http://aigbogun.tigblog.org/ What's on the minds of young leaders from around the globe? en-us http://aigbogun.tigblog.org/post/528489
It is important not to confuse the texture of honey with the quality. If you feel that the quality of your honey is poor, it will not be the fault of the bee, the problem will lie with whomever processed the honey or poor packaging.

[b]Texture [/b]
In reality there are an infinite variables to the texture of honey, each flower that the bee has visited will create a different texture of honey, in addition to that the processing of the honey also affects the final texture of honey as does the amount of time the honey has been stored.
If you have been in a position to buy honey direct from a beekeeper, you will be able to enjoy honey that has come from specific flowers, your choice of hard or runny honey will be greater. Example of flowers that create texture are heather honey which will set very hard, or clover honey that will stay runny.
Large honey distributors of honey invariably elect to provide blended honey. This way their end product will remain consistent from year to year regardless of the quantity of any species of flower that has been available to the bee.
As mentioned earlier the way that the honey is extracted from the comb or sold in the comb will affect it's final texture, the main variable is how high it was heated to melt it from the honeycomb. The beehive itself if always warm inside and the honey is always a liquid, and when the honey is heated, cooled and skimmed to remove the wax, how fast the honey cools also reflects how thick the honey in the jar is.

Honey is a most useful food product, in both making foods and as a food itself. Many of us are starting to focus on healthier eating habits, better and nutritious foods, and we are more conscience about where we are obtaining our foods – honey is one of the foods and food ingredients that you can trust to meet your all natural needs, with no preservatives needed, honey is going to add to your vitamin and mineral intake!

[b]Usefulness of honey[/b]
Honey is beneficial when you are dieting, watching your weight, and when you are having digestive problems or constipated. Using honey in your daily meals will lessen your stress and improve your sleep. With increased exercise and controlled eating habits, you can lose weight, be in control of your life, and feel better about yourself all around.
we have been telling you, all about the various benefits of using honey in your diet, in your life and for your family in so many ways. Now, in the following pages, you are going to find some easy to use and outstanding recipes that you can add to your recipe book for when you want to try something new, tried, and exciting.

While this is a very short listing of recipes, touching on many of the various ways that you can use honey is what these recipes are striving to show you. If you want to learn to use honey, you can look through your recipe books, convert how much sugar is added to anything, and use honey instead! Using honey is easy when you have just a few minutes to look over your recipes and make that small change.
Honey is one pleasure that is also good for you as well. Learning to cook with and make the best uses of honey in your daily life will include experimenting on your own with honey, replacing other forms of sugar that do not add much more than that sweet taste and calories to your daily eating habits.
Look for your favorite recipes, in your cookbooks, and substitute honey where sugar is called for – and you will be surprised at how much of a difference you can make by substituting just one ingredient for another. You can treat your family to great nutritious meals by substituting sugar with honey.]]> Sat, 15 Nov 2008 05:03:00 EST http://aigbogun.tigblog.org/post/528489 6.4530556 3.39583336.45305563.3958333 http://aigbogun.tigblog.org/post/503813
Thabisile Khoza

Sekhukhune - An attempted rape suspect who was arrested when his alleged victim spotted him standing in the same queue as her at a clinic, appeared briefly in court on Monday.

The 21-year-old man from Ga-Mashegwana village in Limpopo was arrested on Friday.

On Monday, he was not asked to plead to charges of attempted rape and assault with the intention to cause grievous bodily harm when he appeared in the Sekhukhune Magistrate's Court.

He was remanded in custody until November 3 for further investigation.

Sekhukhune police spokesperson Constable Dithomo Kgaphola said the alleged victim had phoned police from the clinic on Friday.

She claimed he had attacked her at about 11:00 that day.

"She told us that she fought back and kicked him in the testicles and bit his mouth to free herself," he said.

She didn't report the matter to police immediately as she first wanted to get help at the clinic for injuries to her face.

"When she was in the queue at the clinic, she noticed the suspect join the same queue, so she quickly slipped away and called the police with her cellphone," he said.

Kgaphola said the police allowed the suspect to get medical treatment first for his injuries.

"After the doctor finished examining him we took him to the police cell," he said.

- African Eye]]> Wed, 15 Oct 2008 05:50:00 EDT http://aigbogun.tigblog.org/post/503813 6.4530556 3.39583336.45305563.3958333 http://aigbogun.tigblog.org/post/503811
Thabisile Khoza

Sekhukhune - An attempted rape suspect who was arrested when his alleged victim spotted him standing in the same queue as her at a clinic, appeared briefly in court on Monday.

The 21-year-old man from Ga-Mashegwana village in Limpopo was arrested on Friday.

On Monday, he was not asked to plead to charges of attempted rape and assault with the intention to cause grievous bodily harm when he appeared in the Sekhukhune Magistrate's Court.

He was remanded in custody until November 3 for further investigation.

Sekhukhune police spokesperson Constable Dithomo Kgaphola said the alleged victim had phoned police from the clinic on Friday.

She claimed he had attacked her at about 11:00 that day.

"She told us that she fought back and kicked him in the testicles and bit his mouth to free herself," he said.

She didn't report the matter to police immediately as she first wanted to get help at the clinic for injuries to her face.

"When she was in the queue at the clinic, she noticed the suspect join the same queue, so she quickly slipped away and called the police with her cellphone," he said.

Kgaphola said the police allowed the suspect to get medical treatment first for his injuries.

"After the doctor finished examining him we took him to the police cell," he said.

- African Eye]]> Wed, 15 Oct 2008 05:48:00 EDT http://aigbogun.tigblog.org/post/503811 6.4530556 3.39583336.45305563.3958333 http://aigbogun.tigblog.org/post/503809
Louis Brits, 20, of Mayville admitted that he had beaten up the woman after he and his friend Dirk Grobler, 23, had sex with her.

He said this was because she insisted they should go home with her and when they refused, started pushing them around.

Grobler said he had sex with the woman in her car and had pushed her away when she insisted he should come home with her.

However he claimed he had left Brits alone with her on a dark corner in the early hours of the morning and had nothing to do with an attempt to murder her.

Mother of three

A policeman earlier testified he believed the woman would not survive after he found her naked, bleeding and struggling to breathe on the street near the Maders Hotel in Mayville, Pretoria.

The woman, a mother of three young children, was now so severely disabled that she was confined to a wheelchair and could not speak coherently.

Brits claimed the victim had approached them in the hotel and insisted on dancing with them.

She then accompanied Grobler to her car, where they had sex and Brits saw Grobler hitting her.

Afterwards, she had accompanied them to a dark place around the corner, where she had sex with them both before having sex with Grobler again. No violence or force was involved, he said.

Did not want to be involved

He insisted that both of them had assaulted the woman when she started pushing them around and that he had left Grobler behind with her, but Grobler put the blame for the attack squarely on Brits' shoulders, insisting he was not involved.

Brits admitted that he had approached four vagrants who were sleeping in a doorway nearby and asked one of the men if he wanted to have sex with the woman as well.

Both accused admitted to removing the woman's car radio, but said it was the other one's idea.

Two homeless men earlier told the court how they and two friends had heard the woman being raped and beaten up.

The group had ignored the woman and left her dying in the street because "they did not want to get involved" and were afraid of the police.

The trial continues. ]]> Wed, 15 Oct 2008 05:42:00 EDT http://aigbogun.tigblog.org/post/503809 6.4530556 3.39583336.45305563.3958333 http://aigbogun.tigblog.org/post/503801
Child Trafficking Defined Here

Widespread Child Trafficking occurs wherever there are ONE of three things happening: Extreme Poverty, Political Chaos, or War.

Child Trafficking works through Recruitment, Transportation, Exploitation
Children leave their home for a FEE, or to FLEE or to be FREE. Wherever it takes place the procedure is similar: A young girl or boy is brought from one place to another by someone who enslaves them. Years of exploitation and abuse follow. In the US, the young people are usually runaways. They are recruited in malls, bus stations, shelters and online.

Children are used for: Sexual Exploitation (prostitution, sex tourism, pornography, etc.) forced labor (cocoa, coffee, diamonds, rugs, silk, etc.), illegal activities (begging, selling drugs), child soldiers, forced marriage, adoption (sales), body parts.

Child Trafficking is the fastest growing crime in the world.
UNICEF values the global market of child trafficking at over $12 billion a year with over 1.2 million child victims.

Child Trafficking is the third largest crime in the world, for Transnational Crime, just after drugs and guns.

Domestically, it occurs in every community in America. This is Slavery in the Suburbs. The FBI has determined that the average age for females entering prostitution in the US is 13.

Why are children becoming the most profitable product for criminals?
A drug dealer can sell a little bag of drugs on the street just once.
A weapons dealer can sell a little hand gun on the street just once.
A trafficker can sell a little kid on the street 10, 15, 20 a day; day after day after day.

No one is going to let go of that kind of profit, unless someone takes it from them.

