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I once had this nightmare:
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I'm standing in the middle
of a deserted field full of land mines.
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In real life, I love to hike,
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but every time I want to go on a hike,
it makes me nervous.
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I have the thought in the back of my mind
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that I might lose a limb.
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This underlying fear started 10 years ago,
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after I met Mohammed,
a cluster bomb survivor
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of the summer 2006
Israel-Hezbollah War in Lebanon.
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Mohammed, like so many
other survivors all around the world,
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had to live through the horrifying
repercussions of cluster munitions
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on a daily basis.
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When the one-month conflict
started in Lebanon,
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I was still working
at Agence France-Press in Paris.
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I remember how I was glued to the screens,
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anxiously following the news.
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I wanted to reassure myself
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that the falling bombs
missed my parents' home.
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When I arrived in Beirut
on assignment to cover that war,
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I was relieved to be united
with my family,
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after they had finally managed
to escape southern Lebanon.
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The day the war was over,
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I remember seeing this image --
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one of blocked roads,
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of displaced people eagerly rushing
south, back to their homes,
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regardless of what they would find.
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An estimate of four million
cluster submunitions
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were spread in Lebanon during
the 34-day conflict.
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Mohammed lost both legs
during the last week of the conflict.
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The fact that he lives a five-minute
drive from my parents' home
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made it easier to follow
him through the years.
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It was now almost 10 years
since we first met.
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I saw the young boy
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who had to endure
physical and emotional trauma.
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I saw the teenager who tried
to offer his friends tattoos,
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in return for a set fee of five dollars.
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And I know the young, jobless man
who spends hours surfing the Internet
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trying to meet a girl who might
become his girlfriend.
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His fate and the effects
of losing his legs
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are now his daily reality.
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Survivors of bomb trauma like Mohammed
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have to deal with so many details
that never occurred to us.
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Who would have imagined
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that so many daily tasks we do
or take for granted,
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such as going to the beach or even
picking up something from the floor,
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would become sources
of stress and anxiety?
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Well, that's what eventually
became of Mohammed,
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due to his inflexible prosthetic legs.
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Ten years ago, I had no clue
what a cluster bomb was,
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nor its horrifying implications.
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I learned that this indiscriminate
weapon was used
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in so many parts of the world
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and continues to kill on a regular basis,
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without distinguishing
between a military target
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or a child.
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I naively asked myself,
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"But seriously, who made those weapons?
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And what for?"
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Let me explain to you
what a cluster bomb is.
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It's a large canister
filled with bomblets.
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When it's dropped from the air,
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it opens up in midair to release
hundreds of bomblets.
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They scatter around wide areas
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and on impact,
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many fail to explode.
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Those unexploded ones end up
just like landmines --
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sitting on the ground,
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waiting for their next target.
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If someone steps on them by accident
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or picks them up,
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they can explode.
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These weapons are extremely unpredictable,
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which makes the threat even bigger.
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One day, a farmer can work
his land without a problem.
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The next day, he can make fire
and burn some branches,
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and the submunitions close by
could be set off because of the heat.
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The problem is children mistake
those bomblets for toys,
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because they can look like
bouncy balls or soda cans.
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Being a documentary photographer,
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I decided to go back to Lebanon
a few months after the conflict ended
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to meet cluster bomb survivors.
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And I met a few --
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[Usain and Rasha],
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who both lost a leg to submunitions.
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Their stories are similar to so many
other kids' stories across the world,
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and are a testimony
to the horrifying implications
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of the continuous use of such weapons.
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That's when I met Mohammed,
in January 2007.
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He was 11 years old,
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and I met him exactly four months
after his accident.
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When I first saw him,
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he was going through painful physiotherapy
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to recover from his fresh wounds.
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Still in shock at such a young age,
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Mohammed was struggling
to get used to his new body.
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He would even wake up sometimes
at night wanting to scratch his lost feet.
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What drew me closer to his story
was my instant realization
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of the difficulties Mohammed
was likely to face in the future --
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that what he has been suffering
while adjusting to his injury
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at the age of 11,
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would increase manyfold.
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Even before his disability,
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Mohammed's life wasn't easy.
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He was born in the Rashidiya camp
for Palestinian refugees,
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and this is where he still lives.
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Lebanon holds some 400,000
Palestinian refugees
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and they suffer from discriminatory laws.
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They're not allowed to work
in the public sector
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or practice certain professions,
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and are denied the right to own property.
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This is one of the reasons
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why Mohammed doesn't really
regret dropping out of school
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right after his injury.
