Abandoned-Orphaned

Continuum of Care (introduction)

I wrote the following entry, and a few that follow, at 4:00 AM as a storm rained down on a tin roof overlooking a courtyard in Bujumbura, Burundi last year. I’m not sure why it took me so long to post them, perhaps because they fall more into a ministry philosophy category than one of in-field reporting. Regardless, we have developed this model considerably further since I penned these initial thoughts based on our discussions. I look forward to sharing more with you on that later...

Continuum of Care (introduction)

True holistic or ‘whole’ ministry not only means providing for all the functional needs of the individual, but possessing all the potential solutions available for that individual. It entails having all the options at your disposal to meet the needs according to a ‘continuum of care.’ Where an individual’s needs and circumstances fall on that spectrum dictates the prospective approaches and solutions. For the potential orphan, it involves first trying to prevent orphaning, second, rescuing the child after orphaning.

More specifically, the rescue and care of abandoned and orphaned children should follow a progressive continuum of options that all involve the coordination and direct involvement of the local indigenous church located in the community.

PREVENTION/DELAY

Prevention involvement should primarily focus on keeping dying families or guardians alive for as long as possible, or by supporting high-risk struggling, impoverished, or single-parent families. In other words, the goal should be to avert orphaning and abandonment, or to at least significantly delay it.

Indigenous churches, as they engage their communities, conduct home care visits and provide much-needed medicines, food and other assistance for this purpose. Naturally, they also have significant additional ministry opportunities into these families as a result.

TRANSITION/RESIDENTIAL PLACEMENT

If orphaning is still imminent, the church already has a history with and familiarity of these children due to its prevention and delay involvement. Requisite trust has been built with the families and the kids. The church prepares the family for death through counsel and practical programs that help to safeguard memories, family heritage and continuity. Meanwhile, the church looks to see what extended family options currently exist or helps to convince and support otherwise uncommitted relatives to step up and take in these children. Again, this provides further inlets for the church to reach and minister to families. The church is given witnessing avenues beyond just the interest in the children.

If these first two options don’t exist or have failed, then the church turns to its own congregation – first to see if church members can raise and care for the children as their own (adoption) or as an intermediate step until another family is found (foster care). The church therefore serves as an integral community-based solution.

If the church’s capacity has already reached its upper limits, then a church-based residential care solution is needed in order to keeps kids off of the streets, herded into institutions, preyed upon by traffickers, or being exploited as domestic slaves in other community homes.

Group residential care, however, still has to be designed to provide a family environment, albeit a large one of fifteen children or so. Church families, that may have existing kids of their own, are recruited to care for these additional children in church-based homes with full funding provided for food, clothing, education and other critical needs. It’s a long-term obligation - a lifelong commitment - to what, in essence, equates to a group adoption.

In these large family settings, widows can complement the live-in care provision. Formerly disenfranchised and ostracized, many of these ladies need a home themselves and a renewed sense of purpose and belonging. They know loss and pain and are therefore uniquely qualified to counsel and comfort children who have lost their parents.

Volunteers from the church body are also on hand to provide assistance, mentoring, and skills development for the children in the group home.

RESCUE

There exist many young children already struggling on the streets and in garbage dumps and brothels. The indigenous church still goes through the necessary steps to find and support extended families for their rescue. But, absent that, these children also need to be incorporated into families within homes overseen and run by the church.

TRANSITION/REHABILITATION

Many orphan care ministries speak in terms of ‘transition’ or ‘reintegration’ concerning children that age-out of the system. For the children in World Orphans’ church-based homes, these words carry less meaning. Under our current ministry model, our children remain fully integrated in their communities and daily experience what healthy families look like. There is no big disconnection between the environment of their upbringing and the next season of life in the ‘real world,’ only the normal anxieties typically associated with making it on your own.

What’s more, these children never graduate from a home, much like we would never graduate from our own families. The families are told that their care for the children is not a 5, 10 or 15-year commitment. It’s a 65-year commitment! These kids are now part of families, families that they will still visit; families that they will celebrate life’s achievements and milestones with; families that will gather together for reunions and holidays.

There are children we serve, however, that can be deemed as in need of transition. These are children in countries that raise their orphans in state institutions, or in countries where circumstances placed them into large privately-run orphanages. They also include latter-stage children that have been on the streets or rescued from other dire circumstances. These kids need comprehensive help through well-designed intervention programs that prepare them for the next stage of life.

