Ejo Hazaza

What does Genocide mean to us?

2011-04-09T16:36:00.000-07:00

An estimated 100,000-250,000 women were raped during the three months of genocide in Rwanda in 1994
Rape committed during war is often systematic and intended to terrorize the population, break up families, destroy communities, and, in some instances, change the ethnic make-up of the next generation. Sometimes it is also used to render women from the targeted community incapable of bearing more children.
Sexual violence during war creates multi-fold challenges for survivors:

The shame and stigma of public rape can often force a rape survivor and her family to flee their community, leaving behind land, property and resources. This often leaves women poorer and more vulnerable to further abuse and in need of financial assistance to get back on their feet.
The women and their families also face lasting psychological trauma. War typically destroys the very infrastructure needed to help such women, leaving few properly trained counsellors and psychologists. Health centres lack resources and skilled personnel.
They have medical needs, especially for reconstructive surgeries and may need HIV/AIDS treatment.
And they want justice – legal redress to ensure that the attackers are caught and punished.

Read a more detailed backgrounder on sexual violence as a tool of war.

Watch the webcast of a discussion event at UN Headquarters looking at the heavy cost of genocide on women in Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of Congo today.

Orphans

According to the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF), there are more than one million orphans in Rwanda. The highest proportion of these were orphaned as a result of the genocide in 1994, however since then, increasing numbers of children are being orphaned as a result of HIV/AIDS.
It is common to see older children raising younger ones by themselves in post-genocide Rwanda today. After the genocide, Rwanda had among the highest proportions of child-headed families in the world – some 42,000 households struggling to raise an estimated 101,000 children.

Many of these children do not go to school or eat regularly. Some, as a result of the widespread rape during the genocide and the increased spread of HIV/AIDs, are now falling ill themselves. Many are at risk of exploitation and abuse. It is a generation that has lost its childhood and whose future is very much at risk.

Widows

Among the survivors of the Rwandan genocide were thousands of women - both Hutu and Tutsi - who were widowed in the course of the conflict. All traumatized, many had suffered rape, some were infected with HIV/AIDS and many had witnessed the killing of family members.
Since 1994, these women and organizations that support them have been fighting to change attitudes towards women in Rwanda and to change laws regarding the property, marital and inheritance rights of women

The enforcement of laws upholding their rights
Medical and counseling services
Financial support and compensation
Educational programmes to promote awareness of the value of equal rights for women.

Working to Support Survivors

Since 1994, many organizations have been established within and outside of Rwanda to support the needs of Rwandan genocide survivors. The work of such organizations ranges from assisting victims in their quest for justice through the local, national or international judicial processes; providing financial assistance; providing medical and psychological assistance; managing orphanages and employment programmes for youth in Rwanda. To find out more and to offer your support to their efforts, see a list of such groups.

Resource of this article: http://www.un.org/preventgenocide/rwanda/support.shtml#victims

Do you know that children around the world are treated like this?

2011-02-15T14:25:00.000-08:00

* Almost 53,000 children died worldwide in 2002 as a result of homicide.

* Up to 80 to 98% of children suffer physical punishment in their homes, with a third or more experiencing severe physical punishment resulting from the use of implements.

* 150 million girls and 73 million boys under 18 experienced forced sexual intercourse or other forms of sexual violence during 2002.

* Between 100 and 140 million girls and women in the world have undergone some form of female genital mutilation/cutting. In sub-Saharan Africa, Egypt and the Sudan, 3 million girls and women are subjected to genital mutilation/cutting every year.

* In 2004, 218 million children were involved in child labour, of whom 126 million were in hazardous work.

* Estimates from 2000 suggest that 1.8 million children were forced into prostitution and pornography, and 1.2 million were victims of trafficking.

