When the 14-year civil war in Liberia came to an end in 2003, it seemed that the country could begin the road to recovery, slowly but surely. Despite the economic improvements made, women and girls have continued to be victims of rape at alarming rates.
During the war, children and adults used rape against women to instill fear, cause further destruction and assert superiority. When the war ended, the rape in Liberia continued, pointing to the deep-seated traumatic effects the war left in its wake.
Nicola Jones, a researcher at Overseas Development Institute (ODI), a London based think-tank, explains, “After the war, men are often aggressive, ‘hyper-masculine’ and struggle to adapt to peacetime.” Essentially, after over a decade of being stripped of the basic necessities for survival, men are often overwhelmed with a feeling of helplessness, and raping women and girls is a means of reasserting their masculinity.
The statistics reflect this observation, with 1,002 rape cases reported in 2013 concerning children between the ages of 3 and 14. However, there were only 49 rape convictions, pointing to yet another problem.
Given the stigma around rape worldwide, much of the rape in Liberia goes unpunished when women don’t come forward or the justice system neglects to arrest the accused rapists. The U.S. takes some of the blame for this stigma, often making rape a societal taboo, which as a result, makes women reluctant to come forward and report what happened to them.
Gbowee, an international speaker, activist and Nobel Peace Prize winner, commented on America’s lack of action, explaining that “when American women are silent on issues of women’s rights, that attitude permeates the developing world.” When the U.S. sets an example of punishing rapists and accepting women who have been attacked, developing countries may follow suit and see a decline in cases in the near future.
There has been improvement, however, in the number of women and girls who go to the police with reports of rape. Annie Jones Demen, Liberia’s Gender Affairs minister, notes, “We now have more reports on sexual and gender-based violence. Survivors of sexual violence now feel safe to come out to say they were raped.” Since 2006, reports of rape in Liberia have become more common, and as acceptance has become more widespread, more women have seen justice served on their behalf.
The impoverished state of Liberia contributes to the lack of punishment for rapists, with a dearth of facilities to treat those who have been raped. Monrovia, in western Liberia, has the only hospital dedicated to treating rape victims, often receiving between 10 and 15 rape victims every month.
The end of a war brings hope for a brighter future, but in the case of Liberia, the rape problem has remained stronger than ever. Thousands of women every year are raped and left to recover on their own, contributing to a culture that displays complacency in response to the high numbers of rape. The U.S. can lend a hand on the road to justice, as can the media, and aid given to develop Liberia at a faster pace could put rape culture behind them.
— Magdalen Wagner
Sources: Malay Mail, IRIN, Trust, Global Post
Photo: flickr
Underwater Gold Mining Threatens Filipinos
Investigations spanning from the beginning of the year have surfaced a unique gold mining practice in the Philippines. However, the nature of the dangerous work has raised concerns over the lack of labor regulations and the safety of the workers, especially since children are involved.
The people of the coastal province of Camarines Norte, about 200 miles southeast of Manila, are practicing an underwater mining technique called “compressor mining.” It involves teams of miners who dig holes in shallow bay water to dig and sift for deposits of gold trapped in ore. One team member is the digger and spends two to three hours at a time below the surface of the murky water, handing buckets of mud up to another team member.
The buckets are then passed back to the final members who mix in mercury so that the gold will bind to it. Once they’ve maximized the gold-to-mercury ratio in the mixture, they squeeze it out so that it solidifies into an amalgam lump. The final step is to take a blowtorch to the lump so that the mercury evaporates, leaving gold to be collected.
The technique is called compressor mining because the worker under water breathes through a tube connected to a makeshift compressor. The compressor is often fashioned out of an empty beer keg and connected to a diesel motor that pumps air through the tube.
From start to finish, the technique poses a number of severe health and safety risks. The holes dug by the miners are unstable and any wrong move could cause a collapse, trapping the worker. Spending long hours in the water exposes entire teams to bacteria and parasites as well. There is also the issue of toxins entering the lungs regularly through breathing tubes and mercury fumes poisoning those extracting gold.
