More than half of the men held at the Guantanamo detention facility have joined a hunger strike to protest their open-ended detention.

According to the U.S. military, of the 166 prisoners, 84 are on hunger strike. Of these, 16 are being force-fed using tubes that go through their noses and down into their stomachs. An additional six have been hospitalized for observation.

How can there still be 166 prisoners at Gitmo?

“As President, I will close Guantánamo,” President Obama promised in 2007. What happened?

Hunger strikes have occurred at Guantanamo since shortly after the military detention center opened in 2002 as a facility to hold suspects captured in counter-terrorism operations.

This particular hunger strike began in early February and has escalated since then. Detainees have said that guards seized photos and other belongings during a cell search and also mistreated Korans.

Voice Of The Detainees

From Truthout:

Abdulsalam Al-Hela does not understand why he and other Guantanamo prisoners reside in a perpetual state of legal limbo.

“Can it really be true that US, with all its power, all over the world, can’t solve the problems of 100 men?” he asked his attorney, David Remes, during a meeting in early March.

“Yes,” Remes told the Yemeni prisoner. “It’s true.”

No one knows what to do with these living artifacts of a post-9/11 world.

Some are waiting to stand trial for war crimes. Others – more than half – have been cleared by the US government to be returned to their homelands or other countries. All watch the days, weeks, months and years slip by without resolution, regardless of status.

Al-Hela, along with most of his fellow detainees, has been detained without charge or trial for nearly a decade.

These men are understandably desperate.

U.S. To Send More Medical Personnel

In response to the situation, the decision has been made to send additional medical personnel to the Guantanamo prison camp.

Fewer than 40 reinforcements will arrive by the end of April, according to Lieutenant Colonel Samuel House, a spokesman for the detention operation at the Guantanamo Bay U.S. Naval Base in southeastern Cuba.

How about working to close Gitmo instead of sending in a few doctors?

Of the 775 people detained in Guantanamo since its establishment, many have been found to be noncombatants with no ties to either the Taliban or al-Qaeda. Many of them were mistakenly apprehended or wrongfully turned over by anti-Taliban bounty hunters in Afghanistan. There are some truly horrific stories here.

Now just 166 prisoners remain in Gitmo, the majority of whom have either already been cleared or are expected to be cleared of charges due to lack of evidence.

So why are they still there?

According to the BBC:

Nearly 100 of the detainees have reportedly been cleared for release but remain at the facility because of restrictions imposed by Congress and also concerns of possible mistreatment if they are sent back to their home countries.

“How can the military, even the military, hope to maintain discipline over a prison camp where there is absolutely no hope for those men confined here,” said Lieutenant Commander Kevin Bogucki, a US Navy military lawyer who was visiting his clients at the base.

The hunger strike is the last resort of the frustrated and powerless, which is clearly why it’s happening in Guantanamo. In 1981, the Irish hunger strike did succeed, but not before ten prisoners had starved to death; in 2012, up to 900 prisoners began such a strike in Russia, to protest their abominable conditions; and in the prisons of California, a hunger strike was also used to draw attention to the plight of prisoners.

Isn’t it time we closed the Guantanamo detention center?

Related Care2 Coverage

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Read more: 9/11, california, george-w-bush, gitmo, guantanamo, hunger strike, russia, use of torture

Photo Credit: AslanMedia

In 2012, approximately 21 million people worked in forced labor worldwide, including in industrialized nations like the United States. More than one quarter of these people were children. Overall, 215 million children labor worldwide, half of them in dangerous industries, often without adequate employment and workplace protections.

74 countries have been identified as locales where child labor and forced labor are used, and much of it occurs in the context of production of basic commodities highly valued in the West, including coffee, chocolate, gold, cotton, beef and sugarcane. Children are also forced into sex work and domestic labor like cleaning and caring for children.

While the United States might have officially ended slavery with the Civil War, slavery, forced labor and related exploitative labor practices endure across the world, including in the U.S. In fact, the use of such practices has actually increased worldwide in recent years. What’s going on? Why is the global economy so heavily reliant on forms of labor that should have gone out with the dodo?

The answer to this troubling question is a complex one that lies in part in the demand for cheap, readily-available goods across the West. Companies rallying to meet this demand are also driven by internal pressures for profit, with demands from their boards and shareholders. Their desire to profit at all costs mean that they cut corners when it comes to sourcing, protecting their workers, monitoring working conditions and ensuring that their products are produced without the use of slave, forced, child and other kinds of exploitative labor.