Child Abuse Simply Stated

2011-02-15T14:20:00.000-08:00

Simply stated, Child abuse is the bad treatment of a child under the age of 18 by a parent, caretaker, someone living in their home or someone who works with or around children. Abuse of a child is anything that causes injury or puts the child in danger of physical injury. Child abuse can be physical (such as burns or broken bones), sexual (such as touching of private parts or incest), or emotional (such as belittling or calling the child names). Neglect happens when a parent or responsible caretaker fails to provide adequate supervision, food, clothing, shelter or other basics for a child. Child abuse is any action (or lack of) which endangers or impairs a child’s physical, mental or emotional health and development. Child abuse occurs in different ways. All forms of abuse and neglect are harmful to the child.
Child abuse may be:
• Physical - hitting, shaking, burns, human bites, strangulation.
• Emotional - constant disapproval, belittling, constant teasing.
• Sexual - fondling, the showing of private parts by an adult, sexual intercourse, oral and anal sex, forcing a child to watch while others have sexual intercourse, incest, pornography.
• Neglect - absence of adequate food, shelter, emotional and physical security, and medical care.
Physical abuse is any physical injury to a child that is not accidental. Emotional and psychological abuse is when a child is not nurtured and is not provided with love and security.
Psychological abuse occurs when children are not provided with the necessary environment to develop mentally and/or emotionally.
Sexual abuse is when the child is involved in any sexual activity with an adult or another child who is either older or more powerful.
Neglect is depriving a child of their basic needs. These include food, clothing, warmth and shelter, emotional and physical security and protection, medical and dental care, cleanliness, education, and supervision.

AIDS orphans: facing Africa's 'silent crisis'