In interviews with the laborers, Richard Paddock of the Center for Investigative Reporting states that those he talked to were completely unaware of toxic exposure, and many were reluctant to believe him.
There are at least a few thousand people involved in the operation, and many of the teams are comprised of families with children as young as 5 years old. Since underwater miners make more money, 12 and 13-year-old boys and girls are attracted to the position in hopes of raising money to safeguard their future and their family’s future.
According to Thomson Reuters, in 2012, the Philippines was the 18th largest supplier of gold in the world. Yet, like in many developing nations, the retrieval of gold from deposits is dangerous work and workers have very little choice when they need to provide for themselves and their families. Even still, these Filipino gold miners only make $5 average per day, up to $20 on a good day, and sometimes go home with nothing.
There’s no way to track the supply of gold coming out of the Camarines Norte area; once it enters the world gold supply, it is impossible to trace.
— Edward Heinrich
Sources: PRI, PBS, Pulitzer Center
Photo: Pulitzer Center
Success of Education in Djibouti
Compared to surrounding countries, the educational system in Djibouti is flourishing. Though illiteracy remains a problem in the small country in the Horn of Africa, the government has made significant progress in the last decade to make education accessible to a greater percentage of the population. For many reasons, the future of education in Djibouti looks even brighter.
1. Modeled after French educational system
The French educational system has consistently been considered one of the strongest in the world. It separates schooling into three levels (primary, secondary and higher education) and focuses on ensuring that all children enter primary school at a young age. The structure of Djibouti’s educational system is modeled after the French system, and the African country maintains the tradition of trying to enroll as many children as possible in the first years of primary education.
2. Not exclusively French
Although Djibouti follows France’s example, education is not exclusively available to those that speak French. In the past, education in Djibouti was somewhat of an elitist concept. People that spoke the native language could not attend the schools because the lessons were taught in French. Fortunately, this idea has been abandoned and schools readily accommodate the various languages spoken in Djibouti.
3. Number of schools
Djibouti is a small country. Approximately 846,000 people inhabit its less than 9,000 square miles. Given that most of these people live in the capital city, the number of schools in Djibouti is impressive in comparison to other developing countries. In terms of public schools, there are 81 primary schools, 12 secondary schools and two vocational schools. There is also a university.
4. The University of Djibouti
The University of Djibouti is the only institution of higher education in Djibouti, but its effects on the educational system seem much greater. The university offers arts, science, law and technology instruction. The professors are qualified to teach their respective subjects and frequently communicate with professors outside of their own country. The university highlights education on topics related to current affairs in Djibouti, such as the economy, to guarantee that its students graduate with comprehensive knowledge about the market and the “real world” that they will enter.
5. Gender equality
Truthfully, more boys than girls go to school in Djibouti. However, compared to many developing nations, the ratio reflects an improved sense of gender equality. The drop-out rate for females is 1.6 percent, while it rests just below 1 percent for males. At the start of schooling, however, the Ministry of Education in Djibouti takes care to establish equal educational opportunities for boys and girls.
6. Government attention
The government recognizes the importance of education, and has taken steps to make the educational system a primary focus. The country’s national budget allocates more than 20 percent to education and has done so for the majority of the 21st century.
7. Rising enrollment
Due to the government’s high attention to education and the tradition of French education, Djibouti works to increase enrollment rates of children in primary schools. In 2002, 43 percent of primary-aged children were enrolled in formal schooling. That statistic increased to 66 percent in 2006 and 71 percent in 2009. The enrollment rate has been increasing steadily since then.
Most of the progress in education in Djibouti has occurred in the capital city, also called Djibouti. The more secluded and rural areas of the country still need to see improvements in accessibility and quality of education, like many other developing countries. However, the attention to educating citizens of all ages proves that the government of Djibouti is one of the most proactive in encouraging the growth of academics.
