EarthAction

Preventing Child Marriage

Child marriage is an age old custom in many countries including India, Afghanistan, and in several countries in Sub-Saharan Africa. One of EarthAction's Partner Organizations, HAQ: Centre for Child Rights that is based in Delhi, India, is playing a leading role to strengthen existing systems for the prevention of child marriage. Although child marriage was made illegal in India in 2006 by the Child Marriage Prohibition and Regulation Act, the law remains unenforced in most places.

HAQ points out that while boys and girls are both victims of child marriage, it is the girls who are the most vulnerable. Girls are often viewed by their parents as a "financial burden" as their dowries increase with their age. The serious impact of child marriage on girls includes: less education, poor emotional health, sanctioned marital rape, loss of freedom, a decrease in their confidence, the large age difference between husband and wife causes long-term difficulties, the possibility of spending a lifetime as a widow, higher infant mortality rates and increased numbers of children born with birth defects. Many girls are even trafficked into child marriage.

HAQ is using strategic methods to work at the local community level and at the highest governmental level to protect the rights of girls, change the culture, and enforce the laws. Partnered with the MV Foundation and Jabala Action Research Organisation, HAQ is focused on campaigns to prevent child marriage in two states: West Bengal and Andhra Pradesh. The strength of their initiative lies in their systems approach to preventing this social evil. HAQ emphasizes that child marriage is illegal and that without full enforcement of the law child marriage will continue. In local communties they sponsor rallies, educational committees, and advocacy groups. In West Bengal, HAQ helped to integrate survivors of child marriage into a local girl's football team where they can build their own self-esteem and help other girls to resist child marriage.

To learn more information about preventing child marriage, visit HAQ's webpage.To join the conversation be sure to like HAQ's Facebook page or follow HAQ on Twitter.  

The above piece was based primarily on materials provided by HAQ: Centre for Child Rights.

Picture accessed on forcechange.com

Posted by Taylor Gustafson, EarthAction Intern

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New Hopes for Getting the Lead out of Solar

Solar energy is arguably our most viable low cost energy source. It is forever sustainable and easily captured and converted. But now the technology may have taken yet another leap forward. To date the foundational technology behind photovoltaics was a structure called perovskite, which has been made with lead. Using tin instead of lead perovskite as the harvester of light, a team of Northwestern University researchers has created a new solar cell with "good efficiency". This good efficiency solar cell is low-cost, environmentally friendly and can be easily made using "bench" chemistry - no fancy equipment or hazardous materials. 

"This is a breakthrough in taking the lead out of a very promising type of solar cell, called a perovskite," said Mercouri G. Kanatzidis, an inorganic chemist and tin expert. "Tin is a very viable material, and we have shown the material does work as an efficient solar cell."

Solar cells have typically used a structure called a perovskite made with lead as the light-absorbing material. The new solar cell is made with tin instead. Lead perovskite has achieved 15 percent efficiency. It is expected that tin perovskite will reenergize the field by matching and possibly surpassing that efficiency making them the "next big thing in photovoltaics".

Kanatzidis developed, synthesized and analyzed the material and then turned to Northwestern collaborator and nanoscientist Robert P. H. Chang for help in engineering a solar cell that worked well.

"Our tin-based perovskite layer acts as an efficient sunlight absorber that is sandwiched between two electric charge transport layers for conducting electricity to the outside world," said Chang. 

Kanatzidis touts their solid-state tin solar cell efficiency rating of just below 6 percent as a very good starting point. Two things make the material special: it can absorb most of the visible light spectrum, and the perovskite salt can be dissolved reforming upon solvent removal without heating.

"Other scientists will see what we have done and improve on our methods," Kanatzidis said. "There is no reason this new material can't reach an efficiency better than 15 percent, which is what the lead perovskite solar cell offers. Tin and lead are in the same group in the periodic table, so we expect similar results."

Article courtesy of Environmental News Network. Read more at Northwestern University.

Image courtesy of DOE NREL