Boys in American cities coerced into gang membership: where's the UN?

Submitted by Matt on Wed, 2013-08-07 02:13

Article here. Excerpt:

'The gun-toting teen shot by police over the weekend grew up in a gang-infested neighborhood in the Morrisania section of the Bronx where law-abiding families live in constant fear. Even if young boys try to avoid trouble, it comes looking for them.

At first glance, everything looks calm and ordinary in this community. But under the surface, the threat for boys as young as 9 or 10 from gangs and criminal crews pressuring them to join is constant.

One boy, whose identity Fox 5 is protecting, said they have no choice but to join a gang. He said he tries to stay busy and off the streets at night when the gangs are out and hunting for new members. He said most boys don't choose to join a gang, but if they don't, they and their families suffer consequences. He said gangs have ransacked the apartments of reluctant recruits.'

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Problems girls in some parts of the world with few educational or other options in life get a whole lot of attention from the feminist-managed human aid-centered UN agencies. Boys getting forced into "armies" in sub-Saharan Africa get a small, little bit of attention. Boys getting forced into terror groups: neither attention nor sympathy. And finally, boys in America getting coerced into joining street gangs in the very same city the UN's HQ is found gets *no* attention at all. But why should they care, we here in the US don't. Poverty-stricken boy forced to join a gang at 9, and by 14, he's armed and selling drugs, ready to be arrested or shot. And would this have happened if he had a dad at home? Possibly these gang-members made up of adolescents and young men who themselves probably had no dad around are now predating on other young males to reinforce their own desperate life-directions (as well as, of course, address the highly pragmatic concerns around there being safety in numbers).

Reminds me a little of the psychology around circumcision. And like circumcision, the UN seems to be ignoring the issue entirely, along with the US government and probably the New York City government, too.

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Submitted by Matt on Wed, 2013-08-07 02:27