Uruguayan Students Participate in Global UGrad Program

The Uruguayan undergraduate students selected to participate in the 2008 Global UGrad Program chat with Ambassador Frank E. Baxter during a pre-orientation session at the U.S. Embassy in Montevideo, June 4, 2008. Seated around the table are: Fiorella Bafundo (University of the Republic), Tamara Míguez (Instituto de Profesores Artigas), Lucía Caumont (Catholic University), Irace González (Instituto de Profesores Artigas), Verónica Pérez Urioste (Cultural Assistant, U.S. Embassy Montevideo), Ambassador Frank E. Baxter, Magdalena Gutiérrez (Universtity of the Republic), Amalia Bonica, Josefina Caviglia (University of the Republic), Javier Maseiro (ORT University)

Nine undergraduate students have been selected to attend accredited institutions in the U.S.

Nine applicants have been selected among more that 70 undergraduate students from all five Uruguayan universities to participate in this year's Global Undergraduate Program. (See related article.)
The participants will be enrolled full-time in undergraduate course work chosen from the host institution´s existing curriculum to allow students ample opportunity for substantive interaction with U.S. faculty and student peers, and for exposure to U.S. academic and classroom culture.The Global Undergraduate Exchange Program (also known as the Global UGRAD Program) is a program of the Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs of the U.S. Department of State. It provides one semester and academic year scholarships to outstanding undergraduate students from underrepresented sectors in East Asia, Eurasia and Central Asia, the Near East and South Asia and the Western Hemisphere for non-degree full-time study combined with community service, internships and cultural enrichment. Approximately 460 scholarships will be awarded in 2008.

Reducing Demand Is Key To Curbing Human Trafficking, U.S. Says

A woman holds the school ID of her missing daughter. Demand for cheap labor and sexual services must be addressed to end human trafficking and modern-day slavery, U.S. officials say at a briefing on the State Department's Eighth Trafficking in Persons Report.

