This is Hamisi, an 11 year who has a career as a miner.
Hamisi dropped out of his third year of primary school and left his home village after his father was unable to pay for his uniform and school fees. Although Hamisi’s parents have their own half-acre coffee farm, their income fell sharply because of the decline in the market price for coffee throughout the world. Hamisi works up to 18 hours and earns between 60 cents to $ 1.2 a day.
The health of the children like Hamisi is very poor, as they breathe in the harmful graphite dust found in the mines and have poor nutrition, surviving on 1 meal a day.
Child slavery in big industries such as agriculture and manufacturing is an ongoing issue, and they are slowly being resolved by governments and organizations fighting child labor. Stories such as the ones mentioned above are common scenarios in developing countries where there are large sections of the population who are still deep in poverty.
Facts:
+ 8.4 M in the last 4 years alone. According to a report by the International Labour Organization (ILO) and UNICEF, the number of children in labour has increased to 160 million worldwide.
72.1 M are estimated to be in child labour in Africa. 9% of African children are in hazardous work – the highest of all the world’s regions representing 31.5 million.
1 in 5 children in Africa are employed against their will in farms and mines.
Recommendations:
Increase the number of years for compulsory education.
Create more job opportunities with higher salaries for parents.
Set a minimum age at which people can legally be employed.
Steve: “I would kill for – I would kill for sex! YES!KILL!”
The Board lights up with “KILL” as the no. 2 answer, the audience in the studio laughed, the audience at home laughed, and the video went viral of yet another successful episode of family feuds. Good job Steve, you are one hell of a host.
That night, the audience in the studio went home after a good laugh. After all, it is all good, if it is just a joke, right? But guess what, this isn’t a joke. This is a reality that many women face on a daily basis. That’s already horrendous, yet there exist an even harsher and more terrifying reality.
Meet Fadimata,
a young woman, married at the age of 18, a mother of two, and she spends her day roaming around carrying a basket over her head selling fresh produce to help support her family. She never got the chance to continue her education, but she’s doing her best to survive.
But once she gets home, that’s when her hell begins.
She gets beaten up by her husband if she doesn’t service him sexually. Let that sink in. She goes back home… only to get beaten if she refuses to sex her husband.
If that wasn’t bad enough, wait for the uppercut.
She believes her husband IS justified for beating her when she refuses sex with him.
Now imagine that is YOU…
Unfortunately, more than 60% of women in Mali believe that a husband is justified to beat his wife if she refuses to have sex with him; quite. Similarly, countries like Guinea, Niger, Burundi, Chad, Senegal, etc… also experienced a relatively high rate of women accepting that notion.
On the other hand, countries like South Africa, Albania, Dominican Republic, and Colombia had shown that the percentage of women accepting the notion of a husband being justified to beat his wife if she refuses to have sex with him is to be at 1% or less.
Drilling down into this alarming phenomenon, and trying to understand why such a phenomenon even exists, we discovered yet another factor that might play a significant role in that.
The dropout rate for female students from the educational system (especially at the primary level) is astronomically higher in countries where women believe in the notion compared to the countries where women do not share this notion.
As such, one way to combat this notion is to heavily invest in the educational sector and facilitate accessibility in order to empower women and break these hellish chains.
However, as demonstrated by Burundi, while education might be key, it is not enough. It should be coupled with awareness and empowerment campaigns in order to reinforce the self-esteem and self-worth of these marginalized female groups.
Let’s work together to make this world a better place for all of us!!!
Suicide is a severe public health problem that affects people all around the world. Every year, 703 000 individuals die by suicide over the world. It is one of the most common causes of death. Suicide kills more people around the world than any other cause (Malaria, HIV/AIDS, breast cancer, and other diseases). Suicide claimed the lives of more than one death in every 100 (1.3 percent) of people in 2019.
The World Health Organization (WHO) has made suicide mortality reduction a global priority and included it as an indicator in the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) under target 3.4, as well as in WHO’s 13th General Program of Work 2019–2023 and the WHO Mental Health Action Plan 2013–2020, which has been extended to 2030. Suicide prevention requires a comprehensive and coordinated response to ensure that the tragedy of suicide does not continue to claim lives and touch millions of people via the death of loved ones or suicide attempts.
WDI-DATA shows that the suicide mortality rate is decreasing at low rates from 2000 to 2019.
Taking Action!
Action should be taken to reduce the suicide mortality rate worldwide. What if we raised the educational level in each country? Will the suicide mortality rate decrease?
Data from the WDI (World Development Indicators) are used to study the impact of education level on the suicide mortality rate.
From the visualization, we noticed that the higher the level of educational attainment, the lower the suicide mortality rate, such as in the US and vice versa.
Final Recommendations:
Data demonstrates the importance of education and its effectiveness in decreasing the suicide mortality rate.
Education assists people in becoming better citizens, obtaining a higher-paying career, and demonstrating the distinction between good and wrong.
That’s why the law of compulsory education should be enforced worldwide.
