Top 5 Terrible Issues Facing Children Worldwide

5. Child Labor

An estimated 211 million children between the ages of 5 and 14 are working around the world, according to the International Labor Organization. Of these, 120 million children are working full time to help support their impoverished families.

There are millions of children whose labor can be considered forced, not only because they are too young to choose to work, but also because they are, in fact, actively coerced into working. These include child bonded laborers — children whose labor is pledged by parents as payment or collateral on a debt — as well as children who are kidnapped or otherwise lured away from their families and imprisoned in sweatshops or brothels. In addition, millions of children around the world work unseen in domestic service — given or sold at a very early age to another family.

Forced child laborers work in conditions that have no resemblance to a free employment relationship. They receive little or no pay and have no control over their daily lives. They are often forced to work beyond their physical capacity and under conditions that seriously threaten their health, safety and development. In many cases their most basic rights, such as freedom of movement and expression, are suppressed. They are subject to physical and verbal abuse. Even in cases where they are not physically confined to their workplace, their situation may be so emotionally traumatizing and isolating that once drawn into forced labor they are unable to conceive of a way to escape.

4. Child Prostitution

In Thailand, NGOs have estimated that up to a third of prostitutes are children under 18. A study by the International Labor Organization on child prostitution in Vietnam reported that incidence of children in prostitution is steadily increasing and children under 18 make up between 5 percent and 20 percent of prostitution depending on the geographical area. In the Philippines, UNICEF estimated that there are 60,000 child prostitutes and many of the 200 brothels in the notorious Angeles City offer children for sex. In India as many as 200,000 Nepali girls, many under the age of 14, have been sold into red-light districts. Nepalese girls, especially virgins, are favored in India because of their fair skin and young looks. Every year about 10,000 Nepalese girls, most between the age of nine and 16, are sold to brothels in India. In El Salvador, one-third of the sexually exploited children between 14 and 17 years of age are boys. The median age for entering into prostitution among all children interviewed was 13 years.

3. Internet Child Pornography

The internet is a virtual playground for child predators. It is a place that operates largely outside of the law. While trading in pedophile pornography is illegal, lack of adequate funding means law enforcement officials are able to investigate just two percent of their leads. Also, according to Interpol statistics, only one-half of one percent are ever prosecuted.
On a show that aired September 2, 2008, Oprah Winfrey showed a map that clearly conveyed how fast one pornographic image of a child being molested can spread. From a computer in Washington, DC, the image spread within 24 hours, all across the United States. The demand for new images and videos is so high that authorities report they are tracking increasingly brutal pornography with younger and younger victims.

2. Trafficking and Slavery

Trafficking is the fastest growing means by which people are forced into slavery. It affects every continent and most countries. Currently, children are trafficked from countries such as Bangladesh, Pakistan, Sudan and Yemen to be used as camel jockeys in the UAE. Furthermore, Anti-Slavery International also has evidence that children are also being trafficked to be used as camel jockeys in other Gulf states including Kuwait, Qatar, Oman, and also internally in Sudan. The use of children as jockeys in camel racing is itself extremely dangerous and can result in serious injury and even death. Some children are also abused by the traffickers and employers, for example by depriving them of food and beating them. The children’s separation from their families and their transportation to a country where the people, culture and usually the language are completely unknown leaves them dependent on their employers and de facto forced laborers.
According to UNICEF, over 200,000 children work as slaves in West and Central Africa. Boys are usually sold to work on cotton and cocoa plantations while girls are used as domestic servants and prostitutes. In some cases, children are kidnapped outright and sold into slavery while in others, families sell their children, mostly girls, for as little as $14.

1. Military Use of Children

Around the world, children are singled out for recruitment by both armed forces and armed opposition groups, and exploited as combatants. Approximately 250,000 children under the age of 18 are thought to be fighting in conflicts around the world, and hundreds of thousands more are members of armed forces who could be sent into combat at any time. Although most child soldiers are between 15 and 18 years old, significant recruitment starts at the age of 10 and the use of even younger children has been recorded.
Easily manipulated, children are sometimes coerced to commit grave atrocities, including rape and murder of civilians using assault rifles such as AK-47s and G4s. Some are forced to injure or kill members of their own families or other child soldiers. Others serve as porters, cooks, guards, messengers, spies, and sex slaves.

