Soap, toothbrushes and blankets are some of the items migrant children detained in the US do not need, a Trump administration official has claimed. Sarah Fabian, a lawyer for the US Department of Justice, argued at the US court of appeals for the ninth circuit that such children do not always require certain sanitary products
Continue reading...Category Archives: Children
UK accused of profiteering on Syrians’ child citizenship fees
Research shows government could make more than £5m by charging vulnerable children
The UK government could profit by more than £5m by charging children who have fled war-torn Syria to apply for British citizenship, according to research.
The revelation, based on the Home Office’s own data, has sparked accusations that the government is profiteering from vulnerable children and making a windfall profit by driving vulnerable families into debt.
Continue reading...Uganda bans giving to child beggars in bid to stop exploitation
Kampala officials say law aims to protect children and keep them off the streets but activists fear exploiters will develop new tactics
Ugandan officials have passed a law making it an offence to offer money, food or clothing to children living on the streets of the capital, in a controversial bid to stop exploitation and sexual abuse.
The Kampala Child Protection Ordinance 2019 also criminalises children loitering in public places, begging or soliciting, vending or hawking, and bans the sale of alcohol and drugs to children.
Continue reading...How Stockholm became the city of work-life balance
With flexible hours the norm, and almost two years’ parental leave for every child, Sweden’s capital boasts a happy and efficient workforce. What can other cities learn?
It is 3.30pm, and the first workers begin to trickle out of the curved glass headquarters of the Stockholm IT giant Ericsson.
John Langared, a 30-year-old programmer, is hurrying to pick up his daughter from school. He has her at home every other week, so tends to alternate short hours one week with long hours the next.
Continue reading...Scotland will miss child poverty targets without vast cash boost – report
Report highlights ‘massive gap between scale of ambition and scale of resources allocated’
The Scottish government will miss its own child poverty targets unless it substantially increases investment, according to a report on last December’s budget published by the independent Poverty and Inequality Commission.
The report highlights “a massive gap between the scale of Scotland’s ambition to tackle child poverty and the scale of resources allocated to delivering that commitment”, according to the Scottish branch of the charity Child Poverty Action Group (CPAG).
Continue reading...Thailand: disabled dog rescues baby buried alive by teenage mother
Ping Pong alerts local villagers to infant’s location by digging to expose child’s legs
A disabled dog named Ping Pong has become the pride of his village in north-east Thailand, after rescuing a baby boy who had been buried alive by his teenage mother.
On Wednesday the canine’s sniffing and digging attracted the attention of farmers to a spot of ground in Ban Nong Kham village, in Cham Phuang district, north east of Bangkok. According to Ping Pong’s owner, the dog’s digging exposed the child’s legs, prompting locals to haul the infant to safety.
Continue reading...Social media boycott ‘may be only way to protect children’
Police’s top child protection officer says fines would be ‘drop in the ocean’ to tech firms
A public boycott of social media may be the only way to force companies to protect children from abuse, the country’s leading child protection police officer has said.
Simon Bailey, the National Police Chiefs’ Council lead on child protection, said tech companies had abdicated their duty to safeguard children and were only paying attention due to fear of reputational damage.
Continue reading...Pope issues law to force priests and nuns to report sexual abuse
All Catholic priests and nuns will be required to report abuse and cover-ups by superiors
Pope Francis has issued a groundbreaking law requiring all Catholic priests and nuns around the world to report clergy sexual abuse and cover-ups by their superiors to church authorities, in a fresh effort to hold the Catholic hierarchy accountable for failing to protect their flocks.
The new edict provides whistleblower protections for anyone making a report and requires all dioceses to have a system in place to receive the claims confidentially. It outlines procedures for conducting preliminary investigations when the accused is a bishop, cardinal or religious superior.
Continue reading...‘Tardis’ phone boxes connect children to games of the past
The Time Telephone offers a glimpse into the archive of songs, games and rhymes built up by Peter and Iona Opie
Time machines to rival Doctor Who’s Tardis are landing across the country this spring. Children who enter a series of specially adapted red telephone boxes can dial up the past and learn the playground games that once entertained their grandparents.
From rhymes like Ring a Ring o’ Roses and Here We Go Round the Mulberry Bush to active games like hopscotch and French skipping, the renowned research into oral traditions carried out by Peter and Iona Opie from the 1950s to the 1980s is being made available to children more used to video-gaming.
Continue reading...Technology cuts children off from adults, warns expert
UCL professor says digital world disrupts family life, risking mental health of youngsters
One of the world’s foremost authorities on child mental health today warns that technology is threatening child development by disrupting the crucial learning relationship between adults and children.
Peter Fonagy, professor of Contemporary Psychoanalysis and Developmental Science at UCL, who has published more than 500 scientific papers and 19 books, warns that the digital world is reducing contact time between the generations – a development with potentially damaging consequences.
Continue reading...Turpin children read statements during sentencing of parents – video
David and Louise Turpin were sentenced on Friday during an emotional hearing that saw some of the children speak publicly about the abuse for the first time. Their parents watched in tears as the children talked about being chained and beaten. The California couple's years of torture and abuse on 12 of their 13 children was only discovered when one of their daughters jumped out of a window of the family’s squalid home and called 911.
