Wednesday, November 28, 2012

(not so) Wordless Wednesday: Not for Sale



Note:  This is the third post appearing on FAIPs as part of the 16 DAYS OF ACTIVISM AGAINST GENDER BASED VIOLENCE (November 25 - December 20, 2012). Posts appearing here will look at this issue with a focus on our most vulnerable and defenseless - our children.For All Intents & Purposes, So Glad You Stopped By!
HeB


HeB is the owner of For All Intents & Purposes. As a SwAAW (Strong-willed African-American Woman), HeB reserves the right to speak her mind, voice her opinion, and just tell it like it is. A Baby-boomer - whose voice was shaped by the Last Poets, the Funkadelics, Malcolm, Martin, incense, and black-lights - HeB's voice is not dictated by her employer, professional,social, philanthropic, academic, educational or service or organization of which she is a member or affiliated.

Tuesday, November 27, 2012

Hiding in Plain Site: The Modern Day Slave Masters

Note:  This is the second post appearing on FAIPs as part of the 16 DAYS OF ACTIVISM AGAINST GENDER BASED VIOLENCE (November 25 - December 20, 2012). Posts appearing here will look at this issue with a focus on our most vulnerable and defenseless - our children. On July 29, 2010, the President and CEO of the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children,  Ernie Allen, testified before the U.S. House of Representatives. His testimony revealed the alarming and truths of  innocence lost on Main Street, USA. What we know as "child trafficking", Allen reported, is an organized criminal illicit enterprise that preys on our most vulnerable - our children. 

At the time of his testimony, over 250,000 children between the ages of 10 to 17 were estimated to be involved in commercial sexual exploitation in the US and of that number, 150,000 were victims of child prostitution. It is important to note, that these numbers are a per year estimate and NOT a total estimate. In fact, Allen conservatively asserts that roughly 200,000 plus runaway/thrownaway girls [between 12 and 17 years old] are lured into prostitution each year.
 
These children become the slaves of their pimps, their abductors, their slave masters who more times than not, hiding in plain site. They no longer put their victims out on the corners of Skid Row, but rather use the internet to solicit their patrons. Their iron chains and shackles have been replaced by fear, drugs, false hope and the inability to simply walk away. 

 

 According to Love Our Children USA, the leading national nonprofit and prevention organization fighting all forms of violence and neglect against children in the U.S., the congressional leaders listed below have SAID NO to Child Predators. As you will note, this list has not been updated in a while as Gabrielle Giffords is listed as Representative-Elect for Arizona. So perhaps this list has increase since its last update. I certainly hope so, otherwise my congressional leaders appear to be - once again - MIA (probably over on K Street)...

Alaska
Rep. Don Young (R)

Arizona
Rep.-Elect Gabrielle Giffords (D)

California
Rep. Joe Baca (D)
Rep. Brian Bilbray (R)
Rep. Bob Filner (D)
Rep. Tom Lantos (D)
Rep.-Elect Jerry McNerney (D)
Rep. Diane Watson (D)

Colorado
Rep.-Elect Ed Perlmutter (D)

Connecticut
Rep.-Elect Joe Courtney (D)
Rep.-Elect Chris Murphy (D)
Rep. Christopher Shays (R)

Georgia
Rep. Sanford Bishop (D)

Illinois
Rep. Melissa Bean (D)

Indiana
Rep. Dan Burton (R)
Rep.-Elect Baron Hill (D)

Iowa
Rep.-Elect Bruce Braley (D)

Kansas
Rep. Dennis Moore (D)

Kentucky
Rep. Ed Whitfield (R)

 





For All Intents & Purposes, So Glad You Stopped By! HeB

HeB is the owner of For All Intents & Purposes. As a SwAAW (Strong-willed African-American Woman), HeB reserves the right to speak her mind, voice her opinion, and just tell it like it is. A Baby-boomer - whose voice was shaped by the Last Poets, the Funkadelics, Malcolm, Martin, incense, and black-lights - HeB's voice is not dictated by her employer, professional,social, philanthropic, academic, educational or service or organization of which she is a member or affiliated.

Sunday, November 25, 2012

Fighting the Good Fight: International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women

Photo Source:  Rafael Albuquerque
Note:  Many thanks to my blog Twin, From My Brown Eyed View, for the reminder that issues of import oftimes remain silent unless we lift our voices to tell!

Fifty-two years ago today, three sisters were brutally assassinated in the Dominican Republic on the orders of dictator Rafael Trujillo. The merciless killing of the Mirabal sisters, Patricia, Maria, and Antonia came as a result of their refusal to give up on their mission to restore democracy and civil liberties to the island nation.

In 1980, women activists groups inspired by the remarkable Las Mariposas (the butterflies) sisters, began to mark November 25 as a day against violence. On December 20, 1993 the General Assembly of the United Nations adopted the Declaration of the Elimination of Violence Against Women designating, this day, November 25 as the International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women in December 1999.
"Millions of women and girls around the world are assaulted, beaten, raped, mutilated or even murdered in what constitutes appalling violations of their human rights. [...] We must fundamentally challenge the culture of discrimination that allows violence to continue. On this International Day, I call on all governments to make good on their pledges to end all forms of violence against women and girls in all parts of the world, and I urge all people to support this important goal."  Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, United Nations.
During the next 16 DAYS OF ACTIVISM AGAINST GENDER BASED VIOLENCE (November 25 - December 20, 2012) FAIPs will look at this issue with a focus on our most vulnerable and defenseless - our children.

Did you know that...
Photo Source:  United Nations Violence Against Children
Over 3 million children are reported as victims of physical, sexual, verbal and emotional abuse each year...

Violence and neglect against children is reported-on average of every 10 seconds...

Each year almost 1.8 million children are reported missing - many of them abducted from their own homes and front yards...

Child violence permanently disables 18,000 children and 565,000 children are seriously injured every year...

Violence and neglect against children kills more than 3 children every day in America. Most of the children who die are younger than six years of age...

One in five children will be sexually abused by the age of 18...

97% of individuals institutionalized for violent crimes were abused as children...
Source: Love Our Children USA
It is not a stretch to surmise that abused and neglected children are more times than not the children of abused parents - generally the mothers. We must fight against the circle of pain, neglect, and violence that tears away at our families and are very existence. Sixteen days is a start....

For All Intents & Purposes, So Glad You Stopped By!
HeB


HeB is the owner of For All Intents & Purposes. As a SwAAW (Strong-willed African-American Woman), HeB reserves the right to speak her mind, voice her opinion, and just tell it like it is. A Baby-boomer - whose voice was shaped by the Last Poets, the Funkadelics, Malcolm, Martin, incense, and black-lights - HeB's voice is not dictated by her employer, professional,social, philanthropic, academic, educational or service or organization of which she is a member or affiliated.