Forced labor gets special focus in the 2008 report on modern-day slavery
By Jane Morse
Washington -- The demand for cheap labor and sexual services must be addressed to end human trafficking and modern-day slavery, say U.S. officials.
At a June 4 briefing for the release of the State Department’s eighth annual Trafficking In Persons Report, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said the 2008 report, for the first time, examines prosecution data.
She cited one “disturbing discovery” in particular: “Although more countries are addressing sex trafficking through prosecution and convictions, the petty tyrants who exploit their laborers rarely receive serious punishment. We see this as a serious shortcoming, and as we move our efforts forward, we and our allies must remember that a robust law enforcement response is essential. “
Ambassador Mark Lagon, the director of the State Department’s Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons, said the 2008 report also focuses on forced labor, a form of trafficking in persons.
Lagon recounted instances of workers imprisoned in factories under brutal conditions that could be categorized only as forced labor. Evidence of forced labor is especially strong in Thailand’s shrimp-processing industry, he said, and in charcoal production and on sugar plantations in Brazil.
In addition to slave labor in factories, many trafficking victims find themselves enslaved as domestic servants. Lagon said the government of the Philippines has taken steps to prevent workers from accepting domestic employment in certain countries where such enslavement is prevalent. Lagon called on more governments around the world to exercise stronger political will to prevent trafficking.
Lagon said the 2008 report takes a close look at the factors that create demand and at the recruiters of trafficked victims. Such recruiters often establish fees for finding “work” for their “clients” that are so onerous the result is debt bondage. Debt bondage is a form of enslavement in which workers find they never can pay off their debts to win their freedom or the right to keep their wages.
The ambassador also called for more services for the treatment and rehabilitation of the formerly enslaved. “We must restore humanity to those who have been dehumanized,” he said.
The 2008 report evaluates the efforts of 170 countries to combat human trafficking. The report aims to raise awareness of the scourge of modern slavery and to encourage countries to take action to prevent it.
The report places countries in “tiers” based on an assessment of the government’s compliance with the minimum standards for the elimination of trafficking as explained in the U.S. Trafficking in Persons Protection Act of 2000. Tier 2 and Tier 3 countries have moderate to severe challenges in controlling trafficking. Another category, “Tier 2 Watch List,” indicates countries in danger of falling to the bottom Tier 3.
Lagon said that in the 2008 report, Madagascar moved to Tier 1 -- the best of the ratings -- by demonstrating the ability to take effective anti-trafficking steps with minimal resources. Moldova, however, fell to Tier 3. Both previously had been classified in Tier 2.
China and India remain on the Tier 2 Watch List. China, he said, has made insufficient efforts to combat trafficking, especially in regards to North Korean women who are trafficked into China as “wives” or prostitutes. Those North Koreans unlucky enough to be returned by authorities to North Korea routinely are punished by the North Korean regime, he said.
In contrast, India has made more efforts to protect children who become victims of trafficking, but the government still does not recognize bonded labor as a form of slavery, Lagon said.
TRAFFICKING A WORLDWIDE PROBLEM
According to U.S. estimates, some 800,000 people are trafficked across national borders each year. That number does not include the millions of people trafficked within their own countries.
Trafficking is a problem in the United States as well, where an estimated 14,500 to 17,500 victims are trafficked into the country each year. A separate report on trafficking problems inside the United States is produced each year.
U.S. efforts to combat trafficking involve partnerships with other countries, international and nongovernmental organizations. In fiscal year 2007, the U.S. government spent approximately $79 million to fund 180 anti-trafficking projects in about 90 countries. Since fiscal year 2001, the United States has funded more than $528 million for anti-trafficking projects worldwide.
Even though the problem of human trafficking is severe, the outlook is not entirely gloomy. According to Rice, in recent years there has been “a hopeful global movement uniting civil society, governments, and international organizations” to abolish human trafficking.
“We hope this report encourages responsible nations across the globe to stand together, to speak with one voice, and to say that freedom and security are non-negotiable demands of human dignity,” she said.
“Together I believe this movement of governments, civil society, and brave individuals of conscience can rescue, rehabilitate, and restore the lives of those who have been treated as less than human.”
The full text of the 2008 Trafficking in Persons Report is available on the State Department Web site. See also U.S. Government Efforts to Fight Demand Fueling Human Trafficking and The Facts About Human Trafficking for Forced Labor also on the State Department Web site.

Earth Day Celebration Fosters Students' Awareness

GLOBE activity taps into the creative talent of youngsters at a Montevideo school

To celebrate Earth Day 2008, Montevideo's public school Nº 85 “Republic of India” held a GLOBE activity involving a total of 80 primary education students. GLOBE (Global Learning and Observations to Benefit the Environment) is a worldwide hands-on, primary and secondary school-based science and education program.
For the celebration, GLOBE-trained teacher Patricia Píriz organized a photography and plastic expression contest aimed at promoting among the students the awareness and feeling of belonging to their city and their planet. The theme of the contest was “MY NEIGHBORHOOD - MY EARTH”.
Students participating in the contest ranged between 9 and 13 years of age. They observed and showed, through plastic expression and photography techniques, the features of the day and night landscapes of the area where they reside. They submitted photographs, scale models and drawings in various techniques, showing an enormous enthusiasm in carrying out the project. Their families and school teachers also provided assistance in the development of the artistic productions.
The jury, comprised of representatives from the teacher and the student bodies, had to face the difficult task of choosing the winners among the many excellent contestants. The most voted productions were those submitted by students Daniel Fontana, Gonzalo Monzón, Víctor Blanco, Diana Fráppola, Irina Feria, Luna Rivero, Antonio Geriboni, Camila Cónsul, Camila Massa, Jimena Fernánadez, Florencia Zanelli, and Micaela Rótulo.
The experience was extremely positive and rewarding. The students worked in teams, exchanged ideas, and identified their favorite locations in their respective neighborhoods, green and urban areas. They observed the landscapes in great detail, and looked for personal, unique ways to portray them.
Based on the great interest expressed by everyone, the school intends to continue celebrating this event in the coming years.
Announced in 1994, GLOBE began operations on Earth Day 1995. Today, the international GLOBE network has grown to include representatives from 110 participating countries and 137 U.S. Partners coordinating GLOBE activities that are integrated into their local and regional communities. In Uruguay, 46 teachers have been trained be trained by the GLOBAL organization and 25 primary education schools have been formally appointed as GLOBE schools.

