"I am living with a deep sadness since I learned of my daughter's death." "But there are no jobs, and this caused the decision to leave [Guatemala for the United States]." Claudia Maquin, 27, San Antonio Secortez, Raxruha, Guatemala
"Somebody came and tricked people and told them, 'I will get you political asylum -- and take a child with you." Cesar Castro, mayor, San Antonio, Secortez, Raxruha
Friends and family carry a coffin with the remains of Jakelin Caal, a
7-year-old girl who handed herself in to US border agents earlier this
month and died in the custody of US Customs and Border Protection.
Claudia Maquin's 29-year-old husband, Nery Caal, decided to leave their
small village to find his future and a hoped-for change-of-fortune by
claiming himself to be a refugee and entering the United States where
opportunities presumably abound. With little formal education, the small
family lived on a parcel of land that they felt was too small to
provide for their needs. He aspired to better things and had no trust
that their lot would be improved by remaining where he was.
He and his wife had four children aged from 9, to 7, 5 years of age, and
an infant of six months. Mr. Caal decided to take a long and perilous
journey and that his seven-year-old daughter Jakelin would accompany
him. For, he was informed, anyone seeking to be welcomed by the United
States would induce sympathy with the presence of a child. Either the
smuggler he paid to get them to the border between Mexico and the U.S.
or others who had made the same trip persuaded him his chances of
remaining would be immeasurably improved with the presence of a child.
According to the town's mayor, Mr. Castro, Mr. Caal's venture was not
unusual. On average, ten, twenty or thirty people abandon the village
monthly to strike out on a journey for which they pay smugglers
handsomely. The same smugglers that tell convincing stories of great
success, of welcome committees at the border, of the opportunities to
live well that will open to them in the United States; they have just to
pay and to leave; preferably in the company of a child, which evokes
empathy.
In the community of San Antonio Secortez, where the Caal family lives,
corn and beans are grown by families who also raise goats, chickens and
pigs. The Caal family's patriarch said the fields are no longer as
fertile as they once were but he is uncertain whether it is a decline in
soil quality or changing weather patterns, or some other undefined
reason that is responsible for the decline in agricultural output.
There are fewer wild deer and boar to hunt and the river fish that once
teemed allowing large catches have dwindled, resulting from the forest
to the north of the town being cleared by oil palm plantations.
Evidently, in relation to the size of the Guatemala economy the
government collects a smaller share of tax revenues than any other
country in the world, according to the World Bank.
Guatemala is not poor according to the World Bank which classifies it as
an upper-middle income nation. One, however, with notable inequalities
stemming from centuries of racism and powerful groups controlling the
economy, resisting efforts to address discrimination, so Guatemalans
have always thought of migration as an escape from these divisions.
Despite that it is well known that apprehensions are taking place at the
border between Mexico and the United States, nothing appears to
convince Guatemalans that they will not, in actual fact, be welcomed
into the country they aspire to travel toward and enter to become
entitled to benefits their own country fails to provide for them.
Elvira Choc, grandmother of Jakelin Caal, during the funeral service.
Mr. Caal is now at a migrant shelter in Texas. His seven-year-old
daughter Jakelin, although deemed by U.S. border agents to be in sound
health, died without seeming cause once they crossed the border and were
in the care of the system that evaluates refugee claims. The little
girl's mother, grieving the death of one of her four children, insists
her husband must remain in the U.S., not rejoin her in Guatemala.
Border Patrol agents in whose custody the child had died, stated the
girl hadn't eaten or been hydrated for days during her trip with her
father across the border. The implication that the parents failed to
care properly for their daughter infuriates Jakelin's mother. Entering
the U.S. is their route out of poverty, made all the more acute by the
estimated $5,000 to $10,000 they paid to the smuggler, according to the
town's mayor.
Jakelin died in a hospital in El Paso, Texas, on Dec. 8, two nights
after her father, Nery Caal, turned himself and his daughter in to the
custody of U.S.
Border Patrol. Cause of death was dehydration and shock after running
a high fever. Clearly, the child's most basic human needs were
neglected by those most responsible for her well-being; her parents in
search of a higher-order of priorities.
Local residents attend the funeral of Jakelin Caal at her home village of San Antonio Secortez, in Guatemala.
"With shame and repentance, we acknowledge as an ecclesiastical community
that we were not where we should have been, that we did not act in a
timely manner, realizing the magnitude and the gravity of the damage
done to so many lives." "We showed no care for the little ones; we abandoned them." "If, in the past, the response was one of omission, today we want
solidarity, in the deepest and most challenging sense, to become our way
of forging present and future history." "It is essential that we,
as a Church, be able to acknowledge and condemn, with sorrow and shame,
the atrocities perpetrated by consecrated persons, clerics, and all
those entrusted with the mission of watching over and caring for those
most vulnerable. Let us beg forgiveness for our own sins and the sins of
others." Pope Francis, letter to "the People of God"
The Pope's letter addressed the "heart-wrenching pain" of abuse victims in Pennsylvania after the report was released 20 August 2018
"Holy Father, I don’t know if you know Cardinal McCarrick, but if you
ask the Congregation of Bishops, there is a dossier this thick about
him. He corrupted generations of seminarians and priests, and Pope
Benedict ordered him to withdraw to a life of prayer and penance." “Now that the corruption has reached the very top of the church’s
hierarchy, my conscience dictates that I reveal those truths regarding
the heart-breaking case of the archbishop emeritus of Washington.” Letter to the Pope from Archbishop Carlo Maria Vigano
The Pope, the earthly messenger of god, has condemned in shame and sorrow and no uncertain words, the sacrilegious assault on children by men of the cloth, and in so doing has brought censure to the Roman Catholic Church. The revelations that seem never to stop, of the Church hierarchy being aware of the predation of priests on children and mature parishioners and simply carrying on as though nothing untoward had occurred left those abused and traumatized survivors of sexual abuse to fend on their own, while assigning the priests to similar duty elsewhere to continue their abuse.
