LA PAZ, Bolivia–Bolivia has legalized children who are as young as 10 years old to be employed. This is the lowest minimum working age in the world.
Lawmakers in Bolivia approved legislation earlier this month, and on July 17, Vice President Alvaro Garcia signed it into law. The law allows 10 year olds to work so long as they are under parental supervision and still attend school. Children who are 12 years old are allowed to work under contract, and they must also attend school.
While the International Labor Organization (ILO) sets the minimum working age at 15, it allows for the minimum age for children in developing countries to be set at 14. The ILO is investigating to see whether the law violates international regulations on child labor.
11 year old child selling pastries on the streets of Bolivia (photo courtesy of The Telegraph)
Proponents of the new law have argued that children who are younger than 14 years old need to work in order to help support their families. “Extreme poverty is one of the causes, not the main one, of child labor, said Deputy Javier Zavaleta, who is a co-sponsor of the bill. He added, “So our goal is to eliminate child labor by 2020. While it is ambitious, it is possible.”
Another argument for lowering the minimum work age is articulated by Senator Adolfo Mendoza. He stated, “Child labor already exists in Bolivia, and it’s difficult to fight it. Rather than persecute it, we want to protect the rights and guarantee the labor security of the children. “
However, human rights activists see it a different way. According to Jo Becker, who is the children’s-rights advocacy director at Human Rights Watch, “Child labor perpetuates the cycle of poverty…Poor families often send their children to work out of desperation, but these children miss out on schooling and are more likely to end up in a lifetime of low-wage work.” Her suggestion is for the Bolivian government to “invest in policies and programs to end child labor, not support it.”
Bolivia has made limited efforts to invest in ways to help get families out of poverty by paying $28 a year to families who send their children to school, which is essentially a per-child subsidy. However, recent studies show that one in three Bolivian children do not attend school. Moreover, statistics show that an estimated 1 million children in Bolivia work in textiles, on farms, as street vendors, and even coca leaf pickers.
by: Delisa Morris Impunity Watch Reporter, South America
San Pedro Sula, Honduras – The United States has seen a surge in immigration of children from Honduras recently. Juan Hernandez, president of Honduras, believes that the U.S. drug policy is to blame. “The root cause is that the United States and Columbia carried out big operations in the fight against drugs, then Mexico did it”, stated Hernandez.
Honduran Immigrants leaving the United States for Honduras | Photo courtesy of blogspot.com
The U.S. Department of Homeland Security deported 59 Hondurans this week all women and children, who migrated to the country illegally. They had all been held in a detention facility in New Mexico. The migrants were returned by plane to San Pedro Sula, known as the murder capital of the world.
There is a ceaseless river of bodies flowing through the morgue in San Pedro Sula is a testament to one reason so many people leave Honduras. Honduras is a country rampant with crime and little economic opportunity.
A week ago a 13-year-old girl’s throat was slit ear to ear, and her body was found in a shallow grave in a backyard. The circumstances of her death are still under investigation. Some bodies are riddled with bullets; in one case 72-bullet-wounds, while others are bound by their hands and feet and strangled.
The city is covered with gang activity and each body brought into the morgue tells of brutality and violence.
From January to July, the city experienced over 538 homicides, and in at least 423 a gun was used. In May, the worst month, the body tally was about nine per day.
Families are not allowed to grieve to grieve in peace, in fact, the mere act of claiming a body or attending a funeral can make people there a target for gang members who stalk the morgue and cemetery looking for their next victim. Right now at least forty-eight bodies are unclaimed at the morgue, and after 30 days, they’ll be buried in the city’s public cemetery. The morgue keeps DNA, dental records and fingerprints are retained for the day when someone shows up or a killer caught.
Many Hondurans who live in the roughest neighborhoods leave Honduras because they don’t have any other option.
The city’s Director of Forensic Medicine, Hector Hernandez, believes many families haven’t claimed their loved ones’ bodies because they believe their family members have migrated.
Several of the women deported this week have mixed emotions about failing to stay in the United States, and they now worry about paying back the thousands of dollars they borrowed to travel north. “Part of my heart stayed in the U.S. because I missed a chance to get ahead in life,” said Isabel Rodriguez, who was deported along with her two young children.
By Lyndsey Kelly Impunity Watch Reporter, North America
WASHINGTON, D.C., United States of America – A Navy medical officer at the U.S. military prison at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba has refused an order from the Pentagon to continue force-feeding hunger-striking prisoners. This is the first known instance of a U.S. service member defying the Pentagon’s force-feeding policy.
A Military Doctor at Guantánamo Bay holds a feeding tube used to force-feed detainees on a hunger strike (Photo Courtesy of CNN).
