(TheirWorld) – For most children, exam time means cramming in last-minute studying, a nervous walk to school and a worrying wait for the results. But for many others, it can mean long and arduous journeys – sometimes with overnight stays – to get to an exam centre. It can mean trying to study and answer test questions […]
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(The Guardian) – Canada’s compensation payment to a former child soldier could have worldwide implications, child rights defenders say. Omar Khadr, the only child soldier to have been prosecuted by a military tribunal for war crimes, has received an apology and $10.5m compensation from the Canadian government for failing to protect his rights. Link
(UNICEF Australia) – UNICEF Australia says allegations of the killing of at least two children in Afghanistan in 2012 and 2013 by Australian soldiers must be thoroughly investigated. The first case involves the alleged unlawful killing in 2012 of a 14 or 15-year-old Afghan boy in Kandahar province, by Australian special forces. Link
(Radio Free Europe) – Afghan police have arrested members of a human trafficking ring they say kidnapped 25 children and tried to smuggle them into Pakistan, where they were to be trained as suicide bombers for the Afghan Taliban. At least one of the children who was to be trained as a suicide bomber was 4, […]
(Foreign Policy) – The Donald Trump administration released the annual Trafficking in Persons Report this week, which includes the list of governments known to use or support the use of child soldiers and thus which may be prohibited from receiving U.S. weapons and military assistance. Yet this year’s list is particularly remarkable for what it lacks, namely […]
(RT) – US State Department has dropped Iraq and Myanmar from a child soldiers’ blacklist in its annual people trafficking report, despite multiple reports of continuous usage of children in armies and militias, and human rights activists’ outcry. The annual Trafficking in Persons Report unveiled by US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and senior president’s advisor and […]
(HRW) – US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson should return Burma and Iraq to the US list of governments using child soldiers, Human Rights Watch said today. Reuters reported that Tillerson overruled State Department officials and senior US diplomats in ordering the two countries to be removed from the list, which will be announced on June […]
(The Strategist) – The blood stains on the classroom walls couldn’t be washed away following the Taliban attack on the middle school in Postak Bazaar village in Afghanistan. ‘We had to chip it away from the wall with an axe,’ a school official told Human Rights Watch. But the blood wasn’t that of the school’s students. […]
(HRW) – Rahimullah, a 15-year-old Afghan boy, told Human Rights Watch last year that he has worked as a brick maker for five years, working from 4:00 a.m. until nightfall. “My smaller siblings also work,” he said. “When they turn five, they start working… It’s not just one thing we do; there are a lot of […]
(Voice of America) – A United Nations watchdog committee has found the United States in violation of treaty obligations aimed at protecting children in armed conflict, and preventing the sale and trafficking of children. The Committee on the Rights of the Child, which monitors implementation of the Convention on the Rights of the Child, completed a […]
