Wednesday, October 14, 2009

Human Rights Focus: Child Prostitution and World Hunger...人权焦点:儿童卖春与世界饥饿....人権フォーカス:児童買春と世界飢餓...

I came across these documentaries ( i love docos!) on youtube and thought i'd share it with my fellow bloggers and blog readers, i was simply disgusted when watching them, i wanted to puke ..men, the root cause of all evil..and ppl ask me why i'm such a militant feminist..:

Caution: What you are about to see and hear is truly disturbing so please watch at your own discretion. Also you can see how widespread the problem of child prostitution is, spanning from Africa to Asia to Europe and all other continents as well.
1) Child Prostitution in Kenya: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cdkhIW3QuVg
2) Child Prostitution in Indonesia:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Iw_e-E00e-8&feature=channel
3) Child Prostitution in Romania: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mz8R3mC1TEg&feature=related

On another unrelated but equally important note, did ppl know that world hunger is becoming a more and more serious problem now? It is estimated by the UN World Food Program that over 1 billion people are starving or suffering from hunger currently (YES, 1 BILLION people, meaning 1/6th of the world's entire population are currently suffering from hunger). And also apparently every 6 seconds, a child dies from hunger in the world today. Truly depressing figures.
Link to an Aljazeera Program (my fav English cable news network) on World Hunger: http://english.aljazeera.net/programmes/insidestory/2009/09/2009920134113629813.html
Oh gosh, with my post on child prostitution and world hunger, this post is truly very depressing ain't it??

10 comments:

Chee Wai Lee said...

hcpen,

Thanks for the videos. I only had time to see the Kenyan one. They have a very serious long-term problem with poverty and with their enforcement system. I think education will be key. Meanwhile, since you like documentaries, here are some free ones from PBS about education around the world (following the declaration for universal education by the UN):

Time for School 3 (Part 1) -
http://video.pbs.org/video/1239934544/program/1154691044

Time for School 3 (Part 2) -
http://video.pbs.org/video/1248818700/program/1154691044

Where world hunger is concerned, I'm afraid there is an even greater crisis possibly unfolding - it seems to be holding steady now, but for a time the bee population around the world was falling drastically. What that meant was a potential for catastrophic failure of crops that rely on pollinators.

Here's the documentary on that problem, also from PBS. They even covered a part of China which actually suffered the catastrophe where farmers were forced to hand-pollinate their pear trees:

Silence of the Bees -
http://video.pbs.org/video/995224587/program/979358043

Enjoy!

hcpen said...

Chee Wai Lee: Yea, have a look at the videos for the rest, they're very interesting! Also, i think poverty is the root cause of prostitution in these countries, not education. However much education there is, if circumstances are so desperate that one has to go hungry, then i think however much education won't help abit. I think they know it's wrong, but going hungry and poverty forces ppl into desperate measures. Sad. Also, thanks for ur links, the bee video looks interesting. Thanks again!

aimlesswanderer said...

I find it very strange that more of the world population is in danger of being over fed than being underfed. It just goes to show that we have enough food to feed everyone, but the distribution is all wrong.

From what I remember, educating girls even to primary school level (even is badly underdeveloped countries) had substantial positive effects on their earning capacity, health, life expectancy and number of children (more education=less kids, as is generally the case worldwide). The knowledge makes it much easier for them to break the cycle of poverty and make more positive choices.

hcpen said...

aimlesswanderer: I totally agree with you. But usually in poor countries or families, they save up all the money to educate the boys and only if they have left-over extra money do they educate the girls. This was what places like Taiwan and Malaysia were like 50 to 60 years back..bck then we were also poor so i heard stories of the sons being educated first regardless of who was older (meaning an older sister may not be educated to save for her younger brother) and then only daughters later. Waste to educate the men first, i mean, seriously, investing money in women is far more beneficial than men, just look at the state of men in poorer countries, more domestic violence, unrest, abandoning families, having too much sex with wife leading to overpopulation worsening th poverty problem and not wanting to use condoms even when educated! Sigh..

Chee Wai Lee said...

aimlesswanderer -

The irony of the situation is that the overfed here in the US tend to be the very poor. They can only afford the very cheap and unhealthy stuff that the food industry throws at them. It is pretty ridiculous, I no longer wish to patronize any McDonalds anywhere in the world ... ever.

Check out the documentary-movie "Food, Inc" if you are able to find it.

Chee Wai Lee said...

hcpen,

Just finished watching the rest of the videos. The series on Romania was particularly disturbing, probably because the journalists get so much closer to the criminals and victims than in the other videos.

It must be gut-wrenching for journalists to do work like that, knowing they have very limited means to intervene as professionals in their work. Just looking at those kids pouring solvent into their bags made me feel helpless, knowing they will slowly suck their lives away doing that. It is like a naturalist at work who has to watch animals brutally slaughter one another or their young as part of nature.

Chee Wai Lee said...

hcpen,

With regard to education, the UN had initiated a program for a free and universal primary education for all children in the world (hence that PBS series covering several countries and the challenges faced in its implementation).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_Primary_Education

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Education_For_All

With this program, it should no longer be an issue of money for the family to send both boys and girls to school. The issues are opportunity costs and in-grained traditional value systems (eg. in Sugafa's case in Afghanistan, her family thinks she's better off doing her chores at home and in India where the poor girl has to work to help support her family in the day, forcing her into night school instead).

Hopefully, we'll soon see some impact, particularly on education for women.

gina said...

It's on tv the other day. Nostradamus predicted that there would be less food in the world, the land would be sparse, and that is the end of mankind.

hcpen said...

Chee Wai Lee: Yea, gut-wrenching ain't it? Especially the way the children were saying in explicit detail what they had to do with the grown men.

Also, thanks for the videos, yeah, maybe other issues are also preventing women and girls from going to school and education..sad..implementation is very important too.

hcpen said...

Gina:Yeah, not enough food for poorer countries and overpopulation!