World Press Freedom Day Supports Journalists Facing Threats

By Eric Green

Washington -- Global events marking World Press Freedom Day May 3 will spotlight repression against independent journalists and murders of members of the media, many of which go unpunished.

Press Freedom Day will remind the world that 171 journalists were killed in 2007 while pursuing their work, a number just short of the yearly record, and hundreds more were threatened, imprisoned or tortured, says the United Nations. The U.N. General Assembly in 1993 established each May 3 as the commemorative day for press freedom.

Joel Simon, executive director of the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists, says that when Press Freedom Day was created, “I don’t think anyone expected it to have the kind of resonance that it does today.”

Simon said the day is marked by numerous rallies, protests and newspaper editorials to focus international attention on the violence and repression inflicted on the media in many countries.

The U.N. Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) will hold its central activities marking the special day in Mozambique, a country where press freedom has begun to thrive following a civil war that ended in 1992.

Simon said, however, that the country’s small independent press corps was traumatized by the November 2000 murder of a leading Mozambican investigative reporter, Carlos Cardoza.

The murder “got a huge amount of attention” in Mozambique and internationally, Simon said. Cardoza was considered a fearless muckraker (a journalist who exposes corruption and scandals in business and politics). Reports said he was killed for daring to denounce by name criminal elements and corrupt government officials. The case spurred a “great deal of awareness about press freedom” in Mozambique, Simon said.

The press has been “quite vital in Mozambique in the post-civil war period, and has served as an independent voice,” said Simon. He added that the “state media is credible” in that country, a situation he said is not typical for Africa.

Mozambique’s government will participate in the May 3 ceremonies in Maputo, the Mozambican capital. Scheduled events include the awarding of UNESCO’s $25,000 prize to a journalist or organization for actions that contributed to the defense and promotion of world press freedom. The 2007 prize was awarded posthumously to the Russian journalist and human rights activist Anna Politkovskaya, who was shot dead in October 2006.

REPRESSIVE GOVERNMENTS FEAR INDEPENDENT MEDIA

David Hoffman, president of Internews Network, a nongovernmental group that promotes independent media, says press freedom day is important “because it reminds us of the vital role that a free and open media have in supporting democracy and civil society and creating transparency in government.”

Hoffman said he considers government repression of the independent media the top issue for Press Freedom Day.

Some countries have laws -- that “aren’t being followed” -– to protect the media, said Hoffman, whose organization is funded by the U.S. State Department and the U.S. Agency for International Development, among others.

Hoffman said an “anti-democratic backlash” against the media began following the 2003 “Rose Revolution” in Georgia, and similar movements in post-communist societies in Central and Eastern Europe and in Central Asia.

“Many repressive governments are fearful of an independent media in their countries because of the prominent role” that the press played in bringing about those movements, said Hoffman.

He cited Russia as an example of a country where the “independent media has been closed down,” which included the 2007 expulsion of Internews from the country on what Hoffman called the Russian government’s “purely political” charges against his group for alleged currency violations.

PRESS FREEDOM DAY IMPORTANT IN EMERGING DEMOCRACIES

William Orme, policy adviser for media development at the U.N. Development Programme, says that in “emerging democracies around the world, World Press Freedom Day has become a very significant event.”

The day is a “moment in the calendar [to support] journalists who often feel in jeopardy, marginalized and under threat,” Orme said. “It’s a moment where the international community officially acknowledges the central importance of a free media and a democratic system.”

Press Freedom Day, said Orme, is not just for journalists, but also serves as a reminder to the world’s citizens and governments “that the right to free expression and the exchange of information” is guaranteed in Article 19 of the U.N. Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Most countries are signatories to that international covenant, said Orme, a former newspaper reporter and executive director of the Committee to Protect Journalists.

