CHILDREN IN THE WAR ZONE

Reviewed by: Frontline Diplomacy: Humanitarian Aid and Conflict in Africa Terrence Lyons Frontline Diplomacy: Humanitarian Aid and Conflict in Africa. By John Prendergast. Boulder, Colorado: Lynne Rienner, 1996. 164 pp. $12.95 paper. This volume by John Prendergast is part of a growing literature by activists in the humanitarian community who have been conducting a process of critical self-examination. Prendergast and others, including Larry Minear and Thomas Weiss, Ken Menkhaus, Alex de Waal, Mark Duffield, and the interagency review of the humanitarian response to the genocide in Rwanda have raised a series of important and difficult issues. Each is struggling with the set of issues presented by Prendergast in this volume as to how emergency aid can exacerbate conflict and how to both minimize these unintended consequences of humanitarianism and to use assistance to contribute to peace building. [End Page 234] These questions have come to prominence in the literature on humanitarianism as a result of the role famine assistance played in sustaining both the military government and insurgent forces in Ethiopia in the 1980s, the factional leaders in Somalia in the early 1990s, and most tragically the 1994 genocide and continuing conflict in Rwanda and its neighbors. These horrors have forced the humanitarian community to question the simple principle that a hungry child knows no politics. Instead, the relief community has come to recognize that it cannot ignore politics and that, in many cases, emergency assistance is the principal source of resources that may be used to either reinforce peace or strengthen the forces of destruction. Apolitical humanitarianism is impossible in the context of complex emergencies and state collapse, as the disasters in Somalia, Rwanda, Burundi, and Sudan in Africa along with Afghanistan, Bosnia, and other cases around the world have made clear. Prendergast focuses his attention on a region he knows extraordinarily well, the so-called “Greater Horn of Africa” that includes not only Sudan, Ethiopia, Eritrea, and Somalia but also Rwanda, Burundi, Uganda, and the Democratic Republic of Congo (former Zaire). One of the most important contributions of this book is the insights Prendergast makes on the basis of his long involvement in the region. Much of the data for this study comes from personal observations and interviews with humanitarian officials in the field rather than at headquarters. Despite a subtitle that suggests a continental focus, Prendergast barely mentions other cases where similar dynamics took place, most notably Liberia, Sierra Leone, Mozambique, and Angola. Prendergast justifies this focus by correctly pointing out that the Greater Horn has been a “laboratory for innovative crisis response,” although humanitarian agencies in Liberia also demonstrated a broad understanding of their relationships with political and military actors on the ground. The book is organized around a series of basic aphorisms, including the Seven Deadly Sins of humanitarianism in complex emergencies and the Ten Commandments for providing aid without sustaining conflict. Each seems thoroughly sensible, particularly when supported by Prendergast’s carefully selected examples from the field. What is lacking, however, is a set of specific judgments or criteria to guide decision makers within [End Page 235] humanitarian organizations and the donor community. The distinctiveness of each case and the author’s deep appreciation for context perhaps makes such generalizations difficult. In the end, Prendergast calls for a greater awareness of the political context humanitarian organizations work within when responding to complex emergencies and to experiment, consult widely and openly, and constantly evaluate one’s actions. The author’s most specific recommendations relate to the need to use humanitarian assistance to support local community structures and initiatives. Prendergast concludes by noting the centrality of humanitarian actors in complex emergencies: In most complex political emergencies, humanitarian aid is the most important avenue of contact among the international community, the conflicting parties, and civilians in the war zone. Ignoring the wider impacts and potential of humanitarian aid removes one of the most important policy instruments for preventing the escalation of conflict and promoting long-term peace building. Prendergast’s insights from the Horn of Africa should help humanitarian actors become more conscious of their roles and better able to use emergency relief to promote conflict management. Terrence Lyons Fellow, Foreign Policy Studies Program The...