The Pentagon calls its Guantánamo Bay tube feeding policy humane and designed to prevent prisoners from starving to death. The military refers to the controversial process as “eternal feeding.” The force-feeding practice is designed to provide prisoners with liquid nutrition and medicine via a tube inserted in the nose and directly into the stomach. Defense attorneys say that their clients consider the practices torture.
An unknown number of the 149 total detainees at Guantánamo Bay’s Camp Delta have been on a hunger strike for the past year and a half. The purpose of the strike is to protest their indefinite detention.
News of the Navy medical officer’s refusal comes to the public by way of an attorney for one of the prisoners. Abu Wa’el Dhiab, whom is part of a group of detainees participating in the hunger strike, has been imprisoned at Guantánamo Bay since August 2002. Dhiab has been cleared for release since 2009, but U.S officials said that they were reluctant to send him back to Syria because of the ongoing civil war in the country.
A Pentagon official confirmed the statements made by the defense attorney, stating, “There was a recent instance of a medical provider not willing to carry-out the eternal feeding of a detainee. The matter is in the hands of the individual’s leadership. The service member has been temporarily assigned to alternate duties with no impact to medical support operations.”
The identity of the Navy medical officer is currently unknown, but the defense attorney for Dhiab has said that his client described the nurse as a “40-year-old Latino who turned up on the cellblocks in April or May, with the rank of a ‘captain’.”
The medical officer’s refusal came one year after civilian doctors writing for the New England Journal of Medicine declared that medical professionals taking part in force-feeding was unethical. The civilian doctors urged the Guantánamo medical staff to refuse to participate in the pentagon’s designed practices.
Medical staff is allowed to refuse to participate in the eternal feeding of prisoners by invoking medical ethics. Retired Army Brig. Gen. Stephen Zenakis, a psychiatrist who visits the Guantánamo Bay facilities frequently, says that based on his talks with Pentagon policymakers, the medical officer should suffer no consequence for having refused.
By Kathryn Maureen Ryan Impunity Watch Reporter, Managing Editor
KIEV, Ukraine – Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur, a civilian airliner, was shot out of the skies above the Ukraine on Thursday as the plane was flying over the disputed regions of eastern Ukraine. The airliner, a Boeing 777, is believed to have been shot down by a surface-to-air Missile, U.S. officials say. 298 lives were lost in the attack. World leaders have called on the Ukraine and Russia to allow an international investigation into the attack. The United Nations Security Council, of which Russia is a permanent member, was scheduled to hold an emergency meeting Friday to discuss attack. The United Nations Security Council called for “full, thorough and independent international investigation” into downing of Malaysian plane above Ukraine.
Pro-Russia rebels stand guard at the crash site of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17. the Airliner was shot out of the sky above in Eastern Ukraine on Friday killing the plane’s 298 passengers. (Photo courtesy of CNN International)
Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko addressed the nation early Friday, placing blame for the horrific attack on pro-Russian separatists whom he suggested are acting as the puppets of Russian leaders. Charges that the Russian federation and pro-Russian separatists both denied. “War has gone beyond the territory of Ukraine,” Poroshenko said. “Consequences of this war have already reached the whole world.”
Pro-Russian separatists fighting have agreed to allow access to the crash site to investigators international monitors in the region said. However, the Ukrainian government said the rebels were still keeping all but local emergency workers away from the site.
Ukrainian Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk called for swift, international justice. “This is a crime against humanity. All red lines have been already crossed. This is the deadline,” he said. “We ask our international partners to call an emergency U.N. Security Council meeting and to [do] everything we can to stop this war: a war against Ukraine, a war against Europe, and after these terrorists shot down a Malaysian aircraft, this is the war against the world.”
A pro-Russian rebel leader had reportedly briefly claimed restorability via Twitter for shooting down a jet he claimed was a Ukrainian military aircraft. However, soon after it was established that the downed plane was a civilian airliner the Tweet was reportedly removed.
European Union leaders agreed this earlier week to expand sanctions against individuals and entities in response to Russia role in contributing to conflict in the Ukraine. The details of the sanctions will be decided by the end of the month. The Obama Administration also announced plans to expand U.S. Sanctions against Russia before the attack. The sanctioned would target Russian interests including Energy companies.
The majority of people on board the Malaysian airliner were Dutch citizens. Preliminary reports of the crash. The Dutch prime minister on Thursday ordered that flags fly at half-mast at government buildings across the Netherlands to mourn the 154 Dutch citizens lost in the attack which he says may be the worst air disaster in Dutch history.
The attack also dealt a devastating blow to the International AIDS community. As many as 108 Aides experts, researchers, activists and health workers who were traveling to an International Aids Conference in Australia may have been on board the plane. The Australian reported that up to 108 delegates to the 20th international AIDS congruence in Melbourne Australia, which is scheduled to begin on Sunday, are believed to have been killed on board flight MH17.
