Targeting Child Soldiers

This is a difficult moral and ethical question son. And made me think. When you read the two examples quoted, leaving aside the legal points, I'm afraid I would have pulled the trigger in both cases. Just because a child is at rest doesn't mean the gun on his side will not be picked up. 
A boy was recently killed in USA. He was playing with a toy pistol which looks exactly like a real one. And somebody called the police. Who came in and almost immediately shot the boy. You can say the police are trigger happy. Or racist (the boy was black). But the question arises, where do you draw the line. 
Think about another problem with age. You were able to join the army by 16. But you aren't allowed to vote. So you can kill for your country but you can't vote for your leaders. Bit inconsistent eh? So the Tories are bothered by not wanting the voting age for the brexit referendum to be reduced. Why? Stupid excuses. 
Something to think about. 
Love
Baba


Targeting Child Soldiers
http://www.ejiltalk.org/targeting-child-soldiers/
(via Instapaper)

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Despite the numerous volume on child soldiers in legal literature over the last few decades, very little has been said on targeting child soldiers. It seems to be something international lawyers would rather not talk about. The fact that legal literature doesn't say much about targeting child soldiers doesn't mean that no such practice exists, or that soldiers haven't discuss the matter. In 2002, the US Marine Corps Warfighting Laboratory organised a 'Cultural Intelligence Seminar' on the implication of child soldiering for US forces. One trigger for that discussion was the fact that the very first US soldier killed in Afghanistan reportedly was a Special Forces Sergeant shot by a 14-year-old boy. The year before, in Sierra Leone, a squad from the Royal Irish Regiment was taken prisoner by a group consisting mostly of armed children called the West Side Boys, as the British soldiers were hesitant to open fire. After they had been held hostage for two weeks, an assault was launched by an SAS unit supported by suppression fire from helicopters, leading to between 25 to 150 dead among the West Side Boys. Finally, during the civil war in Sri Lanka, a Government aircraft bombed what was deemed an LTTE training camp, killing a reported 61 minors, mostly girls. Although the LTTE was widely known to use child soldiers, and the specific facts were contested, the Sri Lanka Government was adamant that if a child took up arms, then he or she could be targeted and killed.
The phenomenon of child soldiers remains widespread, and their activities does include direct participation in hostilities. It is imperative that international humanitarian law provide guidance as to what opposing forces can do if they are confronted with that reality. In this piece, I suggest that there are elements in international humanitarian law that support adapting a child-specific approach to targeting. Under this approach, the fact that a potential target is a child should prima facie raise a doubt as to whether he or she is targetable. Although the doubt may be dissipated in light of available facts, overcoming the presumption of civilian status might require more than would be the case for an adult. In addition, even if a child is deemed targetable, the allowable means and methods must nevertheless reflect the protected status of children in international law.
Direct participation in hostilities for kids
The issue of targeting child soldiers raises two distinct legal questions: first, whether child soldiers are combatants like any other combatants and, second, if so whether the means used to target then follow the same rules as for adult combatants.
In order to discuss this, it is useful to consider two scenarios as ideal-type situations that give rise to the legal regulation of the targeting of child soldiers: a first scenario corresponds to a minor enrolled in the FARC rebels in Colombia, wearing a uniform, spotted by a government drone while having a nap against a tree, his gun lying next to him. A second scenario is one of a child wearing civilian clothes running towards government troops firing an AK 47 in the context of the civil war in Uganda. . In one case as in the other, can the government forces targets the child as if he or she were an adult?
Are these two child soldiers to be considered combatants under accepted principles of international humanitarian law? The starting points are articles 4(A) of the 1949 Third Geneva Convention and article 43 of the 1977 Additional Protocol I, which provides for the definitional elements of what a combatant is under international humanitarian law, albeit overtly in the context of an international armed conflict. If a child is enrolled in the armed forces of a party to an international armed conflict, there seems to be no apparent basis in current international humanitarian law to characterize that child as anything other than as a combatant. For a non-international armed conflict, which would correspond to the situations in Uganda and Colombia that I provided as my two ideal-type scenarios, the legal concept of the combatant is contested. Article 1 of Protocol I defines the scope of application of the protocol as covering only conflicts between the states armed forces and "dissident armed forces or other organized armed groups", which implies that there is a legal concept of insurgent armed forces. Seeing this, it is possible that a child may be fully incorporated into the insurgent armed forces and, as such, be a 'regular' fighter on a footing prima facie equal to other armed participants in a non-international armed conflict. According to the ICRC Interpretive Guidance on Direct Participation in Hostilities, individuals who can be said to have a "continuous combat function" are not civilians in non-international armed conflict, and can therefore be targeted. There is nothing in the Interpretive Guidance that suggests that children cannot have a continuing combat function and, as a result, be combatants. In a short post, Frédéric Mégret suggests that children should be considered as non-combatant members of the armed forces and not targeted unless they are directly participating in hostilities, implying that there would be no continuous function possibility for children. The underlying assumption seems to be that, because of their age, children can never become combatant in the full sense of the concept. Somehow, that does not appear to square with the reality in the field in many armed conflicts in which, as with the West Side Boys unit in Liberia, children can become ruthless fighters on a strategic footing equal to adults. There may be space in international humanitarian law to reflect an imperative to treat child soldiers differently than adult ones, as I will suggest shortly, but not in the impossibility that a child may have a continuous combat function or, for that matter, be a member of the armed forces.
A somewhat different approach can be taken by inquiring whether a child is directly participating in hostilities. The standard is expressed as regards international armed conflicts in article 51(3) of Protocol I, and for non-international armed conflicts in Common Article 3 of the 1949 Geneva Conventions and Article 13 of Protocol II. According to the approach adopted by the ICRC in its Interpretive Guidance, individuals who do not have a continuous combat function are therefore to be seen as civilians that may temporarily lose their entitlement to protection against targeting. For individuals in this class, direct participation refers to a specific act that meets three distinct criteria: a threshold of harm, linked to the likely effect of the act on the enemy; direct causation, linking the civilian act to that harm; and a belligerent nexus, intentionally linking the act and harm to the conflict. According to this approach, an individual who is not a member of the armed forces or a fighter in an armed group remains a civilian entitled to protection against targeting, except for the time that this individual engages in acts that meet the three elements of direct participation as defined by the Interpretive Guidance. This 'revolving door' approach has been challenged by some as not flowing from accepted treaty and customary humanitarian law. Be that as it may, there is nothing in any of these elements that connects in a particular manner with children. This aligns with the 2015 US Law of War Manual which states that "whether a civilian is considered to be taking a direct part in hostilities does not depend on that person's age" (§4.20.5.3). Decisions of the International Criminal Court and Special Court for Sierra Leone on the crime of recruiting and using child soldiers have confirmed, in that context, that children can directly participate in hostilities, and indeed have adopted a broad approach to participation. Although these courts did not articulate any ensuing consequences as regard the targeting of such children, they would seem to logically follow. Indeed, the ICRC explicitly confirms this in the commentary to the Interpretive Guidance, finding that "Children below the recruitment age may lose protection against direct attack" (page 60).
