#child welfare committee

[seemabhatnagar]

"Accountability Matters: High Court's Stand on Child Welfare Committee's Oversight”

Km Pooja Rajput Corpus & another v. State of UP & 4 others

Habeas Corpus Writ Petition 228/2024

Before the High Court of Allahabad

Heard by the Bench of Hon’ble Mr. Justice Arvind Singh Sangwan J & Hon’ble Mr. Justice Ram Manohar Narayan Mishra J

Order The Allahabad High Court allowed the custody of the minor girl to the father as the girl expressed her desire to go with the father.

Considering the conduct of the committee, the Court awarded a cost of Rs.5,00,000/- ( Five Lacs) payable to the father of the girl within thirty days from 22.04.2024. The amount will be used for upbringing of the minor girl child.

In case the cost of Rs.5,00,000/- is not paid before the next date of listing(23.05.2024), the Commissioner of Police, Kanpur Nagar is directed to ensure that the Chairman of Nari Niketan/Child Welfare Committee, Kanpur Nagar will remain present in the Court.

Facts

The Habeas Corpus petition is filed by the mother for producing her daughter before the Court and also giving her custody. At the time of the hearing on April 22, 2024, both the parents were present before the Court. There was a dispute between the parents and the parents were living separately. The couple had a girl child out of their marriage. The father was handicapped but was taking care of the girl child, her education, and the fees of school. The mother earlier took custody of the child Pooja with herself but had not taken care of her education and involved her husband in a false case. Hence, the girl aged about 15 years has been residing with the father for the last 5-6 years.

On the direction of the Court, the detenue Pooja Rajpoot was brought before the Court from the Nari Niketan, Kanpur Nagar.

The shocking part of this case is when parents are there and are willing to keep the child with them then under what circumstances the minor girl Pooja Gupta was sent to Nari Niketan Kanpur.

She was detained in Nari Niketan Kanpur Nagar since 20.01.2024 the time when she was supposed to appear for the class 7th examination. Being detained she was unable to appear for the Final Examination and as such lost one academic year.

When enquired from the girl with whom she wanted to go, the minor child explicitly stated that she wanted to go with her father. The Court allowed her to go with her father as per her wish so that she could continue her studies. However, the Court kept it open for the mother to seek custody of the girl by the appropriate law by filing a petition before the competent Court of Law.

Though mother didn’t dispute that the child has been taken care of by the father for the last 5-6 years.

Now as the child is growing up mother now wants custody of the child with her.

The Court took the matter seriously due to the non-application of the judicial by the Chairman and members of the Child Welfare Committee the liberty of life of the girl was curtailed. The matter is put for hearing on 23.05.2024.

The shocking part of this matter is when parents are there and are willing to keep the child with them than how Nari Niketan kept the child with it.

The court on April 10, 2024, directed the Child Welfare Committee, Kanpur to send its authorized representative along with an affidavit as to how and in what manner the girl child has been sent to Nari Niketan/Child Welfare Committee (women).

None on behalf of the Committee was present on April 22, 2024, despite specific direction.

Seema Bhatnagar

[brightpunjabexpress]

Social Security Dept invites applications for the recruitment of Child Development Committee and Juvenile Justice Board posts: Dr. Baljit Kaur

Social Security Dept invites applications for the recruitment of Child Development Committee and Juvenile Justice Board posts: Dr. Baljit Kaur

Last date for apply for posts till November 21 Chandigarh, November 18 Punjab government led by Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann is making continuous efforts for the welfare of the children of Punjab. Social Security department has called applications for the recruitment of posts related to Child Welfare Committee, Juvenile Justice Board till November 21. Divulging the details, Social Security,…

[humanitywelfarecouncil]

Child Protection Issues Are a Huge Threat to Youth in India

A 13-year old girl was pushed into labour due to poverty. Three siblings are surviving with just one meal a day as their parents are unemployed. An 11-year old girl fled from home to escape from her abusive father. A 14-year old might not be able to continue his studies as his father, the family’s sole earning member, has died from the virus. Across India, over 1 crore children do not have a roof over their heads. This is how Covid-19 has impacted the children of India.

The recent reports show that over 3,000 children have lost both parents, and over 26,000 have lost one parent to COVID-19 between 2020 to now. Though the government has come forward to support children affected by the pandemic, there is an aggravated concern about child protection issues.

While the children may be less susceptible to the virus, many families have experienced economic and social fallout due to the first and second waves of the coronavirus. Due to worse conditions, the children face the severest emotional trauma resulting in dire consequences and reducing access to basic health, education, and social protection. In addition, many children are now being abandoned or forced to work because of family conflict, negligence, extreme poverty, and face an even greater risk of abuse, child marriage, and trafficking. Such cases are increasing in rural areas.

Additionally, the fake social media messages circulated encouraging people to adopt are on the rise putting children at risk of violence. Also, some largely forgotten homeless children beg, scavenge, and work in the struggle to survive. Many others are at high risk of developing life-threatening diseases due to scarcity of food and proper shelter.

We need to take matters into our hands as it becomes our responsibility to take care of children affected by the pandemic. We need to work with individuals and communities in building awareness, identifying children who are needy, and refer them to Child Welfare Committees to prevent trafficking or illegal adoptions.

