Human trafficking is a huge global business. The main victims are children who are forced into the sex trade. This novel focuses on those in the US, who have been smuggled, enticed, or taken by the ruthless and heartless traffickers.

In the Innocent Eyes of a Child, follows the story of a girl, named Brighteyes, who was born into dysfunctional family. She was subjected to years of abuse. At the age of five, she is abandoned by her abusers and ends up in the foster care system. She journeys through the foster care system going from home to home. She tells her story through her eyes, as she grows up never finding the love, care, and family she desired. She experiences the path of the foster child is often filled with challenges that are overwhelming, frustrating, and heartbreaking. She experiences more abuse which was often ignored in the system. Her mistreatment by some of the foster parents causes a great deal of pain, which is evident. She copes by "flying away." She takes the reader through the journey of each place she goes-her feelings, hopes, and dreams. These are often filled with disappointments, betrayal, and tears. Many do not know what happens to foster children as they journey through many homes-- while never finding any love or stability. While on her journey, she dreamed of being rescued by a loving family. This wasn't only her journey, but the journey of a lot of foster children-- forced to grow-up this way. The phrase, "What is in the Best Interest of the Child," is often challenged. Through it all, she still had hope that she would find a place called home.

Discover an age-old parenting method that treats children with dignity, respect, understanding, and compassion from infancy into adulthood. The Natural Child makes a compelling case for a return to attachment parenting, a child-rearing approach that has come naturally for parents throughout most of human history. In this insightful guide, parenting specialist Jan Hunt links together attachment parenting principles with child advocacy and homeschooling philosophies, offering a consistent approach to raising a loving, trusting, and confident child. The Natural Child dispels the myths of “tough love,” building baby’s self-reliance by ignoring its cries, and the necessity of spanking to enforce discipline. Instead, the book explains the value of extended breast-feeding, family co-sleeping, and minimal child-parent separation. Homeschooling, like attachment parenting, nurtures feelings of self-worth, confidence, and trust. The author draws on respected leaders of the homeschool movement such as John Taylor Gatto and John Holt, guiding the reader through homeschool approaches that support attachment parenting principles. Being an ally to children is spontaneous for caring adults, but intervening on behalf of a child can be awkward and surrounded by social taboo. The Natural Child shows how to stand up for a child’s rights effectively and sensitively in many difficult situations. The role of caring adults, points out Hunt, is not to give children “lessons in life”—but to employ a variation of The Golden Rule, and treat children as we would like to have been treated in childhood. Praise for The Natural Child “I had grown jaded with the flood of parenting books, but The Natural Child is a rare and splendid exception . . . . I can’t praise it sufficiently, and would place it along with Leidloff’s Continuum Concept and my own Magical Child . . . . It could make an enormous difference if read widely enough.” —Joseph Chilton Pierce, author of The Magical Child “In prose that is at the same time eloquent and simple, [Hunt] provides a mix of useful parenting tips that are supported by the philosophy that children reflect the treatment they receive. This is no less than an impassioned plea for the future—not only our children’s future, but the future of our way oof life on this planet.” —Wendy Priesnitz, Editor, Natural Life Magazine

Have you ever thought of how children really feel while they are trapped in a war zone, surrounded by nothing but chaos? Did you ever stop and consider what goes through their minds and what is felt in the hearts while their childhood is ruined, lives interrupted, and dreams shattered in the most heartless way? Ever wondered what it might feel like drifting to sleep under the echoes of grenade explosions or walking to school dodging bullets?

A reader on children's culture

Examining the influence of gender constructs on the international regime protecting war-affected civilians, R. Charli Carpenter examines how in practice belligerents, advocates and humanitarian players interpret civilian immunity so as to leave adult civilian men and older boys at grave risk in conflict zones. Providing a wealth of ground-breaking case studies, the author argues that in order to understand the way in which laws of war are implemented and promoted in international society we must understand how gender ideas affect the principle of civilian immunity. Each case study demonstrates the importance of assumptions about gender relations in shaping international politics, and in developing a framework for incorporating an attention to gender into the often gender-blind scholarship on international norms. As such, this book will be of interest to international relations theorists and to human rights scholars, students and activists alike.

Innocent Weapons: The Soviet and American Politics of Childhood in the Cold War

There are millions of children experiencing parental imprisonment all over the world. This book is about their problems, human rights and how they are treated throughout the justice process from the arrest of a parent to imprisonment and release.

“In an old house in Paris that was covered with vines lived twelve little girls in two straight lines the smallest one was Madeline.” Nothing frightens Madeline—not tigers, not even mice. With its endearing, courageous heroine, cheerful humor, and wonderful, whimsical drawings of Paris, the Madeline stories are true classics that continue to charm readers, even after 75 years. Join Madeline in another adventure when she and Pepito run off to join the carnival with a band of traveling gypsies! Ludwig Bemelmans (1898-1962) was the author of the beloved Madeline books, including Madeline, a Caldecott Honor Book, and Madeline's Rescue, winner of the Caldecott Medal.

The Importance of Being Innocent addresses the current debate in Australia and internationally regarding the sexualisation of children, predation on them by pedophiles and the risks apparently posed to their 'innate innocence' by perceived problems and threats in contemporary society. Joanne Faulkner argues that, contrary to popular opinion, social issues have been sensationally expounded in moral panics about children who are often presented as alternatively obese, binge-drinking and drug-using, self-harming, neglected, abused, medicated and driven to anti-social behavior by TV and computers. This erudite and thought-provoking book instead suggests that modern western society has reacted to problems plaguing the adult world by fetishizing children as innocents, who must be protected from social realities. Taking a philosophical and sociological perspective, it outlines the various historical trends, emotional investments and social tensions that shape contemporary ideas about what childhood represents, and our responsibilities in regard to children.