It bears noting that the recruitment age cut-off referred to in the Interpretive Guidance is 15 years old, as provided in article 77(2) of Protocol I, article 4(3)(c) of Protocol II, and Rule 137 of the ICRC study on customary law. Indeed, the structure of article 77 of Protocol I mirrors the general approach to the targeting of child soldiers under international humanitarian law: a first paragraph proclaims a duty to respect and protect children in armed conflicts; a second paragraph declares a duty of the belligerents not to enroll or involve children in hostilities; and three further paragraphs specify special protection for children that have been detained after taking direct part in hostilities. Perhaps as a lingering remnants of the distinction between Hague and Geneva law, international humanitarian law elides entirely the middle phase in which the child is taking active part in hostilities.
It was suggested by the author of one volume on child soldiers that children are 'civilian by nature'. There seems to be no basis for such a view. Upon closer consideration of applicable law, it appears that children can be combatants in largely the same way that an adult can. I offer this qualified statement to suggest that despite the analysis offered up to now, there are elements in international humanitarian law that support adapting a child-specific approach to targeting. Article 50(1) of Protocol I provides that "[i]n case of doubt whether a person is a civilian, that person shall be considered to be a civilian." It is not unreasonable to offer that, as regards the application of both the continuous combat function and 'revolving door' principles, the fact that the individual in question is a child should prima facie raise a doubt as to whether he or she is targetable. That doubt may be dissipated in light of facts available to those making a determination of the targetability of the child in question, but it requires that a presumption of civilian status be overcome, in a manner that would not obtain for an adult. For the three elements listed in the Interpretive Guidance as constituting direct participation, this presumption would imply that the threshold of harm, the direct causation, and the nexus to the conflict are not met unless the facts are sufficiently clear to overcome the presumption that a child is not directly participating. Likewise, a presumption in favour of the civilian character of children would structure the understanding of what is required for a child combatant to unambiguously opt out or withdraw from direct participation in hostilities, lowering the evidentiary threshold that corresponds to a conclusion that a child has regained a civilian status. For example, an adult fighter in uniform running away from battle may not be considered as unambiguously opting out of hostilities, as this could be a mere strategic fallback, but that same behaviour by a child fighter would meet a lower threshold.
In conclusion on this point, direct participation in hostilities for kids does not exclude the possibility that a child may be a combatant, either continuously or periodically, but the test is comparatively more restrictive than for adults as a reflection of the presumption that children are civilians.
Means and ends
The fact that a child soldier can be a combatant or a civilian taking direct part in hostilities implies that this child soldier can be directly targeted. The conclusion that it is lawful to directly target child soldiers does not necessarily entail that it is lawful to target them as if they were adult soldiers. Here again, the moral intuition that children remain children even if they take direct part in hostilities has an impact on applicable legal standards.
The starting point is the principle that, even in war, a belligerent's right to injure its enemy is not unlimited. More specifically, treaty and customary international law proscribe superfluous injury and unnecessary suffering (Art. 35, Protocol I). In a general manner, this is taken as a statement that the injury and suffering that is lawful under international humanitarian law is limited by what is necessary to achieve a military objective. As a foundational statement of the laws of war, this principle has acted as the basis for the specific prohibition of a number of weapons over the last century and a half, including the prohibition of dum-dum bullets, poison, blinding lasers, anti-personnel landmines, etc. But the principle is offered in Protocol I as a broad rule that is meant to have an effect on the lawfulness of means and methods of war generally, and not merely as a basis for a decision by states to regulate specific weapons by way of subsequent agreement. At its broadest, the norm against superfluous injury and unnecessary suffering calls for an appreciation of the necessary use of any means or methods of war in every case, to balance the military advantage against the injury and suffering caused in the operation. Authors likes Dinstein and Meyrowitz have challenged the suitability of a balancing approach in this context, arguing that the principle does not call to import here a balancing that is required only in relation to the impact of an attack on civilians. Still, this suggests that if available means and methods of warfare can achieve the same military advantage while causing a lesser degree of injury or suffering, then international humanitarian law requires that they be used. For example, if a military radar station must be disabled in order to prevent detection of a military operation, and this can be achieved either by kinetic means (bombing the station) or cyberwarfare (a virus attack to disable the computers running the radar), then the latter option must be selected. This finds some support in Art 52(2) of Protocol I which restricts military objectives to those the destruction of which brings a definite military advantage. What could be termed the 'most favoured weapons' doctrine can be extended even further, to suggest that if it is possible to wound instead of killing, or to capture instead of wounding (or killing), then that must be done. Whether international humanitarian law really confers upon belligerent a licence to kill enemy combatants, and whether the rules are different in international and non-international armed conflicts, has generated an intense debate (on 'capture or kill', see eg the contributions of Melzer, Hays Parks, Schmitt, Goodman, Kretzmer).
What I want to suggest is that, regardless of the validity of a general duty to use the least injurious means or method of warfare in any category of armed conflict, such a duty ought to obtain when directing an attack against child soldiers who qualify as combatants or as taking direct part in hostilities. It speaks to the moral intuition that, even in the context of war, the intentional targeting of children is a calamity. In law, it reflects the multiple norms in international humanitarian law and international human rights that demand special protection for children against harm. A duty to use the least injurious means or method of warfare against a child soldier can find some support in the French version of the prohibition of superfluous injury and unnecessary suffering, which speaks of maux superflus. As noted by several authors, the French is actually the original, taken from the 1868 St-Petersburg Declaration and later reproduced in the 1899 and 1907 Hague Regulations. The notion of maux superflus appears broader than its English translation, in that maux can be taken to refer not only to injury or suffering, but also to an evil; indeed, the idea of a mal superflu necessarily evokes its pendant, the mal nécessaire. In other words, war may be a necessary evil, but evils unnecessary for the pursuit of the legitimate aims of war (also defined in the St-Petersburg Declaration) are illegitimate. Returning to child soldiers, direct targeting can be considered permissible only to the extent that it is a necessary evil, meaning that no viable option can be identified and that there is a tangible military necessity for this attack, otherwise it violates the treaty and customary prohibition of superfluous injury and unnecessary suffering.
To go back to the two scenarios I sketched at the start, it seems quite clear that a child fighter with the LRA running towards government troops while firing an AK47 can be directly targeted using lethal force. It seems unlikely that there is another way to stop the attack that involves merely wounding or capturing a child soldier in this context. The second scenario of a drone spotting a FARC child soldier in uniform taking a nap, on the other hand, demands that the specific military advantage of targeting this child be clearly demonstrated and, if that can be done, that there is no available alternative that would be less harmful to this child while maintaining the military advantage.
The aim of this approach is to avoid the pitfalls of moralising idealism and ruthless instrumentalism, to reflect both the reality that child soldiers can sometimes present a direct and significant threat and the moral impulse to try to shield children from war as much as possible.

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Parental Housework and Children’s housework

Quite a fascinating correlation here, eh?