Also, supporting the children in need through medical assistance, safe shelter, nutritious food, psycho-social care, education, and livelihood opportunities to families is the need of the hour.

Join Humanity Welfare Council to act now and work towards giving a protective and playful childhood to disadvantaged children and restoring childhoods to save the future citizens of India.

Resource url:- https://www.hwcindia.org/blogs/child-protection-issues-are-a-huge-threat-to-youth-in-india

[ngoforchildsupport]

Would you like to help improve the child welfare committe Delhi, aiming to provide you with the resources you need to do so, we work tirelessly to support social welfare and child protection initiatives as well as legislative change advocates who will better protect our youngest children. ,

Visit: Head Office: L-64, Kalkaji, New Delhi 110019  | Contact no :;011 – 49211111

[gallifreyriver]

Reminder that Zuckerberg actively lobbied with Republican PR firms to make TikTok illegal because he couldn't compete with it.

Reminder that for all its faults TikTok has brought tons of awareness to important issues that barely got any coverage until they blew up on TikTok, and more that still barely got any mainstream coverage even after they did.

Reminder that TikTok has become the largest and easiest place for people to come together and organize, and has 150 million active users in the US.

Reminder that congress, especially conservatives, stand to gain a lot by banning it, because it means less people will hear about all the problematic (fascist) shit they're trying to pass, such as the 300+ anti-trans bills, the bills seeking to make abortion a felony punishable by death, or how they're trying to remove the Indian Child Welfare Act (ICWA). They also get to 'look tough' against China.

Reminder that claims of concerns over data privacy are bullshit, because China could literally just buy our data if they wanted it. Tech companies just like and including Facebook collect and sell our data all the time. China wouldn't need to build an app to get it.

Reminder that banning TikTok sets a precedent that Congress could come for literally any other social media they deem 'a threat' and ban that too. Yes, even your personal favorite one.

Reminder that we should care about this and instead of saying "Good Riddance TikTok!" we should be actively trying to stop this violation of free speech and stop handing more power to fascists just because we personally don't like a thing or think it's cringe. This is bigger than your personal tastes.

Please sign this letter from the ACLU to your members of Congress and urge them to listen. There's also a hearing this Thursday on March 23rd at 10am EST in DC where the TikTok CEO will be testifying before the House Energy and Commerce Committee. The hearing will be open to the public and will also be live streamed online.

I don't care if you hate TikTok or think it's "cringe." If you all actually hate Facebook and fascists as much as you say you do, then you won't stand for letting them win this fight to ban it.

[allthecanadianpolitics]

A committee meeting set to discuss the federal government’s Indigenous child welfare legislation was suddenly thrust into a conversation about the federal government’s carbon tax.

The meeting started with witnesses from Indigenous Services and Justice giving an overview of the child welfare legislation regarding First Nation, Inuit and Métis children, also known as C-92.

During the question and answer period, a Conservative MP introduced a motion to the committee to “axe the carbon tax.”

“Thank you to my colleague Martin Shields for raising that very important motion as he pointed out 133 chiefs of Ontario have come out against the carbon tax,” said Conservative MP Jamie Schmale. [...]

Continue Reading.

Tagging: @politicsofcanada

[thepro-lifemovement]

Arkansas will keep protecting unborn babies with disabilities after state House lawmakers rejected a bill Tuesday that would have created an exception in the state abortion ban for unborn babies who may have fatal conditions.

KUAR Public Radio reports the state House Public Health, Welfare and Labor Committee voted against the discriminatory legislation, House Bill 1301 sponsored by state Rep. Nicole Clowney, D-Fayetteville.

Arkansas protects unborn babies by banning all elective abortions. Clowney’s bill would have amended state laws to make an exception for unborn babies who may have a “fetal abnormality incompatible with life.”

Among those testifying against the legislation were Cherisse Dean of the pro-life Family Council. Dean told lawmakers that babies in the womb deserve to be protected even if they have or may have a fatal condition.

“It does not say what it is and what it is not, and so that leaves it very unclear for a federal judge to interpret this language,” she said. “Unborn children should not be aborted because a doctor thinks that they may have a fetal abnormality.”

Killing unborn babies with disabilities or fatal conditions is discriminatory, and families faced with tragic news deserve better, too. Perinatal hospice programs, for example, provide life-affirming support to families of unborn babies and newborns with fatal conditions, often offering grief counseling, funeral planning assistance, ideas for making memories as a family, palliative care information and more to help families preparing for their child’s death.

As part of its ongoing efforts to protect life, the Arkansas House recently passed a bill to require companies to provide paid maternity leave to new mothers if they also offer to pay for employees’ abortions or abortion travel expenses. A second bill would allow parents to claim their unborn babies as dependents on their taxes.

Lawmakers also recently proposed a pro-life memorial at the Arkansas Capitol to commemorate the unborn babies whose lives were lost in abortion.

[mariacallous]

Roughly one-third of children who grow up poor in the United States will also experience poverty as adults. Intergenerational poverty is a weight on the backs of millions of Americans, keeping many from achieving their full potential, for their own benefit and that of society.  Understanding the causes of intergenerational poverty, and implementing programs and policies to reduce it, would have important benefits for children and for the entire nation.

The Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2021 directed the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine to conduct a comprehensive study of intergenerational child poverty in the United States. The resulting report, entitled “Reducing Intergenerational Poverty,” was issued in September 2023.1 The authors both served on the committee that developed the report, and we provide our perspectives here on some of its key messages.

Key facts about intergenerational poverty

Intergenerational poverty was defined as a situation in which individuals who grew up in families with incomes below the poverty line are themselves poor as adults. Data from two intergenerational studies provided very similar estimates of the fraction of children born into low-income households in the 1970s or 1980s who also had low household incomes in adulthood. As shown in Figure 1, about one-third of children from low-income households remained poor in adulthood. Racial differences in this rate were stark, with considerably more persistence of poverty among Black and, especially, Native American children, the least persistence among Asian children, and similar persistence rates for white and Latino children.

These data also showed that:

More (40%) individuals with low household incomes in both childhood and adulthood are white than in other racial/ethnic groups. Although the rates of intergenerational poverty are lower for white than for Black and Native American children, Whites outnumber Black (34%), Latino (19%) and other racial/ethnic subgroups in the ranks of persistently poor children because they make up such a large share of the overall population.

Low-income children of U.S.-born parents experience less intergenerational mobility than low-income children of immigrants from almost every country.

An individual’s mobility is predictable by geography. Even within regions and individual communities, there are areas where low-income children tend to grow up and join the middle class, as well as areas where generations are more likely to remain mired in poverty. At the regional level, persistence rates are highest in the South and lowest in the Upper Midwest.

The spatial patterns of economic mobility vary by racial and ethnic group; nonetheless, disparities in economic mobility between Black and white children persist within virtually every community with substantial numbers of children in both groups.

The drivers of intergenerational poverty

We investigated the factors that appeared most likely to generate intergenerational poverty and for which we might be able to develop policy prescriptions. We began by delineating seven key areas in which child, family, or neighborhood characteristics strongly correlate with the later success of the child:

Child education and access to schools

Child health and access to health care system

Parental income/wealth and employment

Family structure

Housing and neighborhood characteristics

Neighborhood crime and the criminal justice system

Child maltreatment and the child welfare system

There were four areas with the strongest evidence for being key drivers of children’s long-term success:

Education and Skills: Educational attainment and occupational skills have large impacts on lifetime earnings. Achievement gaps (measured by test scores) in the educational process develop early in life, and these gaps go on to generate large disparities in high school and postsecondary attainment of children who grew up in low-income families relative to their high-income counterparts.

Child Health: Children growing up with low family incomes have worse health than other children, beginning even before birth and worsening as children age. These health disparities among children lead not only to greater disparities in adult health but also in education and earnings. Despite improvements from policy (like Medicaid and the Affordable Care Act), many poor children lack access to health insurance coverage. Access to nutritional programs (especially in summer) and family planning services is limited as well.

Parental Employment, Income and Wealth: a. Low wages and employment levels drive the relatively low earnings and family incomes of the poor, which limits the ability of families to invest in their children’s health and education and to live in safe neighborhoods with good schools. Further, a lack of affordable childcare is an employment barrier. b. Parental employment is important, but employment gains that are not accompanied by income gains seem to have little positive effects on children’s development. c. Family wealth is also highly correlated with later child outcomes; however, causal evidence on wealth effects is limited.

Crime and Criminal Justice Systems: Although crime rates have mostly fallen in the past three decades (despite a recent increase in homicides), violent crime remains relatively high in many poor neighborhoods, and exposure to violent crime has a negative impact on children’s long-term education and earnings. At the same time, adolescents who reside in poor neighborhoods experience high rates of juvenile detention and incarceration, which also have negative effects on their future outcomes.

Policies to improve long-term outcomes of poor children

The committee reviewed a great deal of evidence on the long-term impacts of various programs and policies on the outcomes of children growing up in poor families. We identified programs and policies supported by strong causal evidence—based either on randomized controlled trials (RCTs) or on natural (quasi-) experimental variation—of long-run impacts that improve the outcomes of these children when they become adults. In addition, we limited our lists of effective programs to those where there is at least some evidence of scalability—at a minimum, where programs were tested at multiple sites or where policies were tested and shown to have generated causal impacts.

With respect to our four major drivers, we identified the following policies and programs that have generated direct long-term impacts:

Regarding education

Recent research has consistently pointed to the beneficial impacts on educational attainment of increased funding for K-12 schools in poor districts. Evidence also supports policies that would increase the diversity of the teacher workforce—many children learn and attain the most when matched with teachers of a similar ethnic background. And research suggests that reducing the incidence of excessively harsh punishment of Black children (especially boys) would improve their longer-run outcomes as well.

An important policy goal is to increase college access for youth from low-income households and to give them a better chance of success while enrolled. In that context, we found that funding for effective forms of financial aid (such as the HAIL program in Michigan and the Buffett Foundation Scholarship in Nebraska) boosts enrollment in high-quality institutions and completion rates. Key support services, like guidance and case management, also raise completion for poor students.

We found that high-quality occupational training has lasting positive impacts on poor youth as well, especially on those who will not attend four-year college programs. These come in two forms: a) high-quality career and technical education (CTE), beginning in high school (e.g., Career Academies, technical high schools or pathway programs for grades 9-14, like P-TECH); and b) sectoral training, which equips low-income youth or adults with the skills they need for high-paying jobs in high-demand industries (e.g., Per Scholas, Year Up, and Project Quest).

