Chinese children denied care after suffering from lead poisoning

Chinese children denied care after suffering from lead poisoning

By: Jessica Ties
Impunity Watch, Asia

BEIJING, China – Following the discovery of mass lead poisoning among children, Chinese officials are restricting access to available lead testing, altering test results, withholding test results and denying treatment to children who have suffered from exposure to excessive amounts of lead.  In addition, those who speak out about the lead poisoning problem are detained, intimidated and harassed by Chinese authorities.

Children infected with lead poisoning standing with their parents in a hospital in Anhui province (Photo Courtesy of Radio Free Asia).
Children infected with lead poisoning standing with their parents in a hospital in Anhui province (Photo Courtesy of Radio Free Asia).

While there is no official figure on the extent of the lead poisoning problem in China, reports by medical experts say that, in many regions, a majority of children have high levels of lead in their blood.

In the most recent case more than 26 adults and 103 children were sickened from tinfoil processing workshops. In the past two and a half years thousands of adults and children have been found to have toxic levels of lead exposure. In one village, Mengxi, 233 adults and 99 children were found to have seven times the amount of lead deemed safe by the Chinese government in their blood. This exposure is largely due to battery and metal factories located throughout the country.

Children are at a significantly higher risk of lead poisoning because their bodies take in up to half of what they encounter in the environment. Lead poisoning can cause children to suffer permanent intellectual, neurological and developmental disabilities.

The mother of a poisoned child stated, “the doctor told us all the children in this village have lead poisoning. Then they told us a few months later that all the children are healthy. They wouldn’t let us see the results from the tests though.”

Many parents have also stated that despite their children being diagnosed with severe lead poisoning, they were told by doctors to just have their child consume various types of food or drink milk. Joe Amon, health and human rights director at Human Rights Watch added that “children with dangerously high levels of lead in their blood are being refused treatment and returned home to contaminated houses in polluted villages.”

While China has expansive environmental policies, environmental protection officials generally do not have the influence required to compel local government officials to enforce the policies and face substantial resistance when  following the policies may hinder economic interests.

According to a report by Human Rights Watch, in villages that experience the highest levels of lead poisoning, affected children will need significant assistance to overcame the cognitive and physical impairments caused by lead poisoning.

For more information, please see:

Forbes – Report: China Hushing Up Lead Poisoning Epidemic – 15 June 2011

Fox News – China Downplays Risk to Children from Lead Poisoning, Report Says – 15 June 2011

Human Rights Watch – China: Children Poisoned by Lead and Denied Treatment – 15 June 2011

New York Times – Lead Poisoning in China: The hidden Scourge – 15 June 2011

Radio Free Asia – Lead-Poisoned Children ‘Neglected’ – 15 June 2011

Impunity Watch Symposium Keynote Senator Romeo Dallaire (2/5)

Impunity Watch Symposium Keynote Senator Romeo Dallaire (2/5) from Impunity Watch on Vimeo.

On Friday April 8, 2011, the Impunity Watch Law Journal of Syracuse University College of Law hosted its annual symposium entitled, Humans as Commodities: Child Soldiers. The symposium addressed the use of child soldiers in armed conflict. It looked at the chilling realities facing child soldiers, the root causes of the phenomena, and explored the persistent human rights dilemma facing the international community.

In 2000, the United Nations General Assembly adopted the Optional Protocol on the Involvement of Children in Armed Conflict to ensure that States do not use individuals under eighteen years of age in combat, and to explicitly forbid non-state and guerrilla forces from recruiting anyone under eighteen for any purpose. Other provisions of international law have banned the use of soldiers under age fifteen since the 1970s. In spite of these and other international efforts, there are an estimated 250,000-300,000 child soldiers across the globe, actively fighting in at least thirty countries. Almost half of all armed organizations in the world use child soldiers and almost all of those soldiers see combat.

OTP Weekly Briefing Issues #91: Pre-Trial Chamber II Requests Observations On Desirability And Feasibility Of Holding Confirmation Hearing In Kenya – Prosecution And Public Counsel For Victims Oppose

OTP Weekly Briefing_9-14 June 2011 #91

Former Nazi Prison Guard, 90, Found Living in Britain

By Polly Johnson
Senior Desk Officer, Europe

FAREHAM, United Kingdom – A former prison guard at the Nazi-run Trawniki camp in southeast Poland, where thousands of Jews were murdered, was discovered this week living in a retirement community in Fareham.

Alexander Huryn, 90, is from Ukraine but has lived in the UK since 1948. Documents recently obtained by Holocaust researcher Dr. Stephen Ankier revealed that Huryn served as a guard at the concentration camp in 1944 and 1945.

Huryn has vehemently denied accusations of his participation in the Holocaust. “I absolutely never saw anyone get killed at the camp and I never killed anyone,” he told the Daily Echo, a British paper. Rather, Huryn said, the Nazi regime forced him into service, but his primary responsibility was to groom horses for Nazi officers.

His family sheltered Jews during World War II, according to Huryn. When the Nazi regime recruited him, he and his family feared they would lose their farm if Huryn did not comply. “I was sent because I was the eldest child. I had no choice. The Nazis took me away on a truck. I was very scared, I had no idea where I was going and definitely did not want to be there.” Huryn was 23 at the time.

“I don’t like what the Nazis did. I feel bad about what happened at Trawniki. It was terrible – but I had nothing to do with it.”

Huryn went as far to say that he had no idea what was happening inside the camps and only learned of the atrocities being committed after the war. Speaking to reporters at his home on June 13, Huryn said, “We were never given a rank, we were just soldiers. We were given a pre-historic gun, like an American Civil War rifle, and just five bullets.”

“I was asked to train horses for the German officers, even though I had no idea what to do. You didn’t dare argue. You just did whatever you were told. The German guards were not nice to me and I did not socialize with them. I never met Hitler or any other senior Nazis.”

Huryn and his wife now live in a bungalow in Fareham, where Huryn still earns a German Army pension of ten pounds a month. Their daughter, Sophie, who also lives in Fareham, said that her father “never really talked about it, but [ ] has always insisted that his family would have been shot. There were all sorts of victims of Adolf Hitler in all sorts of different ways.”

For more information, please see:

Daily Mail – Nazi concentration camp guard, living in Hampshire: “I was told to take the job, or die” – 14 June 2011

Daily Mirror – Hampshire OAP Alexander Huryn defends his past as a Nazi concentration camp guard – 14 June 2011

News From Poland – British pensioner revealed as former Nazi camp guard – 14 June 2011

This is Hampshire – Alexander Huryn tells Daily Echo: ‘I’ve done nothing wrong’ – 13 June 2011