This paper analyzes the relationship between parents’ time devoted to housework and the time devoted to housework by their children. Using data of Germany and Spain from the Multinational Time Use Study, we find positive correlations, but gender differences, between parents and children’s housework time, which indicates that the more time parents devote to housework the more time their children devote to housework. While in Germany both fathers and mothers’ housework is positively related with the time devoted to housework by the children, in Spain it is only father’s time in housework that is positively related to children’s housework time. Thus, we find a different relationship between parents and children’s housework time in Mediterranean countries compared to other European countries. We also obtain that these results are not applicable to all sub-groups of population, as our analysis considering the labor force status and education of the parents yield mixed results.

Bit of a mixed result, but broadly, if I had to draw some inferences, ensure both parents work at housework and make sure both kids work. A bit of child labour goes a long way…

USA, for all its merits, is in some strange corners

Right now, it looks like only USA will be attacking the Syrian Regime now that the UK has not agreed to sign up. But USA usually ends up doing the right thing, other than few other notable exceptions.

It doesn't play cricket unlike most of the other commonwealth countries :P

it doesn't use the metric system.

And besides Somalia, its the only other country which hasn't signed up to the United Nations Convention on the rights of the child.

 

Paid maternal leave?

Confessions of a Black Mr. Mom" by Ta-Nehisi Coates

Kannu

This is an interesting article but before that some other points. 

As an economic and psychological aspect, children raised in a family turn out to be better citizens, more educated, more economically active and happier. 

That said, divorce is quite high in western societies so quite a lot of families are not a twin parent family. 

Also the welfare state ensures that if you have a child out of wedlock then you have benefits and child support. Plus many other issues and factors mean that for some groups, some countries, the number of children being brought up in families without a father is extraordinarily high. And that has high individual, family, social, economic and societal costs like imprisonment, low income, drug abuse etc etc. 

difficult to fix this issue but some try to do so. Here's an article by a black father who is trying to be a father! Personally and emotionally speaking, I find this totally bewildering as to why a father wouldn't be 100% involved with his children. But as an economist I understand that this behaviour of black and other men abandoning their children is a natural outcome of the economic and social incentives. 

Society and the family structure   is changing dramatically, and will need careful observation for lessons learnt. 

Love

Baba

"Confessions of a Black Mr. Mom" by Ta-Nehisi Coates
http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/features/2001/0203.coates.html

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Respond to this Article March 2002

One man’s crusade to redefine African-American fatherhood.

By Ta-Nehisi Coates

In one of his more interesting comic sketches, Chris Rock compares one group of African Americans, “niggas,” to another more wholesome group, “black people.” “You know what really bugs me about niggas is the way they always take credit for stuff a normal man would just do,” says Rock. “Like, ŒI raised my kids.’”

By Rock’s definition, I know exactly where I belong among African Americans today. For I am sure that even for this meager deed of fatherhood I am performing, I deserve a lot more than credit. My mission sounds simple enough: carting my young son through West Manhattan to visit another friend, working in Chelsea. I have logged enough baby hours to earn the title “stay-at-home dad,” so I’m not exactly new to this. But our trek into the city elicits terror because of three converging factors: 1.) I am a hefty 6’4” black male—-anything can happen. 2.) It’s Manhattan—-everything might happen. 3.) My son is 7 months old—-something always happens.

The Hell of American Day Care

Here's an interesting problem son. Govt's around the world are actually trying to reduce taxes and spend as the current level of spending is clearly unsustainable. More debt, borrowing from the future to spend in the present is starting to hit limits. So should we fund child care? The author talks about France but France is struggling with awesome amounts of debt. And it's social system creaks. Furthermore with such a great system France is useless at getting its people into work. 

Second aspect to remember is that having children is considered to be a choice. If you have children its expected that you are able to take care of them. Why should somebody else pay for your choices? I can understand low income, divorce etc etc but just like you wouldn't expect somebody else to pay for your vacation, the argument is that you have to have funds. 

But life isn't that simple and people will still have babies without the ability to pay or look after them. In my charity we find so many parents just useless at parenting at best and a threat to the kids at worst. 

So some element of child care has to be setup. Not a good choice. 

Love

Baba

The Hell of American Day Care | New Republic
http://www.newrepublic.com/article/112892/hell-american-day-care

M

Mire looked down at her baby girl, Kendyll, who was curled up tight on a foldaway crib. “Night, night,” Kendyll had just murmured in her quiet, serious way. At 20 months, she was picking up all sorts of words, like “baby,” the name of the doll she kept nearby, and “Bryce,” the name of her big brother. She hadn’t slept much that night, and Mire thought about calling in late to work so Kendyll could get more rest. But it was only Mire’s second day at a new job she badly needed, as a receptionist at a Houston oil company. Mire, who was 30, with an open face and wide smile, was intent on making a good impression. The best she could do was give Kendyll an extra hour to nap and prepare some warm milk for her breakfast.

When Kendyll got up, Mire dressed her in a purple shirt that matched her own—purple was Kendyll’s favorite color—and put a pair of purple-striped stretch pants in her backpack. It was a challenge to get Kendyll to sit still for the hour it took to unbraid and re-braid her dark hair, and on such a hectic morning, Mire didn’t even try. At around 7 a.m., they got into the car and drove to Kendyll’s new day care.

The place was called “Jackie’s Child Care,” but there wasn’t anyone named Jackie who worked there. The proprietor was Jessica Tata, an energetic 22-year-old registered with the state of Texas to look after children in the wood-paneled house she rented on a quiet, middle-class street. Her regulars included Elias, a chunky 16-month-old with a bowlegged walk, and 19-month-old Elizabeth, who always jumped into her mom’s lap when it was time to drop her off. As Mire walked back to her car that warm February morning in 2011, she noticed Kendyll hovering at the entrance—a little sleepy, a little curious, gazing at the scene inside. Mire felt uneasy about leaving, especially since it was only Kendyll’s second day there and she didn’t know Tata that well. Shortly after, she called Tata to check in, and Tata reassured her that Kendyll was doing just fine.



Just after lunch, Mire’s cell phone lit up. The number was Tata’s, but she didn’t recognize the voice. “There’s been a fire,” a woman said. “They’ve taken all the kids to the hospital, for smoke, as a precaution.” Mire tried not to panic; she clutched at the word “precaution.” Her phone buzzed again, this time with a text message from a friend: “What day care did you say Kendyll goes to?” Mire called the friend, who was watching live TV coverage of a burning Houston day care. Black smoke was billowing from windows and holes in the roof; firemen were running out of the house, cradling limp babies in their arms. One little girl had braided hair and a purple shirt, her friend told her. She looked like Kendyll. Mire ran to her car. I can’t panic, she kept telling herself as she drove through heavy traffic and later past ambulances and fire engines. I just have to get there.