Regarding child health

Given the strength of the evidence on the beneficial impacts of Medicaid on child and adolescent health, the federal government could consider ensuring that all poor parents and children have continuous access to Medicaid—including some populations (such as the undocumented) that sometimes lack such access. It is especially critical that mothers and infants have access to health care in the post-partum period. Access to nutritious meals for all children could be provided by expanding the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP). Access to family planning services has proved its long-run value for child development as well.

Regarding parent employment and income

We found strong evidence that the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) not only raises parental earnings and after-tax income but also increases children’s educational attainment, leading to upward mobility. We developed ideas for how federal or state governments could make the EITC more generous—during the phase-in of the credit, in terms of its maximum level, and/or in the phase-out stage.

There is strong recent evidence that the 2021 extension of the Child Tax Credit produced large reductions in child poverty, but we have no evidence to date on its long-term impacts on children. We believe that considering some extension for parents with little or no earnings makes sense, when combined with a more generous EITC for working parents.

Regarding crime and criminal justice

A number of policies and programs appear to reduce crime in poor neighborhoods. These include: a) funding for community nonprofit institutions; b) funding for abatement of vacant lots and abandoned buildings; c) putting more police on the streets and requiring them to use cost-effective tactics, such as community policing. Gun safety regulations can also reduce homicide rates (if they can pass constitutional review).

What about racial disparities?

Poor Black and Native American children suffer from particular drivers that worsen their outcomes and diminish the likelihood that they will experience upward mobility and escape poverty as adults. Large racial disparities persist on all of the most important drivers discussed above and reflect historical patterns of exclusion and racism as well as contemporary barriers.

For example, Black and Native American children suffer worse health and have lower educational achievement than other children. Some of this is due to residing in highly segregated regions with low-quality schools, as well as to experiencing excessive punishment relative to other groups. Unemployment is nearly twice as high among Black adults as among white adults, and labor force participation among Black men is much lower than among their white counterparts. Black youth and adults, especially males, perpetrate and are victimized by higher rates of violent crime (especially homicides and robberies), but they also experience much higher levels of detention in their youth and a higher incidence of later incarceration.

Historical episodes of racism, such as the Dawes Act of 1887 (which regulated the land rights of Native Americans on reservations) and the 1921 Tulsa riots against Blacks, have led to lower education and incomes for these groups, and research has shown2 that some of these effects persist today. We also have rigorous evidence showing that discrimination persists in health care, schools, housing, employment, and the criminal justice system. It should be noted, however, that some discrimination is “statistical,” meaning that real group characteristics are attributed to individuals by employers, teachers, or the police when clear evidence about those individuals’ personal skills or behaviors is not available. Descriptive evidence strongly suggests that “structural racism” persists, although clear definitions and direct causal evidence of its effects are only beginning to emerge.

At the same time, behavioral choices made by individuals in these groups when they face constrained opportunity—such as labor force nonparticipation and crime—worsen racial disparities in a range of outcomes, including employment and incarceration.

Fortunately, we also have clear causal evidence that several policies are effective in promoting the upward mobility of low-income Black children. For instance:

Increasing K-12 spending clearly boosts the educational performance of Black children;

monitoring and improving air quality improves their health;

expanding the EITC for parents raises the eventual earnings of Black children; and

reducing juvenile detention and incarceration improves the education and adult earnings of Black children.

Research priorities

In its efforts to identify promising programs and policies that would reduce intergenerational poverty, the committee was hampered by a lack of strong policy evaluation evidence. It identified three key research priorities for funders:

Prioritize strong research designs that provide causal estimates of long-term program impacts;

Set aside funding not only for rigorous small-scale experiments but also for replications and long-term follow-ups of promising programs at scale; and

Fund research arms for specific communities at highest risk

Improving existing census, survey, and administrative data—linked for families over time and across subject domains—would also be invaluable for promoting needed policy research on intergenerational mobility. Specifically, the report recommends that the White House Office of Management and Budget facilitate research on economic opportunity, intergenerational poverty, and related topics; and it suggests the federal government should make available existing census, survey, and administrative data to researchers, in a manner that respects and protects the confidentiality of respondents’ data.

Conclusions

Children who grow up in low-income families are much more likely than other children to be poor when they become adults. This both violates the notion of equal opportunity and limits the future productivity of the U.S. economy.

The NAS report “Reducing Intergenerational Poverty” documents an exceedingly diverse set of factors that affect a child’s chances of experiencing intergenerational poverty. The good news is that recent policy research has discovered an equally diverse set of programs and policies that appear effective in disrupting the intergenerational cycle of poverty. None is a silver bullet, but evidence-based programs and policies in education, health care, employment/income, and criminal justice can all play an important role. Filling gaps in the long-run data available to the policy research community would help us add to this list. We hope the report spurs more research where needed and more policies to improve life outcomes for the nation’s children.

[girlactionfigure]

ISRAEL REALTIME - afternoon updates - Nov 1

of horrors, torture and murder from the invasion were shown to members of the Knesset.  Following the viewing multiple members were shown crying, breaking down, stunned, ill.  (This video is not publicly available.)

After the screening of the film, the MKs met with three senior psychologists knowledgeable in emergency psychological treatment, at the request of several MKs who are unable to recover from the images.

