16th April: INTERNATIONAL DAY AGAINST CHILD SLAVERY

1. 16th April: INTERNATIONAL DAY AGAINST CHILD SLAVERY By Iqbal Mashi Solidarity School students

2. SLAVE CHILDREN'S LIFE

3. Keabetswe's story • Keabetswe cruises down the noisy streets of Kanye, Botswana, faking a casual confidence and trying to play the tough guy. Orphaned for as long as he can remember, Keabetswe is only 12 and does not know why his mother died. • After his mother's death, Keabetswe's grandmother took him in along with his 16-year-old brother. "My grandmother says my brother and I irritate her, and then she beats us," says Keabetswe. "She threatens my brother and me and often throws us out and tells us that she isn't responsible for our mother's death." • To escape his grandmother's abuse, Keabetswe lives mostly on the streets and is able to attend school only once in a while. But he knows that the streets are no place for a young boy. • There are nearly 2,000 orphans in Kanye alone, and only 200 come to centres. The increasing number of orphaned children in Botswana is a direct result of the HIV/AIDS epidemic, which has hit sub-Saharan Africa harder than anywhere else. Over 12 million children in the region have been left without parents and without a childhood as a result of the epidemic.

4. Ali's story • Ali, who is 16, lives in Souf Camp, one of six emergency camps built for the over 1.8 Palestinian refugees that have arrived in Jordan since 1948. Every day, he works at a falafel restaurant frying chickpea patties, making sandwiches and cleaning up. He works for six hours a day during the school year and for 12 during his summer break. • While Ali works, he can see his friends kicking a soccer ball on the dusty streets and laughing. He wants to join them, but he knows that he must work to help his family make ends meet since his father is unemployed as a result of severe back and eyesight problems. • For Ali, working long hours every day has not just meant less time to play and be young. It has literally endangered his health: two years ago he nearly lost his hand when he dozed off grinding chickpeas. Luckily, he was rushed to the hospital and his hand was saved. • The situation of the 17,000 people living in Souf is bleak, so when a project designed to teach young people about filmmaking was launched at Souf Camp to encourage self expression and youth participation, everyone got involved.

5. Martha's story • As a young child in Sierra Leone, Martha was told that she looked like her mother so she spent hours in front of the mirror, trying to imagine the mother she lost as a toddler. Martha's father, a successful businessman, showered her with new clothes every week and took her to school every morning. • In 2000, when Martha was eight years old, her village was attacked by members of the Revolutionary United Front, who were fighting against the government. When things quieted down, the village was occupied by rebels and Martha's father was forced to move to a town that was safe from rebel attack, where he would be able to rebuild his business. • With her father gone, Martha moved in with her grandmother, who made a living by selling vegetables in the market. But five years later her grandmother had a stroke and Martha had to take care of her. • One morning, she received terrible news: her father had been murdered by the rebels. "The whole world stopped for me," says Martha. "For the first time in my life I felt alone. I realised I was an orphan." • Martha is now 15 and is staying with her stepmother, a woman her father married before his death. To help her new family, Martha sells biscuits in the street market, but she longs to go back to school an her stepmother's new husband is willing to help her.

9. The map of slavery's child

10. Poverty and Unemployment Since 2000, the number of unemployed worldwide grew by 20 million. Of an estimated 6 billion people in the world, 1.2 billion live in absolute poverty. “In an apparently increasingly prosperous world, more and more people are becoming poorer.”

11. Exploitative Child Labor:Economic Development or Underdevelopment? Exploitative Child Labor Family Poverty Poor Wages and Inadequate Education Low Level of Deteriorating Unionization Labor Standards Adult Unemployment

13. Organizations Working against Child Slavery Global March Against Child Labor

14. The Kids Campaign to Build A Bullet Can't Kill A Dream Photo courtesy of A School for Iqbal.

15. MORE THAN 30 DEMONSTRATIONS AGAINST THE CAUSES OF CHILD SLAVERY HAVE BEEN HELD THROUGHOUT SPAIN AND OTHER COUNTRIES OF LATIN AMERICA (2008)‏ Drama-musical Testimony: # WE ARE PATH “SOMOS CAMINO” # A group of young people between 15 and 22 years old get us into their search for the path to follow in life. In the horizon solidarity appears to be the most valuable offer” Organised by: Christian Cultural Movement and Solidarity Youth Path

16. “CHRISTIAN CULTURAL MOVEMENT AND SOLIDARITY YOUTH PATH” • Movimiento Cultural Cristiano y Camino Juvenil Solidario • SOLIDARITY WEEKEND IN SEGOVIA Children from “Iqbal Masih” Solidarity School promote and spread a culture of solidarity by disseminating books and magazines issued by CCM’s Publishing House: “Voice of the Voiceless” African rhythm drumming and poem reciting capture the clamour of 85 % of mankind * CCM: Christian Cultural Movement (MCC: Movimiento Cultural Cristiano)‏ Children from IMSS making human sculptures that represent unfair situations. In doing so, showing their condemnation of Hunger, Unemployment and Child Slavery, * IMSS: Iqbal Masih Solidarity School (ESIM: Escuela Solidaria Iqbal Masih)‏

17. 16th April, International Day against Child Slavery. Solidarity Gathering organised by Internationalist Self Management Solidarity Party (Partido SAIn), Christian Cultural Movement (Movimiento Cultural Cristiano) and Solidarity Youth Path (Camino Juvenil Solidario)

18. 16th April International Day against Child Slavery Demonstration in PUERTA DEL SOLat 20:00 16 de abrilDía internacional contrala Esclavitud Infantil Concentración PUERTA DEL SOLa las 20 hs • THEY ARE NOT WORKING CHILDREN … • THEY ARE SLAVE CHILDREN! • 16th APRIL – INTERNATIONAL DAY AGAINST CHILD SLAVERY • JOIN US Organised by: Christian Cultural Movement, Internationalist Self-Management Solidarity Party and Solidarity Youth Path Convocan: