Life In Darfur

Civilians continue to be brutally treated, oppressed, displaced, starved and murdered in Darfur, Sudan. After 6 years genocide continues to rage as the GOS (Government of Sudan), Janjaweed militia, and rebel groups continue to clash. The reality is that thousands of innocent civilians are victimized daily as these clashes continue all around them. An estimated 80% of the villages in Darfur have been aerial bombed by the Sudanese military. Water supplies have also been poisoned purposely during these raids to keep the people from returning. As communities flee, the Janjaweed militia surround and the villages on horseback, camelback, and in jeeps. Whether man, woman, or child, every person caught is cut down from infant through the elderly. UNICEF estimates 400,000 Darfuri’s have been murdered or starved to death since April of 2003 when the conflict began. Four million Darfuri’s are currently displaced.

On April 4th, 2009, the ICC (International Criminal Court–of the UN) presented President al-Bashir of Sudan with an arrest warrant for crimes against humanity. Within days of the arrest warrant, the president of Sudan expelled 13 international and 3 national humanitarian aid organizations from Sudan. The result has exacerbated an already horrific situation in Sudan. The president of Sudan continues to be a stumbling block towards progress for a comprehensive peace agreement, fair elections, and much needed humanitarian relief.

In response to the necessity for dialect and action to pursue peace, the NJ Coalition for Darfur is hosting a 4-panel discussion at Kean University in Elizabeth, NJ, on October 16th, 2009, from 9am to 3:30pm. (A NJ Coalition meeting will follow–all are invited.) The 4-panel discussion will cover the history of the conflict, the current situation, national and international actions and advocacy. Each of the 4 panels will consist of 4 guest speakers, totaling 16 speakers. These will include college professors, activists from Darfur and the international community, representatives from the UN, Senator Menendez, and General Scott Gration (U.S. special envoy to Sudan appointed by President Obama in April of 2009).

Please visit our youtube video for more information on the panel event and how you can actively help–by calling, emailing and texting our elected officials to urge them to lead the way towards peace. Here is the link http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=si263uL8DmA

Dirt Cookies

Recently, I watched a PBS report about the poverty in Haiti. Children in many regions of Haiti are undernourished and often have nothing to eat other than cookies made from dried mud. The U.N. estimates that 840 million people on this planet are undernourished. Worldwide, hundreds of millions of people are fighting a decline in food resources.

What are the root causes of food insecurity? According to UNICEF the root causes are poverty, war and civil conflict, corruption, national policies that do not promote equal access to food for all, environmental degradation, barriers to trade, insufficient agricultural development, population growth, low levels of education, social and gender inequality, poor health status, cultural insensitivity, and natural disasters.

On June 15, 2009, the Human Rights Council held a panel discussion on the relationship between climate change and human rights. Panelist Atiq Rhaman stated that global climate change had emerged as the greatest threat facing humankind today. Kyung-wha Kang, Deputy High Commissioner for Human Rights, said that the human impact of climate change was not only related to environmental factors but also to poverty, discrimination and inequalities.

Obviously this is a global problem that is in immediate need of a global solution! What can we do as citizens and as sisters and brothers of this human race? We can email and call our elected leaders asking for a change in policies on agribusiness, pollution, and free trade. We can ask our senators and congressional representatives to hold hearings on agricultural practices that make sense for everyone (currently the farm bill causes many farmers to lose their farms while a few wealthy farm owners are paid to not produce food). We also desperately need to minimize our carbon footprints. This summer, buy a share of seasonal fruits and vegetables from a local farmer and ride your bike or walk whenever possible. How about buying sustainable fair trade products–benefitting you, the producer and the environment?

World Trade policies must be changed. Food should be distributed fairly and farming policies should promote sustainable growth practices. The U.N. policy on human rights states that everyone has the right to life, food, safe water and health, home, land, properties, livelihoods, employment and development. It is unjust that the people suffering from food insecurity are also those who are least responsible for the causes of global warming. The most vulnerable societies suffer terribly from climate change–frequent and prolonged floods, cyclone, tidal surges, salinity intrusion, sea level rise and drought.

Say ‘no’ to dirt cookies! Say ‘yes’ to fair trade policies, sustainable farming practices and environmentally-friendly resources!

Ending Worldwide Hunger and Malnutrition

Social justice is the key to ending world hunger. Fair Trade and micro loans are essential to providing the increasingly marginalized masses with a dignified way to provide for themselves and their families. However, it is imperative that emergency food aid is continued so that world hunger and malnutrition can be eradicated. The U.S. has pledged $22 million in emergency food aid–however, only 10% has been paid so far. Contact your elected officials to urge the fulfillment of our financial commitments. (www.us.gov.org)

The current financial crisis, which has followed soaring food prices, has increased the starving masses to an estimated 923 million—roughly 1/6 of the world’s population. According to FAO (the Food and Agriculture Organization), the world’s population is expected to grow to 9 billion by the year 2050. Unless we shift into a more socially just way of life, the number of hungry and malnourished people is sure to increase even more dramatically.