— MORE HEROES FALL… death toll of soldiers killed in the Gaza ground operation so far to 15.  Rumors of soldiers missing or captured are baseless as far as known. 

— FINANCE MINISTER… Smotrich continues to REFUSE to release tax money to the Palestinian Authority.

— SECURITY MINISTER… Ben Gvir continues to REFUSE to approve work permits for 8,000 Shomron/Yehuda (West Bank) Palestinians to work in Israel - during the war.

In both cases the argument is “if you don’t there will be incidents in Shomron/Yehuda (West Bank).  

Hanan Greenwood: For a year and a half, various sources have been warning that they will "burn Judea and Samaria”. The hilltop youth, they say, are setting Judea and Samaria on fire. Ben Gvir, they claim, will set Judah and Samaria on fire. And now Smotrich, it turns out, will set Judea and Samaria on fire.

In the last three weeks 132 Palestinians were killed in Shomron/Yehuda, the majority armed. For a year and a half we have been in a wave of brutal terrorism.  When will we realize that the Palestinians are already setting fire and trying to slaughter us while we are looking for the blame on us?

— BATTLE INFO GAZA… According to a Russian source, Israel is close to reaching the sea south of Gaza City.

— AND LEBANON… The IDF is now attacking Hezbollah targets in Beita al-Sha'ab, southern Lebanon..

— EU SAYS… We are horrified by the high death toll in the bombing in Jabaliya. Safety and protection of civilian lives is not only a moral obligation but also a legal obligation”.

— GAZA SAYS… Some of the wounded who had to leave the Gaza Strip through the Rafah crossing to Egypt died of their wounds in the ambulance because the Egyptians made the crossing conditional on presentation of a passport.

— EVACUEE GRANT PROCESS… Following the publication in the "Main Edition": the Labor and Welfare Committee approved the mechanism of the grant to evacuees, the manner of its payment and its financing by the State Treasury, through Bituach Leumi. The amount in shekels per day - 200 for an adult and 100 for a child, retroactive.

— BEZEQ PAUSES… has now announced that following the decision to cancel the charges for the residents of the near Gaza towns and Sderot, it is canceling all charges for the coming month to its customers from all the northern settlements who were evacuated.

[ausetkmt]

North Carolina’s Republican-controlled House passed a previously vetoed proposal Wednesday to restrict how teachers can discuss certain racial topics that some lawmakers have equated to “critical race theory.”

The House voted 68-49 along party lines for legislation to ban public school teachers from compelling students to believe they should feel guilty or responsible for past actions committed by people of the same race or sex.

United in their opposition, House Democrats challenged Republican claims that the bill would reduce discrimination and argued that a comprehensive history education should make students uncomfortable.

Republican seat gains in the midterm elections give them greater leverage this year to override any veto by Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper, who blocked a similar proposal in 2021 and urged legislators this month in his State of the State address, “Don’t make teachers re-write history.” But Republicans, who are one seat short in the House of a veto-proof supermajority, will likely need some Democratic support for the measure to become law.

North Carolina is among 10 states considering such proposals, according to an Education Week analysis. Eighteen others have already limited how teachers can discuss racism and sexism in the classroom.

Gaston County Republican Rep. John Torbett said the proposal, which now heads to the Senate, would prohibit schools from endorsing controversial concepts, including that one race or sex is inherently superior.

“This great education state must have an educational system that unites and teaches our children, not divides and indoctrinates them,” said Torbett, the bill’s sponsor.

Several Democrats, including Reps. Rosa Gill of Wake County and Laura Budd of Mecklenburg County, raised concerns that the language is vague and does not outline clear boundaries for teachers. Budd said this “massive failure” places unnecessary pressure on teachers who may feel like they need to stifle productive classroom discussions to keep their jobs.

“The bill, on its face, is the obvious attempt to micromanage from the General Assembly into the classrooms,” she said during floor debate. “It’s overreach and will have a chilling effect on teachers and educators in curtailing what they think they’re allowed to teach.”

Republican lawmakers in committee had applauded the measure for “banning” critical race theory, a complex academic and legal framework that centers on the idea that racism is embedded in the nation’s systems and institutions that perpetuate inequality.

The bill does not explicitly mention the framework, but it would prohibit teaching that the government is “inherently racist” or was created to oppress people of another race or sex. Its language mirrors a model proposal from Citizens for Renewing America, a conservative social welfare group founded by a former Trump administration official to rid the nation’s schools of critical race theory.

Republicans nationwide have spun the phrase into a catchall for racial topics related to systemic inequality, inherent bias and white privilege. While many K-12 public schools teach about slavery and its aftermath, education officials have found little to no evidence that critical race theory, by definition, is being taught.

North Carolina schools would also be required under the bill to notify the state’s Department of Public Instruction and publish information online at least a month before they plan to host a diversity trainer or a guest speaker who has previously advocated for the beliefs restricted by the legislation.

Cary mother and activist Michelle O’Keefe was among several parents who testified against the bill in a Tuesday committee meeting. O’Keefe said she doesn’t want her young child sheltered from learning about racism and other atrocities in history, as long as those lessons are age-appropriate.

“The best way to keep history from repeating itself,” she said, “is to know the history.”

