Stolen Childhood

Seventy percent of the Palestinians claim that they want peace. They want to live in peace side-by-side with Israel. But they vote in terrorist group Hamas to govern them.

And now they’re raising an army of children to carry on the jihad through at least another generation!

People in Palestinian are so much soaked in Islamic Jihad that now even the children could be seen promoting the obsession via media, which is a means to disseminate messages at masses.

Over 50% of ‘Palestinian’ children between the ages of 6 and 11 want to grow up to be ‘martyrs.’

Al-Aqsa TV, the official station of the government headed by Ismail Haniyeh of Hamas, telecasted a footage in where a four year old girl could be seen eulogizing her suicide bomber mother and declaring to follow her footsteps.

Muslims want ‘peace’ and still engage in jihad

This is a sheer disgrace on the part of parents who are polluting their young minds. Hate breeds hate, why they don’t understand. They are saturating another generation of Islamic terrorists, all raised for the cult of Islam.

In Islam, the Hadith says the best thing is to follow Mohammaed and the second best is to participate in Jihad and those who participate in Jihad would get 72 virgins in heaven.

Well, I assume, these kids are too young to be thinking about 72 virgins. It just that some of the people, in the province, have monopolized the authority and are playing with the traditional beliefs of the natives.

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Can wearing your favorite socks to school lead you to court? Of course, if this girl is to be believed! A seventh-class-kid possibly will end up in court for togging up in Winnie the Pooh socks to school.

According to the grapevine, Toni Kay Scott was sent to an in-school suspension plan called Students With Attitude Problems last year. The 14-year-old, allegedly, violated a dress code, says a lawsuit against the Napa Valley Unified School District and Redwood Middle School.

The girl’s socks were engraved with the Tigger character from Winnie the Pooh cartoon show. She was in a denim skirt and a brown shirt with a pink border that day. But according to the school’s rules, students should don solid colors in blue, white, green, yellow, khaki, gray, brown and black. And allowable textiles are cotton twill, corduroy and chino. Denim is a big no-no.

Toni’s family filed a lawsuit in Napa County Superior Court by The American Civil Liberties Union and a law firm, which states that the dress code is exceedingly imprecise and too restrictive.

The teenager expressed herself:

We should be given freedom to display one and all who we are and have a way to express ourselves.

The rules encroach upon the California Education Code, said claimant’s lawyer Sharon O’Grady.

Via - zeenews

Ever wondered how you would feel if you were locked up in a cage one and half metres high and two metres long around your bed and let out for only a few minutes everyday?

Well, that is exactly how some mentally challenged citizens spend their whole lives - locked up in cages and abandoned by their loved ones and humanity. And what is really shocking is the fact that this caged existence exists in some of Europe’s most ‘progressive’ cuntries like Czech Republic and that too in the 21st century!

In a world where, groups are fighting for the rights of animals who are locked up in zoos and circuses, the revelations move even the most insentive among us.

Michel Celetka,a former patient says:

It is like a cage in a zoo. Like a small prison.

These are said to institutions who are supposed to treat their patients, but their ‘treatment’ has only worsened the conditions of patients who could have otherwise, progressed. The institutions defend their medieval cruelty by arguing that the cages are a must as the patients display aggressive traits. I think even those with no mental handicap would behave in the same manner if locked up in a cage. Similar and worse stories emerge from the neighboring countries,Slovakia and Hungary.

What is even more shocking is the lack of empathy and initiative by the governments despite the repeated lobbying by activists.Recommendations to replace the homes by those modelled on institutions in Britain, which help the residents to lead semi-independent lives in the community have been shelved by the government.

The European Union and the UN could help in pressurizing these countries to push for reforms in its institutions to improve the quality of life of their residents. Laws banning the use of ‘Cage beds’ have been passed , but are rarely implemented. The problem doesn’t seem to be the individual abuse, but abuse by a system that is stuck in the dark ages.It does seem to be a long way before the inhumane chains are broken away...

India is not the safest place in the world for children, it seems. According to a year-long study of 17,000 children conducted by a non-governmental agency called Prayas, almost half of those surveyed reported being abused or traumatized daily.

The findings are a damning indictment in a country where rampant poverty forces children to scavenge for food across train and bus stations, leaving them vulnerable and helpless at the hands of authority figures. Take the case of 11-year-old Shanoat who said that almost every day he and his brother, Sarfarad, are regularly beaten up by police while they work as cleaners at the train station:

The cops don’t care who you are. If they don’t like something they’ll hit you. In the last year, I’ve been hit by the police maybe a thousand times.

In New Delhi alone, 71% of the children surveyed said that they had been beaten up by policemen and other authority figures. Even more alarmingly, the study finds that at least one among four Indian children who had agreed to participate in the survey admitted to having been sexually abused at some time or the other. Shanoat admits that such instances of almost daily torture leave most of them completely traumatized and resentful of society. Most of the kids have no parents or families and are left to fend for themselves.

What is the government doing in the meanwhile? Apparently, the Indian parliament is set to meet later this year to decide whether to pass a new child protection law that would force teachers, parents, the police and others to report cases of child abuse to relevant authorities. Better now than never.

Via: CBC

Chat show queen Oprah Winfrey has added another feather in her already glorious crown by launching a revolutionary school institution for poor children in, in the remote town of Kokstad, eastern KwaZulu-Natal province, South Africa.

Christened as seven Fountains Primary School, this one is an innovative, environment-friendly institution that is aimed at over all development of a kid. Apart from educating the under-privileged kids it also boasts of a recycling system that harvests rain water and uses fun activities like seesaws and merry go-rounds to pump water. Not just this, the solar power harnessing and landscape gardens adds into the uniqueness of this school, where a lot of stress is being laid on utilizing the natural resources.
Teachers and kids, who were delighted at the inauguration of the institution, sang ‘Long live Oprah,'’ in praise of the lady who has committed herself to the cause of the masses.

