HR Final - Revised Research Question

As I have been researching and finding sources for my presentation, I have realized that my original question is not an adequate question and is not what I should be focusing on. As my previous research question was to research the differences between the US and North Korea with human trafficking, I have now focused my search on:

How is the U.S. government responding to the North Korean human trafficking problem differently from North Korea's government?

I am going to format my presentation by:

I. background on the human trafficking problem in NK - how it came to be and what it is.
II. why human trafficking is a human rights issue - why is it such a big issue? what are the true horrors (support to why it goes against human rights)
III. What the NK government is doing to fix it - why are the standing where they are and not helping the issue?
IV. What the US government is doing to fix it - what are they're goals to try to stop human trafficking?
V. New idea of why this is significance 

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IHR - Narrowed down Research Question

Three Steps:
1. I am working on the topic of Human Trafficking.
2. Because I want to find out why North Korea is a tier 3 when the U.S. is only a tier 1.
3. In order to help my reader understand better the issue at hand and how the north Korean government has neglected this issue causing it to be a big problem.

Questions:

 Where is this happening? - North Korea (tier 3)

Why did this topic come into being? What is its history?
How does Human Trafficking reflect on the society?
How can it be compared across the world between different countries?
What are all the forms of media - songs, movie, tv episodes - reporting on this issue?
What groups are trying to prevent this from happening?
Is it perpetrators and governments responsibility for this happening?
Why is HT so bad in Korea, but not US? What are the differences in the forms of government/aid groups to prevent it? 
Why should Korea matter? - It has been in the news a lot.

Research Question -
Why is North Korea a tier 3 when the US is only a tier 1? 
- how is the government at fault for why human trafficking is so bad?
- is there anything being done in North Korea to fix the problem? Does the government even care about the issue?
- when did the issue start? when did it become so bad?


Sources -
Human Rights Report 2010
Articles found concerning the topic

International Human Rights - Tentative Research Proposal

1. Human Trafficking - I found an article earlier in the year on Human Trafficking in Africa and was very interested in it. It concerned trafficking to Nigeria in Africa. I had never really heard of human trafficking before I read this article and how big of an issue it was.

2. Links -
 http://www.hrw.org/en/search/apachesolr_search/human+trafficking
http://www.amnestyusa.org/violence-against-women/end-human-trafficking/organizations-working-to-stop-human-trafficking/page.do?id=1108431
http://www.endhumantrafficking.org/

Broad Research Question - What is being done to address Human Trafficking?

narrowed -
pick country to focus on
pick specific organization that is trying to make this change or that is not doing anything to make this change
why is it such a hard issue to make a change for 

Questions -
- How can it still be going on around the world? How long has it been going on?
- How are the traffickers getting away with it when the world knows? What is the world doing about it in order to prevent, stop, or change it? Why is it so hard to make a change for this issue?
- Where is it happening around the world?
- Why is this such an issue?
- When was the issue most prominent in the world? Is it still a big issue?
- What are the different types of human trafficking? What do I want to focus on?

The Next Empire

1. Note the author's key arguments. Make an outline of his points.

 The author's debate is whether or not china is helping Africa transform due to their "appetite for commodities"  or is it "merely exploitation?" 
 
- China is industrializing Africa because it is a profit for human resources and will benefit China in the long run. They are using their resources to bring wealth not only to China, but to Africa as well.
- China is different from the west because they are helping changes because they are not making a huge gap in classes as their new industrialization helps offer jobs to many. Since they are focuses on industrializing rather than aide they are different from the West and it is benefiting Africa.
- Some argue that China is becoming like the West and not helping Africa. The railroad in itself is an example of that. 
-
2. Record what you do not understand. It is always good to bring up what you were unclear on in a discussion, as your classmates will be able to help you clarify your thinking.
How does the factor that China is made up of rural farmers play into the article as it focuses on how China was industrializing Africa?
 
3. Identify two or three areas of potential disagreement or debate.
How is China succeeding in ways that the West has not? 
Will China become the new Belgium or will they stay to their morals of helping Africa?
What are the negatives that China is bringing to Africa?
 