Trusting your child with someone else is one of the hardest things that a parent has to do—and in the United States, it’s harder still, because American day care is a mess. About 8.2 million kids—about 40 percent of children under five—spend at least part of their week in the care of somebody other than a parent. Most of them are in centers, although a sizable minority attend home day cares like the one run by Jessica Tata. In other countries, such services are subsidized and well-regulated. In the United States, despite the fact that work and family life has changed profoundly in recent decades, we lack anything resembling an actual child care system. Excellent day cares are available, of course, if you have the money to pay for them and the luck to secure a spot. But the overall quality is wildly uneven and barely monitored, and at the lower end, it’s Dickensian.

Why Your Children Probably Aren’t Going to be Murdered

Son

You would have realised by now that the way we treat you is different from your friends, like with respect to safety. You are allowed out late, riding bikes and and and from a very young age while your friends were cosseted. That's because we feel that it's important of you to learn how to look after yourself and gain confidence. Take risks son, have fun. 

But this article is interesting due to the numbers cognitive bias issue. Fascinating study. 

Love

Baba

The Availability Heuristic: Why Your Children Probably Aren’t Going to be Murdered | Why We Reason
http://whywereason.wordpress.com/2011/11/12/the-availability-heuristic-why-your-children-probably-arent-going-to-be-murdered/

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The Availability Heuristic: Why Your Children Probably Aren’t Going to be Murdered

by sammcnerney on November 12, 2011

Journalist Lenore Skenazy is called a number of things: “Americans Worst Mom,” “A Heretic,” and, “Abusive.” Her crime? In 2008 she left her nine-year-old son go home by himself on the New York Subway. Her son’s solo trip was made famous by a New York Sun column written by Skenazy and it’s almost too easy to imagine her critics: up-tight mothers so overly protective of their children that they wouldn’t even think of letting them wait at the bus stop alone. You know, helicopter parents. As one recent Time.com article describes, they are the type of parents who “[buy] macrobiotic cupcakes and hypoallergenic socks, [hire] tutors to correct a 5-year-old’s “pencil-holding deficiency,”… [and demand that] nursery schools offer mandarin.”

Can you really criticize overprotective parents?  They are, after all, only trying to ensure the safety of their children. But sometimes the numbers tell a different story. In regard to Skenazy’s “abusive” decision, consider that only about 100 people are abducted by a stranger every year, half of whom are eventually murdered. Factoring in that there are 50 million children in the United States, the annual homicide rate via abduction comes out to be one in a million. In other words, “if you wanted your child to be kidnapped and held overnight by a stranger, you’d have to leave the child outside and unattended for 750,000 years.” Similarly, consider that, “more than twice as many children are hit by cars driven by parents taking their children to school as by other kinds of traffic.” That is, every time a parent drives their children to school the chances that a child gets killed increases.

Unfortunately, the parents don’t usually buy these types of arguments; “those are just the numbers,” they might say, “they miss a larger point: don’t rely on statistics when it comes to your children’s safety.”

How Our Education System Turns Away Thousands Of Brilliant People Every Da

No free house or government money till you are over 18 and if over 18, only for 1 child

This sort of makes sense. I know there are exceptions, but why on earth are we paying for zillions of these unwanted kids which cannot be brought up suitably? I quote:

There is a far easier way to reduce the abortion rate, discourage feckless little slappers from getting up the duff in the first place. No free house or government money till you are over 18. If Shaznay, and more importantly, her parent(s) thought, for 1 second, that the full financial responsibility of bringing a baby into the world fell squarely on her/their shoulders there would be far less 'accidents'. If Shaznay is over 18 then she get's her free 1 bedroom flat and financial support for THAT child. If she has another 'accident' whilst on benefits, well, tough fucking shit. No housing upgrade, no extra financial support, nothing.

Guess what they are doing in India?

Close to 10 per cent of Indian households are opting to have only one child as they seek to concentrate their resources to maximise earning opportunities for their offspring in a scramble for jobs.

The research shows that competition for jobs in a fast-growth economy was the greatest determinant of the single child trend in India. Couples with a single child did not consume or work more, or enjoy greater leisure time. What marked them out from larger families was their greater investment in their children to help them attain white collar jobs.

Single children received more education expenditure, were more likely to be enrolled in private school, and by the time they reached 11 years of age were more likely to be able to do basic arithmetic.

“Education has grown, but jobs have not,” said Ms Desai. “There’s a great deal more competition.”

Extraordinary thinking amongst the politicians in the UK, when will they grow up and realise that we cannot really keep on having more kids than what we can support?

Raising Kids–the tiger mother method

I quote:

Chua has accepted, in a way that the good mothers will not, that most children today can’t have it both ways: they can’t have a fun, low-stress childhood and also an Ivy League education.

I agree with Amy Chua. Life is a matter of choices and every choice has a set of positive returns and a set of negative returns. The way I am raising our kids, well, hopefully we are ok with this but I push both of them. I am called as paranoid and many have said that I should let them play a bit more. Yep, tick, they do play and have fun, but at the same time, I keep on showing them that there is much more that they can do. How else are you going to get them to excel? To know their boundaries? For heaven’s sake, I haven't found my boundaries yet and that’s not for the lack of trying either. Also, if you don't push yourself, how do you find out what you don't want to do? Sometimes that is more important than knowing what to do.

Take his internship ideas which I talked about before. Had an idea to give him some international internship experience. He can go to India or USA to work with some of the family / friends and get some experience during his summer holidays. What is extraordinary is how many people say no or have objections to this idea. Very few actually agree to the idea that he can spend 2 weeks out of 6 weeks of his summer holiday improving himself. Including him. But tough, he will be doing this. Why? because he will be the 1 person out of 10000 who can show international working experience on his cv when the time comes for him to apply to Harvard, Oxford or what have you. And lets see, 2 weeks of summer holiday versus a top class education. No contest at all.

Lets put this in another way, I would much rather they regretted how hard they worked as a kid when they are old rather than regretted that they did not work harder when they were a kid. If that means that I have to hear that I am paranoid, pushy and and and, so be it. In the meantime, go read the article which I linked above.

It could be cultural as well, and the socio economic statistics in the USA and UK point out the importance of education. I take the following graph from National Statistics UK.

Who are the top 3 in the lowest exclusion rates?

Ok, so how about people in managerial or professional occupations?

Who are the above average ethnic minorities? So tough titty, kids, be prepared to be pushed.

Overreaction to hunger in India

This news item was sent around on a list.

More hungry in India than in Sudan

Rukmini Shrinivasan, TNN, Oct 12, 2010, 03.30am IST

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/More-hungry-in-India-than-in-Sudan/articleshow/6733033.cms

NEW DELHI: India dropped two ranks to 67th among 84 developing countries in the International Food Policy Research Institute's annual " Global Hunger Index" for 2010. Even Sudan, North Korea and Pakistan rank higher than India.

While the report, released on Monday, shows that the proportion of undernourished in India is decreasing, the worsening ranking indicates that other developing countries have done better in tackling hunger. India is home to 42% of the underweight children under the age of five in the world.

