Showing posts with label childrens rights. Show all posts
Showing posts with label childrens rights. Show all posts
Israel accused of executing parents in front of children in Gaza
Israel has refuted allegations of war atrocities in Gaza after Palestinian children described how their parents had been "executed" by Israeli troops.
By Murray Wardrop, Telegraph.co.uk, Jan. 21, 2009
One nine-year-old boy said his father had been shot dead in front of him despite surrendering to Israeli soldiers with his hands in the air.
Another youngster described witnessing the deaths of his mother, three brothers and uncle after the house they were in was shelled.
He said his mother and one of his siblings had been killed instantly, while the others bled to death over a period of days.
A psychiatrist treating children in the village of Zeitoun on the outskirts of Gaza City, where the alleged incidents took place, described the deaths as a "massacre".
Rawya Borno, a Jordanian doctor, said civilians, including children, were rounded up and killed by Israeli troops.
Israel has denied the claims, dismissing them as Hamas propaganda, but said that an investigation is being conducted into soldiers' conduct in the area.
In interviews with ITV News, Palestinians claimed that Israeli forces knowingly killed civilians in Zeitoun on the morning of Jan 14.
Abdullah Samouni, nine, described the moment his father was allegedly "executed" by Israeli soldiers.
Holding his arms in the air, he said: "He was surrendering like this. My father came out and they shot him right away."
A boy named Ahmed said he was trapped for days in the wreckage of the shelled Samouni family's house.
He said: "My mother was dead beside me, she was clutching my brother Nasser and they were dead. My brother Itzaq was bleeding for two days and then he died. My brother Izmael bled to death in one day. My uncle Talal was bleeding for two hours and he died. God bless them."
Dr Borno said: "It's a massacre. They collected them from their houses. They knew that they were civilians. They were children."
When asked if Hamas had been in Zeitoun, Dr Borno replied: "Suppose that there is one of the fighters around, what is it to do with all these? Is the price to kill the family as a whole? Is this baby carrying a machine gun?"
Israeli spokesman Mark Regev suggested the claims could be Hamas propaganda and said an investigation was under way. However, he said that Israeli troops had reported that Zeitoun was "full of Hamas" militants and that soldiers encountered booby traps in "every house" in the village.
He said: "When people live in an authoritarian regime, when it's clear there is an official message and the message is to give out atrocity propaganda, [then] at least I think we should ask questions.
"Hamas has an interest in sending out this sort of atrocity propaganda.
"What happened in that village is under investigation. I know from speaking to IDF officers that there was very serious combat in that village, that every house was booby-trapped, there were guns. Very difficult military operation.
"If there is any Israeli solder that has done something inappropriate of course that will be discovered and there will be law, but I am very concerned about a situation where children are manipulated, where everyone is on the same message.
"We know that village was full of Hamas fighters. It's against the rules of engagement of the Israeli army to shoot innocent civilians."
By Murray Wardrop, Telegraph.co.uk, Jan. 21, 2009
One nine-year-old boy said his father had been shot dead in front of him despite surrendering to Israeli soldiers with his hands in the air.
Another youngster described witnessing the deaths of his mother, three brothers and uncle after the house they were in was shelled.
He said his mother and one of his siblings had been killed instantly, while the others bled to death over a period of days.
A psychiatrist treating children in the village of Zeitoun on the outskirts of Gaza City, where the alleged incidents took place, described the deaths as a "massacre".
Rawya Borno, a Jordanian doctor, said civilians, including children, were rounded up and killed by Israeli troops.
Israel has denied the claims, dismissing them as Hamas propaganda, but said that an investigation is being conducted into soldiers' conduct in the area.
In interviews with ITV News, Palestinians claimed that Israeli forces knowingly killed civilians in Zeitoun on the morning of Jan 14.
Abdullah Samouni, nine, described the moment his father was allegedly "executed" by Israeli soldiers.
Holding his arms in the air, he said: "He was surrendering like this. My father came out and they shot him right away."
A boy named Ahmed said he was trapped for days in the wreckage of the shelled Samouni family's house.
He said: "My mother was dead beside me, she was clutching my brother Nasser and they were dead. My brother Itzaq was bleeding for two days and then he died. My brother Izmael bled to death in one day. My uncle Talal was bleeding for two hours and he died. God bless them."
Dr Borno said: "It's a massacre. They collected them from their houses. They knew that they were civilians. They were children."
When asked if Hamas had been in Zeitoun, Dr Borno replied: "Suppose that there is one of the fighters around, what is it to do with all these? Is the price to kill the family as a whole? Is this baby carrying a machine gun?"
Israeli spokesman Mark Regev suggested the claims could be Hamas propaganda and said an investigation was under way. However, he said that Israeli troops had reported that Zeitoun was "full of Hamas" militants and that soldiers encountered booby traps in "every house" in the village.
He said: "When people live in an authoritarian regime, when it's clear there is an official message and the message is to give out atrocity propaganda, [then] at least I think we should ask questions.
"Hamas has an interest in sending out this sort of atrocity propaganda.
"What happened in that village is under investigation. I know from speaking to IDF officers that there was very serious combat in that village, that every house was booby-trapped, there were guns. Very difficult military operation.
"If there is any Israeli solder that has done something inappropriate of course that will be discovered and there will be law, but I am very concerned about a situation where children are manipulated, where everyone is on the same message.
"We know that village was full of Hamas fighters. It's against the rules of engagement of the Israeli army to shoot innocent civilians."
Why immigrant activists oppose the new bill
By Arturo J. Pérez Saad, workers.org, June 1, 2007
The U.S. Congress is discussing a new immigration bill supported by President George Bush and major groupings in both the Republican and Democratic Parties. This bill is being presented as a “great compromise” to regulate immigration and make the situation stable for immigrant workers and their employers.
It is true that diehard reactionaries in the Congress oppose the bill. These racists display open hostility to all immigrants here without legal papers and engage in what amounts to a chauvinist appeal to U.S. citizens. Of course all the racist and chauvinist politicians and commentators—of whom Lou Dobbs is the best-known example—must be answered, opposed and protested.
But what is important to take up now, and what this article will discuss, is that many in the immigrant rights movement here also find this bill completely inadequate to the needs of immigrants. Many activists consider it a violation of immigrants’ human rights.
What the bill proposes
If this bi-partisan immigration bill is allowed to become law, it will fundamentally change immigration laws that have been in place since 1965 to ones that are considerably more pro-corporation and anti-worker. While the bill promises “amnesty” or “legalization” to immigrants, it first demands that the following three benchmarks be completed:
First, the militarization of the southern border with an additional 18,000 troops or patrol personnel. By international standards, this deployment resembles an act of war. The latest technology will be employed to detain poor peasants and workers leaving their countries and trying to cross the southern border to find work here. And of course technology will also track who arrives by plane from other regions of the world.
Second, the construction and completion of a 370-mile apartheid wall on the U.S.-Mexican border. This wall will force the migrant workers to attempt to enter over more treacherous terrain. The migrant mortality rate, currently by some accounts over one person a day, will undoubtedly increase.