4. Develop a critique of the article.
It only examined one side in depth and that was China's side. It didn't go into as much depth as it should have about the West. All that was mentioned was that the West was making aides which weren't helping Africa. Instead, the article focused on what China explicitly was doing in Africa and whether or not it was benefiting Africa. It did a good job giving examples of China's work in Africa and giving the cons against it. I personally think that China could be going the route to only benefit themselves which is only going to harm Africa more. Because China is in their because it will gain them mass resources seems to be their main focus which will leave Africa just where it was when Leopold ruled it. Like the article states at the end, China will have to decide their position in helping Africa. It is up to them to decided whether they will benefit Africa or themselves.

Recent Congo History

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/04/world/africa/04congo.html?pagewanted=2&_r=1&sq=congo&st=cse&scp=2

The issues in this article deal with rape and how the U.N.  failed to keep the peace. It addresses the fact that rape went on just down the road where U.N. men were stationed. Even though, U.N. is attempting peace in the Congo they are not succeeding. There are rebel groups that are committing rape and the Congolese army can not stop it. It is hard to keep track of the rapes because a lot of times women do not come forward and it happens under the soldiers noses. Its hard to understand that there is very little that the army can do to stop these rapes. The article was simply reporting these rapes and why they were not being stopped. It didn't go into how they could be stopped effectively. After so many years, it is still shocking that women are still treated like this. The U.N. says that they are making peace when really they are doing anything but.


http://www.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/africa/10/01/congo.atrocities.un.report/index.html?iref=storysearch

This article similar to the one above, addresses the crimes against humanity that have gone on throughout the Congo since 1993-2003. The report has come out recently as this article was published on October 1st. It focuses on the women and children who were hurt and focused on getting voices heard. The article addresses that most time voices of the mis-treating are ignored and this report is going to bring everything to the surface. Why did it take this long to create a report and how will the public respond to better the Congo?

Chapter 8 small group discussion

1. Idea or question that is lingering after your discussion?
The question that is still bothering me is why no one believed Lefranc or Williams when they spoke up about the true happenings in Africa. What we discussed in our group which did answer this question for me was a) people were worried about losing their status if they spoke up and b) everyone was part of the system. It is not so much the fact that the support given wasn't evidence enough. I am just very disturbed that no one spoke up. Just because it was going to determine someone's status or the fact that no one was strong enough to speak up, someone should have paid more attention to Williams open letter and Lefranc's comments. However, from the text I can understand why no one spoke up against Leopold.

2. Evaluate your small group discussion. What worked well? How can you improve?
I found that all the questions were very similar and our group's discussion did not expand enough beyond the few questions that were brought up. Along with that, not everyone participated. The lap tops were a little distracting and no one was engaged in the discussion. It seemed very forced and we all felt that if there was a discussion leader it would have been a lot better. I think we have a lot to improve on and it starts with people just all being focused on the discussion. It really helps if everyone is involved and willing to participate. Then, it is important to dig deeper than the average response which is what we failed to do today. We answered the questions, but we did not analyze them as much. I think the small discussions will improve when they are graded and lead by a discussion leader.

King Leopold's Ghost pgs. 33-60 Quotes

King Leopold: "For him, colonies existed for one purpose: to make him and his country rich" (38) and "His drive for colonies, however, was shaped by a desire no only for money but for power" (39).

Henry Morton Stanley: "A Welshman masquerading as a native-born United States citizen, Stanley was both the Anglo and the American of this Anglo-American Expedition" (48) and "Stanley was always uncomfortable with anyone whose talents might outshine his own" (49).

Affirming/challenging: 
affirming - "It is frustrating that the only African voices we hear are those recorded by Stanley" (53).

My reactions to this section:
It was mostly all biographical and commentary on Stanley's expedition. It was building King Leopold's background so that the audience can see where he came from and why he has the goals he has. He is very intelligent in his ways of going about conquering Africa. He knows just how to get his way. The sad truth is that he should be doing the things he is saying in order to get the African territory. That of money and power turn to greed which is the ultimate gain in the book. This is the reason Leopold wants to conquer Africa. He needs to make his country rich and powerful. It was creative of him to get all the explorers in one room to expand this idea of him. Thus, Stanley's journey came into the book. I don't like Stanley. The fact that he did not keep record of all the deaths on his expedition and the way he treated his men while they were suffering. Also, his stories I don't know whether or not to trust. This goes back to his biography. After all, he is just trying to become famous. Overall, the reading is still continuing to be background before he dive right into the Congo.

