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Africa

Adoption

On my flight back from Texas today, one of the guys sitting beside me told me that, despite nearing retirement age, he and his wife are in the process of adopting their 5-year-old granddaughter because neither their son nor the girl's mom wanted the responsibility of taking care of a child. This reminded me of my flight from Amsterdam to Detroit last Sunday. I'll write much more about my trip to Belgium/the Netherlands later when I get around to it, but I want to go ahead and tell this story lest I forget to tell it later. On the flight from Amsterdam, there was a man across the isle to my left who was on his way back from Russia. He and his wife are in the process of adopting two Russian kids (ages 5 and 9, or something like that) and had been there visiting them and taking steps to complete the adoption. In the row in front of me was a dad and his teenage daughter. They were returning form Africa (Zambia?) with a little girl (maybe age 9) whom their family was adopting. The wife and the rest of the kids were going to meet them at the airport in Detroit. I thought it was kind of unusual to be sitting so close to two international adoption stories on that flight. In Detroit, as I was going through customs, I heard loud clapping and cheering coming from the area where people emerge from customs and greet the public. I quickly looked over, wondering what was happening. I couldn't see much, but I caught a glimpse of the dad who was returning from Africa. I realized that what I had heard and glimpsed was a bunch of people warmly and enthusiastically welcoming to America the little girl from Africa. It was beautiful!

Ithuteng

Recently I finished watching Ithuteng, a moving documentary about the Ithuteng Trust School in Soweto, Africa. The school tries to reach troubled kids by, for example, teaching them about the realities of prison and encouraging them to dramatize their own personal stories of trauma (sexual abuse is rampant in South Africa as is AIDS). Unfortunately, the film ends with a disclaimer that it was made prior to allegations about Ithuteng's leader Mama Jackie appearing in the South African press. Apparently she is accused of fabricating stories for the documentary and living in luxury accommodations. Disturbing. I recently read a couple stories in the NY Times about the tragic plight of kids in Africa. The first, from October 29 by Sharon LaFraniere titled "Africa's World of Forced Labor, in a 6-Year-Old's Eyes,":

...part of a vast traffic in children that supports West and Central African fisheries, quarries, cocoa and rice plantations and street markets. The girls are domestic servants, bread bakers, prostitutes. The boys are field workers, cart pushers, scavengers in abandoned gem and gold mines. By no means is the child trafficking trade uniquely African. Children are forced to race camels in the Middle East, weave carpets in India and fill brothels all over the developing world. The International Labor Organization, a United Nations agency, estimates that 1.2 million are sold into servitude every year in an illicit trade that generates as much as $10 billion annually. Studies show they are most vulnerable in Asia, Latin America and Africa.

A 2002 study supervised by the labor organization estimated that nearly 12,000 trafficked children toiled in the cocoa fields of Ivory Coast alone. The children, who had no relatives in the area, cleared fields with machetes, applied pesticides and sliced open cocoa pods for beans. In an analysis in February, Unicef says child trafficking is growing in West and Central Africa, driven by huge profits and partly controlled by organized networks that transport children both within and between countries.

In a region where nearly two-thirds of the population lives on less than $1 a day, the compensation for the temporary loss of a child keeps the rest of the family from going hungry. Some parents argue that their children are better off learning a trade than starving at home. Indeed, the notion that children should be in the care of their parents is not a given in much of African society. Parents frequently hand off children to even distant relatives if it appears they will have a chance at education and more opportunity.

And, so tragic that it's true:

To reduce child trafficking significantly, said Marilyn Amponsah Annan, who is in charge of children's issues for the Ghanaian government, adults must be convinced that children have the right to be educated, to be protected, and to be spared adult burdens - in short, the right to a childhood.