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Top 5 More Questions to Make You Wonder

5. Hands of Perón

Q: Who took the hands of Perón?
Juan Domingo Perón was an Argentine military officer and politician. During his lifetime, Perón was elected the President of Argentina on three separate occasions. He and his second wife, Eva Duarte, are immensely popular among many Argentines and are considered icons by the Peronists. After Juan Perón’s death in July, 1974, of heart failure, his body was embalmed and placed in a coffin in the Perón family tomb in Chacarita Cemetery, Buenos Aires. In July 1987, the Peronist Justicialist Party received an anonymous letter that claimed that Juan Perón’s hands had been removed from his body, along with his army cap and sword. The letter demanded that the party pay a US$8 million ransom for the items return.
After an investigation, it was confirmed that Juan Perón’s tomb had in fact been broken into and his hands were removed with a surgical instrument or electric saw. The perpetrators also took a poem from the tomb that was written by Perón to his last wife, Isabel. Following Argentina’s policy, the head of the Justicialist Party, Vicente Saadi, refused to allow the ransom to be paid. A criminal investigation was launched, but nobody was ever charged in the case and the hands of Perón remain lost to this day. In an interesting twist, many of the people involved with the case have since died under mysterious circumstances.
It has been suggested that the theft had some official support because the robbers used a key to enter the tomb. Some journalists feel that Perón’s hands were taken because they were seen as a symbol of his power and had a great cultural meaning in Argentina. People who have examined the case have written that the act may be an attempt to promote democracy in Argentina, as Juan Perón was seen as a dictator by some. In their book Unveiling the Enigma, Damian Nabot and David Cox wrote that the P2, also known as the Propaganda Due, were involved in the theft, and that they used a ritual ceremony to remove Perón’s hands.

4. Salton Sea

Q: What is the deal with the Salton Sea, Meteor Crater, lost ships in the desert, and the San Andreas Fault?
This entry will examine some bizarre geological occurrences in southern California and the Four Corners region of the United States. The Salton Sea is one of the strangest places in the world. The sea was formed accidentally between 1905 and 1907, when the Colorado River burst through poorly built irrigation controls. The resulting flood destroyed farms and communities. Currently, the Salton Sea sits directly on the San Andreas Fault in California’s Imperial Valley. It is the largest lake in California and occupies the lowest elevations of the Salton Sink.
In the middle of the 20th century, the Salton Sea turned from a freshwater lake to a sea. The Salton Sea’s salinity, about 44 g/L, is greater than that of the waters of the Pacific Ocean (35 g/L), but less than that of the Great Salt Lake, which ranges from 50 to 270 g/L. The salt is thought to have come from a prehistoric ocean. The Salton Sea is also home to a large amount of toxic run-off and industrial waste. The greater part of the Salton Sink is submerged under highly polluted water. The adjacent land is under military control and the habitat of the area has resulted in the death of millions of birds and fish.
The San Andreas Fault is a fault that runs for 810 miles (1,300 km) through California. In the past, the southern part of the fault has been the site for a large number of earthquakes. On average one every 180 years. However, such an event has not been recorded for 300 years. For this reason, researchers have become concerned that the current dams on the Colorado River are contributing to the quiet streak. If so, a large amount of pressure could be building up in the fault, which could ultimately cause an enormous earthquake.
The Lost Ship of the Desert is a legend about ancient ships found in California’s Colorado Desert. Since after the U.S. Civil War, stories have been told about buried ships hidden in the desert north of the Gulf of California. The most famous example is the Lost Galleon. The Galleon stories started shortly after the Colorado River flood of 1862. In the Los Angeles Daily News of August 1870, the ship was described as “a half buried hulk west of Dos Palmas, California, and 40 miles north of Yuma, Arizona.”
Finally, we need to discuss the Meteor Crater and its possible impact on the geological landscape of this region of the United States. Meteor Crater is an enormous hole and impact crater located approximately 43 miles (69 km) east of Flagstaff, Arizona. It is said to be “the first proven, best-preserved meteorite crater on earth.” It has been estimated that the crater was formed about 50,000 years ago, but others argue for a more recent date. The diameter of the hole is 1.186 kilometers (0.737 mi) and the impact is known to have devastated the area. Most studies on the crater examine the fact that it is an impact crater, but little is written about the predicted effect the object had on the geological landscape of America.

