An estimated 10.5 million children worldwide, most of them under age, are working as domestic workers in people’s homes, in hazardous and sometimes slavery-like conditions, says the ILO. Six and a half million of these child labourers are aged between five and 14 years-old. More than 71% are girls.
According to the latest figures in a new ILO report, ‘Ending Child Labour in domestic work’, they work in the homes of a third party or employer, carrying out tasks such as cleaning, ironing, cooking, gardening, collecting water, looking after other children and caring for the elderly.
Vulnerable to physical, psychological and sexual violence and abusive working conditions, they are often isolated from their families, hidden from the public eye and become highly dependent on their employers. Many might end up being commercially sexually exploited.
“The situation of many child domestic workers not only constitutes a serious violation of child rights, but remains an obstacle to the achievement of many national and international development objectives,” said Constance Thomas, Director of the ILO’s international program on the elimination of child labour, IPEC.
The report, launched to mark World Day Against Child Labour, calls for concerted and joint action at national and international levels to eliminate child labour in domestic work.
STUDENTS from 10 schools attended a ceremony marking World Day Against Child Labour at the Suva Civic Centre yesterday.
The theme for 2013 is ‘No to Child Labour in Domestic Work’.
Chief guest and acting permanent secretary for Labour, Industrial Relations and Employment Samuela Namosimalua highlighted the issue of child labour in Fiji.
“The consequences of child labour on the life opportunities of those affected are difficult to measure. No price can be placed on the cost of lost childhood, or the psychological and emotional damage suffered by children trapped in child labour, particularly hazardous child labour,” Mr Namosimalua said.
He said while the awareness on the issue of commercial child labour had “probably never been greater than it is today”, children missing school to attend to domestic work was a problem often overlooked.
“Many a time, we hear that some children have to stay home and away from school to look after their younger siblings.”
Mr Namosimalua urged members of the public to report any instances of child labour to the Labour Ministry.
It acknowledged Israel had made some “positive changes” in its treatment of young detainees in recent years.
Israel said it would “work hard” to adopt the report’s recommendations.
According to the report, an estimated 700 Palestinian children aged 12 to 17 are arrested by Israeli security forces in the West Bank every year.
It said ill-treatment typically began with arrests carried out in the middle of the night and continued through to prosecution and sentencing.
The report said unacceptable practices included “blindfolding children and tying their hands with plastic ties, physical and verbal abuse during transfer to an interrogation site, including the use of painful restraints”.
It said during interrogation, some detained children had been “threatened with death, physical violence, solitary confinement and sexual assault, against themselves or a family member”.
Child trafficking, pedophile rings, sexual exploitation, teenage pornography and even organ harvesting. Specifically in Georgia, former Senator Nancy Schaefer had found during the last few years that: in Georgia housed children in a foster home with a known pedophile who molested the children; in Habersham County failed to remove 6 children from a home where they are being abused and tortured; in Georgia turned 2 girls over to a California father who had a pornographic video business. http://www.eagleforumofga.org/pdf/THE…
Nancy Shaefer conservative activist killed Mar 2010, At least one friend of the Schaefers has questioned the murder-suicide theory. http://www.bpnews.net/BPnews.asp?ID=3…
More information on her efforts and activism at: The Honorable Nancy Schaefer, President Eagle Forum of Georgia, Eagle Forum National Chairman of Parents’ Rights, Former State Senator of Georgia http://www.eagleforumofga.org/
Nancy Schaefer spoke at the World Congress on Families V in Amsterdam, the Netherlands in August 2009. Pro-family leaders and groups from 63 nations attended the World Congress of Families V. 900 delegates were Dutch and other nations represented included, United States, Canada, Mexico, Venezuela, Chile, the U.K., Ireland, Spain, France, Belgium, Germany, Italy, Romania, Poland, Latvia, Moldavia, Slovakia, Russia, Nigeria, Ghana, the Democratic Republic, of Congo, Kenya, Pakistan, Australia, and the Philippines. More than 3,000 people around the world watched the live telecast via the Internet. On August 16th, Schaefer delivered, via cyber space, her speech to the Nordic Committee for Human Rights (NCHR) in Gothenburg, Sweden on the protection of Family Rights in Nordic countries. Nancy spoke on “The Unlimited Power of Child Protective Services” (CPS). She told her audience “children are seized unnecessarily from their families due to federal aid created in 1974 entitled “The Adoption and Safe Families Act.” It offers financial incentives to the States that increase adoption numbers. To receive the ‘adoption incentives’ or ‘bonuses’, local CPS must have more children. They must have merchandise that sells. It is lack of accountability and it is a growing criminal / political phenomenon spreading around the globe.”
