Latest Updates: children RSS
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thabet
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thabet
US judge grants asylum to German home schoolers:
The reason for that fear has rarely, if ever, been the basis of an asylum case. The parents, Uwe and Hannelore Romeike, want to home-school their five children, ranging in age from 2 to 12, a practice illegal in their native land, Germany.
[...]
The family has been here for some time, having left Germany in 2008. But it was not until Jan. 26 that a federal immigration judge in Memphis granted them political asylum, ruling that they had a reasonable fear of persecution for their beliefs if they returned.
In a harshly worded decision, the judge, Lawrence O. Burman, denounced the German policy, calling it “utterly repellent to everything we believe as Americans,” and expressed shock at the heavy fines and other penalties the government has levied on home-schooling parents, including taking custody of their children.
(Via @sepoy.)
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johnpi
Hijaabified Beauty takes on child abuse in the Muslim community:
A while ago, I wrote a very personal post which was deleted very soon after I published it. You see, I have a dark secret that I have kept to myself for much of my life. A secret that I wish I had the courage to share with someone close to me. One that has, in my mind robbed me of the innocence of childhood. I was a victim of sexual abuse.
I am not writing this post to gain some sort of pity, or to be encouraged by my readers to tell someone I know, or even to confront my abusers. I am writing this post to alert parents. Most instances of child molestation are committed by individuals that are close to the child or family. The offender is often a family member…someone who has easy access to the child, and someone who the child is relatively comfortable around. Unfortunately, this was true in my case.
It pains me to say this, but parents need to stop being so trusting of their relatives. It is important that if you leave your child home with a relative that you ask your child what they did with their uncle (for example). Children are innocent, they will tell you. I wish till this day that my mother would have forsaken all political correctness and politeness and that she had explained to me what a good touch and bad touch was so that I might have been able to salvage my childhood.
….And don’t for a second think that we are free from such a fitna because we are Muslim. Child molestation is big problem in our communities…it just doesn’t get talked about. I want to change that. Start talking…to your child, your neighbor, a family member, your shaykh or community member. Make the community aware of this horrible problem.
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arif
Saudi cleric claims there is no religious justification for child marriage. Not that they own a monopoly over world’s diverse Muslim cultural practices, but whatever helps.
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johnpi
Child porn fears block under 18s from full body scanners.
Airport security personnel in British airports have been barred from scanning passengers under 18 years old with the newly adopted full body scanners due to warnings that the new devices may breach child pornography laws.
The full-body scanners adopted by British airports in the wake of the failed Christmas Day bombing attempt have come under fire over fears that the graphic images produced by the x-ray machines may violate child pornography laws.
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koonj
Delightful. Austrian schoolgirls set their Muslim classmate’s hijab ablaze. (Hat-tip Yakoub Islam)
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fathima
Has anyone else seen the BBC film White Girl? Thoughts? You can watch the whole thing on YouTube (approximately 90min).
The official BBC write-up is as follows:
“This provocative and emotive drama from the Bafta Award-winning writer of Sex Traffic tells the story of the clash of cultures that occurs when a white family relocates from Leeds to an otherwise wholly Asian community in Bradford.
Abi Morgan’s compelling film is told from the perspective of 11-year-old Leah, played by newcomer Holly Kenny, whose world is turned upside down when her mum Debbie (Bleak House’s Anna Maxwell Martin) moves the family to Bradford to escape the fallout from her recent relationship break-up.
Leah becomes friends with her neighbour Yasmin and discovers that the culture she was initially intimidated by isn’t so alien after all. She is soon seeking sanctuary in the rituals of Islam, away from the pain and strife at home. But this innocent fascination turns sour for Debbie when her daughter comes home wearing a hijab, and the family’s violent reaction has explosive consequences for everyone.
And then there’s a review at Times Online which is ridiculous.
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thabet
Egypt’s ‘marriage (sex) tourism’ problem:
The marriages last any amount of time, from a couple of hours to years. Often they are simply a pretext for the man to have sex with the girl legally, while sometimes the man will take the girl back to his country, where they often serve as maids to other wives.
Last week, Moushira Khattab, the new minister of family and population, launched a campaign against underage marriages to Arab tourists in the villages of Cairo’s 6th of October Province, about 40 kilometres south of the city, known for their high levels of poverty and unemployment and where marriage tourism is rife.
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thabet
Young BNP recruits explain their views on Muslims:
His leaflets explained that the movement provided advice to young people on dealing with “anti-white discrimination”. He said: “My problem is with the indoctrination of Islam. I admit not all Muslims are evil, but I feel Islam is.”
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johnpi
A full nearly seven minute video of a frightened, tearful Fathima Rifqa Bary has been posted to youtube by Pamela Gellar. Bary is the 17-year-old Sri Lankan teenager who ran away from her Muslim family in Ohio to live with a Christian preacher in Florida, claiming her family might commit an “honor killing” because they found out she converted to Christianity. Such a killing would be required for her family “to show love for Allah,” she explains to reporters.