Third, the construction and completion of 20 additional concentration/labor camps or detention centers, which can hold and process more than 25,000 migrant workers a day! During World War II, the U.S. government—under the Democratic presidency of Franklin Roosevelt—carried out a program removing and incarcerating all people of Japanese origin into concentration camps.
After the above three benchmarks are accomplished, the undocumented worker can then apply for the temporary four-year “Z”-status visa. The worker must pay $5,000 to begin the process. At the time of renewal she or he must reapply, pay another fine, leave the country, apply from the home country and pay an additional fine. The cost, at a minimum $10,500, excluding legal fees, still guarantees nothing.
Nowhere is it acknowledged that the unemployment in these workers’ home countries was caused by neo-liberal policies imposed by Washington. These policies have resulted in increased poverty in and greater migration from those countries where the free trade agreements are in place.
On July 30, the fees for application of a change of status will increase drastically up to three times their current rate due to the government cutting social program budgets to fund the war. Who can afford these fees? Does the government really want to recognize the rights of current immigrants? Or does it just want to permit the entry of an increased work force that will have no choice but to work without rights, as “guest workers.”
This won’t be the first time. In the 1940s through the 1960s the Bracero program imported from Mexico “unskilled workers” to work in the agricultural sector in slave-like conditions with no rights and low wages—some were not paid at all. Then the U.S. government sent them back home. Many of those uncompensated for their work during that time protested on May 1 last year on the Mexican-side of the border in solidarity with the undocumented workers currently in the U.S. These workers have continued to put pressure on the U.S. government for just compensation now.
It is ironic that in May, as the immigration bill was being discussed, the self-confessed terrorist and CIA operative Luis Posada Carriles was set free after being detained for entering the U.S. and staying without documents since 2005. The message here is that if you are a pro-U.S. terrorist, you will be allowed to walk with impunity, even if you don’t have the proper documentation.
Devil in the details
There are many more macabre provisions in the bill including authorizing state agencies to act as border enforcement agencies, a bio-chip demanded for identification, separation of families made almost inevitable, the point system and the so-called Dream Act. This last Act will allow children of undocumented workers access to either 720 days of higher education or military service. Since the U.S. military is stretched thin and in the midst of a troop buildup in Iraq, the Pentagon sees these youths as potential cannon fodder.
In sum, this “great compromise” bill is far from “amnesty” or “legalization.” This bill will create a permanent underclass of workers who will be barred permanently from having legal status. Since it will grant legalization to those having advanced degrees and special skills, it will thereby promote a brain drain from developing countries. It will also make it easier for immigrants from the other imperialist countries in the northern hemisphere to come to the U.S.
In the 1980s, the U.S. government made similar maneuvers regarding immigrants, finally passing the Immigration and Reform Control Act (IRCA) as the “Great Amnesty” in 1986. While IRCA legalized 2.7 million undocumented workers, it left out over 1.5 million, penalized undocumented workers with hefty fines and criminalized the act of employing them, although employer sanctions never really occurred.
The Bush administration depends on the existing political climate of fear, brought about by daily terror raids on immigrant communities, to prevent a progressive struggle against the new law. But the sentiment of the masses is to continue to struggle.
On the day that the “great compromise” was announced, May 17, over 30,000 immigrants and supporters protested in Los Angeles, demanding the resignation of the police chief William J. Bratton, a full investigation of the LAPD for the attack of May 1 in MacArthur Park and “legalization now!” The immigrant movement apparently realized that the only way justice has ever been won is in the streets.
Congress is in recess until June 4, and the lobby groups for finance capital are positioning themselves and nit-picking those portions of the proposed legislation that will hold them accountable and prohibit them from super-exploiting workers. Immigrant rights activists are putting pressure on elected officials. Yet as the 19th century Black freedom leader Frederick Douglass stated then: “Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never has and never will.”
As was shown by the mass protests on May 1, major sectors of the immigrant community know that movement in the streets is what will achieve the defeat of this bill and win full rights for immigrants.
The U.S. Congress is discussing a new immigration bill supported by President George Bush and major groupings in both the Republican and Democratic Parties. This bill is being presented as a “great compromise” to regulate immigration and make the situation stable for immigrant workers and their employers.
It is true that diehard reactionaries in the Congress oppose the bill. These racists display open hostility to all immigrants here without legal papers and engage in what amounts to a chauvinist appeal to U.S. citizens. Of course all the racist and chauvinist politicians and commentators—of whom Lou Dobbs is the best-known example—must be answered, opposed and protested.
But what is important to take up now, and what this article will discuss, is that many in the immigrant rights movement here also find this bill completely inadequate to the needs of immigrants. Many activists consider it a violation of immigrants’ human rights.
What the bill proposes
If this bi-partisan immigration bill is allowed to become law, it will fundamentally change immigration laws that have been in place since 1965 to ones that are considerably more pro-corporation and anti-worker. While the bill promises “amnesty” or “legalization” to immigrants, it first demands that the following three benchmarks be completed:
First, the militarization of the southern border with an additional 18,000 troops or patrol personnel. By international standards, this deployment resembles an act of war. The latest technology will be employed to detain poor peasants and workers leaving their countries and trying to cross the southern border to find work here. And of course technology will also track who arrives by plane from other regions of the world.
Second, the construction and completion of a 370-mile apartheid wall on the U.S.-Mexican border. This wall will force the migrant workers to attempt to enter over more treacherous terrain. The migrant mortality rate, currently by some accounts over one person a day, will undoubtedly increase.
Third, the construction and completion of 20 additional concentration/labor camps or detention centers, which can hold and process more than 25,000 migrant workers a day! During World War II, the U.S. government—under the Democratic presidency of Franklin Roosevelt—carried out a program removing and incarcerating all people of Japanese origin into concentration camps.
After the above three benchmarks are accomplished, the undocumented worker can then apply for the temporary four-year “Z”-status visa. The worker must pay $5,000 to begin the process. At the time of renewal she or he must reapply, pay another fine, leave the country, apply from the home country and pay an additional fine. The cost, at a minimum $10,500, excluding legal fees, still guarantees nothing.
Nowhere is it acknowledged that the unemployment in these workers’ home countries was caused by neo-liberal policies imposed by Washington. These policies have resulted in increased poverty in and greater migration from those countries where the free trade agreements are in place.
On July 30, the fees for application of a change of status will increase drastically up to three times their current rate due to the government cutting social program budgets to fund the war. Who can afford these fees? Does the government really want to recognize the rights of current immigrants? Or does it just want to permit the entry of an increased work force that will have no choice but to work without rights, as “guest workers.”
This won’t be the first time. In the 1940s through the 1960s the Bracero program imported from Mexico “unskilled workers” to work in the agricultural sector in slave-like conditions with no rights and low wages—some were not paid at all. Then the U.S. government sent them back home. Many of those uncompensated for their work during that time protested on May 1 last year on the Mexican-side of the border in solidarity with the undocumented workers currently in the U.S. These workers have continued to put pressure on the U.S. government for just compensation now.
It is ironic that in May, as the immigration bill was being discussed, the self-confessed terrorist and CIA operative Luis Posada Carriles was set free after being detained for entering the U.S. and staying without documents since 2005. The message here is that if you are a pro-U.S. terrorist, you will be allowed to walk with impunity, even if you don’t have the proper documentation.