2011-01-22T22:37:00.000-08:00

AIDS orphans: facing Africa's 'silent crisis'
To the tragedy of the 17 million people who have lost their lives to AIDS in Africa, add the 12 million orphaned children left behind. Traumatized by the death of parents, stigmatized through association with the disease and often thrown into desperate poverty by the loss of bread-winners, this growing army of orphans -- defined as children who have lost one or both parents -- is straining the traditional extended family and overwhelming national health and education systems in the most severely affected countries. The problem is particularly severe in Zambia, where, according to the US Agency for International Development (USAID), the number of orphans topped 1.2 million in 2000 -- 1 in every 4 Zambian children. Of these an estimated 930,000 have lost at least one parent to AIDS.
Housing, feeding, educating and nurturing these children is both a moral imperative and essential to Africa's development prospects, Mr. Stephen Lewis, UN special envoy for HIV/AIDS in Africa, told Africa Recovery. "There has to be an Herculean effort made for these kids so we don't lose them." Otherwise, he cautioned, "you reap the whirlwind.... You have a society where kids haven't been to school and therefore can't fulfill even basic jobs ... a society where a large proportion can have anti-social instincts because their lives will have been so hard. You have a generation of children who will be more vulnerable to exploitation and to disease because they won't have the same sense of self-worth."
The needs of AIDS orphans are as immediate as their next meal and as extended as access to education, guidance and care until the end of their adolescent years. Speaking to leaders of industrialized countries at the July 2001 Group of Eight meeting in Genoa, UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan appealed for the resources "to care for all whose lives have been devastated by AIDS, particularly the orphans." The number of AIDS orphans exceeded 13 million globally, he noted, "and their numbers are growing."
Strengthening the family
In Zambia and other countries hit hardest by the pandemic, however, the traditional mechanism for the care of vulnerable children, the extended family, has started to break down under the twin pressures of poverty and disease.
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AIDS orphans and other children drinking from a UNICEF-financed handpump in Chipata, Zambia.
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Reinforcing the family, UN Children's Fund (UNICEF) Executive Director Carol Bellamy told Africa Recovery, is the only practical response to the crisis. "There are not enough orphanages in this world to take care of these kids," she noted. "We've got to strengthen the extended family." But a comprehensive 1999 study of what one researcher termed Zambia's "silent crisis" of orphans revealed just how difficult that can be in practice.
Part of the problem is financial. The pandemic has been both a cause and an effect of the country's deepening poverty and rising external debt, problems that have pushed many families to the very edge of survival and limited the government's ability to respond to the orphan crisis. Per capita income, just $490 in 1990, slumped to $330 by the end of the decade, while debt service payments consumed a larger share of the national budget last year than did health and education spending combined.
For many children, the loss of parents brings destitution, an end to schooling and stigmatization by family and neighbors. Despite the mounting death toll, nearly half of Zambia's orphans live in a household with one surviving parent, usually their mother. The high incidence of HIV infection within marriage, however, means that many children soon lose both parents, and become the responsibility of the extended family. About 40 per cent of these children are raised by grandparents, while about 30 per cent are reared by aunts and uncles.
The consequences for the family, however, can be devastating. One 70-year-old woman raising her 4 grandchildren told researchers that "ever since these children were brought to me I have been suffering. I am too old to look after them properly. I cannot cultivate ... and the food does not last the whole year."
"It is an unbelievable act of self-sacrifice on the part of the families because frequently it pushes them over the edge," acknowledged Mr. Lewis. "They have just enough for themselves and suddenly they take [in] two kids.... I don't think anybody imagined the unprecedented assault on the extended family system which has occurred in grievously affected countries. This is just a huge challenge."
Child-headed households, once a rarity in Zambia, are now increasingly common, but formal and traditional inheritance, land ownership, and health and education policies have not kept pace with their needs. "Our parents both died in 1995," one young Zambian woman told UNICEF researchers. "When this happened, our relatives ran away from us. This surprised us because, being our relatives, we thought they would care for us.... Our parents had a big farm, but it was taken from us so we had nowhere to grow food. My young brothers and sisters became beggars; they would walk from house to house asking for food."
Other children are taken in by neighbours, or find a bed in one of Zambia's very few orphanages or residential facilities. For the rest, there are only the streets of Zambia's cities, where children, lacking adult supervision and a stable home, survive by begging and petty crime.
Orphans or vulnerable children?
In Zambia, supporting the family's ability to raise orphans and other vulnerable children has been primarily a community effort. Over the nearly 20 years that the HIV/AIDS pandemic has spread through the country, hundreds of religious and community-based children's committees and homecare projects have been established to care for the sick and provide counseling and support for orphans and their families. The programmes are as diverse as the communities they serve. But in their various ways, virtually all attempt to help families meet two fundamental needs -- food and education.
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One of the first challenges communities face is determining what constitutes an orphan and which children should receive extra help. The 1999 study, supported by UNICEF and other donor groups, found that many Zambians consider children orphaned only if they do not live with an adult relative. In some communities children who have lost both parents but are under the care of some other relative may not be presumed to require special assistance unless they also are very poor. Many Zambians prefer the term "vulnerable children" to "orphan" because children with parents are often little better off in material terms than those whose parents have died, and are considered equally deserving of aid. The study found that while 75 per cent of orphaned children lived below the poverty line, so did 73 per cent of children with parents.
In one community, an external donor provided school fees and new uniforms for the children. The other students, however, could not afford new clothes. The resulting resentment isolated the orphans from their peers and raised tensions within the community. The same can occur within the extended family itself, where orphans under the care of an uncle may have access to benefits not available to the guardian's own children.
"When it comes to practical interventions," the study noted, "there is no useful purpose served by separating orphans from other vulnerable children. In fact, there are significant risks in so doing." Part of the challenge facing donors, researchers note, is that many programmes earmark benefits exclusively for orphans -- entrenching these "significant risks" in the eligibility requirements.
