Clowns Without Borders
Payasos Sin Fronteras or Clowns Without Borders was founded in Barcelona, Spain in July 1993. The idea began when Tortell Poltrona, a professional clown in Spain, was invited to perform in a refugee camp in Croatia. This performance unexpectedly attracted audiences of more than 700 children, proving to Poltrona that there can be a great need and appreciation for clowns and entertainment in crisis situations. He founded Clowns Without Borders to offer humour as a means of psychological support to communities that have suffered trauma.
African Children’s Choir
The African Children’s Choir™ is made up of some of the neediest and most vulnerable children in their countries. Many have lost one or both parents to poverty or disease. The African Children’s Choir™ helps these children break away from the everyday cycle of poverty and hopelessness.
Child Pornography
No to Child Pornography (video)
Child pornography refers to images or films depicting sexually explicit activities involving a child; as such, child pornography is a visual record of child sexual abuse. Abuse of the child occurs during the sexual acts which are photographed in the production of child pornography, and the effects of the abuse on the child (and continuing into maturity) are compounded by the wide distribution and lasting availability of the photographs of the abuse.In both common usage and for research purposes, the word “child” in the phrase “child pornography” refers to prepubescent children, and does not (as the legal use would) include post-pubertal minors, such as teenagers under the age of majority. Most possessors of child pornography who are arrested are found to possess images of prepubescent children; possessors of pornographic images of post-puberty minors are less likely to be prosecuted, even though those images also fall within the statutes.
Child Marriage
Yemeni child bride, 12, dies in labour
A 12-year-old Yemeni child-bride died after struggling for three days in labour to give birth, a local human rights organization said.
Fawziya Abdullah Youssef died of severe bleeding on Friday, 11.Sept.2009 while giving birth to a stillborn in the al-Zahra district hospital of Hodeida province, 140 miles west of the capital San’a.
Child marriages are widespread in Yemen, the Arab world’s poorest country, where tribal customs dominate society. More than a quarter of the country’s females marry before age 15, according to a recent report by the Social Affairs Ministry.
Youssef was only 11 when her father married her to a 24-year-old man who works as a farmer in Saudi Arabia.
Female Genital Mutilation
Key facts
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Female genital mutilation (FGM) includes procedures that intentionally alter or injure female genital organs for non-medical reasons.
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An estimated 100 to 140 million girls and women worldwide are currently living with the consequences of FGM.
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In Africa, about three million girls are at risk for FGM annually.
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The procedure has no health benefits for girls and women.
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Procedures can cause severe bleeding and problems urinating, and later, potential childbirth complications and newborn deaths.
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It is mostly carried out on young girls sometime between infancy and age 15 years.
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FGM is internationally recognized as a violation of the human rights of girls and women.
Landmines
A landmine is an explosive device designed to be placed on or in the ground to explode when triggered by an operator or the proximity of a vehicle, person, or animal.
Anti-personnel land mines or APLs are widely considered to be unethical weapons, because their victims are commonly civilians, who are often killed or maimed long after a war has ended. According to anti-land mine campaigners, in Cambodia alone, landmines have resulted in 35,000 amputees after the cessation of hostilities. Removal of landmines is dangerous, slow and costly; however, some countries maintain that land mines are necessary to protect their soldiers in times of war and to suppress hostilities across demilitarized zones.
Modern Day Slavery
Human trafficking, particularly in women and children, is modern day slavery. It is a multi-billion dollar business and one of the largest criminal industries next to trafficking illegal drugs.
An estimated 27 million people are held captive around the world at any given time—more than at any other point in history. These individuals are forced into sexual slavery, labour, domestic servitude, armed conflict, begging networks, or bought and sold for their body parts.
Victims of this horrific market suffer repeated rapes, beatings, forced abortions, mental abuse, and isolation. They also endure physical and mental health implications, including HIV/AIDS, reproductive complications, post-traumatic stress, and severe depression.
In addition to the gross human rights abuses suffered by victims, TIP fuels internal and cross-border conflicts that destabilize whole regions, encourage transnational and organized crime, and promote corruption at all levels of government.
Medecins Sans Frontieres
Médecins Sans Frontières or Doctors Without Borders, is a secular, humanitarian-aid non-governmental organization best known for its projects in war-torn regions and developing countries facing endemic disease.
Médecins Sans Frontières was created in 1971 by a small group of French doctors in the aftermath of the Biafra secession, who believed that all people have the right to medical care regardless of race, religion, creed or political affiliation, and that the needs of these people supersede respect for national borders.
World Statistics
Statistics to make us think.
Life
* More than 2.8 billion people live on less than the equivalent of $2 per day
* More than 1.2 billion people live on less than the equivalent of $1 per day
* Nearly 1 billion people are illiterate (they can’t read or write)
* More than 1 billion people don’t have access to safe water
* 1/3 of all the world’s children under 5 suffer from malnutrition
Death
* Every 3.6 seconds somebody starves to death
* – 3/4 of those who die are under the age of 5
Homeless
* Over 100,000,000 people around the world are homeless
* 3,500,000 people in the USA in 2007 were homeless
* – 1,370,000 of which are under 18
Life Expectancy
* Swaziland – 32.0 years
* Angola – 37.9 years
* Zambia – 38.5 years
* Zimbabwe – 39.7 years
Human Rights
The Cyrus Cylinder is considered the first recorded declaration of human rights in history.
The Universal Declaration of Human Rights was adopted by the General Assembly on 10 December 1948.
Refugees
According to the 1951 Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees,
a refugee is a person who
Owing to a well-founded fear of being persecuted for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group, or political opinion, is outside the country of their nationality, and is unable to or, owing to such fear, is unwilling to avail him/herself of the protection of that country.
Child Soldiers
“I would like you to give a message. Please do your best to tell the world what is happening to us, the children. So that other children don’t have to pass through this violence.”
Amnesty International
Amnesty International is a worldwide movement of people who campaign for internationally recognized human rights for all.
Our supporters are outraged by human rights abuses but inspired by hope for a better world – so we work to improve human rights through campaigning and international solidarity.
We have more than 2.2 million members and subscribers in more than 150 countries and regions and we coordinate this support to act for justice on a wide range of issues.
You can help make a real difference by becoming a member or supporter of Amnesty International.
Learn more about our organization, the work we do and how we’re working hard to change people’s lives.
Childhood Death
Around the world, some 26,500 children die every day.
That is equivalent to:
1 child dying every 3 seconds
18 children dying every minute
A 2004 Asian Tsunami occurring every week
An Iraq-scale death toll every 15–36 days
Almost 10 million children dying every year
Some 60 million children dying between 2000 and 2006
The silent killers are poverty, hunger, easily preventable diseases and illnesses, and other related causes. In spite of the scale of this daily/ongoing catastrophe, it rarely manages to achieve, much less sustain, prime-time, headline coverage.
Child Abuse
Jesus said,
“Let the little children come to me,
and do not hinder them,
for the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these.”
Matthew 19:14
A compassionate government keeps faith with
the trust of the people and cherishes the future of their children.
Lyndon Baines Johnson
Unchained Sorrow
Woe to those who make unjust laws,to those who issue oppressive decrees, to deprive the poor of their rights and withhold justice from the oppressed of my people, making widows their prey and robbing the fatherless.
Isaiah 10:1-2
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