Assam tea is a common variety of black tea often preferred for its malty taste. It is produced in the Assam state of India, which is among the world’s largest tea-growing regions. Tea pickers in Assam are paid 12p an hour. At about a dollar per day, this corresponds to roughly half the legal minimum wage for unskilled workers in Assam. These workers pick tea leaves used by almost every brand, from Lipton to Twinings.
Special labels, like Fair Trade, and certifications, such as those from the Rainforest Alliance or the Ethical Tea Partnership, do not guarantee that workers were paid fairly. Wages are established through collective bargaining by associations of growers, and every tea plantation pays the same wages. According to the Indian Tea Association director General Monojit Desgupta, these pitifully low payments are all the growers can afford. In addition to the basic injustice of underpaying workers, this mistreatment causes another deeply troubling problem: child slavery.
With the promise of work, decent pay, and a glamorous life in the big city, traffickers whisk countless children away from their struggling families. Most victims are girls as young as 12. The traffickers then sell the girls for about $50 to agencies that turn around and sell them to the wealthy as slaves at about twelve times that price. Many of these girls’ families never seen them again, and others escape only after enduring appalling conditions for years. Two girls, Rabina Khatun and Elaina Kujar, have recently agreed to share their stories to draw attention to this issue.
A woman promised Rabina work in Delhi as a maid with a monthly wage of 3,000 rupees, or about $40. She worked for two years before she was allowed to go home. When she complained that she had never been paid, the woman sold her to three men who locked her in a house, raped her, and left her penniless at Old Delhi Station. Rabina, now 18, still harbors intense anger against the people who committed crimes against her.
Elaina’s story is similarly appalling. Her family lives on a tea plantation in Assam, where a trafficker came promising a better life for her. She dreamed of being a nurse and believed Delhi would hold opportunities for her. The next four years of her life would be lost serving as a child slave. She recalls how her owner would rape her after watching porn while she laid on the floor beside him. When she told the man’s wife what was happening, he called her a liar and told her to keep her mouth shut. Elaina’s saving grace came when she was sent to a new owner, who took sympathy on her and allowed her to go home.
Elaina and Rabina are not isolated cases, but rather representative spokeswomen for hundreds of thousands of girls who are trafficked against their will. It has been estimated that 100,000 girls are being held in Delhi alone, with countless others sold to the Middle East. Assam has the highest kidnapping rate for women in India, with 3,360 cases registered with police last year. These girls are trafficked because their families are unable to support them adequately with the pitiful wages they are paid for picking tea leaves.
Pressure is being put on tea brands to demand higher wages and better conditions for tea pickers, and they are just beginning to comply. Unilever, the corporation in charge of Lipton Tea, has recently recognized trafficking is a major problem. The Rainforest Alliance, which has certified Lipton, claims it is working towards an agreement that will require workers to be paid a living wage. Major tea company Typhoo also states that it is working to improve their workers’ conditions. These measures prove that public outcry can create change. Their continued efforts will ensure that workers on tea plantations are paid fairly, and that tea drinkers in the first world are not inadvertently contributing to the child sex trade in India.
– Katie Fullerton
Sources: Adagio Tea, The Guardian, Mirror News
Photo: Revolution
Global Hunger Statistics in 2013
For those involved in the fight against global hunger, it is important to remain up-to-date on the numbers of people who are affected by hunger and malnutrition every year. Although global hunger still plagues a large portion of the world, the number of those affected decreases annually. Here are a few current global hunger statistics:
The good news: the amount needed to provide a child with a healthy diet of vitamins and nutrients is merely 25 cents per day. World hunger is 100% solvable.
– Mary Penn
Sources: World Food Programme, Stop Hunger Now
Phones Increasing Contraceptive Care in India
In India, a country with a constantly growing population currently at 1.3 billion, the use of contraceptives is rare and often considered socially unacceptable. While the contraceptive prevalence rate is at 56 percent, 38 percent use female sterilization, leaving a very small amount of women who are using reversible birth control methods. It’s no wonder, when the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare in India has been using the same family welfare program since 1952, that they are showing no signs of modern innovation.
Even with the use of sterilization, too many women in India are left completely unprotected. Childbirth kills approximately 67,000 women in India every year, and 1 in 13 children dies before the age of five. 42.5 percent of children under the age of five are underweight, and 20 percent of the total population is undernourished. India is unable to support so many unplanned births, making contraception more important than ever.
That’s where Project Vikalp comes in. One of the nine winners of the Millennium Alliance Awards (co-funded by USAID), the project, which is run by the U-Respect Foundation, is a family planning-health care model that will educate the public and help women obtain contraceptives throughout India.