In many cases, these children are immediately placed at the mercy of evil forces that prey upon them as soon as they are released from institutional care. If the church doesn’t step in at that point, the kids are soon immersed into a world of drugs, prostitution, slavery, or forced military conscription. Their lives are typically harsh...and short.

To avoid this highly-vulnerable period following institutional release, World Orphans is establishing transition homes, again owned and run by indigenous churches, that take in children before malevolent parties have a chance to grab them. This residential care format provides the necessary training (including social and skills development) to allow the children to better integrate into broader society at a later date.

SELF-SUSTAINABILITY

Whether it’s a child leaving a primary or transitional home, or directly aging out of an institutional orphanage, there is a further opportunity and responsibility for an indigenous church. Much like we would help our own children with ‘next steps’ resourcing and care, so is it with children from any type of residential care program. They need assistance to take the first strides of self sufficiency. That may come in the form of additional training or higher education, but can often mean a simple micro-loan to establish them in a trade, small business, or other income-generating scenario.

Why go this extra mile?

Because it could mean the difference between stopping or perpetuating the vicious cycle of orphaning and abandonment. It’s not just the specific child (now young adult) in question, but also their future offspring. The child needs to have every chance to be successful and self supporting so that they don’t, in turn, abandon children or fall to the ills that take and destroy lives after children are born.

Would You Press the Button? (part two)

I see the button as an allegory, a metaphor of sorts.

The fact of the matter is that we press that button every day.

As we go about our daily lives of comfort and excess, without consideration of how our choices and actions might impact others, we adversely affect ‘strangers’ the world over.

When we buy a new bathroom rug because the last one is apparently out of style, we keep an eight year-old boy, Rajan, chained to a loom in Nepal.

When we pick up a latte from our favorite barista, we fuel a conglomerate that forces Juan, a poor Costa Rican coffee grower, to sell at prices far below what would allow him to afford that same cup of coffee for himself.

When we buy the latest fancy T-Shirt with gold embossing at XYZ Casuals, we rob Ajay from ever leaving the cotton plantation that holds him and his sisters in perpetual bondage in South India.

When we go on an exotic spa vacation to Southeast Asia, we entrap Isra, a fifteen year-old Thai girl from the impoverished hill tribes, in a world of daily violation and exploitation.

When we visit that adult Website that our teachers warned us about, we enable pornographers to imprison a scared teenage girl, Imana, in a Burundian hotel room for three days, robbing her of her innocence and privacy.

When we choose to adopt a child from a country with a less-than-reputable child-placement program, we cause Esmeralda to reluctantly give up her new baby girl in Latin America.

When we select that rare hardwood for our kitchen cabinets because it nicely matches the existing wallpaper and is much grander than the neighbor’s remodel, we help to eradicate the ecosystem that sustains Daniel and his family in Brazil.

When we choose to get an organ transplant in Eastern Europe because the wait is too long in the United States, we cause the abduction of Serge, a street child in Moldova, and the subsequent harvesting of his kidneys.

Whether it’s the big and profound (organ transplants, Internet pornography, and international adoptions), or the seemingly trite and trivial (cups of coffee, T-shirts, kitchen cabinets, vacations, and bathroom rugs), we constantly enslave, maim and kill our neighbors around the planet.

What’s unsettling is that the facts are out there and are readily available. They can be researched with relative ease. But we simply don’t have the time and inclination to do so.

We’re just much too busy...and comfortable.

We keep pressing the button.

To be continued...

World Orphans Weekly! - Return from Iraq

Dear Friend of the Fatherless,

Scott and I have just returned from a very eventful and productive trip to Iraq. Besides viewing the new World Orphans office there, we had the opportunity to meet with key leaders in government as well as interact with children that have been orphaned and abandoned in the country.

(PIERCING THE DARKNESS: The World Orphans office sign in Iraq)

 

(FOR THE LEAST OF THESE: Paul and Scott with some of the Iraqi children they spent time with)

We invite you to read the posts below to experience some of the journey and its achievements.

Thank you for your heart for the Iraqi churches, people...and orphans.

Nazis? – Obviously we were prepared to perhaps encounter militant Muslims on this trip, but Nazis???