The moral authority of Pope Francis might never be questioned; after all, he was a refreshing new personality as the leader of over one billion Catholics worldwide, the representation on Earth of God Almighty. And then Archbishop Carlo Maria Vigano, formerly papal ambassador to Washington, revealed in a letter that not only were senior churchmen aware that former cardinal Theodore McCarrick molested young men, but so too was the pope. And the pope before him, leading Benedict to remove him from active duty "putting him out to pasture", but refraining from calling police.
When Pope Francis assumed his duties he saw fit, it seems, to recall McCarrick from obscurity and bring him into his personal fold more latterly, as a close and esteemed adviser. From his retreat to a life of "prayer and penance", to a return to the high echelons of the Church. The National Catholic Reporter in 2014 described Archbishop McCarrick as enjoying a "renaissance" as a papal adviser. "The bad ones, they never die!", Pope Francis is said to have jocularly remarked.
According to Archbishop Carlo Maria Vigano, the Pope had full knowledge of the corrupt nature of McCarrick yet "covered for him to the bitter end". That end arrived when McCarrick was exposed only a few weeks earlier when Pope Francis had little alternative but to order McCarrick into the dark tower of "prayer and penance", in order "to save his image in the media", according to Vigano, who appears to have a personal vendetta against Pope Francis whom he seems to identify as a hypocrite of outstanding sanctimony.
"If you're nice to Francis, Francis is nice to you", remarked one unnamed resident of the Vatican of a Pope militant in defence of a Chilean bishop accused by victims of child abuse of covering up the actions of an abusing priest whom Francis was shamed into apologizing for his defence of the bishop. As a judge of character, the Pope's choice of nine cardinals appointed to his advisory team, seem in retrospect ill-advised, since three stand accused of failing to handle the crisis of abuse adequately; another charged with mismanaging finances.
Pope Francis speaks with the media onboard a plane during his flight back from a trip in Dublin, Ireland August 26, 2018. (Gregorio Borgia/Reuters)
"I hope Francis will do that [answer to Vigano's charges]. I hope Vigano is proved wrong. If not, the word "resignation" will be put about, thanks to Benedict XVI, there is now precedent. If Francis is tarnished and does not quit, it will be what a priest describes to me as "a virtual resignation": a Pope in office, but without authority. And this, surely, will shake my own faith, will it not?" Tim Stanley, The Daily Telegraph
"I read the statement this morning, and I must tell you sincerely
that, I must say this, to you and all those who are interested: Read the
statement carefully and make your own judgment. I will
not say a single word on this." "[I believe in the] journalistic capacity to draw your own
conclusions [as an] act of faith." "When some time passes and you have drawn your conclusions, I may
speak. But I would like your professional maturity to do the work for
you. It will be good for you [members of the press]." Pope Francis, Catholic News Agency
"The coverup was so sophisticated. And all the while, shockingly, church leadership kept records of the abuse and the coverup. These documents, from the dioceses' own 'Secret Archives', formed the backbone of this investigation." "Church officials routinely and purposefully described the abuse as horseplay and wrestling and inappropriate conduct. It was none of those things. It was child sexual abuse, including rape." Pennsylvania Attorney General Josh Shapiro, Harrisburg, Pennsylvania
Pennsylvania Attorney General Josh Shapiro announces the Grand Jury report
Matt Rourke/AP
"We are sick over all the crimes that will go unpunished and uncompensated."
"We believe that the real
number of children whose records were lost or who were afraid ever to
come forward is in the thousands."
"Priests
were raping little boys and girls, and the men of God who were
responsible for them not only did nothing; they hid it all. For decades.
Monsignors, auxiliary bishops, bishops, archbishops, cardinals have
mostly been protected; many, including some named in this report, have
been promoted."
"As a consequence of the coverup, almost every instance of abuse we found is too old to be prosecuted."
"There have been other reports about
child sex abuse within the Catholic Church. But never on this scale. For many of us, those earlier stories happened someplace else, someplace away. Now we know the truth: it happened everywhere."
Pennsylvania Grand Jury statement
"The report of the Pennsylvania grand
jury again illustrates the pain of those who have been victims of the
crime of sexual abuse by individual members of our clergy, and by those
who shielded abusers and so facilitated an evil that continued for years
or even decades."
"As a body of bishops, we are shamed by and sorry for the sins and omissions by Catholic priests and Catholic bishops."
Cardinal Daniel DiNardo, president, U.S.
Conference of Catholic Bishops
Bishop Timothy L. Doherty, chair, bishops' Committee for the Protection of Children and Young People
Pope Francis had little option but to strip 88-year-old Cardinal Theodore McCarrick of his title. The elderly McCarrick was ordered to a lifetime (!) of prayer and penance as his penalty for sexual abuse of boys, along with forcing his sexual predation on young adult seminarians. He had held the position of bishop of Pittsburgh. Cardinal Donald Wuerl , formerly bishop of Pittsburgh had taken that post as Cardinal McCarrick moved on in the Church. And Cardinal Wuerl now stands charged by the grand jury of concealing clergy sexual abuse.