Orme said his U.N. agency once ranked Mozambique as the poorest country in the world, but the nation has emerged after almost 20 years of civil war and hundreds of thousands dead to a stage when the nation’s leadership has “tried to build a democratic culture, including great leeway for the press.”

Though the situation for journalists in that nation is “hardly perfect,” Orme said, Mozambique holds “very important symbolic significance within Africa and around the world” as a place where press freedom is recognized as part of the country’s “democratic experiment.”

Article 19 of the U.N. declaration about human rights is available on the UNESCO Web site.

Ambassador Baxter Congratulates the 2008 Fulbright Teacher Exchange Program

46 Uruguayan teachers from public schools across the country participated in this year's program

By Leigh Miller

U.S. Ambassador Frank Baxter welcomed 46 Uruguayan public school teachers and members of the Montevideo business community to his residence April 17 to congratulate them for their participation in the 2008 Fulbright Teacher Exchange Program.
The annual program, supported by the U.S.-based Fulbright Foundation and administered by the Fulbright Commission of Uruguay, sends Uruguayan teachers to the United States to spend three weeks teaching in American schools.
Following a three-day orientation with the Fulbright Foundation in Washington D.C. in February 2008, the 46 Uruguayan teachers traveled to various states in the U.S. where they were installed in public and private schools as temporary teachers. In these roles, they learned about the U.S. education system and shared their Uruguayan teaching expertise with their host schools and families. They collaborated on ideas for curriculum development with their American counterparts, focusing on teaching the English language in their classrooms upon return to Uruguay.
During the reception, Mr. Baxter praised the Fulbright Commission of Uruguay for its coordination of the program and encouraged the business community to participate in future Teacher Exchange Program activities.
Following an introduction by Primary Education Administration Director General Edith Moraes, three teachers - Andrea Musso, an English teacher from public school Nº 31 in Montevideo; Cristina Álvez, an English teacher from public school Nº 56 in Maldonado and Norma Quijano, teaching assessor from the Primary Education Administration - gave testimonials about their experiences in the U.S.
Each emphasized the value of the relationships they developed with American teachers for enriching the learning experiences of their own students. Each also highlighted the importance of the Fulbright program and the support of the U.S. Embassy for encouraging Uruguayan teachers to learn English and collaborate with U.S. schools through the exchange program.

Alliance for a Drug-Free Uruguay Unveils New Ad Campaign

A group of students from ORT University pose with U.S. Public Affairs officer Robert Zimmerman during the presentation of a new ad campaign by the Alliance for a Drug-Free Uruguay, held April 10, 2008.

The Alliance for a Drug-Free Uruguay (Alianza por un Uruguay sin Drogas) launched a new drug prevention ad campaign during a presentation held at the ORT University in Montevideo. The ads, prepared free of charge by Uruguayan PR experts, will target child drug abuse by encouraging parents to communicate with their children and talk about drugs. The campaign includes a parents' guide with tips on how to raise awareness in children of all ages including teenagers.
Several Uruguayan media outlets such as dailies, radio and TV, have donated space and air time to run the ads. The parent's guide, available online, will be distributed throughout the country in supermarkets, movie theatres and sporting events.

Martin Luther King’s Dream Lives on 40 Years After His Death

On April 4, 1968, an assassin took the life of Martin Luther King Jr. He was 39 years old. Forty years after his death, Americans honor King with a national holiday celebrated on the third Monday of each January. Above, DJ Lewis (left) and his father, Dennis Sr., join in a January 2006 march in honor of King in Oklahoma City.