The secret is in the use of cell phones, which are becoming more and more attainable in India, even for the nation’s poorest. If a couple wants contraceptive counseling in India, it is hard to find. Most health workers claim that they are too busy to discuss family planning, and if they do, they usually suggest sterilization. India’s government has been trying to push the norm toward reversible contraceptives, but sterilization is still by far the most used method.
If the couple is unmarried it is nearly impossible to receive counseling. Most couples don’t even try to find counseling because of the barriers, and because they are intimidated by the social norms.
Project Vikalp is using cell phones to reach couples using a three tiered approach. First couples can reach the project through a toll-free helpline. Then, they can receive contraceptives and support from local health care providers and consultants associated with the project. Couples can use their phones to record when they have started using, switched, or stopped using contraceptives to help planners know when they should tweak the program’s methods.
Through this project, couples don’t have to feel intimidated when searching out contraceptives, and they are affordable for everyone. The project hopes to fill the gaps of knowledge in rural communities and change attitudes about contraceptives so that they are more widely accepted in the region.
– Emma McKay
Sources: Devex, Millennium Alliance
Friends of the Global Fight
Friends of the Global Fight Against AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, better known as “Friends”, is an advocacy organization that is working to expand and sustain U.S. support for the Global Fund to fight AIDS, Tuberculosis, and Malaria. The Global Fund was created in 2002 to support countries and programs in the fight against the three pandemics. From those distributing mosquito nets to protect families from malaria in Honduras, to those training peer counselors of teenagers diagnosed with HIV in South Africa, partners in tackling the deadly infectious diseases get support from the Global Fund. Friends has grown to become the leading source of information about the Global Fund in the United States, becoming its much needed voice in Washington, D.C.
Friends shares information with policy leaders and decision makers on the direction the Global Fund takes and the achievements it makes. Friends also ties together the two organizations’ communications and education goals by providing the Global Fund’s Secretariat, based in Geneva, Switzerland, with legislative counsel and strategic direction. Through these efforts, Friends is able to foster collaboration and mutual support between the Global Fund and the U.S. government’s AIDS, tuberculosis, and malaria efforts.
As of December 2012, the Global Fund had approved about $23 billion in grant funding. These resources are provided to in-country partners that have donated HIV/AIDS treatment to 4.2 million people, detected and treated 9.7 million cases of tuberculosis, distributed over 310 million insecticide-treated nets, and reached 1.7 million HIV-positive mothers with services to prevent transmission to their children. Overall, efforts around the globe have reduced tuberculosis deaths by more than 40%, HIV incidence by more than 20%, and malaria deaths in Africa by 33%. In turn, communities have stabilized, human rights have improved, economic productivity has increased, and partnerships have been built.
Friends of the Global Fight was founded in 2004 to help advocate on behalf of the world’s largest public health financier. Since its founding, Friends has played a significant role in helping the Global Fund to increase funding from the U.S. government over the past few years. U.S. support for lifesaving programs increased from $345 million in FY2005 to $1.65 billion in FY2013. The following are just a few of the milestones that have led to Friends’ success:
– Ali Warlich
Sources: Friends of the Global Fight, The Global Fund
Top 10 International Poverty Statistics
– Martin Drake
Sources: Global Issues, DoSomething.org, Compassion.com, Convio.net, Face the Facts USA
Photo: Press TV
Zambian President & Social Networks
President Michael Sata’s parallel intelligence system is moving to block the social networks Facebook and Twitter after realizing that stories on the blocked websites, Zambian Watchdog and Zambia Reports, are now filtering through the two social media sites for public view.
The Xavier Chungu-led parallel intelligence is also targeting a third internet based media channel, Crossfire Blogtalk Radio, for potential blocking after it continued airing guests critical of the Sata administration. Chungu, a forgery-convict and corruption suspect, is President Sata’s permanent secretary and former director general of the Zambia Security Intelligence Service.
Regular access to Zambian Watchdog and Zambia Reports for the domestic market was blocked earlier this month. Both sites were blocked after deciding to activate their Facebook pages and making public the stories that President Sata did not want Zambians to have access to. Some locals are still able to access the sites through advanced devices or proxy websites.
A team independent of the Zambian government, including Chungu, the mastermind behind the trusted intelligence system Zamtrop, traveled to Russia last week for a “consultation” on the possibilities of blocking Facebook and Twitter.
President Sata is reportedly very angry that the critical stories are now all over the highly popular social media sites. The stories are gaining a following that could potentially threaten his hold on power. In addition, the blocking of Zambian Watchdog and Zambian Reports is reportedly being used as a pilot project to block all social media sites during the 2016 presidential and parliamentary elections.
