Today is the 20th anniversary of the UN’s Convention on the Rights of the Child.

Only two countries have yet to join the global community in ratifying this important agreement that protects children: Somalia — and the United States.

The International Rescue Committee is urging President Obama and Congress to ratify the convention without delay — we don’t want another 20 years to go by. Please join us!

Add your name to our petition at theIRC.org/rescueachild

More »

Almost 80 percent of the rapes committed in Congo are allegedly carried out by members of armed militias or the regular armed forces. Photo: Peter Biro/The IRC.

As the International Rescue Committee observes the “16 Days of Activism Against Gender Violence” campaign, Peter Biro reports from the war-ravaged Democratic Republic of Congo, where rape is used as a weapon and almost anyone who carries a gun can act with impunity.

Julie, a middle-aged woman in a small village in Congo’s North Kivu province, had just blown out the kerosene lamp and was lying in bed next to her husband when suddenly the stillness of the night was pierced by enraged shouts and the sound of a door being kicked open. Eight armed men burst into her house, wielding machetes and automatic rifles.

“They ran over to my husband first,” Julie recalled a few months later as she sat in a rural health clinic run by the IRC where rape survivors receive counseling and medical care. “They cut open his stomach with a machete and he fell over in agony, bleeding. Then two of the men raped me. When I tried to resist, they cut my arms with the blade. When they finally left, they took our goat and our chicken.”

Read the full story about Julie and the IRC’s efforts to combat sexual violence in Congo here.

Julie (not her real name) is one of countless of women who have been raped in during the ongoing conflict in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Photo: Peter Biro/The IRC.

More »

Photo Credit: Gina Bramucci/The IRC

2009 marks the 18th anniversary of the “16 days of Activism Against Gender Violence” campaign. The campaign brings together people from around the world to speak out against violence against women. The campaign begins each year on November 25—the International Day Against Violence Against Women—and continues until December 10, International Human Rights Day. These dates were chosen to highlight how violence against women is a serious violation of human rights. Over 2,000 organizations from 156 countries have participated in the campaign since 1991, according to the Center for Women’s Global Leadership at Rutgers University, which launched the event.

To mark the start of this year’s 16 Days campaign, guest blogger Heidi Lehmann, the director of the International Rescue Committee’s (IRC) gender-based violence technical unit, discusses how the IRC is making a difference in the lives of women and girls in conflict zones around the world.

When a conflict erupts, it is women and girls who are put at greatest risk. In flight, in the shelter of a refugee camp, and even in their own homes, women and girls are extremely vulnerable to sexual and other forms of violence. And when the war finally ends, the risk of violence does not disappear.

Reading today’s headlines, there are times when our instinct might be to look away. The situation seems too overwhelming to confront. In the Democratic Republic of Congo, 20 years of civil war and conflict have resulted in a wave of violence against women and girls. In Somalia, a woman who was accused of adultery was recently buried up to her waist and stoned to death. Every day, in Yemen, in Burma, in Ethiopia and in many other countries around the world, a young girl will die in childbirth. This violence doesn’t just threaten the lives of women and girls—it curtails their education, limits their opportunities and destroys their potential to be leaders.

As the 16 Days of Activism against Gender Violence begin, I salute my IRC colleagues who do not look away. The IRC is the only international humanitarian organization with a department focused exclusively on preventing violence against women and girls. Over 100 staff members in 17 countries work tirelessly in this struggle. They work under the most difficult circumstances imaginable and confront head-on on one of the most urgent and devastating human rights issue of our time.

Over the next 16 days you will hear from IRC staff members about their daily work with brave and inspirational women and girls from many countries Whether they are developing a plan to ensure the safety of adolescent girls who have been sexually assaulted, helping men to change the attitudes and beliefs that hurt women, or putting more money and resources – and more power to make decisions — directly into the hands of women and girls, my IRC colleagues create options where none existed before.

Because for the women and girls who live in conflict zones around the world the worst possible thing any of us can do is look away.

Learn more about the “16 Days of Activism Against Gender Violence” campaign.

More »

Photo: The IRC

When comercial lender CIT filed for bankruptcy earlier this month, American taxpayers lost $2.3 billion to a wasted bailout. That’s a lot of money. To drive home the point, business writer Lawrence Delevingne asked the International Rescue Committee and some other humanitarian groups how $2.3 billion could have been spent to help out in the developing world. We crunched some numbers:

- $2.3 billion could buy 378.3 million mosquito nets (@ $6.08 each) to help prevent millions of deaths from malaria worldwide

- $2.3 billion could send 44.2 million girls to school for a year (@ $52 per girl per year)

Read about more missed opportunities in Delevingne’s story in The Business Insider, “10 Really Good Things We Could Have Done With The $2.3 Billion We Wasted On CIT.”

