For March we are featuring a new kind of NGO. In Costa Rica, talented
women artists make lovely jewelry from discarded pieces of trash.
RecyclArt then uses its profits to conduct
recycling educational campaigns around the country. And the jewelry-making
provides new incomes for the women artists.Please visit the RecyclArt
website, see the lovely work, and order from them as a way of helping women
in the developing world.
This month we also feature Eye of the Child in Malawi, an African country many of you
may not know about. Please read the website about the fine work
being done to remove Malawian girls from child labor and keep them in school
-- the alternative is early marriage or prostitution.
Malawi is one of the poorest countries in the world, ranking at 160 out
of 182 on the UN’s Human Development Index. Where is Malawi? Formerly a
British colony named Nyasaland, Malawi is a small landlocked country of
14 million in central sub-Saharan Africa (between Zambia, Tanzania and
Mozambique) that survives on subsistence agriculture.
It is possible that you first heard of Malawi because Madonna adopted
two Malawian children. Her foundation works for hundreds of thousands of
orphans (640,000 according to UNAIDS), who have lost their parents in the
AIDS epidemic. The national rate of HIV/AIDS infection in Malawi is 14
percent, with 67,000 victims dying each year.
Women and Girls At Risk
Girls are the most vulnerable group in Malawi. For most families, the priority is for girls to get married with the result that very few girls complete primary and secondary school. Other reasons for girls failing to complete
education include: girls are often needed by their parents for housework
and petty trading; and, in orphan families, girls often end up as breadwinners
for their siblings.
Eye of the Child is an exceptional program working to promote and protect
child rights in Malawi. They campaign and educate so that an increasing
number of girls complete their education. Another campaign linked to this
is their plight against child labor. According to the UN, Malawi has the
highest level of child labor in the central African region. Eye of the
Child trains child protection workers and community-based watch committees
so that they can work to identify and then move children out of exploitative
work situations with the aim of returning them to school. As Executive
Director Maxwell Matewere notes, “Our message is that every child has a
right to go to school.”
Here are a few portraits of girls who have been helped. Pilirani, aged
14, lives with her mother and 9 siblings and was withdrawn from prostitution
by Eye of the Child and returned to school. Veronica, aged 16, was admitted
to secondary school but her parents could not pay school fees so Eye of
the Child provides support. Catherine, whose family survives on piece work
done by 5 children, was married at 13 but was rescued from her illegal
marriage and is attending boarding school. Silviya, a 12 year old orphan,
lives with her grandmother and lacked clothes for school or writing materials
until Eye of the Child provided support.
Early Marriages
Eye of the Child is also working to limit early marriages and to prevent
parents from selling their daughters for dowry payments. Marriage in Malawi
is allowed from 15 to 18 with parental consent, and is only “discouraged”
for children under 15. Eye of the Child wants to prohibit all marriages
under 18 and allow marriages under 21 only with parental consent. “A child
bride has to fulfill her conjugal rights,” observes Matewere, “and this
has severe health consequences such as maternal mortality. Being young
and female is a major risk for HIV/AIDS infection with young girls infected
at a considerably disproportional rate to that of boys.”
Trafficking
The 2010 soccer World Cup, to be played in South Africa this summer, represents
a threat for Malawi’s girls. The fear is that Malawian children will be
rounded up and trafficked to South Africa for prostitution with tourists
seeking virgins to protect themselves from AIDS. Matewere notes that “Our
greatest fear is that many Malawian children could end up in South Africa
brothels.”
Malawi is one of the poorest countries in the world, ranking at 160 out
of 182 on the UN’s Human Development Index. Where is Malawi? Formerly a
British colony named Nyasaland, Malawi is a small landlocked country of
14 million in central sub-Saharan Africa (between Zambia, Tanzania and
Mozambique) that survives on subsistence agriculture.
Comments
Charles Ortega said on Wednesday, April 14, 2010:
This is really good. If you ask me I would say this is where aid should be going.