The plan is expected to be in full swing during the 2016 general elections. Mobile communication and radio signal will be used to facilitate the installation of President Sata or his General Secretary Wynter Kabimba back into office by falsified elections.
Intelligence sources are equally frustrated that they are being forced to carry out excessive monitoring of citizens as well as breaching the fundamental human right of free speech. There is total disagreement within the ranks with regards to the ongoing assault on the media, and those that have questioned the development are facing possible firing. The intelligence officers who spoke up anonymously are warning citizens that they should brace for tough times ahead because the cooperation between Sata and Zimbabwe’s leader Robert Mugabe is unhealthy for the country.
– Scarlet Shelton
Sources: AllAfrica, The Promota Africa Magazine, Zambia Post
Photo: Naij
What if the Royal Baby was Born in Afghanistan?
On the afternoon of July 22nd, the British commonwealth grew excited in anticipation for the arrival of the Royal baby, but what if baby George, the Prince of Cambridge, never arrived? What if complications had severed his chances of survival? Despite the joy the Royal baby received on his safe arrival, what would this baby and his mother would have done if they lived in a Third World country?
In the developing world, childbirth complications contribute to high maternal and infant mortality rates. The highest infant mortality rate comes from Afghanistan with more than 1 in every 10 newborns dying during childbirth. Around the world, nearly 3 million newborn infants die, with an additional 2.6 million born stillborn every year.
Yet, we must remember that such high figure does not take into account the mother in these events. An estimated 800 women die each day from pregnancy related causes. As it stands, 99% of these maternal deaths come from developing countries.
The greatest causes of maternal mortality include severe bleeding, infections, contaminated delivery rooms, high blood pressure, high risk abortions, and harmful diseases. Fortunately, these deaths are preventable. Unfortunately, there is much to be done in order to reduce these numbers.
Along with health issues, other challenges include “delays in seeking care, inability to act on medical advice, and failure of the health system to provide adequate or timely care” according to the WHO’s 2005 World Health Report.
However, there is a bright side; maternal deaths have been nearly halved since 1990. This improvement is due, in large part to an increase in social acceptance of midwives, adequate training of attendants, and proper implementation of health expert strategies. With a 2.4% annual rate of decline in maternal mortality, many experts agree that it proves the success of strategies and more resources must be committed.
Health experts point to success stories, such as in Rwanda. Despite genocide and destroyed infrastructure, maternal mortality has been reduced by more than half since 1990. Even more, women in Rwanda have doubled their access to skilled attendants, up to 52%. Many attribute this success to the government’s commitment to women’s health with proper planning.
But Rwanda is not the only country cutting their maternal mortality rate. Progress is being made around the world. However, more must be done in order to continue this progress. Although current strategies are proving successful, the developing and developed countries must continue committing themselves to the development of international health sectors.
– Michael Carney
Sources: AlertNet Climate, CIA World Factbook, UNFPA, WHO
Photo: US Weekly
MDG 4: Reduce Child Mortality
This is the fourth in a series of posts exploring the UN’s Millennium Development Goals. The MDGs are a series of eight interconnected goals agreed upon by almost every country in the world, based on a shared commitment to improving the social, political, and economic lives of all people. These goals are to met by 2015 and, two years out from this deadline, it is time to recognize both the incredible progress we have made and the work we have left to do.
The fourth MDG is to reduce the mortality rate for children under five by at least two thirds from 1990 to 2015. The world has made amazing progress on this front. Despite population growth, the number of deaths in children under five worldwide has decreased significantly from 12.4 million in 1990 to 6.9 million in 2011. This represents 14,000 fewer child deaths every day.
This improvement has been made possible by a wide variety of programs. Vaccines are an excellent way to avoid easily preventable deaths. According to the World Health Organization, vaccine-preventable diseases accounted for roughly 17% of deaths of children under five in 2008, representing 1.5 million deaths. This figure can be diminished fairly easily by providing vaccines for diseases such meningitis, tuberculosis, and rotavirus. The measles vaccine alone has prevented more than 10 million child deaths since 2000.
Another reliable method for reducing child mortality is the education of women. Even minimal education for a mother can significantly improve her children’s likelihood of survival. A UNDP program in Malaysia is capitalizing on this opportunity by surveying 2500 single mothers. These women are faced with incredible challenges, including poverty, lack of education and job opportunities, and social stigmatization. The results of the survey will be used to better understand how best to work with these women, enabling them to find enjoyable work and care for their children.
