Our Children
MELISSA HIEBERT, STAFF
Child soldiers
“Government soldiers came and forced me and my father to join them,” P.K. told Amnesty International after being abducted in Liberia in 2002 when he was only 13 years old. “My father refused, so they cut his throat. They beat me and tied me and forced me to join the fighters.”
P.K. is not alone. It is estimated that over half a million children are currently fighting in armed combat, either through a government-led army or independent military group. Children are impressionable at young ages, and therefore are often targeted because they can be manipulated to be obedient by the use of threats and physical violence.
Often, children are forced to commit violent acts, sometimes even against their own families, in order to “toughen” them up for battle. If they refuse, they will be beaten themselves, or worse, killed.
Girls, sometimes as young as 12 years old, are abducted by militant groups and forced into positions of sexual slavery, where they are routinely beat and raped, and are at high risk for becoming infected with the HIV virus.
Whereas the African Charter on the Rights and Welfare of the Child states that no child under the age of 18 can be recruited or used to participate in armed combat, the abduction of children by militant groups in such countries Burundi and Liberia and the Democratic republic of Congo remains rampant, with sometimes dozens of children being abducted from a single village.
Sex trade workers
“‘Lin Lin’ was 13 years old when she was recruited by an agent for work in Thailand,” stated a report by the Human Rights Watch, a human rights organization. “Her father took $480 from the agent with the understanding that his daughter would pay the loan back out of her earnings. The agent took ‘Lin Lin’ to Bangkok, and three days later she was taken to the Ran Dee Prom brothel. ‘Lin Lin’ did not know what was going on until a man came into her room and started touching her breasts and body and then forced her to have sex. For the next two years, ‘Lin Lin’ worked in various parts of Thailand in four different brothels . . . the owners told her she would have to keep prostituting herself until she paid off her father’s debt.”
Many young girls are forced to enter the sex trade industry because of poor economic conditions or marginalized options, and even more are traded or sold into positions of sex slavery. There are an estimated 1.8 million children worldwide who are said to be involved in some form of commercial sex trade, with an estimated one million in Asia alone.
Often, the belief that younger girls (and sometimes boys) will be free of various sexually transmitted diseases causes brothel owners to continually seek out new and younger sex trade workers, who are either sold by or abducted from their families, often beaten, threatened, and otherwise abused, and coerced into having sex with as many as 15 partners a day.
Child Labour
“Aly Diabate, who is from Mali, was 11 years old when he was lured in Mali by a slave trader to go work on an Ivorian farm,” says a report by the Trade & Environment Database. Lured in with promises of money for his family, he was abducted by slave traders and forced to work long hours and subjected to frequent beatings. After working for 18 months, the plantation was finally shut down and the owner was forced to pay Aly for his labour, which totalled about $180. Upon returning to his family, he suffered from physical and psychological damage.
The International Labour Office released a report stating that, in 2004, one-sixth of the world’s children (191 million) aged five to 14 years of age were involved in economic activity. Of this number, 126 million were involved in what is considered to be hazardous work.
Some work is carried out by children who are abducted from (or sold by) their families and are held in captivity by threats of violence or death and are forced to work for no money.
Among some of the most likely industries to involve child slave labour are the chocolate industry (particularly in Cote d’Ivoire) and rug industries, which both reportedly have high rates of child slaves.
Children living with HIV/AIDS
In 2006, there were over 2.3 million children living with HIV/AIDS virus in the world, with an estimated 530,000 new cases. In addition to these numbers, approximately nine per cent of children under the age of 15 have lost at least one parent to AIDS, according to UNAIDS. AIDS is now the leading cause of death for children under the age of five.
Ninety per cent of all children born with AIDS live in Africa.
Stephen Lewis, in a speech made at the University of Manitoba, revealed that with proper drugs the transmittance rate of HIV from mother to child is less than one per cent. However, access to proper medication remains infrequent and fear of stigmatization leaves many expectant mothers without treatment, leading many children to be born HIV-positive. Children under 15 count for one in six AIDS related deaths, and one in seven new cases.
By the time you finish reading this paragraph, an average of one child will have died from AIDS.
They’ve lost their naiveté, now wake up and lose yours.
