Celebrate Human Rights Day

10 DECEMBER. I dag, på FN:s dag för Mänskliga rättigheter, lyssnar vi på Jeanne. 14 år. Hennes mänskliga rättigheter – som barn och som flicka – har kränkts sedan hon var tio år gammal:
– Jag har blivit sexuellt utnyttjad i fyra år, nära ingången till ett stort militärläger här i Bukavu. Jag arbetar i receptionen och om det kommer en pojke elle kund som är intresserad av just mig, så går vi in i ett rum. Där kommer vi överens om priset för sex.
Jeanne told her story when she took part in a training to become a World’s Children’s Prize Child Rights Ambassador. We are proud of Jeanne and her resolve to fight for child rights, especially girls’ rights. But she ca not do it alone. Around every child who is sold and exploited, there are many adults earning money from their misery. World’s Children’s Prize Laurete 2013, Sompop Jantraka, calls it a ‘blood sucking cycle’ where adults suck every penny they can get out of the children. This includes human traffickers who are linked to criminal gangs – they earn money by buying and selling children like commodities. But it also includes bank officers lending money to brothel owners and trafficking networks to earn interest, police officers, border guards and civil servants who take bribes to turn a blind eye to trafficking, and politicians who, for example, treat traffickers and mobsters well in return for donations to election campaigns. And soldiers, who instead of protecting children like Jeanne, abuse them. Because people on every level in society is involved in human rights violations, we need you and countless others from all parts of society to join in the fight for human rights.

Jeanne was trained through our local partner Yes Africa in the project Rights and Democracy for One million Girls. She, and other Child Rights Ambassadors have gone on to train other girls – and boys – in their local communities. So far, more than 500,000 girls have been reached in she project, that is implemented in partnership with ECPAT Sweden and local NGOs around the world. It is funded in full by the Swedish PostCode Lottery Svenska PostkodLotteriet).