) soldiers are better off economically than widows in the north and the east, but in both cases social and psychosocial issues have not been tackled. These are major challenges,” Dharmadasa said.

According to Sachithanandam rehabilitation in the north has been difficult with loans for livelihood development and empowerment failing to reach the intended beneficiaries.

“Multilateral agencies say women are key to post-war reconstruction. But the women are confined to the house because of young children,” said Sachithanandam. “Small loans given for goat-rearing or poultry-raising vanish when the animals die and the women are back to square one.”

That, says Saroor, is the point when women look at sex work as an option.

The LLRC report drew attention to the plight of Tamil widows. “Their lives are often lonely and insecure, and they are treated as a symbol of bad omen in their own social circles.”

Problems start with the definition of widowhood. While widows elsewhere in the country have marriage certificates to prove marital status, women in the north are unable to produce documents because of the destruction of official records during the war.

Military spokesman Brig. Ruwan Wanigasooriya told IPS that of 11,995 suspected rebel cadres who surrendered in May 2009, with 10,874 have been rehabilitated and reintegrated into civilian life.

Another 852 are in detention with investigations continuing or undergoing rehabilitation ahead of release while 13 had died of natural causes, the spokesman said.

“It’s tiring,” says 15-year-old Ibrahim*, deep lines running across his forehead. “But there is no alternative.” Only a teenager, Ibrahim has been working full-time for three years already.

The eldest son in a family of ten children, he lives in the Palestinian village Al-Fayasil in the occupied Jordan Valley, and is forced to work in the nearby Israeli settlement Tomer to help support his siblings. “I work from 6 am to 1 pm,” he told IPS. “And I get 70 shekels (18 dollars) per day.”

Al-Fasayil residents say that over a dozen youth from the village, all under the age of 18, are currently working in Israeli settlements in the Jordan Valley. It is estimated that between 500-1,000 minors travel from other villages and cities throughout the West Bank to work in the area.

Most child labourers in the Jordan Valley make between 50-70 NIS per day (13-18 dollars), and are employed to pick, wash and package fruits and vegetables grown in local Israeli agricultural settlements. They work long hours in difficult weather conditions throughout the winter and summer months, and receive no benefits or insurance against injuries.

“There are so few options in the Jordan Valley. Due to Israeli restrictions that are in place on economic and agricultural development, there’s nothing. Palestinians can either stay at home all day or work in a settlement and be able to provide for their families,” explained Christopher Whitman, advocacy coordinator at Ma’an Development Centre, a Palestinian development and empowerment organisation based in Ramallah.

Whitman told IPS that while Israel must apply the same labour laws enforced inside Israel proper to the West Bank territory it occupies, including the Jordan Valley, it fails to ensure that Palestinian labourers working in Israeli settlements get paid the Israeli minimum wage, or receive healthcare, sick days off and other employment rights.

“Israel has to follow the same laws as would apply in Israel. If you had Jewish-Israeli, Ashkenazi children working in settlements doing manual labour, there would be an upheaval in Israel against it,” Whitman said.

“If they’re under 18, they’re only allowed to work a certain amount of hours in certain conditions. They’re not supposed to be doing manual labour. Their rights need to be protected.”

Almost 95 percent of Jordan Valley is designated as Area C, which is under full Israeli military and civil control. Approximately 65,000 Palestinians, 15,000 Palestinian-Bedouin and 9,400 Israeli settlers currently live in Jordan Valley, and the area counts 37 Israeli settlements, including seven outposts that are illegal even under Israeli law.

According to Israeli human rights group BTselem, “Israel has instituted in this area a regime that intensively exploits its resources, to an extent greater than elsewhere in the West Bank, and which demonstrates its intention: de facto annexation of the Jordan Valley and the northern Dead Sea area to the State of Israel.”

A major component of this policy is the restrictions placed on Palestinian construction, as Palestinians can build in only five percent of the Jordan Valley. Homes, schools and virtually all other structures are built without permits, and these structures are therefore nearly all subject to Israeli demolition orders.

Restrictions on building schools have had a particularly devastating impact on child development in Jordan Valley.

“A high number of Palestinian children are denied their basic right to education, or are forced to travel many kilometres by foot over dangerous terrain to attend school,” a Ma’an report, titled ‘Parallel Realities: Israeli Settlements and Palestinian communities in the Jordan Valley’ found.

“Approximately 10,000 children living in Area C started the 2011/12 school year learning in tents, caravans, or tin shacks which lack protection from the heat and cold. Furthermore, nearly a third of Area C schools lack adequate water and sanitation facilities. In addition, at least 23 schools serving 2,250 children in Area C have pending stop-work or demolition orders,” the report continued.

For Al-Fasayil resident Fatima*, the mother of seven children, extreme poverty and few educational and job opportunities have left her concerned for the future of her family.

“My son was smart, but had to stop (school) to help his father,” Fatima told IPS, about her eldest son, 15- year-old Khalid*. Khalid stopped going to school after completing the eighth grade, and was forced into working in a nearby Israeli settlement because his father is elderly and can no longer work to support the family.

“I hope that one day he can learn a trade, and I hope that my younger children can continue studying,” she said. “I’m afraid. It’s difficult.”

*Names have been changed.

By Catherine Wilson
GOROKA, Papua New Guinea, May 8 2012 (IPS)

A new community justice programme being rolled out in Papua New Guinea’s vast village court system is bringing international human rights-based laws to rural communities and boosting the protection and empowerment of women and children.

In the long term, it could help to reduce the high numbers of female and juvenile victims of abuse.

Village courts wield immense influence within the mainly rural population in Papua New Guinea. Many live in areas too remote to access the formal judicial system in the capital, Port Moresby, and main urban centres. Equipped with 1,414 courts and 14,000 officials, the village court system, managed by provincial governments, administers justice in 90 percent of all villages and hears up to 600,000 cases per year.

Restorative justice is mainly used in the village context where mediation between parties aims to preserve social harmony. Traditionally, village court magistrates who do not have legal training employ local customary practices to deliver restorative justice. But serious government concerns about widespread violence against women and children have prompted action to overhaul the training and capacity of village court officials and community leaders.

According to Margaret Inamuka, who presides as magistrate of the Kabiufa Village Court in the Eastern Highlands, “Most cases involve adultery, violence against women and eviction of women and children from their homes.”

She hears three to five cases of violence against women per month. Children’s cases frequently involve stealing, physical abuse and neglect.

Women and children’s rights are especially critical in instances of violence, neglect, the customary tradition of marrying girls as young as 14 years old, sexual exploitation, discrimination against adopted and homeless children and those with HIV/AIDS, allegations of sorcery and the repayment of bride price in divorce cases.

Papua New Guinea ratified the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) in 1993, the Convention on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) in 1995 and introduced the Lukautim Pikinini (Child Protection) Act in 2009. The nation’s constitution also contains the provision that customary practices may not be applied if they result in injustice.

But the remoteness of many communities and poor rural infrastructure has hindered effective implementation of these national and international agreements.

The Women and Children’s Access to Community Justice (Child Protection) Progamme, initiated by the Village Court Secretariat, began a pilot phase in 2007 with funding and technical expertise provided by the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF).

Its vision is to strengthen community protection of the most vulnerable members of society.

The pilot programme was conducted in the Eastern Highlands, Simbu, Milne Bay, East Sepik and Western Highlands provinces. Training tailored to community and women leaders, village court officials and youth representatives addressed human rights, the right to non-discrimination, the unacceptability of violence against women, CEDAW and CRC commitments, juvenile justice, the importance of building a protective environment for children and facts about HIV/AIDS.

According to Dora Kegemo, provincial technical advisor for the Women and Children’s Access to Community Justice Programme in the Eastern Highlands, “The programme was a cultural breakthrough. In Papua New Guinea, some cultures are good; (for instance), when a child has lost both parents, other members of the family must support the child, give the child a home and pay for school fees. We are empowering this culture.”

“The bad culture is when the men (don’t) allow women to talk about their rights,” Kegemo continued. “We are improving the knowledge and skills of the people, (increasing) women’s participation, their freedom of expression and right to make decisions.”

A few steps forward for justice

Bride price is one customary practice the programme is seeking to address.

“In customary marriage, men often think because they have paid bride price they own the woman,” Kegemo said. “If a man happens to do anything against the woman’s will, the woman has limited powers to stand up for her rights. Under the new programme, (women’s) basic human rights are prioritised. The woman must have freedom, regardless of bride price.”

The programme also strengthens children’s rights.

“Our custom is that when a child is adopted, the child is owned by the adopted parents,” Kegemo explained. “If the child suffers abuses, he or she has no choice but to stay with the adopted parents. We (now) say that the child has the right to know the identity of their biological parents, so the child’s needs are addressed fairly.”

Hopefully, the programme will lead to increased numbers of female village court magistrates, more cases of family violence being reported and widespread community understanding that violence against women and children is unacceptable.

A UNICEF spokesperson reported that an external evaluation of the programme conducted in 2010, and expected to be released by the government at the end of this year, “indicates progress for women in accessing justice through the village courts and a significant increase in community members’ awareness of children and women’s rights, particularly compared to districts where the programme is not implemented.”

Women’s voices are also growing louder in the public domain. “The trained women leaders are very empowered, they are involved in (decision making) in the wider community, in the family, churches and community development programmes,” Kegemo remarked.

“They have become wise and confident and are role models for other women to stand up for their rights.”

She highlighted examples of “men accepting the courts’ decisions. They are starting to speak more positively about women and are telling other people to respect women’s decisions.”

Still, according to Inamuka, some attitudes will take longer to change.

“People get the message on our rights, but there are still many men who are jealous of us because we are speaking well and confidently,” she said. “Most men are cooperative, but there are a few who need more awareness.”

Roseanne Koko, senior counsellor at Eastern Highlands Family Voice, an NGO that supports victims of domestic violence, pointed out that 60 percent of reported incidents are settled via mediation and compensation, rather than the courts. Compensation money is often distributed within the extended family, leaving the victim without justice and increasing the likelihood of the perpetrator reoffending.

According to UNICEF, “A significant contribution of the programme to address gender inequality is the support (for) and empowerment of women to use their voice both as leaders and as rights holders. Village court magistrates in the pilot communities are more likely to refer domestic violence cases to the police or district courts, which have authority to deal with them.”

As police are not stationed in villages, extreme cases of violence are referred to the formal judicial system at the district level.

Teacher Nelly Olaya shows IPS the Floragaita school greenhouse, where seedlings are grown to help reforest the headwaters of the Las Ceibas river. Credit: Courtesy FAO

By Constanza Vieira
NEIVA, Colombia, May 8 2012 (IPS)

“Out of love for the river, we reforest, recycle, and make this place beautiful,” says a sign welcoming visitors to the Floragaita school, where a balsa (Ochroma pyramidale) tree with enormous white flowers guards the entrance to the lush green grounds on a hill in the heart of Colombia’s Andes mountains.

The Floragaita schoolchildren themselves came up with that slogan for a campaign launched in 2006 by Celia Cardozo, a slight, vivacious teacher who coordinates the 10 public secondary schools that serve the rural outskirts of Neiva, the capital of the southwestern province of Huila, which have incorporated environmental issues in the teacher training programme.

The campaign won a prize granted as part of the Las Ceibas River Basin project, which got under way in 2008 in this rural, mountainous area outside Neiva. Before the project began, local farmers widely used the slash-and-burn technique and people dumped everything into the river, from raw sewage to old mattresses.

Cardozo is determined to buy a blender to make recycled paper at the Santa Helena secondary school, which is in the same area. “People here don’t have paper,” she told IPS. But she added that the main objective is “to save even just one little tree a year.”

In February, the Santa Helena school won 450 dollars when it took second place in a contest for a prize awarded locally by the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO). But that is 60 dollars less than what the blender costs.

First prize, 560 dollars, went to Floragaita, for the best proposal for environmental education in the Las Ceibas River Basin.

The Las Ceibas River is the only source of piped water for Neiva, a city of 295,000 people 300 km southwest of Bogotá, where day-time temperatures range between 28 and 37 degrees year-round.

The population of Neiva grew by 130,000 people in the last 20 years. But the water flow in the Las Ceibas River has significantly declined.

The challenges are to reforest, in order to improve water retention, and to put an end to the slash-and-burn technique, traditionally used by local peasant farmers to clear land, which increases the sediment load in the river.

Another task is to get the 600 families living in scattered houses in the river basin to adopt farming practices that combine production with conservation, while improving water quality.

“If we manage to do this, it’s possible that by 2030, when Neiva has grown by another 100,000 or 130,000 inhabitants, we will still have good quality water in the river, to supply that population,” Humberto Rodríguez, an engineer who heads the Las Ceibas River Basin project, told IPS.

Despite the abundance of water resources in much of Latin America and the Caribbean, 15 percent of the population lack access to drinking water, and more than 20 percent have no basic sanitation.

The Las Ceibas project, which began in 2008, operates well under a trust fund system which ensures that the money is not lost in a maze of poor management.

Besides FAO, partners in the project include the Empresas Públicas de Neiva – the municipal public utilities company – and the city government, which told IPS that the plan is for the project to continue to form part of its Development Plan until 2015.

Other partners are the Huila provincial government and the Corporación Autónoma Regional del Alto Magdalena – the environmental authority in the area.

But in Rodríguez’s view, the main partner is the community itself. “Unless the community makes a project its own, you can’t say things are working well,” he said.

“Governance means, precisely, participation and responsibility shared by the institutions and the community. Only under these conditions can we say there is real governance” in the river basin area, he said.

In Floragaita, they are starting at the beginning: with the children. In fact, only three of the 18 students say they think “the city is better.” The rest say they want to stay in the countryside.

“They say they don’t like Neiva because it’s too hot there, and because everything costs money, even a glass of water, and there are many thieves. The smartest ones make these comparisons,” said Nelly Olaya, a teacher who works together with Cardozo.

The dirt road climbs in several curves before it reaches the school, where three one-storey buildings, including a cafeteria, are surrounded by trees and abundant vegetation. In one of the large classrooms, there are half a dozen computers with broadband internet connection.

Downhill, cassava, plantain, carrots, lettuce, cilantro, chives, bananas, giant granadilla, papaya and medicinal herbs are growing in the school’s vegetable garden.

There is also a greenhouse where a variety of trees are grown, including: soursop (Annona muricata), which produces a long, prickly green fruit that can weigh up to two kilos; cambara (Erisma uncinatum), a tree that provides medium density wood that is used locally for making fences; and naranjillo (Trichanthera gigantea) and naked albizia (Albizia carbonaria), trees that protect river banks.

Sometimes, the children of Floragaita make field trips to plant dozens of tree seedlings along rivers on nearby farms.

The first tree planting session took place in 2005, when the children planted 75 seedlings. They have planted 300, 400 and up to 1,200 seedlings along rivers threatened by deforestation in this rural area.

On the tree planting days, the children play games using the multiplication tables, and learn what each tool is called in English.

Because the Floragaita school grounds are small, Olaya proposed that the families prepare an area where the children can sit outside, “so they won’t spend all day in the classroom.”

That is how the school got its “environmental classroom”, 3,200 square metres in size, under large pine trees, with aviaries made by the children and their parents, and tables and wooden benches painted with hearts and surrounded by flowers.

Hands-on mathematics is taught here. “I give them a tape measure and I tell them ‘two metres long’, ‘one centimetre wide’,” and the students measure the objects around them, the teacher says.

“There is no need to write on a blackboard that this is a metre and this is a centimetre; we don’t have paper here,” Olaya explains. “So I teach this to them using a tape measure.”

The children sit and look out at the view for geography class, learning what is a hill, a mountain range, a river basin, a tributary, or a valley.

The land for the environmental classroom was loaned to the school by Álvaro Díaz, the president of the Junta de Acción Comunal, an elected local civic organisation.

Díaz’s eight children went to school here. “The future is in the countryside,” which is why it is important for the children to fall in love with nature, he says, adding that they “learn better” in a classroom like this one.

But of the 35 assistant teachers who have been posted to Floragaita, 29 or 30 hope to continue their studies in areas that have nothing to do with the countryside.

Olaya always takes the new assistant teachers to the greenhouse first, and tells them: “If you don’t want to get dirty, then don’t be a rural schoolteacher.”

* This article was produced with support from FAO.

Social activists say that attempts to rehabilitate sex workers in this former monarchy call for special efforts to uplift the Badi, a Hindu caste that has for centuries been associated with entertainment and prostitution.

Badi sex workers await rehabilitation. Credit: Naresh Newar/IPS

Sabitri Nepali was initiated into the traditional vocation of the Badis before she turned 14. Now, at 30, she is baffled by the changes taking place in a country struggling to climb out of a feudal past and transform into a modern, democratic republic.

“My family has survived on this trade for generations. My mother was a sex worker and I continued with the family profession. It was normal for us,” Sabitri tells IPS in this remote village in Kailali district, 700 km west of Kathmandu.

Badis, estimated to number 50,000, live in the western districts of Nepal but find work in the towns and cities of Nepal and neighbouring India, including Kathmandu, Mumbai and New Delhi.

Four years ago the Nepal government banned the Badis from pursuing their traditional occupation after it came under pressure from local communities fearing that the districts where there were Badi concentrations were turning into red light areas.

But, the government made no move to implement the ban, with the result that local communities formed monitoring groups backed by vigilantes that used violent methods to compel the Badis to give up their sole means of livelihood.

“We defied the ban and continued with our traditional occupation. How could we survive without incomes? Think about our children,” says Kalpana Badi,35, who like many others uses a surname that readily identifies her caste and her profession.

The word ‘badi’ is a corruption of the Sanskrit word ‘vadyabadak’, meaning one who plays a musical instrument, and suggests a degradation in the status of the caste over time.