Devil in the details
There are many more macabre provisions in the bill including authorizing state agencies to act as border enforcement agencies, a bio-chip demanded for identification, separation of families made almost inevitable, the point system and the so-called Dream Act. This last Act will allow children of undocumented workers access to either 720 days of higher education or military service. Since the U.S. military is stretched thin and in the midst of a troop buildup in Iraq, the Pentagon sees these youths as potential cannon fodder.
In sum, this “great compromise” bill is far from “amnesty” or “legalization.” This bill will create a permanent underclass of workers who will be barred permanently from having legal status. Since it will grant legalization to those having advanced degrees and special skills, it will thereby promote a brain drain from developing countries. It will also make it easier for immigrants from the other imperialist countries in the northern hemisphere to come to the U.S.
In the 1980s, the U.S. government made similar maneuvers regarding immigrants, finally passing the Immigration and Reform Control Act (IRCA) as the “Great Amnesty” in 1986. While IRCA legalized 2.7 million undocumented workers, it left out over 1.5 million, penalized undocumented workers with hefty fines and criminalized the act of employing them, although employer sanctions never really occurred.
The Bush administration depends on the existing political climate of fear, brought about by daily terror raids on immigrant communities, to prevent a progressive struggle against the new law. But the sentiment of the masses is to continue to struggle.
On the day that the “great compromise” was announced, May 17, over 30,000 immigrants and supporters protested in Los Angeles, demanding the resignation of the police chief William J. Bratton, a full investigation of the LAPD for the attack of May 1 in MacArthur Park and “legalization now!” The immigrant movement apparently realized that the only way justice has ever been won is in the streets.
Congress is in recess until June 4, and the lobby groups for finance capital are positioning themselves and nit-picking those portions of the proposed legislation that will hold them accountable and prohibit them from super-exploiting workers. Immigrant rights activists are putting pressure on elected officials. Yet as the 19th century Black freedom leader Frederick Douglass stated then: “Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never has and never will.”
As was shown by the mass protests on May 1, major sectors of the immigrant community know that movement in the streets is what will achieve the defeat of this bill and win full rights for immigrants.
Opponents call bid to try teens as adults a ‘terrible idea’
By Elizabeth Gudrais, Journal State House Bureau, projo.com June 12, 2007
PROVIDENCE — A proposal to try 17-year-olds accused of crimes as adults had some youth advocates in shock, others just furious, yesterday as they began digesting the proposal and devising a plan to persuade lawmakers to change their minds.
“This says to me that rehabilitation of children is not important, is not a priority,” Jeremiah S. Jeremiah Jr., chief justice of the state Family Court, said yesterday. “We’re giving up on children.”
Everyone from the attorney general to the state child advocate is watching the proposal, which emerged as part of the $7-billion state budget the House Finance Committee approved on Friday. This is just one issue that’s expected to bring people to the State House this week to implore lawmakers to make amendments on the House floor during budget debate this Friday.
House Finance Chairman Steven M. Costantino said the decision was driven by one thing, pure and simple: saving money. It costs an average of $98,000 a year to house one youth at the Rhode Island Training School; the average annual cost per inmate at the state’s adult prison is $39,000. Lawmakers are banking on saving $3.6 million.
“It is with a heavy heart that I do this,” Costantino said yesterday. “I can’t afford the existing system that’s in place.”
Costantino noted that his committee also approved more than $13 million in additional financing for the current fiscal year — on top of the $290-million operating budget — to cover higher-than-anticipated spending across the Department of Children, Youth and Families.
But if advocates present an alternative proposal to save the same amount of money, Costantino said, “I would be willing to entertain that.”
Governor Carcieri included a similar proposal in his budget, which he released in late January. Now that it’s clear lawmakers are also on board, state officials are beginning to analyze in earnest the impact of funneling additional people into a prison that’s already bursting at the seams.
There are about 80 17-year-olds, another 30 18-year-olds, and a handful of youths 19 and older at the Training School. Because of complexities in the proposed changes, the number of 17-year-olds who end up at the Adult Correctional Institutions would almost certainly be smaller than that. However, Department of Corrections Director A.T. Wall said it’s likely the changes would drive up the corrections budget and “put an additional strain on our already overburdened institutions.”
The ACI population reached an all-time high of 3,881 last month. A newly renovated building, expected to be fully operational with equipment and staff early next year, will add 175 beds to help ease that strain. But Wall said the department had eventually hoped to close a cell block elsewhere to save money. If the population increases, that may not be possible.
Teny Gross, executive director of the Institute for the Study and Practice of Nonviolence in Providence, called lawmakers’ proposal “a terrible idea.”
Gross’ organization employs street workers who try to keep people from committing crimes, and people who’ve been to prison from ending up back there. Even if a youth doesn’t end up serving time, a conviction in the adult system creates a record that follows a person for life, Gross said.
Jametta O. Alston, the state child advocate, said lowering the age for the adult criminal system is a step in the wrong direction, because young adults’ brains, and their capacity to link actions with consequences, aren’t fully developed until their 20s. “Just because they’re big and they’re tall and they look like adults doesn’t mean they’re reasoning and thinking like adults,” she said.
Shifting youths into the adult system deprives them of the Training School’s more rehabilitative approach, but it also means they lose out on Family Court programs that come from a different pot of financing altogether, Judge Jeremiah said. For instance, he said his court has a program that takes youths into a hospital emergency room on weekend nights to see firsthand the consequences of drinking and driving, and a program that takes them to the ACI to talk to prisoners.
Without such supportive programs, “the chances of them reoffending are just astronomically high,” Attorney General Patrick C. Lynch said yesterday.
egudrais@projo.com
PROVIDENCE — A proposal to try 17-year-olds accused of crimes as adults had some youth advocates in shock, others just furious, yesterday as they began digesting the proposal and devising a plan to persuade lawmakers to change their minds.
“This says to me that rehabilitation of children is not important, is not a priority,” Jeremiah S. Jeremiah Jr., chief justice of the state Family Court, said yesterday. “We’re giving up on children.”
Everyone from the attorney general to the state child advocate is watching the proposal, which emerged as part of the $7-billion state budget the House Finance Committee approved on Friday. This is just one issue that’s expected to bring people to the State House this week to implore lawmakers to make amendments on the House floor during budget debate this Friday.
House Finance Chairman Steven M. Costantino said the decision was driven by one thing, pure and simple: saving money. It costs an average of $98,000 a year to house one youth at the Rhode Island Training School; the average annual cost per inmate at the state’s adult prison is $39,000. Lawmakers are banking on saving $3.6 million.
“It is with a heavy heart that I do this,” Costantino said yesterday. “I can’t afford the existing system that’s in place.”
Costantino noted that his committee also approved more than $13 million in additional financing for the current fiscal year — on top of the $290-million operating budget — to cover higher-than-anticipated spending across the Department of Children, Youth and Families.
But if advocates present an alternative proposal to save the same amount of money, Costantino said, “I would be willing to entertain that.”
Governor Carcieri included a similar proposal in his budget, which he released in late January. Now that it’s clear lawmakers are also on board, state officials are beginning to analyze in earnest the impact of funneling additional people into a prison that’s already bursting at the seams.
