The brutal war in Syria has robbed children of their childhood as they are forced to participate in and endure numerous violations of their rights, according to a UN report released Thursday.
The latest report for the UN Commission of Inquiry for Syria released its findings at the UN in Geneva, noting that children in Syrian remained "acutely vulnerable to violence and abuse."
The 25-page report, entitled "They have erased the dreams of my children", with commission chair...
Myanmar continues to deny basic citizenship rights to persecuted Rohingya community, a rights group said on Thursday.
The Bangkok-based Fortify Rights group revealed internal communications in the Myanmar government directing junior officials to issue National Verification Cards (NVCs) to Rohingya in internment camps.
"The document states the team would be tasked with issuing NVCs to 'Bengali people' -- a term often used by Myanmar officials to refer to Rohingya, implying...
“When I was 14 years old, during my Junior Seminary, I already knew (that I was attracted to little boys). People told me ‘you are sick’, but they got rid of me. They sent me to another seminary," Preynat told the court on the second day of trial.
A former priest in Sainte-Foy-les-Lyon, in the suburbs of Lyon, Preynat could face up to 10 years in prison. But he claims that his sexual inclinations did not prevent him from being ordained in 1971.
“They should have helped me… They...
A Japanese woman was asked by an airline to take a pregnancy test before boarding a flight to a US island.
Midori Nishida was travelling from Hong Kong to Saipan to visit her parents when she was asked by staff at Hong Kong Express Airways to prove she was not pregnant as part of a 'fit-to-fly' assessment.
After telling crew she was not pregnant, Nishida was taken to the toilet by an employee, who made her urinate on a strip test before they would allow her to get on the plane...
Two Palestinians were forced on Wednesday to demolish their homes in the occupied West Bank to avoid paying exorbitant costs if the West Jerusalem municipality demolishes them.
Mousa Bashir and Ammar Nassar, from Jabal al-Mokabber neighborhood, south of occupied East Jerusalem, received demolition orders with a deadline from the West Jerusalem municipality for construction without a permit.
Both decided to take down their homes to avoid paying high fees set by the municipality...
The victims of a paedophile priest at the heart of the biggest scandal to hit the Catholic church will face their attacker in a French court.
Bernard Preynat, 74, who has been defrocked, is believed to have sexually abused scores of boys over a 30-year period, many of them while they attended catechism classes or Boy Scout camps he ran.
Even after he admitted he was “sick” and had a problem with children, he was allowed to remain a priest in his diocese in Lyon.
He...
Kashmiri girl Zeenat Shakeel has felt “discriminated against in India” all her young life. Now, cooped up in a small Calcutta hotel for more than three weeks, the would-be doctor wonders if she is facing “discrimination even by Bangladesh”.
Rubena Assadullah, Birjees Habib and Zeenat, three Kashmiri women in their early twenties, have been in the city since December 20, waiting for visas to travel to Dhaka and start classes at the Sirajul Islam Medical College and Hospital, a private...
A 16% increase in homelessness in California accounted for most of the 3% national increase, putting more heat on the state’s lagging effort to curb the surge, according to a new federal report.
The Housing and Urban Development Department late Tuesday released its homelessness report and counted 568,000 people without homes. Significantly, it found that homelessness among veterans, youths, and families is down. For veterans, it’s down 40% over the last 10 years.
The department...
According to Israel's Haaretz newspaper, Tel Aviv-based human rights organization "Civil Rights Association" published by the report, the security operations launched in the village of East Jerusalem in Israel, months ago, some more than 600 Palestinian children under the age of 12 were arrested.
The report of a Palestinian boy who was taken into custody at the age of 13 was transferred to the report.
"4 police officers entered the house. One held my neck and hit my head on the...
Two children have been shot and injured by a driver after they threw snowballs at passing cars in the US state of Wisconsin.
One of the snowballs hit the motorist's vehicle and the person then opened fire.
Authorities said a girl aged 12 and a 13-year-old boy were taken to hospital following the shooting on Saturday night in a neighbourhood north of downtown Milwaukee.
The city's police department tweeted: "Preliminary investigation indicates both victims were with a...
The committee called the centre at Ellebæk in North Zealand “unacceptable for people”.
The Strasbourg-based European Committee for the Prevention of Torture (CPT) is the anti-torture committee of the Council of Europe.
The report is based on visits to Ellebæk and other detention centres including Nykøbing Falster Arrest.
Both facilities house migrants who are under arrest based on Denmark’s immigration laws (Udlændingeloven), but not for committing crimes.
In the...
Armed conflicts are worsening around the world and children are suffering terrible damage as a result, UNICEF, the United Nations' (UN) children's agency, said in a statement Monday.
The agency said more countries are experiencing conflict than at any time since 1989, when the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child was introduced in order to enshrine the protection of children in conflict in international law.
UNICEF said it has verified more than 170,000 grave violations of...
The Jerusalem District Court on Tuesday sentenced Shalom Hazan, a community rabbi in the capital, for committing indecent acts with children under 16.
Hazan was convicted for abusing two boys and two girls, aged 6-12, whom he met at his synagogue where they assisted him with chores and studied Torah. He was ordered to compensate the victims with a sum of NIS 40,000.
The indictment against Hazan was filed nearly a year ago and detailed the manner in which the rabbi groomed the...
A retired French surgeon may have raped or sexually abused as many as 349 children over the 30 years of his career, a prosecutor investigating the case said Friday.
This could be France's biggest-ever paedophilia case.
Joel Le Scouarnec, 68, is planned on trial in March for the rape and sexual abuse of four child victims.
The allegations against him three decades he practised in hospitals across central and western France.
Accusations include the rape a six-year-...
UN humanitarian coordinator for the occupied Palestinian Territory said Thursday that 2.4 million people are in need of assistance, but the UN is targeting just 1.5 million because of funding difficulties.
Jamie McGoldrick held a news briefing in Geneva after Palestinian Prime Minister Mohammad Shtayyeh, and him, launched the Humanitarian Response Plan for 2020 in Ramallah, the occupied Palestinian territory, Dec. 11.
"We've put together this plan for next year, which is to...