By Madeleine Blank, age 12
The United States’ withdrawal from Afghanistan is causing major problems for Afghans, including 1,450 children who were evacuated as unaccompanied minors fleeing the Taliban, a militant group that has regained control of the country.
More than 3.9 million refugees from Syria have crossed the borders into countries including Lebanon, Jordan, Iraq, Turkey and Egypt, looking for safety. More than half of these refugees are children.
On average, five kids are hit by a car in New York City every day. 14-year-old Allison Collard de Beaufort is the founder and president of the Vision Zero Youth Council, part of a project supported by Mayor Bill de Blasio to make the city’s streets safer.
When children are over-disciplined it has a long-term impact on society and themselves. Students are being excessively punished by suspension and expulsion at ages as early as four or five, and there are harmful consequences.
At most public high school job fairs in the United States, students will run into military recruiters. In 2001, the No Child Left Behind Act passed, containing a small section requiring public schools to give over all student contact information to the military and allow recruiters to visit school campuses.
Currently, there are about 1.6 million homeless kids in the United States—an all-time high—according to the National Center on Family Homelessness.
Kid journalists in India are giving voice to their communities by reporting on local issues in their very own newspaper, Balaknama.
Since October 2013, more than 63,000 unaccompanied children have arrived at the U.S.-Mexico border, double the number from the same period last year. Many of them have come from Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras to reunite with family in the United States or escape violence in their countries.
On August 15, 2014, the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs estimated that Israel’s attack of the Gaza strip that began on July 8 killed 1,999 Palestinians, including 1,434 civilians (72 percent), of whom 467 are children (23 percent).
The U.S. Department of Agriculture states that 45 percent of food stamp benefits go to children under the age of 18. In February, President Barack Obama signed a bill into law that would cut almost $9 million from the food stamp program.