South Asia’s rigid caste system once defined the occupation that people could engage in and Badis formed one group that has been unable to find its way out of an unfortunate position on the social ladder. “We didn’t want to continue with prostitution but the government has failed to fulfill its promises of rehabilitation,” says Bishal Nepali, husband of a Badi sex worker.

The government did announce a package that included housing, income generation activities and scholarships for Badi children, but these were never implemented.

“This has been a very frustrating process. We don’t know why the government has been so indifferent. The Badis are in a desperate situation,” says Uma Badi, a prominent activist and one of a handful of college-educated Badi women.

“Most Badis are uneducated and have no farms or livestock,” Uma explained.

Badis were denied citizenship until 2005 when the Supreme Court ordered the government to grant it to them and also extend financial support.

According to a study published in 1992 by Thomas Cox, an anthropologist then attached to Kathmandu’s Tribhuvan University, Badi girls “from early childhood, know, and generally accept the fact, that a life of prostitution awaits them.”

Badi girls, the study said, do not get married and commonly bear the children of their clients.

Cox recorded that upper caste Nepali society gives little encouragement to Badi girls to pursue other professions and those among them who enter public schools are “often severely harassed by high caste students.”

Two decades after Cox’s study, the Badis, as members of an ‘untouchable’ Dalit (meaning broken people) caste, are still not permitted use of the village water pump or well and their situation may have worsened.

In Muda village, many Badi girls and women have fled their homes fearing the Muda Anugaman Toli Samiti (a vigilante group) whose members have been accused of beating up Badis and their clients.

Badis are not allowed to run legitimate businesses. “People fear to buy anything from my shop because they fear the villagers,” says Dinesh Nepali, a Badi male who runs a small shop selling cigarettes, vegetables and soft drinks. “How can we survive like this?”

Badi activists are aware that they are prime targets for the United Nations Millennium Development Goals that deal with women’s rights, education and poverty, and that their uplift calls for extraordinary and determined initiatives.

“A handful of non-government organisations and donor agencies have been supporting the empowerment of Badi women, but that is not sustainable. Projects come and go but only government support can provide a long-term solution,” says Uma.

There were hopes that the abolition of the monarchy in favour of republican democracy, at the end of the bloody 1996-2006 civil war, would bring positive changes to the lives of the Badis, but Nepal is still coping with political instability.

“I have met three different prime ministers in the past few years,” said Uma. “They promise support but forget us as soon as we head back to our villages.”

In 2007, Badi activists threatened to march naked through Kathmandu to embarrass the government into implementing the court-ordered rehabilitation, but that brought nothing except more promises.

The local monitoring committees – that are backed by the vigilantes – admit that the government has failed in its promise to help the rehabilitation of the Badis.

“We are trying to help the Badi women start new dignified lives but we do admit that there are no viable alternatives,” says Riddha Bhandari, a leader of Muda’s monitoring group. “The government needs to act now.”

Bhandari denied that the Muda committee was out to destroy the Badis, but said there were worries over adverse influences on non-Badi girls and the possible spread of HIV/AIDS.

Pakistan and Afghanistan have begun a joint immunisation campaign against polio, while a new project aims to promote child immunisation in Pakistan. Credit: Ashfaq Yusufzai/IPS

By Stephen Leahy
UXBRIDGE, Canada, May 3 2012 (IPS)

In northern Pakistan, one in ten children dies before the age of five from diseases such as polio, measles or hepatitis, despite the availability of vaccines. And while health workers feared visiting this region, which includes the mountainous Swat district controlled by the Taliban until 2009, local people also fear the potentially life-saving vaccines.

“Some local imams (religious leaders) have been preaching that vaccines are an attempt by the U.S. government to sterilise children,” said Erfaan Hussein Babak, director of The Awakening project, which aims to promote vaccinations in the Swat district.

“The child mortality rate from preventable diseases is distressingly high,” Babak told IPS by phone from the region.

Some people in the region understand that vaccines are safe, but overall, there is little demand by parents for vaccinations, he said. To counter certain negative perceptions, The Awakening project is working to promote child vaccination by establishing village health committees, school clubs and radio programs.

The project is being funded by the Canada-based Sandra Rotman Centre as one of five projects awarded 10,000 U.S. dollars to educate populations in developing countries about the use of vaccines and immunisation to prevent diseases.

Combating myth

By 2004, polio had nearly been eradicated in Pakistan. However, the disease has seen a resurgence in the northern areas, in part due to the mistaken belief that the oral vaccine could render children impotent or sterile.

Now, suspected polio victims are found even in large cities, including Islamabad. Last month, the Pakistan government launched a major vaccination effort to vaccinate 34 million children.

“We will talk to people on the basis of passages in the Holy Quran, in which it is clearly stated that He has provided the medicines for every illness,” said Babak. “We are also engaging with the imams to convey accurate information and to connect medicine and health promotion with proper care of children.”

1.7 million children die every year from a vaccine-preventable disease, which amounts to one life every 20 seconds, according to Peter Singer, director of the Sandra Rotman Centre.

Vaccine-preventable diseases remain prevalent in the developing world. They cause or contribute to 20 to 35 percent of all deaths of children under the age of five while stunting the mental and physical development of countless others.

“For the first time in history, we have or will soon have vaccines to control many deadly diseases and improve the quality of life of every child on the planet,” Singer said.

“Paradoxically, the challenge now is to stimulate public demand for vaccinations.”

In order to meet this challenge, health experts and officials from the developing world were invited to submit their ideas in a competition. Five winning projects out of 60 were selected by the Rotman Centre.

From Uganda to El Salvador

The winning project in Uganda invites young people to local cafés to learn about deadly cervical cancer and how the Human Papilloma Virus (HPV) vaccine can prevent it. What is unique about this project, Science Café Uganda, is it brings experts to informal meetings in a country where a large portion of the population is illiterate.

“There are lots of myths about the HPV vaccine among those aware of it; most people don’t know it exists. People don’t have information and that poses serious danger to women’s health,” said Christine Munduru, a public health worker and volunteer leader of the project.

The project With Love We Learn is mobilising Salvadorean civil society to educate and lobby female parliamentarians so the national government will include HPV in its National Plan of Immunisation.

Vaccinating 80 percent of 13-year-old girls would reduce cervical cancer rates by 70 percent, said Lisseth Ruiz de Campos of Asaprecan, the El Salvador Cancer Prevention Association.

In South Africa, the Future Fighters project will encourage and mentor students at the schools to create their own groups of HIV education ambassadors. HIV victims are still shunned and suffer other social stigma in South Africa.

In Egypt, a group of young doctors and hundreds of volunteers hope to educate parents at hospitals and nurseries about preventing pneumonia in children by using a simple competition involving children’s coloring books as the prize.

Child pneumonia kills, on average, 42,000 children in Egypt every year, according to Mohamed Zaazoue, project director of the Protect Your Children project.

Parents get a quick lesson on the disease and its prevention, pass a simple quiz and win the prize of crayons and coloring books about pneumonia for their children.

“The truth is, everybody wins,” said Zaazoue in a release.

Fifteen million babies, or more than one in 10 infants, are born prematurely each year. Over one million die soon after birth, or survive to face a lifetime of health complications, says a new report by the World Health Organisation and co- sponsors.

Preterm births are rising in almost all countries and are now the single most important cause of neonatal deaths. Credit: UN Photo/Mark Garten

Preterm births, defined by 37 weeks of completed gestation or less, are rising in almost all countries and are now the single most important cause of neonatal deaths of babies under 28 days.

“Being born too soon is an unrecognized killer. Preterm births account for almost half of all newborn deaths worldwide and are now the second leading cause of death in children under five, after pneumonia,” Joy Lawn, co-editor of the report “Born Too Soon: The Global Action Report on Preterm Birth,” and director of Global Evidence and Policy for Save the Children, said in a press release.

“The numbers of preterm births are increasing. In all but three countries, preterm birth rates increased in the last 20 years. Worldwide, 50 million births still happen at home and many babies die without birth or death certificates.”

Fifteen countries account for two-thirds of the world’s preterm births, with India and China in the lead. Out of all live births, preterm births account for 11.1 percent, 60 percent of which occur in sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia. On average, 12 percent of preterm births occur in low-income countries compared to nine percent in high-income countries.

“What I found shocking is (the difference) geographically and within countries when we look at the rates of preterm birth in Asia and sub- Sahara Africa… What really struck me is the equity gap of preterm birth,” Christopher Howson, co-editor of the report and head of Global Programs for March of Dimes, told IPS.

“You take a baby that is less than 28 weeks, if the baby is born in a rich country, it has a 90 percent chance to live. If born in a poor country, it only has a 10 percent chance to live.”

However, the problem is not confined to the developing world. The United States and Brazil both rank among the top countries with the highest number of preterm births. In the U.S., at sixth place, more than one in nine births, about 12 percent, are preterm.

There are disparities within groups in the U.S. too. In 2009, the preterm birth rate for white citizens was 10.9 percent, while it was as high as 17.5 percent for black citizens. The age of the mother also mattered, with the birth rate between 11 and 12 percent for women aged 20 to 35 and over 15 percent for women under 17 and over 40.

The report links a number of factors to the increase in preterm births, which in general remain unexplained though a number of risk factors have been identified such as a prior history of preterm birth, underweight, obesity, diabetes, hypertension, smoking, genetics and pregnancies spaced too closely together.

In high-income countries, causes include older women having babies, increased use of fertility drugs resulting in multi-fetal pregnancies, and medically unnecessary inductions and Cesarean deliveries before full-term.

Main causes identified in low-income countries include infections, malaria, HIV, and high adolescent pregnancy rates.

Preterm births have been a largely overlooked and neglected problem, health experts admit. This report is the first ever to provide comparable country-level estimates for preterm births.

“Ten years ago, I was working as a pediatrician in Ghana and it was very obvious every day…I was in charge of the baby nursery with about 11,000 births a year and there were babies dying every day of things that they did not need to die of. I started looking around and at the time there were no U.N. estimates of death or clinical guidelines of what to do or donors interested in it,” Lawn told IPS.

According to the report, two-thirds of premature births could be prevented with “feasible, cost-effective care.” Prevention is the key to reduce preterm numbers, and an estimated three-quarters of babies born too soon could survive if only a few proven and inexpensive treatments were more widely available.

Empowering and educating girls, family planning, screening women for known medical conditions, assuring good nutrition before and during pregnancy, and better access to healthcare are effective measures in reducing premature births.

Essential and extra newborn care, including feeding support, neonatal resuscitation, and Kangaroo mother care, a method involving infants being carried with skin-to-skin contact, could help in reducing the number of premature deaths.

The report also recommends that healthcare providers collaborate with businesses and civil societies to advocate, invest and provide funding to reduce preterm births. Even adding a dollar for each woman in prenatal care can make a difference, Lawn told IPS. “There are a couple of things that people can do to make the Millennium Development Goal (MDG) reachable. Even if the countries just picked two methods, like Kangaroo care and prenatal steroid shots, that can be a major game changer.”

MDG 5 aims to reduce by three-quarters the maternal mortality ratio, as well as achieve universal access to reproductive health care.

There’s an action gap in what is being done, Howson said. Civil society groups, for example, are an untapped resource that can be powerful in the community.

“We all have a role to play. I think in particular that groups like parent groups are so incredibly important in really creating noise. They are able to advocate from the ground up and that can be much more effective than trying to change from the top down,” he said.

*Stephanie Parker reported from United Nations headquarters in New York.

The widespread practice of marrying minors continues to be one of the most incendiary legal and political issues in Morocco today, causing open confrontations between hard-line Islamists and moderates throughout the country.

Speaking on national television last month, Mohammed Abdenabawi, an official of the Ministry of Justice, declared that 30,000 minor girls are married every year – roughly 10 percent of the 300,000 marriages recorded every year in this country of 32 million inhabitants.

The phenomenon is widespread, the consequences for young women and girls severe, and the efforts of civil society sustained, though maintaining momentum against a tide of cultural and religious conservatism is challenging.

A campaign to gather one million signatures to forbid the marriage of minors is already in progress, sparked by the death of Amina Filali, a 15-year-old girl who committed suicide after being forced to marry her rapist.

Supposedly to protect family and female “honour”, a court evoked legislation in the penal and family codes to force Filali to marry the man 10 years older than she who forced her, at knifepoint, to submit to him.

Both the court case and Filali’s suicide opened the floodgates to a deluge of public debate and activism around the issue, which had hitherto been a taboo topic in traditional Moroccan society.

Jamal Rhmani, a member of the opposition Socialist Union for Popular Forces and former Minister of Employment, told IPS, “The campaign has gathered more than 780,000 signatures up to now.”

Despite being a member of the political opposition and one of the lead organisers of the campaign to ban marriage of minors, Rhmani sees his involvement in activism first and foremost from his perspective as the father of a 14-year-old daughter.

“Before being a politician, I am a father. We cannot be indifferent to what is happening around us,” he explained.

Activists, rights groups and members of the opposition have been clamouring for the abolition of article 475 of the penal code, which allows rapists to get off scotfree if they agree to marry their victims; as well as articles 20 and 21 of the family code, which allows the marriage of minor girls.

But the root of the problem runs deep, and will require more systemic change than the abolition of one or two laws

“The culprit is archaic jurisprudence implemented by ignoramuses,” Chakib Khettou, a citizen of Casablanca, told IPS, referring to the Muslim law allowing the marriage of girls older than nine years, according to traditional law.

Back in 2008, Sheik Mohamed El Maghrawi, a well-known Moroccan Muslim scholar, published a Fatwa reiterating families’ right to marry off their daughters over the age of nine. His position provoked a major scandal but the scholar suffered no consequences.

During a press conference in the city of Marrakesh last April, El Maghrawi even expressed his attachment to his position, “based on the Quran and the words of the Prophet ” according to him.

However, opposition to this particular reading of Sharia’a law has become widespread.

Ahmed Faridi, a teacher who holds a licence degree in Sharia’a law, told to IPS, “Nothing in the Quran allows marrying a nine-year-old girl,” he explained. Even if it turns out that the Prophet of Islam himself had married a minor girl, “he is in that case an exception and cannot be a rule,” Faridi stressed.

Traditionalists won’t let go

Minister of Justice and Liberties, Mustapha Erramid, is not as moderate as some of the activists pushing for the marriage ban.

In a national televised address last March, the Minister said, “The marriage of minor girls is not forbidden by the law.”

A lawyer by trade, Erramid is “tolerant” towards the amendment of article 475 of the penal code, but refused to speak about the amendment of articles 20 and 21 of the family code.

The Islamist Minister hinted that demonstrations similar to those held against the National Plan for Women’s Integration in Development, enacted under the socialist government of Abderrahmane Youssoufi in 1999, were not far off.

Back then, thousands of Islamists hailing from the ruling Justice and Development Party (PJD) took to the streets of Casablanca against Youssoufi’s plan to include women in political and economic development, which they judged as “incompatible” with Sharia’a because it forbade polygamy and fixed the minimum age of marriage for women at 18 years old.

Still, current members of parliament are not too worried that today’s activism will see such a vehement reaction by conservatives.

“A national debate on this subject is at present necessary to amend the penal code and the code of the family. A legislative initiative is already being taken by the socialist group in parliament to guarantee more protection to minor girls,” Rhmani said.

The second chamber of parliament held a meeting on the subject last week. The president of the chamber, Mohamed Cheikh Biadilah, said the proposed amendments should be viewed in “the spirit of the new constitution”, adopted during the turbulence of the Arab Spring, which “commits the State to guarantee the social and economic rights of the family” and “to protect minors (regardless) of their family or social position” and “forbids any shape of discrimination based on gender.”

Biadilah also said, “The legislative power has the obligation to intervene every time it notices that a law has become incompatible with the development of the society.”

“All the laws that go against the dignity of women must be amended or even abolished “, said the president of the Chamber of Councilors in Moroccan parliament.

Female teachers have transformed primary education in rural Bangladesh. Credit: Naimul Haq/IPS

By Naimul Haq
DHAKA, May 1 2012 (IPS)

Bangladesh continues to score good grades in achieving the Millennium Development Goal (MDG) of gender parity in education by 2015, with the trend of more girls than boys attending primary school accelerating this year.

Early estimates for the accounting year that ended March show an enrolment ratio of 52:48 favouring girls, which is consistent with the trend since 2010 when girls overtook boys in primary school enrolment.

“Eliminating gender disparity in primary education by Bangladesh, recognised worldwide, is the result of strong political commitment,” A.K.M. Abdul Awal Mojumder, secretary, ministry of primary and mass education (MoPME), told IPS.

Hiring female teachers, involving non-government organisations (NGOs), and paying out cash subsidies are among interventions that helped turn around the situation of a decade ago when schooling for girls was unthinkable in parts of Bangladesh because of social and religious barriers.

Since 2000, the MoPME has been implementing a policy of hiring women as primary school teachers, and currently 90 percent of the 182,000 teachers in Bangladesh’s 37,500 primary schools are female. Also, 95 percent of school management committees are headed by women.

“Classrooms run by female teachers created an environment for girls to attend schools,” said Aziz-ur-Rashid, headmaster of a primary school in Niphamari district. “The retention rate increased remarkably as a result.”

The primary education stipend project (PESP), funded by the World Bank, the Asian Development Bank and the Norwegian government, was aimed at increasing enrolment, attendance, retention and performance of primary school-aged children from poor families.

PESP money is deposited directly into individual bank accounts every six months. The monthly stipend varies from Taka 25 (three cents) for a student of class VI to Taka 60 (seven cents) for a class X student.

In addition, every candidate appearing for secondary school certificate final examination is entitled to six dollars to cover examination fees.

Wherever state-run institutions could not take up the challenge of enrolling and retaining girls in school, NGOs stepped in to help the children in the ‘dropped out, left out or missed out’ categories, especially in the remote, hilly or wetland areas.