Cardinal Wuerl is now one of the highest-echelon cardinals in the United States, and he released a statement in response to the charges against him, that he had acted always in good faith, that he had "acted with diligence, with concern for the victims and to prevent future acts of abuse". Abuse allegations in Pennsylvania dioceses ministering to over half the 3.2 million Catholics in the state were scrutinized by the grand jury, its statement released yesterday, condemning 300 priests for their sexual crimes against over a thousand children.
That this widespread atrocious sexual abuse by clergy and the fact that church officials concealed all evidence is now revealed as a matter of public shame and contrition merely reflects what the Church has been doing undetected for generations, and in the process ruining the lives of countless of the faithful whose trust in the clergy who molested them shattered their sense of self, rendering them emotionally wounded, impacting their lives and leaving them with no recourse to justice.
A succession of Catholic bishops, in a long-honoured tradition in the Church, along with other diocesan leaders made no effort to help the victims, but did extend themselves to sheltering the reputation of the Church, while shielding the clerics from publicity and the Church from financial liability through their enabling coverups, their failure to report those who had abused their authority and trust to law enforcement, while discouraging the victims from reporting the crimes that victimized them.
Most of the priests identified as abusers and perpetrators of sexual crimes are now dead, or will be able to avoid arrest since the crimes they committed are considered to be too stale under state law for prosecution. Cardinal Wuerl is now taking the brunt of outraged criticism for his claims of surprise and insistence that he had no knowledge of allegations that his predecessor molested and harassed young seminarians. When McCarrick vacated the post of Washington archbishop, McCarrick followed him in 2006 to take up that senior, prestigious post.
According to the bishop of the Pittsburgh diocese, a few of the priests the report names remain in ministry resulting from the diocese's determination that allegations lodged against them were unsubstantiated.
• In the Greensburg diocese, a priest
impregnated a 17-year-old, forged a pastor's signature on a marriage
certificate and divorced the girl months later. According to the grand
jury, the priest was allowed to stay in ministry by finding a
"benevolent bishop."
• Another
priest in Greensburg groomed middle-school students for sex, according
to the grand jury, by telling them that Mary had to "bite off the cord"
and "lick" Jesus clean after the Nativity.
•
In Harrisburg, a priest abused five sisters from the same family and
collected samples of their urine, pubic hair and menstrual blood.
•
Also in Harrisburg, a priest raped a 7-year-old girl who was in the
hospital after her tonsils were removed, according to the report.
• In Pittsburgh, church officials said that a
15-year-old boy "pursued" and "literally seduced" a priest. A church
report later acknowledged that the priest had admitted to
"sado-masochistic" activities with several boys.
•
In the Allentown diocese, a priest admitted sexually molesting a boy
and pleaded for help, according to documents, but was left in ministry
for several more years.
• Also in
Allentown, a priest who had abused several boys, according to the grand
jury, was given a recommendation to work at Disney World.
• In Scranton, a priest who later served prison time for abusing children was found to have been HIV-positive for years
Russia, Bombing Children in Eastern Ghouta, Repatriating ISIL-linked Children
"What should we do, leave them there so somebody will recruit them?" "Yes, these children saw terrible things, but when we put them in a different environment, with their grandparents, they change quickly." Ziyad Sabsabi, Russian senator
"I gently asked her, 'What happened?', but she doesn't want to say anything." "I want to hope they [her daughter and other two grandchildren] are alive, to latch onto something. But she is certain. She says they were shot, but that she waved her hands and said in Arabic, 'Don't shoot', and saved herself in that way." Zura, grandmother of Hadizha, 8-year-old ISIL orphan
"He said he saw his mother and brother and sisters, and they were sleeping [all killed in a Mosul bomb attack, exploding their house]." "I think it will pass. He is still young and has a child's memory." Eli, grandfather of Adlan, 9-year-old ISIL orphan
People claiming to be relatives of the children shown inRTcoverage
from an Iraqi orphanage have contacted the news outlet after the video
went viral
These are a fraction of the children who survived being taken by their parents from their homes in Russia and Chechnya to live in the Islamic State Caliphate where their fathers dedicated themselves to a new reality as ISIL 'fighters', their mothers to raising their children as future warriors for Islamic State. Russia has decided to do what other countries in Europe and elsewhere whose citizens responded to the ISIL call for recruits, have hesitated to commit to; bring back the children.
Reunite them with their grandparents, and hope for the best. Belant Zuigayeva in Grozny, also hopes for the best. She watches her grandchildren as they play games that she terms their "little war" of the children who rarely talk, but engage themselves constantly in violent re-enactments of what they were exposed to embedded with Islamic State; running about, hiding, slamming one another with ferocious energy into the ground.
She is prepared to take care of her three grandchildren, raised by Islamist ideology as nascent militants for Islamic State. She is considered to be part of a hopeful experiment the Russian government has determined is a requirement in social re-engineering of children who were deliberately exposed to gruesome murderous scenarios and constant violence.
When the U.S.-led coalition and Syrian government forces overtook cities held by the Islamic State, hundreds, possibly thousands of children born to women living in the Caliphate's territory, or brought along with the men and women dedicating themselves to ISIS, were discovered wandering among the ruins of cities like Mosul.
