VOA标准英语2012--Report: Urban African Kids Risk Exploitation
时间:2019-01-14 作者:英语课 分类:VOA标准英语2012年(十二月)
Report: Urban African Kids Risk Exploitation
A humanitarian 1 group has warned that children living in African cities are at increasing risk of exploitation, abuse and disease. Save the Children says most of the continent’s children eventually will live in urban areas.
A new report said right now about 200 million children live in African urban areas, and the numbers are steadily 2 rising. Save the Children said that “social and development policies are ignoring the reality” that more children are living in slums with “devastating impacts.” The report said sub-Saharan African cities have the highest degree of urban poverty and prevalence of slum populations in the world.
Voices from Urban Africa: The impact of urban growth on children is based on research in Ethiopia, Malawi, Mali, South Africa and Zambia.
“It’s the voices of children in communities. Because we talked to over a thousand children and their families and community members about what are they experiencing? And to me that makes it really urgent when you hear what some of the things that children said to us in this report. I mean one little boy: “When my father cannot find a job to do, he fails to buy food and we stay hungry at home.” On and on. The report is very rich in the voices of children, and it’s something that we need to take seriously,” said Carol Miller 3, Save the Children’s deputy area director for programs for Africa.
According to the report, “More than half the world’s population now lives in cities, and each year the number of urban residents increases by nearly 60-million.” It added that by 2050, two-thirds will live in urban areas. In Africa, about one billion people are expected to live in urban areas by 2040.
Miller said, “Africa’s youth population is the fastest growing – ages 15 to 24 – in the world. So the growth rate in secondary cities caused us to pause to think, all right, what are we doing, and what do we need to know to really impact the lives of children?”
The report said many governments “underreport the size of urban populations, especially in slums and informal settlements.”
Miller said there are four priorities that must be addressed to ensure the health and safety of children in urban settings: health and nutrition; livelihoods 4; education and child protection.
“As we talk to local NGOs, non-governmental organizations across Africa, this issue of unaccompanied children, children on the streets – talking about buses pulling in to Addis Ababa and there are actually people watching to see if a boy or girl is unaccompanied, and then preying 5 on them for sexual purposes, or others. There is a household in Malawi – one that we interviewed – with four children out of school, no adult in the household – relying on an uncle to give them some money now and then – out in the streets begging,” she said.
Urban settings often lack the community protection that exists in rural areas.
“In a rural setting you’re likely to have a grandparent or an auntie or an uncle. People in your community know you. You move to an urban setting and that disappears,” Miller said.
The report says poor children are often not in school because they face many barriers such as fees, disabilities, lack of food, bullying 6 and sexual harassment 7. Their health is put at risk, it says, from a lack of clean water and sanitation 8, poor nutrition and a lack of access to health care due to cost, travel, waiting times or other reasons.
Miller said, “When you have young people moving into urban settings and needing access to reproductive health, for example, and some clinics say, no, we’re not going to provide family planning to this young girl. So what choices does she have?”
Youth unemployment is also a major problem in African cities. Miller said high youth unemployment was a factor in the uprisings during the Arab Spring.
Among its recommendations, Save the Children called for holistic 9 child protection systems like those in developed countries; enhanced hygiene 10 and sanitation awareness 11 and practices; trained community health workers; linking youth skills training to the awarding of grants and loans; better access for the disabled; and quality control, standards and training to support early child care development.
- She has many humanitarian interests and contributes a lot to them.她拥有很多慈善事业,并作了很大的贡献。
- The British government has now suspended humanitarian aid to the area.英国政府现已暂停对这一地区的人道主义援助。
- The scope of man's use of natural resources will steadily grow.人类利用自然资源的广度将日益扩大。
- Our educational reform was steadily led onto the correct path.我们的教学改革慢慢上轨道了。
- Every miller draws water to his own mill.磨坊主都往自己磨里注水。
- The skilful miller killed millions of lions with his ski.技术娴熟的磨坊主用雪橇杀死了上百万头狮子。
- First came the earliest individualistic pioneers who depended on hunting and fishing for their livelihoods. 走在最前面的是早期的个人主义先驱者,他们靠狩猎捕鱼为生。 来自英汉非文学 - 政府文件
- With little influence over policies, their traditional livelihoods are threatened. 因为马赛族人对政策的影响力太小,他们的传统生计受到了威胁。
- This problem has been preying on my mind all day. 这个问题让我伤了整整一天脑筋。 来自《简明英汉词典》
- For a while he let his eyes idly follow the preying bird. 他自己的眼睛随着寻食的鸟毫无目的地看了一会儿。 来自辞典例句
- Many cases of bullying go unreported . 很多恐吓案件都没有人告发。
- All cases of bullying will be severely dealt with. 所有以大欺小的情况都将受到严肃处理。 来自《简明英汉词典》
- She often got telephone harassment at night these days.这些天她经常在夜晚受到电话骚扰。
- The company prohibits any form of harassment.公司禁止任何形式的骚扰行为。
- The location is exceptionally poor,viewed from the sanitation point.从卫生角度来看,这个地段非常糟糕。
- Many illnesses are the result,f inadequate sanitation.许多疾病都来源于不健全的卫生设施。
- There is a fundamental ambiguity in the use of word "whole" in recent holistic literature.在近代的整体主义著作中,“整体”这个词的用法极其含混。
- In so far as historicism is technological,its approach is not piecemeal,but "holistic".仅就历史决定论是一种技术而论,它的方法不是渐进的,而是“整体主义的”。
- Their course of study includes elementary hygiene and medical theory.他们的课程包括基础卫生学和医疗知识。
- He's going to give us a lecture on public hygiene.他要给我们作关于公共卫生方面的报告。