Lost Sheep – A stopover in Jordan reveals a valley steeped in deception and betrayal

All – Sometimes you have to travel halfway around the world to hear additional perspectives on the Great Commission

Second Time Around – Iraq, a country of extremes

Potholes – The truth is often said in jest

Sowing Seeds: Mohammed and Jihad – Namesakes of Islam, receptive to the love of Christ

Kidnappers and Angels – A man avoids what he had once hoped to become

Circle of Tears – Not far from our location, a woman suffered the cruelest demise

Bastards (part one) – A derogatory term here; the shame of children there

Bastards (part two) – Oftentimes, you have to even implore the Church to have the compassion of Jesus

Close Proximity – Bombs to the left of us, bombs to the right. Fifty miles away, but a stark reminder of the dangers of the region

Cold Streets – Snow in Iraq? Street children have to endure harsh climate extremes

Gatekeepers (part one) – Not exactly the scene a typical tourist would encounter

Gatekeepers (part two) – Rolling out the read carpet for World Orphans

Art of Suffering – Blast barriers reveal the pain of the people

Each One a Treasure – The faces of the children

Return – The joys of traveling from a conflict-torn country

Until They All have Homes,

Paul Myhill
President/CEO

World Orphans
1840 Woodmoor Dr., Suite 100
Monument, CO 80132
1-888-ORPHANS
719-487-1700
Facebook Profile

All contributions are tax deductible and eternally significant.

Cold Streets

Yes, it can snow in Iraq. As I mentioned in my arrival post, we were greeted by frigid temperatures that cut through to the bone. This was quite a contrast to the 115 to 120 degree temps that I experienced the last time I was in Iraq.

As I dwell on these two extremes, I think of all the street kids we have encountered on this trip so far, selling their wares to us in order to earn enough money for flat bread for the day. Orphaned, abandoned, these children are evidence of capacity constraints and cultural taboos that prevent them from being in school, being in families.

In summer, they toil under the sweltering heat. In winter, they light fires or nudge their way close to an open propane tank or space heater.

In either case, they are at the mercy of the streets and the climate that envelopes them.

(Image: A Street child poster that hangs in an Iraqi orphanage we visited)

 

(Images: Some of the street children we have encountered in Iraq)

Sowing Seeds: Mohammad and Jihad

Our principal church liaison in Iraq, Ibrahim (named changed for safety reasons), described how he frequently goes through a certain security checkpoint on the outskirts of town. There, two young boys aged seven and ten, sell sunflower seeds after school every day.

(Image: Typical security checkpoint)

One evening Ibrahim stopped and asked them their names.

"Mohammad and Jihad," they answered.

Ibrahim went on to inquire why they were working so hard to sell the seeds each day when they should be playing with friends or doing their homework.

Mohammed and Jihad explained that their father had died and their mother was very sick. They needed to peddle seeds to support their three siblings, all under the age of ten, as well as their ill mother who could not work.

"How did your father die and how old was he?" asked Ibrahim.

The father was seventy when he succumbed to age-related conditions. The firstborn of this group of brothers and sisters was conceived when the father was already sixty, presumably to a second, third, or even fourth wife. Upon his death, the older wives would have cast out their mother, leaving her destitute and unable to raise five children alone. Her illness would considerably compound the difficulties ahead.

Mohammad and Jihad hitchhike to the checkpoint after school each day in order to work late into the night to earn $3 to $4 for the family. They would then have to rely on a passerby to transport them back home to their village – ten minutes by car, but over an hour walk if they were unsuccessful in securing a ride.

(Image: Sunflower seeds for sale in an Iraqi market)

Although he doesn’t even like sunflower seeds, Ibrahim started to buy seeds from the boys in order to build a relationship with them. One night, as he was in the area, Ibrahim gave them a ride home to their village. He explained that Jesus loves them, their brothers and sisters, and their mother.

"You should pray to Jesus for comfort and strength as you work to support your family," Ibrahim said.

A few nights later, Ibrahim went out of his way to again take the boys back to their home. He asked them if they have been praying to Jesus. The older boy quickly smiled and replied, "Yes, we have."

"Has it helped?" asked Ibrahim.

"Yes, we can feel different. It has given us peace," the boys responded.

(Image: Two Iraqi boys)

Ibrahim recently went to the checkpoint to take the boys home a third time. As he drove up, he saw them standing under a tree to find shelter from the pouring rain. Despite the cold, wet night, he could "see the hope in the eyes of the children."

