tag:ampocares.org,2005:/blogs/blog-1d1fc905-2946-401e-a17e-ef5dbc49d965?p=2Blog2018-08-15T18:27:37-04:00The Andrew and Mary P. O'Neal Cares Projectfalsetag:ampocares.org,2005:Post/52150082018-05-03T09:01:02-04:002018-05-03T09:01:02-04:00Iowa Legislators Just Passed One of the Most Restrictive Abortion Bills in the U.S.<p><span class="font_large">Iowa's predominantly Republican legislature passed a bill that would prohibit abortions after a fetal heartbeat is detected, a significant step toward enacting one of the most restrictive laws of its kind in the United States and one that Republicans hope would pave the way for a showdown at the U.S. Supreme Court. </span></p>
<p><span class="font_large">The “heartbeat” bill, which would ban abortions as early as six weeks — around the time women generally feel early signs of pregnancy and before many even realize they are pregnant — was passed Tuesday by the Iowa House, 51-46. The state Senate passed the bill 29-17 early Wednesday, sending it to Gov. Kim Reynolds (R), who has said abortion is “equivalent to murder.”</span></p>
<p> </p>
<p><span class="font_large"><a contents="Read More" data-link-label="" data-link-type="url" href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/to-your-health/wp/2018/05/02/iowa-lawmakers-just-passed-one-of-the-most-restrictive-abortion-bills-in-the-u-s/?utm_term=.5505b3048300" style="" target="_blank">Read More</a></span></p>The Andrew and Mary P. O'Neal Cares Projecttag:ampocares.org,2005:Post/52150072018-05-03T08:48:32-04:002018-05-03T08:48:32-04:00Without Family, U.S. Children in Foster Care Easy Prey for Human Traffickers<p><span class="font_large">NEW YORK, May 3 (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - Children removed from unfit families and put in foster care are terrifyingly vulnerable to being trafficked, a fact that Amy Andrews knows all too well. </span></p>
<p><span class="font_large">She spun in and out of her abusive family home into the child welfare system, starting when she was 10 years old. By 14, she was selling sex on Hollywood's Sunset Boulevard, working for traffickers who exploited her naivete and need for attention. </span></p>
<p><span class="font_large">"I'm loved, I'm wanted, I'm cared for, I'm given everything I want and no one blames me," Andrews said of being trafficked. "And I'm being sexually abused, but I can overlook that. </span></p>
<p><span class="font_large">"Nobody wanted me. This set me up to be vulnerable and needy," she told the Thomson Reuters Foundation. </span></p>
<p><span class="font_large">Hundreds of thousands of U.S. children live in foster care, prey to predator sex traffickers who may find their young victims at bus stops, shopping malls or street corners as well as on social media and online chat rooms.</span></p>
<p><span class="font_large"><a contents="Read More" data-link-label="" data-link-type="url" href="http://news.trust.org/item/20180503050039-20o9g" style="" target="_blank">Read More</a></span></p>The Andrew and Mary P. O'Neal Cares Projecttag:ampocares.org,2005:Post/52149942018-05-03T08:44:54-04:002018-05-03T08:44:54-04:00Child Brides Sold into Sex Slavery, Domestic Work, Say Indian Officials<p><span class="font_large">MUMBAI, May 1(Thomson Reuters Foundation) - Girls are being trafficked into domestic servitude or sex slavery after their parents illegally marry them off, said officials in the Indian state of Maharashtra on Tuesday. </span></p>
<p><span class="font_large">Researchers are conducting the state's first survey into links between child marriage and slavery, according to Vijaya Rahatkar, chairperson of Maharashtra's women's commission. </span></p>
<p><span class="font_large">The legal age of marriage in India is 18 for women and 21 for men. Parents face a fine of 100,000 rupees ($1,535) and two years in prison if they are caught trying to marry off their underage children. </span></p>
<p><span class="font_large">But discrimination against girls remains widespread, particularly in rural and poor communities where parents often view daughters as financial burdens and continue to marry them off early.</span></p>
<p><span class="font_large"><a contents="Read More" data-link-label="" data-link-type="url" href="http://news.trust.org/item/20180501072739-x83s8/" target="_blank">Read More</a></span></p>The Andrew and Mary P. O'Neal Cares Projecttag:ampocares.org,2005:Post/52149932018-05-03T08:35:37-04:002018-05-03T08:35:37-04:00Congo Sex Slavery Conviction Shows Progress Towards Justice - Rights Groups<p><span class="font_large">DAKAR, May 2 (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - Democratic Republic of Congo's jailing of a warlord for sexual slavery shows it is cracking down on a longstanding culture of impunity, rights groups and lawyers said on Wednesday. </span></p>
