Fleeing Somali women recount tales of terror

Can you imagine having your life threatened over marriage? Many single women in Somalia have their lives threatened everyday over marriage and rape. Groups of men storm in the homes of single women and hold them at gun point and force them to marry or have sexual relations with them. There have even been stories of women who are beheaded if they refuse to marry their attacker, and then the head is sent to the home of the woman's father. Ironically these attacks also happen on women who are already married! Many, gangs rush into the homes of married women and force them to have sex with them right in front of their husbands. This story disgusts me in so many ways. Even though having a wife is something that defines you as a man with an "ok" amount of money; it has never been that serious to be married.


http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-11437595

Nigeria lead poisoning death toll 'doubles'

 
Here is a post about Nigeria and how the lead poisoning and death toll has doubled since last year. Atleast 400 children have died from lead poisoing this year. The poisoning is called by illegal gold mining in areas contaminated with lead. To extract gold, deadly amounts of lead were released and soil containing lead deposits was dumped in water sources and in places where children played. Locals believe that at least 18,000 people have been affected. Unfortunately, many deaths go unreported and this makes the statistics lower than what they actually are. It seems that something will have to be done very soon about the illegal gold mining, if not, the death toll due to lead poison will do nothing but increase.

GREAT NEWS! Kidnapped Children in Nigeria Freed!

The group of fifteen kidnapped children in Nigeria that I last posted about were officially freed a few days ago! Police say that no ransom has been paid in the return of the wealthy children, but the victims were rescued from a hideout in the forest of Ogwe-Asa in a joint military operation. The Abia state has also deployed more than 5,000 extra soldiers into the towns center to prevent the kidnappers from escaping. Like I said before, the hostages tend to be released harmed after the kidnappers receive their ransom, luckily none of the children on the school bus have been reported being harmed in any type of way. This is the best news that I think many of us (or at least myself) have heard in a while being that many  victims of these harmful crimes in Nigeria end up dead or seriously harmed.


http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-11450818

Nigeian Town Aba shuts down after Kidnapping

A school bus carrying 15 elememtary school children was blocked by a random vehicle and attacked. A gang of men came on to the school bus and kidnapped all 15 children whose ages ranged from three to te years old. The victims on the school bus are chilren of wealthy families in Nigeria's south-eastern town of Aba. Many schools, banks, and markets fear the possibility of another attack so they have shut down mostly all businesses an schools in the town. The gang of men who carried out the attack set out ransom of $130,00 for the children's safe return. There has been a rise in hostage-taking in Abia state, where many middle class Nigerians now travel with armed escorts for protection. Kidnappings in Nigeria's south-east are carried out by criminal gangs seeking ransom, but also by armed groups demanding a fairer distribution of oil revenue in a country flowing with oil but where most people live on less than $1 a day. I hope to see the safe return of these children very soon because many victims of these kidnappings are still returned harmed after the criminals still have recieved their ransom. This is a devastating and mindless crime that can possibly be avoided by simply creating a fairer distribution of oil revenue.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-11434483

Boys earn less than 1 cent a goat...

Here is an article written about two young boys who live in Nairobi, Kenya who work by chasing down goats and turning them in to slaughter houses who than pay them for less than one U.S cent for each goat they bring. Eight year old Boku and his five year old brother Mohammed, wake up each morning and chase down stray goats in the urban area known as Kiamaiko, Nairobi in hopes of being payed to buy food for dinner. Unfortunately, their father passed away and their mother's shop burnt down in a fire and she than became ill so at the tender age of eight and five, Boku and his brother have become the automatic bread winners for their family. As someone who works with up to sixty children each day who are the same age as Boku and Mohammed, I can not imagine a child doing hard labor such as that for less than a penny a day. Unfortunately, in Kiamaiko, Nairobi, child labor is all but uncommon and what makes matters worst is that police don't do much to try and stop the problem from occurring because employees of the slaughter houses pay off the police officers as well. When asked what Boku's biggest dreams were, all he asked for was to watch television and go to school to become a teacher, something that children in the United States have access too more than anything.




http://www.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/africa/09/15/kenya.child.labor/index.html

Measles Outbreak Kills 70 children

Measles is a highly contagious viral respiratory infection that causes high fever, skin rash, runny nose, watery eyes and cough. For 70 young children in Harare, Zimbabwe, and counting, measles has been contaminating them and eventually killing them. One main reason why they are dying at such a fast rate in such a short period of time is because their parents are refusing vaccinations due to their religious beliefs.Members of some apostolic sects in the country shun vaccinations and all other forms of Western medicine, saying it contradicts their belief in supernatural powers. Ironically in the United States and other developed countries, when you contract the measles, all you have to do is go to the doctor and get a prescription that will cure you in less than a week. Unfortunately, their decisions to deny these vaccinations is preventing their children from contracting the measles and dying. 


http://news.yahoo.com/world/africa

Abandoned Children in Zimbabwe

Life is getting better for citizens of Zimbabwe, with inflation under control, food back in the shops, and a power-sharing government under control. Unfortunately, these improvements have done nothing for the youth of Zimbabwe who are still being abandoned by their birth mothers due to inability to care for them. A local orphanage in Harare, the capital of Zimbabwe, now has to turn down children who are brought to their door due to over whelming amounts of homeless children ranging from ages two to eleven years of old. A 2009 census showed that there were more than 700 children living on the streets of Harare. Many mothers get pregnant from sleeping with men on the streets for money to pay for food, and once they give birth to the child they throw them in dumpsters, toilets, they leave them on sidewalks, in alleys, on front doorsteps, and even in bushes. Some mothers feel guilty about their choice so they try to put the baby out of it's misery by throwing stones at it until it is no longer alive. With the government now under control, many would expect for this growing issue to be addressed and taken care of, unfortunately that is not the case in Harare, Zimbabwe. These children are deliberately being left in the streets by their birth mothers with no one to care for them the way they should be. Some mothers are as young as the age of 14 (a baby having a baby) and by the age of 17 they already have had their second child on the streets. This issue is a growing problem and sickening to hear being that their are children involved because it is not the child's fault for being born.

The link to the article is below...

http://news.bbc.co.uk/today/hi/today/newsid_9005000/9005372.stm