Youth

Issues for young people

Sixth formers vs the Israeli Defence Force

By Joan Trevor Six high-school students are being court-martialed in Israel for refusing the draft. Their defence rests on the idea that they are conscientious objectors (CO). If they are unsuccessful, they face long prison sentences. Many such draft refusers have already sat in military jails for hundreds of days for the crime of refusing. One of the six students is a pacifist, pure and simple, the others have refused to serve in the Israeli Defence Force because it is making life hell for Palestinians in the Occupied Territories. They are being supported by the Shministim (Hebrew for “high...

The writing on the wall

Going bust for an education We don't want your vote BNP's new Euro-bigots 'Left-wing' xenophobia Bridges to nowhere Going bust for an education A record number of people are expected to declare themselves bankrupt this summer. Many of them will be students trying to get rid of their credit card, student loan and other debts. According to the Department for Education and Skills, 899 students and graduates became insolvent last year, compared with 276 in 2002. Some students figure that the penalities of becoming bankrupt at the age of 21 are less than having a life-long debt. Especially while...

Teenagers need sex education

By Gerry Byrne The Sexual Offences Bill, brought in on a wave of concern about paedophile activity, seems set to remove one of the sources of advice for teenagers who can't talk to their parents about sex, or are not getting sex education at school. Teenage magazine advice columnists fear that the Bill will make it impossible to give advice to young people about the emotional aspects of sex. There is specific provision for medical advice about avoiding pregnancy, sexually transmitted diseases and physical harm, but, oddly for a bill which places the emphasis on consent, non-medical advice...

School students defiant

By Daniel Randall After a tremendous wave of walkouts and students strikes up and down the country, action by school students has begun to die down. This does not mean young people have stopped caring about the issue or become apathetic. Far from it! Local demos have been taking place all over Britain, as well as an enormous national demo on 22 March with another national demo planned for 12 April. All of these demos have been attracting vast numbers of young people. It is our democratic right to protest against war, and yet some students have faced heavy disciplinary action against them for...

Only workers and youth together can cut the roots of war

The School Students Activists' Forum, held in London on Sunday 16th March, attracted around 150 school and FE students. Most of these were from London, although activists from cities such as Nottingham, Manchester and Birmingham also attended. The event was fairly positive, because of the success of the walkouts of the past week and the prospect of more to come. The obvious increase in the levels of dissidence, militancy and radicalisation amongst students is also very encouraging. Students taking action against this war have repeatedly emphasised their frustration at being excluded from...

Next steps for school students: Link up with workers

Daniel Randall , a Nottingham school student, went to the Stop the War Coalition Forum for School Students on 16 March. Here is his report. At the beginning of March, thousands of school and FE students, denied the vote by the capitalist parliamentary system, "voted with their feet" and walked out against the war. Following these events, a Stop the War Coalition School Student Activists' Forum was organised to help school students and sixth formers "plan action, organise strikes and elect representatives." In a world where no union exists to represent school students, and where young people...

School students protests: round-up and letters

School students protests are now taking place every day. As we go to press, we have heard of a protest in Manchester 5,000 strong. Send your reports and pictures to us. Leicester On the morning of 7 March schools in Leicester walked out with everyone converging on the city centre. Around 1,000 walked out from maybe 10 schools around the county. About 500 made it to the city centre protests. The event was marred by heavy handed policing. The police declared the protest an "unlawful assembly" and tried to make the students disperse. At this point the police made an arrest. Many went to the...

School and college students sit down against war

By Jim Byagua Five hundred students met on 5 March to protest outside Parliament as part of national walkouts/action against war. Around two-thirds of the protestors were school students. Initially we shouted slogans from behind police barriers, but then the fencing was pulled apart and the demonstration blocked the road by Parliament. After sitting down we marched towards Downing Street where people clung to railing and chanted against war by Blair and Bush. As police moved into to try to move the crowd away many sat down and linked arms. The police then dragged the protestors - some quite...

How can we protect children?

In the second part of her discussion article about issues surrounding child pornography and paedophilia, Gerry Byrne looks at how society tries - and fails - to protect children To read Part 1 here Age of consent In the last issue, I looked at how the massively greater social weight of adults against children meant that adult-child sex can not but be abusive. The Age of Consent is a legal device that recognises this inequality in ability between adults and children to genuinely consent to sex. It is set at 16 in this country. An equal age of consent for heterosexual and homosexual sex has only...

Paedophiles: How to combine freedom and protection

In 2016, 13 years after its publication, this discussion article was the subject of an online trolling campaign by political opponents who took snippits of it out of context, to make the claim that the AWL was pro-paedophilia. The article (especially the second part ) is, in fact, a discussion about what can be done about child protection. We comment on the campaign of "fake news" around the article here. The arrest of several high-profile celebrities on charges of downloading child pornography, and rumours of moves against even more highly placed individuals (MPs and civil servants), has put...

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