Child Labour

“Do what it takes for as long as it takes to restore a broken life”: Supporting Hagar International, by Deirdre Dobson-Le

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Part of her “Forever Years” spent in a Nazi Death Camp: Miracle that saved a girl from Auschwitz gas chamber, by Paul Ewart

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Yvonne Engelmann was just 15 when she was rounded up with her family and sent to Auschwitz concentration camp, one of the network of German Nazi extermination camps operated by the Third Reich in Poland in World War II from 1940-1945.

But it was an unlikely miracle that saw her survive to tell the disturbing tale.

After arriving at the camp, Yvonne was immediately sent to the gas chamber. Thanks to some strange twist of fate, it malfunctioned and she was left naked in the chamber overnight before being freed.

By some miracle, the Nazis kept her alive, and she was sent to sort through the clothes of newly arrived Jews to find any gold or valuables they’d hidden.

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The infamous German inscription that reads ‘Work Makes Free’ at the main gate of the Auschwitz I extermination camp on November 15, 2014 in Oswiecim, Poland. Photo / AP

Her “job” saw her stationed in between the crematorium (which burnt 24-hours daily) and the gas chambers. She ended up being the sole survivor from her entire family, and made a new life for herself in Australia.

“I was 14 and a half when war broke out,” Yvonne tells news.com.au.

“I wasn’t allowed to go to school, I couldn’t walk on the street, I had to wear the yellow Star of David and couldn’t mix with any non-Jewish people. Friends I’d grown up with now totally ignored me, solely because I was born a Jew.

“My father was taken to the police station many times and we never knew if he would come back. One day he returned and his front teeth had been knocked out. We lived in fear constantly – we had no idea what would happen to us in the next hour, let alone in the next day.”

Born in Czechoslovakia to shopkeeper parents, Yvonne was an only child.

“I had the most wonderful childhood that anyone could wish for, but unfortunately it was short-lived.”

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Yvonne Engelman says as a survivor of Auschwitz it is important to perpetuate the memory of those lost and volunteers her time to teach and “tell the world what really happened”. (Photo Source: Sydney Jewish Museum)

In the limbo of uncertainty, things went from bad to worse. Her parents’ shop was taken away and the family was forcibly removed from their home to a cramped Jewish ghetto.

At the approach of her 15th birthday, she and her family were taken from the ghetto – along with hundreds of others – to the railway station where they were piled into dozens of cattle wagons.

“Men, women, children, screaming babies – the journey was too horrific to even describe,” she recalls.

“There was no ventilation, it was hot, an overflowing tin bucket was the only toilet … we were stripped of our humanity.”

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A wedding photo of holocaust survivors Yvonne (nee Engel) and John Engelman, 1949, Australia

(To read more of this article, please follow the link below…)

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/world/news/article.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=11721357

See also related post:

https://theforeveryears.wordpress.com/2015/04/15/born-in-auschwitz-how-one-woman-delivered-3000-babies-during-the-holocaust/

The Road Near Rio’s Olympic Village Where 9-year-old Girls are being Sold for Sex, by Candace Sutton

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Around a bend on one of Brazil’s longest highways, only a 50-minute drive from Rio de Janeiro’s Olympic village, girls as young as nine are selling their bodies to truck drivers for money.

Just a few miles from the glittering new stadiums where the world’s elite athletes are gathering to battle it out for Olympic gold is a shabby world of poverty, violence and child exploitation.

The BR-116 runs for 2800 miles between the World Cup stadium host city Fortaleza in the far north of Brazil to Brazil’s largest city Sao Paulo, where the Arena de Corinthians will stage Olympic soccer games in the south.

The road is nicknamed the Highway of Death (Rodovia da Morte) for its mortality rate due to many accidents and unstable weather and conditions along the route.

But its real misery occurs at 262 truck stops along its way, where female children are sold for sex, often by their own families, sometimes as part of a town’s unofficial bartering system.

ro 1Two underage sex slaves near the football stadium in Fortaleza, Brazil before the 2014 World Cup soccer. Picture: BBC. Source:Supplied

As more than 10,000 athletes and spectators fly in from around the world for the $10 billion 2016 summer Olympics, local activists are drawing attention to the reality of the young girls drawn into a life of sex slavery and drug addiction.

At Meninadanca, an organization established to stop the exploitation of at-risk girls in towns along the BR-116, the real life stories are mind blowing.

