Helle Thorning-Schmidt, the former prime minister of Denmark, has witnessed a good deal in her almost two decades as a result of Save the Children International, however the Rohingya camp she visited Cox’s Bazar in Bangladesh was one of the most shocking sights.
Of those 600,000 Rohingyas who have fled from Myanmar into Bangladesh and are living in makeshift huts, more than half are children.
“When you’re there you notice that this is a children’s emergency — the tiniest kids are walking about aimlessly, they have no clothes on, and quite smaller kids are carrying even smaller kids,” the kid’s chief executive says of her October visit to the camp.
The most vulnerable children are people who have been orphaned — many have seen their family members killed in front of those. Alone in the camp they risk being snatched by child traffickers working from the shelters. The vastness of the sprawling camp, which will be some distance from a primary street, means that anybody can enter.
Along with handing out basic humanitarian supplies and food, and establishing emergency health units and secure spaces for kids, Save the Children is also attempting to determine unaccompanied children and reunite them with relatives in the camp. They have advised of fleeing terrible atrocities.
“The rape of kids, kids seeing their family members being burnt in their homes, being taken in the front of them, needing to flee and wander to get to Bangladesh — that is a very serious humanitarian surgery,” states Thorning-Schmidt who had been in Hong Kong for less than a day en route from Beijing into Geneva and put aside time to consult with the South China Morning Post.
The child who [is] in the ethnic minority background that doesn’t fit in, is a refugee and a girl — she’s one of the most marginalised children today
It is impossible not to be disturbed and shaken by the children’s account in the current report “Horrors I won’t ever Forget” — on the Save the Children site. They inform of children burnt alive in their houses by the Myanmese military, of girls being raped and abused.
One 15-year-old girl called Halima told Save the Children concerning the military enclosing her village and opening fire people. Both her parents had been killed, leaving just Halima and her elder sister. “We wish to be free from fear. We want to live our own lives in peace. Please assist us. We beg you,” the girl said.
Thorning-Schmidt says although the situation might appear hopeless, it isn’t, and she would like to bring the message of these kids around the globe.
“The Rohingya people have no one to talk to them. They don’t have a diaspora they don’t have anybody famous who will speak them up or move on TV. That is why it is so vital for me and the remainder of Save the Children to speak them up,” Thorning-Schmidt states.
She says Hong Kong is a compassionate location and individuals here have shown themselves to be generous. There are over 40,000 individual donors in Hong Kong who provide regularly to conserve the Children.
“That is golden for us. It is money we could rely on, it means we could plan for it. By way of instance, if we want to scale up instruction for Rohingya kids we more or less know just how much we could,” she states.
Save Your Children is climbing up its operations in Asia in an effort to reach the over 360 million deprived kids in the area. These are kids who belong to an ethnic minority group, that are out of a religious minority, handicapped children, refugee children, and girls, that are consciously discriminated against or even given opportunities.
“The child that has a combination of those things — by an ethnic minority background that doesn’t fit in, is a refugee and a girl — she’s one of the most marginalised kids today and she’s the one we want to focus on in attaining the Sustainable Development Goals — that the Rohingya girl,” states Thorning-Schmidt.
When you’re there you notice This is a children’s emergency — the tiniest kids are walking about aimlessly, they have no clothes on, and quite Smaller kids are carrying even smaller kids
The United Nations suggested 17 Sustainable Development Goals in 2015 — to replace the Millennium Development Goals. Save the Children has interpreted those 17 goals into three areas of focus: ensuring that no child below the age of five dies of a disease that might have been averted; providing all kids quality instruction; and end violence against kids. The previous focus is possibly the hardest.
“Too many kids are victims of war and conflict on the planet,” states Thorning-Schmidt.
She’s particularly concerned about the present crisis in Yemen, in which she states over 100 kids are dying each day from diseases that could have been averted if they’d managed to attain them sooner, for example cholera, a disease that’s uncommon in the developed world.
“The Yemen catastrophe is most likely the worst type situation at this time because of the scale of this. It is really a children’s emergency,” states Thorning-Schmidt.
Early this season, the United Nations appealed to the Saudi-led military coalition to raise its blockade on Yemen, saying eight million people were on the edge of famine.
One of Save the Children’s primary strengths is that it’s such a huge organisation and operates in numerous nations. Launched in London in 1919 by Eglantyne Jebb and her sister Dorothy Buxton, it aimed to feed hungry children following the first world war. Today it has a staff of 25,000 working in 120 nations. Last year alone the organisation touched the lives of over 157 million kids.
“One reason I was attracted to Save the Children was that the assignment, the scale. We are not happy doing things nicely somewhere, we need to scale this up to the whole world, which I believe is fantastic because that’s where it really has an effect,” states Thorning-Schmidt.
Thorning-Schmidt was the pioneer of the Social Democratic Party for 10 years and became Denmark’s first female prime minister when she took office in 2011, serving till 2015. Though she admits that it’s an odd transition — “many politicians stay in politics” — she states it was a fantastic move and she actually believes that in her present role she is able to help create a better world.
“Every day I will look at my spreadsheet and find out just how many kids we have been in contact with today, just how many children’s lives have we touched and altered. I believe that concrete and practical way of changing things is quite an amazing thing,” she states.
On a trip to China’s Yunnan province last year to see “left behind kids” whose parents have migrated into towns to perform, she had been struck by how a relatively small sum of money could have such a positive influence on a child’s life.
In Yunnan, Save the Children was mostly concerned about making use of early childhood development through maintenance centers. Most kids in the area go to boarding school, and this coaching assured they’re well prepared for the adventure.
In hearing the tales of those Rohingya kids in the refugee camps in Bangladesh and sharing them with the world, Thorning-Schmidt says that the kids have issued a challenge to world leaders to stop the violence and create a safer future for them.
“That which they have had to survive in their brief lives is just not appropriate and we have the ability to change their future,” she states.
The near future for the Rohingya kids appears bleak. Those without relatives to care for them are at the chance of being put into child labor, sexually abused or trafficked. And people having relatives to look after them danger growing up without a future.
“They are not wanted in Bangladesh. They don’t have access to education. They are some of the most deprived kids on Earth,” states Thorning-Schmidt.
Immediate attractions for funds to get the Rohingya will probably be spent on healthcare and basic supplies. The next step from there’ll be to provide instruction in the decks.
“Instruction is a healing thing. When a child comes into a standard setting of being a child, should you sit and learn, that’s when they start healing these invisible wound of war,” she states.