This is terrorism against children.

Child trafficking is characterized by three stages:

1. Recruitment of trafficking victims take place primarily in developing countries like Asia, Eastern Europe, the former Soviet Union, Latin America and Africa. Countries of origin are generally marked by economic and political instability.
2. Transportation typically involves a complex route of travel and paid handlers. Depending on the length of transit and the political situation at the point of destination, smugglers pay widely varying prices for transport and bribes.
3. Exploitation. In the country of destination, trafficked persons are usually exploited by their recruiters for financial profit, and are sold or leased to others. Such persons usually hold their victims under conditions of physical captivity, and use force, threats, debt bondage, drugs, and coercion to subject them to different forms of exploitation. As with any illegal activity, information and data that convey the true scale of the problem is difficult to measure accurately. Typically, these children are taken – either through force or deception – and trafficked to distant places, sometimes within their own country, sometimes to foreign lands. There, they often join many other children already trapped in the commercial sex industry.

Of course, once they are taken their survival is unlikely. In fact, everything is taken away: their development, their rights to an education, to health, and to grow up within a protected and safe environment free from abuse and exploitation.

Traffickers are known to recruit their victims using a variety of methods. While abduction and kidnapping is often their tool, trafficking victims are very often trapped in more subversive ways. Typically, the traffickers promise their victims, usually girls and young women, that they will have respectable work as perhaps waitresses or domestic servants in another place or country. Traffickers may also persuade parents that their children will have a better life elsewhere: a secure job and the chance of a better education and future. In fact, they are often selling them to filthy brothels. Some of these parents or girls may even know, or suspect, that they will be sex workers, but desperate poverty and lack of both education and awareness can lead to their willingness to accept any offer – no matter the risk to the children.

What they do not know, however, is the extent of the abuse and degradation they will suffer, and the likelihood that they will be trapped in debt bondage. Either way, they go with these strangers only to discover upon their arrival in some strange land that they are victims of an evil deception. Simply put, they become slaves.

There is a difference between slavery and enslavement. In the modern world, few governments have laws providing for legal human ownership. This is the old model of slavery. So, the criminal factor takes over. The dynamics for slavery still exist, that is, the demand for enslaved human beings as a commodity, but the definitions and logistics for carrying it out have changed. Pro Slavery laws (mostly abolished throughout the world) have been replaced by Force, Fraud, and Coercion. This is enslavement.

Further, children forced to work in the sex industry are at considerable risk of contracting sexually transmitted diseases, including HIV/AIDS. For girls, there is the added risk of very early pregnancy and permanent damage to their reproductive health. Some trafficked children are also subdued and controlled with drugs to which they become easily addicted. They are then effectively trapped within the cycle of exploitation, because continuing with the work is seen as the only way to obtain their supplies.

This problem is not small or simple. It is a looming threat to children all over the world on several levels. That is why Ahava Kids works with the brave people who intervene directly in this vile trade.]]> Wed, 15 Oct 2008 05:17:00 EDT http://aigbogun.tigblog.org/post/503801 6.4530556 3.39583336.45305563.3958333 http://aigbogun.tigblog.org/post/458077 Daily Dilemmas
A typical day begins with the simple choice of when to get out of bed. Then we must decide whether to take a shower, a bath, shampoo our hair, or whether to bathe at all. How to wear our hair and what clothes to wear are other decisions to be made. Shall we skip breakfast or eat, and if so, what shall we have? How will we get to school--ride with our parents, ride the school bus, hitch a ride with a friend or walk? All of these choices must be made.
Along with such obvious decisions facing today's young people are the more serious ones that really can affect lives. One such choice could be whether to study for a test, go out with friends or spend the evening talking on the telephone. We all know which choice should be made, but will it?
Choosing what to wear may seem a mundane decision, but not in today's world of gangs that sport certain colors, brands of clothing and shoes and styles of wearing those clothes. To make the wrong choice and wear "gang" paraphernalia could be dangerous. By the same token, many people judge others by the clothes worn--not just whether the clothes are clean and pressed, but whether they are brand name or generic. A student's acceptance at school can depend on such choices.
How active students are in school also can have a big effect on their success. For example, should they participate in extra-curricular activities such as band, vocal music, cheerleading, debate, football or another sport? The time required for practice can drastically cut into time needed for studying or simple free time for relaxation with friends.
Should students have a part-time job? Here again, the time a job requires would directly affect all aspects of after-school and/or weekend activities, including time to do homework or participate in activities.
Whether to use drugs, drink alcohol or smoke cigarettes are big choices that virtually every student must face. Some go along with the crowd just to belong, but the risk of such behavior can be deadly as well as dangerous to reputations where breaking the law is concerned. Using drugs and alcohol involves other decisions, such as whether to get behind the wheel or even to appear in public and risk arrest. The "reward" of a temporary high means nothing in comparison.
Career Choices
Once students have navigated through school toward graduation, there are even more decisions to be made. Some decide to drop out of school to marry, get jobs or have children. Others go on to college, and there are other major decisions to be made. Where to go? What to major in? Whether to live on campus or commute? Who to have as a roommate or have none at all? What classes to take, how many hours to carry and at what times?
Some of these choices can be made only by the students directly affected by them; others can and should be made after much thought and discussion with parents, counselors and/or friends. But no matter what our decisions, the risk vs. the reward of our choices must be considered. And the overwhelming question that must be answered is quite simply, Is it worth it?]]> Tue, 19 Aug 2008 06:04:00 EDT http://aigbogun.tigblog.org/post/458077 6.4530556 3.39583336.45305563.3958333 http://aigbogun.tigblog.org/post/442393 The concentration of wealth and bi-polarized economic situation in Brazil results in a situation of marginality which leaves 20 million people indigent and more than 40 million children and adolescents needy or abandoned. This situation throws more children into prostitution every day. ("Use of children for prostitution and a Congressional hearing in the State of Paraiba," NGOAEs/ Interinstitutional Network Against Child Prostitution and Sexual Abuse, 6 April 1998).
In over 30 municipalities especially the larger cities, there is a noteable increase in prostitution among children under the age of 14. ("Use of children for prostitution and a Congressional hearing in the State of Paraiba," NGOAEs/ Interinstitutional Network Against Child Prostitution and Sexual Abuse, 6 April 1998).
In 1998, the economic and environmental crises such as the eight-month drought that has threatened 10 million people with hunger has led children into prostitution for their families’ survival. (Phil Stweart, "Brazil drought spurs child prostitution," Reuters, 23 June 1998)

Case
Ernesto Ramires Vieria in Porto Murtinho on the banks of the River Paraguay owns a typical prostitution establishment. It has 18 rooms, for 42 prostitutes. As many as 250 men visit the establishment each night. The owner claimed that he was proud of the high level of his 'customers' which include well-known football players, business men, actors and singers. During the 15 minutes in which he was giving the interview to the Folha reporter he received three phone calls asking that girl prostitutes be reserved for different clients. ("Child prostitutes used in 'sex tourism' in Pantannal," SEJUP #287, 17 September 1997).

Official Response and Action
Sections of a report that suggested actions against child sexual exploitation and implicated public figures, particularly Deputies and Assembly functionaries were removed from a 1998 Report. The Comissao Parlamentar de Inquerito carried out 17 public hearings, took testimony from government entities, NGOs, church organizations, human rights commissions linked to the problematic of children and adolescents, police officials, judges, functionaries of the state attorney general's office, accused individuals and family members of victims. It established the existence of organized networks within and outside of the state of Paraiba, linking the two major cities of Joao Pessoa and Campina Grande with cities in neighboring states.


The Report identified extremely serious cases of sexual exploitation in Joao Pessoa, involving in particular Maria Celestina Ribeiro de Barros and Itapuana Soares Dias—both named previously in a similar Comissao Parlamentar de Inquerito carried out by the Joao Pessoa City Council in 1993. 30 municipalities, especially the larger cities, had significant increases in prostitution among children under the age of 14. (Interinstitutional Network Against Child Prostitution and Sexual Abuse, March 23, 1998, NEWS FROM BRAZIL)
The Brazilian government is spending $1.7 million on rehabilitating an estimated 10,000 children in prostitution in the Amazon. The project is aimed at keeping children off the streets, (Social Security Network, "Brazil spends $1.7 ml on helping child prostitutes", Reuters, 12 June 1998)
In 1997 the government of the State of Mato Grosso do Sul decided to set up commissions in all municipalities to combat the sexual exploitation of children and adolescents. ("Child prostitutes used in 'sex tourism' in Pantannal," SEJUP #287, 17 September, 1997) ]]> Wed, 30 Jul 2008 05:19:00 EDT http://aigbogun.tigblog.org/post/442393 6.4530556 3.39583336.45305563.3958333 http://aigbogun.tigblog.org/post/438961
The prostitution of girls in Brazil is the direct consequence of years of economic recession, and the low status afforded to women in the country. Because women have a limited access to occupations and resources, they are the ones hardest hit during economic crises.