“There is tremendous enthusiasm among rural children to attend classes, some riding boats to attend classes,” says Humayun Kabir Selim, director of Palli Bikash Kendra, an NGO that operates 10 primary schools in the vast wetland areas of Mithamoin in Kishoreganj district.

With NGOs roped in, the net enrolment rate increased from 73.3 percent in 1992 to 94 percent by 2011. Dropout rates, one of the main concerns, also declined from 38 percent in 1994 to about 30 percent in 2011.

NGO-run schools have good instructional material, trained and motivated teachers and, most importantly, the flexibility to conform to the needs and capacities of the community. NGO-run primary schools often operate out of one-room houses made available by grateful local communities.

“The flexibility makes for better attendance as children do not have to walk distances as is the case with many state-run primary schools,” said Waheeda Mahmud, a primary school teacher with a local NGO in the Nachol sub-district in Chaipainawabganj district.

“Parents feel safer when the school is located around the corner. They also consider female teachers to have more patience,” said Samsun Nahar Lina, who heads ‘Shakkor’ an NGO that runs several free primary schools in Rangpur district, 370 km from Dhaka.

Ten-year-old Aireen Akhtar was ‘left out’ until two years ago when determined advocacy persuaded her parents to send her to a nearby NGO-run school in the Charpara village of Mithamoin sub-district, about 130 km from Dhaka.

Says Aireen, a shy but confident pupil in a class of 12 girls and seven boys: “Every day we learn something new. It’s fun. There is no fixed timetable for classes and there is no homework.”

There are several non-formal primary education (NFPE) systems in Bangladesh but the one devised by the Bangladesh Rural Advancement Committee (BRAC), reputed to be the world’s biggest NGO, is popular with people involved in primary education.

BRAC began implementing NFPE in 1985 with its one-classroom schools and selecting and training female teachers from the local community.

Shafiqul Islam, head of BRAC’s education programme, told IPS: “A lot of children come from poor rural families and are into income-generating activities.

“The rigidity and inflexibility of the formal education system had put education beyond the reach of these children… flexible school timings are key to our success.”

Since 1985, BRAC has set up 38,000 non-formal schools in 470 sub-districts. Over 1.2 million children (70 percent of them girls) attend BRAC schools, forming the largest private school chain in the world.

Rasheda K. Choudhury, executive director of the Campaign for Popular Education (CAMPE), told IPS: “Bangladesh’s achievements in promoting gender equality are largely due to initiatives launched by NGOs which believe in flexible academic calendars.”

CAMPE, a coalition of more than 1,300 NGOs, works to achieve MDG 2 and MDG 3 by implementing quality education through advocacy and capacity building. These are part of the eight goals defined by the United Nations to be met by 2015.

While MDG 2 demands that all children complete a full course of primary schooling by that year, MDG 3 calls for the elimination of gender disparity in primary, secondary and tertiary education.

There are now 16,539,363 students studying in 81,000 primary schools in Bangladesh, including those run by NGOs, communities and madrassas (religious schools).

Stefan Priesner, country director of United Nations Development Programme in Bangladesh, told IPS: “In general, progress has been sound. Indeed, on many MDGs, including expanding education, Bangladesh has either exceeded or is well on track to achieve the goal by 2015.”

Primary school in Goroka Credit: Catherine Wilson/IPS

By Catherine Wilson
GOROKA, Papua New Guinea , Apr 29 2012 (IPS)

Sexual harassment of school-going girls is one factor that may prevent this Pacific island nation from achieving the Millennium Development Goal (MDG) of eliminating gender disparity in education by 2015.

Papua New Guinea (PNG)’s new free education policy has dramatically increased school enrolment, and a gross enrolment rate of 80 percent is within reach by 2015. But the third of the United Nations’ eight MDGs, that pertaining to girls’ education, remains elusive on current trends.

While PNG’s constitution promotes equal participation by men and women in national development, political, cultural, social and infrastructural factors inhibit retention of girls within the school system, reflecting a wider lack of women in the formal workforce, governance and decision-making roles.

The United Nations Development Programme rates the nation at 153 out of 187 countries, with a gender inequality index of 0.674. The education department reports the average educational attainment of girls is grade 10 and, for boys, grade 12, the final year of secondary school.

However, the nation’s cultural and social diversity means there is geographical variance.

In the Autonomous Region of Bougainville, where matrilineal societies are prevalent, there are 16,821 male and 16,120 female school students. In the Eastern Highlands Province, the literacy rate for males is 51 percent compared to 36.5 percent for females.

There were 7,127 male and 5,872 female students in primary level grade three in 2009. In grade 12, the number of female students, 180, was less than half the male enrolment of 494.

In the highlands, where most people practice subsistence agriculture and the average cash income is low, girls can be particularly disadvantaged, especially if there are no local schools.

“The (poor) state of school infrastructure, particularly in rural areas, is a significant hindrance to the achievement of equitable education outcomes,” said Arnold Kukari, leader of the universal basic education research programme at the National Research Institute.

Betty Hinamunimo, field officer with Care International, a non-government organisation (NGO) which works in partnership with the education department, said factors impeding girls’ education included “distance and cultural and social barriers, such as the fear families have of sending girls to urban centres where their safety is not guaranteed.”

Girls in PNG are at high risk of domestic and sexual violence, sexual harassment in schools, commercial exploitation and HIV, which pose serious threats to their health and education.

Ume Wainetti at the Family Sexual Violence Action Centre (FSVAC) said, “When FSVAC conducted the study on violence against children in 2005, young girls in rural schools said they get harassed by teachers and by male students, especially when they are going to school or going home.”

Wainetti said many of the young girls interviewed by FSVAC, an NGO based in the capital of Port Moresby, were already mothers.

Cultural and social barriers to education include the burden placed on girls of family care, domestic responsibilities and customary marriage, which can occur from 12 years. The International Centre for Research on Women (ICRW) estimates that a third of girls in the developing world are married before 18 years and begin child-bearing before 20 years.

The education department’s gender equity strategic plan (2009-2014) stresses the need to develop gender mainstreaming activities in schools and train all staff in gender sensitisation and sexual violence awareness.

Philip Afuti, president of the PNG teachers’ association, Eastern Highlands, and head teacher of North Goroka primary school, is committed to gender equality. Eighty percent of teachers are female, while the school has 630 male and 523 female students.

“We want to see the girls have an equal opportunity as boys in the education system,” Afuti declared. “They should be able to build this nation in partnership. We want to see that. PNG will only develop when both males and females are educated.”

This year, the national government rolled out a free and subsidised education policy, which has impacted female enrolment. Students attending elementary prep to grade 10 at secondary school do not have to pay tuition fees while those in grades 11 and 12 pay only 25 percent of fees.

“We have increased the numbers of females enrolling,” Afuti verified. “Some who left a few years ago have also come back.”

But there is a limit to the expansion of the education system.

“The government has taken a bold step to abolish school fees at the basic education level, thus addressing a critical access barrier, enabling more children to be enrolled and complete a full cycle of education,” Kukari explained.

“However,” Kukari said, “at this juncture, the education system does not have the absorptive capacity to accommodate all children wanting to enrol and to provide a sufficient number of teachers to ensure that children are provided with a quality education as well.”

There are also inadequate mechanisms of support for school-going girls suffering from sexual abuse. “If there are avenues for redress to such offences, these are not made known to students and parents,” Wainetti said.

“It is unfortunate that many teachers will not do anything about these abuses until the parents of the girl or boy turn up at the school to beat up the students who have been harassing their child,” Wainetti said.

The ICRW advocates that educated girls ‘who become healthy, productive and empowered adults are a force for positive social, economic and political change.”

Betty Hinamunimo agrees that, in rural communities, women working as literacy teachers are being valued more in the community and respected, and as role models they are contributing to changes in community attitudes and greater support for educating daughters.

“There is no doubt that PNG’s health, economic and social indicators will improve if there are more educated and professionally qualified women,” Kukari concurred. “They would make a very big difference in government, business, the private sector, public service and many other areas.”

Ignoring widespread concern over the safety, efficacy and cost of pentavalent vaccines, India’s central health ministry has, this month, approved inclusion of the prophylactic cocktail in the universal immunisation programme in seven of its provinces.

Pentavalent vaccine doses, a cocktail of five antigens in a single shot, confers immunity against five paediatric diseases – diphtheria, pertussis, tetanus, hepatitis B and haemophilus influenza type b (Hib), with the last one considered particularly problematic by some experts.

Pentavalents, produced by several manufacturers and promoted by the Global Alliance on Vaccines and Immunisation (GAVI), has had a history of causing adverse reactions and deaths in India’s neighbouring countries like Bhutan, Sri Lanka and Pakistan.

In 2010, the National Technical Advisory Group on Immunisation (NTAGI), a body of experts selected by the Indian government, recommended limited introduction of pentavalents in southern Kerala and Tamil Nadu and evaluation of results over a year before extension to other states.

Pentavalents were launched in Kerala and Tamil Nadu in December 2011, but the results were not encouraging. Kerala recorded four infant deaths following vaccination, with symptoms similar to what were seen in other South Asian countries.

Public health activists in Kerala, a state with 100 percent literacy and human development indices similar to those of advanced Western countries, quickly filed a public interest litigation (PIL) in the Kerala High Court asking for intervention in having the programme called off and a return to the existing health plan.

But despite infant deaths and two pending PILs (with yet another being heard in the Delhi High Court) against pentavalents, the health ministry announced on Apr. 16 that pentavalents would be introduced in five more states – Gujarat, Haryana, Karnataka, Goa, Jammu and Kashmir and Puducherry in October.

In making the decision, the government overlooked the NTAGI, which has not even been convened since August 2010 when the body suggested limited introduction to Kerala and Tamil Nadu as the two states have good adverse event following immunisation systems.

“Going by what we have seen in the neighbouring countries and now in the state of Kerala, pentavalents can, without warning, cause children (to suffer) hypersensitivity reactions and death,” Jacob Puliyel, an eminent paediatrician at St. Stephen’s hospital in New Delhi and member of the NTAGI, told IPS.

Puliyel likened the situation to penicillin sensitivity and said it bordered on criminality to be administering pentavalents without first testing a child for hypersensitivity. “Every child that is being given a dose of pentavalent vaccine is a potential victim of the adverse reaction,” he said.

Puliyel was among the many eminent physicians and public health activists in India who wrote to World Health Organisation (WHO) director-general Margaret Chan on Apr. 3 asking the health body to “re-evaluate” its recommendation of pentavalent vaccines on the grounds of safety.

Another signatory, Dr Meera Shiva, an expert on pharmaceutical drugs attached to the voluntary Medico Friends Circle, told IPS that WHO had to delist a number of brands of ‘prequalified’ pentavalent vaccine, “but adverse reactions persist and we have surely not heard the last of them.”

The letter to Chan, written under the aegis of the All-India Drug Action Network, an umbrella of public health activist groups, suggested that the cause of the vaccination- related deaths was likely to be “hypersensitivity reaction as described in the post mortem report on one of the children (who died) in Kerala.”

“Unlike conventional drug treatments meant for the management of existing diseases, in prophylaxis with vaccines, safety is of paramount importance. Vaccines that frequently and unpredictably cause the death of healthy children cannot be recommended,” the letter to Chan said.

Policy analysts specialising in vaccines said they were dismayed at the move to approve pentavalents in as many as seven of India’s states, which account for 340 million of India’s 1.2 billion people.

“Pentavalents are a test case for India’s new policy on vaccines that is in keeping with liberalisation and openly favours pharmaceutical majors at the cost of India’s public sector vaccine units,” said Madhavi Yennapu, a scientist who specialises in vaccines at the central government’s National Institute of Science, Technology and Development Studies.

Twenty of India’s 23 public sector vaccination units, once the mainstay of the country’s immunisation programme, have been shut down one after another over the last four years on the grounds that the quality of their products was suspect.

Yennapu pointed to the draft National Vaccination Policy, released last year, for clues on why the government has not made any serious attempt to revive the vaccine- manufacturing units by enforcing quality standards, for instance.

The new policy demands that the “risk of manufacturing vaccines by private manufacturers must be cushioned by assistance from (the) government” and suggests that it be made mandatory for the government to support vaccine producers with advance market commitments (AMCs).

Madhavi explained that AMCs provide guaranteed markets for a vaccine even before trials are conducted, with the government committed to paying a supporting minimum price. “Even if the vaccine turns out to be less efficacious than the existing one the government must honour the AMC by buying the new vaccine at the agreed price.

“This means that AMC funds must be deposited with the World Bank ahead of vaccine delivery by countries that GAVI is supposed to be helping with the introduction of new vaccines,” Madhavi told IPS. “Naturally, GAVI would be looking at large countries like India, Brazil and China to provide the AMCs.”

For a country like India, what is important is to “see how many vaccines are needed to prevent how many deaths and at what cost, rather than throw out tried and tested vaccines in favour of a cocktail (pentavalent) which not only has doubtful advantages but has been shown to cause adverse reactions,” Madhavi said.

According to Madhavi, there is no hard scientific evidence to show that India needs the Hib vaccine .”It is clearly piggybacking on other vaccines and the public made to pay for it.”

The existing diphtheria, tetanus, pertussis (DPT) vaccine costs about 30 cents for all the doses needed to immunise a child, while immunisation with pentavalents will cost more than 10 dollars. “We need to ask ourselves if introducing the new vaccine is really worth all the public money being spent on it,” Madhavi said.

The United Nations is rejoicing over the conviction of a former head of state for committing crimes against humanity, specifically involving the recruitment of child soldiers.

A young man had the letters RUF tattooed into his chest with a razor blade by the local rebel commander of the Revolutionary United Front. Credit: Corinne Dufka/Human Rights Watch

The Special Court for Sierra Leone Thursday found Charles Taylor, a former president of Liberia, guilty of aiding and abetting war crimes, and other grave violations of international law, committed by his rebel forces in the one-time war-ravaged West African nation.

The crimes were committed by the Revolutionary United Front (RUF) during Sierra Leone’s civil war during 1991-2002.

Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said, “This is a historic and momentous day for the people of Sierra Leone, for the region and beyond.”

The judgment, he said, is a significant milestone for international criminal justice, as it concerns the first ever conviction of a former head of state by an international criminal tribunal for planning, aiding and abetting war crimes, and crimes against humanity.

“It sends a strong signal to all leaders that they are and will be held accountable for their actions,” he added.

Asked for her comments, Radhika Coomaraswamy, the special representative of the secretary-general for children and armed conflict, told IPS the first case was the judgment last month by the Hague-based International Criminal Court (ICC) of former Congolese warlord Thomas Lubanga.

Lubanga was convicted of war crimes for enlisting and conscripting children under the age of 15 years into his rebel force in the Democratic Republic of Congo in 2002 and 2003.

“We were really happy since we filed an amicus curaie on the law and I gave legal testimony, and the court quotes us extensively- so we really made history on the first ICC case. But there are others as well who have been charged,” she added.

Coomaraswamy said in the case of Lubanga, it sent a clear message for those who enlist, conscript or make children participate actively in hostilities.

And, in the case of Taylor, she pointed out, those who aid and abet those who recruit children.

“These last two months have set the international legal standard in stone and we hope will serve as a strong deterrent to others in recruiting child soldiers,” Coomaraswamy told IPS.

In his statement, the secretary-general said he “deeply appreciates the commitment of the Special Court to ensuring accountability for the very serious crimes committed against the people of Sierra Leone and United Nations and associated personnel during the conflict in Sierra Leone”.

The Special Court for Sierra Leone is an excellent model of a cooperative partnership with the United Nations to bring those responsible for serious international crimes to justice in accordance with international standards of justice, fairness and due process of law, he added.

“It has helped the process of national reconciliation and the restoration and maintenance of peace in Sierra Leone,” Ban said.

As the Special Court for Sierra Leone nears the completion of its mandate, Ban called on the international community to preserve and promote its legacy by supporting the Residual Special Court for Sierra Leone, which will commence functioning upon the closure of the Special Court.

Meanwhile, the U.N. children’s agency UNICEF said the verdict against Taylor “is a victory for children recruited and used in war and will serve as a warning to other war-time leaders and warlords”.

At his trial in The Hague, Taylor faced an 11-count indictment including the enlistment, recruitment and use of children under the age of 15.

The prosecution argued that he was one of those bearing the greatest responsibility for crimes committed by rebel forces between 1996 and 2002, according to UNICEF.

UNICEF Executive Director Anthony Lake said for the thousands of children brutalised, scarred and exploited as weapons of war, today’s verdict against Taylor may not wipe out the atrocities they suffered.

“But we hope it will help to heal their wounds,” he added.

UNICEF also pointed out that the recruitment and use of children in hostilities is prohibited under international law, and constitutes a war crime when children are under the age of 15.

Often it is the most vulnerable children who are at risk of becoming associated with armed forces or groups, whether through forced conscription or driven by factors such as poverty, violence, and ideology.

During the civil war in Sierra Leone, UNICEF said it “intervened directly with all parties to rescue children who had been recruited”.

In some cases children who had been branded and scarred by rebel forces received plastic surgery to help them to be accepted back into their communities.

UNICEF also led efforts to release and reunite children with their families and reintegrate children into their communities by providing skills training, education and psycho-social support.

The agency said that children were also used as human shields, sex slaves and as labourers in diamond mines.

After the end of the war, 7,000 children were released and reintegrated into society. Ninety-eight percent were reunited with their families.

Another 7,000 separated children were supported for reintegration, among them girls who had been associated with the rebels.

“Those who exploit children for military gain violate their rights and rob them of their childhood,” said Lake.

“We all should be heartened that grave violations against children are now being successfully prosecuted and perpetrators are being brought to justice,” he said.