<p><span class="font_large">A military court in the central African country sentenced Lieutenant-Colonel Maro Ntumwa, nicknamed "Marocain", to 20 years in prison on Saturday for crimes he committed as head of a local militia from 2005 to 2007. </span></p>
<p><span class="font_large">The prosecution was one of several that suggest the state is making a greater effort to hold people accountable for sex crimes after being pegged the "rape capital of the world", said Geneva-based legal group Trial International. </span></p>
<p><span class="font_large">"I feel that concretely there has been a change of heart or at least more determination on the part of the government," said Daniele Perissi, head of the Congo programme at Trial International, which helped Ntumwa's victims build their case.</span></p>
<p><span class="font_large"><a contents="Read More" data-link-label="" data-link-type="url" href="http://news.trust.org/item/20180502181218-og58r/" target="_blank">Read More</a></span></p>The Andrew and Mary P. O'Neal Cares Projecttag:ampocares.org,2005:Post/52045032018-04-26T20:03:45-04:002018-04-26T20:03:45-04:00A Lynching Memorial Is Opening. The Country Has Never Seen Anything Like It<p><span class="font_large">MONTGOMERY, Ala. — In a plain brown building sits an office run by the Alabama Board of Pardons and Paroles, a place for people who have been held accountable for their crimes and duly expressed remorse. </span></p>
<p><span class="font_large">Just a few yards up the street lies a different kind of rehabilitation center, for a country that has not been held to nearly the same standard. </span></p>
<p><span class="font_large">The National Memorial for Peace and Justice, which opens Thursday on a six-acre site overlooking the Alabama State Capitol, is dedicated to the victims of American white supremacy. And it demands a reckoning with one of the nation’s least recognized atrocities: the lynching of thousands of black people in a decades-long campaign of racist terror. </span></p>
<p><span class="font_large">At the center is a grim cloister, a walkway with 800 weathered steel columns, all hanging from a roof. Etched on each column is the name of an American county and the people who were lynched there, most listed by name, many simply as “unknown.” The columns meet you first at eye level, like the headstones that lynching victims were rarely given. But as you walk, the floor steadily descends; by the end, the columns are all dangling above, leaving you in the position of the callous spectators in old photographs of public lynchings.</span></p>
<p><span class="font_large"><a contents="Read More" data-link-label="" data-link-type="url" href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/25/us/lynching-memorial-alabama.html" target="_blank">Read More</a></span></p>The Andrew and Mary P. O'Neal Cares Projecttag:ampocares.org,2005:Post/52019572018-04-25T15:06:42-04:002018-04-25T15:06:42-04:00The Number of Refugee Children Out of School is Increasing at an Alarming Rate<p><span class="font_large">Amid all the pageantry, hoopla and media circus that is UN week in New York there is always some interesting and substantive work being done on important global issues. Sometimes these issues are not on top of the agenda of world leaders (though they probably should be) and conversations around them do not get the kind of attention they deserve for one reason or another. </span></p>
<p><span class="font_large">So, I was very glad to catch up with Carolyn Miles, President and CEO of Save the Children to have a conversation about the challenges of getting refugee children in quality schools. </span></p>
<p><span class="font_large">According to a new report from Save the Children, 700 million days of school have been missed by 3.5 million registered refugee children. </span></p>
<p><span class="font_large">More than half of all refugee children globally are out of school.</span></p>
<p><span class="font_large"><a contents="Read More" data-link-label="" data-link-type="url" href="https://www.undispatch.com/refugee-children-out-of-school-education/" target="_blank">Read More</a></span></p>The Andrew and Mary P. O'Neal Cares Projecttag:ampocares.org,2005:Post/51459662018-03-24T14:34:56-04:002018-04-25T02:50:47-04:00U.S. Senate passes bill to penalize websites for sex trafficking<p><span class="font_large">The U.S. Senate passed legislation on Wednesday aimed at penalizing website operators that facilitate online sex trafficking, chipping away at a bedrock legal shield for the technology industry. </span></p>
<p><span class="font_large">The bill passed the House of Representatives last month and was expected to be signed into law as soon as this week by President Donald Trump. </span></p>
