World Issues- Articles

Syria’s war on children

NOVEMBER 11, 2013 | BY CRAIG & MARC KIELBURGER

For these children of war every aspect of their life has been diminished, or stolen.

Human bodies aren’t like machines that shut down immediately without fuel—starvation kills slowly.

It’s likely one-year-old Rana was malnourished the entire year she’d been alive, since aid hadn’t reached the village in her lifetime. Doctors could do nothing by the time she was admitted to the field hospital in rebel-occupied Moadamia, just north of the Syrian capital of Damascus. She died within 24 hours of admittance.

Rana was born, and died, during the civil war that is slowly attacking Syria’s children.

The people left in her ghost town of Moadamia are bargaining chips for the rebel Free Syrian Army, which refuses to relinquish control of the area long enough for humanitarian groups to distribute aid. Regime-backed snipers shoot hostages who try to leave. We know of the brief life of Rana from a report in the investigative news site vice.com.

For families outside of rebel territory who can evade the scope of a rifle, the only choice is escape from Syria.

What started with a peaceful protest in 2011 has escalated into a full-blown civil war, 100,000 casualties, 5.1 million displaced people, and two million refugees—including one million children. An estimated 4,000 Syrians flee daily to neighbouring Jordan, Turkey, Lebanon and Iraq. Meanwhile, rebels and President Bashar al Assad’s supporters continue to fight over control of the country.

Even outside of its borders, Syria’s war on its youngest citizens wages on. A generation of stateless children have had all manner of hell thrown at them.

Two million Syrian students have been forced out of school since the last academic year. Schools become shelters, or worse, targets, and then they’re destroyed. In Lebanon, where 400,000 school-aged children are stuck, class sizes are doubling, teachers are working a double-shift system, and even class waiting lists are closing. Refugee families decide which of their children should attend class; often the girls are left behind to do chores, watch young siblings, or because a trip to school is deemed too dangerous in a crowded, foreign country.

Parents who can’t work legally in their host country send sons and daughters to sell trinkets in the street, or to work in an unregulated industry. The war is breeding child labourers.

In Jordan, the population of child labourers has “at least doubled” in the last 18 months, to 30,000; faster than non-profits or policy can respond, according to media reports. In Lebanon, where Syrian refugees now make up one quarter of the population, 70,000 refugee children are thought to be working. School, which would offer some respite from chaos, is a false hope for these young workers.

Now, the World Health Organization has confirmed ten cases of polio in eastern Syria, the first outbreak in 14 years. Syria was the first Arab country to introduce mass immunization, but during wartime an estimated half million children have missed vaccines. The highly communicable disease attacks the nerves to cause paralysis and even death, and it craves a weak host. The United Nations’ health agency acted within days to employ an immunization plan in Syria and neighbouring countries, but access to the vaccine remains a problem in rebel strongholds.

For these children of war every aspect of their life has been diminished, or stolen.

One promising hope for Syria is the generosity of its neighbours. Non-profits at camps in host countries deploy aid, water projects and school programs for refugee children. The Lebanese and Jordanian governments welcome Syrian students into their already strained public schools.

Canada, for its part, recently pledged $90 million in relief funds to humanitarian organizations on the ground, making Canada’s total commitment to the crisis $203.5 million in development and security assistance. The federal government has also pledged $110 million to Jordan over three years, to alleviate strain on the host country. Canada will also accept 1,300 Syrian refugees by 2014—200 government-assisted and 1,100 private sponsorships—a sliver of the total refugee population.

International groups, including Amnesty International and UNICEF, have called on Canada and the rest of Syria’s more distant neighbours to do more.

For now, it’s sometimes the smallest gestures that offer hope amid despair.

A group of Kurdish students recently reached out to their peers at the Arbat refugee camp in northern Iraq.

There, displaced children live in a makeshift slum marked by wooden posts and blue tarp. On the first day of class, Kurdish students from across the Iraqi border arrived with books, backpacks, uniforms and toiletries—bought with the proceeds of bake sales and community fundraisers—and distributed them to hopeful-looking Syrian refugees.

“We trust the strength of youth. This is the sign of looking ahead for a bright future in school, becoming good students and good citizens,” a UNICEF representative in Iraq has said of the effort.

Children are helping children, even in places where childhood seems a lost cause.

To read about this issue even more click below:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/newsround/16979186


The Birth of a Movement

Craig Kielburger began his journey as a social activist on an ordinary Wednesday morning when he was 12 years old. Sitting at the breakfast table, he was flipping through the paper for the comics when a headline jumped out at him: “Battled child labor, boy, 12, murdered.” Curious, he sat down to read the article. That’s when he first learned about Iqbal Masih, a former child labourer- turned-child rights activist. Sold into slavery at the age of four, this Pakistani boy spent six years chained to a carpet- weaving loom before escaping at the age of 10. He spent the next two years speaking out for the rights of enslaved children. His calls for justice captured the world’s attention. They were also the likely motive for a carpet-maker to have him killed.

Iqbal’s story shocked Craig, especially because they were the same age. Of course he had seen suffering on television, in the newspaper and even when walking past homeless people. But like many others, he had learned to tune it out. Reading Iqbal’s story changed that. Craig was angry.

While doing research to learn more, Craig made another terrible discovery: In many parts of the world, instead of going to school, children exactly like him were forced to work in the most awful conditions. To Craig, it seemed un- believable that he’d never heard about any of

this before. He wondered, “Am I the only one?”

The Birth of a Movement

That’s when he decided to share what he had learned with his class. That day, he asked his Grade 7 teacher for permis- sion to share his research at the beginning of class. Craig felt nervous standing in front of his classmates, telling them about Iqbal and the hundreds of millions of children who were forced into situations of child labour. Then Craig asked the question that made him most nervous: “Who wants to help?” Before he knew it, 11 hands flew up! That’s when Craig learned that having the courage to try makes even the hardest things possible. When Craig and his friends—the twelve 12-year-olds—got together that evening, Free The Children was born.