Another mother worried she could be banned from speaking at her child’s school career day because she has a documented history of speaking out against social injustices. Democratic Rep. Julie von Haefen of Wake County expressed a similar concern that she might no longer be able to substitute teach because of her record on racial justice issues and gender equality.

[trollprincess]

Time for more town council drama!

*pulls up a chair*

A few things:

The awful woman on the town council is going to go plead guilty to all that welfare fraud on February 7th. The thing is, my mom is still keeping track of the whole thing AND going to the plea, and she told me last night that her lawyer withdrew from the case. So either she’s not paying him (likely) or she’s such an irritating twit he had enough and backed out (also VERY likely to anyone who know her for more than a minute).

Oh, also? My mom was like, “At this point, I just want her to lose her council job.” And I said, “I’d also like her to lose her regular job too, if possible, to be honest.” And that’s when my mom told me she’s been on disability this whole time. Supposedly for a bad back, I guess, but like, how do you keep that if you plead guilty to defrauding SNAP and Medicaid? Especially since, like, I don’t know about the state but I sure as hell don’t trust her on this.

OK, there’s something that I should explain about small towns. Now, we all know each other, whether it be by face or name, or both. This is not an exaggeration. There aren’t a lot of people here, so we know who’s new, and who’s not. After my mom quit the town council, there was an open seat. The two people who popped up first and foremost to apply for that seat are people who have been here since I was a child, at the very least. One of them used to be president of the council before. I guess there was also another person who applied a while back who is not only a long-time resident, but also knows the rules regarding contracts and bidding for them with the town. (He actually stood up at one meeting and complained because they didn’t award the lowest bidder a contract like they’re supposed to.) They didn’t let in that guy, and they didn’t let in the old president or the guy who’s been here a while. The woman they DID put in my mom’s place has not only not been here a while (I know this because I don’t recognize her name), but she has no experience, and she belongs to the same church as the awful woman (who is from what passes for a megachurch around here). Now, my mom said she seems OK as a person, but the impression that we’re both getting is that the new president – you know, the one who threatened my mom and another person and is a huge dick – is trying to prevent having anyone new on the council who has any idea just how fucked up everything is or is willing to call it out. So I can only imagine the absolute nightmare of a person they’re going to put in there to replace that awful woman when she has to resign after her plea.

So the people in charge of the committee for the proposed community center filed a complaint with the Pennsylvania human relations committee, who handle enforcing all the antidiscrimination laws the state enacts. The complaint has this laundry list of things that the town Council and multiple people in town have done in opposition to the community center being declared queer-friendly that include all of the things that I have mentioned in previous posts on the matter as well as a couple I didn’t know, like that someone in town offered to buy a building for the community center just as long as it wasn’t in town. Which, for obvious reasons, does not actually work for a community center for THIS community. Anyway, the committee is sending a whole bunch of people to town in a week to have a public meeting about all of this which anyone can attend. The day they’re having it? February 7. As in, the day the awful woman is pleading guilty to her welfare fraud. So we’re kind of hoping that deters her from showing up. We’re also kind of hoping that giving off the appearance that attending makes you queer-positive will deter other bigots from coming. That said, as I told my therapist the other day, I have been waiting for some nutjob in this town to whip out a gun and start shooting, and I really hope they have security at this thing because this would be a perfect opportunity for the assholes in this town to try something.

Oh, and this may or may not be unrelated to all this melodramatic hateful bullshit, but I was checking something on our town’s Wikipedia page this week and we’ve lost at least two hundred residents since the last census. Which is a lot in a town that’s been holding onto 1900 or so for a couple of decades now.

Anyway, that’s the most recent news in small-town America. Everyone in charge is a dick and no one wants to live here anymore. And now Mommy has to come down from on high to tell all the assholes in this town stop being homophobic douchebags. 🤷🏼‍♀️

[helendamnationx]

Mary Barbour (1875 – 1958), nee Mary Rough, was one of Glasgow's first women councillors. She stood as the Labour candidate for Fairfield ward in Govan in 1920, and retired from the council in 1931 but continued serving on committees and with other activist work.

Her first step into politic was becoming an active member of the Kinning Park Women’s Co-operative Guild, an organisation in which women discussed politic with each other, and which offered its members training in organisation, and running and chairing meetings.

She became an activist during the 1915 Glasgow rent strike, where she organised tenant committees and eviction resistance. The strikers became known as Mrs Barbour's Army.

She worked tirelessly for the working class during her political career, both generally and specifically for working class women. She campaigned for maternity benefit, education, the vote, a national minimum wage, free school milk, children’s playparks, municipal wash-houses and Glasgow’s first family planning clinic.

In 1926 she engaged in cross-party co-operation with another woman councillor, Violet Roberton, in order to open the Elder Park Child Welfare Association. The association also taught parenting - for both mothers and fathers.

She campaigned against the first world war in the Women's International League and was a founder of the Women's Peace Crusade.

She was Glasgow's first woman Baillie and magistrate, and became a Justice of the Peace in 1928. Signs point to her not being excessively punitive; as the Glasgow Herald reported on her first session:

“The calendar was a light one. Two men who admitted having been intoxicated were dismissed with no admonition, while a woman whose offence was similar was advised to go home and attend to her family and household duties.”