The policymakers in India, who are are still fighting over the need to have an expansive National Food Security Act, should look at the following data more closely: in 2005-06, about 44% of Indian children — below five years — were underweight, and nearly half — 48% — were stunted.
The food insecurity is so rampant across the country that India is clubbed with minor economies like Bangladesh, Timor-Leste and Yemen, recording the highest prevalence of underweight in children under five.
At the beginning of the liberalization era in the early 90s, 24% of the population was undernourished. The situation marginally improved to 22% between 2004 and 2006. Almost 60% of children below five were recorded as underweight in 1988-92. The condition has remained dismal as the latest figure shows 43.5% between 2003-08.
The GHI ranks countries on a scale of 100, with 0 being the best score (no hunger) and 100 the worst. It is composed of three equally weighted indicators: the proportion of undernourished in the population, the prevalence of those underweight in children under five and the under-five mortality rate.

The figures for India are 22% (as of 2004-6), 43.5% (2003-8) and 6.9% as of 2008, respectively. These give India a composite GHI of 24.1, which is classified as alarming in terms of the food security situation.
The strife-torn Democratic Republic of Congo ranks at the bottom of the list of 84 countries with significant levels of hunger. The data has been compiled for 122 countries in all; the remaining 38 countries have a GHI of less than 5 and are not included in the rankings. No data has been recorded for highly developed countries.

South Asia has the highest GHI for any region in the world, at 22.9. The region has, however, made greater progress since 1990 than sub-Saharan Africa, the report adds. India is ranked below all other major South Asian countries — Sri Lanka is ranked 39th, Pakistan 52nd and Nepal 56th.
India's hunger is not purely a product of its middle-income status. While economic progress and hunger levels tend to be inversely correlated (countries with higher gross national income typically have lower GHI scores), some countries are exceptions to the norm. China has lower hunger levels than its GNI per capita would suggest, while India has higher hunger levels than would be expected from its income per capita, calculations made by the report's authors show.

The 2010 report focuses on child malnutrition, which is the biggest component of hunger worldwide. In India, high 2010 GHI scores are driven by high levels of underweight children, resulting from the low nutritional and social status of women in the country, the report says.

And the respondent went haywire. So I responded so

Here's an experiment you can do. Go check out the gini coefficients of the world and see where we are in terms of inequality. You will be surprised.

See this graph:

India isn't doing that badly, eh? But this was bothering me, so went back to check. And I responded back again.

This was bothering me but going deeper into this, looks like we are making some remarkable progress here. The silly point about India breaking up is frankly silly so wont touch it at all.
But here's the basic question which one asks. We have been showing a significant improvement over the past 20 years. So obviously we are doing something right in the first place. The places where we have touched relate to agriculture, nutrition, education, women's empowerment, income generation. These and other aspects helped us to improve this much. The report does not go into too much depth for Indian operations so had to go elsewhere to look deeper. Across all the dependent factors, we are showing strong and steady improvement in terms of agricultural productivity, increase in nutrition, increase in education, women's empowerment, income levels in the rural and urban areas, etc. etc.
Here's my point, there is nothing that we arent doing that we need to be doing. We just have to keep on doing what we have been doing and doing it better and perhaps more. We are on the right path.
The alarmist headlines and silly sod comments do not help at all because these are just whines, no basic understanding of the underlying issue, no analysis of what has been done or what needs to be done. So until and unless one gets some specific point of improvement, we dont need to get that much excited.
Lage raho munnabhai.

So the next time somebody whines that India has huge numbers of hungry and poor people, tell them yes, and we are doing something about it.

Also, check out this post, turns out the numbers themselves are a bit dodgy.

Teaching Work & Wealth Values to Children

While I wouldn't say that I was wealthy at all, we are comfortably well off and still owing a shed load of dosh. A long way to come for a refugee’s son in an extremely poor family indeed. Everybody thinks that their upbringing could have been improved upon. I would have liked being spanked and beaten up a bit less (heh!), but more seriously, I never got any education on how to manage wealth. My father used to complain about how much I would spend (still does), but his idea of investing and financial management was to have it all either in gold or in a savings account or land. Never got taught on how to manage wealth. As it so happens, I do think that most kids in the world do not really get this education either, although the situation is changing.

So I figured that as soon as my son will be ye high, will start his journey towards financial independence. So it was a multi pronged approach. First was to invest the Child Benefit which every child in the UK gets. So that is invested in a mutual fund and assuming 10% conservative growth, over 18 years, he should have a tidy sum of about 46k, enough for a nice little deposit on his first house. Second child onwards, you only get £53.6 per month which means that my little girl will only have £31k at the end of the 18th year period, so we bump it up to equalise.

Second was to open a savings account for both the kids when they are 6, and make sure that they contribute about 30% of their pocket money into the savings account. Not much, but the idea is to get them into the habit of making savings. Once they are 18, then will make sure that that gets converted into a pension fund. He seemed to have a reasonably good grasp of commerce from a relatively young age, here he is selling his old toys to the neighbourhood kids when he was 9 years of age. If I remember correctly, he made about £15-20 from the sale. He did it all himself, printed the fliers which were posted to the 40 houses around the green, went and stuck up the posters, and then ran the sale.

 

Third was to get my son to start learning about investments, my daughter will hopefully follow the same track with enhancements. So when he was 12, I gave him a copy of the bible of investments, The Intelligent Investor by Benjamin Graham and The Little Book that beats the Market by Joel Greenblatt. Since then I have been giving him other books such as on Warren Buffet and Rich Dad, Poor Dad. Had to very patiently explain the concept of values in the financial markets, what does ownership mean, what does price mean, how does company earnings translate into personal earnings, the importance of the P/E ratio, the importance of dividend yield, when to go for blue chips and when to go for penny stocks, the impact of FX, and so on and so forth.

Till he was 13, he was learning these things very gradually. Then he started to play a fantasy portfolio and I started to give him a hundred pounds once a quarter to get him started to invest. It was a very bad time in the markets last year, they were tanking badly and almost all the stocks he would invest in will head straight south, but his ideas were sound. I think he learnt a good lesson right at the beginning, that losses do occur and one has to have the balls to survive and ride out troughs in the market. He would invest in things like commodities, utilities, etc. So Now I am starting to feed him the official RNS reports, the annual reports, the analyst reports from the bank and any other news item that I find, give him my bits and bobs and thoughts, so that he picks up the idea that he needs to understand where he is going with the investment. Not doing too badly, over the past one year, his return has ranged between 40% and 15%, annualised its about 25%. Not bad at all. His dad made some stinkers of decisions as well, investing in Woolworths and Cattles so he is doing much better with his stock pics.

Finally, encouraged him to start thinking about earning money. So he would purchase sweet rolls and then flog them to his friends individually. So buy a roll of 10 sweets for 50 pence and sell them each for 10 pence. He also got paid £100 for making my wife’s website. Its pretty basic, but its a start. His career expectations and aspirations are all over the place, sometimes he wants to be a footballer, sometimes work as a stock broker, sometimes as a software programmer, etc. etc. Anyway, I dont have a view on what he should be, its up to him. I just need to make sure that he knows how to manage his financials. I keep on hammering the quote at him about compound interest being the strongest force in the world (an urban legend that it is a quote by Albert Einstein actually!). So asked around and got one of my friends to agree to take him in for a week or two in his software shop so that he learns how a software company works.