The Turpins, who pleaded guilty in February to torture and other abuse, were sentenced to life in prison on Friday with with the possibility of parole after 25 years
Continue reading...‘It’s not just a wolf whistle’: how catcalls became anti-harassment street art
With teenage girls a particular target of street harassment, Farah Benis is on a mission to document incidents and raise awareness
CatcallsofLdn is an Instagram account that raises awareness about street harassment using chalk art. Inspired by and working with @catcallsofnyc, founder Farah Benis collects submissions from the public then chalks them onto the pavement in the place where they happened. The hope is that chalking, documenting and sharing images of the words will help to raise awareness of street harassment and ultimately prevent it.
72% of submissions are from under 17-year-olds, 60% of those were wearing school uniforms and 100% of the perpetrators were adult men
Continue reading...Ex-pope Benedict XVI blames sexual abuse on swinging sixties
Essay by 91-year-old dubbed ‘catastrophically irresponsible’ for undermining reforms
Retired pope Benedict XVI has ventured out of retirement to publish an essay blaming the Catholic church’s sexual abuse scandals on the sexual revolution of the 1960s and “homosexual cliques” among priests.
The analysis by Benedict, who abdicated as pontiff in 2013, was immediately criticised as “catastrophically irresponsible” and in conflict with efforts by his successor, Pope Francis, to lead the church out of its crisis.
Continue reading...Vienna State Opera’s ballet academy hit by abuse scandal
Austrian magazine alleges pupils were subjected to physical, mental and sexual abuse
The Vienna State Opera has launched an investigation and promised far-reaching reforms after allegations that students at its prestigious ballet academy were subjected to physical, mental and sexual abuse by two teachers.
“Things have happened that are unacceptable,” the State Opera’s director, Dominique Meyer, said on Wednesday after the Austrian magazine Falter published a detailed exposé of the alleged abuse based on interviews with students and staff.
Continue reading...Climate crisis: today’s children face lives with tiny carbon footprints
Next generation must keep their own carbon levels at a fraction of their grandparents’ in order to prevent catastrophe
Children born today will have to live their lives with drastically smaller carbon footprints than their grandparents if climate change is to be controlled.
Fast, deep cuts in global emissions from energy, transport and food are needed to keep temperature rises in check and an analysis has shown this means the new generation will have lifetime carbon budgets almost 90% lower than someone born in 1950.
Continue reading...From the joke shop to the high street: why poo is no longer taboo
It’s celebrated in emojis, party bags and board games, piled on cup cakes and meringues – and there’s even a museum dedicated to it. How did we get here?
‘I was a little hesitant about setting up the National Poo Museum,” begins Daniel Roberts, co-creator of the Isle of Wight’s most intriguing new tourist destination. “I thought, am I going to be socially contaminated? Are people going to point at me? Am I going to become Mr Poo?”
He needn’t have worried. The museum’s exhibits – encased in balls of resin, like something from a slightly troubling reimagining of Jurassic Park – were a hit. During the year in which the attraction was housed at the Isle of Wight Zoo, the zoo reported its busiest-ever summer. “People just loved it,” Roberts says. “We were nobodies, but because we mentioned poo, the whole world came running.” The museum’s arrival couldn’t have been better timed because, as Roberts puts it: “In the two years since we launched, we’ve seen an explosion in poo.”
Continue reading...UK urged to end unfair fees for child citizenship applicants
Home Office should also refund fees from failed requests, says immigration watchdog
The Home Office should consider scrapping controversial immigration fees charged to children from families who can’t afford it and refund profits made from failed citizenship applications, according to an official watchdog.
The call came as it emerged on Thursday that the Home Office is making a profit of £2m a month from charging children for citizenship, with about 40,000 estimated to be affected in the past year.
Continue reading...Designers behind Princess Awesome to launch gender-neutral clothing for boys
Crowdfunding campaign for Boy, Wonder reaches 50% of target funding in first hour
A children’s clothing company which revolutionised gender-neutral clothing for girls has turned their attention to boys, launching a crowdfunding campaign on Tuesday that reached 50% of its funding aim in the first hour.
Frustrated that they couldn’t find shirts for their five sons with unicorns on them or bright colours, animals, sparkles and rainbows, Eva St Clair and Rebecca Melsky decided to make them themselves.
Continue reading...Revealed: Vietnamese children vanish from Dutch shelters to be trafficked into Britain
Investigation highlights failings of Dutch and UK authorities to care properly for unaccompanied minors
On a crisp winter day in a small village in the north of the Netherlands, a pile of leaves swirls around in the wind outside a brick house, an ordinary scene except for the CCTV cameras outside the front door and the occupants inside – child victims of trafficking. Many of the children are from Vietnam. They live in this protected shelter to keep them safe from gangs who want to smuggle them out of the Netherlands to the UK.
But an investigation by the Observer and Argos Radio of the Netherlands has revealed that, in the past five years, at least 60 Vietnamese children have disappeared from these shelters. Dutch police and immigration officials suspect the children end up in the UK working on cannabis farms and in nail salons.
Continue reading...Children’s chances of surviving cancer less than 30% in poor nations – study
Stark differences revealed in five-year survival rates between rich and low- and middle-income countries
Figures reveal a striking disparity in five-year cancer survival rates for children in developing nations compared with those from rich countries.
More than 80% of children diagnosed with the disease in high-income states will live for more than five years, yet fewer than 30% of young people with cancer in low- and middle-income nations have the same chance of survival, research has shown.
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