Mercy Global Concern - 2002
Fifth International Conference on the Child
Montreal, Canada, May 2002
During the conference on the child held recently in Canada, I
focused on the Girl-Child, especially the work being undertaken
by Roshni Unavar, Head of the Programme on Sustainable Development,
Mumbai, India Roshni opened her talk with this story.
"Imagine it is 1983. The city is Bangkok. A European businessman
has bought a 7 year old girl virgin child for $ 250. The child
becomes very frightened when left alone with the man. Because
she will not do what he asks, he beats her up and leaves her for
dead. I am that seven year old girl."
- Every year 200-thousand girl children enter the sex market.
The girls are aged between 7 and 14 years old.
- At present there is a $20 billion sex industry, and it is
growing at a rate of $1million a year. There is a preference
for the girl child in this market because of the HIV/AIDS pandemic,
and therefore men are seeking safe sex with young virgin children.
- Girls who are forced or sold into this market are imprisoned
for the rest of their lives. If they are freed, they are often
infected with HIV/AIDS.
- A recent UNICEF report indicates that 130 million children
had no access to primary education; 81 million of them were
girls.
- An estimated 450 million women in developing countries live
crippled, stunted lives because childhood protein-energy malnutrition
that comes from feeding girls the leftovers of men and boys'
meals.
What Can I/We Do?
So often I hear people at conferences say - The problems of this
world are overwhelming. What can I do? I am only one person. Yes,
it's true: the problems of this world are overwhelming- for the
timid! Yes, it's true: you are only one person- but you are a
person with potential, and if each of us did just a little, we
all could become a force to change the world for good.
What woman wants to bring a child into the world to suffer as
she has, to be rejected as she has been rejected, to be deprived
and treated as less? The women is Asia, as in other parts of the
globe, are mobilizing. They are calling for protection for their
daughters. They want international laws to protect their daughters,
to put an end to child- marriages, to child labour, to sexual
exploitation, to trafficking in girl-children, to black market
sales of human organs gained by the kidnap, sale and murder of
girls.
Hope is central to human civilization. We need vigilant men
and women to continue to expose these abuses for the evil that
they are. Governments must be held accountable to eliminate this
form of slavery by providing education. Media too have a role
to play in educating people and telling them what is happening.
The girl child is a victim of history, and female children must
be freed from the male prisons of culture. Men are needed and
must play a central role in acknowledging that sex with a seven-year
old girl is wrong. Sex Tourism must be faced up to for what it
is. There is a need for a global movement and standards of practice
put in place around the globe.
The women from the majority world who attended this conference
are no different from women in the developed world. They want
their daughters to be educated. They want their sisters to become
the architects of their own lives. They are not talking about
hatred of men. They are talking about respect for women.
This fifth International Conference on the child calls the nations
of the world to unmask the suffering of girls everywhere, to face
the degradation, to challenge the situation in our world today
where some humans are considered more human than others, where
some are presumed to exist for the pleasure and the profit of
the rest of us.
What is needed to change all of this are numberless acts of courage
from ordinary people like you and me. As Robert Kennedy once said:
"It is by diverse acts of courage and belief that human history
is shaped. Each time a man or a woman stands up for an ideal,
or acts to improve the lot of others, or strikes out against injustice,
he or she sends out a ripple of hope, and crossing each other
from a million different centres of energy and daring, those ripples
build a current which can sweep down the mightiest walls of oppression
and resistance."
Deirdre Mullan RSM
Mercy Global Concern
United Nations
New York
Further information can be obtained about trafficking in women
and children by going to the UN website www.un.org
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