Youth Justice

Our Island’s Treasure

High school student Kaiya Yonamine made this beautiful, hard-hitting documentary about the fight in Okinawa to protect an environmentally unique ocean bay from U.S. military plans.

Stop Failing Our Kids petition

January 2018

In Australia, opposition to a huge increase in police numbers and powers and the incarceration of children in adult prisons.

L.A. youth rise up to a socialist feminist challenge

April 2017

Whoever said young people are disengaged and uninterested was not looking in the right place! On March 24, I facilitated a workshop at the #RiseUp Youth Conference organized by the L.A. County Human Relations Commission. The goal of the conference was to inspire teens to organize around issues they care about. In addition to a… Read more »

Demanding an end to abuse of Indigenous youth in detention

October 2016

Abuse of Indigenous youth has been in the headlines again recently in Australia. Indigenous-led protests erupted swiftly with women playing important leadership roles. Melbourne rally, 30 July, called by Warriors of the Aboriginal Resistance. In the Northern Territory, these young people are 97 percent of all kids in custody. In July, a current affairs show… Read more »

School can be hell for queer youth

Winter/Spring 2005

“From the age of 12 until the age of 19, when I finally accepted my homosexuality and ‘came out’ to family and friends, I was suicidal. I was totally alone in the world, feeling as if no one would ever accept me for who I really was. My parents were outwardly homophobic. To my friends,… Read more »

Junior rates are Wage Slavery – Equal Pay NOW!

Winter/Spring 2003

According to the Howard Government, young people should be grateful for being paid peanuts. The “youth wage,” it claims, gives them a foot in the door and reduces unemployment. But does it create jobs or slaves? International labour standards and human rights conventions prohibit workplace discrimination on various grounds, including age. Similarly the Australian Industrial… Read more »