Saudi girl granted divorce

CNN) -- A court in Saudi Arabia has granted an 8-year-old girl a divorce from her 47-year-old husband, after twice denying the divorce request previously, local media reported Thursday.
The marriage sparked condemnations around the world from human rights groups and U.S. and other government officials when it first came to light in December.
Local media, which is highly regulated by the Saudi government, reported that the court in the city of Onaiza approved the divorce decree Thursday, and the divorce is final.
A source at the court told the Saudi daily newspaper Al-Watan that the divorce "came after a series of pleas made by a number of officials in the region to the husband."
http://www.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/meast/04/30/saudi.child/index.html

NE Foster Care Review Board can conduct warrantless visits

Nebraska Supreme Court agrees with a district court’s decision which allows the Nebraska Foster Care Review Board to conduct warrantless visits and observation of foster care facilities to ascertain whether they are meeting the needs of foster children. The Court sets out that to the extent constitutional rights may be implicated by home visits to foster care facilities, they agreed with the district court that the visits should be judged under a general standard of reasonableness which courts have applied when special governmental needs, beyond the normal need for law enforcement, justify a departure from the requirements of individualized suspicion, warrants, and probable cause under traditional Fourth Amendment analysis.
Omni v. Nebraska Foster Care Review Bd., 277 Neb. 641 (2009)
Filed April 23, 2009. No. S-08-332.

Killer at 16, and Still in California’s Juvenile Justice System Decades Later

SANTA CRUZ, Calif. — Except for one detail and one horrifying crime, Donald Schmidt is a run-of-the-mill juvenile offender. He watches television, does chores, talks to his lawyer and waits for his release. Donald Schmidt, 37, molested and drowned a 3-year-old girl. The detail is his age: Mr. Schmidt is 37, the oldest defendant ever in California’s juvenile justice system. Just 16 when he molested and drowned a 3-year-old girl while high on methamphetamine, he has been in juvenile facilities for two decades, sometimes alongside teenagers who were not yet born when he was convicted. http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/26/us/26juvenile.html?_r=1

Suit claims abuse, filth at juvenile detention center

(CNN) -- Juveniles held in a Mississippi detention center are subject to "horrific physical and mental abuse" at an insect-ridden, filthy facility, alleges a federal lawsuit filed Monday.
The suit, filed by the Mississippi Youth Justice Project and Mississippi Protection and Advocacy Inc., accuses staff at the privately-managed Harrison County Juvenile Detention Center of "punitive shackling, staff-on-youth assaults, 23-hour-a-day lock-down in filthy jail cells, unsanitary conditions resulting in widespread contraction of scabies and staph infections, dangerous overcrowding that forces many youth to sleep on the concrete floor, and inadequate mental health care." The facility is is operated by Mississippi Security Police, a private security corporation based in Pascagoula, Mississippi. The company is paid $1.6 million yearly by Harrison County to manage the juvenile center, according to the lawsuit, which names the county as a defendant.
http://u.nu/53f

Guard convicted in boy's beating at juvenile hall

LOS ANGELES—A former juvenile hall guard has been convicted of child abuse for letting five minors beat a boy she wrongly believed had taken her cell phone. Deputy District Attorney Natalie Adomian said Tuesday that jurors deliberated for two hours before convicting Diane Buchanan on Friday of three felony counts. She is scheduled for sentencing May 27 and faces up to six years in prison. In May 2005 Buchanan lost her cell phone at the Sylmar juvenile hall. Another boy at the facility said the victim had flushed the phone down a toilet. Prosecutors say Buchanan opened the victim's cell door and let in five boys to attack him. Buchanan did not report the incident or seek medical help for the victim. She later found her cell phone in her car.
http://www.mercurynews.com/breakingnews/ci_12197967?nclick_check=1

