|
Keabetswe's Story
Name: Keabetswe
Age: 12
Country: Botswana
 Keabetswe lives mostly on the streets and is able to attend school only sporadically. But he knows that the streets are no place for a little boy. Keabetswe's vulnerable nature comes out when he is at Bona Lesedi, a day care centre for orphans which literally means "See Hope" in the Setswana language. At Bona Lesedi Keabetswe leans on Nono Molefe's shoulder, one of the centre's co-directors, and becomes a little boy looking for some attention and a cuddle. And Nono gives it willingly.
Now that Keabetswe has found a place that gives him some hope for a better life, he is glad to stop pretending that he can hack the street life. (life in Africa : urban slums)
"Since the outbreak of HIV/AIDS, the basic needs of many children like Keabetswe have not been met," says Nono. "They need education, love, food and sometimes shelter. We give them clothes, we help them with school work, and they go home just to sleep."
But there are some 2,000 orphans in Kanye alone, and only 200 who come to the centre – a stark illustration of how many more children still need to be reached. child labor in Africa: street children
The rising number of orphaned children in Botswana is a direct result of the HIV/AIDS epidemic, which has hit sub-Saharan Africa harder than anywhere else. Over 12 million children in the region have been left without parents and without a childhood as a result of the epidemic.
In Botswana, the country with the second highest HIV/AIDS infection rate in the world, 15 per cent of all children have been orphaned and, if the present trend of the spread of HIV infection continues, an unprecedented number of children will be left without parents and traditional caring mechanisms will soon be unable to cope.
These days, for children like Keabetswe, attention centers like Bona Lesedi are the only hope for a better future. (Life in Africa: child labor: urban slums)
MARY MWASI'S STORY
There are days when Mary Mwasi does not know where she will find the strength to get out of bed. But sickness, exhaustion and despair will not feed the children or fetch the water, and so, somehow, she wills herself erect and steps into the sunlight of another Kenyan morning. "I have to look for food for the children day by day," she told a counselor for the US charity World Vision. "Life is difficult. Unless I get help from well-wishers, we cannot afford to eat."
Like many other residents of Ghaza, a village near the port city of Mombasa, Mrs. Mwasi is infected with HIV, the virus that causes AIDS. At least one of her three children is also HIV-positive and the others are often ill -- whether from the disease or malnutrition, she cannot be sure. Her husband left in search of work two years ago and never came back, so she lives on sufferance on her in-laws' land -- fearful that they will learn of her condition and expel her from the community. Her only financial assets are a few chickens, held in reserve to buy medicine for the kids.
She knows there is no hope for her. Her concern is for her children. "We say, 'When you pour water on the ground, you cannot pick it up again,'" Mary told the counselor. "I did not think of so many things before, so many worries. I am trying to leave everything to God."
As HIV/AIDS enters its third calamitous decade, Mary Mwasi's plight has become tragically common in East and Southern Africa, the regions hit hardest by the global epidemic. With 10 per cent of the world's population, impoverished sub-Saharan Africa is home to two-thirds of its HIV-positive population. But it is only recently that doctors, governments and the Joint UN Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS)* have realized that not only does the global struggle against AIDS have an African face, it is increasingly the face of an African woman. As infection rates mount, scientists and researchers are scrambling to understand the causes and to fashion new policies and programmes in response. poverty Africa
The need for urgency is clear. In July, "UNAIDS" announced that of all Africans aged 15-49 who are HIV-positive, women make up a disproportionate 57 per cent. Even worse, noted UNAIDS Deputy Director Kathleen Cravero, of those in the 15-24 age group, fully 75 per cent were young women. "That's a remarkable figure," she told Africa Renewal. "We're actually looking at young women becoming almost an endangered species in Africa due to this epidemic."
Part of the explanation for the staggering rates, she continued, is biological. Because of their reproductive systems, women's bodies are more susceptible to infection by the human immuno-deficiency virus than are men's bodies. That is particularly true of sexually active young women, whose bodies are still developing.
CHILD LABOR IN AFRICA (FULL STORY)
Africa’s World of Forced Labor, in a 6-Year-Old’s Eyes
KETE KRACHI, Ghana
Just before 5 a.m., with the sky still dark over Lake Volta, Mark Kwadwo was rousted from his spot on the damp dirt floor. It was time for work. Shivering in the predawn chill, he helped paddle a canoe a mile out from shore. For five more hours, as his coworkers yanked up a fishing net, inch by inch, Mark bailed water to keep the canoe from swamping. He last ate the day before. His broken wooden paddle was so heavy he could barely lift it. But he raptly followed each command from Kwadwo Takyi, the powerfully built 31-year-old in the back of the canoe who freely deals out beatings. child labor in Africa
“I don’t like it here,” he whispered, out of Mr. Takyi’s earshot. Mark Kwadwo is 6 years old. About 30 pounds, dressed in a pair of blue and red underpants and a Little Mermaid T-shirt, he looks more like an oversized toddler than a boat hand. He is too little to understand why he has wound up in this fishing village, a two-day trek from his home. But the three older boys who work with him know why. Like Mark, they are indentured servants, leased by their parents to Mr. Takyi for as little as $20 a year. Until their servitude ends in three or four years, they are as trapped as the fish in their nets, forced to work up to 14 hours a day, seven days a week, in a trade that even adult fishermen here call punishing and, at times, dangerous. child labor in Africa
Mr. Takyi’s boys conscripts in a miniature labor camp, deprived of schooling, basic necessities and freedom are part of a vast traffic in children that supports West and Central African fisheries, quarries, cocoa and rice plantations and street markets. The girls are domestic servants, bread bakers, prostitutes. The boys are field workers, cart pushers, scavengers in abandoned gem and gold mines. By no means is the child trafficking trade uniquely African. Children are forced to race camels in the Middle East, weave carpets in India and fill brothels all over the developing world.
The International Labor Organization, a United Nations agency, estimates that 1.2 million are sold into servitude every year in an illicit trade that generates as much as $10 billion annually. Studies show they are most vulnerable in Asia, Latin America and Africa. ppp Africa’s children, the world’s poorest, account for roughly one-sixth of the trade, according to the labor organization. Data is notoriously scarce, but it suggests victimization of African children on a huge scale.After you read the rest of this story, you wonder what madness we live in--a global system that allows this to happen. child Abuse: child labor in Africa
HELP SAVE THE STREET CHILDREN IN AFRICA
HELP FIGHT CHILD LABOR IN AFRICA
HELP FIGHT HUNGER AND DISEASES (HIV/AIDS) IN AFRICA
HELP FIGHT CHILD POVERTY IN AFRICA.
HELP SAVE LIVES IN AFRICA (THE URBAN SLUMS)
NEW!!! PLEASE COME JOIN THE COZAY FORUMS!! .. CLICK ON "COMMENTS" FOR MORE!!
|