Americans remember the days of anger and hope
By Michael Friedman

Washington -- On April 4, 1968, in Memphis, Tennessee, an assassin’s bullet took the life of Martin Luther King, the main architect and the leader of the nonviolent civil rights movement in the United States. He was 39 years old. The medical examiners said King died with the heart of a 60-year-old, because he had for so long carried the burden of so many. Some 100,000 Americans stood outside the church at the time of his funeral.
The day before, as part of his “poor people’s campaign,” King was campaigning on behalf of striking -- and primarily black -- sanitation workers. His last address drew strongly on his lifelong study of the Bible. It would prove prophetic:
Well, I don’t know what will happen now; we’ve got some difficult days ahead. But it really doesn’t matter with me now, because I’ve been to the mountaintop. And I don’t mind. Like anybody, I would like to live a long life -- longevity has its place. But I’m not concerned about that now. I just want to do God’s will. And He’s allowed me to go up to the mountain. And I’ve looked over, and I’ve seen the Promised Land. I may not get there with you. But I want you to know tonight that we, as a people, will get to the Promised Land. And so I’m happy tonight; I’m not worried about anything; I’m not fearing any man. Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord.
The year 1968 was one of political upheaval throughout the world. In the United States, just two months later, on June 5, another assassin took the life of Senator Robert Kennedy, who as attorney general had provided timely assistance to civil rights activists.
DAYS OF ANGER
The murder of Martin Luther King sparked riots in Washington and more than 100 other American cities, threatening to turn a peaceful struggle of African Americans into a violent racial confrontation. Even before the tragic event, the movement seemed to be undergoing a transformation that many of King’s closest associates watched with apprehension.
By May 1966, Stokley Carmichael, veteran of numerous voter registration drives, had established himself as the new head of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), the principal student organization of the civil rights movement, whose leadership was growing increasingly impatient with the gradualist strategy of Martin Luther King and his associates.
In a speech at Greenwood, Mississippi, Carmichael raised a call for “Black Power.” Where people like Thurgood Marshall and Martin Luther King had sought integration, Carmichael instead sought separation. Integration, he said, was “an insidious subterfuge, for the maintenance of white supremacy.”
Meanwhile, the Black Panther Party (some accounts trace the name to a visual emblem for illiterate voters used in an Alabama voter registration drive), founded in Oakland, California, in October 1966 by activists Huey P. Newton and Bobby Seale, employed armed members -- “Panthers” -- to shadow police officers who, they believed, unfairly targeted blacks.
While the party briefly enjoyed a measure of popularity, particularly through its social services programs, armed altercations with local police resulted in the death or jailing of prominent Panthers, turned many Americans against its violent ways, and fragmented the Panther movement. It petered out in a maze of factionalism and mutual recriminations.
Many feared, however, that King’s assassination would increase the influence of militant elements within the movement. At that time, some questioned King’s life work. But the “Promised Land” that King described was in many ways far closer than it seemed during the riots of April 1968.
AMERICAN CONSENSUS
The African-American historical experience will always be unique. But meaningful federal enforcement of the right to vote equipped black Americans with the tools that immigrants and other minority groups long have used to pursue -- and achieve -- the American Dream. In the United States, people who vote wield real political power. With the vote -- and over time -- legal and political equality for African Americans has produced gains in nearly every walk of life.
John R. Lewis, for example, was one of the Freedom Riders beaten bloody by a Montgomery, Alabama, mob in 1961. Today he represents Georgia’s 5th Congressional District in the U.S. House of Representatives. Nearly 50 of his congressional colleagues are African Americans, and several of them wield great political power as chairpersons of in?uential congressional committees.
In 1963, Denise McNair was among the girls killed when racist vigilantes bombed Birmingham’s Sixteenth Street Baptist Church. In 2005, her friend Condoleezza Rice took office as the nation’s secretary of state.
Black secondary school graduation rates have nearly tripled since 1966, and the rate of poverty has been nearly halved in that time. The expansion of the black middle class is a widely noted social development, as are the many successful entrepreneurs, scholars and literary and artistic achievers who are African American.
Although Americans continue to wrestle with issues of race, those issues differ profoundly from those addressed by Thurgood Marshall, Martin Luther King and the civil rights movement generation.
Unquestionably, the civil rights movement forced the American people to confront squarely the contradiction between their ideals and the reality of segregation and inequality. In doing so, it launched the nation far along the path to full racial equality, a road it is still traveling.
Probably the most important measure of progress is the emergence -- not least among the younger Americans who will build the nation’s future -- of a broad and deep consensus that the shameful histories of slavery, segregation and disadvantage must be relegated to just that: history.
The materials above are adapted from Free At Last: The U.S. Civil Rights Movement, a book to be published on America.gov during summer 2008.