By Thalif Deen
UNITED NATIONS, Apr 25 2012 (IPS)

The United Nations, which has remained focused on the world’s political and military hotspots, has turned its attention to the bigger socioeconomic issues facing adolescents and youth, including poverty, sexual abuse, female genital mutilation and lack of reproductive health care.

“This generation of youth is the largest in history,” Secretary- General Ban Ki-moon told a meeting of the 47-member U.N. Commission on Population and Development (CPD), which concludes Friday.

“And even more important, this generation of youth is shaping history,” he said, in an oblique reference to the role played by youth in political uprisings in the Middle East and North Africa, including Tunisia, Libya, Yemen, Bahrain, Egypt and Syria.

The theme of the weeklong CPD meeting is “National Experience in Population Matters: Adolescents and Youth”.

Out of a growing world population of over seven billion, about 1.2 billion have been identified as adolescents and youth, according to the United Nations. And of this 1.2 billion under the age of 20, about 300 million live in “grinding poverty”, says Dr Babatunde Osotimehin, executive director of the U.N. Population Fund (UNFPA).

Expressing concern over the well-being of adolescent girls, he said the leading cause of death was complications from pregnancy and childbirth.

“They need our protection and our help,” he told delegates.

Dr. Osotimehin said his agency was harnessing the power of technology, utilising mobile phones to help midwives and bringing participants together over Skype.

The youth on “the other side of the digital divide” was being harnessed through Facebook and Twitter.

“Those efforts are essential to young people’s sexual and reproductive health, “as awareness can spell the difference between life and death.”

The secretary-general had an equally distressing message when he pointed out that upto 60 percent of sexual assaults involved girls under the age of 16, and more than three million girls worldwide were at risk of female genital mutilation every year.

“Sixteen million adolescent girls become mothers every year, and every day, more than 2,000 young people contract HIV,” Ban said.

More than 100 million adolescents were not in school, and over 75 million young people were unemployed.

“We have a collective responsibility to drive these numbers down,” he added.

Turning to the youth delegations at the meeting, the secretary-general said: “Welcome. This is your United Nations.”

As part of the African Union, the 13 members of the Southern African Development Community (SADC), have said they will continue to commit themselves to implement the 2009-2019 Decade for Youth Empowerment and Sustainable Development to address the growing challenges facing youth.

The members of the SADC include Botswana, Democratic Republic of Congo, Lesotho, Malawi, Mauritius, Mozambique, Namibia, Seychelles, South Africa, Swaziland, Tanzania, Zambia and Zimbabwe.

Speaking on behalf of SADC, Ambassador Ismael Gaspar Martins of Angola said: “We must accelerate the training of youth for sustainable development and the promotion of youth volunteering,”

Dr. Sugiri Syarief, chair of Indonesia’s National Population and Family Planning Board, pointed out that it is critically important for member states to discuss ways of effectively addressing the many challenges confronting youth.

And since 2005, Indonesia has allocated 20 percent of its national budget on education, and the government is developing a scheme to ensure 12 years of compulsory education.

Indonesia will also host an International Youth Forum in December in the island of Bali.

Speaking at a Global Colloquium of University Presidents at New York’s Columbia University last month, the secretary-general spoke of the growing power exercised by the world’s younger generation in an age of high speed technology and the information super highway.

“To unleash the power of young people, we need to partner with them. This is what the United Nations is trying to do,” he added, announcing his decision to appoint a U.N. Special Adviser on Youth.

The secretary-general said the United Nations is developing an action plan for the coming years.

“We want to work with youth on major issues affecting them, including joblessness, political inclusion, human rights and sexual health,” he said.

“I mention this because, when we talk about youth, we have to look beyond demographics to why young people are so powerful. Youth are often the first to stand against injustice. Youth is a time of idealism. Young people are a force for transformation.”

He also said that young people are using social networking to drastically alter power dynamics.

And young people are using Facebook and Twitter to organise protests, speak out against human rights abuses and end oppression, he added.

“We have been spending sleepless nights without electricity and clean water. This place is not worth living in but we have no option and will remain here as long as the military operation continues in our area,” said Gul Rahim, a former resident of Bara tehsil in Khyber Agency, currently languishing in the Jallozai refugee camp in the Nowshera district of Pakistan’s Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.

Like other children at Pakistan's Jallozai refugee camp, this girl is unable to attend school. Credit:

The children fetch water from nearby makeshift tanks, which isn’t drinkable, he says. Rahim and his family are not the lone sufferers in sprawling Jallozai camp, home to thousands just like him who were uprooted by a military campaign against the Taliban in the violence-wracked Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA).

One of seven agencies that make up FATA, Khyber Agency has been riddled with militancy for the past two years, prompting the government to impose daily curfews in an effort to crush the Taliban in a military operation.

The majority of FATA’s population of 10 million people has been caught in the incessant crossfire between the warring sides.

In early March, the Pakistan army intensified action and asked the residents of Bara tehsil, one of three administrative clusters in Khyber Agency that lies on the border with Afghanistan, to shift to the camp.

“But the camp doesn’t have facilities. People are becoming sick from the bad food provided to us. The weather is becoming too hot and the children are at the receiving end (of the misery),” said Abdul Ghafoor, an elderly resident of the camp who arrived with a family of 12.

Ghafoor, a shopkeeper by profession, is sick of the camp’s management. “There’s nobody to listen to our requests for water and electricity. Even the United Nations agencies have shut their eyes to our needs,” he told IPS.

Concerned for the future of the younger generation, he lamented the fact that children who grow up in an environment of perpetual violence will become “monsters” if immediate action is not taken.

The U.N. refugee agency (UNHCR) has registered 46,331 displaced families or 201,070 homeless individuals since Mar. 17.

“Some 12,646 families, or 60,204 persons live in the camp while the rest have been residing with relatives or in rented homes but all the displaced persons have been given food and non-food items,” UNHCR’s spokesman Taimur Ahmed Shah told IPS.

Shah says each family was given one tent, a plastic sheet, kitchen set, sleeping mat, jerry can and other household accessories.

The Pakistan Pediatrics Association (PPA) has already expressed concern that children be safeguarded against water and food-borne ailments by providing them clean water and foodstuffs. “Children and (the elderly) are vulnerable to a host of ailments especially respiratory and stomach-related illnesses,” PPA’s Imran Ali told IPS.

The World Health Organisation (WHO) says that cases of acute respiratory tract infection have been increasing among the internally displaced persons in Jallozai camp.

A report issued on Apr. 18 said that of the 3,212 patients seen at the four health centres in the camp last week, 692 were found to be suffering from acute respiratory tract infection, 225 from acute diarrhoea and 71 from scabies.

The WHO, which is spearheading the health clusters, has been monitoring trends in the camp through a disease early warning system (DEWS) to prevent epidemics, it said.

“Another health centre is being established in view of the influx of IDPs (internally displaced persons),” said WHO’s Anwar Shah. Screening and monitoring malnutrition rates among women and children is also part of the organisation’s intervention, he said.

Measles and polio vaccinations are continuing, to safeguard children from vaccine-preventable diseases, he told IPS. The health agency is also holding awareness sessions to inform IDPs about hygiene, thus preventing avoidable deaths.

Furthermore, on Apr. 16, the WHO established a well-equipped diarrhoea treatment centre (DTC) in nearby Pabbi Satellite Hospital where patients from Jallozai camp are being treated. Three more health posts, in addition to the three already operating in the camp, are being built so as to strengthen the makeshift healthcare system.

Sultana Bibi (60) says that her three grandchildren have been out of school for the past three months due to military operations in her native town of Bara. “I want to educate them as they are very good at (their) studies and want to pursue education at any cost,” she told IPS.

Sadly, most of the children sit idle in the camp the whole day since they cannot get to school, though Shah assured IPS that the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) is establishing a school in the camp.

“We have been holding demonstrations in Peshawar, protesting the lack of electricity and water but (got) no response,” said 29-year-old Muhammad Zaheer, a resident of Bara, who is desperate to see an end to the military operation so he can return home.

Now markets, schools and hospitals are closed due to curfew, leaving civilians caught between the army and Taliban “miscreants. Both are the enemies of the displaced people, all of whom have lost their jobs and are becoming beggars,” Zaheer said resentfully.

By Inés Benítez
MÁLAGA, Spain, Apr 20 2012 (IPS)

An 80-year-old nun is the first person facing trial in Spain on charges of forming part of a secret network that allegedly stole hundreds of babies and sold them to couples without children.

The nun, María Gómez, has been charged with involvement in the 1982 disappearance of Pilar Alcalde, who was finally reunited with her biological mother in 2011. They filed the lawsuit together.

Between 1975 and 1990, a network of doctors, priests, nuns, public notaries and judges allegedly stole babies in clinics and hospitals mainly linked to religious organisations, and sold them to couples who could not have children.

The sister of the president of the Stolen Babies Association of Andalusía (ABEROA), Isabel Agüera, may have been one of the victims of the baby theft ring.

Agüera believes that her sister, who was born on Aug. 15, 1970, is alive, even though her mother was told that the baby died at birth in the Hospital Civil in the southern Spanish city of Málaga. The hospital staff told the mother not to worry because they had arranged to have the baby buried in the tomb of “a rich man.”

Agüera says “everything was done without prior authorisation.” Moreover, her mother was never shown the baby’s body, and no information was given to the father, who was working abroad and arrived a few days after the birth.

In her investigation, Agüera found “very little documentation, which at times does not even coincide with reality,” with regard to the dates, for example.

Recently, she found the name of her sister in the burial records of a Málaga cemetery, which indicate that the baby was buried in a common grave on Aug. 21, six days after she supposedly died.

María Gómez, the first to face charges in court for illegal detention and falsification of documents in connection with the network, refused to testify before the judge at an Apr. 12 hearing.

She later issued a statement denying the charges and said that separating a newborn from its mother was “repugnant.”

“Sister María told me she was taking my little girl away because I was an adulteress,” María Luisa Torres testified on Apr. 3.

Torres, who says she was lied to by Gómez, a Sisters of Charity nun who worked at the Santa Cristina Maternity Hospital in Madrid, was reunited 29 years later with her daughter Pilar Alcalde, who had spent years searching for her biological mother with her adoptive father’s help.

Some 1,800 cases of stolen children have been filed so far in public prosecutors’ offices across the country, Antonio Barroso, the head of ANADIR, an association of people searching for missing children or parents, told IPS.

The mothers were generally young, single and poor. Some were pressured into giving their babies up for adoption, while others were told that their babies had died, and that they weren’t shown the body because it would have been unnecessarily traumatic. The hospital was taking care of all burial arrangements, they were told.

“The problem is that there are many Sisters María Gómez,” said Barroso, who maintained that the nun was just one person in a broad network of priests, nuns, doctors and civil registry officials who took part in the baby theft scheme.

The victims’ associations “would really like someone to talk, to start unravelling things so that names (of other implicated persons) would start to appear,” Marina Palomo, the vice president of ABEROA, told IPS.

Last week, Justice Minister Alberto Ruíz Gallardón announced the creation of a database to help lost parents and children look for each other using modern DNA techniques. He also said a working group would be set up and coordinated by his ministry, with the participation of the ministries of the interior and health, and the state prosecution service.

After a meeting with representatives of the associations of people searching for missing children or parents, Ruíz Gallardón promised to attempt to solve “the terrible human drama” suffered by the victims, although he stressed that “there are no magic formulas to fix such a complex problem.:”

The president of ANADIR said he appreciated the government’s commitment to help, but added that “we have to wait and see if it becomes reality or if it will come to nothing.”

Barroso did not find out that he was a stolen child until he was 38, when a childhood friend told him that before his own father died, the elderly man confessed that both of them had been “bought” at a hospital in Zaragoza in northern Spain.

According to historians and human rights activists, the 1939-1975 dictatorship of General Francisco Franco systematically took children away from parents who supported the 1931-1936 Republican government or who fought on that side during the 1936-1939 civil war.

But there is evidence that the trafficking of babies continued not only during the transition to democracy after Franco’s death in 1975, but until as late as 1990.

And the estimates of the total number of children who were stolen, both during and after the dictatorship, vary widely. Some human rights activists and lawyers put the number in the tens of thousands.

Adopted children seeking their biological mothers and parents searching for their lost children run up against the same hurdle when they ask for documents at civil registries, hospitals and cemeteries, “where functionaries often refuse to hand the documents over, or don’t want to look for them, or say they don’t exist,” Barroso said.

“I’m looking for my twin sister,” Inmaculada Gómez told IPS. She has always believed that her sister did not die when her mother gave birth on Jun. 7, 1977 at the Hospital Civil in Málaga. “They didn’t show her (my sister’s) body, and they told her that they would take care of everything” related to the burial, Gómez said.

So far, 18 graves have been exhumed in the search for stolen children, and child remains have only been found in three of them – the rest of the coffins were empty, or contained the bones of adults or animals.

Barroso, whose association has 2,050 cases registered and a databank containing 1,200 DNA samples, said they are now awaiting the results of DNA testing.

ABEROA’s Marina Palomo, who reported that her brother, born in 1974 in the Carlos Haya Hospital in Málaga, was stolen, lamented that most of the cases have been shelved due to lack of evidence, or because judges have declared that the statute of limitations has run out.

But lawyers and academics argue that these crimes are ongoing. “We are asking the prosecutors to help us look through the archives, and to classify these cases in such a way that no statute of limitations applies to them,” Palomo said.

“The search is our priority,” Mar Soriano, who says her sister was stolen in 1954, told IPS.

Soriano created the Plataforma Afectados Clínicas de toda España, Causa Niños Robados, an association of people looking for stolen children, which criticised the “passive attitude” of the Catholic Church’s bishop’s conference with respect to the nun who is on trial.

By Naresh Newar
DANG, Nepal , Apr 20 2012 (IPS)

Five years after Nepal abolished Kamalari, a system of girl slavery, thousands of young women are still awaiting promised rehabilitation and support from the new democratic republic.

Some 11,000 ‘liberated’ Kamalari girls, many of them from this impoverished southwestern district, hope to see some of the money accumulating since 2006 when the Supreme Court ordered the setting up of a fund for the welfare of the girls and their families.

In 2011 alone, the government allocated close to 2.5 million dollars towards the rehabilitation of the girls, which covered scholarships, vocational training and residential support.

But, so far, not even 70,000 dollars have been spent on the welfare of the former slave girls, according to the Mukta Kamalari Bikash Manch (Free Kamalari Development Forum), a network the girls have formed to fight for their rights.

“We know that there is a huge amount of money set aside for us, but we haven’t seen any of it being used for our rehabilitation,” says 20-year-old Urmila Chaudhary, a former slave girl who was rescued after 10 years of bondage in a wealthy Kathmandu household.

Speaking with IPS in Dang, some 200 km southwest of the capital, Urmila recalls how she was sold into slavery by her parents when she was barely six and deprived of a childhood.

In 2008, Urmila was rescued through the efforts of Friends of Nepal (FNC) and Nepal Youth Opportunity Foundation (NYOF), non-government organisations (NGOs), that jointly rescued over 11,000 girls from extreme exploitation.

Since then, she has been a leading activist against the Kamalari system, pressurising the Nepal government to fulfill its promise.

Introduced during the 1950s, mostly in the five districts of Dang, Banke, Bardiya, Kailali and Kanchanpur in Nepal’s southern plains called the Terai, the Kamalari system was the only way the Tharu ethnic group could pay back debts owed to exploitative landlords.

While Tharu adults and male children were forced to work under a parallel bonded labour system, called ‘Kamaiya’, in the landowner’s farms and household, the girls were sold off under Kamalari.

Young Tharu girls were systematically sold off through middlemen to households in the capital and other major cities on verbal contracts that provided for the payment of 50-70 dollars a year to the parents.

“Rescuing the girl children was a huge breakthrough, but sadly, the girls never received much support from the government,” says Som Paneru, executive director of NYOF.

“We have to start a nationwide protest movement soon and we will take to the streets in the capital to push the government to help former Kamalari,” says Bhagiram Chaudhary, director of Society Welfare Action Nepal (SWAN), an NGO in Dang.

The neglect of Kamalari girls squarely blots the Millennium Development Goals pertaining to education and poverty. Although Nepal boasts of progress in the two concerned MDGs, there are wide disparities among ethnic groups and between rural and urban populations.

The MDGs are eight development goals that United Nations member states are committed to achieving by 2015. The first three pertain to eradicating extreme poverty and hunger, achieving universal primary education and promoting gender equality.

Kamalari girls, due to the extreme poverty of their families, are unable to attend schools and most go hungry, according to activists.

Although enrolment rates in Nepal’s primary schools now stand at 93.7 percent, over 200,000 children from the most marginalised and hardest to reach are out-of-school, according to the MDG Progress Report 2010. NGOs say that most of those out-of-school are from among the Kamalari. “So far, I have only received seven dollars for a whole year and I don’t know what to use the money for,” says Kalpana Chaudhary, a young Kamalari who fears that she will have to drop out of school soon.

“Though they have freedom and no longer have to wake up to slavery each day, they often go to bed hungry,” Urmila said.

Activists fear that the girls will be compelled to return to working as slaves since their impoverished parents cannot afford to take care of them. NGOs like SWAN, NYOF and FNC are struggling to help them, but their funds are limited.

“At the NGO level, we are trying to help with their education and support for their families, but we have limited resources,” says Chaudhury at SWAN.

Chaudhary estimates that the cost of keeping a Kamalari girl in school is about 15 dollars a month. He and the activist Kamalari girls have often travelled to Kathmandu to visit the education ministry, but have only succeeded in spending more resources.

“The government should be taking the responsibility, and they have the funds. We cannot say when we will receive the promised money,” says Urmila. “The parents often scold their girls for coming back home instead of working to support the families.”

Some officials lay the blame on prolonged political instability. The former monarchy is still struggling with a difficult peace process that followed the end, in 2006, of a bloody civil war that lasted a whole decade.