Groups like the International Labor Organization that are concerned with the use of exploitative labor in the U.S. are attempting to address it with tools like a free program for businesses that want to commit to sourcing their labor more responsibly, but they aren’t making much headway. They’re going up against a complex and interconnected system that pits business against children and workers from marginalized populations like ethnic and cultural minorities.

Complying with the standards involved in ensuring that a supply chain remains free of exploitative labor and the use of children means careful monitoring and high levels of transparency. It also requires giving up some profits, something many companies are reluctant to do — after all, many relocate specifically to the Global South in order to evade oversight and increase profits thanks to lower labor costs and other operating costs.

The only way to change the culture of labor is to increase pressure on companies to do the right thing by their workers. Members of the public can push for slave and child labor-free goods, demanding products produced ethically, but this requires a functional and accurate system for identifying and certifying products, to prevent companies from simply claiming that their products meet standards when this is not in fact the case.

Another, and potentially far more effective, mechanism for getting children out of the workforce and into school where they belong is the application of shareholder activism. In shareholder activism, individuals and groups buy up blocks of shares and coordinate together to vote on key issues when a company brings them to shareholders for the vote. They can force people off the board, elect representatives who will promote their interests and force a company to behave with more integrity and accountability.

This kind of activism can require deep pockets, especially for multinationals, but it can be a profound way to send a message. As one company begins to establish a more responsible industry standard and customers turn to it, competitors will be forced to do the same, even if it means a drop in profits. That can create a snowball effect of change, and make the world safer for children.

Not sure about how much this affects you personally? Use the Slavery Footprint tool to get a grim and personal look at how many slaves work for you. Enter some details about your habits and lifestyle, and it will provide information about the kinds of people involved in the production of the goods and services you use.

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Photo credit: Christine Boose

Los Angeles girl kidnap suspect caught in Mexico

LOS ANGELES (AP) — A fugitive charged with abducting and sexually assaulting a 10-year-old Los Angeles girl has been captured in Mexico, authorities said Wednesday.

Tobias Summers, 30, was taken into custody by Mexican authorities acting on information from the FBI, according to bureau spokeswoman Laura Eimiller.

Additional details were being withheld, she said.

The victim vanished from her home in the Northridge area of Los Angeles on March 27. She was found about 12 hours later wandering near a Starbucks several miles away.

Authorities later arrested Daniel Martinez as a suspected accomplice and revealed that Summers had been spotted in a video recording as he crossed the border into Mexico at Tecate, east of San Diego.

Summers is charged with kidnapping, burglary and nearly three dozen counts of sexual assault.

He's described as a transient with a criminal record including convictions for burglary and grand theft.

Martinez, 29, has pleaded not guilty to kidnapping and burglary.

Mexican authorities distributed "wanted" posters with Summers' picture and put police in the cities of Tecate, Ensenada and Rosarito Beach on alert.

Authorities believe Summers broke into the girl's home planning to burglarize it but instead abducted her at knifepoint. They believe Martinez was waiting outside in a car the two used to flee with the girl.

Martinez soon abandoned the car and vanished, police have said, while Summers took the girl to a vacant home where he assaulted her.

Summers has a criminal record dating to 2002 that includes arrests for robbery, battery and grand theft auto. Court records show Martinez has been convicted of burglary and grand theft.

FBI Most Wanted caught in Nicaragua: What draws US pedophiles to the region?

Stigmatized in the US, some registered sex offenders like Eric Toth decide to move abroad to start fresh in a foreign country – and Central America is becoming a popular spot.

After nearly five years of living on the lam, accused pedophile Eric Justin Toth, a 31-year-old former school teacher sought for his alleged production and possession of child pornography inWashington, D.C. and Maryland, was running out of places to hide in the United States.

Mr. Toth, who is described by the FBI as an intelligent and charming individual who mastered the art of blending in wherever he hid, was chased through seven states across the US before finally giving law authorities the shake in 2009. The FBI eventually put Toth on their list of Top 10 Most Wanted Fugitives last year.