— Emily Walthouse
Sources: Maps of World, UNICEF, Study Lands, Africa Africa
Photo: Vimeo
The Effect of Unhealthy Lifestyles in Global Health
“Unhealthy diets are now a greater threat to global health than tobacco,” said U.N. Special Reporter on the Right to Food, Oliver De Schutter. “Just as the world came together to regulate the risks of tobacco, a bold framework convention on adequate diets must now be agreed.”
In May, 2014 at the 67th World Health Assembly in Geneva, WHO Director General Margaret Chan announced the creation of a Commission for Ending Childhood Obesity.
In 2012 alone, over 40 million children younger than 5 years old were considered to be overweight. Thirty million of these children live in developing countries. In addition, about 3.4 million adults die due to obesity each year. Furthermore, 7-41 percent of specific cancers and 44 percent of diabetes cases are due to obesity.
Around 1.7 millions deaths are due to low consumption of fruits and vegetables. Eating enough fruits and vegetables has been linked to reducing the chances of heart disease and stomach and colorectal cancers. In addition, compared to the recommended intake of five grams of salt per day, the average global consumption of salt is between nine and 12 grams, thus greatly increasing the chance of heart diseases.
In developing countries with growing economies, citizens have developed a less-active lifestyle and less healthy eating habits.
Schutter offered five potential solutions to the growing epidemic of obesity and unhealthy lifestyles:
By simply taxing sweet beverages in India, the amount of diabetes would drop by 3-4 percent.
While the focus of the public is often on a lack of access to food and starvation, it is also important to note the negative aspects of unhealthy lifestyles on nations around the world.
— Lily Tyson
Sources: Asia Sentinel, Fox News, SRFood, WHO
Photo: The Guardian
UNICEF and the World Cup
This year, UNICEF has been utilizing the global platform that the 2014 World Cup provides as a method to boost advocacy.
While it is true that the competition brings people together and has many positive effects on the nations involved, the World Cup will unfortunately also result in the rise of more sinister practices.
For example, global sporting events like the World Cup almost always result in a significant boost in human trafficking.
Judy Harris Kluger, an affiliate of the nonprofit Sanctuary for Families, describes this phenomenon: “On the most basic level, any location that sees an exponential increase in large numbers of men traveling for entertainment will receive a proportion increase in those who purchase sex.”
In Brazil, where this year’s World Cup is being held, prostitution for those over 18 is legal. Unfortunately, many of the people on the streets selling sex are children, and UNICEF is trying to do something about it.
In order to combat child trafficking, UNICEF Brazil has created an app called Proteja Brasil that allows users to report incidences of exploitation or abuse. Witnesses can use the application to document the time, details and location of incidents. This information is sent directly to the authorities who can respond immediately.
In addition to reporting the exploitation of children, the app contains detailed information about exactly what constitutes child abuse, leaving users better educated and more able to protect youth from harm.
Despite the fact that the World Cup means remarkably high numbers of people will be exploited in sex trafficking, UNICEF still sees the tournament as having the potential to create positive change, saying, “The FIFA World Cup is not only a great sporting event, but a powerful opportunity to share messages about the profound and positive difference sport can make in the lives of children. It provides a chance to focus positive public attention on the special risks children face in host countries like Brazil and around the world and the special efforts we can take to protect them from those threats.”
Hopefully UNICEF’s efforts to protect children during this year’s World Cup will be effective. The tournament is essentially a massive world stage which the United Nations is trying to use to for good.
The U.N.’s Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon attended the first match of this year’s World Cup and released a statement that highlights the tournament’s significance: “Sport has a unique ability to unite us, and to show us what we have in common…[The World Cup] is an occasion to celebrate the best values of sport: teamwork, fair play and mutual respect.”
— Emily Jablonski
Sources: Huffington Post, UN, UNICEF
Photo: UNICEF USA
Fighting Sexual Violence in the DRC
Since military conflicts erupted in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) in the 1990s, rates of sexual violence have increased significantly and become a major issue across the region. Though conflict in the DRC officially ended in 2003, fighting has continued and taken more than 5 million lives since the war began almost 20 years ago.
