Category Archives: Age

Age, Sexual + Gender Minorities

Global Perspectives | Queer Seniors

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In an effort to highlight geographically diverse conditions for minorities and underrepresented communities, Outlas is gathering and featuring publicly available personal accounts, documentaries, features, and other video content centering the experiences of marginalized communities around the world. Join us at the Outlas YouTube channel, where two playlist series highlight diverse stories from across the platform:

  • Intersections
    Featuring the experiences of multiple minorities and the effects and subcultures of compounded marginality, from Muslim women to queer people with disabilities
  • Contexts
    Featuring regionally specific content highlighting how geopolitical contexts shape identity from place to place, including people of African descent in East Asia, atheists in Africa, and beyond

So without further ado, Outlas presents…

Intersections: Queer Seniors

The first Intersections playlist is an evolving collection devoted to the experiences of queer seniors. Queer seniors face a range of community-specific vulnerabilities, from housing and services discrimination to ageism in the broader LGBT community. As the generations that survived the AIDS epidemic that eviscerated their ranks grow older, they age into physical, psychological, and financial health issues that disproportionately impact LGBT elders. But attention to vulnerability alone fails to highlight the vibrant cultures and histories of queer elders. Videos in the collection also tackle sexuality and aging, advice for younger generations, and the tremendous historical memory that queer seniors hold in need of preservation.

Featured content comes from countries including the U.S., Canada, the U.K., and Australia and includes the stories of queer women, people of color, drag performers, and transgender individuals. Unfortunately, the limited geographic scope of available content is a reminder that many if not most queer seniors around the world remain in the closet, located in regions unfriendly or even inhospitable to their visibility. We will continue to add more dynamic stories of queer seniors (particularly from non-English-speaking parts of the world) where appropriate and available. Outlas is always open to suggestions!

View the full playlist on YouTube and stay tuned for more collections featuring the experiences of other underrepresented groups around the world.

Age, Class + Socioeconomics

Brazil News | Children

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Brazil sheds 43% of child workers over last decade
  • Brazil’s number of child workers decreased to 2.8 million in 2014 from 5 million in 2004.
  • The demographics of child workers also shifted from predominantly uneducated children from low-income families to teenagers from economically stable families.
  • The Brazilian constitution bans children under the age of 13 from working, while youth aged 14 and 15 can work under apprenticeship programs and those aged 16 and older can have formal day jobs.

Read more:
“Brazil reduces child labor by 43 percent in decade” (Xinhua)
2014 Findings on the Worst Forms of Child Labor: Brazil (U.S. Department of Labor)
“Brazil halves the percentage of children working” (The Guardian, 2010)

Age, Nationality + Migration

Australia News | Refugee Children

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Australian court ruling clears way for deportation of refugee infants born in the country
  • Australia’s High Court upheld the legality of the deportation of newborns born to asylum-seekers in the country, which currently include dozens of infants, as well as more than 50 children brought to Australia for medical treatment and their families.
  • The case was brought by the Human Rights Law Centre (HRLC) on behalf of a Bangladeshi woman who was transported from offshore detention to Australia in 2014 for prenatal medical treatment and has remained there since.
  • Australian citizenship laws withhold citizenship from children born in Australia to foreign nationals until their 10th birthday, at which time they must have lived in Australia for a significant period.

Read more:
“Australian asylum ruling paves way for deportation of infants” (Reuters)
“High court upholds Australia’s right to detain asylum seekers offshore” (The Guardian)
“Asylum seeker mother voices fears about being returned Nauru immigration detention centre” (ABC)

(Image Credit: Human Rights Law Centre Handout, via Reuters)

Age, Nationality + Migration

Europe News | Child Refugees

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At least 10,000 refugee children reported missing after arriving in Europe
  • The EU’s criminal intelligence agency has reported that the child refugees went missing after registering with state authorities, including 5,000 in Italy and 1,000 in Sweden.
  • Authorities fear the children may have fallen into the hands of human traffickers, who, according to intelligence, have begun linking their slavery networks to migrant-smuggling networks.
  • Unaccompanied minors have become a source of serious concern in the migration crisis, with the U.K. having recently pledged to accept an additional but limited number of unaccompanied children from conflict-ridden regions of North Africa and the Middle East.

