How low can we get?

African children for sale in Britain

London: Hundreds of children from Africa are being sold in and “trafficked” to Britain to be exploited as modern-day slaves, the Telegraph has reported. The children are sold by their parents, some while still babies, to criminal gangs and human traffickers. Once the children arrive in Britain, they are used to obtain thousands of pounds worth of fraudulent welfare and housing benefits from the government.
An undercover reporter from the Telegraph was offered several kids by their parents in Nigeria for prices being £5,000 for two boys aged three and five, £2,500 for one boy and £2,000 for a 10-month-old baby. Pregnant teenage girls were ready to sell their babies for less than £1,000.
An international trafficker in Lagos said he had bought up to 500 children annually.
Poor parents are lured by the traffickers’ promises of a better life for their children in far away cities such as London, Birmingham and Manchester. But once in Britain, the children become a means to obtain illegal welfare benefits, costing the taxpayer thousands of pounds a year.
The traffickers wait for the children to reach the age of seven so that they are strong enough to be sold off as domestic slaves. At a time when they should be attending school, the children face brutal exploitation being forced to work for up to 18 hours a day, cleaning, cooking and babysitting their masters’ offspring, or made to do arduous shifts in restaurants and shops.
The children are also subjected to physical and sexual abuse. Some are accused of being witches and become victims of exorcism rites in traditional African churches in the UK.
British human rights groups have called for the government and the police to take immediate action to end what they termed “21st century child slavery”. AGENCIES
Patients angry as minister rules out single-sex hospital wards
London: Patients groups have reacted angrily to the British health minister’s statement that the provision of single sex wards in hospitals was not practical. The minister, Lord Darzi of Denham, appeared to renege on the ruling Labour Party’s 1997 manifesto promise to “work towards the elimination of mixed-sex wards”. He told the House of Lords that the government was committed to providing single-sex accommodation in hospitals, but not single-sex wards.
“Our guidance requires the provision of single-sex accommodation, not wards,” Darzi said. “This may mean single rooms or single-sex bays within a mixed ward as well as single-sex wards.” The British Patients Association accused the government of “throwing in the towel” on their manifesto pledge. Association spokeswoman Katherine Murphy said: “The government has taken a U-turn on their promise to eliminate mixed sex wards. Ten years ago patients were told it would be possible, and it was a manifesto commitment. Now the ground rules may be changing but the problem is still there for patients of all ages who ask for nothing more than a safe NHS where ‘dignity and respect is at the heart’—to quote Lord Darzi himself.”
“Patients have no guarantee 10 years on that anyone will do anything to achieve this. This is throwing in the towel. Why should we believe anything will change now?”
Lord Darzi said commitments the government made in 1997 were met in 2002-2004, with 95% of patients in single sex accommodation. AGENCIES

STARING AT AN UNCERTAIN FUTURE