【175-177】Separation Stress May Permanently Hurt Migrant Children

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*【175】AS IT IS

Amnesty International Links Myanmar Military to Crimes Against Rohingya

June 27, 2018

A Rohingya Muslim looks out of his make shift tent at Balukhali refugee camp 50 kilometres (32 miles) from Cox's Bazar, Bangladesh, Sunday, Jan. 14, 2018. In the Rakhine state of Myanmar, government troops have been accused of "ethnic cleansing" that has forced more than 655,000 Rohingya Muslims to flee into Bangladesh. (AP Photo/Manish Swarup)

Amnesty International says it has evidence linking 13 Myanmar officials to crimes against humanity for their part in operations against the country’s Rohingya minority.

The officials are said to include the Commander-in-Chief of the Defense Services, Senior General Min Aung Hlaing, and eight other senior military officers.

The rights group provided details in a report released on Wednesday. The report is called “We Will Destroy Everything: Military Responsibility for Crimes against Humanity in Rakhine States, Myanmar”.

"Make absolutely no mistake, these are crimes against humanity,” said Amnesty’s Crisis Response Director Tirana Hassan. “We are talking about rape, murder, torture, forced starvation, the use of land mines, and targeted burning of villages. These are crimes which are so serious that they should be referred to the International Criminal Court."

More than 700,000 Rohingya Muslims have fled Myanmar's Rakhine state since August 25. They began leaving after Rohingya militants launched attacks against state security forces. Those attacks led to military action against suspected militants and their supporters.

The United Nations has described the operation as well-organized and systematic, which it said is a "textbook example" of ethnic cleansing.

Myanmar officials have said the campaign is aimed at fighting terrorism.

FILE - A boy sits in a burned area after fire destroyed shelters at a camp for internally displaced Rohingya Muslims in western Rakhine State near Sittwe, Myanmar, May 3, 2016.

Shocking stories

Fleeing Rohingya have told stories of state security forces burning their villages in northern Rakhine state. They have accused the military of rape, killings, stealing and setting land mines to prevent them from returning home.

In preparing the report, Amnesty researchers spoke with more than 400 people, including with Rohingya in central Rakhine state and at refugee camps in Bangladesh. The researchers also collected victim and eyewitness reports of abuse and examined satellite images and documents.

"What we know from this is that the atrocities committed against the Rohingya implicate every level of the Myanmar military," said Matthew Wells, Amnesty's Senior Crisis Adviser.

He said at least two of the military teams sent to Rohingya areas had been linked to war crimes in Shan state. Wells added that military leaders chose to send soldiers known for violence against ethnic minorities.

The Amnesty researchers also provided details of abuses by Rohingya militants of the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army. The list includes over 20 targeted killings of Rohingya suspected of being government informants, as well as deadly attacks on Hindu communities.

VOA was unsuccessful in its attempts to reach Myanmar’s ambassador to the United Nations for comment on the report.

Amnesty said it sent a letter to the country's de facto head of state, Aung San Suu Kyi. It said the letter was received in Napitaw, the capital, on June 13, but that the group has yet to get any reaction.

FILE - Rohingya refugees arrive to the Bangladeshi side of the Naf River after crossing the border from Myanmar, in Palang Khali, Bangladesh, Oct. 16, 2017.

Commission of inquiry

After months of denying that abuses were happening, Myanmar officials recently established a committee to investigate the situation. Amnesty said it worries this committee will "whitewash" the facts.

The rights group said it knew of the tense balance between the civilian government and the military. It added that does not excuse civilian leaders from doing more to end the crisis.

"The civilian government has a responsibility,” Amnesty's Tirana Hassan said of Aung San Suu Kyi. She added that the government must learn what caused the violence.

VOA’s Margaret Besheer reported this story. Susan Shand adapted her report for Learning English. The editor was George Grow.

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Words in This Story

senior – adj. of or related to a higher rating

refer – v. to send someone to a place or person

textbook – n. a book used in the study of a subject

atrocity – n. an abuse; a very bad situation

implicate – v. to say someone is responsible

de facto – adj. actual; real

whitewash – n. a planned effort to hide dishonest or illegal actions

*【176】AS IT IS

A Push to Fight Discrimination through Living Libraries

June 27, 2018

Mick Ngundy speaks to Veronique Couque in Caen, France. Their paths might never have crossed had it not been for Living Libraries.

Father Mick Ngundu has survived waves of violence in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Today the Roman Catholic clergyman is actively working for poor people. He is a critic of corruption that he claims poisons chances of democracy.

Recently, he described how many people in his homeland are too poor to pay for electricity. He spoke on the grounds of housing once used by Catholic religious workers in Normandy, France.

Among the listeners was Veronique Couque, a retired worker. She has never been to an African country south of the Sahara desert.

The French woman may have never had a chance to hear Ngundu if not for a growing citizen movement called Living Libraries. It was created to end widely held, but oversimplified ideas about groups of people through discussion.

"It allows you to discover what it's like to be that person. It's an opportunity to break barriers," said former French diplomat Natacha Waksman. She helped to launch a Living Library gathering this month in the French city of Caen.

The movement comes at a time when a new report shows rising levels of xenophobiaand hate speech across Europe. It said this has been partly driven by populism, terrorist attacks and large numbers of non-Europeans migrating to the continent.

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The 47-member Council of Europe prepared the report. It listed Africans and Arabs as the newer targets of discrimination. It also noted older prejudices against Jews, Roma and members of the LGBT community.

Changing people’s opinions

Zeynep Usal-Kanzier is a lawyer at the European Commission Against Racism and Intolerance in Strasbourg. He said, "It's not that there is no will to change things, but it shows we need to make more efforts."