During this third trip, Ibrahim learned how Mohammed and Jihad continue to ask Jesus for help and guidance. They want to know more about Him.

Ibrahim may indeed be the answers to their prayers as he sows seeds of love and truth to these seed sellers, the namesakes of Islam.

The one who received the seed that fell on good soil is the man who hears the word and understands it. He produces a crop, yielding a hundred, sixty or thirty times what was sown. (Matthew 13:23)

Now he who supplies seed to the sower and bread for food will also supply and increase your store of seed and will enlarge the harvest of your righteousness. (2 Corinthians 9:10)

Are We Comfortable Yet?

As I was getting settled in my seat for the last leg of the journey back from Africa, a small commotion broke out a couple of rows ahead of me.

A father was seated at the window in the short, two-person flank of seats. On the aisle across from him was placed a middle-aged woman in the four-seat middle section. Next to her sat the father’s daughter.

The father asked the middle-aged lady to switch seats with him, so he could sit next to his young teen-aged daughter. The lady explained that, because of a medical condition, she frequently needs to go to the bathroom. As such, she really needed an aisle seat for the ten-hour journey from Frankfurt to Denver.

The father immediately lost his patience with her, demonizing her and scolding her in front of a multitude of others for her unwillingness to accommodate the ‘wish of a father to sit next to his daughter.’ He then fumingly tried to enlist a Lufthansa attendant to ask the lady to move, to require her to move.

"Unbelievable," I thought to myself.

The flight attendant explained to him that she couldn’t make the lady move, nor would it be fair to do so. She further pointed out that he was only two seats away from his daughter.

By this point the daughter was really quite embarrassed by her father’s actions and emphatically said, "Please, dad, it’s no big deal. This seat is fine!"

After some additional bad-tempered words, the father changed tactics and asked the now-seated aisle occupant next to him to switch positions with his daughter. As expected, the passenger wasn’t willing to exchange a prime seat for one squarely in the middle of the center section. The father tried to lay the same guilt trip upon this man.

Nobody in the immediate vicinity wanted to help out the father, especially since he was only two seats away from his daughter and she was a teenager, not a little girl. Had their seats been further apart and the girl much younger, the response from the surrounding passengers quite probably would have been different. Had the father not lost his cool so publically with the recipient of the first request, things might have been different.

The father then demanded that the flight attendant come up with another option. After all, it simply ‘wasn’t right,’ and was obviously the ‘airline’s fault,’ that he wasn’t issued a seat right next to his girl.

The flight attendant spent the next ten minutes or so seeking out all options further down the cabin. I watched her as she tried every permutation possible. Dozens of people were kindly asked if they could switch seats. Most were audience to the prior outburst and were therefore not highly motivated to meet the unreasonable demands of the father.

The whole episode ended with the father angrily telling the flight attendant that he would be writing a letter to Lufthansa, demanding his money back for the flight.

A few weeks ago, I watched Glue Boys, a feature-length documentary directed by Phil Hamer, the son of Dan and Kathleen Hamer whom I met at Saddleback a couple of months ago. Dan is the Chief Financial Officer for the influential mega-church. He and Kathleen serve on the HIV/AIDS and Orphan Care teams. They have adopted two boys from Kitale, Kenya.

Moved by the plight and rescue of his two brothers, Phil decided to tell the story of the glue-huffing street boys of Kitale. During one scene, Phillip juxtaposes images of two very young orphans, roaming the dirty, grimy dumps of Kitale, with American news broadcast clips concerning two toddlers that were found wandering the sidewalks of their neighborhood after straying from the not-so-watchful eye of their father.

As you can imagine, the US media sensationalized the incident. Broadcast after broadcast, and network after network, described the ‘horror’ of such a thing – two little boys out on the ‘hard streets’ of the ‘burb! Who knows what dangers could have befallen them?!

Meanwhile, the two little tykes in Kenya were navigating everyday obstacles such as human waste, burning trash, and glue-sniffing older comrades. They represent millions of children just like them - toddlers that have to daily fend for themselves while a single mother tries to earn income for the family, or as parents lay dying of AIDS, or as an older head-of-household sibling attends school, or because there is simply nobody left to care for them.

Where is the anger from the western media over the scenarios that really count?

Are these kids any less important?