Since the 1960's, a massive wave of migration has occurred in Brazil. A large number of these migrants who come to the cities looking for work end up living in crowded slums. As the number of slum dwellers grow, so do the numbers of street children. Traditionally, the boys have been the ones more noticeable in the streets; however, as more extreme levels of poverty strike families and the family support system disintegrates, more girls have been forced into the streets. Journalist Gilberto Dimenstein, who has carried out extensive investigations of the lives of street children, suggests that poverty is the principal reason most girls are forced into prostitution. In his book, Girls of the Night, Dimenstein points out that some families force their own daughters into prostitution for food or additional income. "Poverty makes promiscuity look normal. Scenes such as the selling of daughters by their mothers and needle abortions, stop provoking shock and indignation. They become part of day to day life." Family problems, not unrelated to poverty, may also lead the girls to prostitute themselves. For instance, Dimenstein notes that the majority of the girls he interviewed come from broken homes. These girls faced the death of relatives, alcoholism, or sexual abuse in the home. He also notes that many girls denounced their stepfathers as their main abusers. In addition, traditional social mores may also lead the girls into the streets, as when girls lose their virginity, they are often rejected by their families. Thus, many girls see the streets and prostitution as a way to freedom from conflict and violence at home. Some girls are also fleeing boring work, and see in prostitution a way to earn more money and become more independent.

With the growth of the tourism industry, selling their bodies has become a way for poor girls to have access to the dollars of tourists. According to research done by the sociologist Marlene Vaz, with the support of UNICEF, in the city of Salvador, Bahia, young girls are brought to foreign ships that anchor by the Bahia de Todos os Santos. To avoid the scrutiny of the Federal Police, the girls head to the ships at night and leave just before dawn. According to the report, some agencies send photos of Brazilian girls to Germany, Switzerland, France, Italy. There, foreign tourists choose their companion for the days they will be staying in Salvador. The tourists pay the agency in advance in dollars.

Ana Vasconcelos is the founder of Casa de Passagem (Passage House), an organization doing pioneer work with prostitutes in the city of Recife, Pernambuco. She notes that as girls usually have few marketable skills, sex becomes the only avenue for survival. In a talk she gave in Mill Valley, California, Vasconcelos explained the lack of alternatives these young women have. "In my country the minimum wage is around $80 dollars a month. Sometimes a woman can get $200 dollars with a man that comes on a cruise ship... You have to pay rent. You have kids. You help your mother. How can you quit prostitution when you have much more money, and then survive with minimum wage? Most of these children barely know how to read and write."

In Girls of the Night, Dimenstein denounces the trafficking of girls who are forced to work as prostitutes in the Amazon region, especially in mining towns. He explains the system of debt bondage under which the girls are kept. At first, the girls are told of job openings, usually in a restaurant or a luncheonette, in faraway regions. Upon their arrival, the girls are informed they already owe the money for transportation, and can only leave after paying it. In addition, the girls have to pay rent for their room, and often receive perfumes and clothes from the owner of the brothel. Very often, the girls have no control over the money they make, as their clients pay directly to the owner of the brothel or night club for "the services" rendered. Diseases, such as malaria, are very common to the region, and when the girls get sick, and are unable to work, they have additional expenses with medication and food, making it more difficult to pay the "debt" which only increases.

In these places, the girls are stripped even further of any vestige of their human rights. On the trail of the trafficking of girls, Dimenstein encountered a brothel in the city of Imperatriz that auctioned virgin girls. He explains that as a new virgin arrives in the town, men come to the brothel and the auction of the girl takes place. Usually, sons of rich landowners are the ones to offer the highest bid and to gain the right to be the first.

Escaping from these isolated places, which very often can only be reached by plane or boat, becomes very difficult. The girls are kept under the constant threat of mistreatment and violence, and, in many instances, they find no protection from law officials. A 1992 article from the newspaper Folha de Sao Paulo denounced that in the mining town of Cuiu-Cuiu, in the state of Para, the police were receiving weekly "contributions" from owners of nightclubs keeping enslaved girls. According to the article the police were fully aware of the practices of the nightclubs, and even had a document signed by the police chief in which the names of the nightclub owners and the amount of money given by them were listed. There were also denunciations that the Military Police, following orders of night club owners, chased the victims who tried to escape from their captors, physically punishing them and even causing their death.

In large urban centers, police brutality against prostitutes is a routine practice. Usually the police arrest the girl, rape and release her. Vasconcelos denounces that some policemen have provoked miscarriages during arguments with girls in the street by kicking the girls in their stomach.

In the streets, the girls are also under the threat of disease. Vasconcelos suggests that the government shares the blame for the proliferation of diseases, especially of AIDS. She says that the girls in Recife know about the disease, usually through television, but have no way to avoid it. Vasconcelos points out that the government tends to scare people with the message of its campaign: "Be careful about AIDS. AIDS kills!" But at the same time, it does not distribute condoms, and Brazil is a country where condoms are expensive luxuries for those who are going hungry. It is important to note that social mores and the discomfort that adults have towards adolescent sexuality limit the kind of information and services offered to young women. This is an impediment to efforts that could prevent early pregnancies and the spread of sexually transmitted diseases among girls. Vasconcelos, during her first experiences working in social programs sponsored by the government of Pernambuco, took notice of the taboo surrounding the issue of prostitution. "The government did not want to work with girls. The government did not want to discuss sexuality. The government did not want to discuss prostitution."

The consequences of the negative attitudes that society has toward these girls are clearly reflected in their low sense of self-esteem that comes with the feeling of being rejected. The degree of low self-esteem and self-hatred is such that many girls respond to the general hostility against them by inflicting violence upon themselves. It is common for girls to cut themselves. This is a way to ask for people's attention. As Ana Vasconcelos points out, these acts of self-mutilation and suicide attempts are very often done around other people as a way to ask for help.

Due to the singularities that the experience of "being a girl" entails, there must be social programs specifically geared to meeting the needs of marginalized girls. In the city of Recife, Pernambuco, prostitutes find a refuge from the chaos of the outside world in the organization "Casa de Passagem," a meeting place where they can discuss the problems involved in "being a prostitute" with psychologists in private sections, and with other prostitutes in group sections. The organization also offers food and shelter for prostitutes, as well as trade classes.

"Casa de Passagem" has been recognized around the world for its innovative work with poor girls, being a potential "blueprint" model to replicate elsewhere. Self-empowerment is at the center of the organization's approach. The girls learn about their rights as children and as citizens. As Vasconcelos explains, they also learn about feminism, about women's rights and their potential as agents of social change. "You have to know that you are a citizen, that you have rights, that there is a constitution in this country, and it is up to anyone of us to make this constitution work."

Thus, at "Casa the Passagem" therapy occurs in a holistic way. While each individual experience, fear, and anxiety is shared with psychologists and other women, each girl is given the opportunity to "see" the "whole picture," as Ana Vasconcelos explains. "We begin to explain to them about history, how it comes to be, how we count on, one day something happening. So we give them an idea of life. They all become revolutionary. They all become involved in changing history." ]]> Sat, 26 Jul 2008 09:28:00 EDT http://aigbogun.tigblog.org/post/438961 6.4530556 3.39583336.45305563.3958333 http://aigbogun.tigblog.org/post/436583
Auction fraud involves fraud attributable to the misrepresentation of a product advertised for sale through an Internet auction site or the non-delivery of products purchased through an Internet auction site.

Consumers are strongly cautioned against entering into Internet transactions with subjects exhibiting the following behavior:

* The seller posts the auction as if he resides in the United States, then responds to victims with a congratulatory email stating he is outside the United States for business reasons, family emergency, etc. Similarly, beware of sellers who post the auction under one name, and ask for the funds to be transferred to another individual.
* The subject requests funds to be wired directly to him/her via Western Union, MoneyGram, or bank-to-bank wire transfer. By using these services, the money is virtually unrecoverable with no recourse for the victim.
* Sellers acting as authorized dealers or factory representatives in countries where there would be no such dealers should be avoided.
* Buyers who ask for the purchase to be shipped using a certain method to avoid customs or taxes inside another country should be avoided.
* Be suspect of any credit card purchases where the address of the card holder does not match the shipping address. Always receive the card holder's authorization before shipping any products.

If you believe you may have fallen victim to this type of scam and wish to report it, please file a complaint with us.

