U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton poses for a photo with the 2012 Trafficking in Persons (TIP) Report Heroes Sister Azezet Kidane, at the U.S. Department of State in Washington, D.C., on June 19, 2012. [State Department photo/ Public Domain].
SR. AZEZET HABTEZGHI KIDANE, Comboni Missionary
U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton poses for a photo with the 2012 Trafficking in Persons (TIP) Report Heroes Sister Azezet Kidane, at the U.S. Department of State in Washington, D.C., on June 19, 2012. [State Department photo/ Public Domain].
Sr. Azezet, also known as Sister Aziza, is an Eritrean nun with the Comboni Missionary Sisters who volunteers as a nurse for the NGO Physicians for Human Rights- Israel (PHR-I). During the past two years she has led PHR-I’s efforts to call attention to human trafficking in Sinai, Egypt, including sexual slavery and the torture of hundreds of African asylum seekers. PHR-I developed a groundbreaking research project that has interviewed hundreds of victims living in Israel.
This painstaking work was accomplished by the devotion of Sister Aziza who helped identify men, women, and children who had been kidnapped, repeatedly raped, or subjected to forced labor and sexual servitude, in addition to being tortured, in the Sinai.
Her perseverance, heartfelt concern, and willingness to listen to countless hours of interviews enabled many victims to open up about their experiences of rape, torture, kidnapping, forced labor, and sexual servitude. Whereas previously little was known of the specific atrocities in Egypt, these documented firsthand accounts have led to widespread international media reporting and attention to human trafficking in the region. The State Department has relied on the work of Sister Aziza and PHR-I to promote awareness of this important issue. (From http://www.state.gov/documents/organization/192587.pdf )
U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton poses for a photo with the 2012 Trafficking in Persons (TIP) Report Heroes, individuals around the world who have devoted their lives to the fight against human trafficking, at the U.S. Department of State in Washington, D.C., on June 19, 2012. [State Department photo/ Public Domain] – con Azezet KidaneFortunately, Eritreans in Israel are not considered “infiltrators”. One is singled out as a model of compassion and dedication. This is not the first time Sr. Azezet’s commitment to the Plight of the Eritrean Refugees in Israel, the Sinai Peninsula and in the ME in general is publicly recognized. Last year also she was awarded a prize in Rome. Sr. Azezet reminds me of a story I read in my 4th grade book: a religious sister in Algiers was taking care of a very difficult French soldier, wounded in combat. Everybody else had given up on the unfortunate because of his temperament and his demands. Sister though attended to him with devotion and love. At the end the soldier himself broke up and asked the religious: “Sister, why are you doing this?” And the good nun, pointing at the cross that was hanging from the chain around her neck replied: “I do it for him, who first did it for me!” Sister Azezet did it for Him in Massawa, Asmara (Eritrea), she encountered Him and served Him in Awasa and elsewhere in Ethiopia, she loved Him and knelt before Him in South Sudan, Uganda, or wherever else the Congregation sent her, and now she sees Him tortured, ransomed, raped, cursed, denigrated, threatened, neglected, robbed of his dignity, of his personality: “He does not have any beauty or dignity to make us take notice of him. There was nothing attractive about him, nothing that would draw us to him. We despised him and rejected him he endured suffering and pain. No one would even look at him, we ignored him as if he wee nothing.” (Is 53: 2b-3). This time she has taken the image of the African refugee, stranded in Israel. Sr. Azezet and a few other compassionate souls of every racial, religious and social extraction have recognized him and are serving his cause.
JUNE 30, 2012 THE DAY “CANADIAN COMPASSION” WILL BE BANNED FROM THE HEART OF THE COUNTRY
Starting July 1, Canadians can expect to see something new on our streets: people begging for money to pay for medication or hospital care.
Canada, which prides itself on being more compassionate than its rough-and-tumble neighbour to the south, will soon have its very own underclass of people unable to obtain life-sustaining medication and treatment.
This is because, with no prior consultation with the provinces or health-care professionals, the federal government recently announced that it will make drastic cuts to the Interim Federal Health Program – the health-care program for people seeking refugee status in Canada – effective June 30.
They fled across the borders of Libya as the country slid into civil war. They ran for their lives through the dense bush in western Cote d’Ivoire, to reach shelter in Liberia. And, as famine loomed in Somalia, they poured into the camps of Dadaab in Kenya and Dolo Ado in Ethiopia desperate for food, water and medical attention.
ROME — Of the 99 million people who received WFP food assistance last year, one in five was a displaced person. Forced to flee across borders as refugees, or internally displaced within their own countries by fighting or by natural disasters, they are among the world’s most vulnerable people. Every year on World Refugee Day (20 June), we recognize their struggle.
Unfortunately, many refugee crises continue for a long time. For example, WFP provides food assistance near the Sudan-Eritrea border in camps for Eritrean and Ethiopian refugees that were set up in the 1960s.
ERITREAN FOUND GUILTY OF ROBBERY GIVEN HARSH SENTENCE
TO DETER “FOREIGN CITIZENS”
By Noam Wiener
The Tel Aviv District Court, roughly comparable to a circuit court in the American federal system, sentenced on Wednesday an Eritrean refugee convicted of aggravated robbery to four and a half years imprisonment. Explaining the harsh sentence, he cited the need to deter “foreign citizens” from committing crimes.
Without detracting from the brutality of the individuals who attacked refugee shops and cars last week, this is a far more insidious form of racism. And if anybody was so deluded into thinking that only the less fortunate lower classes are so racist, Judge Zvi Gurfinkel has proven that the virus of racism against African refugees is firmly ingrained in the system.
![U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton poses for a photo with the 2012 Trafficking in Persons (TIP) Report Heroes Sister Azezet Kidane, at the U.S. Department of State in Washington, D.C., on June 19, 2012. [State Department photo/ Public Domain].](https://qwsqwam.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/azezet1.jpg "U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton poses for a photo with the 2012 Trafficking in Persons (TIP) Report Heroes Sister Azezet Kidane, at the U.S. Department of State in Washington, D.C., on June 19, 2012. [State Department photo/ Public Domain].")
![U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton poses for a photo with the 2012 Trafficking in Persons (TIP) Report Heroes, individuals around the world who have devoted their lives to the fight against human trafficking, at the U.S. Department of State in Washington, D.C., on June 19, 2012. [State Department photo/ Public Domain] - con Azezet Kidane](https://qwsqwam.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/azezet.jpg "U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton poses for a photo with the 2012 Trafficking in Persons (TIP) Report Heroes, individuals around the world who have devoted their lives to the fight against human trafficking, at the U.S. Department of State in Washington, D.C., on June 19, 2012. [State Department photo/ Public Domain] - con Azezet Kidane")