Don’t get me wrong, two year-olds shouldn’t be wandering around unaccompanied in America, regardless of how comparatively safe the surroundings are. But the intensity of the news reports were exceedingly disproportionate to the reality of thousands upon thousands of two year-olds who are roaming the disease-infested streets and slums of the developing world. These children beg for scraps and daily have to dodge all kinds of physical death traps and predatory monsters.

Many don’t make it.

Again...where is the sense of outrage from western news organizations?

Is sitting two seats removed from your daughter really such a big deal?

She’s within arm’s reach. She’s being tended to with food, snacks, drinks and a couple of movies. She has a pillow and blanket.

And she has a father.

Maybe it’s time to not be so wrapped up in our own little, comfortable worlds...and look further afield.

The Great Divide

After twelve years of civil war (officially ending last year but with some rebel holdouts), combined with severe drought and disease, Burundi’s deteriorating civil and social infrastructures are leaving hundreds of thousands of orphans without hope in a country of great division.

Burundi has a population of just 7.5 million, yet there are 620,000 orphans. Almost 10% of the population is orphaned! Over half of the population (53%) are children and therefore can’t be considered part of the rescue and care mechanism for these children. What’s more, that means that 18% of the country’s children are orphans!

Can you imagine if almost 1 in 5 children in the US were orphans?

If your child is in a kindergarten or Sunday school class of 25 children, what if 5 of her classmates were parentless?

In Burundi, that wouldn’t be the case, though. Instead of being in school, many of these children are victims of the streets or are exploited as domestic slaves, forced to serve in combat or as young ‘wives’ for soldiers, trafficked to richer nations to become the sexual property of others, or shuffled into the growing industry of child sex tourism.

Deep ethnic schisms further spur this activity. People that normally wouldn’t use or deal in the flesh of children, rationalize that the child of the enemy is less-than-human, a ‘cockroach’ to be abused, bought, sold and disposed of. The children become the smallest victims of the ethnic discrimination and severe poverty that define their world.

And they receive their death sentences from AIDS.

The very poor security situation in Burundi also assists the travesties. Violations against children occur with impunity. Sometimes, those entrusted to care for the children are the perpetuators themselves. They don’t fear ramifications and start to view the children as personal property to be used for their own devices.

Although there are pre-existing laws against child prostitution in Burundi, there are no laws on the books against trafficking in persons. Weak laws and weak enforcement bodies mean that hundreds of thousands of orphans are literally sitting ducks in a country full of people itching to find resources for personal pleasure and gain...especially at the expense of the rival ethnic group.

Wrong Side of Their Chests

In Moldova, there is an expression concerning greedy, corrupt men that exploit people for personal gain. It is said that they "have their hearts on the wrong side of their chests."

Most people in the world are right-handed. Moldovans will say that this dominant hand is the hand that grabs, takes, and strikes. To have your heart on the right side of the body, instead of on the left, would be synonymous with a repugnant heart motivated by self-advantage and avarice.

Moldova itself has also had a radical change in symmetry. Its heart has been ripped out and reinserted out of place.

Previously one of the wealthiest regions in the former Soviet Union, it now holds the distinction of being the most impoverished country in Europe. More than 80% of its inhabitants live on less than a dollar per day. Official unemployment sits close to 100%.

Cheap wine used to be the country’s greatest export. That has now been replaced by cheap prostitutes and human organs. Moldova is the #1 trafficking hub for persons in all of Europe and the world’s top exporter of forced child prostitution. According to the Tiraspol Times, "Moldova holds a dubious world record: The country is today the leading haven for pedophiles and for traffickers who earn fortunes enslaving underage kids in a brutal international sex trade."

Many of those trafficked kids are parentless children plucked from the streets and institutional orphanages.

(WHAT DOES THE FUTURE HOLD FOR HER? A young girl in a Moldovan state orphanage)

The Tiraspol Times also points out that:

"In Moldova, much of the flesh trade is done with government involvement."

A recent U.S. State Department report confirms that:

"Low and high-level government officials are involved in trafficking crimes. Moldovan authorities simply turn a blind eye and refuse to arrest or prosecute anyone."

PBS Frontline reported earlier this year that:

"With full knowledge and often even complicity of Moldovan government officials, young girls are torn from their lives and sold into slavery. The prosecution rate is abysmal. We know that there is a level of corruption; we know that there is bribery. But without the political will to address this, traffickers will continue to operate with impunity."