In addition, visit eBay and PayPal for additional security alerts and fraud prevention tips.]]> Wed, 23 Jul 2008 04:48:00 EDT http://aigbogun.tigblog.org/post/436583 6.4530556 3.39583336.45305563.3958333 http://aigbogun.tigblog.org/post/424333
Today, two main characteristics differentiate the developed and developing countries. The first characteristic is the numbing gap between the wealth of the two sides; the second is the gap in technological ideas and their impact on the well-being of their citizens. This paper is concerned with the development of ideas about technology and the impact of those ideas on economic and political development in Nigeria. The focus and significance of the paper are: (1) understanding the basic fact that technology is largely about ideas not finished products; (2) that ideas for sustaining appropriate technology in the developing countries in general, and Nigeria in particular, must be based on the building of a stable institutional framework that reinforces the acquisition of ideas about technology; and (3) that accomplishing the above requires concerted effort by the government, the business class and civil society focused on the development and utilization of basic infrastructure such as roads, energy, water supply and rail transportation. As preconditions for appropriating technological ideas from the developed countries, such efforts will result in the entrenchment of the concept of autochthonous technology in Nigeria.

THE ARGUMENT

Since independence, Nigerian policy makers have tended to think of technology mainly in the context of finished products rather than as a set of ideas rooted in the local culture with the set purpose of serving the basic needs of the people. This perception of technology focuses attention on the importation of finished products, and results in the absence of a maintenance culture, a sine qua non to the development of appropriate technology. Although businesses or individual entrepreneurs do sustain a maintenance culture, they are largely concerned with cost-benefit calculations and are less likely to engage in economic activities which are considered unnecessary for the well-being of noncost bearing members. For example, private enterprises are likely to engage in the business of road construction if they can charge tolls for the users; while, private healthcare will thrive if its profit margins exceed the costs of providing such services.

Given that entrepreneurs are self-interested rather than general welfareseeking agents, the provision of such essential infrastructures as reliable energy supply, roads and rail tracks, as well as efficient and stable institutional frameworks necessary for the development of ideas and utilization of technology, rests with the government. Effective technological development requires sustained participation of the government both as a provider of grants and as the custodian of law and order which are indispensable to the formulation of policies that facilitate such appropriations. While it is true that certain government policies benefit only a few individuals (for example, tax reductions for imported cars will benefit those with money to buy the cars), government provision of such public goods as healthcare, well maintained roads, and an efficient public transportation system invariably benefit most people in a given country. Furthermore, government officials can achieve their sometimes narrow objectives of rewarding ethnic and political supporters even more effectively by making certain that public goods are provided efficiently. For example, the existence of an efficient rural healthcare system within the country will benefit all citizens, including supporters of the incumbent regime.

In a notable deviation from its traditional support of neoclassical economic frameworks for economic development in the Third World, the World Bank argues that state capability in promoting efficient collective actions that ensure the maintenance of law and order, public health and basic infrastructure is essential for economic development.1 The Bank argues that state capability means "... combating entrenched corruption, ... subjecting state institutions to greater competition, ... making the state more responsive to people's needs, bringing government closer to the people through broader participation and decentralization"2 of government activities. For Nigeria, an institutional framework that supports education, builds and maintains roads that link the rural to the urban centers, ensures reliable energy supply and promotes the spirit of inquiry is a necessary condition for developing ideas of appropriate technology. However, given inadequate resource accumulation and allocation practices in most Third World nations, a more feasible approach would be one that focuses government policies on the provision of basic infrastructures. This will facilitate effective participation of members of civil society and encourage better utilization of available resources to bring about development of ideas rather than the consumption of already developed technological products from the industrialized nations. Participating in the development of ideas and their consequent usable products will also institutionalize a maintenance culture for developing and sustaining appropriate technology in Nigeria.]]> Tue, 15 Jul 2008 08:41:00 EDT http://aigbogun.tigblog.org/post/424333 6.4530556 3.39583336.45305563.3958333 http://aigbogun.tigblog.org/post/424331
Today, two main characteristics differentiate the developed and developing countries. The first characteristic is the numbing gap between the wealth of the two sides; the second is the gap in technological ideas and their impact on the well-being of their citizens. This paper is concerned with the development of ideas about technology and the impact of those ideas on economic and political development in Nigeria. The focus and significance of the paper are: (1) understanding the basic fact that technology is largely about ideas not finished products; (2) that ideas for sustaining appropriate technology in the developing countries in general, and Nigeria in particular, must be based on the building of a stable institutional framework that reinforces the acquisition of ideas about technology; and (3) that accomplishing the above requires concerted effort by the government, the business class and civil society focused on the development and utilization of basic infrastructure such as roads, energy, water supply and rail transportation. As preconditions for appropriating technological ideas from the developed countries, such efforts will result in the entrenchment of the concept of autochthonous technology in Nigeria.

THE ARGUMENT

Since independence, Nigerian policy makers have tended to think of technology mainly in the context of finished products rather than as a set of ideas rooted in the local culture with the set purpose of serving the basic needs of the people. This perception of technology focuses attention on the importation of finished products, and results in the absence of a maintenance culture, a sine qua non to the development of appropriate technology. Although businesses or individual entrepreneurs do sustain a maintenance culture, they are largely concerned with cost-benefit calculations and are less likely to engage in economic activities which are considered unnecessary for the well-being of noncost bearing members. For example, private enterprises are likely to engage in the business of road construction if they can charge tolls for the users; while, private healthcare will thrive if its profit margins exceed the costs of providing such services.

Given that entrepreneurs are self-interested rather than general welfareseeking agents, the provision of such essential infrastructures as reliable energy supply, roads and rail tracks, as well as efficient and stable institutional frameworks necessary for the development of ideas and utilization of technology, rests with the government. Effective technological development requires sustained participation of the government both as a provider of grants and as the custodian of law and order which are indispensable to the formulation of policies that facilitate such appropriations. While it is true that certain government policies benefit only a few individuals (for example, tax reductions for imported cars will benefit those with money to buy the cars), government provision of such public goods as healthcare, well maintained roads, and an efficient public transportation system invariably benefit most people in a given country. Furthermore, government officials can achieve their sometimes narrow objectives of rewarding ethnic and political supporters even more effectively by making certain that public goods are provided efficiently. For example, the existence of an efficient rural healthcare system within the country will benefit all citizens, including supporters of the incumbent regime.

In a notable deviation from its traditional support of neoclassical economic frameworks for economic development in the Third World, the World Bank argues that state capability in promoting efficient collective actions that ensure the maintenance of law and order, public health and basic infrastructure is essential for economic development.1 The Bank argues that state capability means "... combating entrenched corruption, ... subjecting state institutions to greater competition, ... making the state more responsive to people's needs, bringing government closer to the people through broader participation and decentralization"2 of government activities. For Nigeria, an institutional framework that supports education, builds and maintains roads that link the rural to the urban centers, ensures reliable energy supply and promotes the spirit of inquiry is a necessary condition for developing ideas of appropriate technology. However, given inadequate resource accumulation and allocation practices in most Third World nations, a more feasible approach would be one that focuses government policies on the provision of basic infrastructures. This will facilitate effective participation of members of civil society and encourage better utilization of available resources to bring about development of ideas rather than the consumption of already developed technological products from the industrialized nations. Participating in the development of ideas and their consequent usable products will also institutionalize a maintenance culture for developing and sustaining appropriate technology in Nigeria.]]> Tue, 15 Jul 2008 08:34:00 EDT http://aigbogun.tigblog.org/post/424331 6.4530556 3.39583336.45305563.3958333 http://aigbogun.tigblog.org/post/396037
Extroverted people are born with the talent of making fun in life. They can make a joke about anything they want, making other people laugh until their tears come out their eyes and their cheeks feel pain. These types of people sometimes will be self-centered and wish everybody's attention were on them. Moreover, they will be very glad if you tell them you are having the time of your life around them. With these people around you, the environment really lightens up. Sometimes life becomes easier just by listening to their jokes. Around this type of people, it is not usual to see another person with the same type of personality. Since two "jokers" will keep making fun of things and each other, at the end, it becomes a competition between them, and so it usually will end up as a big fight and they usually will not become good friends. It is more often to see people who love jokes but cannot make good ones by themselves around a fun type person.

Opposite of the out going extroverts, there are quiet thinkers who psychologists like to call introverts. This type of people observes things around them and thinks about them. They are quiet, secretive, and sometimes mysterious because they usually do not say anything that does not belong in the conversation. They can hardly make a joke and even if they tried their best and made one, it would be cold and people around could hardly giggle about it. However, since they are thinkers and observers, they can formulate questions and results easier. They can control the situation around them easier than other people can and they can give great advice if people ever need it. In addition, these people are great with ideas. They can think of many ways to solve a problem in real life and most of them work. If someone insults them, they will not say a thing. They will not curse or use their fist in front of you and make their own day miserable. Instead, they will keep silent and wait. They will wait for their chance and plan for the ultimate revenge. They will become great friends with extroverts because they are great listeners. They can sit by the side of an extroverted person and listen to him or her for hours. These two sets of people are only a handful of different personality types, but overall we have seen an abstract of what extroverted and introverted people are like.

Steps to Prevent Child Labor

Child labor and hunger is one of the principal social illnesses in my country. There are many institutes, organizations, public departments and international organizations like UNICEF whose main objective is to prevent child labor. They have many steps to prevent it and I have some ideas that can help.