More »

On June 5th Chet Nath’s younger brother Mona Rath, with his wife Pabitra and daughter Pratiksha, finally arrived from Nepal. Now Chet Nath’s two-bedroom apartment is shared by seven people, with Chet Nath and his family in the master bedroom, Mona Rath and his family in the second bedroom, and Tek Nath on a twin bed in the living room. Chet Nath’s eldest brother, Khara Nanda, is also in New York, living with his family in his in-laws’ apartment.

More »

12-year-old Lakot Cavine raises her hand to answer a question during lessons at Kitgum primary school. Photo: The IRC

Joanne Offer recently traveled to northern Uganda, once the scene of one of the bloodiest civil wars in Africa. Today, the IRC is helping hundreds of children and former child laborers go to school for the first time.
 
My visit to Uganda coincides with a time that many children dread—the start of the new school year. Yet as I travel from school to school, I can see that for the children here things are different

“Before I was able to come to school, I was fetching water for money,” said 12-year-old Lakot Cavine. “It was hard work and it made me tired. I worked all day in the sun. It was a long day.”

Today, Lakot attends primary school in Kitgum, thanks to a unique program run by the IRC called LEAP— Livelihoods, Education and Protection to End Child Labor. Across north and northeast Uganda, the IRC is paying the school fees of children and former child laborers, repairing school buildings, installing latrines, constructing new houses for teachers, and training teachers to become better instructors.

“Since the IRC started helping us, school enrollment has gone up,” said Nadutuka Daniela, the head teacher at the Loodoi Primary school in the district of Moroto. “The IRC is paying fees and has given materials—books and uniforms—that parents can’t afford. People are so happy about it.”

Young shepherds in Karamoja help their families by looking after livestock. Photo: The IRC

Poverty is an overwhelming fact of life in these parts of Uganda. In Karamoja, people are struggling with severe drought, the effects of decades of cattle-raiding, under-investment by government in vital infrastructure such as schools and health centers, and lack of economic opportunity.

Communities are still recovering from years of displacement—thousands of people in northern Uganda were forced to flee the brutal civil war between the rebel Lord’s Resistance Army and the government. They are only now starting to re-cultivate farms that had lain abandoned for years. A severe lack of rain this year has ruined many new harvests.

“Parents can’t provide for their children so the children end up washing cars, working in mines or even as prostitutes,” said Ojara Austin, an IRC community worker in Kitgum.

Women contribute to a communal savings and loan in Kitgum. The money can then be loaned to members at low interest. Photo: The IRC

To help parents economically, the IRC is helping establish village savings and loans associations. Parents contribute a small amount to the savings and loan every week—from as little as 50 cents to $3—and can then apply for a loan of up to three times their savings.

“I was able to obtain a loan and I am now involved in a small business in town,” said Mary Olworo, who lives in Kitgum. “I buy and sell items like tomatoes, fish and maize. Even more important, I have been able to use the money to buy school books for my children.”

To Help: The UN Convention on the Rights of the Child protects children. Only two nations in the world have yet to join the global community in ratifying this agreement: Somalia and the United States. Urge President Obama and Congress to ratify the convention without delay. Sign our peition at theIRC.org/rescueachild

More »

Photo: The IRC

The Huffington Post’s Victoria Fine interviewed the IRC’s Eduardo Garcia Rolland to mark the 20th anniversary of the adoption by the UN General Assembly of the Convention on the Rights of a Child – which is today. 

You can read the interview here. We hope you’ll pass it on to friends & family, and post to Twitter, Facebook or your social network of choice.

Please also sign our petition urging President Obama and Congress to ratify the convention — apart from Somalia, the United States is the only country that hasn’t signed on. theIRC.org/rescueachild

More »

Sarah Spencer Photo: The IRC

Sarah Spencer, the IRC’s acting director for gender-based violence programs in the Democratic Republic of Congo, was this week named one of six winners of Cosmopolitan UK magazine’s Ultimate Women of the Year awards, chosen from thousands of nominations for exceptional women from across the UK.

Spencer hopes that the award will help raise awareness and inspire readers of Cosmopolitan magazine to take action to support the women and girls she works with, who are so affected by violence and brutality in conflict and post-conflict zones.

Read more about Sarah at the IRC-UK Web site

More »

Sarah Spencer (left) and Khadija Bahram Photos: The IRC

Earlier this week, Sarah Spencer, the IRC’s acting director for gender-based violence programs in the Democratic Republic of Congo, was named as one of six winners of Cosmopolitan UK magazine’s Ultimate Women of the Year awards.

Now, Khadija Bahram — who guides an educational program that reaches 10,000 children in Afghanistan —has been named an “Adventurer of the Year” by National Geographic. You can read Khadija’s story on the National Geographic Adventure Web site.

More »