Zura, right, and Suleiman,
sit with their granddaughter, Hadizha. The girl was found on a Mosul
street, her arms and chin badly burned.Credit
Sergey Ponomarev for The New York Times
So far, Russia has re-absorbed 71 children groomed by ISIL, along with 26 women. It is considered an investment in the future in aid of security, that it is more sensible to absorb these children with the help of their grandparents, into Russian society, at their still-impressionable age, than to have to cope at some future date with embittered and radicalized adults returning to Russia with unabated rage in their hearts.
This attitude, on the surface humanitarian, a little deeper, practical, is in stark contrast to Europe which hesitates to absorb the tragic human detritus left behind by a retreating Islamic State. There is in fact little compassion for the plight of the adult males who chose to join ISIS. In point of fact the British international development minister, Rory Stewart, stated point blank: "The only way of dealing with them will be, in almost every case, to kill them".
Many, perhaps most of the returning children had been deliberately exposed in their vulnerability to unspeakable acts of violence. The children themselves were often recruited, coached and praised to execute acts of unspeakable carnage on helpless ISIL prisoners. Deadly acts leading to excruciating deaths; children are notoriously curious about everything and there is little doubt from the evidence circulated via videos that some children were found to be particularly adept at delivering death.
Children were with purpose desensitized to the prevailing violence through the medium of constant indoctrination, paramilitary training -- and little pleases precocious children more than being allowed to participate in such activities inducting them into grown-up pursuits -- while being persuaded to take part in executing particularly vicious exercises in human depravity in the delivery of pain and misery upon bound and helpless 'enemies'.
Women who managed to break free from the clutches of Islamic State
terrorists told RT harrowing stories of what they lived through,
shedding light on the rampant violence, sex slavery and a bloodcurdling
neglect for life thriving in the so-called “caliphate.”
An estimated thousand children of militants from across Europe are awaiting repatriation -- whose fathers fought in Syria alone. Those whom France has taken in have been placed in foster or adoptive homes while some have been taken by relatives. A number of those who are older, viewed as having been combatants, have been incarcerated. As many as 5,000 family members of foreign terror recruits remain in camps and orphanages in Iraq and Syria, according to the estimates of analysts. "We have to consider that these children could be living time bombs", observed Germany's domestic intelligence chief, Hans-Georg Maassen. Four-year-old Bilal returned last summer to Russia. He pushes a toy car around the kitchen table and makes car sounds in his grandmother's Grozny apartment, in Chechnya. While he says little, his grandmother, Rosa Murtazayeva, notes his obvious attachment to his absent father Hasan. He recalls being with his father hiding in basements in Mosul. "I was with papa. There were no other boys", he says. After their capture his father was imprisoned in Iraq. When Bilal was found on the streets he was emaciated and filthy. His grandmother is certain he will recover some semblance of normalcy, since he is still so young and appears to have adjusted well. When eight-year-old Hadizha was found on a street in Mosul she was lying in a gutter, arm and chin bandaged from burns. Her grandmother recognized her from a photograph.
Hadizha now spends her days on a couch, curled up, distant eyes, an angry scowl on her face as she watches television. "She doesn't need anything else. She is silent", says her grandmother.
Bilal, 4, playing online
games on a smartphone at home in Grozny. He was found emaciated and
filthy in Mosul, Iraq, hiding in basements with his father, an ISIS
fighter.Credit
Sergey Ponomarev for The New York Times
"By enacting legislation on adultery, all of those abuses would be treated within the same scope. This is self-criticism, I must say that in the EU
process, we made a mistake. …" "We should now evaluate preparing
legislation about adultery and perhaps consider it together with the
issue of harassment and others." "This society holds a different status in terms of its moral values." Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan
The president made the comments to a sobbing young girl dressed as a
Turkish solider on a public stage during a live TV appearance
"If she is martyred, a flag will be put on her, God willing."
"She is ready for everything, isn't she?"
"Look what you see here! Girl, what are you doing here? We have our maroon berets here, but maroon berets never cry."
Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Justice and Development Party meeting, February 25, 2018
"Bringing a little child to the stage in front of thousands of people and blessing death is a big mistake."
"Children should never be in the shadow of weapons and should not be the face of wars."
Veli Agbaba, deputy chairman, Turkish opposition CHP party
"Divorce, drugs, irresponsible pleasure and immoral print and digital
publications are as dangerous as terrorism."
"Laws and legislation should be native and
national."
Conservative Turkish columnist Rahim Er
"[The state should not get involved in the lives of people who might have
different religious or moral views.]"
"In my opinion, the appropriateness
of the relations that two people will engage in with their own will
should not be dwelt upon too much."
Kurdish politician Altan Tan, Peoples’ Democratic Party
Turkish janitor, Mehmet Sait Güler, receives record 572 years in prison for abusing 18 children in the student lodging of a religious vocational (imam-hatip) secondary school in the southeastern province of Adıyaman
Turkey, in the view of its President Erdogan, is a society much superior in its values and treatment of women and children than is the European Union. But when the EU responding to Turkey's wish to join it, persuaded Turkey's political executive to relax some of its punitive laws, the issue of adultery underwent a change in its punishment. The superiority of Islamic Turkey in its treatment of children appears to be alive and well in Erdogan's mind though the truth is neglect and maltreatment of minors is rampant throughout Turkish society.
An issue that came to the fore when it was revealed that one single hospital in Istanbul in less than a five-month period treated one hundred and fifteen girls, 39 of them from Syria for the consequences of the abuse they were subjected to. Among the girls 38 had been impregnated before the age of fifteen, and 77 before turning 18 years of age. Since the age of consent in Turkey is 18 years of age, all instances of pregnancy resulting in girls under age 15 are classified as child abuse.