First, many children left their homes in a way to avoid the abuse that they are victims of from their parents. To prevent this bad treatment, the government could help give conferences to the parents about child labor and the consequences that it brings. In this way, we can help prevent other children running away from home and living as homeless children.

Another option could be to build homes for those children that are living in the streets. They will be sent to these homes and they would not have to live outside. In this way we can help prevent children from any abuse that they can suffer in the streets. In these homes, children are not supposed to work; they can study and learn a career, and they will get a better job and a future.

Child labor is a very serious problem. Politicians should make laws to prevent child labor and find solutions. Children are our future and we have to take care of them if we want a better future.]]> Wed, 25 Jun 2008 09:54:00 EDT http://aigbogun.tigblog.org/post/396037 6.4530556 3.39583336.45305563.3958333 http://aigbogun.tigblog.org/post/396019
An estimated six million South Africans are expected to die from Aids-related diseases over the next 10 years. Based on the Department of Health’s national ante-natal survey, involving anonymous testing of pregnant women at state health facilities, an estimated 4.5-million South Africans were living with HIV in the year 2000.

Much of the reporting on Aids in South Africa has centred around the the fact that President Thabo Mbeki has in the past questioned the link between HIV and Aids.

Far less has been said about the tremendous efforts being mounted year after year around the country by local, provincial and national government agencies, as well as myriad non-governmental organisations, to combat Aids by creating awareness around the disease, promoting behaviour change and providing medical, social and economic assistance to those affected and/or infected by the epidemic.

HIV causes Aids
The government has always been unequivocal about the fact that its Aids policy stems from a belief that HIV causes Aids. A recent Cabinet statement announcing a substantial increase in state spending on HIV/Aids emphasised that “government’s starting point is based on the premise that HIV causes Aids”.

The statement concludes that “as government focuses its efforts and resources ever more intensively on the public policy challenges of HIV/Aids, it will draw whatever it can from science to use in this fight. As in all areas of science, research and debate will continue, but government is not a protagonist in those debates.”

Education awareness campaigns
Given that there is no cure for Aids, the government’s strategy focuses on prevention by promoting public awareness and delivering life skills and HIV/Aids education.

The many Aids awareness campaigns run by government and NGO partners such as LoveLife and Soul City are now bearing fruit. There is now a high level of awareness among youth on HIV/Aids – around 90% – but the pressing challenge is to ensure that this awareness translates into behaviour change.

Life skills education which incorporates HIV/Aids education is now a compulsory part of the school curriculum and is to be fully implemented by the end of 2003.

LoveLife. LoveLife is a nationwide campaign which aims to promote healthy sexual behaviour among adolescents, reduce the incidence of HIV/Aids, sexually transmitted diseases and teenage pregnancies. LoveLife uses a widespread media campaign targeting adolescents, and offers educational, recreational and sexual health services in under-resourced areas.

Soul City. Soul City uses the mass media to promote awareness around health issues. Soul City has won international awards for its success in integrating education and entertainment using popular radio and television drama.

LoveLife
Soul City
Dept of Education: HIV/Aids page
Treating sexually transmitted diseases
The government’s primary health care programme to treat sexually transmitted diseases (STDs), which increase the risk of HIV transmission, is being extended. Currently,80% of all public clinics are staffed by health care workers trained in this field.

The good news is that there has been a steady decline in the incidence of syphilis among pregnant women attending public health sector clinics. Also, antenatal surveys show that the rate of HIV infection in pregnant women is levelling off.

Reproductive Health Research Unit. A joint project of the Department of Obstetrics and Gynaecology, Chris Hani Baragwanath Hospital and the University of the Witwatersrand, and the City of Johannesburg. The unit conducts research into sexual and reproductive health, including effective treatment of sexually transmitted diseases.

Reproductive Health Research Unit
South African Aids Vaccine Initiative
Government is giving funding and other support to scientists attempting to develop a vaccine to give people immunity to HIV infection. Vaccine trials are being conducted in South Africa by the South African Aids Vaccine Initiative, part of the International Aids Vaccine Initiative.

A vaccine, if developed, will be of no help to those already infected with the virus and will also only be available several years after its creation.

Furthermore, a vaccination for HIV poses many challenges: because the HI virus incorporates its own genetic material into the host’s immune system, it is difficult to destroy the virus without destroying the immune system too. It also mutates very fast, with sub-types that vary from one geographical region to the next, from person to person and even in the same person, over time.

More information on the Aids vaccine initiative:

SA to conduct Aids vaccine trials
SA Aids vaccine 'promising'
Medical Research Council of SA
National Institute for Virology
Preventing mother-to-child transmission
This programme is being run in 18 research sites around the country, and more than 38 000 mothers have passed through it. A universal roll-out plan that will offer all HIV-positive pregnant mothers the antiretroviral Nevirapine is likely to start by early 2003.

In the meantime, the government is upholding the temporary ruling of the Constitutional Court that it remove any restrictions to the providing of HIV-positive pregnant women with Nevirapine in public health institutions and that it do its utmost to speed up and expand the delivery process.

The government has been hesitant to do so given that there is still uncertainty around the drug’s toxicity. However, guidelines on administering the drug and providing the backup services required have been given to all hospitals. A special task team set up by Health Minister Manto Tshabalala-Msimang and assisted by the nine provincial health ministers is facilitating this process.

At the 18 sites, pregnant women are offered voluntary HIV testing. Those who are HIV-positive are offered Nevirapine They are given vitamins, treatment for infections and milk formula if they decide not to breastfeed. Babies are also given multivitamins and prophylaxis for opportunistic infections.

For more information on mother-to-child transmission, visit:

Treatment Action Campaign
Medecins Sans Frontieres
Dealing with rape cases
The incidence of violence against women in South Africa is high and contributes to the spread of HIV. The government is endeavouring to provide antiretrovirals to survivors of sexual assault and those with needle stick injuries, as well as counselling and testing for HIV, STDs and pregnancy.

Treating people with HIV/Aids
In 2000 the government set up a programme to provide voluntary HIV testing and counselling. Out of 495 sites identified by the provinces, 359 are so far operational. At these sites treatment for opportunistic infections is available for both HIV-positive and HIV-negative patients.

The government is working with pharmaceutical companies to lower the costs of drugs to treat these infections. In December 2000 an agreement was signed with pharmaceutical company Pfizer to provide Fluconazole (Diflucan) to public hospitals and clinics for two years.

Funding was provided for the training of healthcare workers in diagnosing and managing oral thrush and cryptococcal meningitis. So far, about 20 000 patients have benefited from this programme.

Although antiretrovirals are not generally available in the public health sector, the government recognises that they can improve the quality of life of people living with Aids, if administered correctly – in other words, at particular stages during the progression of AIDS and in line with international guidelines.

In the belief that antiretrovirals can cause harm if not administered correctly or if health services are inadequate, the government will intensify its campaign to make sure that patients infected with HIV, TB, thrush and meningitis follow the correct treatment advice.

The government will continue to lobby drug companies to lower the cost of anti-retrovirals and investigate the production of generic equivalents. In the knowledge that poverty increases vulnerability to illness, It will also work towards poverty alleviation and provision of nutrition for those lacking it; as well as encourage investigation into alternative treatments, particularly those that boost the body’s immune system.

For more information on access to antiretrovirals, visit:

Medecins Sans Frontiers
Department of Health
Treatment Action Campaign
Care support of families affected by HIV/Aids
The government supports home-based care for people with Aids and HIV, partly because hospitals cannot cope with the number of people needing care and partly because this form of care - where the terminally ill are looked after by their families – is considered more appropriate in that it offers the sick a loving, familiar environment.

Families affected by the epidemic are being helped with foster care grants, assistance to child-headed households, food parcels and other interventions. The government has increased its budget for home-based and community-based care for people suffering with AIDS from R94.5-million in fiscal year 2002/03 to R138-million in 2004/5.

Several NGOS, some supported by government, have set up home-based care projects to help those families in need, including:

Hospice Association of SA
Palliative Medicine Institute
Treatment Action Campaign
Discrimination against people affected by HIV/Aids
The government will continue to intensify its HIV/Aids awareness campaign to combat discrimination against people affected by the epidemic. ]]> Wed, 25 Jun 2008 08:49:00 EDT http://aigbogun.tigblog.org/post/396019 6.4530556 3.39583336.45305563.3958333 http://aigbogun.tigblog.org/post/392849 Child labour is not a new phenomenon. It has existed in one form or the other in all historical periods. What is new, however, it its perception as a social problem and its being a matter of social concern.

In older days the child was viewed with a tender feeling and treated with warmth, mercy, and compassion. But the fund of knowledge about the psychophysical needs and the environmental influence impinging on his growth and development was rather meager. The mechanics and dynamics of child development were not adequately and scientifically understood. Today on scientific grounds it can be asserted that work as a direct fulfilment of child's natural abilities and creative potentialities is always conducive to healthy growth but work when taken up as a means for fulfilment of some other needs becomes enslaving in character of a social problem in as much as it hinders, arrests, or distorts the natural growth processes and prevents the child from attaining full blown personality.