3. Oakville Blobs

Q: What was the gelatinous substance that fell on Oakville, Washington in 1994?
On August 7, 1994, a bizarre gelatinous substance fell on the town of Oakville, which is a small logging community on the western edge of Washington State. Over a period of three weeks, the rain was spotted a total of six times, mostly in the middle of the night. By the afternoon of August 7, the residents of Oakville began to complain of a mysterious illness. They described having difficulty breathing, extreme vertigo, blurred vision, and an increased sense of nausea. One of the town’s residence Beverly Roberts was quoted as saying that everyone in town contracted a flu-like illness that lasted two to three months. Additionally, several cats and dogs that came into contact with the substance fell ill and died.
A sample of the substance was taken to a hospital and found to contain a large amount of human white blood cells, but nobody could identify how it came from the sky. The sample was then sent to the Washington State Department of Health for further study and determined to have two species of bacteria, one of which lives in the human digestive system. Because of the findings, the substance was initially speculated to be human waste from an airplane, but that was disproven. Evidence from the sample has supported the fact that the substance was alive.
Some people have linked the strange rain with a series of U.S. bombing runs that were carried out over the Pacific in August of 1994, while others are convinced that the town was used for a U.S. military experiment designed to test a new form of biological weapon. During the event, Oakville residents reported a significant, almost daily increase in the amount of slow-moving military aircraft in the skies over their town, but not much ground traffic was observed. Before the first rain was reported, a series of black helicopters were spotted in the area.
Some people have also connected the history of gelatinous rain with chemtrails in the United States. The chemtrail conspiracy holds that some trails left by streaking jets are actually chemical or biological agents deliberately sprayed at high altitudes for purposes undisclosed to the general public. There actually is a patent (United States Patent 6,315,213) which describes a method for artificially modifying the weather by seeding rain clouds of a storm with suitable cross-linked aqueous polymer. However, the current benefit of such a process in unknown. Others have connected the Oakville blobs with the historic accounts of star jelly.

2. Hungarian Gold Train

Q: What happened to the paintings, gold, diamonds, and precious jewels stolen from the Hungarian Gold Train?
On March 7, 1944, as the Soviet Army was approaching Hungary, Hitler launched Operation Margarethe (the invasion of Hungary). At the time, the fascist government of Hungary, led by Ferenc Szálasi, was collaborating with the Third Reich, and forced over 800,000 Jewish citizens of Hungary to concentration camps. The government also took the people’s belongings, including gems, gold, jewelry, wedding rings, and anything else considered of high monetary value. In the spring of 1944, the Red Army was almost to Budapest, so Hungarian officials put together a plan to evacuate the Jewish loot by train to avoid Soviet capture.
A large collection of the valuables were placed on a 42 car freight train and sent to Germany. According to various reports, the contents included gold, gold jewelry, gems, diamonds, pearls, watches, about 200 paintings, Persian and Oriental rugs, silverware, chinaware, furniture, fine clothing, linens, porcelains, cameras, stamp-collections, and currency. In 1945, the estimated total value of the train’s contents was $350 million or almost $4 billion in 2007. In May of 1945, the train was seized in Austria by Allied troops, first the French Army and then the United States. The majority of the assets were sold through U.S. Army exchange stores in Europe in 1946 or auctioned off in New York City in 1948 with the proceeds going to the International Refugee Organization (IRO). The auction receipts totaled $152,850 or approximately $1.3 million in 2007.
In the end of the 1940s, notable objects from the train kept showing up in the possession of high ranking U.S. Army officers who were stationed in Central Europe, most notably chinaware, silverware, glassware, rugs, and bed linen. The fate of approximately 200 paintings seized from the train remains unknown. The art was deemed a “cultural assets” under U.S. restitution policy, so it should have been returned to the country of origin, but instead found its way to Austria and was lost. A huge amount of gold has also been unaccounted for.
Most of the details of the Hungarian Gold Train were kept secret from the public by the United States government until 1998. In that year, United States President Bill Clinton prepared a report which detailed the handling of the train’s assets by the United States, including a multitude of “shortcomings” of the restitution effort. In 2001, a lawsuit against the United States government was filed by Hungarian Holocaust survivors in Florida over the mishandling of assets on the Hungarian Gold Train. In 2005, the government reached a settlement worth $25.5 million. The money was allocated for distribution to various Jewish social service agencies for the benefit of Holocaust survivors.