There is something really weird and distorted about this. She has apostasized, but there have been no assertions about issues arising from her apostate status. She and those around her have exclusively harped on the buzz word ‘honor killings,’ with her attorney declaring, “She could be killed in an honor killing. Unfortunately it happens every day in the U.S.”
As Richard Bartholomew has pointed out, she has an odd description of ‘honor killing:’
The girl gives a rather strange interpretation of what an “honour killing” is for; rather than being the remedy for a perceived dishonour suffered by a family, she tells the journalist that to kill her would be an especially ”great honour” because she is the first Christian in her family for “150 generations” and it would show her family’s love for Allah (Lorenz concurs with a “yes” at 5:03). This seems to me to be a garbled “Christianized” understanding of the phenomenon, making it into something like a human sacrifice. Her claim that Muslim converts to Christianity in Sri Lanka (where Muslims are a minority) are confined to a mental hospital is not one that I have seen reported anywhere else.
Here’s a local news report that includes interviews with her family members.
The parents attorney has issued a statement that included this:
If this case is perceived as a clash of religions, it is because Mr. Lorenz [the preacher] recklessly and without authorization put someone else’s child in front of television cameras to publicly renounce her previous faith.
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thabet
Online social networking sites are bad for young children, says Britain’s highest ranked Catholic clergyman:
Archbishop Vincent Nichols said the sites are leading teenagers to build “transient relationships” which leave them unable to cope when their social networks collapse. He said the internet and mobile phones were “dehumanising” community life.
(Via Ruth Gledhill.)
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thabet
Richard Dawkins doing his best to turn atheism into a full blown religion:
On a more serious note, this is tacit acceptance that people need to be schooled into a tradition which allows them to begin an inquiry.
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thabet
A Swedish city will no longer supply food to schools ‘based on ethical and religious grounds, such as halal meat’.
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thabet
The Only Democracy In The Middle East:
Witnesses in the village said Israeli soldiers stormed dozens of houses, detaining Dawood Mohammad Najeeb, 12, Abdullah Hassan Najeeb, Shararah Hassan Mahmood Najeeb, 11, and Mahmoud Kareem Najeeb, 12.
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johnpi
Westoxification: Boy chosen by Dalai Lama turns back on Buddhist order.
The boy chosen by the Dalai Lama as a reincarnation of a spiritual leader has caused consternation – and some embarrassment – for Tibetan Buddhists by turning his back on the order that had such high hopes for him.
Instead of leading a monastic life, Osel Hita Torres now sports baggy trousers and long hair, and is more likely to quote Jimi Hendrix than Buddha. Yesterday he bemoaned the misery of a youth deprived of television, football and girls. …
He is now studying film in Madrid and has denounced the Buddhist order that elevated him to guru status. “They took me away from my family and stuck me in a medieval situation in which I suffered a great deal,” said Torres, 24, describing how he was whisked from obscurity in Granada to a monastery in southern India.
By 18, he had never seen couples kiss. His first disco experience was a shock. “I was amazed to watch everyone dance. What were all those people doing, bouncing, stuck to one another, enclosed in a box full of smoke?”
Sounds like a Muslim guy I know…
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thabet
“I was groomed for jihad in Britain”, says this 15 (now 18) year old.
And it always funny to read the thoughts of British expats from Spain (or Australia, or New Zealand, or even Dubai) on these sorts of stories, especially when their complaint can essentially be reduced to talk of ‘foreigners taking over Britain’, such as this prat who currently lives in Alicante:
These “foreigners” should have reduced rights !
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thabet
Foreign Policy has an article asking us to think again about child soldiers.
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johnpi
There is a powerful societal expectation for a man to marry and have a family in Syria, and most gay men will eventually marry a woman to ease this pressure and to fulfill their own desire for a family. Even Fadi, who believes that gay men who claim to be “bisexual” are under an illusion, hopes to somehow find a way to be both gay and married to a woman.
“The gay men here say the life of the family is on one side, and gay life on the other side,” he says. “I want to have a family, I want children; maybe I can still get married even if she knows that I’m actually gay.”
Once married, many gay men continue to live a secret second life with other men.
Throughout the world there are different perceptions of what it means to be gay, and it is apparent that the traditional gay-straight binary is not sufficient in describing sexual identity in Syria.
Some men who consider themselves straight may turn to homosexual acts out of strong sexual frustration, as relationships with women before marriage are forbidden and can be extremely challenging to manage under the family’s watchful eye.
As male friendship is expressed in the Middle East differently than in the West, with physical intimacy such as holding hands and cheek-kissing a common occurrence between friends, gay couples can go largely undetected.
Fadi says, “If a woman and I were having sex, and people saw us together, we’d have a problem. If we were guys, we could walk together, hold hands, sleep in the same bed together and no one would think anything of it!”