There are about 80 17-year-olds, another 30 18-year-olds, and a handful of youths 19 and older at the Training School. Because of complexities in the proposed changes, the number of 17-year-olds who end up at the Adult Correctional Institutions would almost certainly be smaller than that. However, Department of Corrections Director A.T. Wall said it’s likely the changes would drive up the corrections budget and “put an additional strain on our already overburdened institutions.”
The ACI population reached an all-time high of 3,881 last month. A newly renovated building, expected to be fully operational with equipment and staff early next year, will add 175 beds to help ease that strain. But Wall said the department had eventually hoped to close a cell block elsewhere to save money. If the population increases, that may not be possible.
Teny Gross, executive director of the Institute for the Study and Practice of Nonviolence in Providence, called lawmakers’ proposal “a terrible idea.”
Gross’ organization employs street workers who try to keep people from committing crimes, and people who’ve been to prison from ending up back there. Even if a youth doesn’t end up serving time, a conviction in the adult system creates a record that follows a person for life, Gross said.
Jametta O. Alston, the state child advocate, said lowering the age for the adult criminal system is a step in the wrong direction, because young adults’ brains, and their capacity to link actions with consequences, aren’t fully developed until their 20s. “Just because they’re big and they’re tall and they look like adults doesn’t mean they’re reasoning and thinking like adults,” she said.
Shifting youths into the adult system deprives them of the Training School’s more rehabilitative approach, but it also means they lose out on Family Court programs that come from a different pot of financing altogether, Judge Jeremiah said. For instance, he said his court has a program that takes youths into a hospital emergency room on weekend nights to see firsthand the consequences of drinking and driving, and a program that takes them to the ACI to talk to prisoners.
Without such supportive programs, “the chances of them reoffending are just astronomically high,” Attorney General Patrick C. Lynch said yesterday.
egudrais@projo.com
Committee probes abuse allegations
By HOLBROOK MOHR, hattiesburgamerican.com, June 15, 2007
JACKSON - Inmates at the state's only juvenile correctional facility for girls were subjected to sexual propositions from male guards, long periods in restraints and sporadic visits from mental health counselors, a legislative committee heard Tuesday.
House Juvenile Justice Committee Chairman Rep. George Flaggs, D-Vicksburg, called a meeting of his committee to explore allegations that eight girls at Columbia Training School were restrained 11 hours a day for more than a week after rumors circulated that some of them might try to escape.
One 16-year-old girl, whose identity was withheld, told a packed room of lawmakers and child advocates at the state Capitol that she was chained in leg shackles from about 6:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. for as many as 11 straight days.
The girls were forced to wear the restraints to school, recreation, the cafeteria and church services, she said. Some of the girls had minor injuries from the prolonged use of shackles.
An angry Flaggs held up a pair of the restraints when he scolded Department of Human Services officials over the conditions at the 1,500-acre facility in Columbia.
"You shackle a person in church? What kind of psychological effect does that have on a child?" Flaggs asked. "That's torture. Hell, we treat the terrorist better than that in this country."
The young girl also testified that some guards at Columbia asked girls to perform sexual acts and provided them with their telephone numbers with hopes of making a rendezvous once the teens were released.
"When we reported it, they just shunned it off," she said of DHS officials.
DHS Executive Director Don Taylor was not present at Tuesday's hearing.
Richard Harris, a DHS deputy administrator, said the allegations are being investigated and two officials at the school have been suspended with pay pending the outcome of the probe. He said a report should be available in the next five days.
"Abhorrent mistreatment of juvenile offenders in our training schools is counter to department policy. It is counter to the extensive training that has been provided to our staff over the last several weeks and months," Harris said. "We do not and will not tolerate mistreatment of children."
Harris was hesitant to say whether the restraints were used improperly, but conceded that they likely were, under questioning from Rep. John Hines, D-Greenville.
"Under the law, if this had been in my house, and I had done this to my children, would I be charged with child abuse?" Hines asked. "Yes or no?"
"Yes," Harris said.
Columbia and the state's facility for troubled boys - Oakley Training School - have a dismal record when it comes to abuse and neglect.
Mississippi entered an agreement in May 2005 to end a U.S. Department of Justice lawsuit over allegations of deplorable conditions at the facilities, including accusations that some youngsters at Columbia were forced to eat their own vomit and tossed nude into isolation cells.
As part for a four-year consent decree between the state and Justice Department, a court monitor oversees progress at the facilities. The latest report, released last week, says conditions are improving but there are still problems at the schools.
Lawmakers also expressed concern Tuesday over the increasing costs of housing youngsters at the facilities. Columbia houses 33 girls with a budget of nearly $5 million and Oakley has a budget of $10 million and houses 146 boys.
Flaggs and a paid consultant, Timothy J. Roche, both suggested that shutting down Columbia might be the only way to stop the problems there.
"What we have heard is unquestionably, in my mind, abuse," said Roche, who specializes in juvenile corrections. "Columbia has demonstrated an inability to keep girls safe."
However, members of the Council of Youth Court Judges said the state needs facilities for youngsters who pose a danger to the public, particularly violent offenders.
Adams County Youth Court Judge John Hudson said progress has been made in Mississippi's juvenile correction system in recent years and he urged officials to abandon desires to close the facility without first identifying where the dangerous youth would be sent.
"It's going to take more than two years to change something that took 100 years to develop," he said of Mississippi's juvenile justice system.
Flaggs had planned to visit Columbia on Thursday, but said he will wait for DHS to issue a report on the allegations of abuse.
JACKSON - Inmates at the state's only juvenile correctional facility for girls were subjected to sexual propositions from male guards, long periods in restraints and sporadic visits from mental health counselors, a legislative committee heard Tuesday.
House Juvenile Justice Committee Chairman Rep. George Flaggs, D-Vicksburg, called a meeting of his committee to explore allegations that eight girls at Columbia Training School were restrained 11 hours a day for more than a week after rumors circulated that some of them might try to escape.
One 16-year-old girl, whose identity was withheld, told a packed room of lawmakers and child advocates at the state Capitol that she was chained in leg shackles from about 6:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. for as many as 11 straight days.
The girls were forced to wear the restraints to school, recreation, the cafeteria and church services, she said. Some of the girls had minor injuries from the prolonged use of shackles.
An angry Flaggs held up a pair of the restraints when he scolded Department of Human Services officials over the conditions at the 1,500-acre facility in Columbia.
"You shackle a person in church? What kind of psychological effect does that have on a child?" Flaggs asked. "That's torture. Hell, we treat the terrorist better than that in this country."
The young girl also testified that some guards at Columbia asked girls to perform sexual acts and provided them with their telephone numbers with hopes of making a rendezvous once the teens were released.
"When we reported it, they just shunned it off," she said of DHS officials.
DHS Executive Director Don Taylor was not present at Tuesday's hearing.
Richard Harris, a DHS deputy administrator, said the allegations are being investigated and two officials at the school have been suspended with pay pending the outcome of the probe. He said a report should be available in the next five days.
"Abhorrent mistreatment of juvenile offenders in our training schools is counter to department policy. It is counter to the extensive training that has been provided to our staff over the last several weeks and months," Harris said. "We do not and will not tolerate mistreatment of children."