Sexual violence in the DRC, along with related crimes, have been called the worst in the world, particularly in the eastern region of the country. A study from the American Journal of Public Health states that in the DRC, 1,152 women are raped every day, and an estimated 12 percent of the female population of the DRC has been raped at least once.
Research has shown that many of the sexual attacks are related to armed conflict, and thus, the United Nations Development Program is helping the DRC strengthen its military justice program to make it fair, just and constructive in helping sexual violence victims.
Across the regions, trials are taking place following years of conflict and acts of violence in the DRC. Many soldiers have not been punished for their actions due to their special treatment in the military system, but the civilian courts are working their way through cases with the support of the UNDP. Thirty-one convictions and 9 investigative missions into serious war crimes under the International Criminal Court have resulted from UNDP support.
“It was important that the case be tried here because it is the exact location where the incidents [of rape and murder] occurred,” said Captain Magistrate Bienvenu Muanansele, from the Tribunal Militaire de Garnison de Goma. “These trials held before the people of Bweremana show the people how justice does its job. The law prevails, even for the military.”
The UNDP is also supporting the DRC military in training soldiers to understand the law, the consequences of violent attacks against civilians and human rights. A total of 2,432 soldiers and officials have gone through this training process.
In addition to these steps to reduce violent acts by soldiers, many organizations are working to provide support and community for female sexual violence victims. Masika is a rape victim and founder of a rescue center for sexual violence survivors. After being exiled by her parents in-law, she decided to offer community and support to other women who had experienced sexual assault. Following an army attack in the nearby marketing town of Minova, 130 rape victims came to Masika’s camp.
The stigma against rape victims in the DRC is so severe that in many cases, women are exiled from their families and ostracized. However, women support groups are beginning to provide community as rapists are being brought to justice.
An organization called SAMWAKI, or A Voice to Rural Women in Swahili, works to provide information and training for rural women through community radio. The group aims to increase women’s knowledge on topics from health to farming, and provides listening groups for victims to share their experiences.
Similarly, AFEM (L’Association des Femmes des Médias du Sud Kivu) offers journalism training and a space for women to be a voice for sexual violence survivors. Founded by young journalist Chouchou Namegabe, the organization aims to increase women’s representation in the media.
While sexual violence in the DRC continues to be one of the worst cases in the world, both international and domestic groups are working to end the normalization and prevalence of rape. Gradually, soldiers and sexual assailants are being brought to justice, and women are coming together, speaking out and finding community.
— Julia Thomas
Sources: UNDP, The Independent, The Guardian, Washington Post
Photo: ICMHD
Sala Negra: Investigating Violence in Central America
Salvadoran journalist Óscar Martínez is pushing the bounds of traditional media in a project called Sala Negra that seeks to shed light on violence and instability in Central America. His project is an offshoot of digital San Salvador-based media outlet El Faro (elfaro.net,) which claims to be the first exclusively online newspaper in Latin America.
Sala Negra has quickly become the center of investigative crime reporting in Central America. Martínez, the project’s director, says that the reality of Latin America is so complex that in order to get to the bottom of what is happening there, every rule of the traditional media must be broken.
The digital venture, which began in 2010, digs up information on violent events in the region in the hopes of reaching a more thorough understanding of why 2 million Central Americans leave their homes for the United States every year, crossing through Mexico’s treacherous territory and enduring countless other difficulties.
Sala Negra is staffed by five reporters, three photographers and one documentarian. Martínez jokes that the fast food industry would never approve of the project’s pace, as each member of the team works on only five in-depth reports each year. The site is driven by quality rather than quantity.
In 2013, Sala Negra released a book called “Crónicas Negras.” The publication is a compilation of 18 of the best investigative pieces from Sala Negra’s first year. Topics revolve around the gang activity, deportations and civil wars that have caused so much turmoil in modern-day Central America. It thoroughly examines the weak states and strong organized crime networks that cause havoc in the most violent countries in the region – El Salvador, Nicaragua, Honduras and Guatemala.
