NEWSHEALTH & HUMAN RIGHTS

Dear Supporters:

Only three weeks after launching my Change.org petition asking the U.S. Department of Agriculture to stop the use of so-called “pink slime” (or lean, finely textured beef – “LFTB”) in ground beef destined for school food, we’ve seen some truly extraordinary changes take place.

A mere nine days into the petition (when we’d reached over 200,000 signatures), USDA announced that starting next school year it will offer school districts a choice of beef either with LFTB or without the filler. And since that announcement many school districts around the country, including New York City public schools, the nation’s largest district, have indicated they will take advantage of this option and phase out the use of LFTB by this coming fall. To have achieved this result in such a short time period is phenomenal and shows that our voices were heard loud and clear by USDA.

Two weeks ago, people nation-wide were reeling from the news that beloved Penn State coach Jerry Sandusky had been arrested for sexually abusing boys. As saddened as I was by the news, one of my first thoughts upon hearing it was “I’m glad this didn’t happen in NY, because if it did, these victims would probably never come forward”.

New York, like many states, has a statute of limitations for the prosecution of most child sex abuses. In NY, victims are generally ineligible to seek justice in civil or criminal courts after their 23^rd birthday. It is rare for most sexually abused children to reveal the abuse immediately after it happens, and often they don’t disclose that abuse until adulthood.  Most child sexual abuse is committed by someone the victim is very close to- often a family member or someone their family is close to. Therefore, when a victim discloses, especially if they want to pursue justice in the civil or criminal court system, they often risk tearing their families apart or being disowned. Someone seeking to bring their abuser to court needs to possess a certain amount of mental health, commitment, financial resources and possibly the willingness to live as an orphan the rest of their life. Those are hard things for anyone to have acquired by the tender age of 23, especially someone who is the victim of a heinous crime.

(Traduccion al Espanol por debajo)

It’s hard to believe that in Ecuador, a country that has legalized homosexuality in its constitution, there are “ex-gay clinics” that claim to cure their patients through means of torture.  That’s right, under the guise of drug-rehabilitation, these clinics use verbal threats, shackling, days without food, sexual abuse, and physical torture to “cure” homosexuality.While 30 of these such clinics have been closed this year, over 200 remain open.  That’s why Ecuadorian activists are speaking out against these remaining clinics and demanding that the government close them.

The Italian fashion house Giorgio Armani SpA has committed to ban the dangerous practice of sandblasting jeans, a technique used to give jeans a used look which is highly dangerous to workers.

The news comes after a series of campaigns on Change.org by by the Clean Clothes Campaign which is an alliance of organisations in 15 European countries that is dedicated to improving working conditions and supporting the empowerment of workers in the global garment and sportswear industries. Gucci, Versace, H&M and Levi have already responded to the campaigns by pledging to ban sandblasting, and Armani now joins them with a promise to eliminate sandblasting from their supply line beginning with their autumn/winter 2011-12 collection.

“In regard to the sandblasting finish applied to certain garments, the Armani Group wishes to make clear that this technique has been eliminated from our production processes starting from the autumn-winter 2011/2012 collection that is currently available in the stores worldwide,” Armani announced via Facebook and Twitter.

Dolce & Gabbana deleted Facebook wall posts as soon as Change.org members led by the Clean Clothes Campaign wrote on the luxury Italian fashion house’s wall, demanding that they stop using a highly dangerous garment production method which gives Dolce & Gabbana jeans a ‘worn’ look

LONDON – The Italian fashion house Dolce & Gabbana deleted posts on its Facebook wall after Change.org members posted messages demanding that the company ban sandblasting, a technique used to give jeans a used look which is highly dangerous to workers.

The move comes after more than 25,000 European and American activists have joined a campaign on Change.org demanding that the company ban sandblasting.

Lawmakers for the first time have introduced legislation in Congress to end the federal criminalization of the personal use of marijuana.

The bipartisan measure -- H.R. 2306, the 'Ending Federal Marijuana Prohibition Act of 2011' and sponsored by Massachusetts Democrat Barney Frank and Texas Republican Ron Paul along with Reps. Steve Cohen (D-Tenn.), John Conyers (D-Mich.), Jared Polis (D-Colo.), and Barbara Lee (D-Calif.) -- prohibits the federal government from prosecuting adults who use or possess personal use amounts of marijuana by removing the plant and its primary psychoactive constituent, THC, from the five schedules of the United States Controlled Substances Act of 1970. Under present law, all varieties of the marijuana plant are defined as illicit Schedule I controlled substances, defined as possessing "a high potential for abuse,"and "no currently accepted medical use in treatment." This classification is not supported by either existing science or public opinion.

Said Rep. Frank last Thursday upon the bill’s introduction, “Criminally prosecuting adults for making the choice to smoke marijuana is a waste of law enforcement resources and an intrusion on personal freedom. I do not advocate urging people to smoke marijuana, neither do I urge them to drink alcoholic beverages or smoke tobacco, but in none of these cases do I think prohibition enforced by criminal sanctions is good public policy.”

The Situation
Sandblasting, which gives jeans a 'worn' or used look, is known to kill workers in garments producing countries like Turkey and Bangladesh where jeans sandblasting is done manually.

When workers fire sand under high pressure at jeans, dust then enters the environment, exposing workers to silica, which causes silicosis in the lungs. Eventually, workers die because they cannot breathe properly anymore.

The Solution
Dolce & Gabbana needs to follow in the footsteps of other brands including Versace, Levi's, H&M, C&A and Gucci and publicly ban sandblasting from their supply chain.

We just got Versace to ban sandblasting thanks to your hard work, so let's make Dolce & Gabbana next!

Your Role
Leave a message on Dolce & Gabbana’s Facebook wall here and here asking them to ban sandblasting from their supply chain. Note that you’ll have to click “like” Dolce & Gabbana to comment, but you can unlike them after you post a message. You can write your own message or copy and paste this:

Killing workers isn’t sexy. Please ban sandblasting because there is no need for someone to die to make good looking jeans. http://www.change.org/petitions/dolce-gabbana-stop-the-killer-jeans

This is a post by Erin Hohlfhelder cross-posted ONE Blog.

The good news in development often gets buried, deep below wars and debt and disaster. But yesterday, world leaders made bold new pledges to the GAVI Alliance (Global Aliance for Vaccines and Immunisations) in support of child vaccines, making the choice clear for reporters, press secretaries and live-tweeters alike: today was going to be a good news day.

In fact, in spite of tough economic times, donors collectively pledged $4.3 billion between now and 2015 — surpassing GAVI’s $3.7 billion funding gap — setting GAVI and its partners on the path toward saving nearly 4 million children’s lives in the next five years.

This is how a former laborer for Dole Food Company described the campaign to get the company to take care of poisoned banana workers:

“They’re just waiting for all of us to die off.  Because they know once that happens, they won’t have to fight anymore and they will have gotten away with it.  We refuse to let that happen.”

As the confident but somehow fragile-seeming man spoke in the warm accent characteristic of Nicaraguan Spanish, a spark of passionate anger coursed through me... How dare a company treat its former employees so horribly!