By Rosie E.
Recently I’ve been talking to my parents about my options for college. Although this is a very exciting time in my life, I can’t help but think about the millions of children, especially girls, to whom college is only a distant dream. How much longer will the world watch as these children are denied their basic human rights?
In 2007, 101 million primary-school age children were reported not in school, 36% of which had uneducated mothers. When their parents can’t afford to get them to school, they send them to work. According to childinfo.org, 1 in 6 children in developing countries are engaged in child labor, 126 million of which work in hazardous conditions.
The International Labor Union recently reported that more girls under the age of 16 work in domestic service than in any other category of work. From the age of five, girls are sent off to work willingly as a way to escape poverty. In these positions, many are abused sexually and physically, go unpaid, and their abuse goes unseen because they work in private homes.
Human Rights Watch, a New York based rights group, documented almost 150 female domestic workers from Indonesia who committed suicide in Singapore alone. Some others have escaped their employers and have joined support groups.
Human trafficking has become more prevalent in the last 10 years with a strong focus on the sex trade. Franz van Dijk, the director of a Geneva-based child rights group, reported that over 50,000 children were exploited as sex workers in Southeast Asia. These children are as young as five years old when they are sold, but it seems the adults of the world still allow the child prostitution to grow.
I am extremely fortunate to be a young woman in America. I am safe from laws which impair me from climbing the social and economic ladder, but also laws which allow abuse towards me. But many girls in developing countries are not protected the same way I am.
According to the Worldwide Health Organization, some three million girls, the majority under 15 years old, are victims of female genital mutilation, a custom practiced widely in the eastern world. According to the Burkina Faso government, last year 70 newborns were admitted into hospitals for the pain and infection that occurred as a result of the practice.
Many governments allow these abuses. Aisha Ibrahim Duhulow, a 13-year old girl of Somalia, was raped by three men and when she attempted to report the incident to the al-Shahab militia, she was accused of adultery and stoned to death by 50 men in front of 1,000 spectators.
So as I prepare to choose a path to my future, I’m going to keep in mind all those children just like me who will never get the chance at a future because they are victims of a cruel world that watches thoughtlessly as they suffer.