Druge godine Velikoga rata preustrojava se sigurnosni sustav banske Hrvatske. Tom prilikom Središnja defenzivno doglasna služba, koja je obavljala poslove tajne državne policije, kao samostalno tijelo pri Zemaljskoj vladi postaje njezinom sastavnicom, ulazeći u sastav novoosnovanoga Odsjeka IV-B za pogranična redarstvena satništva Odjela za unutarnje poslove Zemaljske vlade. Razlozi preustroja, pored političkih, osobito sukoba vojnih i civilnih vlasti, bili su i raznovrsni funkcionalni. Zahvaljujući potrebama obrane Zemaljska vlada preko te službe počinje dobivati i dio financijskih podataka koji su joj do tada bili nedostupni jer su izlazili iz okvira autonomnih poslova banske Hrvatske. U članku se na temelju arhivskoga gradiva i relevantne historiografske literature te dijelom i tiska predstavlja i analizira preustroj sigurnosnoga sustava 1915. godine.

In the Spring of 1940, as the Battle of Britain intensified, the images of war became more vivid to the American public. A prominent East coast newspaper(1) called on its readers to open their hearts and homes to the children of that beleaguered island. The idea was that these innocent babes could find safety and refuge in their then neutral nation. Despite the isolationists and historical anti-Anglo sentiment in certain parts of the nation, there still existed a pervasive sympathy and admiration for their cousins across the sea. Many offspring of wealthier British families, those who could afford the fare or who had connections on this side of the Atlantic, had already been sent over the ocean in a private and entirely unorganized manner. This was slow, cumbersome, and limited in scope. A coordinated body of voluntary organizations and individuals, assisted by government agencies, was desperately needed so that the outpouring of concern could be channeled into effective and speedy action.In June 1940 a group of prominent and socially concerned men and women met in response to this problem in New York City.(2) They established the United States Committee for the Care of European Children, with Eleanor Roosevelt as its honorary president, Marshall Field III as its chairman, and Eric Biddle as its executive director. Its charge was to arrange for transportation and temporary care of the children evacuated from the war zone. Its Board also included representatives from the three major religious communities to emphasize its nonsectarian nature, as it set up shop in the old Gramercy Park Hotel on Fourth Avenue. Although it was a purely private organization--the public figures acted in their individual capacities--almost immediate liaison was established with the Children's Bureau of the Department of Labor, the Department of State, the Immigration and Naturalization Service of the Department of Justice (the Attorney General was Francis Biddle) the British Embassy in Washington, the Red Cross, and the Save the Children Fund.The State Department became at once involved because Committee proposals clearly skirted or undercut the Neutrality Laws. The Immigration and Naturalization Service would soon be called upon to modify the Immigration laws and the Attorney General would be involved. The Children's Bureau had the job of coordinating and establishing standards for several state departments of welfare and private agencies which would be responsible for welfare and private agencies who would e responsible for monitoring the foster care of the children. The British Embassy, which was technically and legally responsible for these young British subjects, was much more concerned with the propaganda value to be milked from the presence of the children among a sympathetic public.In the first flush of enthusiasm there was talk of bringing thousands of evacuees to this country.(3) In actuality, only 861 British children came to the United States between June and August 1940 under the Committee's auspices(4) before the sinking of an evacuee ship by a German submarine caused the program to be halted. That ship, bound for Canada under a British government sponsored scheme, in August 1940 resulted in the death of 77 children. This caused the suspension of all evacuation programs, the authorities concluding that the danger to the children was greater at sea rather than from bombs at home.(5) No American ship was ever used in the program and the Committee's hope of chartering ships came to naught. The number of individual and completely unorganized voyagers was never accurately tabulated but estimates indicate that there may have been as many as 1,600.(6) The halt in evacuation left the Committee with an intricate volunteer organization, a large staff processing 1,600 affidavits of support from families still awaiting children, thousands of inquires from families interested in offering their homes, and a nationwide fundraising program. …

The article shows the dynamics of the number of women working on the Russian Empire’s railways during the First World War. The article provides comparative statistics on the number, percentage and positions occupied by women on the railways before the war (1913) and on the front-line and home front railways during the war (1914–1917), based on the analysis of records of civil and military authorities. The author has established that the initial phase of changes in the personnel policy of the Ministry of Railways and local railway administrations in favour of recruiting more women to railway service dates back to the second half of 1915. The changes in personnel policy were primarily due to the mobilisation of reserve soldiers, many of whom had previously worked on the railways. Initially seen by the Ministry of Railways as a temporary and forced measure, the trend of replacing the men who had gone to the front by women gained momentum in 1916, as a result of which the scope of women’s work in the railway industry was constantly expanding. The article draws a conclusion about the all-Russian trend of gradual expansion of the sphere of women’s labour on the railways, demonstrates the growth of the absolute number of female railway workers, which was conditioned by the needs of military and civil authorities during the First World War.