“The price of freedom has been quite high for us, and while we enjoy so much from liberation, our struggle to lead a new life is yet to begin,” says Urmila.

As the process of reintegrating South Sudan’s child soldiers into their old lives begins soon, the Sudanese People’s Liberation Army renewal of its lapsed commitment to release all child soldiers from its ranks in March could mean that within two years children will no longer constitute part of the country’s militia groups.

Southern Sudanese soldiers from the Sudanese People’s Liberation Army. Militia groups affiliated with the army still recruit child soldiers. Credit: Peter Martell/IRIN

The SPLA, which is the military wing of the South Sudanese political party, the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement, is one of the few remaining national militaries in the world on the United Nations’ list of parties to conflict who recruit and use child soldiers. The U.N. Children’s Fund (UNICEF) estimates there are 2,000 child soldiers in South Sudan. Though none are within the official SPLA, they are affiliated with militia groups that have earned amnesties from the government and are being integrated into the national military.

If the SPLA follows the action plan it has drafted and signed – removing all child soldiers from the militias and working to get them education and training opportunities – the country could be off the list in as soon as two years.

For the child soldiers, though, the process of reintegration could take much longer, as they enter schools or learn skills that will provide other opportunities for making a living outside army barracks.

The process will begin, according to Fatuma H. Ibrahim, the chief of UNICEF’s child protection unit in South Sudan, by identifying and securing the formal release of all child soldiers. On their way out, they will be given civilian clothing, because “what is military remains with the military,” she said.

The youth, who can range in age from as young as 12 up to 18, will undergo some group therapy sessions with social workers to try to understand how they came to join the militias and to talk about any violence they may have encountered.

She said there will be about one percent who “really need some clinical management,” though their options will be limited in a country with few psychiatric resources. “It’s a very big problem. Most receive tablets, but that’s it.”

Family members will also meet with social workers to discuss reintegration and ensure that the children will be welcomed back and discouraged from re-joining.

“The parents have to be ready to receive them,” Ibrahim said. In some communities in South Sudan that includes a symbolic transition ceremony.

In a country that has known war for more than two decades, the military is often one of the few viable economic opportunities for young men. Many of the children UNICEF and its partners remove from the ranks followed that pattern – looking to a position with a militia to provide some financial security for themselves and their families.

One of UNICEF’s big challenges is providing opportunities that deter the delisted child soldiers from going back. After the new release rounds take place, the youth will be given an opportunity to choose between going to school, which many of the younger ones will opt for, Ibrahim said, or learning a trade. The country’s limited job market means older youth are encouraged to learn skills like carpentry, which is in increasing demand in rapidly growing towns. In the future, they will be trained in two skills, in case the first one does not prove marketable.

UNICEF and other organisations are also working to provide incentives to keep the child soldiers from re-enlisting. Ibrahim pointed to a livestock-rearing project, where former child soldiers are given a goat to raise and breed.

If the programme is going to work, she said, the incentives have “to be meaningful.”

South Sudan’s new action plan was officially signed on Mar. 16 by the country’s Ministry of Defence, the U.N. peacekeeping force in South Sudan – UNMISS, UNICEF and Special Representative of the Secretary-General for Children and Armed Conflict Radhika Coomaraswamy.

Since it achieved independence last year, South Sudan has seen sporadic violence flare up across the country. In the north, there are ongoing hostilities with Sudan. And various parts of the country – especially Jonglei state – have seen consistent intertribal conflict over land rights and cattle.

Coomaraswamy said most of the country’s child soldiers are found in the north, where violence has been most consistent.

South Sudan has been on the U.N. list long before its independence in July 2010. The earlier incarnation of the SPLA – the Sudanese People’s Liberation Movement – was one of the original groups included when the list was drafted in 2002.

In 2006 a Comprehensive Peace Agreement was signed between north and south Sudan, which ended decades of fighting and paved the way for South Sudanese independence. At the time, the SPLA committed to an action plan to release its child soldiers, though it did not completely follow through.

By 2009, monitoring organisations had found no child soldiers within the main SPLA, though they still existed in the militia groups.

Coomaraswamy said the country’s renewed commitment comes from “the power of the list” and pressure from international partners.

And while the U.N. has never sanctioned South Sudan over its inclusion, she said there was always a possibility that would happen. The Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), for instance, has suffered sanctions as a result of its inclusion.

Coomaraswamy said her office is currently in negotiations with the DRC, Myanmar, also known as Burma, and Somalia – the only government militaries who have not yet signed on to an action plan. 
 *Andrew Green is reporting from South Sudan on a fellowship from the International Reporting Project,
 an independent journalism programme based in Washington, D.C.

At Fallujah hospital they cannot offer any statistics on children born with birth defects – there are just too many. Parents don’t want to talk. “Families bury their newborn babies after they die without telling anyone,” says hospital spokesman Nadim al-Hadidi. “It’s all too shameful for them.”

One among an unusually high number of children in Basra fighting leukaemia. Credit: Karlos Zurutuza/IPS.

“We recorded 672 cases in January but we know there were many more,” says Hadidi. He projects pictures on to a wall at his office: children born with no brain, no eyes, or with the intestines out of their body.

Facing a frozen image of a child born without limbs, Hadidi says parents’ feelings usually range between shame and guilt. “They think it’s their fault, that there’s something wrong with them. And it doesn’t help at all when some elder tells them it’s been ‘god’s punishment’.”

The pictures are difficult to look at. And, those responsible for all this have closed their eyes.

“In 2004 the Americans tested all kinds of chemicals and explosive devices on us: thermobaric weapons, white phosphorous, depleted uranium…we have all been laboratory mice for them,” says Hadidi, turning off the projector.

The months that followed the invasion of Iraq in 2003 saw persistent demonstrations against the occupation forces. But it wasn’t until 2004 when this city by the Euphrates river to the west of Baghdad saw its worst.

On Mar. 31 of that year, images of the dismembered bodies of four mercenaries from the U.S. group Blackwater hanging from a bridge circulated around the world. Al-Qaeda claimed the brutal action – and the local population paid the price for Operation Phantom Fury that followed. According to the Pentagon, this was the biggest urban battle since Hue (Vietnam, 1968).

The first crackdown came in April 2004 but the worst was in November of that year. Random house-to- house checks gave way to intense night bombings. The Americans said they used white phosphorus “to illuminate targets at night.” But a group of Italian journalists soon gave documentary evidence that white phosphorus had been just another of the banned weapons used against civilians by the U.S. troops.

The total number of victims is still unknown. In fact, many of them are not born yet.

Abdulkadir Alrawi, a doctor at Fallujah hospital, is just back from examining an intriguing new case. “This girl was born with the Dandy Walker syndrome. Her brain is split in two and I doubt she’ll survive.” As he speaks, the lights go off again in the whole hospital.

“We lack the most basic infrastructure, how do they want us to cope with an emergency like this?”

According to a study released by the Switzerland-based International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health in July 2010, “the increases in cancer, leukaemia and infant mortality and perturbations of the normal human population birth sex ratio in Fallujah are significantly greater than those reported for the survivors of the A-Bombs at Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945.”

Researchers found there had been a 38-fold increase in leukaemia (17-fold in the Japanese locations). Reputed analysts such as Noam Chomsky have labelled such conclusions as “immensely more embarrassing than the Wikileaks leaks on Afghanistan.”

Samira Alaani, chief doctor at Fallujah hospital, took part in a study in close collaboration with the World Health Organisation. Several tests conducted in London point to unusually large amounts of uranium and mercury in the hair root of those affected. That could be the evidence linking the use of prohibited weapons to the extent of congenital problems in Fallujah.

Other than the white phosphorus, many point to depleted uranium (DU), a radioactive element which, according to military engineers, significantly increases the penetration capacity of shells. DU is believed to have a life of 4.5 billion years, and it has been labelled the “silent murderer that never stops killing.” Several international organisations have called on NATO to investigate whether DU was also used during the Libyan war.

This month the Iraqi Health Ministry, in close collaboration with the WHO, will launch its first study ever on congenital malformations in the governorates of Baghdad, Anbar, Thi Qar, Suleimania, Diala and Basra.

Sandwiched between the borders of Iran and Kuwait, Basra sits above massive oil reserves. The population in this southernmost province has suffered fighting much more than any other region: from the war with Iran in the 1980s to the Gulf War in 1991 and the U.S.-led invasion in 2003.

A study by the University of Baghdad pointed out that cases of birth defects had increased tenfold in Basra two years before the invasion in 2003. The trend is still on the rise.

Basra Children’s Hospital, specialising in paediatric oncology, opened in 2010. Funded with U.S. capital, this facility was initiated by former U.S. first lady Laura Bush. But like the hospital in Fallujah, this supposedly state-of-the-art facility lacks basic equipment.

“The X-ray machine spent over a year-and-a-half stored at Basra port due to an administrative dispute over who should pay port fees. Our children would die as they waited for radiotherapy treatment that did not come,” says Laith Shakr Al-Sailhi, father of a sick boy and director of the Children’s Cancer Association of Iraq.

“The waiting list for treatment in Baghdad is endless and time is never on the side of the patients,” says Al- Sailhi from the barracks that host his NGO headquarters next to the hospital.

“Besides, these children’s diseases also lead to economic ruin of their families. Those who can afford it pay up to 7,000 dollars in Syria or up to 12,000 dollars in Jordan for treatment. The cheapest option is Iran, with rates at an average of 5,000 dollars.

“Today, families are flocking to Tehran for their children to be treated. Many of them are sleeping in the streets because they can’t afford to pay a hotel room.”

It was personal experience that turned Gul Bano and her cleric husband, Ahmed Khan, into ambassadors against early marriage and its worst corollary – obstetric fistula which allows excretory matter to flow out through the birth canal.

Bano and her cleric husband campaigning against child marriage. Credit: Zofeen Ebrahim/IPS

As is the custom in the remote mountain village of Kohadast in the Khuzdar district of Balochistan province, Bano was married off as soon as she reached adolescence, at 15, and was pregnant the following year.

There being no healthcare facility near Kohadast, Bano did not receive antenatal care and no one thought there would be complications. But, events were to prove different.

After an extended labour lasting three days, Bano delivered a dead baby. “I never saw the colour of my son’s eyes or his hair. I never held him once to my bosom,” recalls Bano, now 20.

Her troubles had only begun. A week later, Bano realised she was always wet with urine and reeking of faecal matter. “I was passing urine and stools together.”

Unable to handle the prolonged labour, Bano’s young body had developed a fistula caused by the baby’s head pressing hard against the lining of the birth canal and tearing into the walls of her rectum and the bladder.

Bano’s family attributed her condition to fate, her father refusing to visit “due to the bad odour coming from me.” However, through those trying times, Khan stood by his young wife and sought medical help.

After Bano spent a year in a perpetually “wet and stinky” condition, her husband finally discovered a hospital in Karachi specialising in treating fistula and other conditions related to reproductive health.

Koohi Goth Women’s Hospital, where fistula victims are treated free, was started by Dr. Shershah Syed, one of Pakistan’s first gynaecologists to train in repairing a painful and socially embarrassing condition.

In addition to incontinence, the medical consequences of fistula include frequent bladder infections, painful genital ulcerations, infertility and kidney failure.

In 2006, the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) launched a four-year fistula repair project as part of a programme to improve maternal health.

According to UNFPA, at least two million women in the world live as Bano did – in shame and misery. Most are not even aware that fistula can be repaired.

A major challenge for healthcare professionals is that the number of women suffering from fistula in the world is increasing by about 75,000 cases annually.

In Pakistan the true prevalence of fistula is unknown, but Syed estimates that there are about 5,000 new cases every year.

With only 500 – 600 women undergoing corrective surgery annually, Pakistan needs to put more resources into addressing fistula – which falls under the Millennium Development Goal (MDG) of reducing maternal mortality by three-quarters by 2015.

The MDGs are eight United Nations targets to be met by 2015 and, according to studies published by the International Youth Council, a major civil society organisation, Pakistan is unlikely to meet the fifth that deals with maternal health.

Pakistan, according to IYC figures released in 2010, has a maternal mortality rate (MMR) of around 500 per 100,000 births that is sought to be reduced to three-quarters from 1990-2015.

Pakistan’s maternal mortality ratio is wide-ranging, from 286 per 100,000 births in Karachi’s urban areas to 756 in rural Balochistan, where child marriages are compounded by non-existent health services.

“For both physiological and social reasons, mothers aged 15-19 are twice as likely to die of childbirth than those in their 20s,” says a UNFPA document. “Obstructed labour is especially common among young, physically immature women giving birth for the first time.”

Obstetric fistula is now generally acknowledged to be another burden on the girl child, deprived of basic education and forced into marriage – for which she is neither physically nor mentally prepared.

Pakistan’s Child Marriages Restraint Act passed in 1929 permits girls to be married at 16, but poverty, illiteracy and socio-cultural practices result in girls being married off as soon as they reach puberty.

Syed’s team continues to hold fistula repair camps in the remote areas of Pakistan that include training programmes for doctors and paramedics in fistula management. “The complicated cases come to Koohi Goth and simple repair is done in the field hospitals.”

The camps provided an opportunity to reach out to affected women and their families and encourage them to avail themselves of the free treatment in Karachi, where necessary.

Getting Bano to Karachi was not easy. Khan gathered a group of able-bodied men who took turns carrying her on a rope bed for three days just to reach a motorable road.

“It’s been almost three years and she has gone through six operations,” says Dr. Sajjad Ahmed, who worked at Koohi Goth as manager of UNFPA’s fistula project from June 2006 to February 2010. “She would not speak at all and she did not understand Urdu.”

Today Bano and Khan are regular visitors at Koohi Goth and vocal advocates of the campaign against fistula. They travel across Pakistan, spreading the word about how to prevent the injury and what to do about it.

“Khan is a cleric and yet he does not conform to the stereotype of a religious person,” said Syed. “He tells parents that fistula can be avoided if they stop marrying off their daughters at a very early age.”

Bano shares her story and tells married women about the importance of birth spacing, antenatal checkups and timely access to emergency obstetric care.

Syed says Pakistan badly needs a mass awareness campaign on fistula prevention and stresses the importance of social support for victims. “That’s the only way we can eradicate fistula from this region.”

“I smell nice now and it’s all because my husband wanted me to get well,” said Bano, who may have spent many more years in a miserable state if not for the treatment at Koohi Goth.

By Thalif Deen
UNITED NATIONS, Apr 6 2012 (IPS)

In his keynote address to the Global Colloquium of University Presidents at New York’s Columbia University last week, U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon spoke of the growing power exercised by the world’s younger generation in an age of high- speed technology and the information superhighway.

“To unleash the power of young people, we need to partner with them. This is what the United Nations is trying to do,” he added, announcing his decision to appoint a U.N. Special Adviser on Youth.

“Some dictators in our world are more afraid of tweets than they are of opposing armies,” he declared, pointing out the rising political clout of the younger generation.

The United States, which is holding the rotating presidency of the Security Council for the month of April, also has plans for the participation of youth in the U.N.’s most powerful political body.

At a press conference Tuesday, U.S. Ambassador Susan Rice said the United States wants to return to the theme of youth, and do it in a somewhat different way.

“So I hope over the course of the month, you’ll be seeing a few younger faces around the halls, including in the Security Council itself,” she said.

“We’ll be partnering with high schools, universities, and non- governmental organisations (NGOs) to invite younger people, young audiences, to come to open sessions of the Security Council,” she added.

Still, at a women’s conference at the United Nations last month, several speakers decried the absence of youth at key U.N. meetings.

A representative of the Girls Scouts of the United States, speaking on behalf of several NGOs, criticised the marginalisation of youth in the activities of the world body.

She described the United Nations as an “unwelcoming” place for youth and pointed out that the world body even refuses to provide U.N. ground passes, to enter the building, for those under the age of 16.

“It’s time we included more young people in our conferences,” Rozaina Adam, one of the five female parliamentarians from the island nation of Maldives, told the U.N. Commission on the Status of Women (CSW) last month.

And Edna Akullq, founder of the Self-Help Foundation in Uganda, asked members of the CSW: “How many young delegates did you come with (to the current session)?”

“Have we missed the opportunity? Are we involving young people as stakeholders in the cause?” she asked.

Asked about the restrictions imposed on under-16 youth, U.N. spokesperson Martin Nesirky told IPS that U.N. rules state that grounds passes will not be issued to any persons under the age of 16, with the exception when there is a special conference on children.

“However, importantly, children under the age of 16 may be admitted with a chaperone,” he added.

“More generally, as you know, the secretary-general is in the process of seeking to broaden the way the United Nations engages young people,” he added. Therefore, “The kind of feedback you refer to is very useful.”

In his address to Columbia University, the secretary-general said the United Nations is developing an action plan for the coming years.

“We want to work with youth on major issues affecting them, including joblessness, political inclusion, human rights and sexual health,” Ban said.

“I mention this because, when we talk about youth, we have to look beyond demographics to why young people are so powerful. Youth are often the first to stand against injustice. Youth is a time of idealism. Young people are a force for transformation.”

Describing these as timeless qualities, Ban said today’s younger generation has a new advantage.

“You have the Internet. As a child, when I first saw a television, I put my hand on the screen because I was fascinated. Now, when my granddaughter sees a TV, she puts her hand on the screen because she expects it to respond to her commands,” he noted.

He also said that young people are using social networking to drastically alter power dynamics.

And young people are using Facebook and Twitter to organize protests, speak out against human rights abuses and end oppression, he added.

At the University of Kansas, students are designing social media strategies for United Nations campaigns that will be sent out to all U.N. offices around the world.

And those students are going to create a flash mob on campus to promote interest in the United Nations.

“I wish I could be there,” said Ban.

