Congo's Desperate 'One-Dollar U.N. Girls'

[Texsox]

Breaking my heart

 

BUNIA, Congo -- She's known in the community as a "one-dollar U.N. girl." At night, she sleeps on the cracked pavement outside a storefront. In the mornings, she sashays through the dusty streets, clutching a frayed parasol against the blinding sun.

 

Yvette and her friends are also called kidogo usharatis, Swahili for small prostitutes. They loiter outside the camps of U.N. peacekeepers, hoping to sell their bodies for a mug of milk, a cold soda or -- best of all -- a single dollar.

 

Yvette, 14, said she was paid $1 by U.N. peacekeepers to have sex. "I'm sad about it. But I needed the dollars," she said. "Who will feed me?" (Emily Wax -- The Washington Post)

 

"I'm sad about it. But I needed the dollars. I can't go farm because of the militias. Who will feed me?" asked Yvette. At 14, she has a round face with wide eyes beneath a cap of neatly shorn hair, and her hands rest on her hips in an older girl's pose.

 

When Yvette was 10, a militiaman raped her, leaving her without clothes, she recalled. She cried a lot, wrapped her body in rags and then got up. She sought counseling at a women's organization, where she was told that she had done nothing wrong but that the theft of her virginity made her worthless as a bride. She should understand, the counselors said, that now no man would marry her.

 

[Kid Gleason]

How much money would it take to take just one of these kids off the street and give them a decent roof for even just one year? Don't you sometimes wish you could be rich, give one of these kids something like $100,000? You know that kind of money in some of these places would set the up for life. Sure, you could give a lot of money to alot of people over your life, but if you gave all of it to one person, and truely saved one person, it seems like that would be almost preferable.

[JUGGERNAUT]

There are some good stories. Charities such as World Vision, Catholic Charities, & Christian Children's Fund are helping some kids. You to can become a sponsor of these children. Some donations are even used to buy victims from rape camps.

[JUGGERNAUT]

This is kind of related. Airing on HBO this week is Sometimes in April.

It's a movie that tells the story of genocide in Rhwanda. I think they biggest eye opener is that these are not illiterate savages. This is more reminiscent of the Holocaust. Education alone will not prevent genocide. You need a culture of life.

[sec159row2]

How much money would it take to take just one of these kids off the street and give them a decent roof for even just one year? Don't you sometimes wish you could be rich, give one of these kids something like $100,000? You know that kind of money in some of these places would set the up for life. Sure, you could give a lot of money to alot of people over your life, but if you gave all of it to one person, and truely saved one person, it seems like that would be almost preferable.

 

 

you could donate the money and then some warlord (idi amin) or dirty politician (arafat) would take it .....

[southsider2k5]

you could donate the money and then some warlord (idi amin) or dirty politician (arafat) would take it .....

 

Or someone at the UN