eProceeding...

Human Environment

Environment is broader than concerns about global warning, declining bio-diversity, pollution, etc. The "human environment" (a term coined by Rabbi Ze'ev Chaim Lifshitz) is equally important. One indication of the severe problem with the human environmrent is the following quote:

"LONDON (Reuters) - AIDS will surpass the Black Death as the world's worst pandemic if the 40 million people living with HIV/AIDS do not get life-prolonging drugs, a U.S. public health physician said on Friday.
AIDS has killed 25 million people since the early 1980s and an estimated 14,000 people are infected each day with HIV, which destroys the immune system and leads to AIDS."
AIDS Set to Surpass Black Death as Worst Pandemic



Background Material

AIDS

  1. AIDS Set to Surpass Black Death as Worst Pandemic
  2. AIDS: 20 years of an epidemic
  3. Powell promises continued U.S. support in AIDS fight
  4. UNAIDS
  5. (CNN, June 24, 2001) This week, for the first time ever, the United Nations General Assembly will hold a special session focusing on how to combat the pandemic of HIV/AIDS.
  6. Some AIDS related sites

Antisemitism

Antisemitism is anything but dormant. It seems to have come back, invigorated, both in the "far left" and "far right"

Genocide

There were many major acts of genocide around the world in the 20th century. Some examples of the most serious events (in approximate time sequence):
  1. Armenian massacre by Turkey
  2. Stalinist mass murders
  3. Nazi genocide against Jews, Gypsies, mentally disturbed, homosexuals
  4. Cambodian genocide
  5. Ugandan mass murders
  6. Rwandan genocide
  7. ex-Yugoslavian genocide

Racism

Racism is part of the human environment, even in the 21st century. The fate of untouchables in India, widespread trafficking and enslaving of women are just some examples

Starvation

24,000 a day die from hunger

Trafficking

One of major global plagues of this time is young girls (from age 6-7) and women kidnapped (in some cases sold by destitute family), enslaved, raped, prostituted and periodically imported, exported and auctioned naked to traffickers, on an international market. The daily horrors of these women can be imagined. Often they live in horrid conditions and fear escape - due to threats of significant violence against them and their family back home. Reportedly a Ukrainian woman was publicly beheaded in Serbia after she tried to escape. [URI]) One ugly aspect of this is superstition in many cultures (e.g. India, S. Africa), where men with AIDS and other sexually transmitted diseases believe that sex with a young girl will cure them - thru the girls' purity. [URI]

According to a recent UN estimate trafficking is a 4-7 Billion US dollar operation annually, with about 4 million people moved from country to country and within countries.

In many countries young girls are abducted from the streets and shipped to brothels. In Philippine brothels children as young as 8-10 have been discovered - their bodies often marked by cigarette burns. [UN 1]

Reference Documents

[UN 1]:
Guide to New UN Trafficking Protocol

[URI]:
Overview

Description by Country



Jan 27, 2002