The second, by the same author, "Sex Abuse of Girls Is Stubborn Scourge in Africa":

Even as this region races to adopt many of the developed world's norms for children, including universal education and limits on child labor, one problem - child sexual abuse - remains stubbornly resistant to change. In much of the continent, child advocates say, perpetrators are shielded by the traditionally low status of girls, a lingering view that sexual abuse should be dealt with privately, and justice systems that constitute obstacle courses for victims. Data is sparse and sexual violence is notoriously underreported. But South African police reports give an inkling of the sweep of child victimization. In the 12 months ending in March 2005, the police reported more than 22,000 cases of child rape. In contrast, England and Wales, with nine million more people than South Africa, reported just 13,300 rapes of women and girls in the most recent 12-month period.

Africa is not unique in its high rates of abuse. While a survey of nine countries last year by the World Health Organization found the highest incidence of child sexual abuse in Namibia - more than one in five women there reported being sexually abused before age 15 - it also found frequent abuse in Peru, Japan and Brazil, among other nations. Relatives are frequent perpetrators in Africa, as in much of the world. But this continent's children face added risks, especially at school. Half of Malawian schoolgirls surveyed in 2006 said male teachers or classmates had touched them in a sexual manner without their permission.

But medical and legal authorities say the vast majority of families still hew to a tradition of accepting payment from perpetrators. The few who press charges are plunged into a criminal justice process that Mr. Mouigni calls deeply frustrating.

Ethiopian women are most abused

From an article of the same title on BBCNews.com:

Nearly 60% of Ethiopian women were subjected to sexual violence, including marital rape, according to the Ending Violence Against Women report. Almost half of all Zambian women said they had been attacked by a partner... In addition to violence from partners, the report also condemned what it found to be high levels of institutionalised violence, such as female genital mutilation, estimating that 130 million girls and women had undergone this practice.

Zimbabwe internet link restored

Can you imagine a whole country losing its internet connectivity because of an overdue bill? What about a country knocking 3 zeros off of its bank notes to curb inflation? From an article of the same title on BBCNews.com:

Zimbabwe's internet services have been fully restored after a $700,000 debt was paid to restore the satellite link. Zimbabwe's Reserve Bank bailed out telephone operator TelOne, which owed the sum to Intelsat. The disconnection earlier this month cut surfing and e-mail activities by 90%, Zimbabwe's ISP association said... Zimbabwe is in the midst of an economic crisis, with 1,200% inflation, 70% unemployment rates and shortages of basic goods like fuel and maize. Earlier this year, Zimbabwe knocked three zeros off the denomination of its banknotes in an effort to contain inflation. The opposition says President Robert Mugabe has destroyed one of Africa's most developed economies through his policies. He blames the problems on a western plot to remove him from power.

Darfur On the Brink

From an article of the same title in The Week on September 22, 2006:

Warning of an imminent bloodbath in the Darfur region of Sudan, tens of thousands of protesters in New York, London, and other cities this week demanded immediate U.N. intervention. Several world leaders joined the call for U.N. action. The Security Council last month agreed to dispatch 22,500 peacekeepers to Darfur, contingent on the permission of the Sudan government in Khartoum. But the government, which has launched a brutal offensive against rebel groups, opposes U.N. involvement... The U.S. must take the lead, said Sen. John McCain and former Sen. Bob Dole in The Washington Post. We could start by imposing economic sanctions and creating a no-fly zone over Darfur. But we should also make it clear that if these measures fail, military intervention will follow. "The question is whether the United States and other nations will act now to prevent a tragedy, or merely express sorrow and act later to deal with its aftermath."

The article by McCain and Dole in The Washington Post is here. A quote:

The scale of human destruction thus far in Sudan has been staggering. Already, more than 200,000 civilians have been killed, with perhaps 2.5 million forced into squalid camps. This catastrophe is the result of a directed slaughter perpetrated by the Sudanese government and allied Janjaweed militias... As with Srebrenica in 1995, the potential for further mass killing in Darfur today is plain for all to see. All the warnings have been issued, including one from the United Nations that the coming weeks may see "a man-made catastrophe of an unprecedented scale." What remains unclear is only whether the world has the will to impose an outcome on Sudan different from that which unfolded so tragically in Bosnia. Make no mistake: At some point we will step in to help victims in Darfur and police an eventual settlement. The question is whether the United States and other nations will act now to prevent a tragedy, or merely express sorrow and act later to deal with its aftermath.

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