Nancy’s August 2009 Amsterdam speech at the World Congress on Families in Amsterdam is at http://www.eagleforumofga.org/article…
Nancy Schaefer’s Speech on CPS, Eagle Forum Natl Conf 9-26-08.
On March 26, 2010 children all across America lost a guardian angel. Nancy spoke out vigourously against the corruption and fraud rampant in the CPS system. Nancy was actively exposing the system of corruption and making the public aware of CPS, a government organization that kidnaps children for money. Nancy was a true patriot who fought for preserving the Republic and the morals and traditions on which this nation was founded. Rest in peace Nancy.
Perpetrators of Maltreatment (04′ now much worse) # Cases per 100,000 Children in U.S. from NCCAN. Physical Abuse CPS 160, Parents 59; Sexual Abuse CPS 112, Parents 13; Neglect CPS 410, Parents 241; Medical Neglect CPS 14, Parents 12; Fatalities CPS 6,4, Parents 1,5. http://suncanaa.com/cps
Ga Sen Nancy Schaefer Murdered for CPS Sex Ring Investigation 2/2 – The Smoking Gun
Uploaded on Mar 28, 2011
Part 1/2. New Info March 26, 2011. Ga Sen Nancy Schaefer + Husband Killed W Mysterious Gun, GBI Destroys Evidence, Closes “Suicide” Case. OpEdNews. Garland-Favorito. Former Sen Nancy Schaefer lived the last couple of years of her life dedicated to helping children and families. Mrs. Schaefer had found during the last few years that:
- Georgia housed children in a foster home with a known pedophile who molested the children.
- Habersham County failed to remove six children from a home where they were being abused and tortured.
- Georgia turned two girls over to a California father who had a pornographic video business.
THE MURDER WEAPON – The findings in the case file would be highly convincing except for one major problem never before reported. The Schaefers were NOT killed with the small caliper gun that the family knew they owned. They were killed with a HIGHER CALIPER, UNTRACEABLE WEAPON that no family member had ever seen before. The weapon was originally shipped to a dealer in a remote part of southern Florida in 1982 and the ownership records have since been destroyed, possibly as a result of a natural disaster. The case file was unable to establish how the Schaefers, who lived in Georgia during the 1980s, acquired the murder weapon. It also contains no explanation as to why Bruce would not use the gun he already owned to commit the crime, but instead acquire another gun that just happened to be untraceable.
THE AUTOPSY REPORT – . . . notes show that Bruce wrote them after shooting Nancy and it would have taken hours for him to write and assemble the material for the notes before he shot himself.
THE ALLEGED FINANCIAL MOTIVE -
THE VIDEO – The metro Atlanta area has been nationally ranked as the largest center in the country for child sex trafficking. Most are also unaware that Sen. Schaefer was a national leader in the fight against related child abuse and perversion in government run, Child Protective Services (CPS). The GBI was repeatedly informed that Nancy was wrapping up a video documentary, a possible book and other supporting references on the subject. She told friends that this work would expose corruption in Georgia’s Dept of Family and Child Services (DFACS) and that several high profile, powerful Georgia politicians would be implicated. These people would have the means and incentive to prevent her work from being produced. While the GBI documented case inquiries from the general public there is no documentation of the inquiries received from government officials.
The GBI collected little information about the work that Nancy Schaefer had done. They interviewed only one person who was involved in helping to produce the video documentary. They did not obtain a copy of the video or interview its producer, William Fain. They also did not attempt to retrieve the documentary from the producer even though the Schaefers had arranged funding for the video and the producer was not necessarily entitled to ownership rights.
