Can you imagine a courtroom that would allow a child to serve a jail sentence for a parent? These types of practices are customary in the courtrooms of Afghanistan.

Give rights to children in Afghanistan!

Children have few rights in Afghanistan. They are essentially treated as objects: tools for adults to use whenever they see fit. Children are used as human shields in the line of fire, trafficked as sex slaves, and even given as "gifts" to other families in place of a dowry price.

The mortality rate for children here is the second worst in the world. Twenty-six percent of children die before the age of five. Most of those who do survive are physically and mentally stunted.

The Afghan government has cut the budget for the state's Independent Human Rights Commission, causing hope for these children to dwindle. There are millions of children that are in desperate need of help.

Source of Information and Link: CARE2 Petition Site

CHILD SLAVERY—THE NUMBERS

The numbers around child slavery and exploitation are simply staggering, and there aren't enough people fighting back.

More than 150 million children younger than 14 years-old are child laborers—one in six children in the world. Those children do hazardous work in mines or on farms, often handling chemicals and pesticides or working near dangerous machinery. Others toil as domestic servants in homes or workshops.

Another 300,000 children under 18 are child soldiers used as combatants, messengers, porters, cooks, or sexual servants in some 30 conflicts worldwide. They are most often forcibly recruited or abducted, or feel so helpless and overwhelmed by poverty they are driven to join the fitght.

Girls are particularly vulnerable. Some as young as 13 are trafficked as "mail-order brides." Neartly 90% of domestic workers trafficked in West and Central Africa are girls.

It's an epidemic that isn't getting enough attention from governments worldwide.

Click here to take a stand now against child slavery and exploitation and demand that governments protect and uphold the basic rights of all children.

Once you add your name, please forward the link to your friends and family.

Source of information and link: Change.org

BABIES BORN WITH HIV

It's heartbreaking to know that every day over 1,000 babies are born with HIV. It doesn't need to be that way. We have the medicine and treatment to make sure that by 2015 no child will be born with HIV. But world leaders, including President Obama, are the key to meeting this goal.

Please contact President Obama and urge him to commit $6 billion to the Global Fund over the next 3 years.

We can make sure that no child is born with HIV by 2015—but your help is needed. Please contact President Obama today.

President Barack Obama
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW
Washington, DC 20500

Web: whitehouse.gov
Phone: 202-456-1414
Fax: 202-456-2461

———————————————

2009—1.2 million girls and boys were victims of child trafficking. That means they were taken from their families, sold into slavary or forced to work 7 days a week with dangerous equipment. They endure beatings, malnutrition, and other abuse. Girls are especially exploited and sold as "mail order brides," forced into prostitution, and brutalized and raped by their "employers."