3QD friend Edward B. Rackley reports from Africa in his blog, Across the Divide:
I’m presently working here on child rights violations committed by the government, its various bodies–particularly its forces of order–and by insurgent groups. The sheer quantity of documented violations boggles the mind, and are enough to declare the prospect of childhood in Burundi a lethal undertaking. If the man in blue isnt raping or killing the little folk, they’re dying from diahrrea or a fever for lack of basic health care.
Independent experts appear to agree that Burundi is a tragic place. The Happy Planet Index, published by the New Economics Foundation, an economics thinktank in the UK, recently rated Burundi 176 out of 178 of the world’s (un)happiest countries. Zimbabwe and Swaziland took the last two spots.
Yet the country is ravaged in seemingly countless other ways, many of which are undocumented by the national press, local human rights bodies or their international equivalents. This week, however, Human Rights Watch and the Burundian Association pour la Protection des Droits Humains et des Personnes Détenues (APRODH) released a 75-page report, “A High Price To Pay: The Detention of Poor Patients in Hospitals,” documenting how Burundian hospitals detain hundreds of indigent patients, sometimes in inhumane conditions.
More here.