Just got this press release in my email today anf thought it was worth posting in its entirety. Even as the media spotlight on Haiti fails, let’s not forget the threats facing its children, who are multilayered vulnerable - on top of the vulnerability they had before the earthquake because of their poverty, they now [...]

The title of this post owes itself to the line I’ve put in bold in the IRIN story below. “…Most children who had one living relative were taken in by them,” local caretakers report. Why do I think that statement is so important? Because it runs counter to images among some outside of Haiti that [...]

The BBC reports this story today. Here’s a snippet of it:
Aid workers in Haiti have sent home all but one of the 33 children that US missionaries tried to take out of the country after the January earthquake.
They said all the children had parents to return to. Each family was given food, blankets and $260 [...]

I’ve been wanting to give a roundup (since even before the NY Times did its story on kids, she says with pride and procrastination) of how Haitian children are doing post-earthquake. So here’s a roundup of info and the activities of some non-governmental and international groups whose work I respect.
First, though, I need to comment [...]

I repost here a story I wrote for the Philadelphia Inquirer that was in Tuesday’s paper. It looks at the problem of men, generally affluent, white men from developed countries, who travel abroad to sexually molest children and some of the people fighting to end it. I’ll post later on information on one international nongovernmental organization, [...]

I highly recommend watching Wide Angle’s program, on PBS, about what has happened to the children of Myanmar since Cylcone Nargis hit. The people there, especially youngsters, are struggling mightily with little help from the government. This issue, and others involving Myanmar’s treatment of its people, need to stay on the U.S. radar. Granted, sanctions to pressure [...]

…because it reports hugely important stories like this that get late, little or no attention from the mainstream media. This story on Somalia underscores how children ALWAYS suffer tremendously from fighting.

MOGADISHU, 14 July 2009 (IRIN) - At only 14, Ali Hussein Sid is already the sole breadwinner of his family, his father having been killed [...]

The story below about child soldiers just came in this morning from IRIN. The media and activists who care about this issue need to figure out a way to get the plight of child soldiers into the international consciousness to a degree that promotes real action. This story will probably get picked up in numerous publications [...]

See report here
 

This just in from the very good folks at Resolve Uganda. The group is urging that, as regional militaries hunt for LRA leader Joseph Kony, they target only Lord’s Resistance Army leaders and not the children. As richly as Kony deserves to be caught, the pragmatic problem always has been that in using force to capture him, [...]