Leaders are supposed to serve and protect their citizens, especially those that are the most vulnerable – the children, the orphans.

In Moldova, however, too many of these so-called leaders simply have their hearts on the wrong side of their chests.

Tearing Down Walls

"Nobody can see what goes on behind those walls."

During a visit to the World Orphans offices on Friday, our Moldovan partner shared more with us about the abuses against orphans and street children in his country. Stolen and trafficked for pornography, sex and vital organs, these children are in a constant state of abuse and fear.

It is indeed a State of abuse and fear also. Corruption, perversion and poverty make Moldova the regional epicenter for the trade in the flesh of children. Crooked communist officials and orphanage directors are very much a part of the mechanism that drives this wicked marketplace.

(Image: Some of the children that our indigenous Moldovan partner ministers to)

Moldova is a culture of walls. Walls around homes. Walls around shops. Walls around churches. Walls around orphanages.

Walls keep prying hands and eyes out. When you live in the poorest country in Eastern Europe and have such little, you need to protect it. When you try to make money from a readily-available resource – orphaned and abandoned children - you need to protect it.

The communist government of Moldova manifests a culture of walls also. Things are done in secret. Dissenters are removed or killed. The communists will "dig under their foundations and collapse them," according to our partner. To be critical of the government and its allowances of widespread abuses equates to social or corporeal suicide.

You can’t attack these walls head on. Much like Jericho, you simply circle them and trust in the Lord’s power. You go about the destruction of the barricades by educating the people and showing them Christ.

Right now, and all through this month and next, our Moldovan partners are working in concert with some other ministries in an "Anti-Trafficking Campaign" throughout the country. These ministries have been allowed to go into schools to conduct presentations that raise the awareness of rampant human trafficking in the country. Tens of thousands of children will hear and know. Their towns and villages are also exposed to the banners, brochures and activities.

The government is allowing the program presumably to gain favor in the international community, to appear that it is on the side of good.

The greatest problem concerns the orphans of the streets and institutions. The school campaign, however, is all about education and mobilization. It’s about getting a ground swell of folks to eventually fight the injustices, to ultimately tackle the broader societal and governmental issues that perpetuate children being stolen, sold, enslaved and killed...behind walls.

It’s about tearing down walls, one brick at a time.

Burma's Little Soldiers

I made two trips into Burma (Myanmar) last year - one to the capital city, Rangoon (Yangon), the principal site for all the current protests, and another into Shan state, just across the border from Thailand in the Golden Triangle zone.

I saw the children jumping into the river to flee to Thailand. I saw the abandoned and orphaned huffing glue on the border bridge between desperation and hope. While in neighboring Thailand, I also saw the kids that had run away from forced service in the Burmese army. Many were now being raised in one of our homes there, a home specifically set up to care for youngsters that had escaped lives as child soldiers and prostitutes.

Once a wealthy and vivacious country, Burma has suffered deeply over four decades of military rule. It is now extremely depressed and is recognized as one of the least-developed nations in the world.

The Human Rights Education Institute of Burma (HREIB) reported last September that:

"As the economic situation in Burma continues to deteriorate, the burden on children intensifies. They are put to work begging on the streets, in teashops and other business establishments, and forced into working in economic grey areas (prostitution, drug trafficking/smuggling, domestic servitude, etc.). They are exposed to severe physical and psychological trauma."

And then there are the child soldiers...

The Human Rights Watch (HRW) reports:

"Throughout Burma (Myanmar), children as young as eleven are being forcibly recruited into Burma's national army, the largest user of child soldiers in the world. Without their parents' knowledge or consent, they are sent to military training camps where they are routinely beaten, and brutally punished if they try to escape. Once deployed, they may be forced to fight and carry out human rights abuses against civilians, including other children."

HRW has estimated that 70,000 or more of Burma’s 350,000 soldiers are children.

Judit Arenas, spokesperson for the Coalition to Stop Child Soldiers, recently told CNN:

"While some children are recruited voluntarily for Myanmar's armed forces, others, especially orphans and street children, are vulnerable to what is called ‘forced recruitment.’ Under this scheme, local authorities in Myanmar are required to provide the government with a certain quota of recruits and are fined if they fail. A lot of these children are street children. They won't stand up and complain"

As you watch the events in Burma continue to unfold, please remember these children, children who are now forced to point guns at protestors that seek freedom for their country.