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Modern Slavery
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Slavery still exists...maybe in your own backyard...

March 1, 2008 | 9:14 AM Comments  2 comments

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The First Victim of Child Soldiers
Translations available in: English (original) | French | Spanish | Italian | German | Portuguese | Swedish | Russian | Dutch | Arabic

Artwork by Rafaela Tasca and Brazilian cartoonist Latuff

February 9, 2008 | 5:23 PM Comments  0 comments



Hunger: Myths and Reality
Translations available in: English (original) | French | Spanish | Italian | German | Portuguese | Swedish | Russian | Dutch | Arabic

Myth One:
There is not enough food and not enough land.


Untrue. Measured globally, there is enough to feed everyone. For example there is enough grain being produced today to provide everybody in the world with enough protein and about 3000 calories a day, which is what the average American consumes. But the world's food supply is not evenly distributed.

Myth Two:
There are too many people to feed.


Contrary to popular belief, overpopulation is not the cause of hunger. It's usually the other way around: hunger is one of the real causes of overpopulation. The more children a poor family has the more likely some will survive to work in the fields or in the city to add to the family's small income and, later, to care for the parents in their old age. All this points to the disease that is at the root of both hunger and overpopulation: The powerlessness of people who must rely on food that is grown and distributed by wealthy people who have never felt hunger pangs, yet who determine how the land will be used, if at all and who will benefit from its fruits. High birth rates are symptoms of the failures of a social system - inadequate family income, inadequate nutrition and health care and old-age security.


Myth Three:
Growing more food will mean less hunger in poor countries.


But it doesn't seem to work that way. "More food" is what the last 30 years' War on Hunger has been about. Farming methods have been "modernized", ambitious irrigation plans carried out, "miracle" seeds, new pesticides, fertilizers and machinery have become available. But who has come out better off?

Myth Four:
Hunger is contest between rich countries and poor countries.


Rich or poor, we are all part of the same global food system which is gradually coming under the control of a few huge corporations. These giant businesses grow and market food for the benefit of those people who have money which means primarily people in North American and Europe.

Myth Five:
Hunger can be solved by redistributing the food to the hungry.


True. Adapting a simpler lifestyle helps us to understand our interrelatedness with all people and less wastefulness is better stewardship. But neither" one less hamburger a week". Nor massive food aid programs, will eventually solve widespread starvation and poverty in the poorest nation. People will only cease to be poor when they control the means of providing and /or producing food for themselves.

Myth Six:
A strong military defense provides a secure environment in which people can prosper.


But who feels secure on and empty stomach? The extraordinary investment the world makes in armaments annually (currently $900 billion) ensures that few funds are available for agricultural and economic development and shows that those who decide how a nation's money is spent are not intimately acquainted with the violence of hunger.


Source: Rehydration Project

January 21, 2008 | 7:36 PM Comments  1 comments

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Make Poverty History - Toddlers
Translations available in: English (original) | French | Spanish | Italian | German | Portuguese | Swedish | Russian | Dutch | Arabic


January 3, 2008 | 4:52 PM Comments  0 comments



Child soldier recruitment up in Congo - Once Again
Related to country: Congo, DR

Translations available in: English (original) | French | Spanish | Italian | German | Portuguese | Swedish | Russian | Dutch | Arabic

Recent fighting in Democratic Republic of Congo has led to a surge in child soldier recruitment, the charity Save the Children says.

Boys and girls are being abducted by armed groups in record numbers to act as soldiers, spies, porters and sex slaves in eastern Congo, the charity said Monday.

Hussein Mursal, the Congo director for the charity, said, "The situation for children in eastern DRC is catastrophic; fighters from all sides are using children as frontline fodder, raping young girls and attacking houses."

Save the Children says it has managed to free about 800 youngsters from the militias in the last year - although some have been captured again.

Those children who have managed to escape have told the aid organization that they were held captive in small holes in the ground.

Fighting in the area escalated at the start of this month, when the army launched a long-planned offensive against dissident general Laurent Nkunda, with the support of UN troops. The fighting has forced tens of thousands of civilians from their homes, adding to an estimated 800,000 displaced people - around half of them displaced by this year's fighting alone.

Source: Reuters, Press TV, Save the Children

December 26, 2007 | 5:42 PM Comments  0 comments



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