PRESS
RELEASE
16
million children’s prize
for the rights of the child
FOCUS
ON CHILDREN WHO ARE MAIDS, HOMELESS AND SEX SLAVES
Millions of children in India involved
This year’s three finalists for the
World’s Children’s Prize for the Rights of the Child
(WCPRC), with prize money totalling SEK 1 million (USD 140,000) are:
•
JOSEFINA CONDORI, Peru, who for 15 years has fought for girls working as
maid in the town of Cusco in Peru, often in slave-like conditions. She
became a maif herself at the age of seven and then had to leave her
family.
• AGNES STEVENS, USA, who has fought for homeless children in
USA for 20 years. There are one million homeless children in USA. Agnes
runs School on Wheels for thousands of homeless children, with the help
of hundreds of volunteer teachers.
• SOMALY MAM, Cambodia, who for 12 years has fought to save
girls who are sold as slaves to brothels. Somaly was herself a sex slave
as a child. Her struggle has earned her many enemies and death threats.
Her own 14 year-old daughter was kidnapped, raped and sold to a
brothel.
WORLD’S
LARGEST EDUCATIONAL INITIATIVE ON DEMOCRACY AND CHILDREN’S RIGHTS
The WCPRC empowers children and young people all over the world so that
they can make their voices heard and demand respect for their rights in
accordance with the UN Child Convention. The WCPRC has quickly grown
into the world's largest annual educational initiative for children on
rights and democracy. As part of this process, the children award their
prestigious prizes for outstanding contributions to the rights of the
child. The prize money help some of the world's most vulnerable children
to a better life.
During the WCPRC period, 14 Janury-14 April, the students work with
the prize magazine The Globe and
www.childrensworld.org,
both now available in ten languages, since Arabic has been added. The
students learn about the rights of the child and about the prize
candidates work for those rights, before the organise the schools Global
Vote Day.
“If I was president of Nigeria, I would declare a Global Vote Day
national holiday”, said Nasiru Suleiman, 14.
“If I was the president of our republic, my goal would be to protect the
children and to educate them with the help of WCPRC. Honestly I’m really
happy with The Globe prize magazine and thanks to it I’ve learnt about
all my rights and about those who fight for them”, said Ndeye Mbakhe,
13, from Senegal.
35
000 SCHOOLS WITH 16 MILLION CHILDREN
16
million students at 35,000 schools in 87 countries participate in the
WCPRC. 5,2 million of those children participated in the Global Vote
which determined who received the Global Friends’ Award 2007.
More than 6 million children are expected to vote in 2008. 1,5 million
students
in 6,000 Indian schools are expected to vote.
The participating children include: 250,000 children in Kongo Kinshasa's
war-torn Kivu province (including abused girls and former child
soldiers), 30,000 children in Rwanda who are orphans since the genocide,
250,000 children in the Kisumu area, Kenya, (many of the children are
orphaned because of AIDS), 30,000 children in Sindh,Pakistan (including
former debt slaves), 250,000 children in Zimbabwe practicing democracy
(many of them girls standing up for their rights), 1,5-2 million
children in South Africa, 1,5-2 million children in India. And also
children of all sectors of society in the US, Canada, Sweden, UK,
Brazil, Nigeria, Ghana, Mozambique, Lebanon and Vietnam, to mention a
few more of the countries.
An international child jury – consisting of children who are experts on
the rights of the child through their own experiences as soldiers,
refugees, street children or slaves – chooses the recipient of the other
major award, the World’s Children’s Prize. Rakesh Kumar, 13, from
India is a jury member and represents children in hazardous labour,
slave children and children who `don’t exist´ because their birth was
never registered.
Over 400 organisations, departments of education, companies and media
projects for young people all over the world support and co-operate with
the WCPRC.
MANDELA IS A PATRON
The patrons of the WCPRC include Queen Silvia of Sweden, Nelson Mandela,
President and Nobel Peace Prize Laureate José Ramos Horta of East Timor,
former Executive Director of Unicef Carol Bellamy, former UN
Under-Secretary-General and now World’s Children’s Ombudsman Olara
Otunnu, and Nobel Prize Laureate in Economics Joseph Stiglitz.