(main sources are:

https://paisley.is/stories-from-renfrewshire/mary-barbour/ https://remembermarybarbour.wordpress.com/about-mary-barbour/)

[readingsquotes]

"The incidents under review mostly took place in the West Bank and occurred before Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack on Israel. They include reports of extrajudicial killings by the Israeli Border Police; an incident in which a battalion gagged, handcuffed and left an elderly Palestinian American man for dead; and an allegation that interrogators tortured and raped a teenager who had been accused of throwing rocks and Molotov cocktails.

Recommendations for action against Israeli units were sent to Blinken in December, according to one person familiar with the memo. “They’ve been sitting in his briefcase since then,” another official said."

...

Among the allegations reviewed by the committee was the January 2021 arrest of a 15-year old boy by Israeli Border Police. The teen was held for five days at the Al-Mascobiyya detention center on charges that he had thrown stones and Molotov cocktails at security forces. Citing an allegation shared by a Palestinian child welfare nonprofit, forum officials said there was credible information the teen had been forced to confess after he was “subjected to both physical and sexual torture, including rape by an object.”

Two days after the State Department asked the Israeli government for information about what steps it had taken to hold the perpetrators accountable, Israeli police raided the nonprofit that had originally shared the allegation and later designated it a terrorist organization. The Israelis told State Department officials they had found no evidence of sexual assault or torture but reprimanded one of the teen’s interrogators for kicking a chair.

[uefb]

Fantastic Beasts One-Shot

The Committee for the Disposal of Dangerous Creatures link

Summary

It's June 1943, and Newt Scamander and Tina Goldstein are living in Dorset with their first child while Tina heads the American Auror initiative in Europe. Meanwhile, the Ministry of Magic has just begun working with the Allies to plan for the invasion of Nazi-occupied Europe through Normandy, via Dorset's neighbouring English Channel. Newt and the rest of Dumbledore's team are still on Grindelwald's radar, and news of Ministry reconnaissance employing a certain magizoologist and a kelpie ends up in the wrong hands. Newt is brought before his own department for Animal Welfare violations, but it quickly becomes clear that this isn't really about the kelpie at all: war is about subtle threats as much as it is about violence itself, and--with the weight of his daughter strapped to his back and the memories of missions gone wrong in his mind--it doesn't take much to remind him of that. // This is equal parts adorable domestic fluff and historical-based angst.

EXCERPT*

June 7, 1943 - 8:45 AM Seaside Dorset, England, UK

Newt was juggling a child under one arm and a crutch under the other when an owl carrying a bright red, Ministry-embossed envelope swooped in through the open window of their house in Dorset. He ignored the owl for several minutes in favour of heating Leora’s porridge and preparing his own tea, absentmindedly reciting the taxonomic ranks of magical and non-magical salamanders to keep his daughter entertained while he worked.

When he’d finally gotten them both settled at the table (only dropping her bottle and his crutch twice) and triggered the daily charm that gently shovelled porridge into her mouth long enough for him to read their morning post and skim the Prophet, Ghost, and muggle headlines, he was surprised to find the address on the scarlet envelope stamped with the crest of the Beasts Division, as opposed to the urgent letters he was more used to receiving from the Auror Office these days.

He glanced up at Leora and cleaned off her chin with a calloused thumb and warm smile, and then slipped on his glasses and ripped into the letter.

He immediately blinked.

The thin stack of papers was topped with his own division’s letterhead, but then typed firmly below it in the blanks of an auto-filled, enchanted department form (that he had, decades ago, designed one of the charms for):

The Committee for the Disposal of Dangerous Creatures and the Animal Welfare Office summon Newton Artemis Fido Scamander for unauthorised possession, transport, and misuse of a beast (kelpie); the endangerment of a beast (kelpie); the injury of a British citizen (wizard, civilian) by an untamable or mishandled beast (kelpie); and a Grade 5 infraction of the International Statute of Secrecy (ICW) for all of the above.

Newt stared at the page, reached down to scratch at the deep, slowly healing bite inflicted by the referenced kelpie (Moira), and then actually, truly laughed.

He was authorised (blanket-authorised to work with kelpies actually!) and the only injury—due to his own stupid mistake—had been his own.

What the hell was going on?

Sentencing: Up to and including disposal of the beast (kelpie) and/or 30 months in Azkaban (Scamander). Hearing to commence: Noon today (June 7) on Level 4 (Department for the Regulation & Control of Magical Creatures) at the Ministry of Magic, London.

Typical threats for the accusations and—though a thoroughly inconvenient timeframe (even if not an unusual one, given how often handlers tried to dispose of evidence)—he wasn’t particularly concerned by them. His work and care for the kelpie had been—even if off-the-record—assigned by the Department of Magical Law Enforcement, and that should speak for itself. However, as he read through the full two pages of the summons while Leora babbled musically beside him, it became—quickly—significantly less humorous…

…and unregistered transport of a creature from Britain to an international waterway for labour-related purposes constitutes unlawful trafficking. Furthermore, use of the beast in a non-native habitat (saline and/or brackish) outside its natural biome (freshwater: inland) should be considered particularly egregious. Note: Report and recommendations prepared by Alice Abbott, junior investigator (Beasts Division - Animal Welfare). Original investigation completed by Antony Flint, senior investigator (Beasts Division - Illegal Trade).