Read more:
“10,000 refugee children are missing, says Europol” (The Guardian)
“UK to give sanctuary to unaccompanied refugee children” (BBC)
“Ministers offer unaccompanied child refugees in Europe limited UK help” (The Guardian)

(Image Credit: Darko Vojinovic/AP, via The Guardian)

Age, Gender, Ideology + Affiliation

Uzbekistan News | Women Activists & Citizens

Activists claim abuse by Uzbek government while documenting forced labor in cotton harvesting
  • Human rights activists affiliated with the Human Rights Alliance of Uzbekistan claimed they were detained and beaten by police after attempting to document forced labor conditions during the country’s cotton harvest.
  • Two women arrested in late September reported being strip-searched and having a gynecological examination conducted in front of male officers.
  • Uzbekistan, the fifth-largest cotton producer in the world, has long been under fire for the mass mobilization of its citizens into unpaid labor in the fields to ensure the millions of tons of the country’s major cash crop can be harvested and exported.

Read more:
“Uzbekistan accused of brutal crackdown on activists investigating forced labour” (The Guardian)
“Arrested, threatened, beaten: The Uzbekistan activist who won’t give up” (BBC)
“Uzbekistan: Cotton Harvest Monitors Face Intimidation” (EurasiaNet)

(Image Credit: Mikhail Metzel/AP, via The Guardian)

Age, Gender, Ideology + Affiliation

Netherlands News | Women & Youth

European court rules brothel owners in Amsterdam must share language with sex workers
  • The European Court of Justice ruling sided with the city of Amsterdam, which blocked the application of a brothel owner to run a Red Light District window rental space because the owner could not communicate in the language of some of the workers.
  • The business owner had his business plan denied because he rented to Hungarian and Bulgarian immigrant workers who did not speak Dutch and whose languages the owner did not speak.
  • The court cited the safety of women, human trafficking vulnerability, the prevention of sex work by minors, and pimping deterrence as justifications.

Read more:
“Court: Amsterdam brothel owners must speak prostitutes’ language” (The NL Times)
“Double Dutch barred in Amsterdam brothels” (AFP, via Yahoo! News)

(Image Credit: Wikimedia Commons/LeDeuxAlpe, via The NL Times)

Age, Gender, Nationality + Migration, Race + Color + Ethnicity

U.S. News | Haitian Immigrant Youth

In Search of Home

After the 2010 earthquake that devastated much of their country’s infrastructure, thousands of Haitians immigrated to the U.S. in search of a place to rebuild their lives. However, the traumatic psychological and material effects of the catastrophe made integration into their new homes difficult. PRI profiles efforts in Boston, home to one of the biggest Haitian-American communities in the U.S., to provide a space of transition for Haitian boys in search of familiarity.

Read more:
“A ‘home’ away from home is helping young Haitians in the US cope with trauma of 2010 earthquake” (Public Radio International)

(Image Credit: Rupa Shenoy/WGBH, via PRI)

Age, Gender

Malawi News | Girls

Malawi program promotes girls’ sexual and reproductive rights by stepping up health education
  • The Unite for Body Rights program was launched as a coalition of sexual rights organizations under the Center for Youth Empowerment and Civic Education in three districts (Dedza, Mangochi, and Chikhwawa).
  • Promoting family planning, re-enrollment for dropouts, and the reporting of sexual and domestic abuse, the program works to combat child marriage and educational disengagement among girls.
  • Thousands of peer educators along with teachers, church leaders, and health service providers have been targeted and trained in the provision of comprehensive sexual and reproductive education, with gains tentatively seen in implemented districts.

