Updated: 3/13/08 

On February 7, Advancing Human Rights committee member Tzili Mor addressed the U.N. Committee on the Rights of the Child in Geneva regarding U.S. violations of the Optional Protocol on Children in Armed Conflict:

"The nearly 14,000 boys and girls who actually sign up for military service represent only a tiny fraction of the youths targeted annually by military recruiters who have become an ominous presence in elementary schools, junior and high schools across the country where students as young as 11 can participate in Cadet and Training Corps. These are military funded school programs in which military instructors teach students about uniform inspection and drills (including ones using wooden guns or real firearms for the high school kids).  Even younger children are also allowed to attend the programs because they have older siblings in the program and they would otherwise have to walk home alone.

Representatives Maxine Waters (D-CA) and Spencer Bachus (R-AL) are calling on their colleagues to sign a bi-partisan letter to the Secretary of the Treasury urging him to 1) expedite the cancellation of Haiti’s debts to the World Bank, the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) and other multilateral financial institutions, and 2) urge an immediate suspension of debt service payments from Haiti.

Both Representatives have gone out on a limb for the poor of Haiti, and now they need you to tell your Representative to stand up with them. Haitians need you too: recent headlines remind us of Haitians eating cookies made of salt, butter and dirt, because they cannot afford food. While Haitians are forced to eat dirt, their government is forced to send almost $1 million each week in debt service to wealthy banks that were established to fight poverty. Over half of Haiti’s outstanding loans went to dictators like Francois “Papa Doc” and Jean-Claude “Baby Doc” Duvalier, who spent the money on fur coats, fast cars and death squads. Haiti’s poor are now repaying the loans, by eating dirt and by foregoing elementary education and basic healthcare.

Statement to the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child regarding U.S. Compliance with CRC OPAC
Feb. 7, 2008
OHCHR, Geneva

Statement made by Tzili Mor  to the CRC on behalf of WILPF

Click here to view this statement as a pdf document.

Update: 2008-02-22

Thank you for this opportunity to give voice to the experiences and concerns of members of the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom in the U.S. and their allies in 30 US-based national and local grass roots organizations who are similarly engaged in peace education and advocacy on behalf of the human rights of children.

In its report to this committee, the U.S. Government fails to define what constitutes "recruitment", and even suggests that recruitment is limited to the act of a person signing the enlistment contract.  The report ignores the concerted, targeted actions taken by military recruiters, including unchecked aggressive advertising, extravagant gift giving, and false promises of benefits and harassment of pre teens and teenagers that had to take place in order to achieve this result. In 2006, the U.S. Department of Defense spent 1.5 billion dollars on military recruitment, with half of this sum used for advertising alone. Military recruitment is a process that starts long before the contract is actually signed.

The Women’s Peace Table was created in the spirit U.N. Security Council Resolution 1325. Expanding on the Platform for Action that was established in Beijing in 1995, our goal is to weave the priorities of diverse women's organizations and communities across the U.S. into a single harmonized agenda for action: a prioritized list of policy changes and good practices that will prevent the U.S. from initiating and fueling future armed conflicts. Throughout the history of WILPF, the women in our organization have worked to create an environment of political, economic, social and psychological freedom for all members of the human community, so that true peace can be enjoyed by all. It is important that WILPF's efforts to be aligned with those of other women's organizations and communities so that U.S. women can develop a proactive peace movement that is resilient and unstoppable.

 

Updated: 2008-02-22 

The WILPF-UN Office in New York welcomes WILPF members to come to New York City to participate in the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women (CSW) taking place 25 February - 7 March 2008.

This year's main theme on which governments will negotiate policy is:
"Financing for gender equality and the empowerment of women." The Commission will also be reviewing the implementation of previous CSW agreed policy on "Women's equal participation in conflict prevention, management and conflict resolution and in post-conflict peace-building" adopted at the 2004 CSW, to identify remaining gaps and challenges.

We look forward to welcoming delegates to attend the Commission, participate in WILPF's advocacy with governments around the CSW themes and to be involved in the various side events taking place.

HELP SAVE LOVINSKY PIERRE-ANTOINE!

HALF-HOUR FOR HAITI ALERT FROM THE INSTITUTE FOR JUSTICE AND DEMOCRACY IN HAITI Last Friday, October 12, was the two-month anniversary of the abduction of Haitian human rights activist Lovinsky Pierre-Antoine.  Lovinsky has been one of Haiti’s most persistent and effective human rights activists in Haiti for almost 20 years.  He founded several organizations, including the September 30th Foundation, which has maintained weekly vigils for justice in Haiti for over a decade, through hurricanes, coup d’états and economic privation.  For more information about Lovinsky, his disappearance, and taking action to save Lovinsky's life, see our website, www.HaitiJustice.org.

Updated: 2008-02-22 

Going beyond “counter recruitment” strategies to End Abusive and Improper Military Recruitment

In 2004 – according to the latest available statistics from the Under Secretary of Defense – about 19,885 seventeen year old children joined the US armed forces, constituting 23% of all new reserves and 4.3% of active armed forces recruits.  These 14,933 boys and 4,952 girls represent a fraction of the youths targeted annually by military recruiters who have become an ominous presence in elementary schools across the country where students as young as 11 can participate in the Middle School Cadet Corps.

LOGAN, West Virginia (AP) -- The list of horrors allegedly endured by a woman at the hands of six people in a remote trailer grew during the suspects' court hearings -- leaving the woman's mother sobbing.

Reading Tuesday from a statement 20-year-old Megan Williams gave deputies the day she was rescued from the ramshackle home, a sheriff's deputy said she had been stabbed with what she described as a butcher knife and beaten with wooden sticks and fly swatters.

She said she was sexually assaulted, doused with hot water, forced to eat animal feces, and taunted with racial slurs.