The details in his summons—frankly—should not have been known by anyone outside of the joint wartime DMLE-Muggle Liaison task force he’d recently been brought onto, in response to the Allies’ decision to breach the Nazi’s Atlantic Wall at France, via the English Channel. [1, 2, 3] The Ministry had finally become invested in the Muggle war when it was made clear a few years before that Grindelwald and his supporters were not at all above hiding behind—and occasionally utilising—Muggle warfare and Nazi ideology to thoroughly infiltrate every crack of the continent, and entire world.

But the task force was classified. And rather highly so. Newt had barely made the cut himself. (Which, to be fair, really wasn’t that surprising.)

He flipped to the final page to review the list of all the academic references Abbott and Flint had used to justify his summons, and then he immediately found himself blinking again, before another disbelieving (and uncharacteristically loud) laugh burst forth—

“Are you kidding me!?”

Leora made a sound of mild concern at his exclamation, so Newt looked up long enough to offer a simple explanation in soothing tones. (So sorry — I know that was an unusual noise from Daddy, little light. But that’s, um -  just one way humans express, er - frustrated amusement? Can you remember that? He didn’t think she really needed such explicit instruction—even at 14-months her eyes tracked faces just like Tina’s—but Newt wasn’t taking any chances.)

She opened her mouth again for the levitating spoon of porridge, so he flattened the parchment back down and hunched over to skim... *I’m sorry if you’ve already read part of this excerpt when I posted a snippet earlier -- there’s not a good choice for flow besides this one!

[female-malice]

Minnesota Takes Action on Missing and Murdered Black Women

In an effort to address the issue in Minnesota, state legislators and advocates created the Missing and Murdered African American Women Task Force – the first of its kind in the country. The task force, which started in 2021, wrapped up in December 2022 and issued its final report that same month.

A lack of data makes it difficult to fully understand the circumstances surrounding the murders of Black women and girls. FBI data shows that in more than 50% of Black women’s murders nationally, the victim’s relationship to their killer remains unknown. At the same time, what data is available suggests Black women are often killed by someone familiar.

In 2020, among cases where the relationship of the victim to the offender was reported, about 59% of Black women and girls were killed by a known acquaintance and over 30% were killed by a family member, according to FBI data.

“Women are killed by partners or for other factors related to intimacy, in private and not during the commission of other felony crimes, unlike men who are more likely to be killed in public,” says Shatema Threadcraft, a professor of gender, sexuality studies and political science at Vanderbilt University.

Black families face an unjust justice system and the “subjective process” of Amber Alerts, the nationwide alert system that broadcasts information on missing persons, says Minnesota state Rep. Ruth Richardson, a task force member and the sponsor of the legislation that launched it. She and others say Black girls are often considered runaways, meaning law enforcement won't issue an Amber Alert for them.

Rosa Page, a registered nurse who heads the Black Femicide Prevention Coalition – an online advocacy group formerly known as Black Femicide U.S. – has spent the last five years painstakingly recording and boosting thousands of cases of missing and murdered Black women and girls across multiple social media platforms.

“There are no flyers, there is no information many times – even (for) the missing women and girls on my page,” says Page, who believes the official numbers of missing and murdered Black women and girls are likely undercounts.

The alarming numbers of cases and lack of attention were not lost on Richardson, who sought to address the issue following her election to the Minnesota House of Representatives in 2018. “The first time I introduced the bill (in 2019), it didn't move at all,” she says.

Then a year later, Minnesota became the epicenter for racial justice protests following George Floyd’s murder, an event which she says served as a “catalyst” for a movement for Black women’s justice. In the eyes of the Minnesota government, Richardson says, racism had finally been reframed as a “public health crisis,” allowing for the establishment of the state’s Select Committee on Racial Justice in 2020 and later the passage of the legislation that gave birth to the task force.

Task force members, including survivors and experts – from law enforcement members to housing and child welfare specialists – spent over a year unraveling the racism, sexism and disproportionate victimization encountered by Black women.

In many such community-oriented initiatives in Minnesota, there’s often a “disconnect between the government and the community,” and a sense that communities are being spoken for rather than with, says Artika Roller, a task force member and executive director of the Minnesota Coalition Against Sexual Assault. To combat this, the task force emphasized community participation and comments from those touched by violence.

But getting cooperation from affected women and families was no easy task, as some feared blowback from their own community and potentially powerful people. Just 15 people came forward to testify about their experience in front of the task force.

“They’re afraid of losing their employment,” says Lakeisha Lee, who co-chaired the task force and leads a variety of women's and sex trafficking advocacy groups, including the Brittany Clardy Foundation, in remembrance of her sister who was murdered in 2013. “They're afraid because of where they live … that the people in power – their dominance – will affect them and their families directly.”

The task force’s final recommendations are varied – from anti-racist training for health care workers and other professionals to direct funding for vulnerable Black women and girls. Housing was a particular focus, as housing insecurity can force women facing violent domestic situations to stay and others onto the streets.

[officialyourdailyinspiration]

California Assembly Bill 957, which cleared the state Senate Judiciary Committee on June 13, instructs family court judges to award custody and visitation rights based in part on “a parent’s affirmation of the child’s gender identity.” It equates such affirmation with the “health, safety, and welfare of the child.” But critics say the bill sets a dangerous legal precedent that extends beyond family court—and parents and pro-family groups in the state are fighting back...