News on Children's Issues

Poverty Forces Gaza Children into Labor
A growing number of Palestinian children are roaming the streets of Gaza looking for a meager wage to help support their families in the impoverished territory. Instead of going to school, Ahmed, 13, dodges vehicles in one of Gaza City's busiest streets trying desperately to sell candy to motorists on the move. Working feverishly to peddle his merchandise at the smoky intersection, Ahmed said he cannot afford to slow down. "I am the bread-winner for my 12-member family," the boy said. "I work every day, all week, and I get about 20 shekels ($5) a day." Ahmed is not alone. With unemployment topping 60 percent in the crowded strip of land squeezed between Israel and the Mediterranean, hundreds of children like him have taken on the role of providers as most families have little or no income. The Western freeze on direct aid to the Palestinian government headed by Hamas has only deepened the economic despair in Gaza. Children sell cigarettes along Gaza's beaches, and some even venture into former Jewish settlements to steal scrap metal and earn small change. Palestinian labor law bans children under the age of 15 from working. But lawlessness pervades the Gaza Strip and the prohibition is ignored. (Alert.net, May 14)

Sexual Violence against Children 'Record High' in Ethiopia
Sexual violence against children was the highest recorded crime in Addis Ababa during the past four months, the African Child Right Policy Forum, a children's legal protection centre, has disclosed. Among the major concerns highlighted during a workshop was the lack of care and support given to children at schools. Doctors taking care of abused children were not also doing enough to help the kids, the workshop observed. "Some schools don't take responsibility for children abused in their compound, parents don't trust their children who say they were raped or sexually molested by a member of the family or a close relative, and when they do, they are usually silenced," participants noted. "The Police do not treat a child beyond 15 as a child, though the international convention which Ethiopia has ratified says a child is below 18," one of the participants of the workshop noted. "Hence, if a person rapes a child whose age is 16, the plaintiff will be released on bail," she said. (Allafrica.com, May 13)

Children Suffer from 'Indiscriminate and Inappropriate' Bombardments in Darfur
The Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) today described as "indiscriminate" a series of deadly aerial bombardments across the North Darfur region of Sudan and said there were many civilian casualties. OHCHR said it has learned that the attacks - over which United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon expressed deep concern on Wednesday - were carried out near El Fasher, North Darfur between 19 and 29 April, killing and wounding civilians and destroying property, school buildings and livestock. "The bombardments appeared to have been indiscriminate and disproportionate, failing to distinguish between military and civilian targets," Mr. Ban's spokesperson Michele Montas said. In one incident that was cited by the Secretary-General in his statement, the school in the village of Um Rai was struck by rockets fired from a Government helicopter. Some of the 170 pupils in the school were injured in that attack, with two civilians killed in the attack on the village. (United Nations, May 11)

Historic Truce for Children's Health in the Philippines
Children and their families in 700 remote villages in conflict-ravaged southern Philippines have received essential health care, many for the first time in their lives, through a historic truce arranged with Muslim rebels. In a campaign known as 'Days of Peace,' arranged between UNICEF and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF), fighting that has raged between the insurgents and the Government for decades was suspended for two weeks starting in mid-April so that health workers could provide immunizations, micronutrient supplementation, counseling and other basic care. "Peace-building efforts will not succeed if we fail to deliver the basic services that families need," said UNICEF's Representative in the Philippines, Dr. Nicholas Alipui, who led immunization teams deep into remote areas during the campaign. Because of such great need, two more Days of Peace campaigns are now in the works for the region - one in July and another in October. "The Days of Peace campaign is not just a series of special missions," Dr. Alipui said. "We intend to help re-establish routine coverage of conflict areas." (CRIN, May 10)

Thousands of Child Laborers Deprived of Education in Afghanistan
According to Save the Children, there are up to 5,000 child laborers working in brick factories in Afghanistan's eastern province of Nangarhar. Children face various risks at work and some of them sustain serious injuries such as broken bones, the children's protection body said. Poverty is seen as a major reason driving many parents to let their young children work. For Abdul Mohammed who works at a factory with his two daughters, Shano, 8, and Meeno, 10, it seems impossible to feed his eight-member family without his daughters' support. The country is a signatory to the UN Convention on Children's Rights and other treaties which prohibit child labor, but institutional mechanisms which should translate formal commitments into appropriate action are absent, Afghanistan's Independent Human Rights Commission (AIHRC) said. In an effort to mitigate the suffering of these child laborers UNICEF is thinking of establishing community schools near brick factories in Nangarhar. (IRIN, May 10)

Child Soldiers Demobilized in Chad
Chad's government has signed a deal with UNICEF to begin demobilizing child soldiers from its national army. The agreement is a U-turn for the government, which has always denied that it has had under-age fighters. In a recent UNICEF investigation more than 300 child soldiers were discovered in one town alone. Chad's minister for external relations, Djidda Moussa Outman, says the army has never purposely recruited children. "A few days ago, in the town of Mongo, we began to demobilize 200 to 300 children from the Chadian army," Mr. Outman said. A good proportion of the children were reportedly between eight and 11 years old. "This is already a strong sign of our goodwill. The government has never knowingly signed up children into the Chadian army. It's young people who forge their birth certificates," the minister said. "If they come to sign up we cannot know they are lying. What happens in Europe is not the same in Africa. But we are now taking concrete actions to remove them quickly from the national army." (BBC, May 10)