Land and food
In rural areas, the government, religious and community organizations have worked with traditional leaders to keep vulnerable families on their land, and, where families are no longer able to provide for themselves, create sustainable nutrition programmes with local resources. In rural eastern Zambia, the Kanyanga Orphan Project (KOP) -- originally established as an AIDS homecare programme -- recognized an urgent need to improve the farming skills and nutrition of families with vulnerable children.
Traditional inheritance customs in the area usually allowed households headed by women and children to remain on their land, and the project initially supplied seeds, fertilizer and tools. When it became clear that families lacked the skills necessary to increase food production, the project hired a trained agronomist to improve agricultural techniques and yields. Originally conceived as a nutrition programme, KOP's farm project also became an important source of family income, allowing children to pay school fees, thereby reducing the financial burden on the community.
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Child-headed households, once a rarity in Zambia, are now increasingly common, but formal and traditional inheritance, land ownership, and health and education policies have not kept pace with their needs.
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Nutrition projects in other parts of the country, however, have not fared as well. In Kitwe, the local Children in Distress committee (CINDI) established communally tended "orphan gardens" to generate income for vulnerable families and improve nutrition. But the gardens routinely produced less than gardens worked for personal benefit and failed to reduce dependence on donated food rations and other external relief programmes. In the view of UNICEF and other researchers, the community's inability to hire professional staff, coupled with awareness that relief supplies would make up for low yields in the gardens, contributed to the problem.
The experiences of the Kanyanga and Kitwe nutrition projects reflect strengths and weaknesses in locally based responses to the needs of orphaned and vulnerable children. In both cases, communities identified a need and moved quickly to improvise a solution, drawing on local skills and available resources. But the differences in the outcomes in the two communities point to the need for greater access to outside skills and financial and technical support, and highlight the difficulty of replicating local successes on a wider scale.
Orphans and education
The Zambian government and civil society groups are finding similar challenges in trying to meet the educational needs of orphans and other vulnerable children. Although communities, parents and children themselves identify education as critical, the study noted in 1999, "It is perhaps in the area of education that government, donors and the development community have failed the Zambian child the most." Zambia's financial difficulties do not allow the government to provide free education. The government pays teachers' salaries, but local school management committees must cover operating costs by charging enrolment fees and setting requirements for uniforms. As a result, an end to education is often an early consequence of orphanhood and the loss of family income.
Children from poor families are most vulnerable. "Our records show most of the orphan children stopping school are those coming from poor families," noted a school headmaster in Katongo, Isoka.
In an effort to keep children in school, communities have developed three types of responses. The first is to lobby local school management committees to waive fees for the most vulnerable children. These efforts are often successful, but inevitably undermine the financial base of the school. At the Chimwemwe school in Kitwe, for example, fees were waived for 400 of the school's 1,500 students, reducing the operating budget by nearly a third.
A second community strategy is to raise money for orphans' school fees. Bursaries have the advantage of keeping schools solvent, but usually compel local committees to design and manage successful income-generating projects. With notable exceptions, however, communities often find they lack the management skills, start-up capital and marketing opportunities to run projects profitably. In many cases, community-initiated income projects lose money and drain volunteer committees of limited time and energy. Zambian government, donor and NGO advocates agree that improving communities' ability to generate operating revenue is vital, but it remains a long-term goal.
A third approach is the Open Community Schools programme -- community-run schools without fees or dress codes created for vulnerable children using volunteer teachers, donated space and a curriculum that compresses the first six years into just three. Initially launched as an innovative government-community partnership to provide education to orphans and other vulnerable children, the schools were intended as adjuncts to the public school system rather than alternatives. Students were expected to return to the state system at year seven.
The success of the open schools triggered a rapid increase in their numbers, but often at the cost of educational quality. The reliance on volunteer staff meant that teachers were often absent, and left the school entirely when paid employment became available. As important as such stopgap measures are, educators argue, only a national system of free and compulsory public education can equip the next generation with the skills needed for development.
Institutionalizing responses, not kids
The Kaoma Cheshire Home serves an area with the largest number of orphans in the country and is among the few programmes to provide institutional care for infants orphaned by AIDS. Yet it too aims to return the children to their communities as soon as circumstances permit, usually between the ages of two and three.
If there is consensus among advocates and service providers about the dangers of institutionalizing orphans and other vulnerable children, there is equally broad recognition of the need to systematize and coordinate international, national and local responses. This role is increasingly being assumed by the Zambian government, with support from UNICEF and UNAIDS. At the national level, the Department of Public Welfare coordinates a steering committee of NGOs, civil society organizations and community-based providers to identify needs, direct technical and material resources where they are most needed and develop a policy framework that responds to the complex needs of orphans and vulnerable children.
There are also efforts under way to better use the resources of Zambian civil society groups, which have long grappled with the orphan crisis and accumulated valuable experience in mobilizing people throughout the country to become involved. But unless a major increase in financial, technical and human resources occurs, said Mr. Lewis, the future of Africa's orphaned children is bleak.
"So many of the kids have gone through the desperate, traumatic ordeal of looking after a mother who literally dies in the child's arms," he observed. "They feel so abandoned. The little ones, the 4 and 5 and 6-year-olds, with these great big eyes, their little voices engaging you in this quiet whispered conversation -- and you're trying to figure out what can be done for this seemingly endless roll-call of children. Communities try to make arrangements where kids can spend some time together, to have one meal if they can manage. But it's all very fragile.... Communities are so [besieged] by the dying and the death and the poverty," he noted, "that there just isn't enough time and concern focused on orphans, and there must be." Sometimes, he concluded, "it can be emotionally overwhelming."