When a Meninadanca team visited the remote town of Candido Sales, which is bisected by the BR-116, they discovered that underage girls in the town were regularly offered to men as prizes in raffles.

(Related: How To Spot (And Rescue A Sex Trafficking Victim)

Trucks and heavy goods vehicles clog the road lined with bars and brothels through the town, just miles away from the dirt brick homes where Brazilian families live in poverty.

ro 2Child prostitutes as young as 11 work in this slum which lines the fence of the 2016 Olympic football stadium in Sao Paulo. Picture: Jota Roxo. Source:Supplied

Sex trafficking gangs target the town and poor families are vulnerable to offers of money for their little girls.

But even the Meninadanca workers were surprised when a town council psychologist told them raffles were held regularly with the winning ticket holder’s prize being the right to abuse a particular girl being sold.

The psychologist Gleyce Farias said “Candido Sales is a small town, but every day we hear of another girl who has been sold.

“I had to stop a mother from allowing her 12-year-old daughter to ‘marry’ a 60-year-old man, for money of course.

“Another 13-year-old girl ended up in hospital because of the abuses she suffered. She told us how from the age of nine she was made to watch pornographic films, and men would pay her to touch them.”

ro 3By the age of 13, Lilian (above) had been sold to truck drivers by her mother for $4 a time. Picture: Matt Roper. Source:Supplied

 

ro 4Leidiane, 11, worked on the BR-116 highway but became addicted to crack and couldn’t be saved. Picture: Matt Roper. Source:Supplied

As the Rio Olympics are now underway, Meninadanca is attempting to lure the world media’s attention away from the excitement of the games to the confronting scenes beyond.

Matt Roper, a journalist and author, has held a walk of the BR-116 and Meninadanca’s Facebook page has an “adopt a kilometer” program on me for each section of the highway to raise money for the non-government organization.

As the final preparations are made on Rio’s 32 sporting venues, and last minute concerns centre on the Zika virus, Russia’s doping ban and pollution at the Guanabara Bay sailing ground, Meninadanca is tying pink ribbons along the highway.

Roper has helped establish ‘pink house’ refuges for girls rescued from the highway, although he admits many times it is too late.

(To read more of this article, please follow the link below…)

http://fightthenewdrug.org/the-road-near-rios-olympic-village-where-9-year-old-girls-are-being-sold-for-sex-photos/

World Day Against Child Labour

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It’s World Day Against Child Labour (June 12th)! This year’s theme is “End child labour in supply chains – It’s everyone’s business!” You can check for the existence of child labour in the supply chains of products you use with the US Department of Labor’s “Sweat & Toil” app or via its “List of Goods Produced by Child Labor or Forced Labor.” Share what you find!  https://www.dol.gov/ilab/reports/child-labor/list-of-goods/

This website (at the link above) also has many other interesting, more detailed facts about the child labour and forced child labour used in the countries mentioned in the list, which is below.  Share this information.  All the children of the world are “our” children, all children deserve a childhood, an education and to be free from exploitation.

Link to a previous post on “The Forever Years” about Child Labour:  https://theforeveryears.wordpress.com/2015/06/09/2268/

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Jainal works in silver cooking pot factory in India. He is 11 years old. He has been working in this factory for three years. Source: http://kalyan-city.blogspot.co.nz/2009/07/child-labour-in-india-still-prevalent.html

Globally, as many as 168 million children between ages 5-17 are child labourers, with 85 million in hazardous child labour – forced labour, trafficking and bonded labour.(1) Children who work are often separated from their families, exposed to dangerous substances, harsh working conditions and higher risk of mistreatment, violence, physical and psychological abuse.(2) Child domestic workers are particularly vulnerable to trafficking, forced labour and sexual violence and many children face potential health consequences, including respiratory ailments, joint problems, loss of hearing and vision, poisoning(3) and sexually transmitted diseases.(4)  Many child labourers never go to school or drop out. Lack of access to education perpetuates a cycle of exploitation, illiteracy and poverty – limiting future options and forcing children to accept low wage work as adults and to raise their own children in poverty. Despite these consequences, there are still 46 countries(5) that do not legally protect children under the age of 18 from performing hazardous work. [Source: http://www.aworldatschool.org/issues/topics/Child-labour]

Thanks to Plan International NZ for drawing attention to this list via Facebook.  🙂

