Center Initiatives
Legal Services assessment for child trafficking survivors
Child trafficking is one of the most disturbing human rights abuses of our time, involving cases of boys and girls trafficked into, and within, the United States, for labor or commercial sexual services. It is estimated that thousands of children are trafficked within the United States each year. These children suffer physical, sexual, and emotional violence at the hands of traffickers, pimps, employers, and others. Much of the current response to human trafficking in the United States has addressed survivors as one homogenous group, without allowing for the special needs of children. The most recent systemic efforts to respond to the plight of child trafficking in the U.S. have focused primarily on two areas: 1) The criminal justice response, including punishment of traffickers and addressing the "demand" side of sex trafficking, and 2) Addressing the dearth of social services available to children, especially counseling, mental health, and housing. While current research indicates that legal services are a critical component of a comprehensive service delivery model, little to no efforts have been made to identify, with any specificity to actual populations, the various legal needs of child trafficking victims, the roles that legal service providers play in identifying new cases, the relationship between legal services and access to appropriate social services and protections, and existing gaps in the provision of legal services and advocacy to survivors of child trafficking in the United States.
The Center for the Human Rights of Children (CHRC) seeks to better understand and positively impact the role of legal services and advocacy in both identifying new cases and improving outcomes for child survivors of labor and sex trafficking in the United States, including both United States citizens and non-citizens. Toward this end, the CHRC is currently collaborating with consultant Linda M. Rio Reichmann and student volunteers to identify existing service providers working with child trafficking survivors, the legal needs of these children, any current legal services, and gaps in those services.
For more infromation on this project, please view the .pdf of Legal Services Assesment for Child Trafficking Survivors.
Building Healthy Homes/Healthy Communities - Tackling Environmental Disparities
Scientists have long recognized that indoor toxic hazards typically pose far greater risks to children’s health than outdoor exposures, because of the concentrated levels. Health hazards encountered in the home include: dust, mold, and pests which can cause asthma; lead, pesticides, food additives, and other toxic materials which can result in learning disabilities, and behavioral and health problems; and dangerous gases such as carbon monoxide and radon which can result in long term brain damage, cancer, and death. Unhealthy homes often are concentrated in older, low-income neighborhoods and communities of color. The costs to the individual of these toxins can be school absenteeism, academic failure, learning difficulties, lack of employment, life-long health problems, socialization problems, criminal records. Societal costs include healthcare, hospitalization, joblessness, special education, and the juvenile and criminal justice systems. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, and the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development have identified healthy homes/healthy communities as a priority for the coming years.
In response to the risks that indoor toxic hazards pose to children and families’ health, the Center for the Human Rights of Children, Center for Urban Environmental Research and Policy, Center for Urban Research and Learning, Loyola University Medical Center, and Loyola Law School’s Civitas ChildLaw Center (“The Centers”) at Loyola University Chicago have developed the “Building Healthy Homes/Healthy Communities – Tackling Environmental Disparities (“Building Healthy Homes/Healthy Communities”) project. The mission of the project is to develop Loyola University’s capacity as a leading educational institution with a commitment to building healthy homes and healthy communities free of environmental and social toxins.
The goal of the “Building Healthy Homes/Healthy Communities” project is to develop Loyola University Chicago as a leading educational institution with a commitment to building healthy homes and healthy communities free of environmental and social toxins. The project will use an integrative research and advocacy model to address the public health and housing problems associated with environmental toxins. This approach integrates a unique set of strategies and tactics, including applied research, public education, organizing, coalition building, legislative and policy advocacy, and policy implementation.
Building Child Welfare Response to Child Trafficking Handbook
To date, there have been minimal government efforts to assist and protect child victims of trafficking, both U.S. citizens and non-citizens. As a result, state child welfare agencies are not positioned to identify the majority of child victims of trafficking and subsequently, child victims do not receive the protections afforded to them under state and federal laws.
In response to this critical gap, the International Organization for Adolescents (IOFA) and the Center for the Human Rights of Children at Loyola University developed the Building Child Welfare Response to Child Trafficking Project. The purpose of the project is to address systemic gaps in knowledge, policies, and procedures within local child welfare agencies in the United States. This process and project has been captured in a handbook that provides policies, protocols and forms for incorporating child trafficking identification and response mechanisms into state and private child welfare systems.