News coverage of fairly recent vintage highlighting instances of child abuse in Turkey has resulted in a social upheaval of disgust and anger from the public and politicians representing various opposition parties, leading President Erdogan to dispatch six of his ministers to work out more effective administrative and legal measures to deal with child abuse. Harsher penalties such as chemical castration for offenders is one of the options that has garnered much debate.
Might any of the ministers dare to suggest that some form of meaningful penalty be imposed on Recep Tayyip Erdogan for egregious child abuse rivalling that of the Hamas and Islamic State terrorist groups who have excelled in tutoring impressionable children and exposing them to the delights of juvenile terrorism, teaching them the use of explosive devices and lethal arms, and the joys inherent in determined martyrdom?
His initiative in ushering a six-year-old girl onto a public stage before thousands of approving supporters, urging her to aspire toward martyrdom as the highest possible calling, surely rates as child abuse...?
Now, he has embarked on yet another tangent. Rather than tackling the huge and hugely destructive issue of child abuse, he has conflated it with the other issue of adultery. Adultery as a criminal offence to be brought back to its former status in the criminal code alongside capital punishment -- another penalty that failed to find favour with the European Union.
On February 20 Erdogan spoke of his government's decision to work on formalizing harsher penalties for child abuse. In tandem with the crime of adultery.
The conventional wisdom under Turkish law up until 1996 was that a man would be considered adulterous under circumstances proving him to be involved in a prolonged carnal affair reflective of a 'husband-wife' situation, whereas for a woman to be found guilt of adultery she need only be unfaithful or commit a sexual act with a man other than her husband on a single occasion to be considered guilty of that crime.
The Turkish Constitutional Court in 1996 cancelled legal articles that regulated adultery for husbands in a situation where the issue was altered for men but remained as it was for women. Finally, two years later the Constitutional Court enabled the cancellation of the adultery articles applicable to women in recognition of unequal application. Which does nothing to address the issue of Turkish men taking on multiple wives.
Despite that only one of the wives is recognized as a legal spouse, there is no penalty inherent in a man's status respecting multiple wives and presumably offspring from those relationships, which could also be interpreted as child abuse, but is obviously not meant to be under Turkish law. Turkish women concerned with equality, justice and fairness under the law question the banning of adultery while permitting polygamy.
"Will we be able to say that someone who is married to four women is committing adultery?" questioned Canan Gullu, head of the Federation of Women Associations of Turkey. As for combining a law scrutinizing and punishing adultery alongside child abuse, a puzzling decision which may have an inner and unequal agenda under Islamist principles, that will be yet to be seen, commented on, discussed and objected to.
The president was cheered by adoring supporters as he told the weeping six-year-old girl she will be honoured if she is martyred
"On International Women's Day, these young women died due to the state's lack of action." "It's a situation as grave as this one that draws the attention to what needs to change, to what Guatemalan children are living [through]." Abner David Paredes Cruz, youth advocate, Guatemala Human Rights
"Children from the street, children who had been in gangs, children with disabilities, it was a mix of many populations with many difficulties." "By the time the room was unlocked, it was too late." Leonel Dubon, director, Guatemala child advocacy group
Relatives gather outside the Virgin of the Assumption
Safe House near Guatemala City, Guatemala. Dozens of girls died after a
fire broke out at the youth shelter on Wednesday.Johan Ordonez/AFP/Getty Images
The Virgen de la Asuncion Safe Home in San Jose Pinula, Guatemala is a complex of multiple buildings and dormitories surrounded by a ten-metre-high wall, and trees. It was designed to hold 500 residents, to serve as a shelter for young people who had served criminal sentences, with no families or homes to return to. Former convicted felons were placed where children recovering from sexual abuse or suffering from mental illnesses were also housed.
Residents of the "safe home" had little opportunity to take advantage of proper hygiene, they had few possessions such as clothing and shoes, and nor did they all have proper beds, with many sleeping on worn mats laid on the floors, reported a November 2015 human rights report. The boys and girls in this "safe home" represented the nation's most vulnerable. Their backgrounds were of broken families and troubled homes. Some suffered from mental illness, abandonment and abuse.
A woman lights a candle during a vigil in remembrance of the victims of a
fire at a children's shelter, outside the morgue where the bodies are
being identified in Guatemala City on Wednesday. (Moises Castillo / The Associated Press)
Because they had nowhere else to go, they were unfailingly sent to the sprawling complex in the town of San Jose Pinula. And there, according to reports, they were sexually violated, shoved into overcrowded areas and poor quality food given them in scarce quantities. The children had complained of the unspeakable conditions they were forced to live in, and the abuse heaped upon them, but there were never any responses.
On Tuesday night dozens of the young people attempted to storm the gates of their unconscionable prison in a mass escape, to which riot police responded, returning many of the children back to the facility. There, supervisors locked them into their dormitories. And in one of those dorms a teen-age girl set her mattress on fire while others ate their breakfasts on Wednesday morning. She was heard to scream she was prepared to sacrifice herself "so that everyone would know what they were living inside".
The fire spread throughout the dormitory. Nineteen girls, from age 13 to 17 died at the site, bodies so burned families were unable to identify them without a struggle. Another 40 girls were taken to hospitals where some later died. A few months earlier a judge had ordered that the facility transfer its residents back to their families and to other alternate shelters and close its facilities to further use.
