Children, too, are abused in U.S. prisons

[steve2470]

http://www.iht.com/articles/2005/06/29/opinion/edchild.php


By Arlie Hochschild The New York Times

THURSDAY, JUNE 30, 2005




BERKELEY, California Last month John Miller, director of the State Department's Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons, said that half the victims of human trafficking may be children under 18.

Children are "at the center" of the problem of trafficking, which, Miller noted, is one of the great human rights issues of the 21st century.

Yes, children should be at the heart of America's concern for human rights. But that concern should start with the children detained in U.S. prisons in Afghanistan, Iraq and Guantánamo Bay, Cuba.

Under international law, the line between childhood and maturity is 18. In communications with Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, the Pentagon has lowered the cutoff to 16. For this reason among others, we don't know exactly how many Iraqi children are in American custody.

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