Readers of our blog do you have Principles of spiritual Discipline?

2011-01-21T04:57:00.000-08:00

I found these two books interesting, and I realized that I was lucky to read them. I am in a period in which I am building myself. The first book The Way of the heart is helping me by encouraging and reminding me how my communication with God should and must move smoothly. For example as bible says "Come, let us build ourselves a city, with a tower that reaches to the heavens, so that we may make a name for ourselves and not be scattered over the face of the whole earth."(Gen 11:4) The Second book After you Believe has so much of what I am looking for in this stage of building myself. Also After you Believe has many things in common with The Way of The heart as I will be illustrating in this paper. The Way of the heart has three important principles that I suppose everyone who is looking for spiritual growth should refer to and practice in order to move forward to God.
The first principle is Solitude and this is the moment when we want to approach God in a private manner. In this approach our spirit is renewed by our Heavenly Father, for in this moment we meet the highest Doctor in the world, Doctor of doctors, King of kings, the most powerful Person in the world and heaven, our merciful Lord. According to Nouwen lots of people think that solitude is a therapeutic place but that is not quite true because solitude is where we take off our old spiritual body and get a new one. When I reflect on this I see myself living out this principle because I have named this period of college life a period of building myself. I am taking spiritual life very seriously by approaching God in a private way and showing Him how I am spiritually broken and ask Him to guide and change me through this process. I cannot say enough about this but it is obvious that my life has changed for the past two or three years in a tremendous way just because I am able to be in front of God and talk to him privately and then miracles happens.
The second principle is Silence and this is the time of being quiet in front of God and speaking when is needed because we have committed sins by speaking randomly. From a personal experience, I know that man creates conflict by speaking too much. Moreover, The Way of the Health goes on by telling us that silence teaches us how to speak. I am convinced that I am living out this principle because since 2005 I have been a person with a renewal oriented mind because that is when I received Jesus and promised Him that I will implement peace in his people and live for Him as long as I am alive. Since then, silence has been a tool to use because I stay silent until I feel that what I am about to say is glorifying God and I can tell that has made me someone different around. A lot of times when I am quiet I am praying and talking to God. In fact, this is where After You Believe and The Way of the Heart are similar because there is a question by Wright asking when the right time to pray is. I see Nouwen giving us a suggestion by saying that we can use a silent moment for prayer in order to break the silence of God.
The third principle is that prayers are the food of spirit. We pray sometimes but we fail to make it our identity. When I got married two months ago my wife who is a woman of God was shocked and surprised that I lived off prayers. She thought that I never had time dedicated for praying. She thought she would teach me that in order to change me toward God. We had a long conversation about this. We came out with the conclusion that our nutrition should be prayers first before anything. Now we have time for prayers, read the Bible every night, meditate on it silently, and then pray. This is our most wonderful time.
I am not praying enough--, which is why I am in a transition of renewing. However, because I pray to make a better connection with God I am fighting so hard to become a prayerful person. My weakness is to find private and silent moments to be with God alone. The reason why is because we are so distracted by the things around us. I am always busy with school, helping people around me, and find it hard to spend time with God. Without prayers there is no spiritual life but with prayers things are easier (Chronicles 5:20). I feel that now is the time for me to change and have made decisions of how I can serve and communicate with God better, especially by trying to spend time with him alone.
The second book, After you Believe, is very similar because most of its important points are mentioned in many of paragraphs in the Way of the Heart. I found these two books to be true and helpful to my guidance through this period of my spiritual renewal. Wright mentions courage, restraint, cool judgment, and self-determination as strength of character. A few years ago when I received Jesus I asked a question to myself: “what is purpose of life” because I knew that there is a reason behind our life and realized that there are things that need to be done while we are living on the earth. Now what I was not sure about is becoming the truth as some authors such as Wright go on and confirm that there are thinks beside life than what we imagine. (Wright,2010).
I want to reflect on this book by using my own life experience. I am renewing myself in order to change my spiritual lifestyle from a lower level to a higher level. Everyone may wonder why I am doing that and how I discover my weaknesses. The reason I am doing that is because spiritual power was able to help me reflect and see my weakness as a Christian, and now because of that I see that I have to change my character. Wright tells us of how a character learns to become a strong person because of the power of virtues, especially good character. However, it is very hard to have character without virtues because they both work together in the spiritual formation. I am living these virtues that shape my character by living for God. I am living for God by praying, providing quiet moment, and private time for God. I have faith that if I will ever fail this will virtues power will remind me the spiritual discipline to follow.
The most important lesson I got out of these books is that virtues helped me to get my eyes open while I am still alive in order for me to change my bad character to good character which glorifies our God, the Creator of the world, whom I know and believe that I will meet one day as long as I maintain his laws (Exodus 13:8). I have faith that as long as I have virtues power then I will never fail and even if I do I will always be asking for virtue to save me in order to find spiritual disciplines.

