I did not know where to begin when being faced with the task of writing about abuse for the BlogCatalog
Blog Against Abuse Challenge Sadly this is a massive topic. I decided to emphasize the sheer size of the problems and issues involved relating to Human Rights Violations.
Reading this you may think the problems are too massive to solve/they are not in my country/I can't do anything to help solve this. They are all too easy to brush aside because they are too painful to really think about or day to day matters command our time and attention. I urge you to take some time to think, to read blogs taking part in this challenge and consider in what ways you can make a contribution to help solve the problem. A small donation by all who read the blogs today would add up to a massive amount. For my part if one person donates, or if one person reads something here today that makes them volunteer their time and efforts then it will be worthwhile.
Refugees
Refugees and displaced people face food and water shortages, poor shelter, landmines, attacks by armed groups and disease. Women and children are particularly at risk of sexual abuse, threats and exploitation. The elderly and disabled face intimidation and neglect.
Today, around
40 million people are displaced worldwide from such countries as Afghanistan, Burundi, Iraq, Myanmar, Sri Lanka and Sudan. Approximately 10 million are displaced in the Asia Pacific region and
four million Iraqis The number of people displaced from southeast Turkey during the 15-year conflict between government forces and the armed Kurdish Workers' Party (PKK) has been estimated at over one million mainly Kurdish villagers.
2.5 million people have been forced to flee their homes in Darfur, Sudan, and are living in vast, crowded camps in both Darfur and across the border in Chad.
In Uganda almost 2 million or 95% of the Acholi people have been herded into about 200 vast crowded camps.
Child Slavery
There has been a a resurgence in the illegal trafficking of child slaves in the last decade, particularly in the western African countries of Benin, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Ivory Coast, Gabon, Nigeria and Togo.The UN has reported that at least 200,000 children are trafficked annually in the west and central African slave trade For more information -
Freedom from slaveryThe Dominican Republic is a source, transit, and destination country for men, women, and children trafficked for the purposes of commercial sexual exploitation and forced labor. Dominican women and children are trafficked to Western Europe, Australia, Argentina, Brazil, Costa Rica, the Caribbean, Panama, and Suriname.
Human Trafficking & Modern-day SlaveryAround 30,000 Haitian children are illegally smuggled into the Dominican Republic every year to work as child prostitutes or be forced into other degrading occupations "On market day in Dajabón, a bustling Dominican town on the Haitian border, you can pick up many bargains if you know where to look. You can haggle the price of a live chicken down to 40 pesos ...... buy a Haitian child for the equivalent of £54.22" -
Haitian Children Sold as Slave Laborers and Prostitutes
Darfur -Sudan Thousands of civilians have been brutally massacred, raped and violently separated from their families. In mid-2003, government-supported Arab Janjaweed militia began undertaking a policy of ethnic cleansing towards the civilian population of African tribes. The attacks by the government forces and allied militias led to the deaths of over 200,000 Darfurians. 2.5 million people have been forced to flee their homes and are living in vast, crowded camps in both Darfur and across the border in Chad. Now entering its fifth year, the Darfur crisis continues to be one of the world’s largest concentrations of human suffering. More than 4.5 million people are now affected by the conflict -
Oxfam - Sudan Central African Republic The army has killed hundreds of innocent civilians and forced tens of thousands to flee their villages, Some of the killings involved unspeakable brutality. Rebel forces have also committed serious abuses. The Popular Army for the Restoration of the Republic and Democracy (APRD) rebels, have engaged in widespread extortion and forced taxation, looting of livestock, kidnappings for ransom, beatings of civilians, and have been blamed for the killing of a civilian and an international humanitarian aid worker. France is still providing provide military assistance to CAR and has deployed troops to help the government fight rebel forces,
more information. The Union of Democratic Forces for Unity (UFDR) rebels, have also carried out serious abuses, including indiscriminate attacks on civilians, unlawful killings and summary executions, and massive looting of the civilian population. Both the APRD and UFDR have large numbers of child soldiers in their ranks, but are in discussions with UNICEF about the demobilization of these children.
Chad,- more than 300 civilians were killed and at least 17,000 people displaced in militia violence in November 2006
Southern Thailand In their efforts to establish an independent state in Thailand’s southern border provinces, separatist groups are killing and mutilating civilians and attacking schools, community clinics, and Buddhist temples,
Thai militants 'target civilians'Zimbabwe has a new generation of political orphans. Sons and daughters have seen their parents murdered. Parents have seen their sons and daughters persecuted. Workers have seen colleagues arrested and tortured for their political beliefs.
In
Uganda An entire society - the Acholi - is being systematically destroyed –physically, culturally, socially and economically – in full view of the international community. This has been going on non-stop for almost 20 years but Western governments have turned a blind eye to a pliant regime and dictatorship under President Museveni that practices genocide,” Mr Otunnu said.or over 10 years a population of almost two million people (95 percent of the Acholi) have been herded into about 200 concentration camps where they live like animals. An estimated 1,000 people die in these camps each week; 41 percent of children under 5 years have seriously stunted growth due to malnutrition and two generations of children have been denied education as a matter of policy by the government.
On the other side of the conflict The brutal Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) insurgency enters its twentieth year with no end in sight,Ugandan soldiers have tortured and unlawfully killed civilians thousands of children have been abducted by the rebel Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) and recruited as child soldiers and sex slaves. Olara Otunnu, the former United Nations Special Representative for Children and Armed Conflict said “In Uganda HIV/AIDS has become a deliberate weapon of mass destruction. Soldiers who have tested HIV-positive are especially deployed to the north with a mission to commit maximum havoc on the local girls and women,
Uganda worst place on earth for childrenWomen
Kyrgyzstan’s government is allowing domestic violence and the abduction of women for forced marriage to continue with impunity
Kyrgyzstan: Bride-Kidnapping, Domestic Abuse RampantCombatants and their sympathizers in conflicts, such as those in Sierra Leone, Kosovo, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Afghanistan, and Rwanda, have raped women as a weapon of war with near complete impunity.
Men in Pakistan, South Africa, Peru, Russia, and Uzbekistan beat women in the home at astounding rates
As a direct result of inequalities found in their countries of origin, women from Ukraine, Moldova, Nigeria, the Dominican Republic, Burma, and Thailand are bought and sold, trafficked to work in forced prostitution
Millions of women and girls worldwide are forced to marry and have sex with men they do not desire
UNICEF relies on people like you to help build a world fit for children.
Donate Medecins Sans Frontieres provides emergency, independent, medical humanitarian action to people living in extreme circumstances.
Donate Amnesty International defends and protects people who have been silenced, abused, or in some way had their most basic rights as individuals violated.
Donate Oxfam aims to find lasting solutions to poverty, hunger and injustice
Donate Prior Posts - September 2007
Digg Social Networking
This weeks widget comes from from Digg. As you can see, from the image below, the widget is configurable. I have chosen to show posts dugg by my digg friends but you can also choose posts by subject, digg member or website. If you choose a particular user, you then have the option to display news that they have either dugg, commented on, submitted or their most popular. The display is customizable by choosing from one of 5 templates or choosing your own custom colors. You are able to specify a height and width, whether to show digg count or not and you can display titles only or a title with description. 