THE THREATS -
THE LIMITED SCOPE OF INVESTIGATION -
DESTRUCTION OF EVIDENCE – During the time from June to December of 2010 individuals, including myself, filed open records requests for reports but the requests were denied because the case was still open. When Special Agent Whidby wrote the Final Investigative Summary in December of 2010, the GBI had destroyed all items that were seized or created at autopsy. They then completed closing the case in February of 2011 and made the file available.
THE OLD AND NEW UNANSWERED QUESTIONS -
CONCLUSION – The limited investigative scope is appalling considering the high profile circumstances surrounding the Schaefers’ deaths. Case file evidence mentioned in this report illustrates that the GBI was unwilling to investigate the case to the point where they could rule out professional assassination. They also destroyed all items seized or created at autopsy so now their actions can never be reviewed or questioned. Their conduct raises a legitimate question as to whether or not they could have been compromised or manipulated by officials implicated in former Nancy Schaefer’s documentary and materials. Their investigation may even become more questionable than the killings themselves. http://www.opednews.com/articles/Scha…
Posted in accordance with U.S.C. Title 17 Chap 1 Sec 107 Fair use, for purposes of education, activism, criticism, research. No profit or monies solicited.
Ted Gunderson, FBI (ret), was interviewed on 9/8/2007 regarding his experience confronting the corruption in the CIA, FBI and the Federal, State, and Local governments.
Syria’s children shot at, tortured, raped: charity report
By Oliver Holmes
BEIRUT | Wed Mar 13, 2013 6:38am EDT
(Reuters) – A boy of 12 sees his best friend shot through the heart. Another of 15 is held in a cell with 150 other people, and taken out every day to be put in a giant wheel and burnt with cigarettes.
Syria’s children are perhaps the greatest victims of their country’s conflict, suffering “layers and layers of emotional trauma”, Save the Children’s chief executive told Reuters.
Syrian children have been shot at, tortured and raped during two years of unrest and civil war, the London-based international charity said in a report released on Wednesday.
Two million children, it said, face malnutrition, disease, early marriage and severe trauma, becoming innocent victims of a bloody conflict that has already claimed 70,000 lives.
“This is a war where women and children are the biggest casualty,” chief executive Justin Forsyth told Reuters during a visit to Lebanon, where 340,000 Syrians have fled.
Forsyth said he met a Syrian refugee boy, 12, who saw his best friend killed outside a bakery. “His friend was shot through the heart. But initially, he thought he was joking because there was no blood. They didn’t realize he had been killed until they took his shirt off,” he said.
The Save the Children report cited new research carried out among refugee children by Bahcesehir University in Turkey which found that one in three reported having been punched, kicked or shot at.
It said two thirds of children surveyed said that they had been separated from members of their families due to the conflict and a third said they had experienced the death of a close friend or family member.
“All these children tell you these stories in a matter of fact way and then you realize that there are layers and layers of emotional trauma there,” said Forsyth.
Syria’s civil war started with peaceful protests against the dynastic rule of President Bashar al-Assad. His forces shot at protesters and arrested thousands and soon the revolt turned into a civil war. Rebels now control large swathes of Syria.
Syria crisis: Children ‘recruited’ by armed groups
Save the Children says the only way to stop young people’s suffering in Syria “is to bring an end to the war”
Increasing numbers of children in Syria are being recruited by armed groups on both sides of the conflict, Save the Children says in a report.
Children are being used as porters, guards, informers and fighters and, in some cases, as human shields, the charity said in Childhood Under Fire.
Some two million children are in need of assistance in Syria, Save the Children estimates.
It says the two-year conflict has affected all aspects of their lives.
Risk of diseaseResearchers from Turkey found that three in every four Syrian children they interviewed had lost a loved one because of the fighting, the report says.
Many have lost access to healthcare and are living in unsanitary conditions where the risk of disease is high. Their families are struggling for food as shortages send prices beyond the reach of poorer families.
Their education has been disrupted as some 2,000 schools have either been damaged by the fighting or become temporary shelters for displaced people.
Syria’s children are the conflict’s “forgotten victims – facing death, trauma and suffering, and deprived of basic humanitarian aid”, the report said.