Harris was hesitant to say whether the restraints were used improperly, but conceded that they likely were, under questioning from Rep. John Hines, D-Greenville.
"Under the law, if this had been in my house, and I had done this to my children, would I be charged with child abuse?" Hines asked. "Yes or no?"
"Yes," Harris said.
Columbia and the state's facility for troubled boys - Oakley Training School - have a dismal record when it comes to abuse and neglect.
Mississippi entered an agreement in May 2005 to end a U.S. Department of Justice lawsuit over allegations of deplorable conditions at the facilities, including accusations that some youngsters at Columbia were forced to eat their own vomit and tossed nude into isolation cells.
As part for a four-year consent decree between the state and Justice Department, a court monitor oversees progress at the facilities. The latest report, released last week, says conditions are improving but there are still problems at the schools.
Lawmakers also expressed concern Tuesday over the increasing costs of housing youngsters at the facilities. Columbia houses 33 girls with a budget of nearly $5 million and Oakley has a budget of $10 million and houses 146 boys.
Flaggs and a paid consultant, Timothy J. Roche, both suggested that shutting down Columbia might be the only way to stop the problems there.
"What we have heard is unquestionably, in my mind, abuse," said Roche, who specializes in juvenile corrections. "Columbia has demonstrated an inability to keep girls safe."
However, members of the Council of Youth Court Judges said the state needs facilities for youngsters who pose a danger to the public, particularly violent offenders.
Adams County Youth Court Judge John Hudson said progress has been made in Mississippi's juvenile correction system in recent years and he urged officials to abandon desires to close the facility without first identifying where the dangerous youth would be sent.
"It's going to take more than two years to change something that took 100 years to develop," he said of Mississippi's juvenile justice system.
Flaggs had planned to visit Columbia on Thursday, but said he will wait for DHS to issue a report on the allegations of abuse.
Backlash forms against 'zero tolerance'
By RAY HENRY, Associated Press Writer, AP, June 15, 2007
PROVIDENCE, R.I. - Fifth-graders in California who adorned their mortarboards with tiny toy plastic soldiers this week to support troops in Iraq were forced to cut off their miniature weapons. A Utah boy was suspended for giving his cousin a cold pill prescribed to both students. In Rhode Island, a kindergartner was suspended for bringing a plastic knife to school so he could cut cookies.
It's all part of "zero tolerance" rules, which typically mandate severe punishments for weapons and drug offenses regardless of the circumstances.
Lawmakers in several states say the strict policies in schools have resulted in many punishments that lack common sense, and are seeking to loosen the restrictions.
"A machete is not the same as a butter knife. A water gun is not the same as a gun loaded with bullets," said Rhode Island state Sen. Daniel Issa, a former school board member who worries that no-tolerance rules are applied blindly and too rigidly.
Issa sponsored a bill requiring school districts to decide punishments for alcohol, drug and non-firearm weapon violations on a case-by-case basis after weighing the circumstances. It passed the Senate and House and now heads for the governor's desk.
Some have long been aware of the problems of zero tolerance. For the last decade, Mississippi has allowed local school districts to reduce previously mandatory one-year expulsions for violence, weapons and drug offenses.
More recently, Texas lawmakers have also moved to tone down their state's zero-tolerance rules. Utah altered its zero-tolerance policy on drugs so asthmatic students can carry inhalers. The American Bar Association has recommended ending zero-tolerance policies, while the American Psychological Association wants the most draconian codes changed.
"It may be a bit of self-correction that you're beginning to see where the pendulum is coming back," said Kathy Christie, vice president of a research clearinghouse for Education Commission of the States in Denver.
A decade ago, more than three-quarters of public schools surveyed reported adopting some version of a no-tolerance policy, according to the U.S. Department of Education.
"Zero tolerance" became a popular political buzzword during the waning days of the Reagan administration's "War On Drugs," and the rules spread rapidly after a series of high-profile school shootings, according to a report issued last year by the American Psychological Association.
A 1997 survey of more than 1,200 public schools by the U.S. Department of Education found that 79 percent had zero-tolerance policies against violence, 88 percent for drugs, 91 percent for weapons and 94 percent for firearms.
Some parents have mixed feelings about zero-tolerance rules. Christine Duckworth, 50, is the mother of an 18-year-old daughter who just graduated Portsmouth High School in Rhode Island, which has a zero-tolerance policy.
Duckworth said she wanted her daughter safe at school, but she said rules must reflect that teenagers make mistakes.
"I think there's pretty much always a gray area," she said. "You're dealing with individuals. How can you possibly apply one law to every single person and their circumstances?"
There are some signs that policies could be changing.
Texas decided in 2005 that schools can consider students' intent and other mitigating factors before punishing them for any offenses other than those involving firearms, and Rep. Rob Eissler said he wants the weighing of those factors to be mandatory.
"It's hard to legislate common sense," he said. "If we get intent into part of the code, I think we'll be in good shape."
Critics of zero-tolerance rules cite multiple problems. Academic achievement often lags in schools with the highest rates of suspension and expulsion, even when socio-economic factors are taken into consideration, said Cecil Reynolds, chairman of the APA's Zero Tolerance Taskforce.
"The kids feel like they're walking on egg shells," he said.
Reynolds also questioned what lessons zero-tolerance rules teach, citing reports that a 10-year-old girl was expelled from a Colorado academy after giving a teacher a small knife her mother placed in her lunchbox.
"What she learned from the school was, 'If something happens and you break a rule, for God's sake, don't tell anybody,'" Reynolds said. "Zero-tolerance policies completely ignore the concept of intent, which is antithetical to the American philosophy of justice."
The principal at Portsmouth High School in Rhode Island — whose mascot is sometimes depicted carrying a rifle — censored a yearbook photo because it showed a student who enjoys medieval reenactments wearing chainmail and holding a sword.
Citing the cost of litigation, the school relented this year and recently published in the yearbook graduate Patrick Agin's senior photo showing him with the sword.
Agin said he understands rules against guns and drugs, but he was perplexed about how school administrators drew distinctions in his case. He never brought the sword to school.
"You can't really have a zero tolerance," he said. "We have track and field. We throw javelins. If you think about it, you can pretty much make anything into a weapon."
PROVIDENCE, R.I. - Fifth-graders in California who adorned their mortarboards with tiny toy plastic soldiers this week to support troops in Iraq were forced to cut off their miniature weapons. A Utah boy was suspended for giving his cousin a cold pill prescribed to both students. In Rhode Island, a kindergartner was suspended for bringing a plastic knife to school so he could cut cookies.
It's all part of "zero tolerance" rules, which typically mandate severe punishments for weapons and drug offenses regardless of the circumstances.
Lawmakers in several states say the strict policies in schools have resulted in many punishments that lack common sense, and are seeking to loosen the restrictions.
"A machete is not the same as a butter knife. A water gun is not the same as a gun loaded with bullets," said Rhode Island state Sen. Daniel Issa, a former school board member who worries that no-tolerance rules are applied blindly and too rigidly.
Issa sponsored a bill requiring school districts to decide punishments for alcohol, drug and non-firearm weapon violations on a case-by-case basis after weighing the circumstances. It passed the Senate and House and now heads for the governor's desk.