Ghost pgs. 1-32

Discussion Questions:

1. Why was Henry Morton Stanley's back story so important and how does it emphasize where the book is going?
 The introduction and prologue both mentioned the fact that the quest in Africa was one sided which veered all the further documentation to be only partial information. Because of this fact, Stanley's back story was so important because he was proven to be a liar. His overall goal was to achieve fame, not gain the facts from both parties. If David Livingston lived to make his return to England I would argue that he would have had a different story to tell about Africa than that of which Stanley told.  Furthermore, looking at the prologue Affonso, the only African voice, had an entirely different outlook on life in Africa than the Europeans when they came and conducted the slave trade. This alone shows that the books objective is to give two sides of the story while the world has only seen one view. This will give people a better perspective of what actually happened. It is pure ignorance to only be educated on one side of a story. Therefore, in this book the African's story will be told and compared to the Europeans to determine what actually went on during these times.


2. As seen in the book so far, how have human choices, specifically regarding the Congo and Africa in the beginning, impacted the world?
Both of these events, the Congo and the first exploration of Africa resulting in the slave trade, lasted for multiple decades because the issue was never resolved until a much later point in time.  They both were not only very historical events, but they set up historical events to come far off in the future. The slave trade for example, set up the civil rights movement in the 1960s. These events both are linked to the same roots being that of Europeans trying to better their own countries through materialism and that of trying to change the basic ways of African civilizations into their own making. These human choices to go into these perfectly adequate civilizations for their own needs, to only benefit themselves, were not positive at all for anyone. These human choices set up the world for their future issues at hand and caused a lot of immoral practices among these civilizations in which harmed them. Exploration is a curiosity and should be respected, however, these groups of people disregarded that respect and caused brutal death. They not only caused death, but unnecessary new issues to be dealt with in order to maintain some sense of world peace, if it is at all obtainable. Their specific choices set the world up for racism, what are moral values, and countries working together or against each other on different issues. The one simple choice of exploring Africa resulted in a magnitude of repercussions for the rest of the world in much later years to come.

Class Activity: Current Events Reporting

Questions:

1. What's being discussed in this article?
2. When did the event happen? (Is this breaking news or something that's been analyzed and discussed for a while?)
3. What questions do you have that would help make this article make more sense to you? What more do you need to learn about to be able to report on this event?

Article: Looking at Islamic Center Debate, World Sees U.S.


1. The question is whether or not to allow permission for a mosque to be built in Milan. The debate is based on the fact that across the world there has been an Islamic struggle over the acceptance of the religion in other countries. The article discusses multiple countries views on the subject. America, China, Thailand, and Italy's opinions on the subject were used as support. Controversies concerning the mosque being built was the main issue in this article. The goal is to support the building of Park51 to show the changes in the world can now let a mosque be built in Milan even after 9-11 and the false hope of the Islamic religion being accepted.

2. This event has been going on for more than two decades. It is a continuing movement that has been trying to have been achieved. It is not ground-breaking news as it has been a work in progress for so long. This event has been being debated for a long time and has not yet reached a final conclusion. When the final conclusion comes, that will be ground-breaking news.

3. I would like to know more background on the article because it has been going on for over two decades. I would need to research the other articles and research that has been published on the debate to learn more about it. Also, I would like to know more about Abdelhamid Shaari as he is the main succession behind this debate. Another question I have is why this is such a big controversy and how it has become such a big controversy.

Which newsworthy events do you remember from your lifetime?

My responses:

1. Busch got re-elected
 I was in 2nd grade. I remember not knowing anything about him being re-elected. I found out in class. I remember what a big deal it was. I had no idea about politics or anything, so it was all new to me.

2. Hurricane Katrina
 I heard about it on the news right after it happened. I was a student at Whitfield. It was a huge catastrophe and there was a ton of damage. It seemed so surreal to see all the actual damage on TV. I remember seeing all the people who were now homeless lined up by big warehouses to find shelter and food of some sort. I got all my information from the news and discussions in class. Today, I am still learning about all the damage that was left over. 

3. Anna Nicole Smith
I got all my information on E and also, on channel 5 news. I remember watching THS (true hollywood story) on E news! I don't remember too much about it. That is how I found out about her and her tragic story.

Mom's responses:

1. Challenger exploding
2. 9-11
3. Princess Diane's wedding and death