War Increasingly Spills Over into Classrooms

The most pressing global challenge to children's rights may be the increasing number of military attacks on schools in war zones, according to a Human Rights Watch report released Wednesday.

‘Forgotten Australians’ Demand More Than Apologies

Laurie Humphreys was on the first ship after World War II that brought 150 British boys and girls, aged five to 14 years, to Australia in 1947. At 13, he was promised oranges and sunshine and an adventurous holiday, but reality was different.

MIDEAST: Palestinians Won’t Learn Israeli Lessons

Widespread strikes across Palestinian civil society could be in store for East Jerusalem at the start of the next school year, as the municipality moves ahead with its current plan to implement an Israeli curriculum in Palestinian schools.

JAPAN: Aftershocks Hit Single Fathers

In a matter of minutes on Mar. 11, 33-year-old Hiroshi Yoshida became a widower and a single father, as the massive tsunami swept over his home in Rikuzentakata in northern Japan and took away his wife and younger son.

GUATEMALA: Child Abuse Starts at Home

Joshua Kotouc, a doctor from the U.S., came with a group of missionaries to San Miguel Chicaj, a small town in the mountainous province of Baja Verapaz in northern Guatemalan, in 2006. "El Gringo", as he is known in the community, decided to stay on out of "altruistic" motives.

SRI LANKA: No Cricket for This Tendulkar

His father named him after the famous Indian cricket star Sachin Tendulkar, one of the best sportsmen of his generation. But little Sachin Tendulkar from the northern Sri Lankan town of Vavuniya harbours no ambition of following in the footsteps of his illustrious namesake.

MIDEAST: Children Find an Island of Near Normalcy

It is a warm spring day as citizens go about their business. Colourful bougainvilleas climb the building housing the Yaffa Community Centre (YCC). Inside the centre’s kindergarten children play while older students attend a class at the media centre. A group of foreigners is touring the attractively decorated building and getting a brief introduction to its history.

PAKISTAN: War Breeds Child Workers

He should be inside a classroom but instead Jawad Ali spends his days selling sandals on the sidewalks of Khyber Bazaar in the city of Peshawar in northwest Pakistan. "I want to be in school, but it’s not possible now," said 11-year-old Ali.

EDUCATION-CHILE: Unequal System Under Fire

"Today we need structural changes; we need to move towards a new model of education in Chile and to sit down to talks that include all of the concerned parties," said Camila Vallejo, one of the leaders of the student movement that has the right-wing government of Sebastián Piñera up against the wall.

BRAZIL: Rainbow of Colours and Gender Equality at Innovative School

In the last three years there have been no teen pregnancies among the youngsters at Casa do Zezinho, an extracurricular educational and cultural facility in Brazil attended by 1,500 children and young people from favelas or shantytowns on the south side of São Paulo.

EL SALVADOR: Military Service Plan for At-Risk Youth Raises Controversy

Activists and experts on education flatly reject a proposal by the leftwing government of Mauricio Funes to bring back compulsory military service, for young people at risk of being recruited by youth gangs and organised crime.

UNICEF Leads ‘Back to School’ Initiative in Cote d’Ivoire

When the five-month-old political standoff in Cote d'Ivoire came to an end in early April, the strife-torn West African nation was expected to return to normal - later than sooner.

BANGLADESH: Child Smugglers Risk Life for a Few Dollars

Thirteen-year-old Jamal is a Bangladeshi bootlegger who carries goods from Haridaspur town in the Indian state of West Bengal to the border district of Jessore in southwest Bangladesh, playing cat-and-mouse with Indian frontier guards every day.

Q&A: Re-Electing Fernandez ‘Would Consolidate the Country Our Children Wanted’

A second term for Argentine President Cristina Fernández would make it possible to continue ushering in the changes "we want and that our children wanted" when they were forcibly disappeared or murdered during the 1976-1983 dictatorship, said longtime human rights champion Estela de Carlotto.

Building Vaccines for the “Bottom Billion”

As the world marks 30 years since HIV/AIDS was first identified, vaccine researcher Dr. Peter Hotez hopes intervention programmes can begin to incorporate treatment for some lesser-known ailments called neglected tropical diseases, or NTDs.

U.N. Political Body Digresses into “Non-Security” Issues

When the U.N. Security Council, the only political body empowered to declare war and peace, decided to include climate change on its agenda back in 2007, the 131-member Group of 77 (G77) launched a vociferous protest.

Corporate Influence Clouds Vaccine Pledging Conference

Between 2011 and 2012, 6.4 million children could die of preventable diseases, a number greater than the total population of Denmark or Norway.

PAKISTAN: Women Shield Children From Extremism

When Farah’s 16-year-old son began to disappear for several nights a week without saying where he went, she was naturally worried. After he returned one day and shattered the television screen in their Peshawar home, the mother of three decided it was time to quit her job as a teacher and to find out what was making her youngest child so angry.

INDIA: A School of Hope for Nomad Children

High up in the Himalayan mountains, 13-year-old Mohammad Junaid helps his family collect fresh fodder for their buffaloes, all the while dreaming of the day he could once again play cricket.

As Britain Sees a Needy Child

The British Home Office has ruled that a severely disabled five-year-old girl should be returned to Algeria. The ruling demonstrates just how tough some European governments are getting on immigration.

SENEGAL: Making Hand Washing Easy

Think hand washing can't be fun? Think again. In Senegal, a unique water system offers people an easy, cheap and environmentally friendly way to wash their hands frequently, reducing the spread of hand-borne transmittable diseases.