The lions share of the value generated by it is appropriated by some one else and the child is left with a fraction that can not meet comfortably even the survival needs.

Child labour is thus defined as work performed by children that either endangers their health or safety, interferes with or prevents education or keeps them from play and other activity important to their development. Child labour of this kind is considered a social evil.

The problem of child labour is a multi-dimensional one as the children from a large segment of the total population. Child prostitution involving both boys and girls is very common today but female child prostitution is more common than male child prostitution.

Termed as the oldest profession, prostitution has become an integral part of 'all sorts' that make the world. Women who resort to this rarely get a sympathetic word from the society and their life is wasted away selling momentary pleasures for a meal and existence in cubby holes called 'cages'. If their plight is pathetic, worse still is that of the child prostitutes.

Today there is existence of 'kid porn' where children and not adults are chosen for sexual exploitation.

Ironically child prostitution is a special category of rigorous case of child labour and it raises more troubling ethical problems than child labour in general.

II. Extent
Many surveys have been conducted to find out the extent of child prostitution. Dr. Gilada's paper on perspectives and positional problems of social intervention" shows that,
"70% of women are forced into prostitution and 20% of these are child prostitutes."

Statistics of the survey done show:-

City Population Prostitute Population

Bombay 10 million 100,000

Calcutta 9 million 100,000

Delhi 7 million 40,000

Agra 3 million 40,000

A survey conducted by Indian Health Organization of a red light area of Bombay shows:-

1. 20% of the one lakh prostitutes are children.
2. 25% of the child prostitutes had been abducted and sold.
3. 6% had been raped and sold.
4. 8% had been sold by their fathers after forcing them into incestuous relationships.
5. 2 lakh minor girls between ages 9yrs-20yrs were brought every year from Nepal to India and 20,000 of them are in Bombay brothels.
6. 15% to 18% are adolescents between 13 yrs and 18 yrs.
7. 15% of the women in prostitution have been sold by their husbands
8. Of 200m suffering from sexually transmitted diseases in the world 50m alone were in India.
9. 15% of them are devdasis.

III. Cases
There are several causes of child prostitution but some of the most important ones are as follows:

1. Devdasi system:- many of the devdasis are the girls who were dedicated to the Goddess Yellamma by their parents at a very young age. They are the servants of God as they are married to the Goddess. This ceremony takes place twice a year. The main one is during the second fortnight of January at Karnatakas Saudatti village in South West of Miraj. Once the girl is married to a Goddess she cannot marry a mortal.

The procurers frequent the place inorder to get the fresh supplies of girls as 4000 to 5000 girls are dedicated every year to the Goddess.

Attaining puberty is a secondary thing as there is a ceremony known as heath Lawni (or touching ceremony) whereby the girl is made over to the highest bidder.

A study revealed that one third, of which three fourth are under fourteen years, are in Bombay's cheapest brothels. They belong to the low castes like Mahars, Matangs, etc. who give low priority to education. They are so poverty stricken that Fathers, brothers and husbands do not hesitate to sell their daughters, sisters and wives.

Prevention of devdasis Act has been in the statute book since 1935 and amended recently but the system continues even today despite governmental ban, Still the girls are dedicated to the Goddess and forced into virtual prostitution and made to entertain males in order to invoke the blessings of the deity.

It was estimated that in Delhi 50% of the prostitutes are devdasis and in Bombay, Pune, Solapur and Sangli. 15% of them are devdasis,

(2) It is also noticed that young and old men prefer young and new girls.

(3) Growing poverty, increasing urbanization, and industrialization, migration, and widespread unemployment, breaking up of joint family system etc. are also responsible for the prevalence and perpetuation of the child prostitution.

(4) The influx of the affluent and not so affluent people from Gulf countries in India has boosted the flesh trade in cities like Bombay, Hyderabad etc. The parents are forced to part with their daughters for as little as 2 rupees tow two thousand in the fond hope that they would get two square meals in the moneyed new world.

(5) Quick marriages without proper knowledge of the bridegroom's family background leading to a divorce initiates the gravitation of girls to the red light area.

(6) Another inaction is after rape. A fifteen years old girl was brought to Dr, Gildas Clinic as she was suffering from the symptoms of an STD she had been raped and sold by a self styled social worker. The poor girl was forced into silence by the threats of dire consequences.

(7) The children are not lured into it but are thrust into it. There was a case of a sixteen years old girl who was sold to a brothel owner by her father following incest. 8% of these girls are victims of incest because of the myth-that one of the causes for an STD is intercourse with a virgin.

(8) Many a times when a child who has lost both his parents is looked after by the relatives and these relatives too force the child into prostitution.

(9) Child marriages are a common phenomenon even today and the bride is very much younger to the bridegroom so the husband drives the innocent wife into prostitution. There is a case where a girl of 13 was married off to a man of thrice her age three months later he abandoned her and married another girl. She returned to her poor parents and three months later a man promised her a good job and took her to Bombay from where he went and sold her to a middle aged woman at Kamatipura for rupees ten thousand and did not come back to take her.

(10) Some of them are lured to Bombay the tinsel town. They dream of stellar roles in films and mostly end up as prostitutes in the cages.

IV. Who are these girls, where then they procured from? How and why?
Tribal Kolta women and girls from Garhwal hills are compelled to become prostitutes to rescue their family from debt bondage. Poverty stricken young girls from Bengal and Nepal are lured with promises of attractive jobs and marriage. The agents came to know about the existing condition in the areas of U. P. Tehri Garhwal. Dehradun etc. The local Rajputs used to keep the men as animals and exploit their wives, sisters and daughters too. The agents were successful in convincing these women well and hence brought them to Delhi and Agra and sold them to the brothels there.

The phenomenon of commercialized trafficking of their girls found an easy acceptability among kollas as Nadeem Hasnain, an anthropologist researched the Socio-economic and cultural variables responsible for the bondage. In his book Bonded for ever (1982) says. "… Centuries of exploitation and extreme degrees of material and non material deprivation and the resultant wretchedness have taken the fight out of them and they can hardly resist the temptation of getting some hundred rupees even at the cost of selling their offsprings and wives. It is an economic battle for life".

Nearly 5000 teenagers and women in a Tehsil of sangli district in South Maharastra wait for the month of June when the Arabs come and the year long poverty and hunger of these women, children, and babies is dispelled over night. The flesh trade flourishes from June to September and makes all the people connected with it happy.

In Rajashtan teenage prostitution is catching up as men sit and smoke hukkas while women fix bargains years after passing of the suppression of immoral traffic of women and children act. The children of the age group between 12 yrs to 20 yrs practice prostitution after school hours. Most of these children are later sold to the brothels of Agra and Delhi.




In big cities women procures are on a lookout for girls and they get girls from Basti, Gonda, Gorakhpur, Shahjahanpur, which are particularly notorious areas. Trilokpur police said that in a period of a year one thousand girls were sold in Doomariyaganj tahsil alone.

Nepal has a very large female population and majority of them are illiterate and are very gullible and can be lured under any pretext. They are very religious and succumb to the promises of being taken to temples in India. They are fair skinned and attractive and a promise to get them into films tempts them. There is widespread unemployment in Nepal and the girls are totally unexposed to the outer world.

About 40% of these girls are habitual bidi smokers so a little bit of the soporific can be mixed in the cigarettes for e.g. Ganja, Charas before abducting them. The Govt. of Nepal plans to ban smoking for women for this reason. The procurers find new ways of abducting them. One of the ways is giving them the 'magic paan' (betel) which is cocaine mixed, as most of the girls are abdicts of paan and beedi fall an easy prey to the cocaine intoxication.

Another bait is that of dowry which exists in reverse from in Nepal. A man can buy a bride and then he brings her to Bombay or anywhere and sells her at a brothel. Bombay seems to be an end of the rainbow when the daughters disappeared, the parents did not try to find out because they neither had the resources nor the ability to do so. They are assured that each girl can look after herself and if she does not reach so far. But when the girls started disappearing more frequently the rumours filtered back to the villages the neighbours were told that she was working in Bombay.

The parents do not accept the girls back but the money they send to them 80% of the girls crossing the Indo-Nepal border fall victims to racketeers who include Government officials of the two countries.

Girls are also brought from Karnataka, Rajasthan and Andhra Pradesh and are assaulted and raped till they submit to this shameful life.

V. Conditions
In the seamy and sordid world where each painted faced hides its own talk of abduction coercion an submission the 'gharwali' or the 'madani' rules by force and is helped by 'Goondas'. The prostitute is deprived of her earnings till the price which was paid to buy her is procured. If she utters a word of dissatisfaction she is whipped. They are kept in sophisticated cages by their owners. The child prostitutes who are minors and virgins are kept under strict vigil in reserve as they are in great demand. The Arabs and Koreans are used to paying thousands for these girls. The girls are never lodged at the same place permanently and they are shifted occasionally to a dozen of brothels owned by the procuress of their own country to avoid familiarity with the customers or police detection.