Save the Children has appealed for international help, but said: “The only way to stop their suffering is to bring an end to the war.”
Esma, 7, and a friend peer out of a tent in Lebanon’s Bekaa valley that has been her home since her family fled Syria last year. Photograph: Sam Tarling/Save the Children
Two million children in Syria have become the victims of bloody conflict, with many swept up in violence, and suffering from trauma, malnutrition and disease, a report says.
The catastrophic war in Syria has caused a “collapse in childhood”, Save the Children warned on Wednesday. It cited research revealing that one in three children reported having been hit, kicked or shot at, as fighting between rebels and soldiers loyal to President Bashar al-Assad engulfed the entire country.
The report, Childhood Under Fire (pdf), was launched to coincide with the second anniversary of Syria’s anti-Assad uprising. It paints a grim picture of how children have been targeted in the war and shows that many are struggling to find enough to eat. Others are living in barns, parks or caves. Few are able to go to school. Teachers have fled and school buildings are under fire. Sanitation systems have been damaged, forcing some youngsters to defecate in the street.
One, Nidal, said: “They shot at us near my foot so I jumped. I was scared, very scared, and my friend too. We were surrounded by walls. So we jumped over walls and ran away.” Nidal recalled how his father was sleeping, and his mother doing chores, when government soldiers burst in.
PUBLISHED: 09:06 EST, 2 March 2013 | UPDATED: 09:44 EST, 2 March 2013
Vermont state police have charged two men with Connecticut ties in an alleged child sexual assault case spanning several years that involved a victim who says he was wrapped in cellophane and subjected to other bondage.
State police charged 39-year-old Frank Meyer of West Haven, Conn., and 42-year-old Brett Bartolotta of Cavendish, Vt., with aggravated sexual assault and slave trafficking Wednesday.
The New Haven Register reports Meyer is a West Haven Fire Department captain and Bartolotta is a former West Haven firefighter.
Accused: Frank Meyer, 39, of West Haven, Conn., and Brett Bartolotta, 42, of Cavendish, Vt., are charged with aggravated sexual assault and slave trafficking
Authorities say a 25-year-old man came forward with the allegations last month, saying the assaults began when he was 12 and the sexual relations continued to last year.
The assaults allegedly occurred in Ludlow and Cavendish.
Both men pleaded not guilty and are detained on $50,000 bail.
The men allegedly bribed the boy to get him to perform hundreds of sexual favors.
Among the gifts was a dirt bike and a hunting bow.
Shared history: Both men have worked as volunteer firefighters for this West Haven fire department
The boy met Bartolotta when he went to a friend’s house to ride their dirt bikes, NBC Connecticut reported.
Three months after he took over as CEO of the New York Times Co., former BBC director-general Mark Thompson continues to be dogged by the controversy over the BBC’s handling of child sex abuse allegations. (AP Photo)
(CNSNews.com) – Newly released transcripts from an inquiry into the BBC’s handling of the Jimmy Savile child sex scandal reveal more about the role played by the public service broadcaster’s then director-general, New York Times Co. CEO Mark Thompson.
The transcripts, published Friday, show that Thompson told the inquiry late last year that he had “never heard” rumors that Savile had a “dark side of any kind, sexual or otherwise.” Savile, a celebrity entertainer who died in 2011 at age 84, is alleged to have sexually abused hundreds of children over his long BBC career.
The same inquiry, chaired by former Sky News chief Nick Pollard, was told by one of the BBC’s most prominent journalists, Jeremy Paxman, that Savile’s liking for “young girls” was “common gossip” at the BBC. Other interviewees confirmed this, with one recalling have heard rumors even before she joined the BBC well over a decade earlier.
The Pollard transcripts also criticize the way the BBC was run while Thompson was at the helm, with claims he oversaw a Beijing-style, top-heavy management structure.
“[T]hey had more senior leaders than China,” BBC Trust chairman Chris Patten told Pollard. “The management team, the senior management team, that the previous director-general [Thompson] had was 27 – 25 or 27. They never met.” (Patten has first-hand experience of China’s leadership structure; he was Britain’s last governor of Hong Kong before it reverted to mainland control in 1997.)
