The International Day for Street Children was launched in 2011 by the Consortium for Street Children (CSC), the leading international network dedicated to realizing the rights of street children worldwide, and is supported by Aviva, the world’s 6th largest insurance group. The day is celebrated by street children, NGOs, policy makers, celebrities, corporates and individuals across the globe.
2012
In 2012 the theme for the International Day for Street Children is ‘Challenging Perceptions’ – we are encouraging people to question what they think they know about street children. Challenge your perceptions by watching our film or reading about some common myths.
Key messages
Across the globe there are large numbers of children surviving on the streets – it’s time we all took action to address this issue.
Whether they are a runaway from Derby or a street child in Delhi, the factors that drive children to the streets are similar (and include family breakdown, poverty, and violence).
One of the greatest challenges faced by a street child is being recognized and treated as someone with rights.
We must recognize that a street child has the same potential as any other child, given the opportunity.
Although street children are vulnerable to the dangers of life on the street, they are also resilient and resourceful.
Street children see themselves as able to make a positive contribution to society despite often negative attitudes towards them.
We are calling for governments and society to join together and stand up for the rights of street children all over the world. Being a street child is not a crime.
Street children adopt many tactics necessary to survive on the streets, such as begging, loitering and rough sleeping.
Heavy handed treatment by authorities – such as violence and round-ups - is all too common and must be stamped out.
Rather than treat them as criminals authorities should understand the reasons for street children’s behavior and provide support.
MEXICO CITY — A video “mockumentary” that shows children as kidnappers, corrupt cops and drug traffickers has sparked a fierce debate in violence-torn Mexico, with some people calling it a needed wake-up call while others described it as political manipulation or even child abuse.
Kids playing the role of businessmen, criminals and corrupt officials are seen robbing, paying bribes and shooting it out in a mock Mexico made up entirely of children, all to the deceptively laid-back tune of the 1970s ballad “Una Manana,” or “One Morning.”
Produced by a foundation supported by private companies and universities and distributed over the Internet,the video ends with a direct message to the candidates in the Mexico’s July 1 presidential race
A little girl faces the camera and says: “If this is the future that awaits me, I don’t want it. Enough of working for your political parties instead of for us. Enough of cosmetic changes.”
‘Discomforting Kids’ Dubbed “Ninos Incomodos,” roughly “Discomforting Kids,” the four-minute video opens with a pudgy kid-businessman waking up in the morning dragging on a cigarette, and closes with a kiddie-version of alleged drug lord Edgar Valdez, aka “La Barbie,” being dragged off to an overcrowded jail full of children by junior cops.
Little girls carrying purses scream and scurry for cover as boys their own age spray machine guns from huge SUVs and assault-rifle toting little cops run to detain them at gunpoint.
Despite the video’s grim images of knife-wielding, migrant-smuggling, gun-toting kids, all the major candidates had praise for it. Leftist candidate Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador called it “well done, it’s tough but it’s the truth.”
Earlier, the candidate of the former governing Institutional Revolutionary Party, Enrique Pena Nieto, wrote in his Twitter account: “I support the message of Discomforting Kids. I hear it all the time on the campaign trail; that ‘time is running out.’ It’s time to renew hope and change Mexico.”
Josefina Vazquez Mota, the candidate of President Felipe Calderon’s conservative National Action Party, tweeted that “the video of Discomforting Kids is a call that can’t be ignored. I accept the challenge, I want to join you.”
Countries that carried out executions in 2011 did so at an alarming rate but those employing capital punishment have decreased by more than a third compared to a decade ago. Only 10 percent of countries in the world, 20 out of 198, carried out executions last year.
People were executed or sentenced to death for a range of offenses including adultery and sodomy in Iran, blasphemy in Pakistan, sorcery in Saudi Arabia, the trafficking of human bones in the Republic of Congo, and drug offenses in more than 10 countries. Methods of execution in 2011 included beheading, hanging, lethal injection and shooting.
Some 18,750 people remained under sentence of death at the end of 2011 and at least 676 people were executed worldwide.
Amnesty International opposes the death penalty in all cases without exception regardless of the nature of the crime, the characteristics of the offender or the method used by the state to carry out the execution. The death penalty violates the right to life and is the ultimate cruel, inhuman and degrading punishment.
