In his book "Children Of Hope" Vernon Brewer asks "What would you do if your children were so weak from hunger, so in pain but too weak to cry? Would you do whatever it took to feed them?" The question answers itself really. But would you steal? Would you sell your body? Would you be susceptible to every false promise? Would you be susceptible to being trafficked? Would you consider selling one child to save four others? What would you do if these were your children....
Kevin Carter's Pulitzer prize winning picture of a starving Sudanese child. Below children eating bugs to survive.
And because they are not our children. Because they are far away, with dark skin, in countries whose names we cannot pronounce. Do we care less? Or maybe not at all?
Hunger and hunger related illness kills 40,000 children a day. 14 million children a year. That's the equivalent of eighty-five Boeing 747s crashing everyday and killing every passenger. Or 34,000 crashes a year. That would stay in the headlines. Every headline, of every news show, every day. But starvation doesn't. Human Trafficking. Doesn't.
The desperation that those statistics represent is the daily reality for a fifth of the world. It is one of the gravest factors that leads to exploitation. If we are going to stop human trafficking in our lifetime we are going to have to remove the precipitating factors that create the environment where the cancer of trafficking thrives.
I almost didn't post the picture below. To be honest I hoped it was a fake. A photo-shopped piece of journalistic propaganda. Apparently not. You may not want to look. It may make you ashamed to be human....I know it does me...
Hunger, that makes a child do this, should not be able to exist in a world where so much excess and waste exist. This is not ok.
Here are some organizations that fight global hunger:
Stop Hunger Now
World Vision
World Food Programme
Bread For The World
Food For The Hungry
Hi. I know we do not know each other but I have viewed your posts. I thank you. I thank you very much and very often.
ReplyDeleteWe can make a difference.
I have quoted you in my blog. Hope you don't mind. I put the link to your page there.
Jewel. Thank you so much for your passion for truth and justice. You are so very welcome to quote us at COH as often as you'd like. We are just trying to get the message out there. And yes I do believe we can make a difference.
ReplyDeleteAnother good organization is Samaritan's Purse, who's president is the son of evangelist, Billy Graham... Franklin Graham.
ReplyDeleteAfter the million$ of U.S. dollars was given to Haiti after their earthquake, which didn't seem to have helped much, I think, it might be time to go back to the original welfare organization from the past, before the government got involved, which has always been reliable... organizations or churches, that are Christian based.
Anonymous....I agree. COH actually sends all humanitarian relief through Samaritan's Purse, as we did after the Haitian Earthquake. Normally all our funds are dispersed to anti-human trafficking orgs but due to the fact that so many children were displaced and vulnerable to trafficking after the quake we thought it most urgent. And yes, Christ-centered organizations are the ones we champion because they heal the whole person. Thank you for caring about the hungry and weak. May God fill your life resources so that you can take care of them.
ReplyDeleteI have seen the final picture before (the boy and cow) in the Cattle Museum in northern Japan. The description there was that this is the boy blowing air into the vagina of the cow in order to (in the local belief) make the cow more fertile. It remains a deeply disturbing image, however interpreted, but wanted to give the alternative interpretation which is probably more realistic than coprophagia.
ReplyDeleteAnon...Thank you for the clarification. The child's emaciation and desperation, whatever the motive, is still beyond my ability to comprehend.
ReplyDeleteRegarding the last picture, I think the interpretation that a boy blowing air into vagina of a cow is more realistic than coprophagia. I think slaughtering a cow is a good option instead of coprophagia.
ReplyDeletewhatever, I think all these images can help obese people who solve their problems by indulging into eating. Instead of this they can donate food or money to poor people.thanks
Hey there Mark. I am currently in twelfth grade studying in Minnesota, America and I am doing a media project on starvation (such as the one currently going on in Africa)for my English class and I would like permission to use your first photo in my project, if you don't mind....?
ReplyDeleteI have also found your article to be very interesting, the last picture was a bit shocking...It's sad to see the reality of how bad hunger can be.
I thank you for your time (:
Asal!! Thank you for you cocern for the starving! Please use the pictures, though they are from the web and not my own. I doubt anyone will mind since you are doing this for the very right reasons!!!!!
ReplyDeleteThanks again for reading and for continuing the fight for child's rights!
Mark
just eat the cow already , id much rather the cow die by my fists than eat his anus out anyday
ReplyDeleteAnd to think I practise "retail therapy".
ReplyDeletethis makes me feel guilty also.... i'll donate today to an organization that feeds hungry children. This is so heart breaking.
DeleteThat picture of a child with his mouth on the cows behind is not because he is starving....
ReplyDeleteCow blowing, Kuhblasen, or doom dev, is a process used in many countries according to ethnographers, in which forceful blowing of air into a cow's vagina (or sometimes anus) is applied to induce her to produce more milk.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cow_blowing
"That picture of a child with his mouth on the cows behind is not because he is starving...."
ReplyDeleteand why do you think he is doing this (taking such extreme measures in order to attempt to make the cow to produce more milk)?
Seems simple to me.. he's starving.
exactly.
DeleteThat's nice, Mark- thank you !
ReplyDeleteI don't doubt the good intentions of the blog in any way,
but I know firsthand how little stories can end up as 'unquestionable truths'.
Wow. These pics make me feel guilty for just existing. There is more than enough food to feed the world, yet people starve. We've got our greedy, capitalistic, war-hungry government(s) to blame for the plight of poor people everywhere.
ReplyDelete