Ambassador Rice told reporters the United States will be organising a special programme for young journalists “that I hope will be of particular interest to you”.

“We’ll be inviting them to come to the U.N. to report on what we believe is an issue of critical importance to young people and their generation, which is, of course, the issue of proliferation of nuclear materials and nuclear weapons technology,” she said.

“We are going to draw young people from area schools but also from several Council member-states who will able to participate via video,” she added.

Teenage pregnancies are on the rise in Guatemala, along with the drop-out rate in schools, family breakdown and many other related social ills.

More and more girls in Guatemala are having babies. Credit: Fiat Luxe/CC BY-ND 2.0

A graph of statistics from the Ministry of Health and Social Assistance shows a rising trend, with 41,529 pregnancies in girls aged 10 to 19 in 2009, 45,048 in 2010 and 49,231 in 2011, giving an average of 135 a day last year.

A long list of factors contribute to early motherhood, ranging from lack of sex education to the influence of the Catholic Church’s ban on contraceptive use, and impunity for statutory rape, according to Mirna Montenegro of the Sexual and Reproductive Health Observatory, a local NGO.

“Imagine! In 2011 there were 21 babies born to 10-year-old girls! What’s more, we have no social protection system for them,” she told IPS.

“We are one of the few countries where there are so many pregnancies among 10 to 14-year-old girls. In 2011 alone there were 3,046 births to such young mothers in Guatemala,” she said. “Pregnancy in an underage girl is the product of statutory rape, so logically there should be an equal number of court prosecutions under way, but this is not so,” she complained.

Montenegro said the Guatemalan justice system finds it problematic to punish offenders in these cases. “The younger the victim, the closer the family ties between herself and the rapist,” she said.

The Catholic Church’s opposition to using birth control methods and to a comprehensive approach to sexuality that includes avoiding unplanned pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases is also a hurdle, Montenegro said. “It affects the development of attitudes within the family,” she said.

The Health and Education Ministries signed a cooperation agreement in 2010 to implement programmes to prevent unwanted pregnancies in the six provinces with the highest HIV/AIDS incidence, maternal mortality rates and other indicators of concern.

“Progress has been made in raising the awareness of teachers, developing teaching materials and learning modules, and analysing the context of the situation in the provinces. But these things have not yet reached classrooms, as they are bogged down in provincial and ministerial head offices,” Montenegro said.

The Family Planning Law, regulations for which were adopted in 2009, brought sex education into primary schools and facilitated access to contraceptive methods. The following year the Healthy Maternity Act was approved, which obliges health authorities to provide basic services and care before, during and after pregnancy.

But the new laws have not been successful in curbing teen pregnancies.

One out of five Guatemalan mothers are aged between 10 and 19, the highest adolescent fertility rate in Latin America, according to a 2011 study on the state of the world’s girls, titled “Because I Am a Girl: So, What About Boys?” by Plan International, a child protection agency.

Deep-rooted cultural factors also encourage pregnancies and prevent women from taking advantage of opportunities for a better life.

Cecilia Fajardo, a psychologist with the Family Welfare Association of Guatemala (APROFAM), told IPS, “We are still taught that women’s role is to be wives and mothers, which is our right, but we are not told about other avenues of self-improvement.”

Fajardo said there could be more child and teen pregnancies than those reported by the Health Ministry, since “many of the births take place at home, or pregnancies are terminated without the authorities’ knowledge.”

To help teenagers, APROFAM has created innovative programmes in schools for young people of both sexes to come to grips with practical aspects of pregnancy, fatherhood and motherhood, using aids like the electronic baby and the pregnancy simulator.

“The pregnancy simulator is a strap-on garment with an enlarged bust and belly weighing 25 pounds (11 kilograms), the average weight gain a woman experiences in pregnancy. It enables teenagers to experience 26 different signs and symptoms of pregnancy,” Fajardo described.

The electronic baby is a computerised infant-sized doll that mimics the behaviour of a newborn, including crying to signal that it is hungry or tired.

“We give young girls these experiences to give them knowledge about sexuality and reproductive health. We do not impose on them the idea that they should not be mothers,” Fajardo said.

This impoverished Central American country of 14 million people has an adolescent (under-20) birth rate of 114 per 1,000 women in rural areas, according to the National Mother and Child Health Survey for 2008-2009.

Silvia Maldonado of the National Alliance of Indigenous Women’s Organisations for Reproductive Health (ALIANMISAR) told IPS that dropping out of school, malnutrition and discrimination are among the consequences of teen pregnancies.

She said education was one of the most important factors for the prevention of adolescent pregnancy, which severely curtails life opportunities for thousands of teenagers and creates the phenomenon of “kids having kids.”

“It is essential to talk about sexuality in schools, and for parents to talk to their children in depth about this issue in order to prevent more teen pregnancies,” Maldonado said.

Naseema Akhtar, 38, worries that her daily treks to collect clean water from the mountain springs around her village of Bonpora, in Kashmir’s Kupwara district, are getting longer. She is already doing more than seven km every day.

Women in rural Kashmir walk great distances to fetch clean water. Credit: Athar Parvaiz/IPS

Akhtar, and other women from Bonpora, 110 km north of Srinagar, carry pieces of cloth with them to strain the water – though this is poor defence against dangerous water-borne pathogens.

“We know that the cloth only removes insoluble solids, but what can we do? There is no other source of safe water for our daily needs,” said Akhtar. People in most of Kashmir’s hamlets rely on water from mountain springs or, if unable to walk distances, resort to the risky streams and ponds nearby.

Kashmir, a distinct region in the Indian state of Jammu and Kashmir, has seen armed separatist militancy since 1989, complicated by territorial claims over the region by neighbouring Pakistan.

“When the mountain springs get scanty or dry up, we are forced to use the stagnant water in small ponds around our village,” says Shahzad Mir, a resident of Badibera village, also in Kupwara district.

Badibera, since December, has the benefit of water pumped out of a bore well installed by the state government, but the water is hard with dissolved minerals, including fluorides. The residents complain that the supply is erratic and may fail for days together.

“In the summers, people here regularly fall sick and children seem particularly prone to diarrhoea and other ailments,” said Mir. “Doctors tell us that this happens because of drinking dirty water.”

Zareefa Begam, a 43-year-old woman in Mir’s village, has learnt it the hard way. “Last year, all my three kids suffered severe diarrhoea and I had to stay away from work for more than a week to look after them.”

Other villagers said they were spending more out-of-pocket than ever before for treating stomach ailments, especially young children.

“Children are most vulnerable to water-borne diseases,” says Dr. Rehana Kousar, nodal officer for Integrated Disease Surveillance Project at Kashmir’s health directorate. “Repeated diarrhoea can lead to severe malnutrition, stunted growth and even death.”

Poor rural families, says Kousar, suffer on many counts. “They end up spending money on transportation and medicines, apart from having to take out time from earning livelihoods. And the women, as caregivers, take the brunt of it.”

Under-five mortality rate in Jammu and Kashmir state is 43 per 1,000 – nowhere near achieving the United Nations Millennium Development Goal of reducing the rate to 31 per 1,000 by 2015.

Tufail Mattoo, director of rural sanitation in Kashmir, identifies the major cause of diarrhoea and other water-borne diseases to open defecation in the rural areas. “The rains leach the faecal matter into the water bodies, making them unsafe.

“We are trying very hard to discourage open defecation, but it is going to take time to convince the people,” Mattoo told IPS.

Srinagar’s State Medical Hospital treats thousands of patients for diseases like typhoid, cholera and hepatitis in the summer months. “About 90 percent of the patients come from villages where contaminated water is emerging as a huge health risk,” Rafreeq Ahmed, a doctor at the hospital, told IPS.

A government survey released in March said that more than 65 percent of Kashmir’s seven million people drink untreated water and that the bulk of the population depends on water from ponds, streams and wells.

The survey, taken together with a study released in February by the Integrated Disease Surveillance Unit (IDSU), showing high coliform bacteria count in Kashmir’s water bodies, gives clues to why diarrhoeal diseases are on the rise in the region. Coliform bacteria found in water, soil and on vegetation warn of the presence of dangerous faecal pathogens, including bacteria, viruses, protozoa and larger parasites.

Said Dr. Sajjad Ahmed who was part of the team of doctors who carried out the IDSU study: “There is a dangerous trend in which raw, untreated sewage is channelised into water bodies without any treatment, and that is why the water sources are showing such high levels of contamination.”

“In all the rural areas of Kashmir, toilets are build close to water bodies,” says senior gastroenterologist at the Sher-e-Kashmir Institute of Medical Sciences, Ghulam Mohammad Malik.

Malik also laid blame on security forces – deployed in Kashmir to fight separatist militancy and stop infiltration from Pakistan – who often bypass sanitation rules. Some 500,000 troops are presently stationed in Kashmir, most of them deployed in the strategic upper reaches, adding to the contamination of the natural springs.

“Security personnel form a good percentage of the population of Kashmir and obviously their behaviour is a major influence,” says Rishab Khanna, president of Indian Youth Climate Network (IYCN). “We are seeking to engage them as part of our awareness campaigns.”

Kashmir’s status as a major tourist and pilgrimage destination contributes to the waste disposal problem. According to official information, there are 4,300 hotels in 22 tourist resorts and towns across Kashmir functioning without proper sewage disposal facilities.

In 2011, Kashmir received two million tourists including 634,000 Hindu pilgrims headed for the Amarnath cave shrine in Anantnag district. “Heavy tourist influx makes matters worse when you have no infrastructure to treat waste,” says Khanna.

IYCN, which has been organising environmental safety campaigns in Kashmir for the last two years, advocates green solutions such as converting the human waste into organic fertilizer.

“Right now Kashmir imports vast quantities of synthetic fertilizer from outside the state,” Khanna said. “Converting the waste into fertilizer will make for safe disposal as well as savings on farming inputs,” he said.

By Correspondents and - -
BISHKEK, Mar 30 2012 (IPS)

The physical damage done to Osh, the city in southern Kyrgyzstan that was engulfed in interethnic violence almost two years ago, is steadily being repaired. The psychological scars, on the other hand, may take generations to heal.

Children are the ones having the toughest time. Many of those who were caught up in the violence are experiencing acute psychological trauma, according to experts. And there are limited resources to treat them.

Ibrokhim, a 13-year-old boy from Osh, is among the children who were traumatised by the events of June 2010. Ibrokhim (not his real name) is enrolled at the Toichu Altybaev School (former Leo Tolstoy School) in the suburbs of Osh, but when school started again last September, he was scared to attend.

“I didn’t feel good. I wanted to stay at home. I was scared to go out,” Ibrokhim says, adding that his safety concerns were rooted in memories of his father being shot during the ethnic violence between Kyrgyz and Uzbeks.

“When my father was wounded, I thought he would recover. When they said he was dead, I couldn’t believe it until he was buried,” Ibrokhim recalled. “I preferred staying in. I didn’t want to see anybody. It was difficult for me to talk to people.”

Teachers say the boy missed three months of school.

“He was psychologically traumatised after his father was wounded during the riots,” Tanzilya Raimjanova, Ibrokhim’s teacher, told EurasiaNet.org. “He grew more depressed after his father, who failed to recover despite repeated surgeries (to extract bullets from his body), passed away. The boy stopped talking, and retreated into himself.”

In a certain sense, Ibrokhim was fortunate because he was able to obtain treatment for his psychological injury. After intensive therapy funded by an international humanitarian organisation, he was able to return to school in early 2012, Raimjanova explained.

A psychologist helped the boy communicate his fears through games, art, and metaphors.

“To rehabilitate affected children we use art and game therapies,” said Larisa Katsura, a psychotherapist and the head of Master Radosti, an NGO in Osh. “During our sessions, kids play various games, play with modeling clay (to make shapes with which they can tell their stories), listen to and retell fairy tales. We help them speak up so that they can get rid of their fears.”

But, Katsura added, psychologists have a limited window to treat trauma. After a time, there is much less they can do to help. About 450 people died amid four days of violence in 2010. Approximately 110,000 people sought temporary sanctuary in Uzbekistan and another 300,000 were internally displaced in Kyrgyzstan.

The symptoms of stress disorders are not always obvious. Psychologists say that some affected children begin spontaneously laughing uncontrollably for several minutes; some cry frequently; and others stutter or freeze upon coming in contact with other people.

“On Jun. 11, in the morning, my nine-year-old daughter went out to buy bread and did not come back,” said Kayrinisa, a 42-year-old woman from Osh, recalling the day the fighting began. “Usually it took her 10 minutes to return, but it had been more than half an hour, so I called the police. Then shooting started; everyone was panicking. I could not do anything but stand there waiting for my daughter. Then (after about 40 minutes) suddenly a car stopped, and my daughter came out of it and ran to me in tears.”

Kayrinisa said her daughter could not answer any questions as she kept crying and stammering. Though physically the girl was unharmed, three months later she was terrified to return to school. Psychologists diagnosed her with Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD).

Lira Sherieva, the head of the Osh municipal agency responsible for child welfare, says the city is doing what it can to help the thousands of children suffering from stress-related disorders. But, she adds, the local government lacks the resources to hire enough psychologists.

“We turned some playgrounds at public schools and kindergartens into rehabilitation centres where psychologically affected children are still rendered qualified assistance,” Sherieva said. “Support was provided by local NGOs, as well as international agencies, including UNICEF and Save the Children. In total, over 10,000 children have received psychological treatment. Some of them were sent to recreation camps and sanatoria on Lake Issyk-Kul.”

Even so, the shortage of psychological assistance in and around Osh remains “catastrophic”, says Gulbara Kulueva, a senior lecturer in psychology at Osh State University. Few people are interested in studying to become a psychologist because the pay is so low, she adds. Last year, no new students matriculated in her department.

“We were not prepared for such a situation,” said Kulueva, who also works at the Osh Regional Psychiatric Health Centre.

Most of the psychologists who have graduated from her programme over the years have left to look elsewhere for more lucrative work (school psychologists earn 150-160 dollars per month). “The available ones are not professionally trained. The situation at schools is catastrophic; they lack professionals.”

Others agree that the shortages mean many children are not getting the help they need.

“Many children have such disorders as enuresis (involuntary urination), fright and fear of representatives of other ethnic group,” said Nadejda Olifirenko, a psychologist with Family for Every Child, a non-profit in Osh. “We are short of certified psychologists who can provide proper qualified assistance.”

“We don’t have a psychologist at our school. We requested a specialist but are still waiting for one,” said Raimjanova, Ibrokhim’s teacher at the Toichu Altybaev School, which about 750 children attend. “Our children need psychologists. We don’t even know which schoolchildren need help.”

*This story originally appeared on EurasiaNet.org.

Excerpt:

By Marcela Valente and - -
BUENOS AIRES, Mar 27 2012 (IPS)

The trial for the theft of babies of political prisoners during Argentina’s 1976-1983 dictatorship is nearing its end after more than three decades of work by the Grandmothers of the Plaza de Mayo, who have so far tracked down 105 of an estimated 500 missing children.

In some of the thousands of cases of forced disappearance in Argentina, babies were stolen and raised by military couples. Credit: ha+/CC BY 2.0

The sentence is expected to be handed down in late May, Alan Iud, a lawyer for the Grandmothers of the Plaza de Mayo, told IPS.

Since the years of the dictatorship, the Grandmothers of the Plaza de Mayo have been trying to find out what happened not only to their sons and daughters, who were “disappeared” by the regime, but to their missing grandchildren.

The stolen babies were either born to political prisoners in clandestine detention centres or kidnapped along with their parents, who were later killed or “disappeared”. The children were then given to military or police families, or in some cases, to couples who adopted them in good faith.

The defendants are charged with “taking, retaining and hiding minors and changing their identities”.

Some of the missing grandchildren are just now finding out their true identities, more than 30 years after they were kidnapped.

“I lived with them for 32 and a half years,” said Francisco Madariaga, referring to the people he considered his parents for over three decades.

He grew up as Alejandro Gallo, and believed he was the biological son of former army intelligence officer Víctor Gallo, one of the defendants in the trial.

Around the age of 16, Madariaga began to reject his “father” because he was a “very violent man. I was his war toy; when he looked at me he would see the enemy,” he told IPS.

He added that at around age 20, he began living in anxiety, plagued with doubts about his real identity.

But feelings of fear and guilt kept him from asking his “parents” about who he was. It was not until he was 32 years old that, pressed by his friends, he worked up the courage to visit the Grandmothers of the Plaza de Mayo office and take a DNA test at their National Genetic Data Bank, which confirmed his true identity.

He found out that he was born in the Campo de Mayo clandestine detention centre, where his mother Dr. Silvia Quintela, a young surgeon who was four months pregnant when she was kidnapped in January 1977, was held.

Quintela is one of the thousands of victims of forced disappearance in Argentina, who number around 30,000 according to estimates by human rights groups.

Francisco’s case was one of the few in which either of the biological parents survived. His father, Abel Madariaga, managed to flee into exile after his wife was seized.

Years later, when he returned to Argentina after the regime collapsed, he dedicated himself to the search for his son and became the only male member of the board of directors of the Grandmothers of Plaza de Mayo.

Now the young man, who has been reunited with his biological father and relatives, has high hopes for the trial. “I testified, as a plaintiff. I am anxiously waiting for the sentence. I want justice to be done, because they ruined so many lives,” he said.

Iud explained that the trial has not covered all of the cases of stolen children, but merely “a representative sample of what happened, not in just one, but in several clandestine detention centres.”

The cases presented include that of the three Ramírez children, who were two, four and five years old when their mother was kidnapped and their father was in prison.

Instead of leaving the children with other family members, their kidnappers dumped them in an orphanage, where they suffered sexual abuse, mistreatment and hunger for seven years.