The procurer first rechristens the girl and the cautions them against revealing their real names and also disclosing there true addresses to the customers. Thereafter they are trained on the ethics of flesh trade never to turn away any customer, to treat all customers well equally courteously and superficially and never to discuss personal matters and keep themselves clean. They are also given one weekly holiday. The brothels where minor girls are kept, have two entries so as to escape during the sudden raids.

The girls have to live in a really unhygenic condition with very little food. A dozen girls have to live in a 10 x 10 room and that too without any medical check ups. These girls are forced to work round the clock. They are excused only when they are physically very weak.

Madams have quacks to treat them who dispense debilitating remedies and also use dangerous and unhygenic methods of abortion. The quacks inject coloured liquid in the infected areas as the treatment for various sexually transmitted diseases such as syphilis, scabies, venereal wart etc. making the children never totally cured thus extending their hold on them. The girls are seldom taken for treatment as sex with a minor girl is a crime so the madams are scared of the criminal proceedings.

For decades the most important red light areas have been enjoying the police protection. The policemen themselves go to the brothels for tea snacks and girls. They inform the brothel keepers in advance about the raids which are scheduled to take place.

The police, the brothel keeper, and pimps share the major part of the earnings of the prostitutes and the rest of it that percolates down to the prostitutes is a mere pittance. It is alleged that the police and abet the running of the brothels. They accept the hospitability, money and free use of the girls. The police helps the brothel keeper even by bringing back the ones who have run away. In a case where a girl named Geeta who was ten years old was rescued by a hawker after many attempts was returned back to the brothel keeper by the inspector himself on the same day.

The escapes by the victims and recovery by the police are rare. The recoveries do not account for even 2% of the actual number of girls procured it different places.

Child prostitution does not exists only in India but also in other parts of the world.

"60 sex salves all from impoverished Dominican republic were found hidden in sealed containers unloaded at the port St. Thomas in U. S. Virgin Islands. 28 of these died and survivors were weak with no identity papers. They work for 18 hrs in a day and get only 20 dollars per client."

"Millions of third worlds young women and children are sold. Sexual slavery is becoming increasingly international and industrial incharacter".

An organization of Manila which exports girls had 18 girls between the ages of 10 yrs to 17 yrs ready to be exported with same sign tattooed on the right thigh.

In Thailand child prostitution is relatively discrete and tolerated by police.

VI. Effects
Practice of child prostitution is economically unsound, psychologically disastrous, and morally dangerous and harmful on even and individual child. One can hardly imagine the extreme trauma that a child under goes. There is a case of a child prostitute who lost her speech after being raped by one who had hired her. She is now placed in a deaf mute school for speech recovery.

The case of Tulsa a Nepali girl is more pathetic. Since the age of 13 she was sold and brought by many people and shifted from brothel to brothel and was forced by five to seven men every day. In this process she ended up with many diseases. She was taken to J. J. Hospital at Bombay. She was said to be suffering from meningitis, tuberculosis of brain, bone and chest and had an STD in advanced stage. The police took over sixteen months a file a charge sheet. Finally she was repatriated to Nepal. The culprits in the Himalayan. Kingdom were tried and imprisoned for 20 years.

Child prostitutes become ready recruits for flesh trade for they are rendered unfit for any other trade or calling not being educated or having any knowledge of any other trade.

Child prostitution itself is a criminal activity and serves as a catalyst for further criminal association in other fields. The helpless children are turned into mere pawns in the criminal syndicates which lead to a steady deterioration of morals.

50m of the worlds 200m prostitutes who suffer from STD are in India and they are mostly found to be affected by tuberculosis, meningitis scabies, chronic pelvic injections anaemia, syphilis, chaneroid. Tineacrutis, vevercal war etc. This was the scars that the child prostitution leaves on the child prostitutes can not be erased but to a certain extent can be minimised by the medical help.

VII. Law and child prostitution
The Immoral Traffic (Prevention) Act passed by both houses of parliament last August come into force from Monday 26th January 1987.

Under the amended act detention of a woman for purposes of prostitution is punishable with a minimum of seven years of imprisonment and maximum of life imprisonment Equally Stringent punishment will be awarded to those procuring children for prostitution.
Earlier, the act was known as suppression of Immoral Traffic in Women and Girls Act (SITA). The name of the act has been changed and it has been made more effective and stringent. The definition of prostitute itself has been changed to include persons of both sexes. Earlier it included girls and women only. The amendment takes into account the growing menace of male prostitution especially that involving young boys.

Under the new act there are three categories of victims-children, minors and majors. The children are those upto 16 years and minors are those between 16 to 18yrs and majors are those above 18 yrs. The earlier act recognized only women and girls - a women being one who has completed 21 years. Punishment for offences committed against these categories differ in severity Offences Committed against children and minors will be dealt with more severely than those against majors.

The new act provides for the appointment of a special police officer for investigating offences with inter-state ramifications the women who are resended by the police during raids will be questioned only by women police officers and if none is available they can be interrogated only in the presence of a female representative of a recognised welfare institution or organisation. To make a search or conduct a raid too the police officer has to be accompanied by at least two police women.

VIII. Rehabilitation
Rehabilitation of the prostitutes is a big problem because people donate for different causes like handicapped people, blind etc but when it cames to helping these girls not many are willing. There is a stigma attached to this profession once rescued the girls are sent to the Remand houses or the protective houses which are overcrowded, mismanaged, without facilities or vocational training and living conditions threadbare. The Government gives an aid of just Rs. 75/- per girl per month. So the girl realises that the life before was better and so when the pimp comes to claim them as a brother or a sister she readily goes with him or her to the old life.

IX. Conclusion
Our society has not only turned a blind eye to minor girls being enticed into prostitution but also is directly responsible for the continuance in growth of child prostitution. First the demand for virgin prostitutes, and secondly it abets child prostitution by failing to provide adequate facilities for orphan and destitute children. Unless so called respectable sections of the society rise in revolt against exploitation the future of younger generation looks bleak. We have to forget the idea of once a prostitute for ever a prostitute and think how can a child help what has been done her by an unthinking adult? We have to overlook their past and rehabilitate them as one of the agencies in Bombay called Savadhan headed by Mr. Gupta is doing. They have got 30 of prostitutes who were rescued married to respectable people of the society. The IHO has been clamoring for women police to patrol red light area because policemen themselves exploit the inhabitant of the Red light area. The Government should divert more funds for rehabilitation and private charitable institutions should also contribute what we achieve in science and technology will be negated if we cannot protect our minor girls who are being exploited. The Government should severely punish the people connected with this inhuman practice should be totally banned for the good of the future citizens of our country. ]]> Fri, 20 Jun 2008 07:01:00 EDT http://aigbogun.tigblog.org/post/392849 6.4530556 3.39583336.45305563.3958333 http://aigbogun.tigblog.org/post/392139 Mr. Sani-a practicing Muslim- was sued by a group called Concerned Sharia Forum over a play- Phantom Crescent- he wrote exposing the abuses and double standards by those implementing Sharia law in 12 states in Northern Nigeria.
Northern Nigeria is predominantly Muslim but has a sizeable Christian population including those from the South who reside there. The court has ordered Mr. Sani to cancel a planned performance of the play and to stop printing and distributing copies of the play. This court case has a lot of implications for human rights, democracy and civilization in Nigeria. It is the first time such a case is brought against a Muslim who is critical of this anachronistic legal system since sharia was imposed on Islamic majority States some years ago. This court case is coming up at a time Islamic fundamentalism is on the rise in Nigeria-and around the world -with Sharia as one of its most deadly and oppressive weapons.

Allegory of the Cave Replayed

Shehu Sani said he wants to use the play to enlighten the local population on how Sharia is being used to oppress them. And practically speaking, this is a tall order, which is likely get him into trouble with the Islamic theocrats and jihadists who do not tolerate any form of 'enlightenment' that is critical of Islam. Again educationally, the Islamic majority States are the most backward in Nigeria. This is because the only form of education most people are expose to is Quranic recitation and indoctrination, which numbs and dumbs their minds making them impervious to critical thinking especially in matters concerning Islamic creeds and traditions. Quranic indoctrination has imprisoned and corrupted the minds and conscience of the local islamic population, making them easy tools for manipulation and exploitation by Islamic Jihadists and theocrats. Unfortunately most Muslims in Northern Nigeria are in the dark as to how Islam has been used to oppress, exploit and tyrannize over their lives. And a few of them who have realized the unjust nature of the system are too afraid to speak out against it.
Hence the task of enlightenment in Northern Nigeria is a dangerous undertaking because most Muslims cannot reason outside Quran and Islam. They take Islamic darkness as light, and violently oppose any form of enlightenment outside Islam, opposed to Islam or critical of Islam.
Muslims in Northern Nigeria are living in an Islamic Cave manned, managed and guarded by the armies and bigots of Allah. And as in Plato’s Allegory of the Cave, Shehu Sani in like one who was once in the cave, and who went outside, saw the light, and has come back to enlighten his people. And this case brought against him by Sharia proponents is like a resistance staged against him and his enlightenment agenda by lieutenants guarding the cave of Islamic ignorance, fanaticism and foolery in Northen Nigeria.