The most vulnerable of the hungry and malnourished population are children under the age of 5. According to WHO (the World Health Organization) 178 million children are malnourished worldwide. Annually, 3.5-5 million children under the age of 5 die from malnutrition, hunger and preventable diseases. Children under the age of 5 are particularly vulnerable and suffer from low weight, poor growth, bloated stomachs, organ malfunction, fragile bones, fatigue, dizziness, malaria and pneumonia. Immune changes due to malnutrition are responsible for infectious diarrhea, which decreases the ability to absorb nutrients. This cycle makes it increasingly difficult to save young children.

In-utero, babies are particularly susceptible to blindness, poor brain development and low survival rates when their mothers are malnourished. It is essential for childbearing women to receive foods high in iron, iodine, zinc, and vitamins A, B, C and D for the health and well-being of their babies. Distributing quality food (high in protein, vitamins and nutrients) is an urgent necessity for combating hunger and malnutrition.

Here are some ways that we can act justly and love mercy:
Please consider buying fair trade items for the holidays
www.tenthousandvillages.com (the first international fair trade distributor)
www.madebysurvivors.com (fighting slavery with empowerment)
www.thanksgivingcoffee.com (not just a cup, but a just cup)
www.1800flowers.com (type ‘fair trade’ into the website’s search)
www.oxfamamerica.org (Oxfam America Unwrapped)

Get involved and informed:
www.savedarfur.org
www.doctorswithoutborders.org
www.hrea.org
www.iom.int
www.mercycorps.org
www.crs.org

Read articles on malnutrition:
http://kidshealth.org/parent/nutrition_fit/nutrition/hunger.html
http://www.doctorswithoutborders.org/news/issue.cfm?id=2396
http://www.emedicine.com/ped/TOPIC1360.HTM
http://www.who.int/water_sanitation_health/diseases/malnutrition/en/
http://www.fao.org/newsroom/en/news/2008/1000937/index.html

Please listen to the very important keynote speech for World Food Day given by H.E. Suzanne Mubarak, First Lady of Egypt, social scientist:
http://www.fao.org/newsroom/en/news/2008/1000940/index.html

How Can We Care For Our Neighbors?

Let’s start with the question of who is our neighbor? This can be answered on a local, regional and global level. Our neighbor is not only who we live next to…but additionally, a neighbor is someone that we have a connection with. With our neighbors we: work, play, trade, learn, share, and communicate. Considering how far reaching travel and internet have become worldwide, we are quite literally all neighbors.

How should we treat our neighbors?…As we would want to be treated…right?

Okay, how do we want to be treated?…With respect, with dignity, with concern and friendship.
Now let’s take a look at the conditions that over 1/6 of our neighbors live under. More than 840,000,000 of our neighbors are starving according to UNICEF statistics–with the global food crisis that number is quickly growing. Every five minutes a child under the age of five dies from starvation, malnutrition or preventable disease according to UNICEF, Doctors Without Borders, and Oxfam. Billions of our neighbors live in substandard housing or are homeless. Garbage fills their streams, their lakes are diseased; they suffer from droughts, economic sanctions, a high unemployment rate, lack of clean water, oppression, malaria, HIV/AIDS, lack of medical help, poor transportation systems, and unsafe or violent conditions.

Is this how we want to be treated?…of course not! This is certainly not how we should treat our neighbors!

Please consider what you personally can do about hunger and the lack of housing that exists in this world. Maybe you can invite friends over to share information about the global food crisis and then donate the money that you would have spent at a restaurant to a reliable organization that provides humanitarian relief to those who are in dire straits. Maybe gather a group of friends and help with a local Habitat for Humanity build. When you share ideas and share what you’ve learned about these issues a ripple effect of awareness may grow.

Red Hand Day

February 12 is the annual commemoration day to draw attention to the use of children in armed conflict and war.  The CRC/UNCRC (UN Convention on the Rights of a Child) defines a child as a person under the age of 18. The CRC defines a child’s basic rights to include the right to life, to have his/her own name/identity, to be raised by his/her own parents within a family/cultural grouping, to be protected from abuse/exploitation, forbidding capital punishment for children…and that states should act in the best interest of the child.

Military use of children includes:
child soldiers
porters
spies
messengers
look-outs
sexual slaves
human shields
propaganda
armed conflict/front line battle
suicide bombers

The Optional Protocol adopted by the General Assembly in 2002 stipulates that state parties “shall takes all feasible measures to ensure persons below the age of 18 do not take a direct part in hostilities and that they are not compulsorily recruited into their armed forces…to prohibit and criminalize such practices… and demobilize children within their jurisdiction who have been recruited or used in hostilities, and to provide assistance for their physical/psychological recover and social reintegration.” Article 4, 6.3
In July of 1998, the ICC (International Criminal Court) adopted article 8.2.26—it was not entered into law until July 1, 2002. This law forbids the “conscripting or enlisting children under the age of 15 years into the national forces or using them to participate actively in hostilities” and deems such abuses as a war crime.
UN Security Council Resolution 1612 was passed on July 26, 2005. It is the first comprehensive monitoring and reporting system for enforcing compliance among those groups using child soldiers in armed conflict.

Other ngo’s (non-governmental organizations) working to end the use of children in armed conflict/war and to provide physical/psychological help are:
InvisibleChildren.com
Coalition to Stop the Use of Child Soldiers
UNICEF
Children’s Defense Fund
The Freechild Project
Children’s Rights Movement
War Child International
ChildVoice International
Human Rights Watch
Information from:
Wikipedia
UNICEF
HRW
Amnesty International