Another case is that of Victoria Montenegro, who denounced the complicity between a prosecutor, Juan Romero, and the army intelligence officer who killed her parents and raised her, the late Colonel Herman Tetzlaff.

Last year Romero resigned as a prosecutor, after he was accused in court of passing information to the colonel.

The illegal appropriation of the children of political prisoners was not among the crimes covered by the two amnesty laws passed by Congress in the mid-1980s, which enabled military human rights abusers to evade prosecution.

Nor was it covered by then President Carlos Menem’s (1989-1999) 1990 pardon of members of the former military junta, several of whom had been sentenced to life in prison.

The attorneys for the Grandmothers brought legal action in 1996, taking advantage of the fact that the crime of baby theft was not specifically included in the amnesty laws and the pardon, which were not struck down until the mid-2000s. The trial finally got underway 13 months ago.

In the dock are former dictators Jorge Rafael Videla and Reynaldo Bignone; other prominent armed forces officers; and Dr. Jorge Luis Magnasco, who attended the births.

“The crime for which they are being tried is appropriation of children, but the aim of this trial is also to show that there was a systematic plan to steal children. And to hold Videla and Bignone responsible,” as heads of the military junta, Iud said.

Over the years, the plaintiffs have compiled abundant documents and testimony as proof that there were specific orders as to how to handle pregnant political prisoners, so that their children would be raised in homes “free of hatred towards the armed forces,” the lawyer said.

There is also evidence that members of the Catholic Church and staff at the U.S. Embassy in Argentina and the State Department were aware of, and helped conceal, this crime.

Excerpt:

By IPS Correspondents and - -
BEIT SAHOUR, West Bank, Mar 26 2012 (IPS)

Hamza has memories no 17-year-old should. “I was desperate. I didn’t talk to anyone. I didn’t want to go outside the house. I was very nervous. I’d be irritated with the simplest matters.”

Hamza, who did not want to show his full face. Credit: Jillian Kestler-D'Amours/IPS.

“They asked me when did I throw stones, and how, what time exactly, at night or in the morning, and who was there with (me). When they took me to the prison they put me in a small cell. They used to throw the food through the space between the door and the floor. We had our meals in the same place where we peed. Sometimes they stripped us; they stripped us and mocked us, (and) beat us at the same time.”

Hamza spent five months in Ofer military prison. He had no contact with his parents or family, who were denied the right to visit him.

Three months after he was released from prison, he entered the YMCA’s rehabilitation programme in Beit Sahour, near his home in the West Bank village of Takoua. The change, he said, was almost immediate.

“I was comfortable with (the counseling) sessions I had, and I felt myself getting better, even better than before the prison,” says Hamza, who is now studying to become a carpenter. “After I started working in carpentry, I became stronger, nothing scared me any more. I started to look at the future in a positive light.”

Recent estimates have found that Israel arrests and detains about 700 Palestinian children annually. This reality has forced Palestinians in the West Bank and in East Jerusalem to develop programmes that address the widespread trauma these children exhibit when released from prison.

Founded in 1989, shortly after the start of the first Palestinian uprising, the East Jerusalem YMCA rehabilitation programme is one such. It rests on three tracks – psycho-social support, empowerment, and re-integration. It aims to get ex-detainee children back into school, or into work training programmes.

According to programme director Nader Abu Amsha, a major focus is placed on giving children the coping mechanisms necessary to avoid constantly reliving their trauma once they are released from prison. “We are trying our best to help not just in therapy, but in building the coping mechanism (and) in helping people maintain their resilience ability to these traumatic experiences.

“A trauma might happen once in life,” Abu Amsha tells IPS. “But here, when it comes to having daily hard experiences like checkpoints, like soldiers around, like settlers attacking people… everything surrounding you might be a trigger for a traumatic event you went through.”

Save the Children and the East Jerusalem YMCA Rehabilitation Programme released a report Mar. 11 on the impact of Israeli arrests and detention on Palestinian children living under Israeli occupation. The organisations estimate that since 2000, Israel has arrested and detained over 8,000 Palestinian children in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, including some as young as 12.

Handcuffed and blindfolded, the children – who are most often arrested on suspicion of throwing stones – are transported to either Israeli prisons or settlements in the West Bank for interrogation, which almost always take place without the children’s parents or a lawyer present, the report found.

All Palestinians in the West Bank are subject to Israel’s military courts system, which was set up shortly after Israel began occupying the territory in 1967. According to the report, these courts “are not intended to function as a comprehensive legal system” but rather, “must be understood as the ‘judicial arm’ of the occupying power, which means that the emphasis lies more on security than on justice.”

The report also found that nearly all children (98 percent) were subjected to physical or psychological violence during their arrest and detention, and that 90 percent of children suffered from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), experiencing nightmares, bed-wetting, anxiety and other signs of trauma upon their release.

“All of these symptoms can’t be left (alone); it should be worked with and it’s the core of our interests to help them get rid of the psychological impact of the imprisonment and the hard experience they went through,” Abu Amsha says. “Their right is to be rehabilitated.”

For 19-year-old Mouath, another Palestinian teenager who spent eight months in Israel’s Ofer military prison on charge of throwing stones, the rehabilitation process has been beneficial not only for himself, but also for his family and friends, who have seen a positive change.

“I went to school after (I was released), but they refused to take me back. I sat jobless at home. I was in trouble with my parents and my friends all the time. My spirits were down, crushed. I had frequent thoughts about the prison. I was very scared,” Mouath tells IPS.

Today, after counseling sessions, he says he no longer feels afraid. “The occupation is still going on, but now the soldiers don’t bother me. I am very much relieved,” says Mouath, who now works in automobile electronics. “My problems became less. My psychological hardships and the negative thoughts are gone now.”

Excerpt:

By Ngala Killian Chimtom and - -
UPPER NYONG DIVISION, Cameroon, Mar 22 2012 (IPS)

Kokpa Pascale Moangue, a Baka Pygmy in southeastern Cameroon, has given his children the one thing he always longed for, but his parents could not give him – an education. And he was able to achieve it by obtaining a simple piece of paper: a birth registration certificate.

Some 98 percent of Baka Pygmies do not register their children at birth, according to the international development charity Plan International. Credit: Ngala Killian Chimtom

A smile lights Moangue’s face as his four children chatter on their way back home from school in Lomie, a town in Cameroon’s Upper Nyong Division, East Region. “I never went to school, but I have big dreams for my children,” he tells IPS.

Moangue’s next-door neighbour, Anzuom Clarisse, has a similar story. She wanted to go to school when she was younger, but could not because she does not have a birth certificate.

But the 19-year old expectant mother says life for her unborn child will be different. “The child I am carrying in my womb will go to school,” she affirms. “I will make sure that my babe gets a birth certificate.”

However, unlike Clarisse and Moangue, not many Baka are willing to register their children at birth.

In 2003, Plan International began its Baka Rights and Dignity Project here. The organisation’s local country director, Barro Famari, says that the project is intended to sensitise Baka Pygmies about their rights and to work with local authorities to ensure that those rights are respected.

While there is no legal discrimination against the Baka, there have been reports of inferior treatment, especially in labour practices, according to the International Women’s Rights Action Watch.

Central to the project is the “Universal Birth Registration Campaign” that seeks to establish birth certificates for all Cameroonian children. Working together with the Ministry of Social Affairs, heads of civil status centres, mayors, and other non-governmental organisations, Plan International helped 12,000 Cameroonian children receive their birth certificates in 2010 and 2011.

Its 2011 Annual Report states, “during the campaign this year (2012), Plan International intends to register and distribute 20,000 birth certificates throughout its six programme units.”

“Plan helped to get birth certificates for my kids,” Moangue beams. “I know their future is brighter now.”

Still, about 98 percent of Baka are not registered at birth, according to statistics from Plan International’s local office. The reasons for this range from the distances to civil status registries, to the ignorance of the need for birth certificates.

“I don’t have a birth certificate any more because my father used it like any other piece of paper, to roll a cigarette,” says 14-year-old Sandra Neckmen. However, she was fortunate this happened after she enrolled in school. Neckmen is now a third-year pupil in the Mindourou government school in East Region.

Denis Njanga’s attitude is typical of some Baka. Njanga, from Yokadouma in East Region says, “that piece of paper cannot put food on the table.”

However, the issue of birth registration is a national one. Less than 34 percent of births are registered in Cameroon. According to a 2007 report on the Cameroon civil status system by the Institut de Formation et de Recherche Démographiques (IFORD), Cameroon faces a real problem of not fulfilling every child’s right to a name and nationality.

The study indicates that the situation is even worse in the northern and eastern parts of the country, where nine in 10 births are not registered within the requisite 30-day period stipulated in Cameroon law.

The low national rate of birth registration is attributed to a general lack of awareness and the mismanagement of civil registration centres, where a simple registration process usually takes longer than 30 days.

“It’s a very dicey situation,” says Kaldaussa Faissam, the sub-director for administrative affairs, the service directly in charge of birth certification in the Ministry of Territorial Administration and Decentralization.

“Most births in rural areas take place at home. Birth certificates are issued only in the hospitals and the procedure is long,” he says.

Kaldaussa says his ministry is formulating new laws to make the birth registration process easier. However, he would not comment on the substance of the new legislation.

“A birth certificate is the first link a citizen has with its government. It shows where a child was born and who its parents are, and defines the child’s nationality,” Kaldaussa says. He adds that the lack of a birth certificate could lead to the abuse of children in instances of early marriages and child labour.

Excerpt:

By Jillian Kestler-D'Amours and - -
OLD CITY, EAST JERUSALEM, Mar 20 2012 (IPS)

Standing under a canopy just inside Jerusalem’s Old City walls, a group of 20 Palestinian children are banging drums, clapping their hands and singing in Portuguese. This is capoeira, the traditional Afro-Brazilian sport that mixes dance, music and martial arts, and it is sweeping through the West Bank and East Jerusalem.

Children at a capoeira class in East Jerusalem. Credit: Jillian Kestler-D'Amours/IPS.

“Because capoeira is a kind of martial art, there is also a big sense of discipline in terms of being part of a group where you have to do things together. I think this, among the boys, has a very strong impact on them,” Goia told IPS.

Non-profit organisation Bidna Capoeira (‘We want capoeira’) began offering capoeira classes in March 2011 to children and youth in Palestinian refugee camps throughout the West Bank. Since that time, it is estimated that 800 Palestinian children have taken part in the capoeira programme.

Today, courses take place in the Shuafat and Jalazone refugee camps, in Hebron and Ramallah, and in Jerusalem’s Old City, and the programme continues to promote its goal of empowering Palestinian youth and giving them a healthy, positive outlet for their frustrations.

“Capoeira can be a very powerful tool for children in terms of increasing self-confidence, (and) increasing the sense of belonging to something. Capoeira is played in a group; you need people singing and playing the instruments, so you create this idea that you are part of something and that everybody there is helping each other to develop and learn,” Goia said.

Sahar Qawasmeh’s six-year-old son, Ahmad, began capoeira classes in Jerusalem’s Old City in February. “It’s new. He did before lessons in karate and swimming, but for a change, capoeira is nice,” Qawasmeh, a resident of Beit Hanina in East Jerusalem, told IPS. “I’ve seen capoeira in some festivals. (Ahmad) gets to use his strength and he likes it.”

According to Ilona Kassissieh, Public Information Officer at the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), which provides support to Palestinian refugees and partnered with Bidna Capoeira to organise capoeira classes in the West Bank refugee camps, the impact has been clear.

“(The children) have learnt a lot and they have proven that they are very eager and can learn very fast,” Kassissieh told IPS. She explained that providing extra-curricular activities to Palestinian children in refugee camps is important since it gives them an opportunity to escape their difficult daily circumstances.

“Refugees in general, and children in particular, are the vulnerable group because they live in very difficult circumstances. The infrastructure does not help children receive the required aspects for a normal standard of living. These kind of extra-curricular activities are always beneficial on a child and leave a positive impact. It creates a certain coping mechanism where children can think outside the box and can put their energies into something they like and would like to learn further,” she said.

For Jorge Goia, the history of capoeira as a grassroots movement used by oppressed communities in Brazil offers a direct connection to Palestinians who today are living under Israeli occupation and control.

“Capoeira was developed by slaves in Brazil, so it was created by people who were under oppression and they used capoeira as a way to empower themselves and get self-confidence and cope with all the demands when you are living under oppression,” Goia explained.

“The focus is more into escaping, into learning how to face a situation where you are the weak one. You are the one who doesn’t have any kind of gun or weapon, you just have your body, so how can you survive? How can you escape from being oppressed?”

Excerpt:

By Marwaan Macan-Markar and - -
BANGKOK, Mar 16 2012 (IPS)

In a move expected to deepen political reform, the quasi-civilian government in Myanmar (also known as Burma) is permitting the distribution of leaflets that will help thousands of people in the country’s ethnic enclaves learn to resist forced labour.

The leaflets offer residents in the ethnic minority areas a chance to raise the alarm with the International Labour Organisation (ILO) about the horrors they endure at the hands of government troops deployed in their areas.

The Shan ethnic minority is the first to benefit from this new measure, one among a growing list of reform policies – including freeing political prisoners, easing the iron grip on the media and permitting public campaigns by political dissidents – that President Thein Sein has ushered in during his first year in office.

The one-page, A-4-size sheets of paper that have been flowing from Yangon (also known as Rangoon), the former capital, to the Shan state since January has been hailed by the ILO for using the local Shan language – stepping away from the policy of previous military regimes to suppress ethnic languages.

Following the distribution of nearly 30,000 leaflets in the Shan state over the past two months, the ILO has set its sights on raising awareness about its “complaints mechanism for forced labour” in six other ethnic areas, where Burmese troops have been fighting separatist rebels.

“The government agreed this year for the production of the ILO’s awareness raising materials on the complaints mechanism for forced labour in other languages, including Karen, Kachin, Chin, Rakhine and Mon,” says Steve Marshall, the Geneva-based body’s representative in Myanmar.

“It is hoped that these will be available for distribution very shortly,” Marshal said.

“This dramatic change is clearly linked to the new government’s response to the issues ILO is raising, reflecting the change of leadership, philosophy and priorities of the government,” Marshall said in an interview in Bangkok.

But reaching this milestone has been tough. The ILO office in Rangoon began pushing the case following a March 2008 decision by the ILO governing body to raise the need for “the production of awareness raising materials on forced labour, explaining the agreed ILO complaints mechanism in the country.”

Then military strongman Senior Gen. Than Shwe permitted the brochures to be printed only in Burmese, the language of the country’s largest ethnic group and it It took two years of negotiations between the military regime and the ILO to “get agreement to the wording”.

Since its June 2010 distribution in the central region, which is home to majority ethnic Burmese in the country of 55 million people, the ILO noticed a steady increase in cases being lodged.

While a mere drop when compared with the scale of such human rights violations, the over 1,160 forced labour complaints that the ILO has received in the past four years offer a glimpse into who the victims are and the abuse they have been subjected to.

The majority of cases from the dominant Burmese side have been children forced to swell the ranks of the military, according to the ILO.

The few complaints of forced labour lodged by ethnic communities have ranged from villagers compelled by troops to help build public works, carry goods and ammunition for the Burmese army and clear land.

But, human rights groups have long accused the Burmese military of more violations in areas where battles with ethnic separatist groups have raged since 1949. They have included slave-like duties to clean military camps, build military structures and walking ahead of troops in terrain infested with landmines.

“Whether it is carrying supplies for the army, building their camps, standing sentry duty along roads or serving as vassals for under-supplied and poorly disciplined garrison battalions, the Burmese army as it currently stands is a burden to local communities,” says David Scott Mathieson, Burma consultant for Human Rights Watch (HRW), the New York-based global rights lobby.

Consequently, the plight of forced labour victims in the ethnic areas was not forgotten during the early round of peace talks that the country’s largest rebel groups – the Karen and the Shan – have had with the Thein Sein administration since late last year.

The Karen National Union (KNU) demanded an immediate end to “forced labour, arbitrary taxation and extortion of villagers” as the sixth item in an 11-point plan for peace talks with Burma’s railway minister, Aung Min, head of the government negotiating team.

“Fighting in the Karen area has resulted in a lot of forced labour, so we wanted it included in the early round of talks,” David Tharckbaw, KNU vice-president and head of the movement’s peace committee, said during a telephone interview from the Thai-Burma border. “They (the Burmese government) accepted these concerns in principle.”

But complaints have continued, given the presence of nearly 200 military camps in the Karen state, near the Thai border. “As of February 2012, forced labour was ongoing in five villages in the Tantabin township,” revealed the Karen Human Rights Group in a Mar. 12 field report.

A similar picture prevails in the Shan state. “Forced labour was discussed during the talks but never put on the agenda,” says Khuensai Jaiyen, editor of a Shan news agency and a member of the Shan negotiating team in talks with the government.

“It is time the Burmese army mends its ways to build up trust among local ethnic populations,” he explained during a telephone interview from northern Thailand. “They should end forced labour.”

The government’s nod to the ILO taps into such a prospect. “This initiative will be valuable support to ongoing ceasefire and peace talks,” says ILO’s Marshall.

Excerpt:

By Ángel Páez and - -
LIMA, Mar 15 2012 (IPS)

The armed forces of Peru have launched a campaign to rescue at least 50 children who are in the hands of the last surviving remnant of the Maoist Shining Path guerrillas.

Military pamphlet showing photos of children in the hands of Shining Path. Credit: Joint command of the armed forces

The rebel group is now only active in the Apurímac and Ene river valley region, an area known as VRAE, which stretches from the southern part of the country’s Andean highlands to the central Amazon jungle region.

The captured children are held in camps where they are indoctrinated and trained in the use of weapons, the authorities say.

Photos and video footage confiscated from captured Shining Path guerrillas reportedly show that dozens of children are being held by the group, including kidnapped local children from the region and the sons and daughters of “Senderistas”.

