NEWSBYMAIA BLUME

Facing the Yemeni Parliament is a bill that would raise the minimum marriage age of the country's young women to 17. But after a dispute over an election law that was set to be voted on prior to the child marriage ban, no vote was taken or set for the future. Child marriage, a phenomenon that threatens the safety and freedom of the country's youngest, is now on the back burner.

The child marriage ban was first passed in 2009, but Yemen's conservative groups claimed that the law violated Sharia, Islamic law which governs much of Yemen. Under Sharia, there is no minimum age for marriage. Because of certain parliamentary maneuvers and pressure from the conservatives, the bill was never signed into law. And perhaps most shocking, or at least frustrating for human rights advocates in Yemen and abroad, is the fact that at least 100 prominent religious clerics have said the law is "un-Islamic."

An example of the empowerment this law could bring is found in the story of young Nujood, a ten-year-old girl  who successfully filed for divorce from her husband earlier this year. She is one of the lucky few — though after living through a nightmare — that escaped the confines of forced marriage not long after. But thousands of young girls in Yemen and other heavily devout countries aren't so lucky. And now that the country's government has set this issue aside, to the satisfaction of many religious clerics, more are likely to be forced into similar marriages that violate their freedom to be children and strip them of their innocence.

The search for opportunity that America so graciously promises has ended in despair once again. This time, three young Honduran teens made the long trek up to Texas and landed nice jobs at a local bar in McAllen, eager to start a new life. But rather than being greeted with aprons, cleaning rags and hairnets upon showing up for work on the first day, the three Honduran girls, ages 14, 15 and 17, were given skimpy and revealing clothes. Then, they were put to work wining and dining older men and servicing them sexually for a few small bills.

Beleal Garcia Gonzalez lured the girls to work at his bar by promising a salary of $700 a — a pretty enticing chunk o' change. After making the long and risky trip up to Texas, the girls were then promised a salary of only $120 a week, most of which they never saw because Gonzalez forced them to work off nearly $5,000 in "smuggling" debt.

To the credit of a few very astute U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents, the girls were spotted walking home in rather revealing clothing for a cold and rainy winter night and were promptly picked up and rescued. Now, nine months later, their trafficker and pimp has presented his case before a jury. Just last Thursday, jurors promptly handed down a decision. The verdict? Apparently upstanding citizen Mr. Gonzalez was found guilty of sex trafficking and harboring illegal immigrants.

The Taliban are at it yet again, this time, putting children on the war's front lines. A new report from the United States Marine Corps has accused Taliban officials of throwing the country's young and vulnerable right into the heart of the conflict. From laying landmines to firing weapons at opposing troops, children as young as three — yes, three —are fighting in one of the deadliest wars in recent history.

As the military's offensive moves deeper into territory traditionally held by the Taliban, U.S. soldiers are reporting an increase in the number of children involved in the day-to-day activities of war. Among their daily responsibilities, the Taliban's chosen children are responsible for firing mortar rounds, planting roadside bombs, collecting dropped weapons, and spying on Marine patrols. According to the Marines, children are also used as human shields to hide and protect Taliban personnel as they plant bombs or try to escape, and are even forced into the drug trade, selling heroine concealed in Korans.

Though the exact number of children involved in direct combat in the war in Afghanistan is not known, 50 military reports have been filed since March citing incidents of kids in combat. And according to some senior commanders in Afghanistan, the numbers are only increasing.

Rosh Hashanah marks the beginning of the new year for Jews around the world. Holiday dinner starts with apples, honey, and wishing family and friends a sweet and happy new year. The apples that are eaten on Rosh Hashanah also signify the start of the fall harvest, which is celebrated in the upcoming holiday of Sukkot. But many of those apples are harvested by exploited workers.

As apple, pumpkin, squash and pear season gets going, farmers around the world get in gear to begin harvesting some our favorite fall fruits and vegetables. This year, a huge case of forced labor and the exploitation of farm workers has just come to light, with the arrest of six people in a human trafficking ring that exploited 400 Thai workers on farms in the United States. For years, Thai laborers were brought to Hawaii and Washington state with the usual lure of a high paying job. The traffickers, working through the company Global Horizons Manpower, based in Los Angeles, conspired with two Thai labor recruiters in a deceptive plot to lure unsuspecting Thai farmers to the United States.