The strategy of Sala Negra is to move away from fast, sensational news and toward in-depth, investigative reporting. Martínez articulates that this kind of reporting is desperately needed in the region as profound, investigative journalism is extremely scarce, especially in Central America.
In the introduction to “Crónicas Negras,” Sala Negra admits that there are no reliable numbers for those killed in the everyday war being fought in Central America. There are no formal borders, nor does the war have a name. Yet, the text laments, it is the worst war because the people who fight in it have forgotten the value of life for being so in love with death.
Journalists like Martínez and his colleagues at Sala Negra embody honorable, responsible journalism. Their mission is to uncover the truth behind violence and migrant flows in and out of Central America in order to know how to move forward and bring a bit of justice to such a tumultuous area.
— Kayla Strickland
Sources: Sala Negra, El Faro
Photo: Starmedia
10 Facts About Children Living in Poverty
There are millions of children living in poverty throughout the world. Children living in poverty are often malnourished, do not get proper education, lack safe drinking water, and do not have access to essential vaccines. They are more vulnerable to exploitation, abuse, violence, discrimination and stigmatization. Children are deprived from their childhood due to living in poverty. Not only does living in poverty affect a child’s nutrition, but it also damages their mental, physical, emotional and spiritual development.
Here are 10 quick facts about children living in poverty:
If less money were used on weapons for military purposes, then there would be billions of dollars available for better education and health for impoverished children. It is possible to end child poverty. Everyone needs to get together as a community and voice their opinions and interests in helping children living in poverty to their respective governments.
— Priscilla Rodarte
Sources: Do Something, Global Issues, The Hunger Project, UNICEF
Photo: Wikimedia
Music’s All Stars Sing Away Child Labor
Right now more than 168 million children ages 5 to 18 are victims of child labor practices. Of these children, 85 million work in conditions that endanger their health and many are exploited in varying ways.
It is these shocking truths that have motivated the likes of Travis Barker, Pharrell Williams, Mike Einziger of Incubus and world-renowned composer Hans Zimmer, to collaborate on a song titled, “Til Everyone Can See.” The song features Minh Dang, a survivor of child trafficking.
The inspiration for the anti-child labor tune originated from their visit with the International Labour Organization. The ILO is the oldest agency of the United Nations, and their child labor program is the largest in the world. Following the visit, the artists joined the ILO campaign, Red Card to Child Labour.
The campaign’s use of the red card is intentional, as the timing of the campaign lines up with one of the most highly viewed sporting events in the world; the FIFA World Cup. This global symbol of a red card is known for being synonymous with the concepts of wrong and stop, making it an ideal symbol for the campaign.
The song was released on June 12 of this week, which is also the World Day Against Child Labor. The music, written by Einziger of Incubus and the violinist, Ann Marie Simpson, has a global vibe. However, this is not the first time musicians have used such songs to take a stand against child labor.
Similar musical initiatives include Global Music against Child Labor, through which musicians of all genres have dedicated events and concerts to the movement. The awareness these artists raise undoubtedly plays a key part in ending child labor practices.
As the heartfelt song declares “no one can be free when there is slavery…its time to do our part, give children of the world a brand new start.”
— Christopher Kolezynski
Sources: ILO, Look To The Stars, Music For Good, USA Today
Photo: Flickr
Rape in Liberia Remains a Problem
When the 14-year civil war in Liberia came to an end in 2003, it seemed that the country could begin the road to recovery, slowly but surely. Despite the economic improvements made, women and girls have continued to be victims of rape at alarming rates.
During the war, children and adults used rape against women to instill fear, cause further destruction and assert superiority. When the war ended, the rape in Liberia continued, pointing to the deep-seated traumatic effects the war left in its wake.
Nicola Jones, a researcher at Overseas Development Institute (ODI), a London based think-tank, explains, “After the war, men are often aggressive, ‘hyper-masculine’ and struggle to adapt to peacetime.” Essentially, after over a decade of being stripped of the basic necessities for survival, men are often overwhelmed with a feeling of helplessness, and raping women and girls is a means of reasserting their masculinity.