Human Rights Abuses

One of the ways Islamic fundamentalists have demonstrated their moral backwardness, bankruptcy and ignorance is through gross human rights violations. Islam is inherently opposed to human dignity and equality, gender equity and justice.
According to Mr. Sani, the play dramatizes the human rights violations perpetrated against women and poor people by the Hisbah. Hisbah is a bunch of jihadists masquerading as Sharia police or enforcers, funded with state money.
Human rights abuses did not start with Hisbah. It has been there since the introduction of Islam to Nigeria. Particularly since the Jihad of Sheikh Uthman Dan Fodio. The 1804 Jihad sanctified militant Islam-that is spread and propagated by human rights violations-killing, maiming, torture, oppression of women, children and poor people.
Since independence, thousands- tens of thousands- of Nigerians have lost their live to religious bloodletting in Nigeria. In March this year, a Christian School teacher from Southern Nigeria was lynched by Muslim pupils for allegedly desecrating the Koran. And last month, Islamic Jihadists attacked and killed at least 9 Christians and burnt several churches in Kano- a Sharia implementing state and an Islamic stronghold. In 2000, sharia riots across Nigeria claimed thousands of lives.
Indeed, the blood of “unbelievers”, the oppression of the poor, the exploitation of the weak and ignorant, the discrimination against women, the persecution of sexual minorities and the abuse of children have watered the tree of Islam in Northern Nigeria.
And today, Sharia has become a potent tool in the hands of Islamic Jihadists for human rights violation, oppression and exploitation in the name of Allah.Sharia has become a weapon for islamic inquisition in Nigeria.
There are no women among the Sharia court judges. Sharia does not recognize the rights of all individuals to freedom of thought, conscience and religion. It has no place for equal rights of all human beings regardless of religion or belief. Sharia accords second-class status to non-Muslims. Some Sharia States in Nigeria have carried out amputations, and have flogged convicted offenders including Christians. Some years ago, international outcry saved the lives of Safiatu Hussein and Amina Lawal who were sentenced to death by stoning for adultery. Many people convicted under Sharia law- to be stoned or amputated – are languishing in jails across Northern Nigeria.
So, this case brought against Shehu Sani in going to be a landmark case. It is going to determine the direction Sharia States want to go whether they want to come into the 21st century or remain in the Dark Age with their moral and legal anachronisms. This trial is going to serve as a litmus test of Nigeria's commitment to human rights and civilized values. It is going to provide an opportunity for the Sharia states to tell the world if they want to embrace Enlightenment, secular and open society or remain in the cave of darkness, ignorance, hypocrisy, hatred, violence, oppression, exploitation, and human rights abuses.
So in this very case, it is not just Shehu Sani that is on trial, the Sharia states are on trial. The Nigerian constitution is on trial. The Nigerian democracy is on trial. Nigeria’s obligations as a state party to the African Charter on Human and Peoples Rights are on trial. Nigerians commitment to the international human rights conventions is on trial. Human rights are on trial.]]> Thu, 19 Jun 2008 04:15:00 EDT http://aigbogun.tigblog.org/post/392139 6.4530556 3.39583336.45305563.3958333 http://aigbogun.tigblog.org/post/390195
1. Require students to use email to send at least some of their homework, papers, projects, comments, questions, or assessments. A useful assignment is to have students write and mail a narrative evaluation of a paper, reading, or class session they completed. Email can be used effectively by requiring students to submit paper topics early in the term. The professor can simply use the reply function to make comments and suggestions.

2. Use email to send students individual assignments or comments and require that they respond to the assignment (even if it means merely printing out the letter or replying to it). Comments about papers, in-class presentations, or current grade status can be sent to students, together with a request for a response. For small classes, unique regular or extra credit assignments can be sent through email only, followed, if necessary, by a brief mention in class ("Did you check your email recently?").

Commentary: Email dialog between professor and student has been discovered to have numerous benefits in addition to making sure the student learns how to use email. Here are some of them:

Students are less inhibited about asking questions, raising objections, or sharing input about the class with the professor. Many who would never speak up in class "come out of their shell" and speak frankly.
Metalearning--a student's awareness of what he or she is learning--increases, as student and professor discuss student goals, progress, and educational philosophy. Increases in metalearning have been closely tied to increases in overall learning. (That is, talking about what a student is learning helps the student learn more.)
Students emailing the professor are getting writing practice, something most of them need. Learning how to put sentences together and how to articulate one's ideas are skills enhanced by practice.
3. Require students to get assignments online. Post assignments or other information on a web page, intranet page, or shared drive folder. Particular sites with pertinent information might be mentioned in class or listed in an assignment or syllabus, with the requirement that students visit them and obtain certain information from them.
4. Use electronic reserves. Instead of photocopying materials for library reserves, put those readings on your class web page for students to read. That way, students do not have to go to the library to read the reserve material, several students can read it at the same time, and you can leave it on reserve indefinitely or update it regularly. The electronic format not only gives students practice in using technology, but it can simplify their use of the material by allowing them to cut and paste quotations with their word processor. (Note: Be sure to secure the appropriate permissions to post any copyrighted material. You may wish to ask for permission to post only to the campus intranet rather than to the Internet at large. Get all such permissions in writing and include a declaration of permission and notice of copyright on each page or document posted.) E-reserves can include documents, pictures, video, audio, or links to materials from libraries, museums, or other sites all over the world.

5. Require students to search the Internet and make use of one or more Internet sources as part of their research assignments. Books, journals, newspapers, magazines, organizational sites, corporate sites, museums, and a host of other information sources provide a truly staggering amount of useful information. (But plan also to discuss source evaluation with your students because some show a surprising lack of caution in accepting as true whatever they find. As part of their research, you might have them locate some articles on the Net relating to source evaluation or direct them to my article, "Evaluating Internet Research Sources".)

6. Require students to make use of one or more articles in electronic form as part of their research assignments. These forms are usually on CD-ROM and include encyclopedias, magazines, newspapers, and various abstracts and databases.

7. Require students to find research information through other specified technologies, such as online library catalogs, CD-ROM indexes, microform materials, videocassette sources, etc.

8. Require students to subscribe to an Internet mailing list relevant to the class and to turn in one or more useful postings together with an evaluation of it and the mailing list in general. You might even require that the students propose a posting of their own.

9. Require that all papers be written using word processing software. Require the use of some additional functions, such as headlines or subheads, font changes, drop caps, tables, graphs, inserted pictures, boxes, and so on. Help students to stretch themselves and their knowledge of how the word processor can help them present information in a clearer, more effective way. (Note: Make the requirements specific to the skill you want demonstrated. For example, "Present your data in an outlined table inserted into the text and not attached at the end").

10. Require that students use presentation technology such as overhead projectors, data projectors, presentation software, or VCR's for assigned in-class presentations.

11. Include spreadsheet and graphing assignments relevant to your course material. Remember that spreadsheets will do averages, percentages, forecasting, goal seeking, trendlines, graphing, correlation, comparison charts. A physical education class might have students graph times or scores, a business class might chart stocks. Any class that has several grades (quizzes, exams, papers, homework) can require students to keep their own point scores on a spreadsheet and turn it in from time to time. Comment: Not only will the use of a spreadsheet give students technological skill, but it will increase their number fluency, something needed by many students.

12. Require students to create their own Web pages and to post their papers or reports to them. Not only will they learn to use technology for the dissemination of information, but they will have a lesson in sharing the fruits of their intellectual labors, and perhaps be more motivated by the thought of a larger audience than the professor.

General comment: Many students take to technology avidly. But perhaps a third are less enthusiastic, and, given the chance, will avoid it. Therefore, in order to accomplish the technology-use goal, it is important to (1) make the use of technology required of all students in the class and (2) make assignments and performance expectations clear and specific, so that students know exactly what is wanted. (For example, "You must send me by noon Thursday an email describing your topic and plan of procedure, in at least three paragraphs.") Take a few minutes in class and/or in the form of handouts to instruct students how to perform the skill you want them to exhibit. As with most kinds of assignment, vagueness creates fear and loathing. You may need to take more time now for instruction than you will in a couple of years, when students are more techno-literate. But if every professor trains students a bit more, and if every professor incorporates some of these requirements in each class, students will quickly become adept with the tools of information technology. ]]> Mon, 16 Jun 2008 11:22:00 EDT http://aigbogun.tigblog.org/post/390195 6.4530556 3.39583336.45305563.3958333