Tsunamis give nightmares to child survivors

Agence France-Presse

Penang (Malaysia), December 30

KILLER TSUNAMIS are coming again, over and over, in the night - mares of children who survived the waves, which swept them from their homes or picnics on Malaysia's Penang island.

Rahibah Osman's 11 year old son, Mohamad Fikri Rahim, who was caught by ferocious waves "as high as coconut trees and blackened with mud." has troubled dreams in penang General Hospital. He cries in his sleep and shouts "No,no!", his mother 49, said. "I don't know what he's talking about, but when I ask him, he starts to cry,” she said.

Mohamad Fikri was playing with his 13-year-old sister outside their home about a kilometre away from the beachfront when massive tidal waves struck their village.

"I heard the loud thundering roar of what I thought was the engine of an airplane," Rahibah said.

Within seconds, huge black waves engulfed her house and her two children disappeared. Her daughter had been swept into a neighbouring house and Rahibnah Managed a grab a pole. Boats were hurled into houses. Mohamad Fikri was nowhere to be seen.

"When the waves died down, his cousin went into the water to search for him and managed to find him. He was covered in mud, even his mouth was full of mud,"she said.

Mohamad Fikri was rushed to hospital and revived but the night-marish experience has changed him, she said.

"My son used to be a cheerful boy, but now he is quiet and reserved. He has lost his appetite. I pray he will recover quickly and that he has not lost his memory, because he is taking time to answer questions. I do not know what the future holds for us, whether it is dark or bright, but what is most important is that my kids are alive, unlike other parents who have lost their children in the disaster."

Two year old Mohamad Ashraf also survived the deadly waves which killed more than 1.2 lakh across Asia that Sunday and he is also showing signs of the trauma in penang hospital. His father, Mohamad Rozi, 44, had decided to take his wife and five children to one of penang's popular picnic areas known as "Miami beach".

"The weather was fine and the sun was shining." he said, and they all sat down for a traditional Malay meal of "nasi lemak" or rice cooked in coconut milk.

"All of a sudden I saw a white line on the horizon. We were mesmerised by the white line as we stood and watched it."

Within seconds, enormous waves engulfed him and his family.

"We tried to escape but the high slopes to the road made it difficult. My legs were stuck under the roots of a tree. The water and sand were pounding me fast and hard. I just closed my eyes,” he said.

"My son was lost in the water for a while. When the waves subsided, we found him lying on the beach, face upwards," Mohamad Rozi said.

"Water was coming out from his nose. I pressed his stomach and water came out from his mouth. I managed to resuscitate him and carried him to higher ground."

"I was in the water for five minutes. I thought of God and asked him to give me strength and to save my family. I never learnt how to save a drowning child, but all of it just came to me."

Source: Hindustan Times Next December 31, 2004
Website: www.htnext.com

Parties give written word to ‘Children as peace zone’ drive

Last Updated: 07:00 AM NST Kathmandu - December 31, 2004 - Poush 16, 2061

Nepal Sambat 1125 - Thinlathwo Panchami – Friday

By Our Correspondent

KATHMANDU, Dec. 30: Leaders of different political parties have expressed written commitment to the campaign “Children as Peace Zone”. They have also called on the government and civil society to be serious on the issue.

Representatives of seven political parties and the High-Level Peace Committee signed a document Wednesday prepared by the Child Workers in Nepal Concern Centre (CWIN) at a programme on the ‘Role of Political Parties to Protect the Children in the Period of Conflict’.

The commitments include not carrying out any political activities in schools by respecting the right to education of the children, helping schools to make them a peace zone, and assisting in educational activities.

The parties have also called on both the government and the Maoists to approve and adopt the UN Convention on Child Rights and its optional protocol.

Speaking at the programme organised by CWIN, Subash Nembang, central member of the CPN-UML, said that if the Maoists must carry out their activities, they should do so without affecting women, children and innocent people. The commitments toward children must be put into practice.
He said that killing people would not solve the problem. Saying those who believe in the power of the gun cannot build a nation, Nembang said peace talks was the only solution to the country’s problem.
Narahari Acharya, central member of the Nepali Congress, said that children have to be protected both mentally and physically against violence. He accused both the government and the Maoists of using schools in their armed activities.

He said that we could expect legal and humanitarian principles from the government but not from the Maoists.

Dr. Minendra Rijal, spokesmen of the Nepali Congress (Democratic), said that the political parties may have their own agenda, but the children must not suffer as a result of their activities.

Bhim Rawal, member of the High-Level Peace Committee, said that we could not come out of the conflict without transforming the armed conflict. He said that the government would provide health and education services to those children, who have become victims of the conflict, and rehabilitate them.