Despite that order, the shelter remained open and operational.
A woman who lives near the shelter informed a local newspaper that three of the girls had once asked for her help to commit suicide. "Give me pills, a knife or something", they pleaded with her. "We don't want to live here".
Activist Julia Silvestre tapes a sign to the front gate of Presidential
House with a message that reads in Spanish: "Guatemala is not a safe
home" in remembrance of the victims of a fire at a youth shelter. (Luis Soto)
"One side made him famous and the other side killed him -- both sides ignored the law and acted illegally." "Possibly he took up arms to take revenge for his father's death, but it was illegal for the police to declare him a hero and reveal his identity, especially to the insurgents." Rafiullah Baidar, spokesman, Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission
"A program was held at the police headquarters, where his bravery
and courage was talked about by officials." "I was against this move and told the officials that instead of
encouraging him to military activities that will ruin his future, let
him go to school. He is too young to hand him a gun." Mohammad Karim Khadimzai, provincial police chief
Human rights groups have been warning for years that child recruitment has been going on in Afghanistan ... Photo Twitter
"There is a lack of political will to address this issue … there is a
specific commitment by the government to clean it up [child military recruitment] but sufficient
measures are not being taken." Charu Lata Hogg, policy and advocacy director, Child Soldiers International
He was all of ten years old. His father ha been killed by the Taliban. And his uncle, once a Taliban commander who converted his allegiance back to the government, then was appointed the local police commander in Khas Uruzgan district, had encouraged his nephew to take up arms. Likely, given the tribal code adhered to in Afghan's provinces, the boy felt that he would avenge his father's death.
Last year he was feted for his courage as a child taking the role of a man fighting to defend his village from the Taliban. The deputy police chief of Uruzgan province described how young Wasil Ahmad had fought alongside his uncle on several occasions against the Taliban. The police made much of the young boy's exploits as an armed defender of his clan, having him pose for photographs geared in full military uniform with an automatic rifle.
Such an absolute lack of caution and concern for the little boy's welfare is perhaps not surprising in a tribal, war-faring society which has known little else for generations but conflict and given to their values of honour and resolute action on the battlefield, defending their own. But in identifying him and publicizing his exploits and making his photograph publicly available they also set him up for what would next occur.
He was shot point blank twice in the head while doing what many villagers ordinarily do; buying groceries in the capital of the province, Tirin Kot. The Taliban immediately issued a news release that they had taken their revenge on the little boy's impudence in challenging their entitlement to once again administer the political affairs of Afghanistan as they had prior to the U.S.-led invasion over a dozen years ago, before the boy's birth.
Like many other tribal societies such as those in Africa, child soldiers are commonly recruited to take part in battle, trained to carry weapons as tall as they are themselves, heavy burdens for their undeveloped musculature, but appealing to their sense of wanting to be adult, to be respected, to take their place in the defense of all they hold dear; other than those who are impressed to fight, coerced and threatened.
In Afghanistan children are regularly recruited by both the National and the Local Police as fulfilling a sense of duty, demonstrating patriotism, doing the honourable thing. But, emphasized the charity Child Soldiers International, the greatest motivator for those children is poverty and the promise of a wage to help their families pay for the necessities of life.
The charity had found half of the national police check posts "were staffed with visibly younger officers" all of whom identified themselves as being under 18 years of age.
"The Paraguayan state must fulfil its role of protecting children by providing a home and a dignified life [for this family]." Norma Benitez, spokeswoman, Latin American Women's Commission
"I was the one who reported all of this, asking for justice to be done
and hoping that something would be done, but prosecutors dismissed the
case." "Otherwise, this would have never gotten to this point." Mother of 11-year-old rape victim
"The physical and psychological impact of forcing this young girl to
continue with an unwanted pregnancy is tantamount to torture. The Paraguayan authorities cannot sit idly by [refusing an abortion] while this young
rape survivor is forced to endure more agony and torment." Guadalupe
Marengo, deputy director for the Americas, Amnesty International
Raped by her step-father at age ten, the little girl at age eleven gave birth to a healthy baby girl. She was forced to undergo the pregnancy resulting from having been raped because Paraguayan authorities refused pleas to allow the child to have the pregnancy terminated. The mother, who was charged with negligence in this case, begged to have her little girl allowed an abortion.
Paraguay, a seriously Catholic country, bans abortion other than in the case of a mother's life deemed to be in danger. The unnamed girl was five months into the pregnancy when local health officials declared her to be in fine health. Well over 600 girls 14 or under annually become pregnant in Paraguay according to local health statistics. And most of them have been the victim of a rape.
So much for religious conservatism and the sanctity of the childhood years.
The baby, born by cesarean section, weighed about 6.6 pounds. Asuncion red Cross Director Mario Villalba informed the public that the baby and her mother "are in good health condition", that doctors continue to monitor them, and they are expected to be released from hospital, if no complications pose a problem, within three days' time.
The girl's stepfather was arrested and charged and is currently awaiting trial. The public, aghast and alarmed over an eleven-year-old being raped and forced to undergo pregnancy and birth is calling for better protection for children from this atrocious abuse.
At age eleven, a mother, the girl and her grandmother have declared their intention to keep the baby and raise her.