So when the runaway pedophile was finally collared this week by Nicaraguan police, who discovered him living under an assumed identity in the remote tobacco-growing region of Nicaragua’s north-central highlands, it was hailed as a major victory for the country’s law enforcement. After all, Nicaraguan Police Chief Aminta Granera noted, Toth replaced Osama bin Laden on the FBI’s wanted list.

RECOMMENDED: Think you know Latin America? Take our geography quiz.

Unfortunately for Nicaraguans ­– and Central Americans in general – Toth is not the only US pedophile skulking about the isthmus in sunglasses and a guayabera. Though Toth’s case made international headlines, he’s only one of a growing number of American sex predators who is turningCentral America into a near-shore tropical hideout.

Ostracized by sex offender registries and notification requirements in the US, some pedophiles are moving abroad to seek a fresh start in life. And countries such as Nicaragua, which is opening its doors to tourism and foreign investment, are becoming increasingly vulnerable to prurient sex tourists and pedophiles. Costa Rica and Panama have long attracted their fair share of foreign predators, but neighboring Nicaragua – where costs are lower and people are poorer – is quickly developing a reputation as a playground for sex offenders.

“This region of the world is quickly surpassing Asia for its levels of sex tourism,” says Steven Cass, executive director of Breaking Chains, a Christian ministry group that battles sexual exploitation and rescues victims in Latin America. “We are seeing a major spike in activity and as a result have been very successful lately in working with local governments and US federal agencies to capture and dismantle pedophile and human-traffickers rings.”

Mr. Cass says his group has participated in recent pedophile busts in Honduras, Costa Rica, and Nicaragua, netting seven men – including two US citizens – and rescuing more than 40 victims ranging in age from 12 to 16. One man, a 61-year American businessman who was working in Managuaas the executive of a large textile factory, was arrested earlier this month after police found evidence that he was regularly abusing girls as young as 8.

WHEN THE ZONE DEFENSE FAILS

US legislation such as Megan’s Law and the Adam Walsh Child Protection and Safety Act provides an effective zone defense inside the United States; police are responsible for keeping tabs on sexual predators in their jurisdiction, but once the sex offender leaves town, they become someone else’s problem. When registered offenders decide to move from one US town or state to another, they must notify local police so authorities in the next town can be put on alert.

But US laws don’t restrict registered sex offenders from leaving the United States, and that’s when the zone defense can fall apart. Though sex offenders must notify authorities about their intent to move abroad, US authorities can only notify Interpol or their foreign counterparts – they can't add the offender to an international sex offender registry, for example . And sometimes communication breaks down across the borders.

When US citizen Ronald Leno, a 64-year-old repeat sex offender who served several jail sentences inMassachusetts for stalking and multiple rape convictions, was arrested in Nicaragua in late 2011 for raping a 14-year-old girl and using other minors for commercial sexual exploitation, the Nicaraguan Police had no idea about his prior convictions. Even though Interpol Washington sent a letter to Nicaraguan authorities in January 2008 to “advise of the subject’s situation,” Nicaraguan police said they first learned of Mr. Leno’s presence in late 2011 when neighbors tipped off the cops about his suspicious behavior.

Scott Matson, a senior policy advisor for the US Department of Justice’s Office of Sex Offender Sentencing, Monitoring, Apprehending, Registering, and Tracking (SMART), says US authorities have worked to improve information-sharing and close registration loopholes for sex offenders in the United States. But he admits more needs to be done to tighten the net across borders.

“We are working to create a better coordinated system internationally,” Mr. Matson says. But doing so is a big task that involves many government agencies, from Immigration and Customs Enforcement to passport services and the FBI.

Still, the FBI says this week’s arrest of Toth in Nicaragua – “the result of an exhaustive and well-coordinated investigation by the FBI’s Washington Field Office, the FBI Legal Attaché, and Special Agents of the Diplomatic Security Service assigned to the U.S. Embassy in Managua” ­– shows they take pedophile cases very seriously, even beyond US borders.

“Hurting a child is a particularly horrific crime and, no matter where in the world these individuals try to hide and no matter how long it takes, we will pursue all those who take part in such disturbing activity,” Valerie Parlave, the FBI Washington Field Office assistant director in charge, told The Christian Science Monitor today.

“For five years, we worked together with our law enforcement partners in the United States and abroad in pursuit of Eric Toth. As evidenced by his apprehension, we will find these individuals and bring them to justice,” Ms. Parlave says.

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