Addressing needs of stressed children in Sri Lanka
Few studies of children in Sri Lanka have examined the daily stress they continue to face since the tsunami and civil war, focusing instead on the direct impact of both, according to two studies in the latest Child Development journal. Family trauma and economic problems, including domestic violence, the death of relatives or losing access to healthcare, housing and schooling can be more closely related to a child’s mental health than the 2004 tsunami or the civil conflict that ended in May 2009 after two decades of fighting and three failed peace attempts. The government is trying to boost services in the conflict and disaster-affected north and east to help children in distress. “Significant variance in children’s distress and development is explained by daily stressors caused and exacerbated by, or even unrelated to conflict or natural disaster,” the authors wrote in one study of 400 Sri Lankan youths aged 11 to 20. Little research uses this “ecological perspective” to measure the ongoing and cumulative impact of multiple disasters on children, according to Child Development. (IRIN News, August 31)  

Millions of Pakistani kids risk waterborne disease
Five-year-old Shahid Khan struggled to remain conscious in his hospital bed as severe diarrhea threatened to kill him. His father watched helplessly, stricken at the thought of losing his son - one of the only things the floods had not already taken. The young boy is one of millions of children who survived the floods that ravaged Pakistan over the last month but are now vulnerable to a second wave of death caused by waterborne disease, according to the United Nations. Access to clean water has always been a problem in Pakistan, but the floods have worsened the situation significantly by breaking open sewer lines, filling wells with dirty water and displacing millions of people who must use the contaminated water around them. Children are more vulnerable to diseases such as diarrhea and dysentery because they are more easily dehydrated. Many children in Pakistan also were malnourished before the floods, weakening their immune systems. Some 3.5 million children are at imminent risk of waterborne disease and 72,000 are at high risk of death, according to the United Nations. (Washington Post, August 29)  

Struggling to improve education in Afghanistan
Education in Faryab Province, northern Afghanistan, has never been as good as it is now thanks to the dozens of new schools built by Norway. Over 120 new schools have been built in the province over the past few years and 40-50 more will follow in the next two years, with Norwegian development assistance. “Faryab’s educational needs have been met by the new schools,” said Gul Agha Ahmadi, a spokesman of the Ministry of Education. For an estimated population of 800,000 there are 423 state schools, 20 religious seminaries, two teacher training institutes and one vocational training centre in the province, according to the Education Ministry. Over 40 percent of the total 282,080 students in the province are female. Faryab is a success story in a country where almost half of the 12,600 schools nationwide do not have a building (classes are held in the open or in tents), officials said. (IRIN News, August 29)

Uzbek kids made to grow cocoons
For one month a year, from morning to night, Dilorom Nishanova grows silkworms, a painstaking and exhausting job. She has been doing it since she was 8. Uzbekistan's authoritarian government insists that it has banned child labor but Nishanova, now 15, hasn't heard about it. She and her siblings, aged 9 to 17, think it's perfectly natural to be helping their father grow silkworms, as well as cotton and wheat. "We just help our parents," she said, her braided dark hair covered with a traditional Muslim scarf. "That's what children have to do, right?" Not so, say Uzbek rights groups. They say children should not be laborers, especially in May, the silkworm breeding season, which happens to fall during school exams. The silkworm business dates back centuries to the Silk Road that ran through this Central Asian country. The use of child labor in Uzbek cotton-picking has been widely documented, and Walmart and several other U.S. chain stores won't stock it. But the silk industry has largely escaped international scrutiny. Its annual revenues are tiny compared with the $1 billion cotton industry, but the government prizes silk as a link - and tourist draw - to the glory days of the Silk Road. (Washington Post, August 28)  

Child brides in Yemen
[Arwa Elrabee, a gynaecologist in Sanaa,] sees around 100 patients a day. Her waiting rooms are full of black clad women wearing the `niqab’ (veil) common in Yemen. Many sit on the floor waiting patiently for their turn. “I have worked with women for 25 years,” she said. “I see the effects of early marriages every day.” According to the 2008 International Women's Health Coalition report Child Marriage: Girls 14 and Younger At Risk, young girls run a higher risk of complications in pregnancy and childbirth than older adolescents because their bodies (bone structure, pelvis, reproductive organs) are not yet fully developed. Many experience prolonged and obstructed labour which can lead to haemorrhage, severe infection and death. Other complications commonly include eclampsia and obstetric fistula, and vaginal and anal ruptures. Numerous pregnancies from an early age and strenuous work take their toll. “Many women simply become handicapped by early marriages,” said Elrabee.  Just under half of Yemeni girls - 48 percent - are married before they turn 18, according to the Washington DC-based International Centre for Research on Women. This is classified as “underage”, according to the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child.  (IRIN News, August 25)