(Hartford, Conn.) — After years of failed attempts to repeal the death penalty, Connecticut lawmakers in both the House and the Senate have passed legislation that abolishes the punishment for all future cases.
As expected, members of the House voted 86-62 in favor of the bill after a floor debate that lasted nearly 10 hours on Wednesday.
The legislation, which would make Connecticut the 17th state to abolish the death penalty, awaits a signature from Gov. Dannel P. Malloy, who has said he would sign the bill into law. “Going forward, we will have a system that allows us to put these people away for life, in living conditions none of us would want to experience,” the Democratic governor said in a statement following the vote. “Let’s throw away the key and have them spend the rest of their natural lives in jail.”
The bill would abolish the death penalty and replace it with a sentence of life imprisonment without the possibility of release.
Lawmakers were able to garner support by making the legislation affect only future crimes and not the 11 men currently on death row.
Four other states have abolished the death penalty in the past five years: Illinois, New Jersey, New York and New Mexico.
Facts worth noting: In Connecticut, seven out of 10, or 70 percent, of death row inmates are African-American or Latino, whereas only 9 percent of Connecticut’s population is African-American and 10 percent is Latino, according to theAmerican Civil Liberties Union of Connecticut.
Studies have shown the most important factor in levying the death penalty is race. Those who kill a white person are shown to be more likely to receive the death penalty than those who kill a Black or Latino person.
George Zimmerman, the neighborhood watch captain who admits he shot unarmed Florida teenager Trayvon Martin, was charged with murder on April 12 and taken into custody.
The charge of second degree murder was announced by Florida special prosecutor Angela Corey at a news conference this evening. If convicted of the charges Zimmerman could face a maximum sentence of life in prison.
WARNING: The video below contains graphic footage and images. Viewer’s discretion is advised.
Cenk Uygur discusses a video recently released by Harper’s Magazine that shows private contractors from Blackwater in Iraq hitting cars in traffic and running over a woman then fleeing the scene.
Blackwater is the mercenary firm founded as Blackwater USA in 1996 by former Navy SEAL and fundamentalist Christian Erik Prince. It received no-bid contracts from the Bush administration in Iraq, Afghanistan, and post-Katrina New Orleans. In 2009, Prince resigned as CEO. Amid scandals over misbehavior by Blackwater employees in Iraq, the company renamed itself Blackwater Worldwide in 2007, Xe Services in 2009, and Academi in 2011. Subsidiaries include Paravant LLC. nndb.com
America’s prisons are overflowing, but many who are kept behind bars, are just children. Thousands of youths are tried as adults in the U.S. every year – and some are given life sentences in the country’s harshest jails. Many then find themselves becoming victims of sexual violence, and suicide.
Scotland Yard is facing a racism scandal after a black man used his mobile phone to record police officers subjecting him to a tirade of abuse in which he was told: “The problem with you is you will always be a nigger”.
The recording, obtained by the Guardian, was made by the 21-year-old after he was stopped in his car, arrested and placed in a police van the day after last summer’s riots.
The man, from Beckton, east London, said he was made to feel “like an animal” by police. He has also accused one officer of kneeling on his chest and strangling him.
In the recording, a police officer can be heard admitting he strangled the man because he was “a cunt”. Moments later, another officer – identified by investigators as PC Alex MacFarlane – subjects the man to a succession of racist insults and adds: “You’ll always have black skin. Don’t hide behind your colour.”
The Independent Police Complaints Commission referred the case to the Crown Prosecution Service on the basis that three officers, including MacFarlane, may have committed criminal offences.
The CPS initially decided no charges should be brought against any of the police officers. However on Thursday, the service said it would review the file after lawyers for the man threatened to challenge the decision in a high court judicial review. MacFarlane has been suspended.
The inquiry began after the victim handed his mobile phone to a custody desk in Forest Gate police station and told officers he had been abused.
Earlier, he had been driving through Beckton with a friend when he was stopped by a van containing eight police officers from Newham borough. London’s streets were flooded with police who had been drafted in to contain the rioting.
The officers arrested the man on suspicion of driving under the influence of drugs and told him he was being taken to a police station to be searched. After being taken into the van, the man was also arrested for missing a previous magistrates court appearance. No further action is to be taken in relation to the suspected driving offence.
It was once inside the van and handcuffed that the man said he was assaulted by police. He described having his head pushed against the van window and said one officer placed his knees on his chest and began strangling him. “I couldn’t breathe and I felt that I was going to die,” he said.