The armed adult combatants live in the same spot as the children, with the aim of warding off air attacks by the army’s Mi-17 gunship helicopters.

“They use the kids as human shields,” a high-ranking officer of the joint command, which is carrying out operations in the VRAE, told IPS. “They take them everywhere and make them participate in armed actions, as lookouts and messengers, and they even force them to kill off soldiers who are injured in the ambushes.

“If there is one reason the camps aren’t being bombed, it’s because of the presence of the children. They use them to protect themselves,” said the source, who asked to remain anonymous.

The joint command has managed to identify a number of the children, including several from the Ashaninka indigenous community, who live in Peru’s central jungle region.

Posters, leaflets and pamphlets with photos of the children held by the Senderistas have been distributed by the joint command throughout the entire 12,000-square-kilometre VRAE region, with the aim of raising awareness among the local population and persuading them to provide information that would help rescue the children.

Indoctrination, military training and the use of children in combat are part of the strategy followed by Shining Path since the start of the 1980-2000 armed conflict.

Quispe Palomino, the chief of the Shining Path remnant active in the VRAE, is himself the son of Martín Quispe Mendoza, a Sendero leader who was killed in fighting with government forces in 1991.

Martín Quispe made his sons Víctor, Jorge and Martín Maoist “pioneers”, and the three now head up the last remaining Sendero faction, since the Feb. 12 capture of the last of the original Shining Path leaders, Florindo Flores, who controlled the Huallaga Valley in the Amazon jungle in northern Peru.

“The worst massacre of campesinos (peasants) committed by the Senderistas was in Lucanamarca, Ayacucho on Apr. 3, 1983. They killed 69 people for opposing the armed struggle. One-quarter of the victims were children. ‘José’ was one of the attackers, and he was only 22 years old,” anti-terrorist prosecutor Julio Galindo told IPS.

“For Quispe, children are instruments of war. Part of his policy is for the Senderistas to have children in the camps, so they can receive instruction from a very young age,” he said.

“Víctor Quispe is reproducing his own personal experience. His father indoctrinated him and trained him in military tactics with the idea that he would continue the struggle, and now he is repeating the method with the children that he holds captive in the camps. He believes that some of those kids will stay in the armed struggle. It’s madness,” Galindo said.

In 2011, an army commando ambushed a Senderista camp and managed to rescue a young woman and her baby boy. The 19-year-old mother, whose identity has been kept secret for safety reasons, said she was kidnapped when she was just nine years old.

When she was older, she was forced to become the girlfriend of a Senderista fighter, who got her pregnant, she said.

María del Carmen Santiago, the head of the directorate of children and adolescents in the ministry for women and vulnerable populations, told IPS that the government had decided to take action with respect to the children held captive by the Senderistas in the VRAE region.

She said that in this case, Peru is acting as a signatory to the Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child on the involvement of children in armed conflict.

“The children who are rescued are given all the necessary care to help them recover from the extreme situation they have experienced,” said Santiago, explaining that the victims receive psychological treatment, education and healthcare.

In the VRAE region there are government centres run by the National Institute of Family Welfare, as well as municipal centres “that provide assistance to these minors who are at serious risk,” Santiago said.

Article four of the Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child specifically states that “Armed groups that are distinct from the armed forces of a State should not, under any circumstances, recruit or use in hostilities persons under the age of 18 years.”

“As a result, the State is obliged to make every effort to protect children who are exploited by an illegal organisation. These minors are violently subjected to a way of life that we reject,” said Santiago.

Galindo said that when the Senderista chiefs are brought to justice, they should not only be tried for terrorism but also for kidnapping children.

“I have seen the images of the children receiving lessons on Marx, Lenin and Mao, and then training with weapons,” he said.

“They teach them to hate and to kill. This should not happen in a civilised society. By doing this they are violating national laws and international regulations on protection of children,” he added.

On Jan. 23, 2010, the police captured Víctor Quispe Zaga, the oldest son of Víctor Quispe Palomino. He said he had escaped from a camp belonging to his father’s organisation.

The Sendero leader’s son agreed to cooperate with the legal system, to provide information on crimes that he had committed, as well as details that would help lead to the arrest of his accomplices.

He said that at the age of five he was sent to a Sendero camp to live with his father, where he grew up. He said he had received ideological indoctrination and military training, and was assigned to tasks as a combatant. He also confessed that he took part in several armed operations.

But when he found out that his father, “José”, had killed his mother, he escaped from the camp, where he said he had been living in horrible conditions. “I hate my father because he killed my mom,” he told the authorities.

“In those camps, the children are turned into little seeds of hatred,” said the high-ranking joint command officer.

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By Emmanuel Chaco and - -
KINSHASA, Mar 14 2012 (IPS)

The International Criminal Court delivered its first verdict Wednesday: Thomas Lubanga Dyilo was found guilty of recruiting children under the age of 15 to fight in a militia group in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo.

The ICC, based in the Hague, found that in his capacity as leader of both the UPC (Union of Congolese Patriots) and its military wing, the FPLC (Patriotic Force for the Liberation of the Congo), Lubanga caused children to take an active part in hostilities in the eastern DRC region of Ituri between September 2002 and August 2003, including using them as bodyguards for himself and other members of the two organisations.

Sentencing is yet to take place, but according to lawyers, Lubanga now faces 30 years in prison or a life sentence.

Franck Luetete, who represented several victims in the Lubanga case, told IPS, “In line with the provisions of article 76 of the Rome Statute (which established the ICC) and Lubanga’s own request, the Chamber will dedicate its next session to determining a sentence and compensation for victims.”

Raphaël Wakenge, the president of the Congolese Coalition for Transitional Justice (CCJT), a local non-governmental organisation which has offered support for victims during the lengthy court case, told IPS, “The coalition is delighted with this first decision, which is also instructive with regards to all crimes committed in DRC since the ICC began its work.

“Unfortunately,” Wakenge added, “victims of rape and sexual slavery, as well as other sex-related crimes committed by Lubanga and his militia, will feel frustrated, as these crimes were not included in this case by the ICC prosecutor.”

Faïda Sady is a human rights defender with an NGO called Espoir Pour Tous – “Hope for All” – based in the Irumu district of the Ituri region. “One of my older brothers refused to join the militia, and Lubanga’s fighters cut off both his arms – he died several months later. Two of my sisters were gang-raped repeatedly by militia members. One died from the assault.”

Sady says the verdict handed down does nothing for her or her family. “The victims in my family were not called (as witnesses) in this trial. But NGOs in Ituri will continue to press the ICC to open a second case against Lubanga for the crimes and victims who have not yet been taken into account,” she said.

“The impact of this verdict is very weak,” said Guy Mushiata, the Kinshasa-based legal officer for the International Centre for Transitional Justice, a U.S NGO. “The verdict itself is not definitive.”

Mushiata has closely followed the case and submitted several opinions to the ICC prosecutor’s office dealing with reparations for victims. “By itself, this decision will still not satisfy since it could still be struck down on appeal. And it is not, in itself, a conviction with which victims can be satisfied.”

Observing the decision, military prosecutors in DRC feel that the ICC verdict has only demonstrated the court’s ineffectiveness. One of these prosecutors, Penza Ishay, told IPS, “The enormous financial and material resources available to the ICC have still not enabled it to produce a verdict in a reasonable time.”

Lubanga was transferred to the Hague, in the Netherlands, on Mar. 17, 2006, following the execution of an arrest warrant issued by the International Criminal Court; the warrant followed on a request from Joseph Kabila, the president of the DRC, to the ICC prosecutor to carry out inquiries into grave violations of human rights in the country and to open cases where the court was competent.

Ishay said that the majority of cases of grave violations of human rights in Ituri would have already been dealt with if the same resources were given to the Congo’s own judicial system.

“The ICC is not well-regarded in Ituri,” the military prosecutor said. “Instead of delivering justice, it has tried to walk a tightrope between the two largest ethnic groups (Balendu and Bahema), pursuing charges against two people from each side, even though the seriousness of the crimes is not necessarily the same, and members of these groups are not the only perpetrators – nor the most culpable – when it comes to violations committed in Ituri.”

Major Innocent Mayembe, a Congolese military lawyer, says military courts are the most effective means to fight against impunity for serious human rights abuses. “Many victims of these violations have had the moral satisfaction of seeing their aggressors convicted on the ground in Ituri where they once felt themselves to be untouchable.”

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By Edgardo Ayala and - -
SAN SALVADOR, Mar 13 2012 (IPS)

Wilber Geovany Hernández was gunned down as he left his night classes at a school in the capital of El Salvador. He was the 11th murder victim among the country’s schoolchildren since the school year began on Jan. 23.

Hernández, 18, was in ninth grade at a public school in the northern Mejicanos neighbourhood. He died instantly when he was shot Feb. 29 at the school doors.

The escalating violence in El Salvador has not spared the country’s schools, where students and teachers are victims of extortion, muggings and murder.

The violence impinges on the students’ learning process, has serious consequences in their personal lives and disrupts social development in the country, where there is a high dropout rate in basic education, experts say.

The dropout rate is as high as 20 percent in the schools most heavily affected by the violence, according to figures from the Union of Schoolteachers with Community Participation (SIMEDUCO).

In El Salvador, some two million students attend 5,000 public schools, of which 340 are classified as dangerous, while 161 of these are additionally considered high risk, because of the violence within and around them.

El Salvador, a country of 6.1 million people, has one of the lowest school attendance rates in Latin America, according to multilateral organisations. There are nine grades of basic education, which is free, compulsory and normally attended between the ages of seven and 15. The first six grades are primary education, followed by three grades of middle school.

“Children and young people are trying to learn in a very inappropriate environment, in a climate of fear and repression,” Felipe Rivas, vice president of the Central American Educational Innovation Foundation (FIECA), told IPS.

In addition to the lack of resources for improving education typical of a poor country, the effects of crime and violence must also be addressed.

The country’s overall illiteracy rate is 10 percent, but in rural areas it reaches 22 percent, according to the 2010 Multipurpose Household Survey.

The Education Ministry has set itself the goal of reducing the national illiteracy rate to four percent by 2014, a target that experts view as difficult to achieve, partly because of the impact of violence on the student community.

The preschool attendance rate for four-year-olds is 32.7 percent, and on average Salvadorans only complete six years of formal schooling, according to the 2010 survey.

“The underlying issue is that the learning process has been disrupted by the problem of violence,” said Rivas.

Last year, 139 school students and six teachers were murdered, most of them in the vicinity of the schools they attended or worked in, which were mainly public schools.

A total of 4,374 homicides were reported in El Salvador in 2011. This works out to a murder rate of 70 per 100,000 population, one of the highest in the world according to several international studies, and much higher than the average homicide rate for Latin America, itself a high figure at about 30 per 100,000 population.

Some of this violence is caused by the estimated 29,000 members of the country’s two main criminal gangs, known as “maras”: Mara Salvatrucha and Barrio 18.

The local press has reported efforts by the gangs to recruit children and teenagers from schools in the most violent areas, to draw them into drug trafficking and other crimes.

“Drug trafficking and drug consumption already occur in schools; we have even seen parents use their children to sell drugs,” Manuel Molina, general secretary of SIMEDUCO, told IPS.

The authorities acknowledge that violence has invaded the educational community as part of the maelstrom of violence in the country, but they dismiss the idea that gang members and criminals are purposely targeting students and schools.

Meanwhile, the National Civilian Police (PNC) deployed 560 officers to patrol the 161 high risk schools, as part of a government plan to prevent the deaths of students.

In March 2010, the PNC and the Education Ministry signed an agreement for a prevention and protection plan in schools which attempts to address the problem in an integral manner and includes violence prevention activities such as sports and arts.

“Some efforts have been made at the government level, but the issue is complex and it appears to us that the plans have not worked and the situation is getting worse,” Molina said.

Education Ministry officials did not accede to IPS’s request for an interview on the subject.

Some of the measures adopted by police, like searching students for weapons and drugs on their way into school buildings, have been criticised because of the potential for officers to abuse their power and even violate human rights.

Another action that has drawn criticism is sending groups of basic education students to the country’s prisons, so that they can see at first hand how the inmates live and what may be in store for them if they enter a life of crime.

The head of police, Francisco Salinas, admitted to the congressional Education Commission Feb. 29 that the visits were a mistake and were not part of the protection agreement. “We accept responsibility. It was an error,” he told lawmakers.

Teachers are also victims of violence, facing extortion by gang members who threaten to kill them unless they make “protection payments”. At several schools there is reportedly a set rate: 100 dollars a month for the principal and 50 dollars for every teacher.

This has led many teachers to leave their posts and ask for a transfer to safer areas. But transfers are delayed by red tape.

In 2011, 362 teachers requested transfers for safety reasons, according to SIMEDUCO, but only 78 percent of them were transferred.

The actual number of extortion victims could be substantially higher because some people do not complain and just pay up, in fear of their lives.

Under pressure from teachers, Congress approved transitory decree 499 in 2011, which fast-tracked transfers for teachers forced to make protection payments. The decree lapsed in November. Now the teaching profession is calling for Congress to renew the decree for three more years.

But the problem will persist, because the replacement teachers will also be threatened. “The problem will not be solved by transfers, because the teacher who takes over will also be subject to extortion,” Rivas said.

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By IPS Correspondents and - -
JERUSALEM, Mar 10 2012 (IPS)

For Taiseer Khatib and his wife Lana, the most difficult aspect of Israel’s policy of forced family separation is the impact it is having on their children. “Our children are paying the price psychologically. We are trying to protect them, but they have a good sense of what’s going on and they understand that there’s something wrong,” Khatib, who has two children under the age of five, Adnan and Yosra, tells IPS.

The Khatib family, apparently happily together. Credit: Avigail Piperno/IPS.

Khatib is a Palestinian citizen of Israel who was raised and lives in Akka, in northern Israel. His wife, Lana, is originally from Jenin and has a West Bank-only ID.

The couple met in 2002 in Jenin, while Khatib was doing research into the Israeli incursion into the Jenin refugee camp during the Second Intifadah. Shortly thereafter, the couple decided to get married.

But an Israeli law was in place that prevents Palestinian citizens of Israel from applying for permits to allow their spouses to enter and reside in Israel for the purpose of family unification.

Known as the Citizenship and Entry into Israel Law, it severely restricts the ability of Palestinian citizens of Israel from living with their spouses if they are residents of the occupied Palestinian territories, or of so- called “enemy states” (Syria, Lebanon, Iran and Iraq).

“We knew about that but we were not willing to let any state interfere in our business, our very private business,” Khatib, a PhD student at Haifa University, says.

He says that to attend her own marriage ceremony in Akka, Lana had to get a permit to enter Israel. “We had the wedding and the next day, because she had no permission, she was forced to go back to Jenin.”

Since that time, Lana has applied for, and been granted, one-year permits to remain in Israel and live with her family in Akka. But the family remains in a state of uncertainty, since the permit doesn’t give Lana basic rights in Israel, and can be revoked at any time.

“It gives her only the possibility to stay with her husband, without security services like health insurance, without being able to drive although she has a driving licence, without being able to work although she has a bachelor’s degree from Al-Najah University in Nablus,” Khatib tells IPS. “This permit became to Lana (like) a prison.”

On Jan. 11 of this year, the Israeli Supreme Court rejected a petition challenging Israel’s Citizenship and Entry into Israel law. In its ruling, the court found that even if the law harmed the constitutional rights of citizens of Israel, this breach of rights was proportional and did not violate what are called the Basic Laws.

“There is of course no doubt that the immediate effect and impact of this law is major and crucial and humanitarian because it leads to the forced separation of thousands of families,” Sawsan Zaher, an attorney at Adalah, the Legal Centre for Arab Minority Rights in Israel, tells IPS.

“It’s very problematic because the basis of this law is that it sees every Palestinian as a security threat to Israel, and doesn’t provide even the child or the spouse the ability to contradict this presumption.”

It is estimated that thousands of Palestinians are affected by Israel’s policy of forced family separation. A new website called Love Under Apartheid documents some of these cases through video testimonies.

In one video, Jerusalem-ID holder Nehad, whose name has been changed, describes how she with her children was forced to move from Jerusalem to the Kufr Aqab, on the West Bank side of Israel’s separation wall, in order to live with her husband, who holds a West Bank-only ID.

“In the 15 years we’ve been married, he has not been able to get a permit,” she says in the video. “So we were forced to find a place that we can live together.”

Israel justifies its ban on family unification on the basis of security. According to Israeli government data, however, of the more than 130,000 Palestinians that entered Israel for the purpose of family unification between 1994 and 2008, only 54 were involved in some way in acts of terror against the State, and only seven of these were indicted.

“When you are talking especially about equality, which even under international law is an unalienable right, there is no (such thing as) proportionate discrimination. Either you have discrimination or you don’t have discrimination,” Zaher adds. “I see (this law) as part of a demographic policy which tries to preserve a majority of Jews inside Israel in order to not put the Jewishness of the state under risk.”

According to Taiseer Khatib, this focus on maintaining a Jewish majority in Israel is indeed a major factor in why the Citizenship and Entry into Israel Law is maintained.

“This law is meant to silence the Palestinian people and just make them fear and make them feel that they are not part of the land. Israel is asking the Palestinians to declare that Israel is a Jewish state. And in a sense, Jewish state means that we, Palestinians citizens of Israel, may find ourselves in the future having no possibility to stay here in our land.”

Despite these challenges, Khatib says that he and his family would stay in Akka and continue to fight for the basic right to live together. “As a human being, this is my natural right to establish a family with (the person) I love.

“I have the opportunity to take my wife and take my children and go abroad. But I’m not leaving. I’m fighting until the end and I need the support of everyone who feels that this injustice must stop. We are talking about human beings and children who are the first victims of these racist laws.”

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