NEWSRIGHTS OF THE CHILD

If someone speeds through a crosswalk and hits a child, injuring them permanently, an arrest will be made. In deciding what charges to press, the accused’s unhappiness about being punished is not taken into account. If the child’s family considers civil litigation, the defendant’s objection to the litigation isn’t taken into account. A cornerstone of our justice system is that fear of punishment makes someone less likely to commit a crime.

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.

Written by Guest Blogger, Milli Hill

I'll be honest and tell you that up until the end of August, I had barely heard of To Train Up A Child, or other books like it. But then one evening, someone shared a link with me to an extract from the website No Greater Joy, the online presence of Michael and Debi Pearl, authors of parenting manual To Train Up A Child. The advice, on how to discipline a baby under the age of one with a rod made from 12" weed-eater chord, shocked me so much that I decided to research more.  I looked around online, and quickly started to discover that this sort of advice, and the book To Train Up A Child, is considered quite acceptable among large groups in the States who could be referred to as Christian fundamentalists.  I found there are at least two other books for sale on Amazon (both .com and .co.uk) that advocate 'smacking', 'spanking' and the use of a 'rod' on babies and small children, including Shepherding a Child's Heart by Tedd Tripp, and Don't Make Me Count To Three by Ginger Plowman.

In New York, the prosecution of child sexual abuse is a capped at a mere 23 years old, a common trend throughout the states.  Perhaps the biggest reason why so many states still have statutes of limitations for the prosecution of child sexual abuse is because so few people truly understand the crime and thus do not demand the laws be changed. Here are some ugly facts about child sexual abuse.

1)      At least 25% of girls and 15% of boys will be sexually victimized before their 18^th birthday.

2)      Over 90% of these children will be victimized by someone they know and trust, often a family member, or someone their family entrusts them to.

3)      Between 80-90% of children will not disclose their abuse before their 18^th birthday.

4)      In at least 10% of cases, there is an adult who is aware of the abuse, but does nothing to stop it.

5)      Child sexual abuse survivors are more likely to suffer from mental illness, drug addiction, to be incarcerated, disabled, unemployed, and to live under the poverty line than their non-abused peers. While there is often a direct relationship between the abuse they suffered and these effects, the relationship isn’t always clear to the survivor. CSA survivors often spend most of their early adult life digging themselves out of the wreckage the abuse has wrought upon their lives, not trying to seek legal justice.

Republican attacks on working people began immediately after they gained the majority in several state governments late last year under the banner of "fiscal responsibility". In Wisconsin, Gov. Scott Walker announced he'd fix a budget shortfall by smashing public sector unions. The governors of Ohio and Michigan took similar aim at unions and working people.

But Maine Republicans have set their sights on an even more vulnerable population of workers: kids.

In a state whose unemployment level is closing in on 8%, the Maine GOP has decided they'll help get the economy back on track by putting the state's child labor laws on the chopping block. Their proposals would allow kids to work longer hours during the school week for pay that is below the minimum wage.

In the early 1960s America was shocked by images of Birmingham, Alabama's notorious and bigoted Police Commissioner Theophilus Eugene 'Bull' Connor turning water hoses and dogs on school students to keep them in line. While Birmingham and the rest of the nation has progressed mightily in the ensuing 50 years, Birmingham school students are still under assault by that city's police.

We've reported recently on a lawsuit filed in December by the Southern Poverty Law Center against the Birmingham Board of Education, School Superintendent Craig Witherspoon, Birmingham Police Chief A.C. Roper and other officials asking that the federal court step in and put a stop to the use of "chemical weapons" - pepper spray - on students as a means of basic school discipline.

When I contacted the school district in early January about the lawsuit, school officials had no response. But just days ago the school board's lawyer told local press that it is the board's position that it "has no federal constitutional duty to protect students' safety from the actions of third parties." By third parties, the lawyer means the police officers who patrol school hallways as school resource officers.

No duty to protect students' safety?

Navid Mohebbi, the youngest blogger ever arrested, was released by Iran over the weekend.

According to the Iranian Human Rights group RAHANA, the 18-year-old amateur blogger and women's rights advocate was released from Sari prison on Christmas.

The release, first announced on local radio and picked up by the Human Rights Activists News Agency over the weekend, came after Navid was sentenced to three years of suspended imprisonment in a closed door court session in which he did not have access to his lawyer, likely a face-saving tactic by Iranian authorities.

While governments and mainstream media have paid little attention to Navid's case, Iran has been under heavy pressure from domestic opposition leaders and international human and women's rights activists to release him.

A Safe World for Women, a global women's rights and advocacy organization, was among the first group to reveal Navid's imprisonment and has led efforts on Change.org to pressure senior UN human rights officials to advocate for Navid's release. Over 600 Change.org members took action to demand UN help in getting Navid released, and we have covered Navid's case a number of times.

"It's wonderful to have some good news isn't it!" Christine Crowstaff, Founder of A Safe World for Women, told Change.org this morning. "Our Iran correspondent sends you many thanks for all you have done for Navid! And so do we all!"

This weekend, December 4th, 5th and 6th, youth organizers and advocates from around the country are converging upon Washington D.C. to urge our legislators to set aside petty partisanship and secure our children's future.

Hosted by the organization Community Justice Network for Youth (CJNY), these community leaders and young people are calling upon Congress to reauthorize the Juvenile Justice Delinquency and Prevention Act, and to pass the Youth PROMISE Act immediately.

Why now?

Violent crime among our nation's youth—particularly in impoverished communities—continues to plague our country. The historical methods of combating this epidemic have failed, and have even added to the problems faced by young people, their families, their communities, and our economy:

If you were to ask me as a Saudi woman from one of the most conservative regions of Saudi Arabia, 'What is the one change that you would like to see?', there are many that come to mind: allowing women to drive cars, allowing women to enter government buildings, opening up more employment options to women and lifting the guardianship system under which every woman (no matter how old she is) has to have a male guardian everywhere she goes.

But when I get right down to it, there is one change that I would like to see happen yesterday: the criminalization of child marriages.

Hospital staff in a Saudi town were shocked last April when a 65-year-old Hepatitis B sufferer applied for a license to marry a healthy 11-year-old girl. In the absence of laws and regulations to prevent child marriages and prosecute those who take part, the staff had to rely on persuading the girl's parents to not go through with the marriage. Sadly, according to a report published in Al Riyadh (a local newspaper) they were unsuccessful.

Saudi activists have been pressuring the Ministry of Justice to issue a law against child marriages and prosecute those who allow their children to be raped under the pretensions of marriage for years.

With the newest installment of the Harry Potter series hitting theaters this week, fans are wondering just how scary these 'Deathly Hallows' are? Will our young heroes be able to defeat "he who shall not be named" and his frightening 'Dark Arts'?

But while the fuss surrounding the upcoming film is electrifying, even more exciting are the successes of a children's human rights group known as the Harry Potter Alliance!

Founded in 2005 by Andrew Slack and Paul DeGeorge, the Harry Potter Alliance (HPA) saw an opportunity to train the next generation of human rights activists, harnessing the passion and exuberance of young Harry Potter fans into focused campaigns for social change.

"We needed an organization to act as Dumbledore's Army for our world, full of Harry Potter fans wishing to embody the message of the books to create social change," said Slack.

According to their website, the Harry Potter Alliance's goal is to “use parallels from the Harry Potter books to educate and mobilize young people across the world toward issues of literacy, equality and human rights.”