“There’s been confirmed a number of senior people who were coming out here who were researchers, who were medical scientists, doctors, people who’ve been to the forefront of dealing with AIDS across the world,” Victoria Premier Denis Napthine told reporters in Melbourne on Friday. “The exact number is not yet known, but there is no doubt it’s a substantial number.”
The International AIDS Society issued a brief statement Thursday night following the attack saying that “a number of colleagues and friends” were on the flight. “At this incredibly sad and sensitive time the IAS stands with our international family and sends condolences to the loved ones of those who have been lost to this tragedy,” the statement said.
Unconfirmed reports suggest that among the dead are international renowned AIDS researcher Joep Lange, of the University of Amsterdam, and World Health Organization spokesman Glenn Thomas. Lange played a critical role in leading local trials of antiretroviral therapies and led research into the prevention of mother-to-child transmission of HIV. He served as president of the International AIDS society from 2002-2004, and is a founder and co-editor-in-chief of the journal Antiviral Therapy. Lange’s work played a critical role in bringing treatment for HIV/AIDS to the developing world, saving countless lives. Former United States President and AIDS advocate Bill Clinton who is scheduled to speak at the conference referred to the AIDS workers lost on the flight as “Martyrs for the Cause.”
By Kathryn Maureen Ryan Impunity Watch, Managing Editor
GAZA CITY, Gaza – Israeli tanks entered Gaza after the Israeli military launched a massive ground operation into Gaza late Thursday, calling an extra 18,000 reservists into the conflict with Hamas. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Moshe Yaalon reportedly ordered the assault to destroy tunnels moving from the Gaza strip into Israel Proper. Tunnels connecting Israel and Gaza as well as Egypt have served as critical supply chains, not only for Hamas militants but also for critical civilian supplies including fuel. The ground assault represents as a major escalation in the ten-day offensive that has already killed more than 230 Palestinians, including the shocking killing of four civilian boys on a Gaza beach on Wednesday.
Israeli tanks entered Gaza on Thursday night after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu ordered a ground invasion, The escalation comes after Israeli strikes have killed more than 230 Palestinians during the first ten days of the conflict. (Photo courtesy of Al Jazeera)
The offensive began after a group of gunmen reportedly attempted to enter Israel through a tunnel originating in Gaza. The Israeli army said eight of the 13 attackers were killed, and Hamas claimed responsibility for the operation. The Israeli military said the operation “will deal significant damage to the infrastructure of Hamas and other terrorist organizations in the Gaza Strip.” “We have hit Hamas hard, and we will continue to hit Hamas hard,” the Israel Defense Forces tweeted.
Hamas spokesman Fawzi Barhoum said that “the beginning of the Israeli ground invasion of Gaza is a dangerous step with unknown consequences. Israel will pay a heavy price for it. “Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri said of the offensive; “It does not scare the Hamas leaders or the Palestinian people. We warn Netanyahu of the dreadful consequences of such a foolish act.”
The escalation came shortly after a five-hour “humanitarian ceasefire” requested by the United Nations, aimed at giving residents of Gaza a chance to leave their homes for necessities after days of Israli bombardments. Both sides of the conflict largely stopped firing, and people were able to venture out to markets, grocers and banks, which opened for the first time in more than a week.
The ground operation comes just a day after Four young boys were killed during an Israeli strike while playing at Gaza beach on Wednesday, witnesses say, a fifth boy was injured in the attack and is in critical condition. The blasts that killed the boys struck near a hotel where several members of the foreign media are staying; several journalist witnessed the incident. The boys, two brothers and two cousins, were between the ages of 9 and 11.
Israli spokesmen Mark Regev said the results of a preliminary investigation suggests the deaths were the result of a “a tragic misidentification of the target.” However, A Hamas official called the killings a “war crime.” Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zhuri said “those children were not firing rockets, they were just playing.”
According to a report by Human Rights watch several Israeli airstrikes have targeted civilian structures and other non-military targets. Israeli attacks in Gaza since July 7, 2014 have destroyed 1,255 homes and displaced at least 7,500 people.
“Israel’s rhetoric is all about precision attacks but attacks with no military target and many civilian deaths can hardly be considered precise,” said Sarah Leah Whitson, Middle East director at Human Rights Watch. “Recent documented cases in Gaza sadly fit Israel’s long record of unlawful airstrikes with high civilian casualties.” Kenneth Roth, executive director of Human Rights Watch, said Israeli bombs hit Wafa Hospital in Gaza while four patients were inside. Human Rights Watch has called on Israeli to stop targeting Civilian populations and infrastructure; weather the targeting of these areas in intentional or reckless.