1. Transhumanism

Q: How close are humans to achieving transhumanism?
As we move into the 21st century, people have begun to question the degree of scientific advancement in the world. There is no doubt that a large discrepancy exists in the proportion of money spent to discoveries made in the field of neurological science. In many countries, a large number of experiments are kept secret from the public in hopes of gaining a military edge. This is understandable, but it makes you wonder exactly what the human population has discovered. Could we have found a way to enhance human strength or intellectual ability? Is it possible that people could map a human’s brain and control bodily movements? Is it possible that we could eliminate aging?
Transhumanism is an intellectual and cultural movement that assumes scientists are trying to find a way to alter the human condition by developing a wide range of techniques to eliminate aging and to greatly enhance human intellectual, physical, and psychological capacities. People who follow transhumanism predict that humans may eventually be able to transform themselves to have greatly expanded abilities. If this happens, it will cause a shift in the food chain, which will brand certain human genes superior. The theory states that the current version of humanity is not at an endpoint of evolution, but rather in an early phase.
Many transhumanist theorists seek to apply technology for the purposes of reducing poverty, disease, disability, and malnutrition around the globe, rather than the improvement of humans at the individual level. Basically, what makes you better than me? The theory states that humanity may eventually enter a state of existence where natural evolution is going to be replaced with deliberate change, either purposefully or not. Transhumanists who foresee this massive change generally maintain that it is a good thing, but should be handled responsibility. The theory has been condemned by one critic, Francis Fukuyama, as the world’s most dangerous idea. One proponent, Ronald Bailey, says the “movement epitomizes the most daring, courageous, imaginative, and idealistic aspirations of humanity.”

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Top 5 Human Cannibals by Country

5. Yoo Young-chul
South Korea

Yoo Young-chul is a South Korean serial killer and self-confessed cannibal. As a child, Young-chul was an animal mutilator and was convicted of killed dogs. He was an unexpected, unwanted baby, who lived in poverty with his father, a Vietnamese War veteran. Between 2003 and 2004, Yoo Young-chul murdered 21 people, mostly prostitutes and wealthy old men. He would assault the victims and murder them with a hammer. Young-chul would then decapitate the person and dump their head at a construction site. He mutilated at least 11 of his victims and ate their flesh and raw livers.
Yoo Young-chul’s acts have been deemed the worst serial killings in the history of Korea. When asked to explain his motives, Yoo said in front of a TV camera “Women shouldn’t be sluts, and the rich should know what they’ve done.” Young-chul was sentenced to death on June 19, 2005, by the Supreme Court and remains on death row in South Korea. His case fueled the debate on capital punishment in South Korea. It appeared that capital punishment might be abolished prior to his arrest, but support for the death penalty has grown since. South Korea is one of only four developed industrialized democracies that still have the death penalty (the others are the United States, Japan, and Taiwan).

4. Alexander Spesivtsev
Russia

In 1970, Alexander Spesivtsev was born in Kemerovo Oblast, Russia. He was raised in an abusive home and had a violent father. As an adult, Spesivtsev was convicted of murdering his girlfriend and committed to a psychiatric institution, but later released. In 1991, he began a deadly murder spree. Spesivtsev killed children he saw unfit or detrimental to society and was responsible for the murders of at least 19 street kids. He took the bodies back to his house, cooked them, and ate the meat with the help of his mother, Lyudmila. After news of the horrible crimes reached the Russian media they named Spesivtsev “The Cannibal of Siberia.”
Alexander Spesivtsev was captured in 1996 after a pipe broke near his home and forced neighbors to call a plumber. The problem was determined to be coming from Spesivtsev apartment. When nobody answered his door, the suspicious plumber opened it by force. He saw blood covering the walls and called the police. In his kitchen police discovered bowls with pieces of human flesh. In the bathtub they found a mutilated, headless body. A woman was found mutilated, but still alive on the sofa. She was taken to a hospital, where she was able to tell the public prosecutor about what had happened, but died seventeen hours later.
In the house, police discovered a diary which detailed the murder of nineteen girls, but Spesivtsev is generally suspected of having killed 80 people (because 80 different pieces of bloody clothing were found). On October 5, 1999, Spesivtsev was ruled insane by a Russian court and committed to a psychiatric hospital. He remains at the psychiatric hospital to this day. Lyudmila Spesivtsev denied any involvement in the murders, but was convicted as an accomplice and given thirteen years in prison. The case remains one of the worst examples of human cannibalism in Russian history.