To the Editor:— My attention has been called to the Washington letter inThe Journal, August 12, headed American Academy of Pediatrics Withdraws Support from Children's Bureau. In this letter the following statement is made: Last month a conference of child specialists and social workers here took a stand against the bureau's group care of children, asserting that group care was damaging to child welfare and actually more expensive than a foster family system of care which the conferees advocated. This statement is false. The Children's Bureau does not conduct group care of children. We have consistently taken a position against group care of children under the age of 2 years. On July 30 and Aug. 1, 1941 the Children's Bureau held a conference on day care of children of working mothers which adopted certain recommendations including the following: Infants should be given individual care, preferably in their own homes

In 1931 the United States Children's Bureau asserted that "nothing short of really healthy children should satisfy parents." This thesis examines how literature published by the Children's Bureau from 1913 to 1933 shaped perceptions of motherhood and of maternal control over the body. As the bureau taught mothers how to care for their children, it also taught them that by following bureau advice, mothers could shape the bodies of their children to adhere to normative body standards. The research considers the relationship between mothers, the state, and the physical body. This thesis is divided into chapters about prenatal care and maternal marking; infant care and maternal policing; and child care and maternal control.

On the fiftieth birthday of a distinguished man, the image he has created and the work he has done are viewed against the background of his times. To look at a distinguished institution like the Children's Bureau in the same way seems useful. BEGINNINGS The Children's Bureau was established in 1912 by the Congress. Those were vigorous days. Since the turn of the century reforms of the kinds, "progressive" movements, had been the order of the day. We had left behind pioneering in the West and had begun to pioneer in our own backyards, in our own communities. There was a new concern for man himself and for the underdog. Working conditions, progressive education, industrial hygiene, trust-busting, women's suffrage, adult education—these and many others were of growing concern to the people and their leaders. Ellen Key had not yet raised the slogan "the century of the child," but at Hull House and Henry Street Settlement and in many other quarters there was a growing concern about all children—not just our own, or those in our jail, or school, or orphanage. Life for children and for those who cared for them was a vastly different one than today. Information on how to bring up children was largely handed down—how to feed them, how to prepare a bottle or make a baby dress, what to do about minor illnesses or temper tantrums. There were few magazine articles or books, no radio, television shows, or lectures where these problems were discussed. The average physician was too busy taking care of children with temperatures over 102°F, those choking of diphtheria or toxic with scarlet or typhoid fever, to bother with less serious problems of childhood.

The Basic Training Course for Residential Child Care Workers. By Richard H. Uhlig, Erwin H. Plumer, Julie R. Galosy, Gwen Bullard, and H. Carl Henley, Jr. Chapel Hill: Group Child Care Consultant Services, University of North Carolina School of Social Work, 1977. Complete course (2300 pp.), $65.00. Workshops for potential users are being sponsored in 1978 by the Children's Bureau--contact Development Associates, Inc., 2924 Columbia Pike, Arlington, Virginia 22204.

Публикация посвящена анализу динамики численности и характера формирования воинских гарнизонов колывано-воскресенских предприятий во второй четверти XVIII в. в контексте регионального освоенческого и административно-политического процессов. Источниковую основу исследования составили подавляющей частью не введенные в научный оборот и во многом уникальные массивы трех фондов Российского государственного архива древних актов.
 Автор приходит к выводу о том, что на протяжении второй четверти XVIII в. шло планомерное увеличение численности гарнизонов Колывано-Воскресенских заводов, состоявших как из регулярных, так и иррегулярных частей. Вопрос охраны производств регулировался в рамках управленческого треугольника «гражданские власти – частновладельческие, а затем ведомственные кабинетские структуры – военные власти», где воеводы Кузнецкого уезда односторонне и малорезультативно стремились сохранить свое административное влияние на складывавшееся горное ведомство, а динамика насыщения воинскими подразделениями увязывалась не столько с расширением значимости производственного комплекса, сколько становилась реакцией на военные акции кочевников в приграничной зоне.

