Key Quotes - Social Issues

A world perspective in bite-size chunks
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Last update: Wednesday 25th March
 
Only 58% of the people of Guatemala have access to a secondary school. 75% of the population live below the poverty line.
Social IssuesThe Toybox Charity – April / May 2005
 
Just over one third of the population of Mongolia is under 15, with almost one half under 18 and only 6.4% over 60 years old. The percentage of children on the streets is increasing. Estimates vary, but a conservative figure is 5,000 out of a total population of only 2.5m people.
Social IssuesChristianity – March 2005
 
There are alarming trends in the thinking of UK young people revealed in the report, British Social Attitudes. Among these who would claim a religious affiliation 71% thought it was all right for a couple to live together without marriage, and 68% of these that it was a good idea to live together first where marriage was ultimately the goal. Only 13% thought premarital sex was always wrong, 45% mostly, sometimes or rarely wrong and 39% that it was not wrong at all.
Social IssuesProtestant Truth - March / April 2005
 
Homophobic bullying in British schools is forcing thousands of gay pupils to leave early, prompting calls for the introduction of sexual orientation lessons to the curriculum. Stonewall, the gay equality charity, estimates that up to 60,000 schoolchildren are the victims of homophobic bullying. As part of their Education for All campaign, Stonewall has drawn up a 10 point plan to encourage teachers to create an inclusion culture that does not assume all pupils are heterosexual. There are an estimated 450,000 gay and lesbian pupils in schools. But research done in 2001 by the University of York has shown that gay pupils with six GCSEs are more likely than heterosexual students to leave school at 16.
Social IssuesThe Independent on Sunday - 30th January 2005
 
Spain's new Socialist government has approved a bill to legalise same sex marriages. The predominantly Roman Catholic nation will one of only a few countries to recognise gay marriages.
Social IssuesEvangelical Times - February 2005
 
56% of girls achieve top grades at GCSE compared to 45% of boys. They are also the majority in higher education; 1 in 5 women now admit to drinking more than they should, fast approaching the levels of men (one in three); 24% of women smoke, almost as many as men (28%); 61% of women have a driving licence, a figure rising so fast they will soon catch up with men on 81%; 30 years ago women earned 63% of what men were paid for the same jobs. Now they earn 83% of the going rate; 8% of women achieve managerial positions at work, as opposed to 18% of men; 80 is the average life expectancy of a woman, four years longer than a man, although they are now more likely to suffer from depression, strokes and pneumonia.
Social IssuesThe Independent On Sunday – 23rd January 2005
 
Research published by CARE suggests that many children living in two-parent families are left in poverty, while children in lone parent families are often lifted out of poverty, thanks to the way the credit and benefit system has been designed. CARE claim that in a large number of cases, couples living apart would be better off financially, in some cases by as much as £200 per week.
Social IssuesChristianity – February 2005
 
The first week of 2005 sees the start of a new war on poverty called for by the Pope. In his New Year message for the World Day of Peace, the Pontiff called on world leaders, Christians, and men and women of good will everywhere to work all out for peace by overcoming what he described as the "evils" of poverty, fratricidal conflict and injustice.
Social IssuesThe Universe – 2nd January 2005
 
A global campaign to mobilise millions of Christians in 100 countries to press their governments to halve poverty by 2015 was launched at the UN in October by the Archbishop of Cape Town, the Most Rev. Njongonkulu Ndungane. The Archbishop urged churches around the world to take a lead in putting pressure on governments to achieve the eight Millennium Development Goals of halving poverty, declaring: "How can we claim to follow Jesus if we are not prepared to work to achieve his gospel good news for the poor?"
Social IssuesEvangelicals Now – December 2004
 
Over one million children in Britain live in bad housing - enough to fill the cities of Edinburgh, Bath and Manchester.Homelessness among families has increased by 17% since 1997.More than half a million families in Britain live in officially overcrowded housing.One in 12 children in Britain are more likely to develop diseases such as bronchitis, TB or asthma because of bad housing.The number of children who could be losing out on a proper education because they live in bad housing would fill 33,000 classrooms.Homeless children miss out on a quarter of their schooling.One local authority estimated that 400 children were not going to school because of their housing problems.
Social IssuesThe Baptist Times – 25th November 2004
 
Aid agencies and Christian charities responded with urgency to the disaster that hit countries round the Indian Ocean on Boxing Day.In the first 24 hours after lines for donating were opened, more than £5 million were raised through the Disaster Emergency Committee, a network of 12 aid agencies. At the time of writing, the overall figure had risen to £76 million. Chancellor Gordon Brown is also calling for a suspension of the debt of the countries affected.
Social IssuesThe Church Of England Newspaper – 7th January 2005
 
Britain's suicide rate has fallen to its lowest level since the Second World War and is now one of the lowest in the Western world, figures to be published today show. Suicides and unexplained deaths dropped to a rate of 84 per million last year, lower than the United States and bettered only by Greece, Italy and Portugal in Europe..In Britain, one of the most dramatic falls is in suicide among women aged 45 to 75, which now stand at one-third of the level in the 1960s.
Social IssuesThe Independent – 29th October 2004
 
The most important characteristic of being British is the ability to speak English, according to a new report. Knowing the language even came above having British citizenship in the study by the National Centre for Social Research. The research also found attitudes to immigration have hardened in Britain over the past decade. In 1995, 65% of people thought the number of immigrants to Britain should be reduced. The figure rose to 74% last year.
Social IssuesThe Sentinel – 7th December 2004
 
The French government plans to help the integration of Muslims by setting up a foundation to build mosques and by teaching imams the language, laws and customs of France. Dominique de Villepin, the Interior Minister, said yesterday it was "unacceptable" that three quarters of the country's 1,200 Muslim religious leaders were foreign and a third could not speak French.
Social IssuesThe Independent – 8th December 2004
 
The intelligence services will be given unprecedented access to the government database underpinning the controversial identity card scheme, the Home Office said yesterday, prompting accusations of Big Brother style surveillance of people's everyday lives.The Home Office had originally planned to phase in ID cards from 2007-08, as people applied for new or replacement passports, with combined driving licences and ID cards following a few years later. However passport applicants from 2007-08 onwards will now get a new biometric ID card.
Social IssuesThe Independent – 28th October 2004
 
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