Separately, he came to me and said, Baba, I want to earn some money over the summer holidays and want to do a paper round. This involves school children working for news agents and using their bike, go about delivering newspapers at various subscribers. They get paid 2-3 quid per day for this. So I sat him down and talked to him about the power of leverage and bird and bees. Well, the former at least, I think he knows more about the latter than I do. So I told him how he can get others to work for him, gave him an example of doing web design for the neighbours, make up better websites for them to blog, share pictures and the like. So he is busy learning how to do proper coding after I passed some good tips from my tech guru friends. I hope he picks this up in the summer but no pressure, hope that will work out for him. No harm in him running a business and learn how to manage others. Also, couple of other things that I am working on should give him some investment options as well. So that’s under progress. Before you think he is turning into a boring old git, he is a keen footballer, loves to cook with me and has an interest in food,and I think he has a girlfriend. Plus he is studying hard at school, got a bollocking from me for having got some relatively low numbers on Religious Studies and Arts.

Hopefully when he turns 18, he will have a reasonably good net worth under his belt. He can use that for his education, to setup a new business and to buy a house. This started as an experiment, an experiment to see if one can use a basic set of resources in terms of education and a bit of cash flow to set kids up on their feet when they become adults rather than debt ridden well into their 30’s for their initial funding itself. If he can get to 31 and have all his basic life requirements (wedding, undergraduate and post graduate education, initial career, housing and car) paid for, then I think I will count myself as successful in giving him the right education, resources and tools as a parent.

Why am I writing all this? Because I read this article today and thought of jotting my experience down. I go about teaching young kids in various universities and tell them this constantly. Am also working with SIFE at LSE to further push the idea of investing out into the British education system. This isn't taught in the schools or in the universities either. The sad thing is that very few people listen and invest but the good thing is that more and more people are listening. But this doesnt mean that I have all the answers. What am I missing? Or better still, what have you done with your children to teach them about financial management and responsibility? Lets share experiences then :)

The Pope visits the UK

As you might know, the Catholic Pope is visiting the UK in a few weeks. Amusingly enough, a young Foreign Office fellow decided to write a memo laying out things he can do while he is here. This list just blew up and the foreign office has apologised to the Vatican and the Church and and and. So i was curious as to what they are talking about?

On the face of it, well, lets see what the face says:

• Launch of Benedict Condoms: That’s just silly. Now Benedictine wine is ok. Lack of sense of humour there, lol.
• Review of Vatican attitude on condom use: Well, quite a lot of people have asked the Vatican to change its stance on condoms, but it being one of those regulated established patriarchal churches, it will never allow the health of women or birth control to come into the way of men enjoying their bonking.
• Bless a civil partnership: Good heavens, treat people equally? allow somebody else other than the church to agree on marriages? the very idea, bah!
• Reversal of policy on women bishops / ordain woman. Now here’s another point about the Church’s hypocrisy. Have you ever heard of a single good reason why women cannot serve the Lord in the church? Oh! but then it will reduce the power of the wrinkly old white men, no?
• Open an abortion ward: Abortion is another of those things, they dont have to look after the kids for 9 months, and they wouldn't allow abortion even for rapes or incest or what have you. But then, we know that the church is misogynistic already.
• Speech on equality: The church? believe in equality? good heavens, NEVER!. It would much rather rabbit on about silly things.
• Statement on view over adoption. Then again, not everybody can adopt, it can only be people that the church approves of. Lesbians cannot adopt kids, for example. Equality of sexes and humans? NOOOOO, Jesus Christ discriminated men from men, women from women, men from women, Gosh, Mr. Pope, what would Jesus do? Their concern about the unborn child is huge when it comes to abortion but it sort of disappears when it comes to adoption. Hypocrisy.
• Training courses for all bishops on child abuse allegations: But of course, given the pretty much world wide situation with child abuse, it seems to be systemic. Give them training
• Harder Line on child abuse. Yes, defrock them and then hand over the bastards to the police to be chucked into jail. And then pay compensation to the kids. And then apologise. Ever think about the fact that we know of the child abuse situation for years now and still nothing from the Pope. In a secular area, the person would be on the child abuse register and in jail within months. But they were let go. Obviously the Pope thinks we are stupid and more importantly, the paedophile priests matter more than the kids. Another frikking hypocritical stance on children and kids versus abortion.
• Vatican sponsorship for network of AIDS clinics. Oh! yes, they push abstinence, dont they? for a way to treat AIDS? Like their priests are abstinent? And we all know what these abstinent priests got up to, dont we?
• Meet young unemployed people. Hmm, this is silly, why would young unemployed people want to meet an old man who is obviously in some other world? Just what does he have in common with young unemployed people? He is young, he is employed and as for as people, hmm
• Apologise for…, good lord, there are huge reasons..
• Canonise a group? not sure what this is about. Canonise a group? what group? The AA?
• Announce whistle blowing system for child abuse cases. Why not? but will not, yes?
• Go to job centre: see young unemployed point above.
• Debate on abortion: See abortion above.
• All catholic schools should be free entry to all. But then, the church doesnt like the idea of separation of state and church. So while its fine in taking state funding for kids, it doesnt like to open its entrance to all. Mind you, it does in other countries, I myself studied in a Jesuit school. Its just here that it has problems.
• Speech on democracy: Why not? nothing wrong with it.
• Vatican and CoE dialogue, yep.
• Launch helpline for abused children. See above.

I can see why the Foreign Office got upset, this list has couple of silly ideas but most are actually very hard hitting and truthful. The Pope, as we know, is fundamentalist, hypocritical, discriminatory and frankly a protector of paedophile priests. This would have exposed them. Just like we allow various other tinpot dictators and idiots in here, the Pope will also be allowed in without embarrassing him. Bah

This isn't a war crime but is perhaps worse than that

What kind of a human being does this? Forget about war crimes and murder, this is behaviour of a human being whose humanity has been burnt away by what? I quote:

The most shocking testimony in the new Breaking the Silence report, I think, is number 95. A female Border Police sergeant describes how the guys would catch Palestinian kids trying to sneak into Israel to sell cheap little toys: 
It was simply routine – emptying the children’s plastic bags and playing with their toys. You know, grabbing the stuff and throwing the toys among us like balls.
Q: The children cried?
Constantly. They cried and were terrified. I mean, you couldn’t miss it.
Q: Adults cried too?
Sure. To humiliate them. One of our goals was this: I made him cry in front of his child, I made him shit in his pants.
Q: You saw cases of people soiling their pants?
Yes.
Q: Why?
Especially at beatings, beating them to a pulp and threats and yelling, where the guy is terrified, especially in front of the kids... There was this once, again, an adult detained with his child, a tiny kid, about four years old. The child was not hit, but the patrolman was annoyed that the adult was taking the kid with him so he’d be shown consideration, and told him: “You’re taking the kid along so as to be pitied. Let’s show you what’s what.” And he beat him to a pulp, yelled at him, said: “Why, I could kill you right in front of your kid. Maybe you’d feel more...”
Q: And he wet his pants for sheer fright?
Yes.
Q: In front of his child?
Yes. There are lots of horror stories like, I made him shit in his pants, I made him do that. Such talk was routine, not anything special...

