Edmund Rice International

An estimated 6.3 million children under 15 years of age died in 2017, or 1 every 5 seconds, mostly of preventable causes, according to new mortality estimates released by WHO, UNICEF, the United Nations Population Division and the World Bank Group. Globally, in 2017, half of all deaths under 5 years of age took place in sub-Saharan Africa, and […]

Edmund Rice International participated in the New York City March for Our Lives on Saturday, March 24, 2018. Br. Kevin Cawley, Edmund Rice International main representative at United Nations Headquarters in New York, accompanied a small group of Iona students and faculty for the event in NYC.  The Iona delegation joined with several hundred thousand […]

The 2006 UN Secretary General’s Study on Violence against Children revealed that globally children experienced a staggering level of violence, despite extensive international human rights obligations accepted by states. The study called for urgent action and presented clear recommendations as to how states and other actors ought respond. Despite some progress, approximately 1 billion children […]

Nowadays, digital capital is a necessity to be a 21st century citizen. IRights is an initiative providing a framework designed for the protection and empowerment of children in the digital world. It contextualizes the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC). The CRC is one of the United Nations human rights treaties […]

A Culture of Silence, or the conspiracy of silence, is the idea of a situation or issue not coming to light due to the fear of an array of repercussions. In other words, people stay quiet about an issue instead of voicing their concerns because they are afraid of how they will be treated if […]

To listen to a series of sad-eyed social scientists list the cruel and degrading treatment of children held in detention centres is a harrowing way to spend two hours in Geneva. To know that Australia still has 528 children in detention centres, simply because they are seeking refuge there, adds immensely to the pain experienced. […]

Most nations have laws that prohibit child labour. Yet throughout the world, children in large numbers can be seen toiling in sweatshops, hauling concrete, tilling fields, plucking garbage or peddling shoes. Some children work for as little as six cents a day, sometimes less, according to the International Labour Office. Photo: A Bolivian boy wanders […]

A couple of articles on corporal punishment elsewhere on this website have attracted some comment and discussion. Whilst it is undeniable that corporal punishment was once relatively common in many Christian Brothers Schools (as it was in most schools and in the broader community at the time) and whilst it was also the case that […]

Amidst the negative press coverage about the Catholic Church that has saturated the media following the ongoing revelations about sexual abuse and its cover-up, it was refreshing to read the following article that appeared online recently. The article, about the program run by the Christian Brothers in their former orphanage in Dum Dum is a […]

Of all the tragedies afflicting youth, one of the hardest for workers to handle is youth suicide. The numbing effect of grief, the undertow of despair, often render our efforts fruitless. Yet Brendan McCarthy cfc in Kolkata, and his co-workers, run an NGO called SERVE, which says it all – Students’ Empowerment, Rights and Vision […]