We Speak For Earth
-
ikenbot CWL -
mohandasgandhi Mohandas Gandhi -
realcleverscience Real Clever Science -
socialuprooting Social Uprooting -
abstractnerd Abstract Nerd -
perscientiamlibertas A Matter of the Most Pleasant Fraternal Confidence
In many societies, marriage is a celebrated institution signifying a union between two adults and the beginning of their future together. Unfortunately, millions of girls still suffer from a vastly different marriage experience every year. Worldwide, many brides are still children, not even teenagers. So young are some girls that they hold onto their toys during the wedding ceremony. Usually these girls become mothers in their early teens, while they are still children themselves. The practice can result in profound negative consequences for the girls, their families and their entire communities.
Too Young to Wed, a multimedia partnership between the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) and premier photo agency VII, seeks to raise awareness of the practice and ultimately, to end it.While the global launch of the TOO YOUNG TO WED exhibition at the United Nations in New York was a heartfelt success, the project and the campaign supported by UNFPA and VII continues to raise awareness about child marriage and urge policymakers to enact and enforce laws that will end the practice forever. The work has only just begun.
Follow the stories and get involved at: www.TooYoungToWed.org
(via nickturse)
BETHLEHEM (Ma’an) – President Mahmoud Abbas said Tuesday that the Palestinian Authority would send a message to the Israeli government and to the world reminding them of the bases and terms of reference on which the Middle East peace process was built.
“We will not accept continuation of the status quo, and will soon take the steps we have agreed on with the Arab countries,” he said.
At a meeting in Ramallah with members of his Fatah party’s Revolutionary Council, Abbas said the peace process collapsed because the Israeli government violated previously signed agreements.
The Israeli government, he added, failed to comply with international resolutions, the international Quartet’s decisions and the Road Map peace plan, and instead imposed facts on the ground through increasing settlement activities. Israel continued to confiscate Palestinian lands in the West Bank and Jerusalem for the separation wall and settlements.
Abbas updated the Fatah leadership on the results of exploratory meetings between Palestinian and Israeli officials in Amman as well as the outcome of the meetings with the Arab follow up committee in Cairo.
He reiterated that the Palestinian side would insist that Israel recognize the borders of an independent Palestinian state and stop settlement activities in order to start serious negotiations leading to a withdrawal from Palestinian territory occupied in 1967.
The president stressed that national reconciliation between Palestinian rivals would remain a priority. The leadership is adamant to put into effect all terms of the reconciliation agreement, the most important of which is the technocrat government which will reconstruct the Gaza Strip and prepare for elections.
The United States’ continued operation of the Guantanamo Bay prison camp in Cuba is a “clear breach of international law,” United Nations human rights chief Navi Pillay said today, Reuters reports. Only six trials have been completed in 10 years, while eight detainees have died at the prison. “While fully recognizing the right and duty of states to protect their people and territory from terrorist acts, I remind all branches of the U.S. government of their obligation under international human rights law to ensure that individuals deprived of their liberty can have the lawfulness of their detention reviewed before a court,” Pillay said. “Where credible evidence exists against Guantanamo detainees, they should be charged and prosecuted. Otherwise, they must be released.”
The last report of the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) entitled Progress for Children: A Report Card on Nutrition, established that there are 146 millions children under the age of five with serious problems of under nutrition. According to this report, 28 percent of these children live in Africa, 17 percent in the Middle East, 15 percent in Asia, 7 percent in Latin America and the Caribbean, 5 percent in Europe and 27 percent in developing countries.
Cuba, however, does not have those problems, being the only country in Latin America and the Caribbean that has eliminated children under nutrition. Cuba’s achievement is owed to the government efforts to reinforce the alimentation of the most vulnerable groups. Another UN organization, the Agriculture and Food Organization, has also acknowledged Cuba as the country that has made the most progress in the struggle against malnourishment in Latin America.
The Cuban State guarantees a food basic basket and promotes the benefits of breastfeeding among new mothers. Newborns are exclusively breastfed is until the fourth month and that is complemented with other foods until the sixth month. In addition, every child between the age of zero and seven years old are given a litre of milk every day. Other foods equally distributed among children are fruit compote, juices and vegetables.
All these efforts have placed Cuba among the top countries in the fulfilment of human development according to the United Nations.
And Cuba has attained all this despite the economic, commercial and financial blockade imposed by the United States during the last 50 years.
(via selfrelatingtruth)
ABIDJAN, Ivory Coast — United Nations peacekeepers in Ivory Coast enticed underage girls in a poor part of the West African nation to exchange sex for food, according to a United States Embassy cable released by WikiLeaks.
The cable written in January 2010 focuses on the behavior of Beninese peacekeepers stationed in the western town of Toulepleu, an area that has been at the crosshairs of the nation’s 10-year-long conflict.
A random poll of 10 underage girls in Toulepleu by aid group Save The Children U.K. in 2009 found that eight performed sexual acts for Benin peacekeepers on a regular basis in order to secure their most basic needs. “Eight of the 10 said they had ongoing sexual relationships with Beninese soldiers in exchange for food or lodging,” the diplomat wrote in the cable, citing information shared with the embassy by a protection officer.
On Tuesday, United Nations spokesman Michel Bonnardeaux confirmed that in April, 16 Beninese peacekeepers were repatriated to Benin and are barred from serving in the U.N. following a yearlong investigation.
“We see it as a command and control problem,” said Bonnardeaux who spoke by telephone from New York. Of the 16, 10 were commanders and the rest were soldiers.
The commanders, he said, “failed to maintain an environment that prevents sexual exploitation and abuse.”
Sexual misconduct by U.N. troops has been reported in a number of countries including Congo, Cambodia and Haiti – as well as in an earlier incident involving Moroccan peacekeepers in Ivory Coast.
In 2007, a 730-strong battalion of peacekeepers from Morocco was asked to suspend its activities in the northern Ivorian city of Bouake after the U.N. received allegations of sexual misconduct involving local girls.
A report published a year later by Save the Children U.K. identified Ivory Coast as one of the places where sexual barter between peacekeepers and girls was occurring. The peacekeepers traded food as well as mobile phones for sex, the report said.
The recently released cable identifies for the first time the Benin peacekeeping contingent.
It also makes clear that the sexual exploitation continued through at least the last month of 2009, quoting a protection officer with Save the Children who spoke to the embassy in January 2010. The officer said that the “sexual exploitation and abuse problem among (United Nations) personnel is more extensive than is recognized.”
Parents were encouraging their daughters to sleep with the peacekeepers so they would provide for them, according to the cable.
Bonnardeaux said that 42 allegations of sexual abuse by U.N. staff in Ivory Coast have been reported since 2007. Sixteen involved minors. None have been reported yet this year, according to U.N. records.