THE PRIZE MONEY
The prize money, SEK 1 million (USD 140,000), is to be used in the
recipients’ work for the rights of the child and will help some of the
world's most vulnerable children. It is supported by Abraxis BioScience,
AstraZeneca, ABN AMRO Bank and Banco Fonder, and Interoute. The WCPRC
was founded by the Swedish organisation Children’s World, and is a
Swedish National Millennium Project.
THIS
YEAR’S AWARD CEREMONY
This
year’s prize ceremony will be held on 18 April at Gripsholm Castle in
Mariefred, Sweden, where
HM
Queen Silvia will help the children to give out the prizes. All three
final candidates will be honoured. The recipients of the prizes will be
announced at a press conference at 12 noon on 16 April, at Södra Teatern,
Mosebacke Torg, Stockholm, Sweden.
WHY HAS JOSEFINA CONDORI
BEEN NOMINATED?
Josefina Condori has been
nominated for the 2008 WCPRC for her long struggle for girls who work as
maids in Peru, often in slave-like conditions. Many of the hundreds of
thousands of domestic workers face abuse in the homes in which they
work. Josefina, who has been a maid herself, has been fighting for the
rights of domestic workers since she was a teenager. In 1994 she founded
Yanapanakusun, an organisation that runs a home for vulnerable girls and
a centre for domestic workers. Josefina and Yanapanakusun run courses
and do preventive work in 30 villages in the Andes mountain range around
Cusco. They also broadcast five radio shows and run a hotel, a farm and
a school for girls and boys who work. 500 girls have lived in the home.
Tens of thousands have received support and help from the drop-in
centre. Josefina gives the girls food, clothes, shoes, healthcare, a
home, the chance to go to school, security and love. More than anything
else, however, she works to ensure that child workers know their rights
and are able to demand respect for those rights.
WHY HAS AGNES STEVENS
BEEN NOMINATED?
Agnes Stevens has been
nominated for her 20-year struggle for homeless children in the USA.
Every year Agnes and her organisation, School on Wheels, help thousands
of homeless children aged between six and 18. Hundreds of volunteers
donate tens of thousands of hours as tutors for children who live in
shelters, in motels, in cars or on the streets. The tutors give the
homeless children security. When the kids move, School on Wheels follows
them and gives them stability in an otherwise unstable existence. The
children can stay in touch with School on Wheels using a toll-free phone
number. Agnes and School on Wheels help children and their parents with
changing schools and retrieving lost documents, like grades and birth
certificates. The kids also get backpacks, school uniforms, school
supplies and money for the bus or the subway. At many shelters, School
on Wheels has created special learning rooms, with computers, books, and
drawing and writing materials, to give the children a quiet place to
study and the chance to be kids.
WHY HAS SOMALY MAM BEEN
NOMINATED?
Somaly Mam has been
nominated for the 2008 WCPRC for her long and often dangerous struggle
to save the girls who are sold as slaves to and at brothels in Cambodia.
Somaly herself was sold to a brothel as a child, and she wants all girls
who have been slaves to have the same opportunities in life as others.
Through AFESIP, she has built three safe houses for the girls they
rescue from slavery. There the girls get food, healthcare, a home and
the chance to go to school, as well as training for jobs when they are
older. Above all, Somaly gives the girls safety, warmth and love. 3000
girls who have been slaves now have a better life thanks to Somaly. She
and AFESIP speak on behalf of the girls in Cambodia by constantly
encouraging the government and other organisations to take care of the
country’s girls. Somaly receives regular death threats. In 2006 her 14
year-old daughter was kidnapped, raped and sold to a brothel. People
wanted to punish Somaly for her fight for girls’ rights.
For
more information on the WCPRC and the prize candidates see:
PRESS
at www.childrensworld.org,
where you can also find high-res pictures. Video footage on FTP.
Contact:
Magnus
Bergmar, +46(0)159-129 00, +46(0)70-515 58 39
magnus.bergmar@childrensworld.org
Andreas Lönn, +46(0)70-344 18 90 andreas.lonn@childrensworld.org