Another successful UNDP program is taking place in Canelones, a populous and impoverished area of Uruguay where roughly 35,000 citizens are raising children in extreme poverty. As a result of a UNDP study in the area that revealed severe health risks for children in poorer areas, several organizations teamed up to create “Canelones Grows with You”. This program provides the most vulnerable families in Canelones with comprehensive training on care for young children, including nutritional supplements and information on how to use them, as well as regular pregnancy check-ups. The program also encourages a sense of community that encompasses even the poorest families, who are often unaware of or feel excluded from public health clinics, schools, and eateries. “Canelones Grows with You” was so successful in reducing rates of malnutrition, low height, low birth weight, and prematurity that it has been adopted as official government policy with a program called “Uruguay Grows with You”.
Between 1990 and 2011, child mortality has almost been cut in half, decreasing in every region. This is an incredible achievement. However, with the goal set at a two-thirds reduction of the 1990 figure by 2015, we definitely have our work cut out for us. One of every nine children in sub-Saharan Africa still dies before they reach the age of five. In Southern Asia, this figure is one of every sixteen. Children from poorer families are almost twice as likely to die before their fifth birthday than those from wealthier families. Any preventable child deaths are unacceptable, but these figures are horrifyingly so.
Every child deserves a chance to live, and all parents deserve the opportunity to provide for their child. Significant progress has been made towards this ideal, and we must continue this important work if we hope to achieve the fourth Millennium Development Goal.
– Katie Fullerton
Sources: UN Development Program, United Nations, World Health Organization
What Is International Poverty?
Global poverty, at least on first blush, seems to be a rather self-explanatory concept. To be poor, we understand as Americans, is being unable to afford certain necessities. But what it is to be poor, that is, what it is to be unable to afford certain necessities would surely depend on who you are asking. What you consider necessary, such that it would constitute a necessity, would most certainly change your definition of what it means to be poor. So, is global poverty subjective?
Extreme global poverty, as defined by today’s standards, is living on less than $1.25 USD per day. To be considered extremely poor, therefore, would require living on about $450 USD a year or less. Worldwide, there are 1.2 billion people who would “qualify” as living in extreme poverty. But is living on less than a certain amount of money a day all there is to poverty?
The World Bank suggests that poverty is a pronounced and multi-dimensional deprivation in well-being. Rather than placing a number at which one is considered poor or extremely poor, the World Bank definition operates on a holistic approach that takes multiple factors into consideration. For example, communities with inadequate access to health services or education may be considered to be facing the circumstances of poverty, though they live on an amount in excess of the global standard for poverty. Likewise, living with insufficient physical security or certain basic human rights, say freedom of speech, may constitute poverty.
Clearly, what is poverty is not limited to a financial over/under amount, such that it demands a more inclusive, and perhaps malleable, definition. Because understanding what poverty actually is is so fundamental to addressing poverty as an important global issue, however, the United Nations has dedicated both time and resources to better recognizing and defining the many facets of poverty. As a result, the world’s largest multi-governmental organization has developed several working definitions of poverty, including “absolute poverty” and “overall poverty,” while the official United Nations definition of “poverty” is as follows: “Fundamentally, poverty is a denial of choices and opportunities, a violation of human dignity. It means lack of basic capacity to participate effectively in society. It means not having enough to feed and cloth a family, not having a school or clinic to go to, not having the land on which to grow one’s food or a job to earn one’s living, not having access to credit. It means insecurity, powerlessness and exclusion of individuals, households and communities. It means susceptibility to violence, and it often implies living on marginal or fragile environments, without access to clean water or sanitation.”
– Herman Watson
Sources: United Nations, The Global Poverty Project, One Day’s Wages Brookings Institution
Photo: National Geographic
Rape as a Weapon of War
Dating as far back as the Japanese occupation of Nanking in 1937, rape as a weapon of war has been prevalent in conflicts throughout the 1990s and continues to be used today.
A common misconception is that rape is simply a by-product of war. Sexual violence is certainly occurring in every conflict around the world but its role has evolved from an unfortunate effect of war to a tactic used to humiliate and control entire populations.
The United Nations Security Council passed a resolution (UN Resolution 1820) in 2008 defining the use of sexual violence as a war tactic and calling for an end to impunity for those who perpetrate such acts. This resolution came too late for many, including the over 20,000 Muslim women and girls raped in Bosnia during the Bosnian War as well as the estimated 200,000 women and girls raped during the fight for Bangladeshi independence in 1971.
Sexual violence has become a common element of 21st century war. To be able to combat its prevalence, we must first understand the methods and reasoning behind its use.