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Young detainees in Burundi are living in a miserable condition, it seems, the criminal justice system of the region is insensitive towards the requirements of the young people.

Alison des Forges, senior regional adviser to Human Rights Watch asserted,

children, who are treated as adults, are sometimes tortured for confessions. Most of them cannot access legal advice or representation.

Their older inmates often subject the children who are undergoing trail to sexual harassment. And this sheds negative impact upon the minds of young people.

The living condition is so deplorable that more than 25 children have to share common room, where some have reported to stay awake all night. The children are also afraid to take shower least they become prey by their ’seniors’, who tend to hawk upon them. Also, children have accounted their misery over sharing common toilets.

Figuratively, there are more than 400 children under the age of eighteen detained in prison, while others are captive in communal holding cells and police lock-ups.

Special centers for the child offenders must be established in the region however, the authorities are trying to make a move in the direction by providing alternatives to incarceration. Now, lets see, how far the government can go in framing their move.

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Have a look at this pic on your right. This is not a usual snap shot of two little girls showing off their friendship...but Armani’s latest ad campaigne to promote kids wear that’s trying to show something more than just two cute girls.

Don’t you get a repulsive feeling looking at make-up clad girls as small as five, dressed up so scantly? I get. And so does get some of the critics who say that portraying Asian girls in an image like this promote a lot more than just the clothes.

So does opine the Institute for the Defense of Children in Spain, who feel that this is a sure shot tactic to promote sexual tourism by attracting adults using girls wearing bikini. But do you think it’s moral to use kids to make such an obscene or better known as ‘bold’ style statement. Whom are manufacturers actually aiming at? Kids or the adults? Do you think a father would ever like to see his own daughter dressed in a bikini before him? If your answer to this question is ‘no’...then I think you should know that you have actually lost a major portion of your customers. And if these ads are aimed at akids...then again you have all the reasons to be ashamed since...in no way you are giving an ideal dressing idea to the young minds.

As a brand you have all the power to influence these young minds...then why use your power in such a way?
THINK!

Via: Trendhunter

There is mounting concern about the problem of child trafficking in Nepal, which is one of the poorest countries in the world.

Recently, an investigation has cracked down orphanages in Nepal who are running a multi-million-pound international adoption racket, selling poor kids abroad without their parents’ approval.

Padam Bahadur Shahi, 31, a forest guard met with this miserable incident. When his one of the two boys fell ill, he send the kid to a children’s home in Kathmandu, on one of his friend’s suggestion, which he considered to be the only option for the well being of his child. But then after two years he got to know that the boy has been adopted by a Spanish couple.

The bleak figures postulate that more than 300 kids are adopted every year and 338 were adopted in the first six months of the current financial year. According to the official figures, 11 have gone to Britain since 2000.

The couples are ready to pay as much as $20,000 to intermediaries or officials.

With very little access to information or support, many parents put their child’s life in jeopardy.

Every day newspaper advertisements appear seeking information on lost children. They give little information that could help identify the child, but if no one comes forward within 56 days, the child is declared an orphan.

Needs a re-think

In recent times, the rising concern about the trafficking has incorporated a critique of national and local level political apathy on the issue and the chronic lack of law enforcement and political will to address this problem.

It is argued by critics from the NGO sector that while the government has voiced a commitment to mainstreaming gender and child rights issues, most of these programs continue to be conducted in isolation.

The marginalization of women’s and children’s issues limits participation and contributes to further exclusion.

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Prayaas, an NGO, conducted a yearlong study, with support from UNICEF and the Department of Women and Child Development.

They interviewed 17,000 children and accounted that over 50% children interviewed reported some form of physical, sexual or economic abuse.

Significantly, the study also notes that by the government’s own admission, 35 million homeless children in India need protection. But only an abysmally low 35,000 are actually placed in shelters provided by the government and non-government organizations.

Needs a re-think

Occurrence or recurrence of incidents of child abuse shatters the semblance of well-being of the adult world.

Parents blame the authorities they in turn vent their anger on neglectful parents and then they all heave sighs lamenting the degradation of basic social values. In the bargain, the child and his/her trauma are forgotten. Hardly any one seems concerned to question: What would be the extent of damage to the psyche of the little one and how should he or she be treated to rehabilitate him or her and make him or her, a healthy future citizen.

I think the government must re-locate the investment from spending on the shelters, to the protection of these children, from where they frequently escape to return to the very world from which they were rescued.

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What’s wrong with these American high school youths! Graph of suicide cases are mounting each day.

A 17-year-old youth shot himself in the head after killing his ex-girlfriend in central Michigan high school. In a similar other incident, a 16-year-old boy shot himself at his high school in Texas and later died at a hospital.

I have been thinking lately, what could lead these kids to shoot some one just like that. Although there are instances when a boy kills his ex-girl friend because of unrequited love while in others, probably it’s because of drugs, for taking such an extreme step.

The government seems to take these events, as a reason to tighten security in schools, shopping malls and on the roads, but that clearly seems to be addressing a symptom, instead of solving the problem.

The influence of the pharmaceutical companies in this country is too overwhelming, the legalized drug pushing is occurring right in living rooms and fortunes are being made at the top of the pile but at the bottom, folks are killing each other.

Bottom line

Despite the prevalence of firearms in their own and other families’ homes, America’s parents fail to recognize the immediate danger guns pose to their children and are not taking steps to ensure their children’ safety.

Indeed, these make clear the challenge that remains to translate parents’ abstract concern about guns and youth into a personal consciousness and to inform parents of what they can and should do to better protect their children from the threat that lies in their own homes and those of their children’s friends and neighbors.

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