Christmas, and the new year of 2011 is coming up. What are our goals? let me share with you where i've been and where i am going

2010-12-22T00:30:00.000-08:00

I am shaping and will continue to shape my relationship and communication with God.

Prose:
It was not too long ago when I was lost.
I was on the wrong path spiritually.
I need change in my life.
I asked God to guide me as much as possible that I can get to be born again.
What shaped me since then were my prayers, my conversation with God,
and the people around me.
People around me affected me positively in many ways.
When I listen to Christian people, I am always moved and encouraged by their faith and great. passion.
Amen!
Being open myself to God is something I have been doing and I am currently doing
What means to be open to God?
This discipline does not happen automatically.
An individual has to work on it with intention and desire.
As Christians I am being open to people around me.
From there I get to be relieved from evil and loneliness.
It is very hard to realize that God’s presence is around us.
God always shows up in images of people or during prayers.
I often want to talk to God openly in order to build a relationship.
I want to see things with faith, hope and love.
I am and I will continue to fast because fasting is a way of helping me seek God’s will.
I want to spend time with God.
I want to be one with God.
Amen!
Sharing my life with others is what I am doing, and I will continue to do that forever and ever.
I want to do what is right.
God says that is good to tell and to speak the truth about ourselves.
As long as I am right to God,
I am convinced and committed to tell the truth no matter what consequences I will have to face
I want to love by giving and receiving.
I want to be held accountable in the society.
This will help me focus on living holy and responsible live.
I am committed to be with my community and small groups that will help me grow spiritually.
I need spiritual guidance and I want my faith to grow.
I am and I will continue to be a witness of God.
Amen!
I have been Praying to God and I will continue to pray
Who would not want to pray to God in this world?
Praying is important.
Prayer is the way to both the heart of God and the heart of the world
Everyone should pray because that is the best way to know God’s heart.
I want to be connected with God through my prayers.
I want to have time for prayers, scripture reading, in order to ask what i need.
A strategy of being alone during prayers and meditation has helped me.
When I am quiet I am able to find a way to look in my heart.
During quiet moment I can slowly connect my heart with God.
Through silence I am able communicate with God from anywhere at any time.
I want to listen to God in order to know God’s desire.
I am aware that Praying is not just about asking, but also about thanking.
Amen!

Life is not all about you instead it is all about those around you

2010-12-18T01:32:00.000-08:00

We are so surprise a lot of time when people are being very nice to us, and sometimes we wonder why someone would care about us, when we did not expect that. Obviously those people are sent by God. However, there are other people who have paid attention to the words of God such as words in Philippians, Jeremiah and Mathew and are willing to apply it to their characters.
39When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?'
40"The King will reply, 'I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me.'
41"Then he will say to those on his left, 'Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. Matthew 25:38-40

Therefore, my brothers, you whom I love and long for, my joy and crown, that is how you should stand firm in the Lord, dear friends! Phillipians 4
For I know the plans I have for you," declares the LORD, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.

Jeremiah 29:11

Sometimes when school is hard on me I can still get to sleep, but when I think how much children around the world are suffering like me 15years ago, I cannot sleep. I have been helped with many people that i have never thought about, and that keeps me awake too because I feel like it is my homework to pay them back by helping other people in needs. Children are priority. We are called to imitate Jesus by helping others. For example how in a world those Chileans miners could have been able to escape if there were no support outside of their group. Yes, indeed we should support each other in order to Glorify God‘s name even more.