Patten noted that one of the first things Thompson’s immediate successor did on taking up the post was reducing the size of the top management team to 12 or fewer.
The 3,000 pages of documents released by the BBC Trust on Friday included partly-redacted transcripts of evidence heard by the Pollard inquiry – including that given by Thompson, who flew back to London last November to testify – as well as emails and other correspondence.
Thompson was BBC director-general (a role that incorporates that of chief executive and editor-in-chief) from 2004 until last September, when he left to take up the post in New York.
His departure from London came as a scandal was erupting over a December 2011 decision by the BBC’s Newsnight program to abandon an investigation into the child sex-abuse claims surrounding Savile. After leaving Britain Thompson consistently maintained that he had “never heard any allegations,” while at the BBC, relating to the abuses (see below for a list of Thompson’s statements.)
The BBC commissioned the Pollard inquiry to probe suspicions that Newsnight had killed the Savile story for “improper” reasons, and when its final report was released on December 19, it found no evidence to support this.
The inquiry also spared Thompson direct criticism, accepting his word that although he had been told Newsnight was working on a story on Savile, he was not aware of the substance, and “remained ignorant of the fact that the investigation was into allegations of sexual abuse.”
But three months into his tenure at the NYT, Thompson continues to be dogged by the controversy.
On Sunday the London Sunday Times reported on claims that Helen Boaden, the outgoing director of BBC News, alleges that she told Thompson about the Savile abuse allegations in a December 2011 conversation. That claim categorically challenges Thompson’s insistence that he knew nothing until after he left the BBC last September.
Thompson has undertaken to hold “town hall” meetings with NYT staffers where, among other things, he could answer any questions about the Savile affair. Postponed in December due to a delay in the final Pollard report, Thompson then said they would take place “early in the new year.”
Queries sent to the NYT Co. on Sunday brought no response by press time.
View PhotoAFP/AFP/File – Demonstrators take part in a One Billion Rising rally in New Delhi, on February 14, 2013. Indians were at the forefront of global protests in the campaign for women’s rights, galvanised by the …more
Three sisters aged between six and 11 were raped and murdered before their bodies were dumped down a village well in rural western India, police said on Wednesday.
The bodies of the three schoolgirls were found last week, two days after they went missing on February 14 from their home in the Bhandara district of Maharashtra state, police superintendent Aarti Singh told AFP.
“The bodies of the three young girls were found in a well, with their schoolbags and footwear,” Singh told AFP by phone from Nagpur, adding they were aged six, nine and 11.
“The post-mortem has confirmed that the girls were raped and then murdered.”
A Canadian aboriginal spokeswoman says native woman physically abused by police live in fear of retaliation under a fascist Harper government.
In the background of this Prime minister Harper of Canada has directed aboriginal women to go to the police in the case of them receiving abuse. The problem is that it is the police who are the perpetrators of the abuse against aboriginal women in Canada and these abused women are living in fear of retaliation by police if they speak out about this issue. A report from Human Rights Watch includes accusations that members of the CRMP Canadian Royal Mounted Police have sodomized aboriginal women and in some cases, girls under the age of 18. The report also includes accusations of rape, intimidation and even threatening children with drawn hand guns. The Harper government’s response to the HRW report has been one of denial of knowledge of police abuses and a promise to launch a commission. Aboriginal groups are demanding justice for the victims of police abuse.
In Saudi Arabia an Islamic cleric who admits to raping, torturing and killing his daughter received a fine but no jail time for his heinous crime. Saudi media reports that the father paid 200,000 riyals ($50,000 US) in “blood money” for his crime, but will not be required to serve any time in prison.
In response to the heinous crime, and lack of justice for five-year old victim Lama al-Ghamdi, the women’s rights activist Manal al-Sharif and others issued a press release on Feb 2, and launched a Twitter campaign using the hashtags #AnaLama (Arabic for “I am Lama”) and #IamLama, demanding legislation criminalizing violence against women and children.
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Accused: Frank Meyer, 39, of West Haven, Conn., and Brett Bartolotta, 42, of Cavendish, Vt., are charged with aggravated sexual assault and slave trafficking
Shared history: Both men have worked as volunteer firefighters for this West Haven fire department
