© 2024 Save the Children New Zealand | Privacy Policy
Afghanistan:
Price Hikes Push Food Out Of Reach For Millions Of Children
Millions of children in Afghanistan could be pushed into severe hunger as a result of rising food prices, drought and displacement, Save the Children warned, after the UN reported the cost of wheat, rice, sugar and cooking oil has increased by more than 50% compared with pre-COVID-19 prices.
A survey of 630 newly displaced families in Kabul, carried out by Save the Children earlier this month, already found that all of the families had run up debts in order to buy food. Many families have been forced to sell their possessions, cut back on meals or send their children out to work in order to buy food.
Save the Children warned that people's ability to buy food is likely to be further limited by the lack of operating banks and ATMS, which prevents them from accessing their savings.
Add Your Name:
JOIN US TO CALL FOR GREATER ACTION
OUR TAMARIKI
About Save the Children New Zealand
We’re fighting for a world where every child realises the right to survival, protection, development and participation.
Our Vision
We aim to inspire breakthroughs in the way the world treats children and to achieve immediate and lasting change in their lives.
Our Mission
We are guided by our five core values: accountability, ambition, collaboration, creativity and integrity.
Our Values
Enough is Enough. We urgently call for the violence to stop.
Add Your Name:
STOP THE WAR ON CHILDREN
Afsana’s Story:
Growing Up In Bangladesh’s Largest Brothel
10-year-old Afsana* lives in Bangladesh’s largest brothel.
She’s tired because her mother Tuli*, a sex worker, entertains clients in the next room while she and her six-year-old brother try to sleep. Drunken men and women roam the dirty alleyways all night looking for drugs and alcohol, which are readily available in the brothel’s lanes.
But just a few hundred metres down the train tracks is another world – the primary school where Afsana gets to be a child again.
Save the Children and a local partner organisation founded the school for children from the brothel in 1997. At that time, local schools wouldn’t accept the children of sex workers, meaning girls like Afsana were left uneducated and vulnerable to following their mothers into sex work.
We need to ensure that there are educational programmes and healthcare support available to help every last child find their way out - and give them an opportunity for a better future for themselves and their families.
This is why we need your signature to help us in our efforts as we work towards providing them with:
Access to education
Access to healthcare and counselling
Assistance with re-integrating them into their community
With your support and alongside our partners, you can protect children and save girls in Bangladesh from a future in sex slavery.
Take action today and pledge to give children from a chance to an education and a life free from sex slavery.
Click the button below to sign the petition today!
Athena Rayburn, Director of Advocacy and Campaigns at Save the Children Afghanistan, said:
"The spike in prices will push food out of reach for many families, particularly those who have been displaced from their homes and are living on next to nothing. Conflict, drought and COVID-19 have already pushed millions of children into hunger and misery in Afghanistan - now they could be pushed even closer to the brink of famine."
Join the movement and take a stand for children in Afghanistan by giving them a new chance at life and break the cycle of poverty.
Every day Afsana goes to school, works hard and dreams of the day she and her mother can leave the brothel. Afsana is the second-best student in grade three and hopes to be a doctor when she grows up. “I want to be a doctor so that I can help my family if anything happens to them,” she says. But that dream will never become a reality without an education and the school Afsana attends is the place where children can get one.
Join the movement and take a stand for children in slum brothels by giving them a new chance at life through education and break the cycle of poverty.
*Names have been changed to protect identities.
In addition to the ceasefire conditions, we call for:
In addition to the ceasefire conditions, we call for:
- The blockade of Gaza to be immediately lifted,
- Children and civilians with injuries or illness that can’t be treated in Gaza to immediately be supported to access international options for treatment outside of Gaza,
- The transfer or sale of all weapons that could be used in this conflict in any way be immediately stopped,
- All parties that have committed grave violations against children and violated International Humanitarian Law be held to account, and
- New Zealand to establish an emergency humanitarian visa pathway that permits immediate entry to Palestinians in Gaza with family ties to New Zealand citizens and residents.
YES, I WOULD LIKE TO
SUPPORT THE ENFORCEMENT
STAND WITH CHILDREN
The adopted ceasefire proposal’s three phases:
Phase One: An immediate, full and complete ceasefire with the release of hostages; the return of the remains of some hostages who have been killed; the exchange of Palestinian prisoners; withdrawal of Israeli forces from the populated areas in Gaza; the return of Palestinian civilians to their homes; and the safe and effective distribution of humanitarian assistance at scale throughout Gaza.
Phase Two: A permanent end to hostilities in exchange for the release of all other hostages still in Gaza and a full withdrawal of Israeli forces from the area.
Phase Three: The start of a major multi-year reconstruction plan for Gaza and the return of the remains of any deceased hostages still in the Strip to their families.
Save the Children is urging all Member States, including New Zealand, to make an immediate and definitive ceasefire in Gaza a reality.
WE WANT ACTION NOW!
Children in Gaza cannot continue to suffer the extreme horror of this conflict while a ceasefire continues to be debated.
New Zealand has already made strong statements to call for a ceasefire and end to the brutal conflict in Gaza that has already killed an estimated 40,000 people, of those more than 14,000 children, and thousands more still buried under the rubble.
We are asking Prime Minister Christopher Luxon and Minister for Foreign Affairs Winston Peters to tell us how the New Zealand Government will turn words into action to ensure this ceasefire resolution is accomplished.
We want to know:
- What actions will New Zealand take now to ensure this resolution is accomplished?
- What actions will New Zealand take, should parties to the ceasefire fail to adhere to this resolution?
Give Young Children Growing Up In Slum Brothels A Chance For A Better Future.
Bangladesh’s largest slum brothel - just one of many in the region - is the size of a small city and houses over 1,500 women and 1,000 children.
These women and children live largely out of sight from mainstream society - facing exclusion from education, life-saving healthcare, and their communities. Needing to provide for their children, mothers who were likely sold or trafficked into the brothel to start with, find themselves unable to leave and forced to work to pay off debts.
Children live with their mothers in rooms smaller than most one-car garages. When their mothers bring their customers home, they hide under beds while their mothers are working or they are pushed into the alleyway to play. Customers will use them to run errands, like fetching alcohol or drugs, and in some cases, they are tasked with cleaning up after customers have left. Some will be groomed to be the future of the business like their mothers and grandmothers.
We are calling on the Government to consult with children before this Bill progresses further.
We can not continue to let these children suffer.
We call for an end to the cycle of sexual exploitation of children in Bangladesh.
Our target: 6,000
3,519 signatures added so far
10,700 have signed. Let's get to 11,000!
More than 2 million Palestinian people, half of them children, are trapped in Gaza with no safe place to go. They are counting on the world to make a definitive ceasefire resolution a reality.
This ceasefire is critically needed, and long overdue. While it will not save the lives of the tens of thousands already killed, or who have died as a result of this conflict due to starvation and illness, it will provide a lifeline to those still clinging to life.
Access to life-saving aid
It will mean humanitarian organisations, such as Save the Children, can fully mobilise to provide the urgently needed food, water, shelter and medical supplies to save the lives of children and families who have for too long been in desperate need of help.
A definitive ceasefire will mean that children whose lives have been shattered, may have hope that their lives can rebuild, and they can look ahead to their futures.