How ironic is it that many of these workers were brought to the U.S. to harvest apples, the fruit most symbolic of the new year? But in this case, instead of signifying the start of a sweet and happy year and the bountiful fall harvest, apples represent the oppression, abuse and exploitation of hundreds of foreign laborers that came to our country in search of opportunity.

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The Sudanese People's Liberation Army (SPLA) has just made an announcement of massive proportion: they have pledged to fight the heavy use of child soldiers in southern Sudan by promising to free all child soldiers within their ranks by November 2010. To fulfill their promise, the SPLA has established a special unit to ensure success, and so far, more than 20,000 children that were estimated to serve in the SPLA's ranks have been freed since a peace agreement was signed in 2005. Approximately 900 still serve, according to U.N. estimates, but the SPLA estimates that it still holds onto a few thousand.

Since the start of Sudan's civil war, the SPLA has recruited young children by force and exploited them heavily as soldiers and providers of the rebel movement seeking self-determination in the southern region of Sudan. Like most other child soldiers around the world, young children were threatened and beaten and forced to fight in the war, and in some cases, they were recruited by junior officers with the promise of an education. Despite signing a peace agreement back in 2005 and vowing to free child soldiers from their armed forced, the SPLA continued to recruit and force young kids into battle. Their recruitment breached southern Sudan's own laws that were outlined in its interim constitution that was adopted in December 2005, as well as the the peace agreement that was implemented between the north and the south that same year.

But recently, the SPLA has been gradually freeing child soldiers and claims to have ceased recruitment. These statements have even been verified by the U.N., and their new pledge is actively supported by UNICEF.  Now, with the establishment of a special unit to ensure the liberation of the remaining soldiers, perhaps the SPLA is living up to their promises as the government prepares for the 2011 referendum on self determination. So does this action and the U.N.'s backing validate their promises? I guess only time will tell.

Friday the thirteenth is often riddled with tales of bad luck and disaster, but this past Friday the thirteenth, the tides turned for survivors of sex trafficking in New York State: Governor David Patterson signed into law a bill that would allow those forced into prostitution or sex trafficked to erase prior prostitution convictions from their records completely. This is the first bill of its kind in the United States, and surely not the last.

The bill, written in part by the Sex Workers Project at the Urban Justice Center, would extend to those that were forced into prostitution or trafficked and have since quit the industry and sought help from service provider organizations. The law goes into effect immediately, and will supposedly help victims rebuild their lives with clean records. This will be helpful when dealing with immigration status issues, and when applying for jobs and housing.

Erasing criminal convictions from the records of those forced into prostitution or sex trafficking will also allow these young women, girls, and sometimes men to move on. No longer will they have to disclose their prostitution convictions to employers or schools, and they won't constantly be reminded of the terrible ordeal they went through and survived. As one survivor of forced prostitution stated, referring to the new law, "It makes me feel better, because it's behind me now."

In many of the world's poorest regions, parents send their children to work  harvesting vegetables, tobacco, or other produce, or send them off to work in fisheries, factories, and mines. Sometimes, they even sell them to wealthy businessmen with the hope and expectation of bringing greatly needed money to the family, thinking their precious children will be in good hands. But far too often, these efforts fail, and the families that were so desperately searching for a way out of poverty continue to suffer and see their children exploited and abused.

Getty photographer Warrick Page (working in conjunction with Save the Children) headed off to Gaza, where the unemployment rate is at 40%, to check out the plight of the region's young labor force. In Gaza, the whole family is working, and sometimes, only the kids. One 14-year-old boy, Raed Ahmed Moussa, who works on car engines at a repair shop, is the only breadwinner in his family; his father is out of work and his brother who quit school a year ago has had no luck finding a job. Another young boy, Moussa Suheil Obeid, collects metal scraps from a junk yard that he sells to a man he believes rips him off. The disgruntled 13-year-old says, "I'm fed up with life."

In a photo essay published by Foreign Policy Magazine in February, young children work side-by-side with their parents to help New Delhi prepare for the 2010 Commonwealth Games in October. They work at a construction site carrying heavy bricks hour after hour and receive no compensation other than one meal. Working families erected temporary dwellings near the construction site, posing serious health risks from the cold winter temperatures.