The statistics reflect this observation, with 1,002 rape cases reported in 2013 concerning children between the ages of 3 and 14. However, there were only 49 rape convictions, pointing to yet another problem.
Given the stigma around rape worldwide, much of the rape in Liberia goes unpunished when women don’t come forward or the justice system neglects to arrest the accused rapists. The U.S. takes some of the blame for this stigma, often making rape a societal taboo, which as a result, makes women reluctant to come forward and report what happened to them.
Gbowee, an international speaker, activist and Nobel Peace Prize winner, commented on America’s lack of action, explaining that “when American women are silent on issues of women’s rights, that attitude permeates the developing world.” When the U.S. sets an example of punishing rapists and accepting women who have been attacked, developing countries may follow suit and see a decline in cases in the near future.
There has been improvement, however, in the number of women and girls who go to the police with reports of rape. Annie Jones Demen, Liberia’s Gender Affairs minister, notes, “We now have more reports on sexual and gender-based violence. Survivors of sexual violence now feel safe to come out to say they were raped.” Since 2006, reports of rape in Liberia have become more common, and as acceptance has become more widespread, more women have seen justice served on their behalf.
The impoverished state of Liberia contributes to the lack of punishment for rapists, with a dearth of facilities to treat those who have been raped. Monrovia, in western Liberia, has the only hospital dedicated to treating rape victims, often receiving between 10 and 15 rape victims every month.
The end of a war brings hope for a brighter future, but in the case of Liberia, the rape problem has remained stronger than ever. Thousands of women every year are raped and left to recover on their own, contributing to a culture that displays complacency in response to the high numbers of rape. The U.S. can lend a hand on the road to justice, as can the media, and aid given to develop Liberia at a faster pace could put rape culture behind them.
— Magdalen Wagner
Sources: Malay Mail, IRIN, Trust, Global Post
Photo: flickr
Solving the Cambodian Toilet Crisis
A Southeast Asian organization has used simple economics to create an effective solution to the Cambodian toilet crisis.
The Ministry of Rural Development reports that 61.4 percent of rural Cambodian households lack toilets. Open defecation has been proven to cause diarrhea, malnutrition, stunted growth and negative impacts on a child’s cognitive development.
However, according to a water and sanitation report published by The World Bank, more than half of the Cambodian households that lack a latrine could, in actuality, afford one. With current awareness and subsidy campaigns, latrine coverage has been increasing by only 1.3 percent per year, which means it could take more than 60 years for Cambodia to be “Open Defecation Free.”
WaterSHED is a Phnom Penh-based organization, founded in 2010. This humanitarian team works on water and sanitation marketing in Southeast Asia. The founders of this agency discovered that building toilets in Cambodia was outlandishly expensive. The price to build and assemble a toilet was between $250 and $400, but with Cambodia’s GDP per capita at around $950, having a toilet has been traditionally reserved for the wealthy.
Using a supply and demand framework, WaterSHED toilet suppliers lower their prices, increase their volume and offer a complete package including toilet installation for only $45. Families can pay for these latrines with microfinance loans targeted only at the very poor.
With this new method WaterSHED has reported the sale of 75,000 toilets in 59 of Cambodia’s 171 districts. This rate of toilet installation increases the annual coverage rate up to 7 percent.
The impact of WaterSHED’s advocacy has seen visible results. IRIN, a humanitarian news agency affiliated with the U.N., interviewed citizens in the Kompong Speu Province. In this village of 160 families, around 100 have recently installed a new toilet. The families have already seen the health benefits of their new latrines, including less frequent fever and diarrhea.
The World Bank argues that making the elimination of open defecation a top priority for policy makers in Cambodia is crucial to the productivity of the next generation. With innovative programs like those implemented by WaterSHED, the future looks brighter for the youth of Cambodia.
— Grace Flaherty
Sources: IRIN News, World Bank
Photo: Flickr