Some have long been aware of the problems of zero tolerance. For the last decade, Mississippi has allowed local school districts to reduce previously mandatory one-year expulsions for violence, weapons and drug offenses.
More recently, Texas lawmakers have also moved to tone down their state's zero-tolerance rules. Utah altered its zero-tolerance policy on drugs so asthmatic students can carry inhalers. The American Bar Association has recommended ending zero-tolerance policies, while the American Psychological Association wants the most draconian codes changed.
"It may be a bit of self-correction that you're beginning to see where the pendulum is coming back," said Kathy Christie, vice president of a research clearinghouse for Education Commission of the States in Denver.
A decade ago, more than three-quarters of public schools surveyed reported adopting some version of a no-tolerance policy, according to the U.S. Department of Education.
"Zero tolerance" became a popular political buzzword during the waning days of the Reagan administration's "War On Drugs," and the rules spread rapidly after a series of high-profile school shootings, according to a report issued last year by the American Psychological Association.
A 1997 survey of more than 1,200 public schools by the U.S. Department of Education found that 79 percent had zero-tolerance policies against violence, 88 percent for drugs, 91 percent for weapons and 94 percent for firearms.
Some parents have mixed feelings about zero-tolerance rules. Christine Duckworth, 50, is the mother of an 18-year-old daughter who just graduated Portsmouth High School in Rhode Island, which has a zero-tolerance policy.
Duckworth said she wanted her daughter safe at school, but she said rules must reflect that teenagers make mistakes.
"I think there's pretty much always a gray area," she said. "You're dealing with individuals. How can you possibly apply one law to every single person and their circumstances?"
There are some signs that policies could be changing.
Texas decided in 2005 that schools can consider students' intent and other mitigating factors before punishing them for any offenses other than those involving firearms, and Rep. Rob Eissler said he wants the weighing of those factors to be mandatory.
"It's hard to legislate common sense," he said. "If we get intent into part of the code, I think we'll be in good shape."
Critics of zero-tolerance rules cite multiple problems. Academic achievement often lags in schools with the highest rates of suspension and expulsion, even when socio-economic factors are taken into consideration, said Cecil Reynolds, chairman of the APA's Zero Tolerance Taskforce.
"The kids feel like they're walking on egg shells," he said.
Reynolds also questioned what lessons zero-tolerance rules teach, citing reports that a 10-year-old girl was expelled from a Colorado academy after giving a teacher a small knife her mother placed in her lunchbox.
"What she learned from the school was, 'If something happens and you break a rule, for God's sake, don't tell anybody,'" Reynolds said. "Zero-tolerance policies completely ignore the concept of intent, which is antithetical to the American philosophy of justice."
The principal at Portsmouth High School in Rhode Island — whose mascot is sometimes depicted carrying a rifle — censored a yearbook photo because it showed a student who enjoys medieval reenactments wearing chainmail and holding a sword.
Citing the cost of litigation, the school relented this year and recently published in the yearbook graduate Patrick Agin's senior photo showing him with the sword.
Agin said he understands rules against guns and drugs, but he was perplexed about how school administrators drew distinctions in his case. He never brought the sword to school.
"You can't really have a zero tolerance," he said. "We have track and field. We throw javelins. If you think about it, you can pretty much make anything into a weapon."
School, military skirmish over data on students
Carolyn Jones, San Francisco Chronicle, June 12, 2007
Berkeley High remains the only high school in the nation that has failed to comply with the military's request for students' data, a Department of Defense spokesman said.
A month ago, the school -- under pressure from the government to release the data or lose funding -- changed its policy that blocked the release of students' personal information. The new policy allows students and parents who do not wish to be contacted by military recruiters to opt out by signing a form.
But the school did not immediately release the data to the government. Instead, a group of parents have been on a campaign to ask each and every student whether they want to opt out.
Thus far, 90 percent of the students at Berkeley High have refused to have their names released to miliary recruiters.
Berkeley High risked losing $10 million in federal funding, and possibly faced legal action, if it did not change its policy regarding military recruitment.
The controversy began in 2001, when the federal No Child Left Behind law passed. It requires school districts to hand over personal contact information for all juniors and seniors to military recruiters. The law also allows students to opt out.
The Berkeley Unified School District board has a strict policy against releasing students' personal information. So previously, instead of adopting an opt out policy, it used an "opt in" procedure in which students and parents could sign a form only if they wanted their information released to the military.
The result was that only about two dozen students a year opted in. One year only 16 did, said district spokesman Mark Coplan.
The military was not thrilled with the results and began pressuring district and school administrators to increase the numbers.
Maj. Stewart Upton, Department of Defense spokesman, said that recruiters have a tough time finding students because of "reduced interest" among young people and the strict eligibility requirements.
"Today's military recruiters must find and recruit from among the best and brightest of America's youth in a very challenging market," Upton wrote in an e-mail. "One vital tool that our recruiters rely on to help them succeed is access to high schools, in order to provide students with the opportunity to learn about the option of military service."
Local military recruiters complained, and progressively higher-ranking officers all the way up to a general came to Berkeley and met with Superintendent Michele Lawrence to resolve the matter.
Things escalated in May, when "the general got a call from the undersecretary of Defense, who made it clear in no uncertain terms that Berkeley was the last high school in the nation that has not complied and they would move forward with legal action," Coplan said. After that, Defense Secretary Robert Gates wrote Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger asking for something to be done.
The school held several assemblies a month ago, explaining why the district was changing its policy and advising students to sign the forms immediately -- whether they wanted to opt in or opt out.
Of the school's 1,500 juniors and seniors, 1,350 signed opt out forms prohibiting the district from turning over their data. The remaining 150 either have not responded or signed consent forms allowing the district to turn over their names, address and phone numbers to the military.
Parent volunteers are contacting the 150 to determine their intentions. The results won't be available until next week, after school is out for the summer.
"Not a lot of people know what's going on with the war," said Krystal Elebiary, a junior who joined with student Daniel Sandoval to write a letter and collect about 250 student signatures proclaiming, "We will not be used as tools for an unjust and imperialist war."
At a news conference Monday, the pair criticized the Bush administration for forcing Berkeley's compliance by threatening to withhold education funding from the school.
E-mail Carolyn Jones at carolynjones@sfchronicle.com.
This article appeared on page B - 1 of the San Francisco Chronicle
Berkeley High remains the only high school in the nation that has failed to comply with the military's request for students' data, a Department of Defense spokesman said.
A month ago, the school -- under pressure from the government to release the data or lose funding -- changed its policy that blocked the release of students' personal information. The new policy allows students and parents who do not wish to be contacted by military recruiters to opt out by signing a form.
But the school did not immediately release the data to the government. Instead, a group of parents have been on a campaign to ask each and every student whether they want to opt out.
Thus far, 90 percent of the students at Berkeley High have refused to have their names released to miliary recruiters.
Berkeley High risked losing $10 million in federal funding, and possibly faced legal action, if it did not change its policy regarding military recruitment.
The controversy began in 2001, when the federal No Child Left Behind law passed. It requires school districts to hand over personal contact information for all juniors and seniors to military recruiters. The law also allows students to opt out.