<p><span class="font_large">The legislation, which passed the Senate on a 97-2 vote, would make it easier for state prosecutors and sex-trafficking victims to sue social media networks, advertisers and others that failed to keep exploitative material off their platforms. </span></p>
<p><span class="font_large">Law enforcement has lobbied for years for such a law, an effort which resulted in part from a crackdown on backpage.com, the second largest U.S. classified ad service and which is used for sex advertising. </span></p>
<p><span class="font_large">Passage of the bill represented a rare defeat for the internet industry, which despite coming under renewed scrutiny for how companies protect user data or guard against Russian meddling has for years avoided meaningful regulation in Washington.</span></p>
<p> </p>
<p><span class="font_large"><a contents="Read More" data-link-label="" data-link-type="url" href="http://news.trust.org/item/20180319225101-3h4tr/" style="" target="_blank">Read More</a></span></p>The Andrew and Mary P. O'Neal Cares Projecttag:ampocares.org,2005:Post/51441812018-03-23T13:39:46-04:002018-03-23T13:39:46-04:0010 Telling Signs You’re Trapped in an Abusive Relationship<p><span class="font_large">The thing that hurts most about an abusive relationship is realizing that you were tricked into it. Most abusive relationships don’t start out with a black eye. Commonly, they begin just like any other relationship or may seem too good to be true, but slowly, your partner may begin to subtly blame you for things beyond your control or pick at your faults. This may slowly evolve into full blown verbal or physical abuse. </span></p>
<p><span class="font_large">The trauma suffered in an abusive relationship gradually ramps up. It slowly drains you of self worth and alienates your support system, leaving you feeling trapped and miserable before you even realize the signs. </span></p>
<p><span class="font_large">Regardless of if you suffer from emotional, verbal, or physical abuse, it can be difficult to comprehend that someone you love, and who claims to love you, could victimize you. And sometimes, your partner may not even realize what they’re doing is wrong.</span></p>
<p><span class="font_large"><a contents="Read More" data-link-label="" data-link-type="url" href="http://www.activebeat.co/your-health/10-telling-signs-youre-trapped-in-an-abusive-relationship/?utm_medium=cpc&utm_source=google&utm_campaign=AB_GGL_US_DESK-SearchMarketing&utm_content=g_c_183766292548&cus_widget=kwd-3423217721&utm_term=abusive%20relationships%20hotline&cus_teaser=" target="_blank">Read More</a></span></p>The Andrew and Mary P. O'Neal Cares Projecttag:ampocares.org,2005:Post/51363062018-03-19T16:39:02-04:002018-03-19T16:39:02-04:00US Mayors Unite to Tackle Affordable Housing Crisis in Cities<p><span class="font_large">Several mayors from across the country -- including Los Angeles, Philadelphia and Washington, D.C. -- have joined a coalition to find solutions to the lack of affordable housing in their cities. </span></p>
<p><span class="font_large">Fourteen mayors and CEOs have joined the Mayors & CEOs for U.S. Housing Investment coalition. Part of their goal is to form public-private partnerships to ensure the federal government continues to fund federal housing and homeless assistance.</span></p>
<p><span class="font_large">In 2017, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development estimated that on any given night, 553,742 people are experiencing homelessness in the United States. Nearly one-third of these people were in an unsheltered location while experiencing homelessness — a 9 percent increase from 2016.</span></p>
<p><span class="font_large"><a contents="Read More" data-link-label="" data-link-type="url" href="https://www.nbcwashington.com/news/national-international/Arizona-California-Mayors-Tackle-Affordable-Housing-477208603.html?_osource=SocialFlowFB_DCBrand" target="_blank">Read More</a></span></p>The Andrew and Mary P. O'Neal Cares Projecttag:ampocares.org,2005:Post/51341732018-03-17T22:07:53-04:002018-03-17T22:08:27-04:00Why Black Women Struggle More With Domestic Violence<p><span class="font_large">Domestic and intimate partner violence (DV/IPV) is a “family secret” in our Black communities. While I’m not suggesting that all Black people think and function in similar enough ways that we could all be labeled simply as one “community,” I do know we have pervasive problems that require nuanced discourse — especially in light of the national conversation about domestic abuse that has erupted over the last week. </span></p>
<p><span class="font_large">Since Ray Rice, former Baltimore Ravens running back, was indefinitely suspended because a video was released of him punching his then-fiancée Janay until she was unconscious, there have been many conversations about violence between partners, and about the particular vulnerability of Black female victims. Much of the discussion has centered around the level of empathy and compassion shown toward victims like Janay, who choose to remain with their abusers.</span></p>
