BETRAYAL: A Report on Violence Toward Children in Today's World

by Caroline--Ed. Moorehead ‧ RELEASE DATE: May 1, 1990

Compiled at the behest of UNICEF, and edited by British journalist Moorehead (Hostages to Fortune, 1980; Troublesome People, 1987): ten reports on the condition of exploited and abused children in countries all over the world, from Somalia to the Philippines--and including the US and Great Britain. The pieces here cover street children in Brazil; Lebanese children who know nothing but war; the buying and selling of South American children, ostensibly for adoption; the fragmented lives of migrant children in France: and helpless children with AIDS in the Bronx. With an introduction by Audrey Hepburn, each chapter--dispassionately, straightforwardly--gives an account of the exploitation, indignities, pain, hunger, and fear suffered by children ranging from infants to desperate teen-agers. And as shocking as the reported acts of violence is the apparent indifference of governments, businesses, and even socialwelfare organizations to the brutal treatment of what should be their richest resource: the next generations. It is the very effort to be objective--to report numbers, expert opinion, and the day-to-day experiences of real children--that makes this book so moving and so tragic. (Publication is timed to coincide with ratification by the United Nations of the Convention on the Rights of the Child, ten years in the making.)

Pub Date: May 1, 1990

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Doubleday

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 1990

Categories: NONFICTION