The Berkeley Unified School District board has a strict policy against releasing students' personal information. So previously, instead of adopting an opt out policy, it used an "opt in" procedure in which students and parents could sign a form only if they wanted their information released to the military.
The result was that only about two dozen students a year opted in. One year only 16 did, said district spokesman Mark Coplan.
The military was not thrilled with the results and began pressuring district and school administrators to increase the numbers.
Maj. Stewart Upton, Department of Defense spokesman, said that recruiters have a tough time finding students because of "reduced interest" among young people and the strict eligibility requirements.
"Today's military recruiters must find and recruit from among the best and brightest of America's youth in a very challenging market," Upton wrote in an e-mail. "One vital tool that our recruiters rely on to help them succeed is access to high schools, in order to provide students with the opportunity to learn about the option of military service."
Local military recruiters complained, and progressively higher-ranking officers all the way up to a general came to Berkeley and met with Superintendent Michele Lawrence to resolve the matter.
Things escalated in May, when "the general got a call from the undersecretary of Defense, who made it clear in no uncertain terms that Berkeley was the last high school in the nation that has not complied and they would move forward with legal action," Coplan said. After that, Defense Secretary Robert Gates wrote Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger asking for something to be done.
The school held several assemblies a month ago, explaining why the district was changing its policy and advising students to sign the forms immediately -- whether they wanted to opt in or opt out.
Of the school's 1,500 juniors and seniors, 1,350 signed opt out forms prohibiting the district from turning over their data. The remaining 150 either have not responded or signed consent forms allowing the district to turn over their names, address and phone numbers to the military.
Parent volunteers are contacting the 150 to determine their intentions. The results won't be available until next week, after school is out for the summer.
"Not a lot of people know what's going on with the war," said Krystal Elebiary, a junior who joined with student Daniel Sandoval to write a letter and collect about 250 student signatures proclaiming, "We will not be used as tools for an unjust and imperialist war."
At a news conference Monday, the pair criticized the Bush administration for forcing Berkeley's compliance by threatening to withhold education funding from the school.
E-mail Carolyn Jones at carolynjones@sfchronicle.com.
This article appeared on page B - 1 of the San Francisco Chronicle
Nigeria: Another 'Day of the African Child'
This Day (Lagos)
OPINION June 12 2007 Posted to the web June 13 2007
Bukola Olatunji And Lagos
It has been 31 years since thousands of South African black school children marched on the streets of Soweto, on June 16, 1976, to protest the inferior quality of their education and to demand their right to be taught in their own language. Hundreds of them were shot down; and in the two weeks of protest that followed, no fewer than an additional 100 people were killed and more than a thousand injured.
To honour the memory of those killed and the courage of all those who marched, the Day of the African Child has been celebrated, worldwide, on 16 June every year since 1991, when it was first initiated by the then Organisation of African Unity (OAU).
The day serves as an opportunity to reflect on progress toward health, education, equality and protection for all African children. The theme for this year's celebration is, 'Child Trafficking'.
It may be impossible to get accurate figures of victims of child trafficking either nationally, regionally or globally. According Plan, a global partnership of caring people, founded in 1937 to bring hope and help to the world's poorest children; trafficking of children is one of the most severe violations of human rights in the world today, involving over a million children worldwide. It refers to the illegal transport of human beings, in particular women and children, for the purpose of selling them or exploiting their labour. The International Labour Organisation (ILO) says "Child labour is a massive problem, one that affects one out of every six children in the world today.
A 79-page report, 'Borderline Slavery: Child Trafficking in Togo', released in 2003 highlights Togo as a case study of trafficking in the West African region. It documents how children as young as three years old are exploited as domestic and agricultural workers in several countries. Traffickers lure children from their homes with promises of high-quality schooling and vocational training abroad. Many of the children are orphans, forced to become breadwinners following the death of a parent from AIDS or other causes.
A scandal over the issue of child labour in West Africa blew up in 2002, when nearly half the chocolate produced in the United States was linked to cocoa beans harvested by child labourers in Côte d'Ivoire. Many of these children had been trafficked from neighbouring countries such as Mali and Burkina Faso.
Why this has thrived is aptly captured in the words of Joseph Addison:
"Education is a companion which no misfortune can depress, no crime can destroy, no enemy can alienate, no despotism can enslave. At home, a friend; abroad, an introduction; in solitude, a solace; and in society, an ornament. It chastens vice, it guides virtue, it gives at once grace and government to genius. Without it, what is man? A splendid slave, a reasoning savage."
The average African child remains locked in the vicious circle where poverty is the prime factor for lack of education and lack of education, the prime factor for poverty. As such, poverty is passed on from one generation to the next.
International treaties and charters, including the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR) - Article 13 and the African Charter on the Rights and Welfare of the Child (ACWRC) - Article 11 recognise education as the right of every child. Every nation-state also recognises the importance of education to its survival, although the commitment to ensuring that all its citizens achieve this is another matter.
According to Plan, one of the most effective means of preventing trafficking is to provide youth with opportunities to receive quality education. The more youth (and adults) know about their rights, the better equipped they are to fight violations of these rights.
Given the will and means, every parent wants his or her child to be able to read and write, to acquire the best education possible. But not every child is able to attain this.
Coming home to Nigeria, governments at all levels pledge to commit themselves to the delivery of qualitative education, but the facts on ground show that only the rich can readily afford good quality education. The conditions of abject poverty in which millions of Nigerians live, affect the chances of their children getting educated. Many of them are forced into street hawking, prostitution and bus conducting, among others.
A veteran primary teacher at the Ansar-ud-deen Primary School, Lagos Island, Mrs. Charlotte Irantiola said, "Most of these children are from broken homes. They are being raised by single parents with very little budgeted to support their education. Some of them are a result of unwanted pregnancies and consequently, are not planned for. They arrive as extra burdens on already overburdened grandparents who can scarcely afford extra expenditure on education."
She also noted the wrong attitude of some people to education. She said, "The social orientation of some people, especially on the Lagos Island affects the education of their children. They prefer to buy expensive clothes and lavish money on parties, instead of spending money on the education of their children."
In addition to these, she observed that "There is a dearth of worthy role models especially on the Island where a lot of 'area boys' abound. These impressionable youngsters end up emulating those around them." She gave the example of a " boy in my school that goes from class to class stealing the belongings of his peers so much that his reputation precedes him. As he enters any class, the word spreads that the chap is around and everyone should secure their property."
No part of the country is spared the existence of mushroom private schools, the result of the failure of the public school system. Many of them cannot afford to hire good teachers, yet they charge fees. A teacher in one of such so-called 'private Nursery and Primary' schools on the Lagos Island was recently heard teaching the children Nigeria's national pledge and saying, ' uphold her 'honest' and glory', instead of 'uphold her honour and glory.' The same person, while correcting a pupil said, "Are you promise to be a good child?"
Instances also abound of brilliant children dropping out of school due to financial constraints. A boy in a secondary school in Lagos was forced to skip some papers in the just concluded Junior School Certificate Examination (JSCE) because he owed the fees for a whole session - about N60, 000. But for the intervention of a 'Good Samaritan', the boy would have dropped out for good. It was said that the principal allowed him to owe that much because the boy was so brilliant that the principal was reluctant to see him go and hoped his fees would eventually be paid. A whole session was the farthest he could go, but not school administrators could afford to be that humane.