Perpetrators utilize sexual violence in conflict situations for many different reasons. Rape can be used as a method of ethnic cleansing, as was seen in the Bosnian War. Serbian fighters raped Muslim women to produce Serbian offspring and thereby “cleanse” the population. During the Sudanese War, however, the Janjaweed militia typically used rape as a scare tactic to humiliate, intimidate, and punish the non-Muslim women and communities. Currently in Colombia rival groups are using rape and murder as part of a punitive code to strengthen control in specific regions.
Not only is rape considered the most invasive of war crimes, it has long-lasting consequences for entire communities and countries. Sexual violence during conflicts has contributed to the spread of HIV/AIDS and other sexually transmitted diseases in multiple regions. In addition, mass rape has produced a new generation of young adults that are growing up with only one parent or as orphans because their mother was killed during the conflict. This has long-lasting ramifications for countries that will only be seen in the coming decades as this generation reaches working and reproductive age.
It appears that the use of rape as a war strategy will continue to be employed in conflicts across the globe as long as the culture of impunity surrounding this crime persists. Although the United Nations made sexual violence an official war crime in 2008, the International Court of Justice has yet to find efficient means to indict and prosecute the many thousands of people guilty of this heinous crime.
– Sarah C. Morris
Sources: BBC, UNICEF, United Nations
Photo: The Wip
Is Black Tea Causing Child Slavery?
Assam tea is a common variety of black tea often preferred for its malty taste. It is produced in the Assam state of India, which is among the world’s largest tea-growing regions. Tea pickers in Assam are paid 12p an hour. At about a dollar per day, this corresponds to roughly half the legal minimum wage for unskilled workers in Assam. These workers pick tea leaves used by almost every brand, from Lipton to Twinings.
Special labels, like Fair Trade, and certifications, such as those from the Rainforest Alliance or the Ethical Tea Partnership, do not guarantee that workers were paid fairly. Wages are established through collective bargaining by associations of growers, and every tea plantation pays the same wages. According to the Indian Tea Association director General Monojit Desgupta, these pitifully low payments are all the growers can afford. In addition to the basic injustice of underpaying workers, this mistreatment causes another deeply troubling problem: child slavery.
With the promise of work, decent pay, and a glamorous life in the big city, traffickers whisk countless children away from their struggling families. Most victims are girls as young as 12. The traffickers then sell the girls for about $50 to agencies that turn around and sell them to the wealthy as slaves at about twelve times that price. Many of these girls’ families never seen them again, and others escape only after enduring appalling conditions for years. Two girls, Rabina Khatun and Elaina Kujar, have recently agreed to share their stories to draw attention to this issue.
A woman promised Rabina work in Delhi as a maid with a monthly wage of 3,000 rupees, or about $40. She worked for two years before she was allowed to go home. When she complained that she had never been paid, the woman sold her to three men who locked her in a house, raped her, and left her penniless at Old Delhi Station. Rabina, now 18, still harbors intense anger against the people who committed crimes against her.
Elaina’s story is similarly appalling. Her family lives on a tea plantation in Assam, where a trafficker came promising a better life for her. She dreamed of being a nurse and believed Delhi would hold opportunities for her. The next four years of her life would be lost serving as a child slave. She recalls how her owner would rape her after watching porn while she laid on the floor beside him. When she told the man’s wife what was happening, he called her a liar and told her to keep her mouth shut. Elaina’s saving grace came when she was sent to a new owner, who took sympathy on her and allowed her to go home.
Elaina and Rabina are not isolated cases, but rather representative spokeswomen for hundreds of thousands of girls who are trafficked against their will. It has been estimated that 100,000 girls are being held in Delhi alone, with countless others sold to the Middle East. Assam has the highest kidnapping rate for women in India, with 3,360 cases registered with police last year. These girls are trafficked because their families are unable to support them adequately with the pitiful wages they are paid for picking tea leaves.
Pressure is being put on tea brands to demand higher wages and better conditions for tea pickers, and they are just beginning to comply. Unilever, the corporation in charge of Lipton Tea, has recently recognized trafficking is a major problem. The Rainforest Alliance, which has certified Lipton, claims it is working towards an agreement that will require workers to be paid a living wage. Major tea company Typhoo also states that it is working to improve their workers’ conditions. These measures prove that public outcry can create change. Their continued efforts will ensure that workers on tea plantations are paid fairly, and that tea drinkers in the first world are not inadvertently contributing to the child sex trade in India.
– Katie Fullerton
Sources: Adagio Tea, The Guardian, Mirror News
Photo: Revolution