President of CWIN Gauri Pradhan said that people who were not related to the conflict have been suffering. He said that political parties should also commit to respect international humanitarian law and human rights. He said that the commitment shown by of the political parties would bring major and positive changes.

Others who also spoke on their party’s views were spokesperson of the Rastriya Prajatantra Party Roshan Karki, general secretary of the Nepal Sadbhavana Party Amrita Agrahari, central member of Janamorcha Nepal Keshav Nepal, general secretary of the Nepal Sadbhavana Party (Anandi Devi) and central member of the Nepali Congress Sunil Bhandari.

Source: http://www.gorkhapatra.org.np/pageloader.php?file=2004/12/31/topstories/main9

Centres for street children demanded

Friday December 31 2004 07:58:21 AM BDT

The official of INCIDIN, an NGO on child rights, Thursday urged the government, media and civil society to work together to establish centres for the street children exposed to exploitation to ensure their safe night and protect them from sexual abuse, reports BSS.

The centres must have the facilities of psychological counseling, they said. The officials also demanded to broaden the access of the street children to the government and NGO child development programmes.

The officials also urged them to ensure drug-free childhood to the street children. They made the call at a press conference at the Reporters Unity auditorium here.A study of the INCIDIN Bangladesh in 2003 revealed that 55 percent of the street boys and 58 percent of the girls are dragged into drug addiction. And they are engaged in prostitution, the INCIDIN officials said.

The leaders also praised the Government Plan of Action and the anti-trafficking move saying these would go a long way for the wellbeing of the street children.

Source:http://www.bangladesh-web.com/news/view.php?hidDate=2004-12-31&hidType=NAT&hidRecord=0000000000000000031079

5000 children working as unskilled laborers in Region 12

Allen V. Estabillo / Mindanews / 29 December 2004

GENERAL SANTOS CITY -- At least 5,000 children in Region 12 are currently employed as unskilled laborers as poverty continues to keep most of them out of school, the Regional Development Council (RDC) said.

South Cotabato Gov. and RDC chair Daisy Avance-Fuentes cited in the region's 2004 State of Children Report that as of November this year, some 5,436 working children were documented in the region's four provinces and five cities.

She said around 44.4 percent of the working children are concentrated in the cities while the rest are scattered in rural communities. She said 3,188 or 59.6 percent of them are males.

"Majority of the working children are engaged as laborers or unskilled workers, shop or market sales workers, forestry workers, fishermen, jeepney conductors, trisikad drivers and terminal vendors," she said.

The governor said this city registered the highest number of documented working children with 1,854, mostly working in farms or in the fishing industry.

It may be recalled that earlier this year, authorities confirmed that several children aged 10 to 16 from the area were employed by some vessels operating in the high seas.

Fuentes said the high incidence of working children could be attributed to the slight decrease in the percentage of children who are in school.

Citing data provided by the Department of Education in Region 12, the governor said the enrolment rate in the elementary level dropped from 78.56 percent in 2002-2003 to 76.92 percent in 2003-2004.
In the secondary level, the rate increased from 43.39 to 43.62 percent, but she said it was hampered by the number of dropouts.

She said that for the school year 2003-2004 at least eight percent of high school students dropped out before finishing their year levels.

For the elementary level, the dropout rate was 3 percent.

On the survival rate, Fuentes said that for every 10 children in Region 12 who enter Grade 1, only five reached Grade 6. In the secondary level, for every 10 first year enrollees, only five also reach fourth year.

Owing to this situation, Fuentes said the RDC is focusing on addressing the basic needs of children as part of the region's development plans.

Based on the RDC's strategic actions and "agenda for action and future directions," she said they will continue the advocacy and community organizing initiatives focusing on child rights and child-friendly interventions such as on health and nutrition, environmental health, reproductive health, parent effectiveness, child participation and setting up of child-friendly school systems.

She said the RDC will mobilize the support of the community and non-government organizations in the implementation of such programs.

"We will strengthen community organizing and alliance to elicit stronger support for program implementation and to institutionalize community empowerment approaches," she said.

In terms of the delivery of social services, Fuentes said they will focus on the provision of efficient maternal and child health care, nutrition and reproductive health.

She added they will also provide teaching and learning materials and facilities such as instructional classrooms in every school especially in the barangays as well as sufficient teachers.

Source: http://www.mindanews.com/2004/12/29nws-children.html

Looking at child labour through a positive lens

Wednesday, Dec 29, 2004

ABOUT 10 years ago, for young Aatma Ram, childhood meant making carpets for a measly sum of about Rs. 200 a month. But now he has a dream. With an engineering diploma in his hand, he hopes to bring about many changes in his village. Intervention by a non-government organisation has not only changed the life of Aatma Ram but also of other children in his village who have a new role model.

