• Deadly Delays for Nigerian Children
    Dec 7, 2012
    In June, two weeks after I returned from Nigeria, I got a message that another child had died from lead poisoning -the 11th in the same family. I could picture the scene: the child starts convulsing; his parents rush him two hours over barely passable terrain on the back of a motorbike to the nearest town for medical treatment. By the time they reach the clinic, a temporary ward specifically for lead poisoning set up in the wake of the epidemic, it is too late, and another young life has been taken by this preventable tragedy.
  • A victory against modern day slavery
    Dec 1, 2012
    Growing activism against modern-day slavery has highlighted the abuse and exploitation suffered by millions of men, women, and children around the world. Donor funding has flowed to create shelters and services for victims while a proliferation of anti-trafficking legislation has focused on arresting and prosecuting traffickers.
  • Lessons of war - the misuse of schools by militaries
    Nov 26, 2012
    The contrast was striking. Outside the laughter of boys playing echoed around the school courtyard while inside one classroom a nervous 14-year-old, Ashraf, described the day bullets and shells rained down on his school. "When they started shooting, the principal led us all to the basement," he told me.
  • A year of progress in eliminating violence against women
    Nov 24, 2012
    On November 25 every year, a grim accounting takes place: the world takes stock of violence against women, the toll it takes, and progress toward eliminating it. The International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women has been commemorated on November 25 for more than three decades. It’s a day each year when my colleagues and I focus on the courageous women we have met, the injustices they’ve suffered, and the hope they inspire.
  • A law that can make PH a leader
    Nov 22, 2012
    I approached the school—high in the hills of northern Luzon—with a bit of trepidation. It was late in the day, and schools that lack the joyous cacophony of children playing always seem a little eerie to me.
  • Learning Under the Gun
    Nov 20, 2012
    Like many of the Somali youth I interviewed in Kenya, “Xarid M.” had braved the streets of Somalia’s capital, Mogadishu, for as long as he could to go to school. But that all changed the day the Islamist insurgent group al-Shabaab brought the war to his classroom.Like many of the Somali youth I interviewed in Kenya, “Xarid M.” had braved the streets of Somalia’s capital, Mogadishu, for as long as he could to go to school. But that all changed the day the Islamist insurgent group al-Shabaab brought the war to his classroom.
  • End Child Labor in Gold Mines
    Nov 13, 2012
    In Tanzania, I met "Julius", a boy of about 13, who works in an artisanal gold mine. He told me he digs ore in pits more than 15 metres deep and mixes toxic mercury with ground ore to retrieve the gold. Once a pit collapsed and almost killed another boy, his friend. The work had made him feel "pain in the whole body."
  • Ban Solitary Confinement of Children
    Nov 7, 2012
    Solitary confinement is a bad idea for prisoners of any age. It is costly, does nothing to rehabilitate prisoners and exacerbates mental health problems. All of that is never more evident than when young people are isolated in tiny cells. This practice should be banned.
  • Malala is face of global attacks on schools
    Oct 25, 2012
    The gruesome gunning-down of 14-year-old Malala Yousufzai spotlighted the fate of children in Pakistan, one of the world's most dangerous places to go to school. But in war zones around the world, from Afghanistan to Yemen, students, teachers and schools are regularly coming under attack. These are the world's unrecognized Malalas.
  • Protecting Thailand's Malalas
    Oct 24, 2012
    The recent shooting of 14-year-old Pakistani student Malala Yousafzai shocked the world and put a spotlight on the fate of children in one of the world's most dangerous places to go to school. But Thailand's three southern border provinces also make it onto that list of places where students and teachers each day fear turning up for school.