And this is being done by Israeli Women. I am puzzled. Seriously puzzled. Why? Why are you like this? How can you look yourself in your face after destroying the innocence of a child? Is this what you are? You are not really human are you? This isn't human behaviour. You terrified a child, not once or twice but constantly? Is that what you do to your own child? Your little brother and sister? Or was this done to you by your parents? Is this endemic in the Israeli Army? Why? I am ashamed of you while being deeply puzzled at your unthinking brutality towards children. And Karma does exist, what goes around comes around.

Letter to Children

This is a letter written by India’s first prime minister, Jawahar Lal Nehru, to children on account of the National Children’s day. Worth reading.

Dear Children,
I like being with children and talking to them and, even more, playing
with them. For the moment I forget that I am terribly old and it is very
long ago since I was a child.
But when I sit down to write, I cannot forget my age and the distance that
separates you from me. Old people have a habit of delivering sermons and
good advice to the young.
I remember that I disliked this very much long ago when I was a boy. So I
suppose you do not like it very much either. Grown-ups also have a habit
of appearing to be very wise, even though very few of them possess much
wisdom. I have not yet quite made up my mind whether I am wise or not.
Sometimes listening to others I feel that I must be wise and brilliant and
important. Then, looking at myself, I begin to doubt this. In any event,
people who are wise do not talk about their wisdom and do not behave as if
they were very superior persons...
What then shall I write about? If you were with me, I would love to talk
to you about this beautiful world of ours, about flowers, trees, birds,
animals, stars, mountains, glaciers and all the other beautiful things
that surround us in the world. We have all this beauty all around us and
yet we, who are grown-ups, often forget about it and lose ourselves in our
arguments or in our quarrels. We sit in our offices and imagine that we
are doing very important work.
I hope you will be more sensible and open your eyes and ears to this
beauty and life that surrounds you. Can you recognize the flowers by their
names and the birds by their singing? How easy it is to make friends with
them and with everything in nature, if you go to them affectionately and
with friendship. You must have read many fairy tales and stories of long
ago. But the world itself is the greatest fairy tale and story of
adventure that was ever written. Only we must have eyes to see and ears to
hear and a mind that opens out to the life and beauty of the world.
Grown-ups have a strange way of putting themselves in compartments and
groups. They build barriers... of religion, caste, colour, party, nation,
province, language, customs and of rich and poor. Thus they live in
prisons of their own making. Fortunately,children do not know much about
these barriers, which separate. They play and work with each other and it
is only when they grow up that they begin to learn about these barriers
from their elders. I hope you will take a long time in growing up...
Some months ago, the children of Japan wrote to me and asked me to send
them an elephant. I sent them a beautiful elephant on behalf of the
children of India... This noble animal became a symbol of India to them
and a link between them and the children of India.
I was very happy that this gift of ours gave so much joy to so many
children of Japan, and made them think of our country... remember that
everywhere there are children like you going to school and work and play,
and sometimes quarrelling but always making friends again. You can read
about these countries in your books, and when you grow up many of you will
visit them. Go there as friends and you will find friends to greet you.
You know we had a very great man amongst us. He was called Mahatma Gandhi.
But we used to call him affectionately Bapuji. He was wise, but he did not
show off his wisdom. He was simple and childlike in many ways and he
lovedchildren... he taught us to face the world cheerfully and with
laughter.
Our country is a very big country and there is a great deal to be done by
all of us. If each one of us does his or her little bit, then all this
mounts up and the country prospers and goes ahead fast.
I have tried to talk to you in this letter as if you were sitting near me,
and I have written more than I intended.
Jawaharlal Nehru
December 3, 1949

Netherlands and its minorities

Came across two articles on how Netherlands are dealing with their minority issue. If you recall, this is the land where Theo van Gogh was killed by a rather lunatic idiot and since then, minorities, specially Muslim, have had issues.

First article related to how Dutch Egyptians have problems with their children’s education. This made me seriously wonder how on earth are we going to improve if male patriarchies are going to be simultaneously try to control their daughters, give them crap education and then at the same time, steal from the benefits system. What on earth is going on with these chaps? For them to say that an Egyptian State school education is better than a Dutch state school education is frankly ludicrous. They are suffering from delusion. I quote:

The ministry's investigation revealed several reasons why parents in Amsterdam are sending their children to Egypt. "It appears that the parents feel the quality of education in Egypt is higher than in the Netherlands," Dijkstra wrote to parliament in April. "A number of them feel the culture and the education package in Egypt is more appropriate." Other parents cited conflicts between ethnic groups at school, or personal reasons like divorce or illness.

A more varied picture emerges from a dozen interviews with the parents of Egyptian-Dutch children conducted by NRC Handelsblad in Egypt. None of the parents wanted to see their full name in print, mostly because they were afraid to lose child support or other benefits.

Adel may say his main motive was economic, but he complained most about the freedom and rights granted to children in the Netherlands. He is afraid to lose custody if he spanks his children. His brother's conviction for child kidnapping scared him. After divorcing his Dutch wife, Adel's brother had taken their two children to Egypt in violation of the custody agreement. When he returned to the Netherlands for work he was arrested and sent to prison for three years.

This is seriously stupid, the reason why these immigrants went to the Netherlands was to participate and earn from Dutch culture. Do they think that the economy, culture and earnings in Netherlands came from a culture, educational system which was akin to Egypt? if so, why leave in the first place? Its again these men being stupid. And nobody seems to think of the children’s rights either.

Second article related to rates of intermarriage. Now intermarriage is usually taken as a very good indicator of improving race relations. According to this note, and I quote:

Over 90 percent of Turkish and Moroccan immigrants in the Netherlands who got married in 2008 did so with someone out of their own ethnic group. Less than 10 percent married a white Dutch person, according to the Central Bureau for Statistics (CBS).

Last year, 28,000 people of non-Dutch origin got married. Over half were non-Western immigrants (the rest being Western immigrants), of whom about half were Turkish and Moroccan, most of them born in the Netherlands or having come there shortly after they were born abroad.

Seven in 10 Western brides and bridegrooms married a white Dutch partner. Among the non-Western immigrants, this was less than 25 percent. Among Turks alone, the figure was just 8 percent, and among Moroccans, only 7 percent. Surinamese and Antilleans (about 30 percent) boosted the figure for the whole non-Western group.

Around 15 percent of the non-Western immigrants and almost none of their Western counterparts that got married did so with a partner coming over from the country of origin. Among Turks and Moroccans, this figure was 20 and 14 percent respectively.

Sixty-three percent of the Dutch Turks who married, married another Turk already living in the Netherlands. For Moroccans, this domestic 'own group' figure was as much as 70 percent.