Advancing Child Rights in Africa
Africa is home to the second largest number of young people in the world. Studies show that more children under the age of five live in the region than anywhere else. The presence of such a vulnerable population underscores the need to safeguard children’s rights as outlined in the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC). While the annual population growth rate for the continent has steadily declined over the past two decades, its overall population is estimated to double by 2045. Sub-Saharan Africa already has more than twice the number of children under age fourteen as Europe and Central Asia. With nearly half of the world’s out-of-school children, African countries shoulder an increasing systemic burden. In relation to comparable regions, youth in Africa between the ages of fifteen and twenty-four are the least likely to be literate. For those that are enrolled in educational institutions, attendance is more of a significant issue than it is for children in Asia, Latin America, or the Middle East.
The status of child rights in the region faces considerable immediate and long-term challenges. Africa’s children are subject to an increased level of gender disparity. Although similar numbers of boys and girls begin the schooling process, more boys are likely to complete compulsory primary education than girls. From the estimated thirty million children out of school in Sub-Saharan Africa, fifty three percent are girls. Worldwide, this disproportionate ratio of out-of-school girls to boys is only surpassed by that of the Arab States. Daunting poverty rates further exacerbate efforts to remedy gender disparity. Not accounting for South Asia, in 2005 there were more people below the poverty line in Sub-Saharan Africa than all the world’s regions combined. This data suggests that Africa is well in danger of failing to meet the 2015 gender equality and universal education objectives outlined in the UN Millennium Development Goals. Likewise, it is also doubtful that the region will reach the broader goals encompassed by the Education for All initiative established over twenty years ago.
Youth: Know Your Rights
The CHRC is currently developing a training curriculum to educate students on their rights under the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC). The curriculum will be specifically designed for college students to instruct middle and high school students. Adopted by the United Nations in 1989, the CRC is the first legally-binding, international instrument to incorporate the full range of human rights: civil, cultural, economic, political and social. While the United States has not yet ratified the CRC, the city of Chicago successfully adopted a resolution to support it in February of 2009.
Identifying Human Trafficking Cases - A County Level Overview
Human trafficking is the moving, recruiting, or harboring of a person for forced labor or sexual exploitation by force, fraud, or coercion. The CHRC is currently working on a research project analyzing mechanisms of identifying, investigating, and prosecuting human trafficking cases (with an emphasis on cases involving children) from a county-level, including Cook County, Illinois. Best practices from both law enforcement and NGO sectors will be analyzed and reported. Publication report date: Spring 2012.
Addressing the Critical Needs of Orphans and Vulnerable Children (OVC) Transitioning from Formal Care to Early Adulthood in Sub-Saharan Africa
Adolescence, a critical developmental phase, is a notoriously challenging period of rapid, and often confusing, change. This phase is especially precarious for the 210 million parentless children and youth from all over the world that are living and fighting for survival on a daily basis (UNICEF). Orphan youth, often living in institutions, kinship care, or simply on their own, are forced to navigate the road to adulthood without stable and consistent support systems. In many communities, children have already taken on the roles and responsibilities of adulthood.
A limited but growing body of research documents the numerous means of exploitation faced by parentless youth around the world. Vulnerable adolescents can be trafficked into labor or sexual slavery, recruited into criminal syndicates or rebel armies, and exposed to violence, disease, and displacement. The existence of appropriate protective policies and programs is limited, so most parentless youth are required to face these increasing risks and dangers on their own.
In response, the Center for the Human Rights of Children (CHRC) at Loyola University and the International Organization for Adolescents (IOFA) are collaborating to develop a research project that will focus on the experience of parentless youth and adolescents in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA), with an initial focus on Ethiopia. The objectives of the project are to identify the opportunities and challenges for orphan youth transitioning out of formal or institutionalized care; assess current community, government, and organizations responses; and recommend further protective policies and interventions. Our goals include an academic article focusing on the Ethiopia case study (with the inclusion of additional country case studies as appropriate) and the further development of recommended policies and programs resulting from the project findings.
Cecilia's World: Bringing Light to the Darkness of Children in El Salvador, an initiative by Dr. James Garbarino, Senior Faculty Fellow, Center for the Human Rights of Children
Cecilia is a five year-old child living in a poor and violent community of El Zaite in El Salvador. El Salvador has a long history of violence, oppression, and poverty. This slide documentary chronicles how Cecilia's world today - poverty and gang violence - was shaped by the history of her country. It then describes the efforts of Loyola University Chicago's "Solidarity in Education" project to "adopt" the school that Cecilia attends and support its programs, in collaboration with International Partners in Mission.
To view the movie, please click on the links below:
