You are what you watch, when it comes to violence in the media and its influence on violent behavior in young people, and a new paper, lead-authored by Rutgers University, Newark, researcher Paul Boxer, provides new evidence that violent media does indeed impact adolescent behavior. [...more]
Countries with strict social rules and behavioral etiquette such as the United Kingdom may foster drinking cultures characterized by unruly or bad behavior, according to a new report on alcohol and violence released today by International Center for Alcohol Policies (ICAP). The report lists 11 cultural features that may predict levels of violence such as homicide and spousal abuse. [...more]
A new UNICEF UK report launched today - exactly ten years after the UK signed the Kyoto Protocol (on 29 April 1998) - reveals that the world’s poorest and most vulnerable children are being hit the hardest by the impact of climate change. The report, ‘Our climate, our children, our responsibility: the implications of climate change for the world’s children’ draws attention to the fact that climate change is impacting very seriously on children and their rights. [...more]
Pets are part of the family in the majority of American households, where nearly three-quarters of families with school-age children have at least one companion animal. These animals are often treated like members of the family, but if the family is experiencing violence they can become targets as well. Pets are often an important source of comfort and stability to the victims of abuse, particularly children. But abusive family members may threaten, injure, or kill pets, often as a way of threatening or controlling others in the family. [...more]
Infantilization dates from the 19th century, a response to two developments: the consolidation of the Atlantic slave trade and modern colonialism. These were, arguably, the first serious attempts at globalization. If a cross-continental trade in live human beings, and a political economy touching four continents - on which the sun reportedly never set - are not global, then what is? [...more]
The European Court of Human Rights today reaffirmed that the ban on deporting people to countries where they are at risk of torture or ill-treatment is absolute and unconditional. The judgment in Saadi v. Italy is being hailed as a major reassertion of the importance of the rule of law by 11 international human rights groups, including Amnesty International, the Association for the Prevention of Torture, the AIRE Centre, Human Rights Watch, INTERIGHTS, the International Commission of Jurists, JUSTICE, the Medical Foundation for the Care of the Victims of Torture, Open Society Justice Initiative, REDRESS, and the World Organization Against Torture (OMCT). [...more]
Around the world, as many as one in every three women has been beaten, coerced into sex, or abused in some other way - most often by someone she knows, including by her husband or another male family member; one woman in four has been abused during pregnancy. [...more]