For years, over 80 percent of non-Westerners have got married to a partner of the same origin. Since 2004, when the rules for migration marriages were tightened up, 'import' marriages have become less frequent but not domestic 'own group' marriages.

Looks like there is a fair way to go still.

Kick in the pants

Some time back on a mailing list, we were discussing violence against kids. As I mentioned there jokingly, my mum claims that she has used almost every kitchen implement to tan my backside for being a horrible kid. But corporal punishment in the west, by and large, is now illegal. Here’s a good reasoned short debate on corporal punishment for children. Here’s another site with some good evidence on this issue.

Seems like the consensus is that while children should not be physically punished as a rule, there are exceptions where a spanking might be appropriate. How about at home? good article here. US and EU legality of corporal punishment. Red: corporal punishment not prohibited, blue only prohibited in schools and green, you will not touch the child anywhere.

 

 

 

Curiously, on the wiki site, the only countries which seem to be interested in this area are the OECD countries. Other countries from say Africa, Asia, Middle East, Latam or poorer countries…, hmmm. is concern for kids a function of rich countries only?

Which brings me to the question, if I threaten to kick my nephew in his pants, is that illegal? No. I quote:

It's OK to tell a teenager he'll get good kick in the pants if he doesn't behave, Italy's top court ruled Tuesday.
The Cassation Court, whose rulings set precedents, rejected the contention of the teen's mother that the warning amounted to a real threat and a form of abuse.
''The statement cannot be deemed abusive, given the type of language used by the new generation,'' said the court, upholding a previous decision by a Sardinian tribunal.
The court said Gavino S. a 55-year-old man from the city of Alghero, could not be accused of ''threatening'' his 15-year-old nephew Pietro S. and a group of his friends who were loitering in the stairs of their condominium.
The uncle's order to stop making noise and go home and ensuing threat to kick them all in the pants was judged by the judges to be ''incapable of sparking real fear'' in the youngsters.
The uncle's scolding ''was only meant to censure, albeit rudely, the behaviour'' of the youngsters, the court said.

Changing my mind about the death penalty?

I am a firm believer that the death penalty is immoral, incomprehensible and not appropriate for a civilised society. But sometimes, just sometimes, I wonder if my position is wrong. I read this. Now, I ask you, are you really a human being who would rape a TWO YEAR OLD CHILD? This is the man who also killed another child who was 17 months old. Baby P died after suffering more than 50 injuries.

Do you really think this man deserves to live? Sometimes it is very difficult to defend the death penalty. Words fail me. Seriously fail me. If somebody did that to my child, would I be able to stop myself from going all barbaric and medieval on him? Very much doubt it.

Quote of the Day:
If misery loves company, misery has company enough.
--Henry David Thoreau

Technorati Tags: Crime,Death Penalty,United Kingdom

FDI causes child labour, yes? Wrong!

It is almost a truism in the modern day and age that FDI is bad, and one ways that it shows up is that it causes child labour. What nobody see's is the impact on the child itself (see here for an interesting email discussion that I partook in). Blame the foreigner for making our children work, while we are quite happy to have children work as servants or not to provide any other economic way to allow the children to actually study. But its better to kick out the foreign investor, no?

But here's a study which checks what is the impact of FDI on child labour. The authors find that FDI is negatively correlated with child labour and even after controlling for per capita income, the effect totally disappears. Nothing, no impact, zilch, zero, nada.

Another very interesting conclusion that the authors come to is and I quote, "A key policy implication of this finding is that policies that increase the income effects of FDI may be especially useful in combating child labour. Such policies include payroll tax reductions that encourage multinationals to increase employment and wages. Thus, rather than interpreting these findings as an indication that FDI has no effect on child labour, we believe that our results point towards the need for nuanced policy that exploits these indirect effects."

This was a very curious conclusion to draw. I can understand concluding that dont swear at FDI, guys, if nothing, there is no relationship to child labour at all. But why talk about income effects? How will reducing payroll taxes actually help improve child labour? Well, the fact remains that child labour exists because of a variety of factors, not least because their parents are not gainfully employed. Get their parents into employment and you will lop off a very large number of children having to work. Which parent would want to see their children work when they could be playing and studying? But, all those payroll taxes do is to make it difficult to increase employment.

Ronald B. Davies and Annie Voy, The Effect of FDI on Child Labor, Journal of Development Economics In Press. 

Technorati Tags: Childrens Rights,Employment,Labour

FDI causes child labour, yes? Wrong!

It is almost a truism in the modern day and age that FDI is bad, and one ways that it shows up is that it causes child labour. What nobody see's is the impact on the child itself (see here for an interesting email discussion that I partook in). Blame the foreigner for making our children work, while we are quite happy to have children work as servants or not to provide any other economic way to allow the children to actually study. But its better to kick out the foreign investor, no?

But here's a study which checks what is the impact of FDI on child labour. The authors find that FDI is negatively correlated with child labour and even after controlling for per capita income, the effect totally disappears. Nothing, no impact, zilch, zero, nada.

Another very interesting conclusion that the authors come to is and I quote, "A key policy implication of this finding is that policies that increase the income effects of FDI may be especially useful in combating child labour. Such policies include payroll tax reductions that encourage multinationals to increase employment and wages. Thus, rather than interpreting these findings as an indication that FDI has no effect on child labour, we believe that our results point towards the need for nuanced policy that exploits these indirect effects."

This was a very curious conclusion to draw. I can understand concluding that dont swear at FDI, guys, if nothing, there is no relationship to child labour at all. But why talk about income effects? How will reducing payroll taxes actually help improve child labour? Well, the fact remains that child labour exists because of a variety of factors, not least because their parents are not gainfully employed. Get their parents into employment and you will lop off a very large number of children having to work. Which parent would want to see their children work when they could be playing and studying? But, all those payroll taxes do is to make it difficult to increase employment.

Ronald B. Davies and Annie Voy, The Effect of FDI on Child Labor, Journal of Development Economics In Press. 

Technorati Tags: Childrens Rights,Employment,Labour

Work or Starve - the option facing child workers

I keep on talking about this issue. You cannot talk about child labour without looking at family earnings. If you remove the employment from the family, where are they going to get the money from to put food on the ground (there IS no table)? So if your shirt is made by child labour, then that is indeed good in many circumstances or its not bad in all circumstances as that money is helping feed himself and in many cases, their families. If you stop purchasing those shirts or cancel that purchasing contract from that Bangladeshi vendor, then remember that you have immediately made several families utterly destitute. Who is now going to feed them?

Read and ponder.

I quote:

Basudeb Maitra Basu, from the Organisation for Disadvantaged Children, a nongovernmental organisation, said: "No parents want to send their children to work, especially in hazardous conditions."
The UK's department for international development says more than 82 per cent of Bangldeshis live below $2 per day.
As a consequence, Basu says, families are "helpless" but to send their children to work.
"They send them to the factories to save their families. They know this is harmful to their kids but they don't have an alternative."

All this to be taken with a grain of piquant salt!!!