Educate a girl, change the world – Malala Yousafzai
Being a young lady and living in Lebanon, we always heard stories of women being beaten up, tortured, or killed by their husbands from our family members or friends. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), “Nearly half of women who die due to homicide are killed by their current or former husbands or boyfriends.” Many articles are bringing to light this issue especially with the start of the Covid19 pandemic, where we have seen a spike in that subject due to quarantine and home stays.
As generations, we have progressed in many fields, but we are still lacking a lot in that domain. How is that possible? One main reason for domestic violence’s on-going presence is that, on average, 37.75% of women around the world believe that a husband is justified in beating his wife (percentage from 2000 till 2020). That’s a huge number! Many women justify this type of violence as “normal’” and give the right to their partners/ husbands to beat them. But why are women justifying and accepting domestic violence? Why is that number this high nowadays?
To dig deep into the subject, I decided to evaluate potential factors that could affect women’s decision in justifying domestic violence such as poverty levels, literacy rates, and early marriages rates around the world. It was found that:
On average, 75.96% of Female aged 15+ are literate around the world (from 2000 till 2020)
On average, 3.63% of the global population live under Poverty Gap at $1.90 a day (from 2000 till 2020)
On average, 6.78% of Female between 20 and 24 years old married at the age of 15 around the world (from 2000 till 2020)
The results showed that countries with low literacy rates in female adults have higher percentages of women who believe that a husband is justified in beating his wife (stand with domestic violence) such as Ethiopia who has a low literacy rate of 28.53% in female adults and a very high percentage of women who justify their husband’s violence (74.23%).
On the poverty level, it was found that countries with higher poverty gaps rates have higher percentages of women who stand with domestic violence such as Congo who has a poverty gap of 51.7% and a very high percentage of women who justify their husband’s violence (75.2%).
Also, when comparing that percentage with the percentage of women who married at the age of 15, it was found that countries with higher numbers of early marriages have higher percentages of women who stand with domestic violence such as Chad who has a percentage of early marriage of 29.47% (of female between 20-24 have married at the age of 15) and a very high number of women who justify their husband’s violence (67.9%).
Poverty, Literacy rates, and Early Marriages in the country affect heavily the perception of women in whether domestic violence by their partners is acceptable or not. High poverty rates increase the justification of domestic violence, low literacy rates increase the justification of domestic violence, and high early marriages rates increase the justification of domestic violence.
Increasing educational benefits in underprivileged countries would be a great initiative to increase literacy rates among women and stopping abuse among families. Introducing educational programs such as Girls’ Education by the World Bank Group which focuses on ensuring that young women receive a quality education, and raising awareness about physical abuse would also encourage the fight against domestic violence. Some countries such as Indonesia have increased the age of marriage of adolescent girls which would contribute to less early marriages, and less acceptance of violence.
Meet Denis Mukwege, medicine graduate, founder of the the Panzi Hospital in Bukavu, a 2018 Nobel prize winner for his effort “to end the use of sexual violence as a weapon of war and armed conflict.”
Now meet Thato Zungy, a school dropout, grew up to face prison after being addicted to drugs and being involved with gangsters
Two different educational backgrounds, Two different paths, Two different influence on the society
Due to the huge benefits that it brings to the individual development and the society as a whole, Education is a crucialmatter that pushed UNICEF to declare a national emergency to deal with the shocking 80 million childrendropping out of school without completing the basic schooling, despite the global efforts to promote primary education
The map below shows the top 40 countries with the highest average of Children out of school. As shown, 38 out of the 40 countries are in Africa, with Somalia recording the highest average of all (83.92)
Despite the efforts that some government make to promote primary education, some countries still witness a high average of dropouts from primary schooling. The bar chart shows the percentage of expenditure on primary education out of the government expenditure on education compared to the average children out of school. Haiti is among the top countries in Average Expenditure on primary education out of the government expenditure on education (64.9%), and still, its ranked 7th in the world with the highest average of drooped out(54.40%)
According to the UNICEF wars and disasters, discrimination based on gender, child marriage are factors that keep the children out of schools. Poverty is also considered a main barrier to education, where children are forced into employment at a very young age to accommodate the living demands. Going back to Somalia example, 43.5% of children aged 7-14 are working instead of being at school. Same with the Haiti example, despite the huge expenditure on primary education, 35.60% of children are in employment.
Solving this issue requires the collaboration of the government, schools and community
On a government level, increase the number of schools to avoid crowded classes and implement legislation that protects the right of education for every child. According to UNESCO and UNICEF new policies should focus on the most marginalized children to easy the access to education and improve its quality. This can be achieved by gathering information about the children, their addresses and if they attended school or are likely to do so.
On a community level, awareness should be spread especially among parents by showcasing the downside of dropping schools and its effect on the society
On a school level, Systemic Renewal must be adopted which is the continuous process of assessing goals and objectives associated to school policies, practices, and organizational structures as they have a direct impact on a wide group of learners.
Implementing those steps will have its reflection on the society by reducing the rate of crimes and violence and poverty, economic growth, and equality among genders as well as inspiring good health.
Data demonstrates the importance of education and its effectiveness in decreasing the suicide mortality rate.