3. Fritz Haarmann
Germany

In 1879, Fritz Haarmann was born in Hanover, Germany. He was a quiet child and shunned by many boys’ activities. Between 1918 and 1924, Haarmann committed at least 24 murders, although he is suspected of murdering a minimum of 27 people. Haarmann’s victims largely consisted of young male commuters, runaways and, occasionally, male prostitutes. Haarmann would lure the men back to his apartment for sex and then kill them by biting through their throats. For this reason, he has been labeled the “Vampire of Hanover.”
All of Haarmann’s victims were dismembered, partially eaten, and cut into sections before being discarded, usually in the Leine River. The meat of several victims was sold on the black market as canned pork. At the time, Haarmann was an active trader in the contraband meat market. On the night June 22, 1924, Fritz Haarmann was placed under surveillance by the police after they found numerous skeletal remains in the Leine River. He was observed trying to lure a young boy to his apartment and was arrested.
Fritz Haarmann quickly confessed to raping, killing, butchering, and cannibalizing young men since 1918. When asked how many he had killed, Haarmann claimed “somewhere between 50 and 70.” The trial of Haarmann was spectacular and one of the first major media events in Germany. The term “serial killer” had not yet been coined, and the public was at a loss for words to describe him. Haarmann was referred to as the “werewolf,” a “vampire,” and “The Wolf Man.” His trial lasted barely two weeks and Fritz Haarmann was found guilty of mass murder and sentenced to death. He was beheaded by guillotine on April 15, 1925. Haarmann’s last words were: “I repent, but I do not fear death.”

2. Ottis Toole
United States

Ottis Toole was an American serial killer, arsonist, and cannibal. He was an accomplice of the convicted serial killer Henry Lee Lucas. Toole and Lucas admitted to hundreds of unsolved murders over the span of several decades. Unlike Henry Lee Lucas, Ottis Toole confessed to cannibalism and went into extreme detail about the act. From a young age, Ottis Toole was a serial arsonist who was sexually aroused by fire. In 1976, Toole met Henry Lee Lucas at a Jacksonville soup kitchen and the two developed a sexual relationship. Toole later claimed to have accompanied Lucas in 108 murders. In reality, Ottis Toole and Henry Lee Lucas helped police recover the bodies of 246 missing people and confessed to or implicated themselves in a further 430 murders.
Boiled Angel was an independent comic book by artist Mike Diana that contained graphic depictions of a variety of taboo and gory subject matters. In 1993, a copy of Boiled Angel #8 (or Ate) found its way into the hands of Florida Assistant State’s Attorney Stuart Baggish. Diana was subsequently charged with several counts of obscenity and convicted. Boiled Angel #8 included a tabloid article that is said to contain a graphic interview on cannibalism with Ottis Toole. The material is too obscene to discuss, but Toole goes into detail about cooking and eating humans with his homemade barbeque sauce. On September 15, 1996, at the age of 49, Ottis Toole died in his prison cell from liver failure. Twenty-seven years after the murder of Adam Walsh (son of John Walsh), authorities officially named Ottis Toole as the likely killer.

1. Ratu Udre Udre
Fiji

During the 19th century, the Fijian people were known around the world for ritualistic cannibalism. Udre Udre was a Fijian commoner. He holds the Guinness World Record for “most prolific cannibal.” Udre Udre reportedly ate between 872 and 999 people. He kept a stone for each body and the stones were placed alongside his tomb in Rakiraki, in northern Viti Levu after his death. According to Udre Udre’s son, the chiefs of Rakiraki would go to the battlefield along with Udre Udre and they would each give him every body part of their victims, especially the head. Udre Udre preserved the human remains and ate them. He believed that after he consumed the 1000th body, he would become immortal.