Links to Plan International and US Department of Labor’s List below…

https://www.childfund.org.nz/about-us?gclid=Cj0KEQjws_m6BRCv37WbtNmJs-IBEiQAWKKt0J_OzUBaKK9-MBLPJN4XDaYicAxtUz1MojlUjEX4CgUaAhK28P8HAQ

https://www.facebook.com/freefromviolence/?fref=nf&pnref=story

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Source:  https://www.dol.gov/ilab/reports/child-labor/list-of-goods/

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“The Children of Herculaneum”, by Carol Krueger (A Book Review, by Kirsteen McLay-Knopp)

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“The Children of Herculaneum” is the most recently  published book by New Zealand mother of eight and long time drama teacher and author for children, Carol Krueger. This well-presented text with colourful photographs and an exciting fast-paced story, stands out from other children’s novels in that it brings alive, for kids, the events relating to the erruption of Mount Vesuvius on August 24th 79 AD.   An epilogue at the end of the novel has pictures and a child-friendly text describing the reality of the events that took place, as well as the excavations nearly two thousand years later, which tell us about the lives of the people who lived in Pompeii and Herculaneum.

Personally, I love Classical history, which I studied at High School and University.  Prior to this, however, I didn’t know much about ancient Greece or Rome.  Books which ignite an interest in such history for our younger readers are few and far between.

Our seven and eight year old children have read “The Children of Herculaneum” and thoroughly enjoyed it.    Some of their comments on Krueger’s text were as follows:

“I like how the story is told by Portia the slave girl, who is just an ordinary kid, but because of when she lived she had to be a slave.”

“It was interesting that the water fountains dried up and the mice ran away and the donkey had to be blindfolded because he was upset… the nature and animals knew there was going to be an exploding volcano way before the humans did.”

“Portia’s owners’ daughter, Claudia, was spoilt and mean… the characters really seem like real people.”

“The bit about Julius, the boy who is an actor and wears masks on the stage, is really interesting.”

Personally, I like the quotation on page 19 about acting:

“…I love to act, there is nothing like it.  You stand on the stage and suddenly you’re in another world.  And you can FEEL the audience.”

This is certainly true of Carol Krueger, who loves acting and teaching drama as well as writing and history.

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Author, drama teacher and mother of eight Carol Krueger, dressed as “a woman from ancient Herculaneum” for a recent play.

Anyone interested in purchasing copies of “The Children of Herculaneum” can contact Carol Krueger on 0224557805 or on Facebook.  Prices are $10 for a soft cover edition or $15 for hard cover.

To learn more about Carol Krueger’s drama lessons (which are for both children and adults), please call the same number and also read our article about her (link below).

https://theforeveryears.wordpress.com/2015/06/02/delightfully-dramatic-the-benefits-to-our-kids-of-being-involved-in-theatre-an-interview-with-drama-teacher-carol-krueger/

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World Day Against Child Labour: 12th June: No to Child Labour, Yes to Quality Education!

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The most recent global estimates suggest some 120 million children between the ages of 5 and 14 are involved in child labour, with boys and girls in this age group almost equally affected…  The World Day Against Child Labour this year will focus particularly on the importance of quality education as a key step in tackling child labour. It is very timely to do so, as in 2015 the international community will be reviewing reasons for the failure to reach development targets on education and will be setting new goals and strategies. [Source: http://www.ilo.org/ipec/Campaignandadvocacy/wdacl/lang–en/index.htm]

 

Every 12 June, Education International and its member organisations worldwide celebrate the World Day Against Child Labour.

It is an occasion to highlight the global extent of child labour and raise awareness on the situation of millions of children, girls and boys, working across the globe.

For EI and its affiliated teacher unions, World Day against Child Labour is also a good time to reiterate that every child has the right to a free quality public education.

On this year’s World Day Against Child Labour, Education International calls for:

  • education to be recognised as a public good, a fundamental human right and a basis for guaranteeing the realization of other rights and a key to achieving poverty eradication;
  • the provision of 12 years of publicly-funded, equitable quality primary and secondary education, of which at least nine years are free and compulsory, leading to relevant learning outcomes and ensuring that all children are in school and are learning;
  • the provision of at least one year of free and compulsory quality pre-primary education; and
  • teachers and educators to be empowered, adequately recruited, well-trained, professionally-qualified, motivated and supported within well-resourced, efficient and effectively governed systems.

Read more and see videos at the following link:

http://www.ei-ie.org/en/websections/content_detail/6704