What do you think is missing in the Sustainable Development Goals? What would be your 18th goal, if you could add one to the list? These are some of the questions we ask students in our workshops on the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) as part of the World’s Largest Lesson. Among the many ideas put …
Continue reading “Why families are at the heart of achieving the Sustainable Development Goals”
It is a big year for global tourism. The UN designated 2017 as the International Year of Tourism for Sustainable Development and the 156 member states of the World Tourism Organization (UNWTO) – the UN agency responsible for the promotion of responsible, sustainable and universally accessible tourism – is considering the adoption of two international conventions, …
Continue reading “Why is orphanage tourism not in the UNWTO draft convention on tourism ethics?”
Avanti Menon, Stahili’s Associate Human Rights Officer, reflects on her year with Stahili as a ChangeMaker Fellow. How did her initial assumptions about the challenges of Stahili’s work change, and what did she learn from her experience? As a Stahili Human Rights ChangeMaker Fellow, my work involved a little bit of everything: research, drafting, social …
Stahili’s Transparency Officer Saskia Wishart reflects on what it means to be an ethical tourist. Seven years ago, while I was living in Cape Town, South Africa, I travelled with colleagues to a winery where we had a unique experience. Besides tasting quality wine, we were introduced to a company that pays its workers a …
Stahili’s Director and Co-Founder, Michelle Oliel, reflects on the people who live and work in orphanages and their children. Children are meant to grow up in families. Unfortunately, millions of children worldwide grow up in residential care institutions, sometimes called orphanages, care centres or children’s homes. The harm to a child’s well-being, including their …
Despite the lack of reference to children in street situations in the Convention on the Rights of the Child, the Committee on the Rights of the Child (UN CRC) has regularly expressed its concern about the rights and welfare of children in street situations and their families. So too have NGOs, researchers and child rights …
The US Department of State released its 2017 Trafficking in Persons (TIP) Report last week. This year’s report marks a major step forward in the fight against child trafficking by recognising, for the first time, the problem of trafficking of children to orphanages. In its country narrative on Nepal, the report describes how: “Under false promises …
Continue reading “U.S. Trafficking in Persons Report: Child Trafficking to and from Orphanages”
Stahili, the Roméo Dallaire Child Soldiers Initiative, and the Lori E. Talsky Center for Human Rights of Women and Children at Michigan State University College launched a series of reports on the use of children in armed conflict in 12 countries – Syria, Iraq, Yemen, Libya, Lebanon, Jordan, Turkey, Colombia, South Sudan, Somalia, Central African …
Volunteering abroad is seen by many as a good way to spend a ‘gap year’ – and volunteering with children is one of the most popular options. But unskilled “voluntourism” involving children is not a good idea. In our latest post by former volunteers, Clemmy Rich describes what happened to her when she volunteered to …
The United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child met for its 75th session between 15 May and 2 June 2017. The Committee, made up of 18 independent human rights experts from around the globe, reviewed the progress of seven countries from different parts of the world (Antigua and Barbuda, Bhutan, Cameroon, Lebanon, Mongolia, Qatar …