A new report calls attention to the problem. Also, good news and bad news about the use of child soldiers, and Amnesty International's 2008 report on human rights.

This is IN THE NEWS in VOA Special English.

		Commission on Human Rights chair Leila de Lima, right, and the British Embassy's Chris Wright, observe the worldwide launch of the 2008 annual report of Amnesty International in Manila

Amnesty International says the United States must close its Guantanamo detention camp and secret detention centers, and give detainees fair trials or release them.

Another demand is that Russia show greater acceptance of political dissent, and no acceptance of human rights abuses in Chechnya.

Amnesty noted an increase in big demonstrations around the world, saying it signals a growing demand for justice and equality. 

A woman refugee and a child stand near a United Nations peacekeeping police patrol in the Abou Shouk refugee camp in North Darfur, Sudan

Save the Children spoke with more than two hundred girls and boys in southern Sudan, Ivory Coast and Haiti. The group says peacekeepers and aid workers traded sex for food, money, soap and, in some cases, mobile phones. Children as young as six were abused.

U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon called the issue very serious. He says the cases will be carefully investigated and that his policy is "zero tolerance" for abuse.

The United Nations cannot punish peacekeepers for crimes; it can only send them back to their own countries to be tried.

The charity says the United Nations and other agencies have taken some action but not enough to solve the problem quickly. The report says Save the Children itself dismissed three workers in the past year for sex with seventeen-year-old girls.

Save the Children wants the U.N. to establish local reporting systems and create an agency to supervise international efforts to stop abuse. 

Child soldiers in Burma

But tens of thousands of children remain in armed groups in at least twenty-four countries or territories. The report says Burma, also known as Myanmar, remained the worst government offender.

And that's IN THE NEWS in VOA Special English, written by Brianna Blake. I'm Steve Ember.