Read more:
“Stepping up game in girls’ sexual health and rights” (Mana Online)
Unite for Body Rights, Malawi

(Image Credit: via SRHR Alliance)

Age, Nationality + Migration

Lebanon News | Syrian Refugee Youth

Lebanon looks to provide schooling for upwards of 200,000 Syrian children in its schools
  • The education ministry indicated the numbers are an increase of tens of thousands over last year, straining Lebanon’s schooling capabilities.
  • $94 million in international financing has arrived to support the free education of up to 367,000 students–including the 200,000 Syrians–up through middle school.
  • Lebanon has hosted the largest proportion of Syrian refugees relative to its population, with 1.1 million living in a country of 4 million.

Read the full story at Reuters.

Age, Race + Color + Ethnicity

Israel & Palestine News | Palestinian Children

Israeli army arrests five Palestinian children in latest controversial detention of minors
  • The children were detained for allegedly throwing stones at soldiers, punishable by up to 20 years, before being released.
  • Rights groups estimate around 700 Palestinian minors are prosecuted each year in military courts.
  • Video of a small Palestinian boy with a broken arm being violently handled by Israeli officers went viral last month as the army’s aggressive police tactics drew international condemnation.

View the Al Jazeera America video on YouTube.

Age, Race + Color + Ethnicity

South Africa Feature | Black

South African Higher Ed’s Race Problem

Image Credit: Joao Silva/The New York Times
Image Credit: Joao Silva/The New York Times

Black students at South Africa’s preeminent universities have taken to protesting the slow pace of diversification in the institutions. Gaining momentum at schools like the University of Cape Town and Stellenbosch, the movement has taken up issues ranging from affirmative action to faculty hiring, with students engaging in sit-ins, readings, and demonstrations to draw attention to the overwhelmingly disproportionate racial demographics and culture of South African universities. The New York Times profiles students leading the way for change and the challenges facing the movement.

Read the full feature at the New York Times.

Age, Gender

Egypt News | Women

Egyptian student pursues legal action after alleging her exam results were falsified
  • Mariam Malak, a high-achieving student, took action and demanded an independent inquiry after seeing that the handwriting on the test did not match her own.
  • Malak, who scored 97% on the test in the previous two years, has aspirations of becoming a doctor.
  • With suspicions that Malak’s results may have been switched with another student’s, the case has become a symbol of corruption in the Egyptian education system.

Read the full story at the Guardian.

(Image Credit: Khaled Desouki/AFP/Getty Images, via The Guardian)

Age

China News | Children

Abducted or abandoned children in China see greater adoption opportunity under new rules
  • Authorities have capped the search for abandoned and trafficked children’s biological families at a year, allowing for them to be adopted from orphanages after that period.
  • Previously, children were left in indefinite limbo as long as their cases were active with search authorities.
  • More than 13,000 children were abducted last year alone according to the government, with the U.S. State Department estimating as many as 20,000 a year falling prey to traffickers and other kidnappers.

Read the full story at Reuters.

Age, Race + Color + Ethnicity

South Africa Feature | Black Children

Playing with Blackness

Image Credit: Leonardo Angelucci/AFP/Getty Images, via The Guardian
Image Credit: Leonardo Angelucci/AFP/Getty Images, via The Guardian

Childish Trading and Manufacturing founder Maite Makgoba hopes her Mommpy Mpoppy doll will help change the way young black South African children look at themselves. In a market overwhelmed by whiteness, her dolls feature dark skin and natural-looking hair, giving black children an opportunity to insert images of themselves into their play fantasies. The Guardian takes a look at the toy and the uphill market challenges Makgoba faces.

Read the full feature at the Guardian.

Age, Ideology + Affiliation

China News | Incarcerated Seniors & Veterans

China announces rare prisoner amnesities ahead of WWII anniversary
  • Four groups, including seniors and war veterans, will receive amnesty.
  • The decision marks only the eighth time China has granted incarceration relief in Communist Party history.
  • Those convicted of violent crimes such as rape, murder, or terror will remain incarcerated.

Read the full story at Reuters.