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He said, "What's the point
of a university degree
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when I can't find a job to start with?"
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Cluster bomb use creates a vicious circle
of impact on communities,
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and not only the lives of their victims.
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Many who get injured by this weapon
drop out of school,
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can't find jobs or even lose their jobs,
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therefore losing the ability
to provide for their families.
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This is not to mention
the continuous physical pain
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and the experience of feeling isolated.
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These weapons affect
the poorest of the poor.
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The high medical cost
is a burden to the families.
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They end up relying
on humanitarian agencies,
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which is insufficient and unsustainable,
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especially when injuries require
lifelong support to the injured.
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Ten years after Mohammed's injury,
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he is still unable to afford
proper prosthetic legs.
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He's very cautious with his steps,
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as a couple of falls over the years
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brought him embarrassment
among his friends.
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He joked that since he doesn't have legs,
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some days he tries to walk on his hands.
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One of the worst yet invisible
impacts of the weapon
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is the psychological scars it leaves.
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In one of Mohammed's
early medical reports,
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he was diagnosed with signs of PTSD.
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He suffered from anxiety,
poor appetite, sleep disturbance
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and showed signs of anger.
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The reality is Mohammed never received
proper help to fully recover.
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His current obsession
is to leave Lebanon at any cost --
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even if it meant embarking
on a hazardous journey
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along with refugees drifting towards
Europe today through the Mediterranean.
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Knowing how risky such a journey would be,
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he said, "If I were to die on the way,
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it doesn't matter."
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To Mohammed, he is dead here, anyway.
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Cluster bombs are a world problem,
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as this munition keeps destroying
and hurting whole communities
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for generations to come.
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In an online interview with the director
of the Mines Advisory Group,
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Jamie Franklin,
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he said,
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"The US forces dropped over two million
tons of munitions over Laos.
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If they couldn't find
their targets in Vietnam,
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there were free-drop areas in Laos
where planes would drop their loads
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before going back to base,
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because it's dangerous to land
with loaded planes."
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According to the International
Committee of the Red Cross,
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in Laos alone -- one of the poorest
countries in the world --
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nine to 27 million unexploded
submunitions remain.
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Some 11,000 people have been killed
or injured since '73.
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This lethal weapon has been used
by over 20 states during armed conflicts
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in over 35 countries,
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such as Ukraine, Iraq and Sudan.
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So far, 119 states have joined
an international treaty
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banning cluster bombs,
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which is officially called
the Convention on Cluster Munitions.
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But some of the biggest producers
of cluster munitions --
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namely, the United States,
Russia and China --
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remain outside of this lifesaving treaty
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and continue to produce them,
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reserve the right to produce
them in the future,
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keep those harmful weapons
in their stockpiles
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and even possibly use them in the future.
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Cluster bombs have reportedly
been used most recently
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in the ongoing conflicts
in Yemen and Syria.
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According to research
on the worldwide investments
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in cluster munitions producers
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by Pax, a Dutch-based NGO,
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financial institutions invested
billions of US dollars
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into companies that make
cluster munitions.
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The majority of these institutions
are based in countries
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that have not yet signed
the Convention on Cluster Munitions.
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Getting back to Mohammed,
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one of the few jobs he was able
to find was picking lemons.
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When I ask him if it's safe
to work in the field he said,
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"I'm not sure."
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Research shows that cluster munitions
often contaminate areas
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where agriculture is the main
source of income.
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According to Handicap
International's research,
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98 percent of those killed or injured
by cluster munitions are civilians.
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Eighty-four percent
of casualties are males.
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In countries where
these people have no choice
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but to work in those fields,
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they simply do it
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and risk it.
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Mohammed is the only male
to three sisters.
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Culturally, he's expected
to provide for his family,
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but he simply can't.
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He tried to have so many different jobs,
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but he couldn't keep any
due to his physical disability
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and the less-than-friendly environment
to people with disabilities,
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to say the least.
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It hurts him a lot when he goes
out looking for a job,
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and he's turned away
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with a small amount of money
paid to him out of pity.
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He said, "I'm not here to beg for money,
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I just want to earn it."
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Mohammed today is 21 years old.
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He's illiterate,
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and he communicates with voice messages.
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Here is one of his messages.
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(Audio) Mohammed: (Speaking in Arabic)
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Laura boushnak:
He said, "My dream is to run,
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and I'm pretty sure once I start running,
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I would never stop."
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Thank you.
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(Applause)