Child labour may be a widespread malaise in our society, but attempting to examine the changing scenario is this 30-minute documentary titled "Rebuilding the Playground" that looks at the role of the government and initiatives of the people to eradicate the social evil. Capturing success stories, government campaigns and struggle at the grassroots levels, the film does not ignore the reality of the evil but looks at the situation through a positive lens. However, with practically no statistics, the film fails to give a holistic picture of the real situation.

"We are not trying to say that child labour does not exist in the county. It is a reality and we are not attempting to brush it under the carpet. But the Government has made a lot of efforts to sensitise society against child labour. There is a lot of initiative in the education sector with the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan and other programmes. There is a difference on the ground," insists the film-maker, Anu Radha.

Shot over a period of two months, the film examines the situation in several States -- Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Himachal Pradesh. Starting with Kerala, with almost 100 per cent literacy and near eradication of child labour, the film travels through Mirzapur in Uttar Pradesh and the gem-cutting industry in Rajasthan, ending with a small village in Himachal Pradesh where community intervention rather than government assistance has kept a check on child labour.

A project of the External Publicity Division of the Ministry of External Affairs, the film will be dubbed in German, French and several other languages to reach out to the international audience, in particular the trading community. There are plans to screen the documentary on various channels as well.

"There is a lot of misconception about the extent of child labour in the country. Especially among the Western countries. But there is a lot of difference on the ground in recent years. And we need to portray that. For example, in the carpet manufacturing units in Uttar Pradesh, there is practically no child labour today," claims Anu Radha.

By Anjali Dhal Samanta

Source: http://www.hindu.com/lf/2004/12/29/stories/2004122900710200.htm

Nigerian police nab 2 Benin women for child trafficking

Luanda - Thursday, December 30, 2004 - 7:24:51 AM

Abeokuta, Nigeria (PANA) - Two Benin women suspected of trafficking in humans have been arrested in a Nigerian border town while ferrying 24 children from Nigeria to Benin, according to the police command of the southwest Ogun state.

State police spokesman Felix Ogundeji told journalists in the State capital Abeokuta Monday that a vehicle in which the women and the children aged 5-22 were travelling was intercepted by the police.

Parading the suspects, identified as Kemi Sesi and Bose Boyan, the police spokesman said the children (8 boys and 16 girls) were travelling home for Christmas and New Year holidays after being forced to work as domestic servants in Nigeria for the past year on a monthly stipend of between 2,500 naira (18 dollars) and 7,000 naira (52 dollars) each. Ogundeji said the women confessed to their involvement in human trafficking.

He said the victims and their belongings would be handed over to the Women Trafficking and Child Labour Eradication Foundation (WOTCLEF), an NGO established by the wife of Nigeria`s Vice President, Titi Abubakar to combat human trafficking. The suspects are expected to be charged to court soon.
Source: http://www.angolapress-angop.ao/noticia-e.asp?ID=307834

Gold tempts children in Nicaragua to risk lives

Hundreds of youngsters toil in dangerous conditions to eke out living

2004-12-27 / Reuters / By Ivan Castro

In a dim and dangerous tunnel lit only by the flicker of candles, Juan Laguna and four other children toil with rusty pick-axes to loosen chunks of rock they hope will yield at least a little bit of gold.

Laguna then undertakes the arduous process of milling and washing the ore. If it is a good day, it will give him enough gold to sell for about US$3. But he is not always lucky.

"Not every day goes well," said Laguna, who is 12 but has the slight build of a child half his age.

Working with hundreds of other youngsters, Laguna has spent five years scratching the walls of tunnels in the La India mining district, more than 160 kilometers west of Nicaragua's capital Managua.

An important gold producer decades ago, La India has for the most part been abandoned because it now yields only low-grade ore, although some foreign and local mining companies continue to explore the area.

Rocks chipped from the walls of old exploration tunnels and from random holes dug by treasure seekers provide the bare hope of a livelihood to local families in this isolated area of Nicaragua, one of the poorest countries in the hemisphere.

Hundreds of people from surrounding communities work a portion of the mining district, where the landscape is marked by century-old mine shafts as well as 30-year-old excavations.

Nearly 400 children work down the shafts and potholes, according to the International Labor organization and Nicaragua's National Commission for the Eradication of child labour.

Child miners suffer malnutrition and dehydration, kidney diseases, gashes and serious accidents in the scorching, gas-filled tunnels.

"The work in these primitive mines is incredibly dangerous," said Bertha Guerra, who heads the International Labor organization's program to end child labour.

"In this country, some children go 30 meters below ground to get rocks that may contain gold," she said.

About 140,000 children aged five to 14 have to work for a living in Nicaragua, and more than 27,000 are nine or younger.