Under the French Directory the line army was called into many parts of France to protect law and order and to shore up the regime. The authors of regional studies in the period have alluded to military presence but have failed to draw general inferences about the importance of military policing. The political ambitions of commanders-in-chief of fighting armies after the fall of Robespierre and the nature and history of operations have long been the subject of historical research, but no-one has yet investigated the nature of relations between civil and military authorities in any part of the interior that was not a war zone. The line army had been used in a policing role during the old regime and the early years of the revolution, but the advent of war in 1792 removed it to the frontiers. This suited revolutionary governments which were uncertain of its loyalty and uneasy about the reduction of discipline. In 1793 and 1794 revolutionary order was imposed instead by an increasingly centralized network of civilian elites and militias – revolutionary armies, committees, tribunals and representatives on mission – which operated by means of intimidation and civic denunciation. The dismantling of this apparatus of Terror in the year III (late 1794/5) in favour of a liberal constitution which breathed new life into the elective institutions of local government unleashed an anarchy of frustrated aspirations and hatreds born out of the turbulence of the revolutionary experience. Individuals and factions vied for control of local judicial and executive positions in order to make up revolutionary losses and to keep out their enemies.

“The country which first recognizes its responsibilities to the child,” S. W. Newmayer2 wrote in 1911, “will receive the recognition of the world as being the foremost civilized nation.” Newmayer had just been asked to guide Philadelphia's child health and welfare efforts, and as he surveyed indicators of child health from around the world, he found that the United States lagged behind. The most telling sign was a list of the infant mortality rate (IMR) in 30 countries—the United States ranked 18th with an IMR of 135 deaths per 1000 live births. Newmayer then noted that some American cities had recently initiated a variety of programs to improve child health. “The United States,” he concluded hopefully, “is awakening to such realization.”2 Newmayer's optimism seemed well-placed. The first third of the 20th century marked an era of significant growth in child health and welfare efforts. Building on the European example, US public health leaders launched a national campaign to reduce infant mortality. As part of this effort, the US Children's Bureau (USCB) was founded in 1912, and both local and state public health departments began focusing many of their resources on mothers and children. Pediatricians and children's hospitals also emerged in this period as the most common source of health care for children. The results of these efforts during the last century have been impressive. Along with improved nutrition and public health, advances in medical therapy have reduced the IMR from more than 100 to fewer than 10 deaths per 1000 live births.3–5 Nevertheless, the IMR continues to be a focus of attention and still appears problematic to many observers in the United States. Although we claim the most advanced and best endowed health care system in the world, we now rank 23rd among industrialized nations.6Deaths …

A Review of Current Literature of Interest to the Office-Based Anesthesiologist.

The Children's Bureau, American Red Cross, started its activities last July with eleven members. At the present time the bureau comprises more than 400 members, and is doing children's work and also a good deal of medical work for women throughout the whole of France. Our first assignment was to take charge of the Childrens' Colony and to develop the hospital near Toul. In this army sector all children under 7 had been ordered back for a distance of 10 kilometers from the front, because of the gas bombing, children under 7 being unable to wear gas masks satisfactorily. Dr. Julius P. Sedgwick of Minneapolis was in charge of the early development of this work, and installed a colony of more than 500 mothers and children in the governmental military cantonment turned over to us for this purpose. Dr. Sedgwick also started a hospital for children, which has since been

Previous articleNext article No AccessReviews of Government Reports and Public DocumentsThe Selection and Training of Volunteers in Child Care. U.S. Department of Labor, Children's BureauPDFPDF PLUS Add to favoritesDownload CitationTrack CitationsPermissionsReprints Share onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditEmail SectionsMoreDetailsFiguresReferencesCited by Social Service Review Volume 17, Number 4Dec., 1943 Article DOIhttps://doi.org/10.1086/634704 Views: 1Total views on this site PDF download Crossref reports no articles citing this article.

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