The man said he decided to turn on the recording facility of his phone after MacFarlane allegedly made sexually explicit references about his mother and telling him he would be “dead in five years”.
In the recording, the man sounds agitated; he raises his voice to complain about his treatment and in places insults the arresting officers. The verbal exchange lasts several minutes.
When the man tells an officer: “you tried to strangle me”, the officer replies: “No, I did strangle you.” The officer adds that he strangled him “‘cos you’re a cunt” and that the man had been “kicking out”. In relation to the strangling, the officer says: “Stopped you though, didn’t it?”
Minutes later MacFarlane, who is white, begins abusing the man. After a period of silence, he can be heard telling him: “The problem with you is you will always be a nigger, yeah? That’s your problem, yeah.”
The man reads out MacFarlane’s badge number and complains that he had subjected him to racist comments: “I’ll always be a nigger – that’s what you said, yeah?”
MacFarlane replies: “You’ll always have black skin colour. Don’t hide behind your colour, yeah.” He adds: “Be proud. Be proud of who you are, yeah. Don’t hide behind your black skin.”
Shortly before the recording ends, the man can be heard saying: “I get this all the time.” He then tells the officer: “We’ll definitely speak again about this … It’s gonna go all the way, it’s gonna go all the way – remember.”
The man’s lawyer, Michael Oswald, said: “By his own efforts our client has put before the CPS exceptionally strong evidence and we share his astonishment that the CPS have reached a decision that no police officer should be prosecuted on the basis of that evidence. We do welcome their agreement to review that decision and we now await the outcome of that review.”
The CPS initially said charges should not be brought against MacFarlane because the remarks did not cause the man harassment, distress or alarm.Grace Ononiwu, deputy chief crown prosecutor for CPS London, said: “Lawyers for [the complainant] have written to the CPS and asked us to review our decision. I have considered the matter personally and directed that all the evidence should be reconsidered and a fresh decision taken by a senior lawyer with no previous involvement in this matter.”
Speaking to the Guardian, the 21-year-old was visibly shaken when recounting the ordeal. “It’s hard to explain, but it makes you feel like a piece of shit – it makes you feel not even human,” he said.
“I was glad that I had it on the recording. I knew that if I had it saved I could show that I had been abused. It’s not right. We’ve just got different skin colour – underneath it we’re all the same.”
The Metropolitan police confirmed in a statement that it received a complaint on 11 August about alleged “racial” remarks and oppressive conduct.“These are serious allegations; any use of racist language or excessive use of force is not acceptable.” The force said it had referred the case to the IPCC and that one officer had been suspended.
MacFarlane’s solicitor, Colin Reynolds, said: “The officer has been the subject of an investigation, has co-operated in that and been advised he is not to be the subject of criminal proceedings.”
Estelle du Boulay, director of the Newham Monitoring Project, said: “Sadly, the shocking treatment of this young man at the hands of police officers – both the physical brutality he describes and the racial abuse he claims he suffered – are by no means unusual; it compares to other reports we have received. What makes this case different is the victim had the foresight and courage to turn on a recording device on his mobile phone.”
She compared the incident to the case of Liam Stacey, a student who was jailed for 56 days for posting offensive comments on Twitter after the on-pitch collapse of the Bolton Wanderers footballer Fabrice Muamba.
When the student was sentenced in a magistrates court on Tuesday a senior lawyer at the CPS, Jim Brisbane, said: “Racist language is inappropriate in any setting and through any media. We hope this case will serve as a warning to anyone who may think that comments made online are somehow beyond the law.”
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Tabitha Waugh, a registered nurse in a West Virginia hospital, can't complain about the pay. But it's tough finding time with her kids and the work takes a toll, physically and mentally. "I just don't want to do direct patient care forever," she said.
Environmental factors are responsible for 23 percent of the overall global disease burden, according to World Health Organization research. Addressing such pollution could save the lives of 6 million women a year.
The United Nations human rights chief today welcomed the decision of dozens of international companies to sign on to an fire-and-safety agreement in the aftermath of the deadly factory collapse in Bangladesh, while calling for additional actions to overhaul the entire garment sector.
Members of Boko Haram and other extremist groups in Nigeria could face war crimes charges for deliberate acts leading to ethnic and religious cleansing, the top United Nations human rights official said today.
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