Shark humor has its time and place, but not when I'm snorkeling somewhere called Shark Bay. At the Heron Island Research Station, a laboratory on the teardrop-shaped atoll 45 miles (72 km) off Australia's east coast, the suntanned, chirpy station manager gives a parting wave to the three students who are taking me out for my first look at the legendary corals of the Great Barrier Reef. "Just don't get eaten, will you?" she says. Ha-ha. Happily, there are no sharks in Shark Bay that morning; in fact, there's not a whole lot of anything. As I follow the students' snorkels, we pass over circular beds of brown, monochromatic coral and empty expanses of rippled sand. A handful of small, glimmering fish hover in the water column, but they're the only life we see during an hour-long swim. Where are the schools of coral trout? The famed Maori wrasse? Wading back to shore, one of the students shrugs: "Sorry there wasn't more."...
CINCINNATI -- Nearly 3,000 Ohio children are at risk for sex trafficking, and more than 1,000 children in the state are trafficked into the sex trade every year, according to the attorney general's 2010 year-end report on human trafficking.
One victim of sex trafficking, "Sarah," as she asked to be identified, sat down with News 5's Stephanie Stone to tell her story. Sarah admits her story is unbelievable and disturbing. She agreed to go on camera hoping to save just one more person from the horrors of human trafficking.
"People have to know that this stuff does go on. Horrible, horrible, horrible things happen to children," she said....
GENEVA, February 22 (UNHCR) – The UN refugee agency said in Geneva on Tuesday it has become "increasingly concerned" about the dangers for civilians inadvertently caught up in the mounting violence in Libya, especially asylum-seekers and refugees.
"We have no access at this time to the refugee community. Over the past months we have been trying to regularize our presence in Libya, and this has constrained our work," Melissa Fleming, UNHCR's chief spokesperson, told journalists in Geneva....
Not my Life, an independent documentary on child exploitation and abuse today premiered at New York’s Lincoln Centre. The film, which was filmed across five continents, looks at the devastating issues of child trafficking, sexual exploitation and child labour.
Not My Life features Dr. Nicholas Alipui, UNICEF Director of Programmes, and Dr. Susan Bissell, UNICEF’s Chief Child Protection, who provide insight into the key issues.
“It is important to bring global awareness to these issues. Trafficking of children is a grave violation of their rights, robbing them of their childhood, their well-being, and the opportunity to reach their full potential,” said Dr. Susan Bissell. “Documentaries such as Not my Life are important, because they spotlight abuses that are otherwise often underreported.”...
(ATLANTA) — Despite having their first black president, Americans are no more certain than before that the country is closer to the racial equality preached by Martin Luther King Jr., a poll shows.
Seventy-seven percent of people interviewed in an AP-GfK poll say there has been significant progress toward King's dream, about the same as the 75 percent who felt that way in 2006, before Obama was elected. Just over one in five, 22 percent, say they feel there has been "no significant progress" toward that dream. "The exuberance and thrill of seeing an African American elected to the presidency has been tempered by the outrageous claims that we've heard about him," said William Jelani Cobb, a history professor at Rutgers University. ...
Amnesty International is calling for the release of three anti-slavery activists who were jailed after exposing a case of two young girls allegedly forced to work as servants.
Biram Dah Ould Abeid, Cheikh Ould Abidine and Aliyine Ould Mbareck Fall, all members of an anti-slavery NGO, were sentenced to one-year in jail - including six months suspended - on Thursday in the capital, Nouakchott.
"Those jailed are prisoners of conscience, detained solely on the basis of their actions in the struggle against slavery," said Erwin van der Borght, Africa Director at Amnesty International.
"The three men must be immediately and unconditionally released and Biram Dah Ould Abeid urgently treated for injuries he apparently sustained when ill-treated in detention."
The men were arrested last month by security forces after reporting that ...