"It was a gang that has 5 to 21 members. These people have been ... raping boys and girls under the age of 15 and then filming them since 2009." "It is a case of extortion. It is their business." Kasur District Police chief Rai Babar Saeed, Hussain Khan Wala, Pakistan "[Children as young as five are] bought, sold, rented or kidnapped and placed in organized begging rings, domestic servitude, small shops, brick kilns and prostitution." U.S. State Department
"My heart sank when I saw my son in the video. Everyone in the village knew what was happening but we were too scared to do anything." Mother of abused child, Hussain Khan Wala, Pakistan -- CNN
"My child stopped going to school; whenever they saw him, they took him
into the fields, in the house", the 35-year-old mother of one victim informed CNN in an interview."They raped him for five hours and now it's finally coming
into the open."
It is a town close to the border with India, in Pakistan where families living there knew that their children were being horribly sexually abused but were too fearful to protect them. Local gangs videoed the rape of young children, believed to be 270 in number. The plan was to blackmail the families, threatening to post the videos on line or to sell them in blackmarkets for as little as 50 cents, bringing shame to the families.
It certainly says a good deal about cultural values that protecting one's 'honour' becomes more vital than protecting one's child from sexual violence. But people living in Hussain Khan Wala claim the gang forced their children at gunpoint to submit to the horrendous abuse. Or the children were drugged to make them quiescent to the abuse forced upon them. And then one single family spoke up, giving courage to others to do the same.
Trouble was, when some of the mothers went to police, the police failed to respond. The complaints were nothing particularly new or shocking to the police, evidently. "We went to the police and they did nothing. They said all our cases were the same, to
bring something new for them", one mother of an abused child said, weeping in frustration and rage. "They destroyed me. They destroyed my family. They just killed me", one victim said.
The gang operated for years, forcing poor children to submit to the cruel violence of rape. In the account of one 15-year-old boy, the graphic description spoke volumes about first being raped at the age of nine when a man approached him as he was collecting water for his grandfather: "As soon as I went inside
he locked the door. He called out and five more men came in. I started
screaming and they covered my mouth. Each of them had a weapon - one had
an axe. They said they would cut me into tiny pieces if I made a single
sound. Then they raped me."
These were poor families. The gang meant the videos to be used to extort the families. Any family unable to pay was told to find another child that could be abused and filmed. A lawyer representing some of the victims, Latif Sarra, confirmed the gang filmed at least 270 children. Kasur district police chief Rai Babar Saeed spoke of confiscating 30 videos showing the sexual abuse of children young as 12. Officers drove through the town using loudspeakers to ask victims to come forward.
The case is being compared in Pakistani newspapers to a man in Lahore who in 1999 confessed to kidnapping, sexually abusing and dissolving the bodies of 100 children in acid. This Muslim country of 180 million people sees its children vulnerable to all manner of abuse where child labour is rife, and children are always at risk, particularly among the poor of whom there is no lack.
More than 500 members
of Hamas's armed wing, Ezaddin al-Qassam, are supervising the military
training and religious education in the camps to train future jihadis in
the war against Israel. Hamas's religious education is aimed at
teaching the children about Islam and its sharia laws. They are also
being taught that making peace with the "infidels" is prohibited under
the teachings of Islam.
It is disturbing to see how international and Palestinian human
rights organizations, especially those claiming to defend children's
rights, are turning a blind eye to this large-scale child abuse by
Hamas. These organizations only care about children's rights when there
is a way to throw all the blame on Israel.
The Palestinian Authority and its president, Mahmoud Abbas, are
also poisoning the hearts and minds of their people by constantly
inciting them against Israel. These children will never accept the
two-state solution that Abbas is talking about. Nor will they ever
recognize Israel's right to exist in this part of the world.
"Teach your children how to play, how to smile... Build for them
an institution...on the love of Palestine and not how to get themselves
killed." — Palestinian activist Eyad al-Atal, criticizing Hamas for
"depriving an entire generation of Palestinians of their childhood."
For the third running year, thousands of Palestinian children from
the Gaza Strip are receiving military training as part of Hamas's summer
camps.
The camps, which are being held under the banner "Vanguards of
Liberation," are aimed at preparing children as young as 15 for fighting
against Israel. More than 25,000 children have joined this year's Hamas
camps, according to Hamas officials in the Gaza Strip.
What is most disturbing about this practice is that the families are
not hesitant to send their children to be trained as future jihadis in
the war against Israel. On the contrary, many of the families interviewed
in the Palestinian media in the past few days said they were proud to
see their children being taught how to use various types of weapons.
Rashed
Anwar Abu Diqqa attends one of Gaza's Hamas-run military summer camps.
The teenage boy, shown holding an assault rifle, says "I go to the
summer camp because it teaches young people lots of useful things.
(Image source: MEMRI)
Only a few Palestinians have dared to speak out against Hamas's
exploitation of children. Palestinian activist Eyad al-Atal criticized
Hamas for "depriving an entire generation of Palestinians of their
childhood." He said that apart from creating new supporters of the
Islamic State, the military training of the children was in violation of
human rights principles.
Addressing the Hamas leaders, the al-Atal said:
"Teach your children how to play, how to smile, how to rejoice. Build
for them an institution for education and entertainment that would raise
them on the love of Palestine and not how to get themselves killed."
It is also disturbing to see how international and Palestinian human
rights organizations, especially those claiming to defend children's
rights, are turning a blind eye to this large-scale child abuse by
Hamas. These organizations only care about children's rights when there
is a way to throw all the blame on Israel.