Mr. James Atoyebi was recently celebrated for not giving up on his dreams. A student was forced to drop out of the Obafemi Awolowo University (OAU), Ile-Ife while studying Law in the 80s, due to financial difficulty. After more than two decades of struggling to keep body and soul together, he wrote JAMB again. Not only did he pass, the man, who is in his late 40s came first in the examination and his return to OAU for the same Law degree, two years ago, was widely celebrated with a lot of financial aid from we that will ensure his graduation this time. Forget the fact that a lot of time is wasted already and a former classmate is a Head of Department in the same Faculty.
The 'International Conference on School Fee Abolition: Planning for Quality and Financial Sustainability', jointly organised by the Association for the Development of Education in Africa (ADEA), UNICEF, the World Bank and the Ministry of Basic Education of Mali; which begins in Bamako on June 19, is timely. Governments of African countries must genuinely commit themselves to abolishing all forms of school fees and hidden costs, at least in the first nine years of education to secure the future of the African child.
OPINION June 12 2007 Posted to the web June 13 2007
Bukola Olatunji And Lagos
It has been 31 years since thousands of South African black school children marched on the streets of Soweto, on June 16, 1976, to protest the inferior quality of their education and to demand their right to be taught in their own language. Hundreds of them were shot down; and in the two weeks of protest that followed, no fewer than an additional 100 people were killed and more than a thousand injured.
To honour the memory of those killed and the courage of all those who marched, the Day of the African Child has been celebrated, worldwide, on 16 June every year since 1991, when it was first initiated by the then Organisation of African Unity (OAU).
The day serves as an opportunity to reflect on progress toward health, education, equality and protection for all African children. The theme for this year's celebration is, 'Child Trafficking'.
It may be impossible to get accurate figures of victims of child trafficking either nationally, regionally or globally. According Plan, a global partnership of caring people, founded in 1937 to bring hope and help to the world's poorest children; trafficking of children is one of the most severe violations of human rights in the world today, involving over a million children worldwide. It refers to the illegal transport of human beings, in particular women and children, for the purpose of selling them or exploiting their labour. The International Labour Organisation (ILO) says "Child labour is a massive problem, one that affects one out of every six children in the world today.
A 79-page report, 'Borderline Slavery: Child Trafficking in Togo', released in 2003 highlights Togo as a case study of trafficking in the West African region. It documents how children as young as three years old are exploited as domestic and agricultural workers in several countries. Traffickers lure children from their homes with promises of high-quality schooling and vocational training abroad. Many of the children are orphans, forced to become breadwinners following the death of a parent from AIDS or other causes.
A scandal over the issue of child labour in West Africa blew up in 2002, when nearly half the chocolate produced in the United States was linked to cocoa beans harvested by child labourers in Côte d'Ivoire. Many of these children had been trafficked from neighbouring countries such as Mali and Burkina Faso.
Why this has thrived is aptly captured in the words of Joseph Addison:
"Education is a companion which no misfortune can depress, no crime can destroy, no enemy can alienate, no despotism can enslave. At home, a friend; abroad, an introduction; in solitude, a solace; and in society, an ornament. It chastens vice, it guides virtue, it gives at once grace and government to genius. Without it, what is man? A splendid slave, a reasoning savage."
The average African child remains locked in the vicious circle where poverty is the prime factor for lack of education and lack of education, the prime factor for poverty. As such, poverty is passed on from one generation to the next.
International treaties and charters, including the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR) - Article 13 and the African Charter on the Rights and Welfare of the Child (ACWRC) - Article 11 recognise education as the right of every child. Every nation-state also recognises the importance of education to its survival, although the commitment to ensuring that all its citizens achieve this is another matter.
According to Plan, one of the most effective means of preventing trafficking is to provide youth with opportunities to receive quality education. The more youth (and adults) know about their rights, the better equipped they are to fight violations of these rights.
Given the will and means, every parent wants his or her child to be able to read and write, to acquire the best education possible. But not every child is able to attain this.
Coming home to Nigeria, governments at all levels pledge to commit themselves to the delivery of qualitative education, but the facts on ground show that only the rich can readily afford good quality education. The conditions of abject poverty in which millions of Nigerians live, affect the chances of their children getting educated. Many of them are forced into street hawking, prostitution and bus conducting, among others.
A veteran primary teacher at the Ansar-ud-deen Primary School, Lagos Island, Mrs. Charlotte Irantiola said, "Most of these children are from broken homes. They are being raised by single parents with very little budgeted to support their education. Some of them are a result of unwanted pregnancies and consequently, are not planned for. They arrive as extra burdens on already overburdened grandparents who can scarcely afford extra expenditure on education."
She also noted the wrong attitude of some people to education. She said, "The social orientation of some people, especially on the Lagos Island affects the education of their children. They prefer to buy expensive clothes and lavish money on parties, instead of spending money on the education of their children."
In addition to these, she observed that "There is a dearth of worthy role models especially on the Island where a lot of 'area boys' abound. These impressionable youngsters end up emulating those around them." She gave the example of a " boy in my school that goes from class to class stealing the belongings of his peers so much that his reputation precedes him. As he enters any class, the word spreads that the chap is around and everyone should secure their property."
No part of the country is spared the existence of mushroom private schools, the result of the failure of the public school system. Many of them cannot afford to hire good teachers, yet they charge fees. A teacher in one of such so-called 'private Nursery and Primary' schools on the Lagos Island was recently heard teaching the children Nigeria's national pledge and saying, ' uphold her 'honest' and glory', instead of 'uphold her honour and glory.' The same person, while correcting a pupil said, "Are you promise to be a good child?"
Instances also abound of brilliant children dropping out of school due to financial constraints. A boy in a secondary school in Lagos was forced to skip some papers in the just concluded Junior School Certificate Examination (JSCE) because he owed the fees for a whole session - about N60, 000. But for the intervention of a 'Good Samaritan', the boy would have dropped out for good. It was said that the principal allowed him to owe that much because the boy was so brilliant that the principal was reluctant to see him go and hoped his fees would eventually be paid. A whole session was the farthest he could go, but not school administrators could afford to be that humane.
Mr. James Atoyebi was recently celebrated for not giving up on his dreams. A student was forced to drop out of the Obafemi Awolowo University (OAU), Ile-Ife while studying Law in the 80s, due to financial difficulty. After more than two decades of struggling to keep body and soul together, he wrote JAMB again. Not only did he pass, the man, who is in his late 40s came first in the examination and his return to OAU for the same Law degree, two years ago, was widely celebrated with a lot of financial aid from we that will ensure his graduation this time. Forget the fact that a lot of time is wasted already and a former classmate is a Head of Department in the same Faculty.
The 'International Conference on School Fee Abolition: Planning for Quality and Financial Sustainability', jointly organised by the Association for the Development of Education in Africa (ADEA), UNICEF, the World Bank and the Ministry of Basic Education of Mali; which begins in Bamako on June 19, is timely. Governments of African countries must genuinely commit themselves to abolishing all forms of school fees and hidden costs, at least in the first nine years of education to secure the future of the African child.
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