Step aside, Thailand, and make room for Brazil, the fastest growing hotbed for child sex tourism. Sex-hungry tourists are flocking to South America in droves for the promise of cheap, young, and easily accessible prostitutes. Not only that, but they have their choice of young kids (cheaper than the price of an older girl, according to one taxi driver), teens, and transvestites, and all for under $5. Quite the deal, eh?

Many young girls and boys in the country's growing sex industry are forced to sell their services by by pimps, and sometimes even their parents. The BBC's Chris Rogers headed to Brazil to investigate, and found many young kids selling sex because of their parents' demands and families' needs. He encountered one 13-year-old girl, Pia, who was forced into prostitution to support her mother's (and her own) crack cocaine addiction, and two other young boys — dressed as girls — who used their earnings to buy food for their hungry and impoverished families. And their stories are not uncommon; many desperate kids, teens, and young women from Brazil's favelas are left with no choice but to enter the prostitution industry, and others are forced into it with the typical promises of money, a better life, and happiness.

According to UNICEF, there are an estimated 250,000 child prostitutes in Brazil, and that number is growing. Sex tourists from all over the world, particularly the United States and Europe, head to that country for the promise of cheap, pleasurable sex in the countless "love motels" that can be purchased by the hour. Classy.

What do Naomi Campbell and former Liberian President Charles Taylor have in common? Blood diamonds.

Supermodel rockstar Naomi Campbell may be sporting pricey jewels purportedly given to her by former President Taylor, mined by children and slaves who have been taken — many times against their will — and forced to search small diamonds that will make their captors rich.

She has been subpoenaed by the International Criminal Court in the Hague to testify in the trial against Taylor, who faces 11 charges of war crimes, including allegations of rape, murder, enslavement, and use (and abuse) of child soldiers in his brutal and deadly campaign in Sierra Leone, where blood diamonds, also known as conflict diamonds, were allegedly used to to fund his war effort. And as her date in court approaches, Campbell has been noticeably hostile toward accusations that she accepted a "huge diamond" as a gift from Taylor. She has reportedly stormed out of meetings and denies any connection to the former president, though witnesses (including Mia Farrow) openly refute Campbell's claims of innocence.

But just one day before she was scheduled to appear in court — and after the prosecution asked to hear testimony of the model accepting the lavish gems from the former president, despite resting its case in February 2009 — Campbell's request to delay her testimony has been granted, and she will be appearing in court at The Hague on August 5, rather than July 29, when she was originally supposed to appear. So I have to wonder, is protecting young children from the evils of war lords, murder and forced labor not a priority for Ms. Campbell? Is there some summer beach extravaganza that she simply can't miss? Is it really possible that Naomi Campbell, though perhaps inadvertently, supported Taylor's use of forced labor and terror?

Guinea-Bissau, a small African nation of only 1.5 million people located on Africa's western coast, suffers from human rights abuses of massive proportions: human trafficking, and in particular, child trafficking. Though the entire country's population is approximately the size of Philadelphia, the country is a major hub for child trafficking, with many sent to Senegal under the care of Koranic teachers to beg on the streets.

The U.S. State Department's 2010 Trafficking in Persons (TIP) report states that many of these former child beggars become traffickers themselves, returning to their home country to recruit more unsuspecting young boys. They can get away with it because, having graduated from Koranic schools, they are well respected in the Muslim community. Young girls from Guinea-Bissau are also vulnerable to traffickers; many wind up as domestic laborers both in the country and across the border in Senegal, and others are forced into prostitution.

The country was placed on the TIP report's tier 2 watch list and is clearly not getting any safer for young children. But the government is starting to take action; with no anti-trafficking legislation currently on the books, they are stepping up to the plate and just drafted a strong anti-trafficking bill that would include provisions that comply with international standards.

But so far, efforts at curbing smuggling or other illegal activity along the country's borders have been largely ineffective. Why? Well, there is one chronic problem when trying to tackle border crimes in some of the world's poorer nations: lack of resources. Human Rights Watch points out that border officials in Guinea-Bissau have only one car and a motorbike -- great assets for chasing fugitives on the run!