As in the past two years, the summer camps are being held in bases
belonging to Hamas's armed wing, Ezaddin al-Qassam, throughout the Gaza
Strip. The declared goal of
the camps to is to "prepare a new generation of Palestinian youths
spiritually, mentally and physically for the battle to liberate
Palestine." When Hamas talks about the "liberation of Palestine," it is
not referring to the West Bank and Gaza Strip only, but to the whole of
Israel. In other words, these Palestinian children are being educated
and trained to prepare for joining the war aimed at destroying Israel.
The children are being taught that their role models are Hamas
suicide bombers and terrorists responsible for the death of hundreds of
Israelis over the past few decades. Most of the training and
indoctrination takes place in the evening, due to the hot weather and
for "security reasons." More than 500 Hamas members of Ezaddin al-Qassam
are supervising the military training and religious education in the
camps.
Hamas's religious education is aimed at teaching the children about
Islam and its sharia laws. The children are being told that the whole of
the land of Palestine (including Israel) is Muslim-owned land that
can't be given away to non-Muslims. They are also being taught that
making peace with the "infidels" is prohibited under the teachings of
Islam.
At one of the camps, the children were taught how to "raid" an
Israeli military base and kill and capture some IDF soldiers. The drill
was attended by Ismail Haniyeh, the top Hamas leader in the Gaza Strip,
who said he was very proud of the children's level of performance.
Another senior Hamas official, Khalil al-Hayah, told the child-soldiers that they were being trained for jihad against Israel.
"These camps are designed to prepare a generation that carries the Quran and rifle," al-Hayah explained.
"The camps show that Palestinians support the resistance and the
project of liberation of Palestine. The goal is to liberate Palestine
and the Aqsa Mosque [in Jerusalem]."
This is bad news for the Palestinian Authority (PA) and its
president, Mahmoud Abbas, who continue to talk about their desire to
establish a Palestinian state that would exist alongside Israel in peace
and stability. These children will never accept the two-state solution
that Abbas is talking about. Nor will they ever recognize Israel's right
to exist in this part of the world.
While Hamas is training children to become the future jihadis of the
Palestinians, Abbas and his Palestinian Authority are also poisoning the
hearts and minds of their people by constantly inciting them against
Israel. This incitement is taking place in the mosques, in the media and
in the public rhetoric of PA leaders and spokesmen. So what Abbas and
the PA are doing is no less serious than what Hamas is doing to the
children of the Gaza Strip.
Neither Hamas nor the Palestinian Authority has prepared their people
for the possibility of peace with Israel. On the contrary, the two
parties have radicalized their people to a point where it has become
impossible to talk about a two-state solution. The only ones who benefit
from this indoctrination and child abuse are Islamist terror groups and
those in the region and abroad, including Europe, who continue to seek
the destruction of Israel.
A
sheikh in Jerusalem's Old City teaches children the glories of
martyrdom on July 27, 2015. (Screen capture: Middle East Media Research
Institute)
A Muslim sheikh was filmed in
the Old City of Jerusalem, near the Temple Mount, teaching children
about martyrdom and virgins in paradise on Monday. A passerby attempted
to stop him, telling him “shame on you.”
In
a four-minute video released by the watchdog Middle East Media Research
Institute, Sheikh Khaled al-Maghrabi is seen instructing a group of
children, the oldest of whom are barely adolescents, that “the martyr is
absolved with the first drop of his blood.”
The children were taking part in the so-called Al-Aqsa Mosque Summer Camp, according to MEMRI.
To the group of boys and girls, the religious leader explained, “The martyr would be married off to two virgins in paradise.”
On Judgment Day, the sheikh added, someone who dies while engaged in ribat
— the Muslim concept of defending the faith, named after a
fortress-like structure — would be able to save 70 members of his or her
family.
After several minutes of this instruction, a passerby approached the sheikh and asked him to stop preaching to the children.
“Listen, sheikh, they do not understand what you are saying. They are children,” the man said in Arabic.
Passerby
outside the Temple Mount in Jerusalem’s Old City scolds sheikh for
teaching children the glories of martyrdom on July 27, 2015. (Screen
capture: Middle East Media Research Institute)
The sheikh attempted to quickly brush the man off, but was unsuccessful.
“You are talking to them about ribat, martyrdom, virgins of paradise,” the man told the sheikh, “Shame on you.”
The man went on, “You can teach lessons like this to adults like us, not to them. Look at what you’re planting in their minds.”
“Shame on you,” the man repeated before returning to stand with his friends.
The video ends with the same children
chanting, “We shall sacrifice our souls and our blood for you, Al-Aqsa!”
and “Khaybar! Khaybar! Oh, Jews! The army of Muhammad will return,” in
reference to the fortress city once controlled by Jewish tribes, but
later overtaken by Muslim forces.
The day before the video was filmed, dozens of
masked Palestinian protesters hurled rocks, Molotov cocktails and
firecrackers at police officers on the Temple Mount compound in
Jerusalem’s Old City, before being pushed back into the Al-Aqsa Mosque
by security forces who were rushed to the area.
According to police, the protesters had
stockpiled homemade explosives, firecrackers and wooden boards inside
the mosque, with the intention of attacking thousands of Jewish
worshipers gathered below for prayers at the Western Wall on Tisha B’Av,
a fast and day of mourning that commemorates the destruction of the
first and second Jewish Temples.
This represents a general opinion site for its author. It also offers a space for the author to record her experiences and perceptions,both personal and public. This is rendered obvious by the content contained in the blog, but the space is here inviting me to write. And so I do.
