Day: February 12, 2001

Chinese Authorities Seize Adopted Children

China recently conducted a census assuring people they could list children adopted or born without official approval under that nation’s |one-child policy| without fearing government sanction. Many people apparently took that at face value, only to have the government remove adopted children from their homes based on the census data.

The BBC reports that the Chinese Southern Weekend newspaper recently said that adopted children had been removed from at least 18 families in raids in the southern province of Fujian. Chinese authorities claimed that since the adoptions had not been officially registered with the state, they were illegal.

Ominously the Southern Weekend reported that only male children had been removed from families and placed with other families since, as the BBC put it, “nobody would want a female child.” The paper went on to suggest that the babies were removed to avoid embarrassment by authorities at the number of unregistered children.

According to the BBC, one of the many problems with the one-child policy is that it has encouraged rings of kidnappers who procure babies to sell to families who cannot get permission to have children.

Source:

Chinese officials seize adopted children. Duncan Hewitt, The BBC, February 12, 2001.

A Weekend of Animal Rights Violence in Great Britain

Animal rights terrorists in the United Kingdom went on a tear over the weekend as more letter bombs were discovered in an ongoing terrorist campaign in which animal rights activists are the leading suspects, while a mob of up to 1,000 animal rights activists trashed facilities owned by pharmaceutical companies in the UK.

On the letter bomb front, army bomb disposal experts were called on to disarm a letter bomb sent to an unnamed agricultural business and a farm. At least nine people have been injured during the letter bomb campaign which has been directed at animal enterprises including farms, restaurants, pet pest control companies, and pet suppliers over the past couple months.

Police again urged that any business in the UK associated with animals be extremely cautious opening mail and contact police if they find any suspicious packages.

Meanwhile, as many as 1,000 animal rights activists took part in well-planned assaults on facilities owned by GlaxoSmithKline, Bayer and three other pharmaceutical companies in Great Britain.

According to The Independent (London), protesters first met at a church parking lot in an action organized by Stop Huntingdon Animal Cruelty. At the parking lot the protesters were divided into a white and a yellow team and given detail instructions on routes to take to their targets as well as instructions on what to do once at the targets.

In all there were nine separate actions throughout the day. At a Bayer facility, activists stormed offices, smashed windows, destroyed machinery, and overturned cabinets and other office equipment shortly before 2 p.m. on Saturday.

Shortly after that, the activists targeted a factory owned by GlaxoSmithKline, smashing windows and damaging the building before participating in a sit down protest on the roads outside the company.

Police made more than 80 arrests of animal activists and were studying security camera tapes to identify other activists to arrest.

Protesters also surrounded the homes of several directors of pharmaceutical companies.

Chris Avery, SHAC spokesman, took credit for the violent assaults saying, “The protests were aimed at five different companies who are customers of Huntingdon Life Sciences and are paying for 500 animals to die every day.”

SHAC spokeswoman Heather James had a more ominous take on the day’s events saying, “We asked them if they were going to continue to use Huntingdon and they have refused to answer. They are being targeted now and will be targeted from now on. They certainly know they have been demonstrated against today. We’ve said we mean business and we do. People out there today were very, very angry. All those companies have underestimated how determined we are.”

GlaxoSmithKline issued a statement that the company “wholeheartedly condemns this violent action … which was clearly designed to disrupt work and terrorize employees.”

Police promise to track down and charge as many activists as possible. The main product of this day of mob action may be to strengthen Home Secretary Jack Straw’s call for more serious laws to curb animal rights extremists.

Sources:

Police vow to catch animal rights wreckers. Ananova, February 11, 2001.

Animal rights mobs invade drug companies Sally Pook, The Daily Telegraph, February 12, 2001.

Animal rights mobs synchronise attacks. Adrian Shaw, The Mirror, February 12, 2001.

Protesters held after 400 target Huntingdon. Paul Peachey, The Independent (London), February 12, 2001.

Pharmaceutical firms attacked. David Brown, The Guardian (London), February 12, 2001.

Protesters attack drugs groups’ premises. The Financial Times (London), February 12, 2001.

Firms ransacked during six-hour rampage as 87 are arrested; 1,000 animal rights activists in mass protest. Steve Hartley, The Express, February 12, 2001.

Animal rights mob of 1,000 on rampage. Ben Taylor and Gordon Rayner, Daily Mail (London), February 12, 2001.

Farming businesses on alert after letter bombs find. Paul Sims, Press Association, February 12, 2001.

Letter bomb defused by army experts. Paul Sims, Press Association, February 12, 2001.

The Tragedy of Female Slavery in Ghana

The BBC recently ran a sad report about the persistence of trokosi — a form of religious slavery — in rural parts of Ghana. Although a law was passed three years ago in Ghana outlawing it, up to 3,000 women are still estimated to be enslaved as a result of the practice.

Trokosi is a religious practice of the Ewe who inhabit Benin, Nigeria, Togo, Ghana. One of the Ewe’s religious beliefs is ju-ju — the notion that the gods punish one person’s sins by causing the death of other family members until the sin is forgiven by the gods. Priests offer to pardon the sin in exchange for some form of atonement.

According to the American Anti-Slavery Group, until the 18th century the offering typically took the form of livestock or other gifts, but that began to change and priests began demanding, and receiving, virgin girls as atonement for the sins of their relatives.

Girls, often under the age of 10, are brought to the priest, ritually stripped of all their possessions, including clothes, and told they have to do anything the priest tells them. Most girls are raped repeatedly.

Technically the girl only has to serve the priest for 3 to 5 years, but the reality is that for many this is a life long sentence. In order for the girl to return to her family at the end of her years of service, her family must pay a redemption fee set by the priest. Not surprisingly, such redemption fees are typically set at prices which the family cannot afford.

To add to the problem, trokosi can be inherited. If a woman dies before her parents can redeem her by paying the priest, they must give him another virgin girl.

It is believed there are up to 4,000 trokosi in Africa, with 3,000 of those in Ghana. As mentioned earlier, Ghana passed a law in 1998 banning the practice but it has persisted, in part due to unwillingness of the government to enforce the law.

The BBC interviewed Hutealor Wede who is a slave to a Ewe priest,

My grandfather had illegal sex with a woman. The gods punished our family. I was the virgin daughter, so I was brought to this village and given to the priest to stop the disasters happening. I have to do everything for the priest. Anything he wants.

Some people, such as Osofu Kofi Ameve, the head of the African Renaissance Mission, defend trokosi and attack those who would outlaw it as imperialists intent on wiping out traditional African religions to establish Western religious. He told the BBC that, “It’s all lies … No woman is a slave in Ghana. Christianity, your Christianity, allows for no other religion. You want to eradicate all African religion.”

Fortunately for the thousands of women enduring such slavery, one of those who does not share this view is the newly elected president of Ghana, John Kufuor, who says he will stop the practice. Kufuor told the BBC, “Young girls should be in educational establishments, not in the harem of some fetish priest.”

Still, at the moment, little has been done to stop the practice except by controversial groups such as International Need and others who have raised money to purchase the freedom of such women. Hopefully Kufuor will follow through and elimination slavery in his country.

Source:

Ghana’s trapped slaves. Humphrey Hawksley, The BBC, February 8, 2001.

The Trokosi: Religious slavery in Ghana. The American Anti-Slavery Group.