Like their counterparts who cut sugar cane in El Salvador, salvage rusty steel bars from the ruins left by Venezuelan landslides, or sell sweets at stoplights in capitals across Latin America, these children often forgo school and risk life and limb to help feed their families.

Poverty

About 44 percent of Latin Americans cannot afford to meet basic food needs, a statistic that has barely changed in 20 years. Experts say child labour breeds poverty, as children fail to get education and other tools needed to break the cycle.

"Families often say they send their children to work because they are poor, but these children will end up even poorer because as child labour has its roots in poverty, it also makes poverty worse," Guerra said.

With a per capita income of just US$700, Nicaragua is one of the poorest countries in Latin America. About 70 percent of its five million people live in poverty.

Enrique Urrutia is only 17 but his thin body and calloused hands bear witness to the 10 years he has spent mining gold "to buy food and clothes and to help in the house."

Urrutia and three friends meet early in the morning in their village and walk two hours to the mines, returning home exhausted as darkness falls with their loads of stone.

"I come every other day," said his friend Junior Calderon, 12, although he added he mines only when he has no classes.

The incentive to find gold is not surprising given that its price on international markets recently hit 16-year highs of nearly US$460 an ounce.

These miners receive only a fraction of that, but they have precious few options.

"For people who only have their physical strength to work with, it is an attractive thing, particularly when the gold price goes up," said one official from a multinational company exploring in the district.

Source: http://www.etaiwannews.com/Perspective/2004/12/27/1104112977.htm

40pc increase in child labour in 2004

Monday, December 27, 2004

ISLAMABAD: The number of child labourers, the cheapest form of work force in Pakistan, has risen to eight million, according to a study by a non-government organisation. The report released on Saturday said that due to the rising inflation and poverty child labour had increased by 40 percent in 2004 only. The report says 68 percent of child labourers are working in workshops and 32 percent at hotels and brick kilns. Poverty is the major reason for child labour and from the age of five years these labourers are available as cheap work force. Around 60 percent of these children are helping their elders in raising a family of five to ten members. Most of these child labourers have to work for 11 to 18 hours a day. The study revealed that 72 percent employers of these children took good care of them, while the attitude of 20 percent employers is harassing. More than eight percent of child labourers fall prey to sexual abuse. When interviewed, 88 percent of children expressed satisfaction with their work whereas 12 percent wanted to shed off the label of child labour and expressed the desire to go to school.

Source:http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=story_26-12-2004_pg7_9

Social activist faces threats from circus owner

Aman Sharma

Lucknow, December 22: THIS June the activists of the Bachhpan Bachao Andolan (BBA), along with mediapersons had risked being shot while rescuing minor nepalese girls from New Roman circus in Gonda. Now, the man who led the operation is under threat, as the main accused and owner of the circus Mohammad Raza Khan is finally out on bail after spending two months behind bars.

The Lucknow police, after much deliberation, have lodged an FIR today on the complaint of the BBA’s district president Ramakant Sahai, on charges of threatening with life and trespassing. The FIR reads that unidentified armed persons forced themselves into the NGOs Indiranagar office on December 20, while he was away on some errand.

Though a complaint regarding the same was submitted by Sahai to the Ghazipur police officials on Tuesday, the FIR was lodged only after IG (Lucknow Zone) Sulkhan Singh gave a strong tongue-lashing to the concerned officials today for delaying action. The IG has also directed Lucknow SSP Navneet Sikera to arrange for proper security to Sahai.

Sahai alleged that it was Mohammad Raza Khan who had masterminded the invasion. Khan happens to be the same person who had pulled out a gun threatening the NGO and media officials in the presence of the Gonda SDM at the time of the raid. Sahai said he had been constantly facing threats from circus owner Raza after the latter was released on bail a month back.

Sahai added that some armed men in two green and black Scorpios had came looking for him two days back and threatened an activist of the NGO to warn Sahai to ‘mend his ways’.

Sahai claimed these were the same vehicles in which the circus officials had escaped with some of the nepalese girls from Gonda, after the NGO along with media-persons conducted a raid at the circus in June.

Five separate cases are pending in the matter under the provisions of bonded and child labour against the circus owners on the NGO’s complaint and initiation.

A 13-year-old nepalese girl had also been produced before the National Human Rights Commission saying she had been raped by the circus owner on which a case of rape was lodged, that is pending at the court of Chief Judicial Magistrate, Gonda.

The NGO had succeeded in securing the release of 29 nepalese minor girls from the circus and sent them back to their homes in Nepal with High Court’s intervention in the matter.

Source: http://cities.expressindia.com/fullstory.php?newsid=111438

Chad: Children Sold Into Slavery for the Price of a Calf