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Top 5 Symbols Whose Origins Have Been Forgotten

5. Salute

The military salute is traditionally performed by touching the eyebrow with four fingers together. Roman soldiers are thought to have initiated the procedure as a sign of shielding their eyes from the great light of their superior officers. Knights may have used it to raise their helmets as an indication that they did not intend to fight. This theory is supported by the fact that the helmet on a suit of armor is called a “sallet,” very close to the word “salute.”
The so-called Roman salute, used in the 20th century as a symbol of Fascism, has no Roman record in discourse or art. In Germany, that salute is now prohibited, punishable by up to three years in prison.

4. Fingers Crossed

Crossing your fingers to hope for good luck used to require two people – the forefinger of one to make the wish, and of the other to support it. The cross formed was a symbol of unity and strength, and was used to ward off witches. Crossing your fingers, of course, can also be used to nullify a promise. In that case, the middle finger crossing over the index finger leaves a loophole the false promiser plans to exploit.

3. Rock, Paper, Scissors

Rochambeau, or rock, paper, scissors, is played all over the world as a means of resolving difficult disagreements. In one unusual case, a Florida judge tired of endless debating over the appropriate venue for depositions to be taken and ordered the participants to settle the case by an RPS game.
In Indonesia, it is earwig, human, and elephant. The earwig drives the elephant insane. The human crushes the earwig, and the elephant crushes the human. One amazingly complex version has 101 different gestures and 5050 possible non-tied results. If you’re ready to take it to another level, consult the World RPS Society. If you find out why it is called Rochambeau, please let them know. It’s still a mystery.

2. Okay

The source of the ubiquitous “OK” or “Okay” is lost to history, but there are many theories. One is that in the 1830s there was a rash of comic misspellings and shortened communications. NG was commonly read to mean, “No go.” SP meant small potatoes, and OK stood for “Oll Korrect.”
Another theory is that the symbol represented American president Martin Van Buren, often referred to as “Old Kinderhook.” Others say that French soldiers during the American revolution would invite girls to meet them “aux cayes,” down at the docks.
Still another possibility is that bad handwriting caused the OK to flourish. It should have been OR – standing for “order received.” Others think that Obadiah Kelley, an early railroad agent, certified bills with his initials. It is often said that American president Andrew Jackson learned a similar word from Choctaw Native Americans and popularized it. What do you think?

1. XMas

Most historians agree that Christ was most likely born in the spring, when Mary and Joseph went to pay their taxes. If that is the case, why do we celebrate Christmas in the wintertime? Pope Gregory can be thanked. He ordered the absorption of other religious festivals into Christianity. Pagan celebrations lightened the burden of cold, dark winters, and evergreen trees were a symbol of hope, that spring and new life would return. It was a natural fit with Christ’s promise of resurrection.
Christmas trees as we know them probably began in the 16th century. It is said that Martin Luther, walking home at night, saw stars through the branches of evergreens and found it a beautiful sight. When he duplicated the effect by putting candles on an evergreen, the modern Christmas tree was born.
Early Christians in the English-speaking world avoided Christmas trees, seeing them as a pagan custom. They became popular in America in the 1820s among Pennsylvania Germans, and the idea spread from there.
St. Nikolaas himself actually lived in Turkey in the 4th century. Known for his kindness and generosity, he was a delegate to Constantine’s Council of Nicea in A.D. 325. His name was eventually shortened from St. Nikolaas to Sinterklaas, and to Santa Claus.
Candy canes? Formed into shepherds’ staffs in the 1700s to transform a simple candy into a Christian symbol. Holly? Christ’s crown of thorns. Gift-giving? What the Wise Men started. Carols? What the angels sang. A star atop the tree? The new star said to have been first seen on the night of Christ’s birth.
Many well-meaning Christians are upset by Xmas, rather than Christmas, on Christmas cards and greetings. They see the X as a way to “take Christ out of Christmas.” Actually, the opposite is true. X is the Greek letter Chi, the first letter of the word Christ. It was used originally to prevent the disrespectful overuse of the Savior’s title in greetings and correspondence.

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