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johnpi
Occasional TI contributor (and all around ornery blogger) Umar Lee has a beautiful new baby in his family, alhamdulliah. Congratulations brother.
The conversation is lacking for your absence. This emenem video descrbes the situation perfectly.
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thabet
I feel sorry for any children Damien Thompson may have, if this is what he regards a ‘robust’ approach to defending faith.
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johnpi
Prosecutors in India want to change the Juvenile Justice Act to ensure that terror suspects below the age of 18 should be tried under the same or similar anti-terror laws as adults.
Currently, a juvenile convict cannot be tried in a regular court but only before a juvenile authority which does not award punishment even if guilt is proved. One prosecutor says that violent extremists may use children to avoid such laws in the meantime.
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thabet
As many as 879 children trafficked and used as camel jockeys in the United Arab Emirates are going to receive compentsation worth over Tk 10 crore (about $1.5 million).
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aziz
Hesham Hassaballa has some tips on caring for a sick child, based on his personal experience.
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johnpi
Muslim NGOs criticize Malaysian government’s decision to require both parents consent before allowing a child to change religion.
Pembela, (link to website and article explaining the organization’s goals) a coalition of Muslim NGOs, believes the cabinet ruling will deny the parent who converts to Islam his or her right and responsibility over the future of the children. They feel that the decision is not fair to those who want to convert to Islam.
The decision was described earlier as an attempt to ease interfaith conflicts that have strained race relations after an estranged father got a ruling from a Malaysian Shariah court that his children must be converted to Islam over the objection of the non-Muslim mother. This has led to much criticism from non-Muslims that their rights cannot be adequately and fairly protected in Islamic Shariah courts.
Prominent Muslims are on the defensive that non-Muslims can obtain fair arbitration in Shariah courts. Former Mufti Mohamad Asri Zainul Abidin, who is described as popular with young Muslims, “defended the role of Syariah courts in arbitrating these matters,” according to the Malaysian Insider, “stating that the problem in Malaysia was not the fairness of Islamic jurisprudence but the inefficiency of the Syariah courts locally.”
“The problem is not Islam but Syariah courts not reflecting true Islam,” he said, and then goes on to discuss the lack of timeliness of the Shariah courts, which I’m not sure what has to do with this case.
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johnpi
Race and faith and children in Malaysian divorces.
In an attempt to ease interfaith conflicts that have strained race relations, Malaysia on Thursday banned the conversion of children without both parents’ consent.
The predominantly Muslim nation’s decision follows the highly publicized case of Indira Gandhi, a 34-year-old ethnic Indian Hindu woman whose estranged husband embraced Islam and then converted their children to the religion as well.
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thabet
Andrew Brown is right to pay attention to the view that children need to be taught beliefs, attitudes, etc. This includes something called ‘atheism’. The difference between teaching children ‘atheism’ and ‘religion’ is that people who are atheists usually have their beliefs in something else: socialism, liberalism, etc.
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thabet
The London Borough of Waltham Forest may seek the prosecution of parents who withdrew their children from LGBT history week. The prosecution will be sought on the grounds that the withdrawal of the children was ‘unauthorised’.
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johnpi
Credit where credit is due: Conn. attorney general’s activism prompts baby-bottle makers to stop using bisphenol A, which is implicated in causing several types of cancer, obesity, diabetes, and early onset of puberty in girls. More about the health hazards of bisphenol A here.
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johnpi
Coming to a household near you – Economic crisis brings the “culture of poverty” into the homes of upwardly mobile, educated suburbanites (of any race):
There was a fairly large layoff at IBM in Armonk, N.Y. The people who were laid off were, for the most part, upwardly-mobile, educated white suburbanites and IBM was considered a lifetime employer. After the layoffs, there was an increase in domestic abuse, drug use and alcoholism — and behavioral problems in children in school. Those are things we associate with the so-called “culture of poverty” that supposedly holds people back from prosperity, especially poor people of color. But there really isn’t a “culture of poverty.” When you’re faced with economic uncertainty, it places you in a position of extreme stress — no matter what your class or race background is. And that anxiety is going to be apparent in the classroom, where more children will be manifesting the signs of a stressful home life. As this crisis unfolds, it’s going to become increasingly clear to teachers that the “culture of poverty” isn’t a valid idea.
Excerpted from an article for schools on what changes to expect among their students of any economic stratum, and how they can effectively respond – provacative for administrators and teachers in private Islamic schools too.
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plimfix
Seventy per cent of three-year-olds recognise the MacDonald’s symbol before they recognise their own surnames. Source: S. Hall, S. Winlow & C. Ancrum, Criminal Identities and Consumer Culture: Crime, Exclusion and the New Culture of Narcissism (2008, p.95). See also: B. R. Barber (2008) Consumed: How Markets Corrupt Children, Infantilize Adults and Swallow Citizens Whole (London: W. W. Norton & Co)