Report: Kudos to Grant County juvenile defense

EPHRATA, Wash. —
Just one child in Grant County pleaded guilty last year at an initial court appearance before having an attorney. Two years ago, 93 juveniles arrested for crimes there did so.
Those improvements in the juvenile defense program were one of the bright spots in a 2008 status report on public defense in Washington. The report found that cities and counties have made significant improvements in public defense programs. Joanne Moore, director of the state Office of Public Defense, says that in Grant County, many of those juveniles were able to participate in treatment and counseling programs. They also received deferred sentences in many cases, instead of detention.
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2009105322_apwapublicdefenders.html

A success story from the streets

ISTANBUL -Growing up on the streets of Istanbul has proven to be the best education for a man who now devotes his time to assisting street children.Yusuf Ahmet Kulca spent his time on Istanbul’s streets as a young boy. He survived and has gone on to become a leading figure in the rescue and rehabilitation of kids who live on the street. When the Daily News & Economic Review asked him about Children’s Day, he said: "There is a document concerning it from 1929. 4,000 children wrote a petition to Parliament, asking for the provision of equal food; the spread of the children’s assembly; a law to prevent children; a law to prevent children from working as porters; and the provision of shelters for children sleeping on the streets." "On April 23, we celebrate a holiday that Atatürk gave as a gift to children. http://www.hurriyet.com.tr/english/domestic/11492702.asp?gid=244

Some ask why no Amber Alert issued for missing Sandra Cantu

The murder of 8-year-old Sandra Cantu in Tracy, California, has brought America's Amber Alert program under the microscope. Sandra vanished in broad daylight on March 27.
Surveillance video from that afternoon showed her happily skipping to go play at her friend's house. After she failed to return home, her family alerted the authorities, but an Amber Alert was not issued. Ten days later, Sandra's body was found stuffed inside a piece of luggage in an irrigation ditch near her home. The frantic search for the killer may be over, as police arrested Melissa Huckaby on April 10 and charged her with murder.
http://www.cnn.com/2009/CRIME/04/21/velez.mitchell.amber/index.html

Rubina Ali's Dad Denies Trying to Sell 'Millionaire' Actress Child

Just as Rafiq Qureshi's denial about a report claiming he tried to sell his actress daughter made its rounds, the 'Slumdog Millionaire' story gets even stranger as Rubina Ali's mother and step-mother got into a full-on fistfight with photographers there to catch every blow.
http://bit.ly/9kgHr

ACLU of Montana Defends Parents’ and Children’s Rights

The Montana Supreme Court heard oral arguments last Friday on a legal appeal that could set precedent for whether children have a right to maintain relationships with both their parents after a break-up. “We are in court today to guarantee that the two children Michelle Kulstad and Barbara Maniaci raised together are able to have a relationship with both of their parents,” said American Civil Liberties Union of Montana Legal Director Betsy Griffing. “It would be cruel to these children if they were barred from spending time with Michelle and from continuing to receive the love and support she has shown them since they entered her home. We hope this case establishes a precedent that a biological or adoptive parent cannot shut out a co-parent’s relationship with their children simply because it has become inconvenient.” The Montana District Court ruled last fall that Kulstad was entitled to joint custody of the two children she raised with former partner Maniaci. Maniaci appealed the decision, bringing the case to the Supreme Court.
http://www.webwire.com/ViewPressRel.asp?aId=92845

It is about time---Saudi official moves to regulate child marriages

Days after a Saudi judge upheld the marriage of an 8-year-old girl to a man 39 years her senior and blocked a divorce, the kingdom's justice minister said he plans to enact a law that will protect young girls from such marriages, according to local media reports. The law will place restrictions on the practice to preserve the rights of children and prevent abuses, Justice Minister Mohammed Al-Issa told Al-Watan, a daily newspaper in Saudi Arabia, where all newspapers require government permission to publish. Al-Issa said there would be a study of a system that will include regulations for the marriage of minors and everything related to such unions, the newspaper reported. No details on the restrictions or regulations were mentioned.
The minister did not say whether child marriage would be abolished.
http://edition.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/meast/04/15/saudi.child.bride/