Supporters of living libraries say they offer people a chance to meet those they might otherwise avoid and ask them hard questions. These people are called “living books.”

Tina Mulcahy is head of the European Youth Centre. She says, "The living books are often people who have personal experiences of discrimination or social exclusionthat they are willing to share with the readers."

She adds that instead of books, the “readers” can explore subjects that interest them, "borrowing" human books for one-on-one meetings.

A Danish non-governmental organization set up the first Living Library nearly 20 years ago. The movement has since spread to more than 60 countries, including the United States.

The recent event in Caen was crowded, as visitors sat down to talk with immigrants like Mick Ngundu.

The clergyman said, "Since I experienced war, I can offer ideas for how to end it."

Former diplomat Natacha Waksman, right, helped to launch the Caen library. "It’s an opportunity to break barriers,” she said.

Moving forward

Veronique Couque said her meeting with Ngundu taught her a lot about politics and development.

Natacha Waksman is already thinking about how the Living Libraries model could bring Europeans together.

"That would give people another image of Germans, for example," she said. She added that perhaps Britons would not have voted against leaving the European Union had they been more in contact with other EU nationals.

In Normandy, some have asked Waksman about starting an online library — but that is one idea that she disagrees with.

She said, "I believe it's great that people actually get to meet, shake hands, look into each others' eyes. This creates an intimacy that's helpful in today's society."

I’m Jonathan Evans.

Lisa Bryant wrote this story for VOA News. Phil Dierking adapted her story for Learning English. George Grow was the editor.

Have you ever met someone who was completely different than you? How was that experience? Write to us in the Comments Section or on our Facebook page.

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Words in This Story

exclusion - n. to prevent (someone) from doing something or being a part of a group

intimacy - n. a quality that suggests informal warmth or closeness

library - n. a place where books, magazines, and other materials (such as videos and musical recordings) are available for people to use or borrow

LGBT - n. is an initialism that stands for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people.

online - adj. connected to a computer, a computer network, or the Internet

opportunity - n. an amount of time or a situation in which something can be done

prejudice - n. an unfair feeling of dislike for a person or group because of race, sex, religion, etc.

xenophobia - n. fear or hatred of strangers or foreigners

*【177】AS IT IS

Separation Stress May Permanently Hurt Migrant Children

June 27, 2018

Immigrant families walk along a sidewalk on their way to a respite center after they were processed and released by U.S. Customs and Border Protection, Sunday, June 24, 2018, in McAllen, Texas. (AP Photo/David J. Phillip)

At least 2,300 children are living in government shelters after being separated from their parents who were trying to enter the United States without permission.

Last week President Donald Trump signed an order directing officials to keep families together whenever possible.

The issue of families trying to enter the U.S. without permission is complex. But for one mother and son, being reunited was a chance for joy.

On Friday, one woman from Guatemala cried as she held her young son for the first time in a month. Border agents separated them after she crossed the border without permission in May.

"I love you. I love you," she repeated in Spanish as she kissed him. The mother, Beata Mariana de Jesus Mejia-Mejia, brought legal action against the U.S. government for separating her from her seven-year-old son. The lawyer who helped her worked for free.

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The U.S. government has placed some of these children in shelters throughout the U.S. Some of these places are hundreds of miles away from Texas in other states.

U.S. law requires the separation of children from older family members who have been caught at the border under some conditions.

But doctors are worried about the health effects separation might have on the children.

The American Medical Association is a professional organization for doctors. It has warned that these children could suffer serious health problems that could last a lifetime as a result of being separated from their families.

Dr. Colleen Kraft is the president of the American Association of Pediatrics. She has taken an active part in speaking about the needs of these children. She warned that children who are exposed to extreme stress do not develop language or other skills normally. Kraft said this is caused by the trauma of being taken from their parents.

Trauma causes the body to produce high levels of stress hormones. Kraft said these hormones can hurt brain cells, affect the heart and cause children to act younger than they are. Some will start wetting themselves or their beds. Some develop behavior problems.

"It may take a long time for this trauma to be resolved and these children to be healed."

Dr. Lisa Fortuna is a child psychiatrist at Boston University Medical School. Fortuna works with refugee children separated from their parents. She says the family separations have been going on for a long time. She noted that it is very hard on children, no matter what their age is.

"Multiple kids tell me about feeling very cold, not eating enough, not having support of their parents or adults that care about them.”

Fortuna added that the children are usually extremely unhappy and upset.

Care givers at some of the centers where the children are being held say they are not permitted to touch even very young children. These rules were put in place for teenagers, but Myriam Goldin, a social worker who specializes in treating traumatized children, says touch is very important, especially for small children.

"When you rock a child, they can hear your heart rate. You can hear their heart rate, and it is through that co-regulation, children can be soothed."

Goldin is one of the people who established the Gil Institute for Trauma, Recovery and Education in Virginia.

Fortuna says a parent's touch teaches a child that they are being taken care of and loved. She says if children are not touched, they can become sad and withdrawn. They do not learn how to relate to others. They lose the ability to trust. They can stop expressing emotion even if they are returned to their parents.

Goldin points to a study by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on adverse childhood experiences. The study found that early childhood experiences have a strong effect on a person’s future.

Goldin says the study proves scientifically that if the needs of children are not met, long-term mental and physical health problems can result.

Not every child separated from their family will have permanent health problems, but young children are the most likely to be hurt. The separation from a parent can add to the stress they may have already experienced in unsafe conditions in their home countries.

I’m Susan Shand.

Carol Pearson reported this story for VOA. Susan Shand adapted it for Learning English. Mario Ritter was the editor.

Write to us in the Comments Section or on our Facebook page.

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