Let's work for AIDS-free children by 2015

2010-12-06T05:28:00.000-08:00

AMAZING ARTICLE HERE PLEASE READ

Evil spirit working around the world

2010-12-05T13:05:00.000-08:00

The following story is about this woman who is an example of how many parents are abusing children around the world.

The main suspect in the gruesome murder of three children in Rusatira Sector, Huye district has owned up to her crime in a chilling confession.

Francoise Dusabe, 38 a resident of Kafumba Cell was arrested last Friday on suspicion of murdering three step children; Philemon Niyomugabo, 8, Habanabashaka, 5 and Jean Niyongana, 3.

In an interview over the weekend, Dusabe who was under detention at Ngoma Police Station, had earlier denied any involvement in the gruesome murder, saying that she realised that the children were dead on her return from a civil marriage ceremony.

In a new twist, however, speaking after interrogation by Police, Dusabe confessed to having singlehandedly murdered the three children using a hoe and a machete.

"I found the children alone in the house on my return from visiting a relative, I then hacked them to death," Dusabe told The New Times.

The deceased children had come to visit their father; Daniel Habimana, who separated with their mother five years ago.

Asked about the motive behind the crime, Dusabe said that she had developed misunderstandings with her husband before committing the crime.

"He always boasted of his children, besides I was also not on good terms with the mother of these children," she said.

Facts on Children

2010-12-05T11:43:00.000-08:00

Facts on Children
Child protection

Child protection from violence, exploitation and abuse

Introduction
Protecting children from violence, exploitation and abuse is an integral component of protecting their rights to survival, growth and development. An estimated 300 million children worldwide are subjected to violence, exploitation and abuse including the worst forms of child labor in communities, schools and institutions; during armed conflict; and to harmful practices such as female genital mutilation/cutting and child marriage.

Child Protection key data:

Birth Registration (2003)

• In 2003 nearly 50 million births go unregistered every year.
• South Asia has the largest number of unregistered children, with more than 23 million of births not registered. This equates to over 47 per cent of the unregistered births worldwide.
• In Sub-Saharan Africa, 55 per cent of children under five have not been registered.

Child Labour (2004)

• Estimates suggest that there were about 317 million economically active children aged 5 to 17 in 2004, of whom 218 million could be regarded as child labourers. Of the latter, 126 million were engaged in hazardous work.
• Children working in the home of a third party or ‘employer’ are extremely vulnerable to exploitation and abuse. ILO estimates that more girls under age 16 are in domestic service than in any other category of child labour.
• It is estimated that 5.7 million children are trapped into forced or bonded labour.

Child Marriage

• Data collected from 1987 to 2005 showed that in developing countries 36 per cent of women aged 20-24 were married or in union before they reached 18 years of age.
• An estimated 14 million adolescents between 15 and 19 give birth each year.
• Marriage of young girls is most common in sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia.

Child Trafficking

• According to the latest estimates in for 2002, some 1.2 million children are trafficked worldwide every year.

Children Associated with Armed Groups

• Latest estimates suggest that more than 250,000 children are currently serving as child soldiers.
• An estimated 90 per cent of global conflict-related deaths since 1990 have been civilians, and 80 percent of these have been women and children.

Children and Justice

• More than 1 million children worldwide are detained by law enforcement officials.

Children without Parental Care

• There are an estimated 133 million children who are orphans (children aged 0–17 who have lost one or both parents) world wide. Of these children, 15 million were orphaned by AIDS, more than 12 million of them in sub-Saharan Africa.
• Asia has the highest number of orphans due to all causes, with 74 million children.

Commercial Sexual Exploitation of Children

• Of the 1.39 million people involved in forced commercial sexual exploitation and 40–50 per cent are children.

Female Genital Mutilation/Cutting

• It is estimated that more than 130 million women and girls alive today have been subjected to female genital mutilation/cutting.
• FGM/C occurs mainly in countries stretching from Senegal in West Africa to Somalia in East Africa and to Yemen in the Middle East, but it is also practiced in some parts of south-east Asia. Reports from Europe, North America and Australia indicate that it is practiced among immigrant communities in those regions as well.

Violence against Children

• Studies conducted since 1980 suggest that worldwide 20 per cent of women and 5 to 10 per cent of men suffered sexual abuse as children