<p><span class="font_large"><a contents="Read More" data-link-label="" data-link-type="url" href="http://time.com/3313343/ray-rice-black-women-domestic-violence/" target="_blank">Read More</a></span></p>The Andrew and Mary P. O'Neal Cares Projecttag:ampocares.org,2005:Post/51294422018-03-15T06:36:05-04:002018-03-15T06:37:46-04:00Couple Who Housed Children in Desert Shack Get New Home<p><span class="font_large">A Southern California couple found with their three children in a makeshift desert shack said they hope to be reunited with their kids now that they have a house to live in. </span></p>
<p><span class="font_large">Daniel Panico, 73, and Mona Kirk, 51, on Tuesday visited their new home near Joshua Tree that was paid for and furnished by donations to an online fundraising site started by a friend.</span></p>
<p><span class="font_large"><a contents="Read More" data-link-label="" data-link-type="url" href="https://www.nbcwashington.com/news/national-international/California-Couple-Who-Housed-Kids-in-Desert-Shack-Get-New-Home-476928393.html" style="" target="_blank">Read More</a></span></p>The Andrew and Mary P. O'Neal Cares Projecttag:ampocares.org,2005:Post/51176762018-03-08T10:37:43-05:002018-03-08T10:37:43-05:00Idaho House Rejects Bill to Keep Guns Away from Domestic Abusers<p><span class="font_large">After an emotional debate, the Idaho House on Tuesday narrowly rejected legislation to mirror federal law by barring those convicted of misdemeanor domestic violence against an intimate partner from possessing guns for two years. </span></p>
<p><span class="font_large">Rep. Melissa Wintrow, D-Boise, the bill’s lead sponsor, noted that Utah passed similar legislation last year with a Republican senator sponsoring it; 28 states have done the same with bipartisan backing. </span></p>
<p><span class="font_large">“This is one of the most dangerous situations you can find … and then you throw a gun in the mix,” Wintrow told the House. She also provided an Idaho attorney general’s opinion assuring lawmakers that the bill was constitutional. “We are saying if you’ve been convicted as a criminal, then you should not have a deadly weapon – that’s it,” she said. “We could save lives.”</span></p>
<p><span class="font_large"><a contents="Read More" data-link-label="" data-link-type="url" href="http://www.spokesman.com/stories/2018/mar/06/idaho-house-rejects-bill-to-keep-guns-away-from-do/" target="_blank"><strong>Read More</strong></a></span></p>The Andrew and Mary P. O'Neal Cares Projecttag:ampocares.org,2005:Post/51176752018-03-08T10:34:31-05:002018-03-08T10:34:31-05:00McDonald's Flips Famous Golden Arches Logo for International Women's Day<p><span class="font_large">McDonald's has turned its famous golden arches logo upside down to mark International Women’s Day. </span></p>
<p><span class="font_large">A branch in Lynwood, California, surprised its customers by flipping the sign to resemble a 'W' and mark the worldwide celebration of women. </span></p>
<p><span class="font_large">The fast food giant also inverted its “M” logo on all its social media platforms and provided staff at 100 of its US stores with special “packaging, crew shirts and hats, and bag staffers” to celebrate the day.</span></p>
<p><span class="font_large"><a contents="Read More" data-link-label="" data-link-type="url" href="https://www.standard.co.uk/news/world/mcdonalds-flips-famous-golden-arches-logo-for-international-womens-day-a3784936.html" target="_blank"><strong>Read More</strong></a></span></p>The Andrew and Mary P. O'Neal Cares Projecttag:ampocares.org,2005:Post/51176742018-03-08T10:31:19-05:002018-03-08T10:31:19-05:00Teen Dating Violence Awareness: Three Warning Signs Your Student is Experiencing Abuse and Three Things You Can Do to Help <p><span class="font_large">One in three teens experience physical, sexual, emotional or verbal abuse by a dating partner each year. As an educator, you are in frequent contact with students who are experiencing abuse for themselves or who know someone who is. </span></p>
<p><span class="font_large">Often this issue is met with silence in schools because teachers and educators are overwhelmed with a myriad of day-to-day demands and expectations. Additionally, they may also be unequipped to recognize the warning signs of abuse and provide support and resources to students facing dating violence.</span></p>
<p><span class="font_large"><a contents="Read More" data-link-label="" data-link-type="url" href="https://ncadv.org/blog/posts/teen-dating-violence-awareness-three--warning-signs-your-student-is-experiencing-abuse-and-three-thi" target="_blank"><strong>Read More</strong></a></span></p>The Andrew and Mary P. O'Neal Cares Project