U.S. Funding Helps Fight One of the “Worst Forms of Child Labor”

Initiatives aim to protect, educate child soldiers, other young victims
By Jane Morse
Washington -- U.S. programs are tackling the problems faced by many of the millions of children around the world who are exploited as laborers. Among the most unfortunate are children pressed into service as soldiers.
The U.N. International Labour Organization (ILO) estimates that there are 218 million child laborers worldwide. Of these, some 300,000 are child soldiers, according to UNICEF.
Child soldiering has been designated as one of the “worst forms” of child labor by the United Nations in the ILO International Convention 182, which was adopted in 1999 and ratified by 163 nations, including the United States. U.S. efforts to protect and aid these children have been vigorous and consistent, and many agencies are involved in the effort.
The U.S. Department of Labor, for example, has spent $595 million since 1995 to help victims of child labor abuse. These programs, according to department estimates, have touched the lives of at least 1 million children.
In 2003, Secretary of Labor Elaine Chao held a conference on child soldiers titled “Children Caught in the Crossfire.” During the conference, she announced initiatives for on-the-ground services. Prior to this, the Department of Labor had funded research to look at the issue.
At the time of the conference, Chao said: “There are two faces of the child soldier issue -- the face of despair, and the face of redemption. ... We can’t give child soldiers their childhood back, but we can help them to rebuild their lives.”
To this end, the department launched a $13 million global initiative to help educate, rehabilitate and reintegrate former child soldiers. The initiative included a $7 million project funded through the ILO’s International Program on the Elimination of Child Labor to develop comprehensive strategies to help former child soldiers in Africa, where most current and former child soldiers live.
The Department of Labor currently funds more than 19 projects to educate children and protect them from exploitation in countries recovering from armed conflict. In fiscal year 2007, the department funded two new projects that target war-affected children -- including child soldiers -- in Uganda and the Democratic Republic of Congo.
The Labor-funded project in Uganda -- by promoting awareness campaigns and by providing increased access to educational opportunities -- is expected to help save more than 11,000 children from the worst forms of child labor. The project will reach an additional 14,725 indirect beneficiaries, who will attend target schools or join households that benefit from activities designed to enhance livelihood opportunities.
In the Democratic Republic of Congo, some 12,000 youths will be aided by programs designed to prevent them from being exploited in a country still recovering from decades of conflict.
CHILD SOLDIERING AND TRAFFICKING
At the U.S. Department of State, child soldiering is considered to be “a unique and severe manifestation of trafficking in persons that involves the unlawful recruitment of children through force, fraud or coercion ….”
The Presidential Initiative on Trafficking in Persons has provided $2.5 million for post-conflict projects. The U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) has been the biggest source of funds for projects working with child soldiers, providing $1,875,000 for fiscal years 2003 through 2006.
Because programs to help child soldiers are scattered through so many U.S. government departments and agencies, the State Department has taken the lead in serving as coordinator and information clearinghouse. In 2007, it launched a “Children in War” Web site, available to government personnel only, which collects information from a wide array of sources to serve as a resource tool for future programs.
Tu Dang, the foreign affairs officer who manages that Web site at the State Department’s Office of International Labor and Corporate Social Responsibility in the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor, told America.gov that the site covers a number of broader issues as well, such as vulnerable children and orphans.
“There’s a real need for coordination and information sharing,” she said. “It’s difficult, because there isn’t enough consistent information out there.”
Additional information on the worst forms of child labor and the Children in the Crossfire 2003 International Conference is available on the Labor Department Web site.
The full text of the 2007 Trafficking in Persons Report is available on the State Department Web site.