A boon of the Web for organisations dealing with justice and other issues is that they can get their message straight to the reader without having to fight their way past journalists or censors. There is a proliferation of Web sites put up by issues-driven organisations - but where are they and how good?
The answer is that they are all over the place and some of them are very, very good. What is needed is a reliable way of getting to the good ones. Fortunately, such a way exists. For this surfer's money, OneWorld Online (www.OneWorld.org) is the premier gateway to issues-driven organisations on the Web. The site has 200 members made up of global justice organisations concerned with everything from the environment to childhood education. You can get to the members' sites easily and quickly through OneWorld. First, though, you come to a nicely designed front page featuring coverage on issues as diverse as recycling of paper and whether it uses more energy than it saves, the war in Sudan and the situation of refugees internationally.
The front page will also lead you to the day's headlines. At the time of writing these were on the outcome of the Colombian elections, the EU debate on trade with Third World countries, the Friends of the Earth campaign against the use of mahogany and many more. If you prefer, you can search the news by theme.
You can also go from the front page to analysis pieces by leading journalists and to briefings on topics such as AIDS, child labour and the arms trade. And that's just some of what the site offers before you start exploring the home pages of the constituent organisations.
OneWorld is, simply, a jewel of the Internet and it is well worth the while of any intelligent surfer to spend some time there.
Also providing a very good gateway into justice issues is the New Internationalist (www.newint.org). Its approach goes far beyond the superficial. For instance, employers in Bangladesh's garment industry should be barred from using children's labour, right? Wrong, says the New Internationalist: when children (most of them girls) were expelled from the garment factories as a result of US pressure in 1993 their families' poverty drove them to more desperate avenues of employment - on the streets, in smaller, more hazardous workshops, or even, some claim, to prostitution.
The New Internationalist has been around for a long time as a well-produced monthly magazine. It's a very good reference and information source on issues of inequality and world poverty.
And as the example above suggests, it doesn't believe in trotting out simple answers. For instance, it advocates that those who oppose child labour should campaign for a decent education system as an alternative for these children - and should draw a distinction between (reasonable) child work and (unreasonable) child labour. An example of the latter, it reports, is the carpet industry of the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh where, according to a recent study, thousands of children in the carpet industry are kept in captivity, tortured and made to work for 20 hours a day without a break. Does war have a glamour that the hard grind of economic survival cannot match? Consider Nicaragua: remember when liberals on this side of the Atlantic cheered on the Sandinistas in their war against the undemocratic ruling elite of the country? Today Nicaragua struggles with a crushing debt (per head of the population it spends $17 dollars annually on health, $17 a year on education and $47 servicing its debt) - but who, on this side of the Atlantic, cares? The European Network on Debt and Development (www.oneworld.org/eurodad) co-ordinates the activities of non-governmental organisations working on debt issues. Its austere, frill-free site has a lot of good solid information on the issue of Third World debt. The information on Nicaragua is from an on-site newsletter which, of course, covers a wide variety of countries. Pay it a visit and see how the other half lives - especially if you're an old liberal.
At the age of 30, Jane Chisesa has already retired but not for a good reason. As a nurse at the University Teaching Hospital in Zambia, she is one of the many staff who got an infectious disease because the hospital cannot afford such basics as masks and gloves. She has AIDS and TB. Chisesa says she may have got HIV through an infected needle and the TB from the congested wards. She says at least three out of every 10 nurses have either TB which is HIV/AIDS-related or they are suffering from another communicable disease.
Her story is on AFRONET (www.oneworld.org/afronet), a project of the Inter-African Network for Human Rights. The network is made up human rights organisations in 22 African countries. It's a well-presented, interesting site with a strong emphasis on justice issues. As a site coming from within Africa it is particularly valuable to those with an interest in African affairs.
Finally, a favourite, single-issue site is maintained by Casa Alianza (www.casa-alianza.org). If off-duty police officers were to go around shooting homeless children in New York, Paris or London, the media would be filled with reports, analysis and comment on the matter. But in Central America there is a steady series of such murders and little is reported about them in the West. They may as well be happening on another planet.
Casa Alianza is an independent, non-profit organisation working on behalf of street children in Guatemala, Honduras and Mexico. Its reports on the latest murders of children frequently appear on the OneWorld site. It asks visitors to the site to send emails to Central American newspapers expressing concern about the murders.
A final word on the Casa Alianza site: the graphics on the front page can take a long time to load. If your browser allows you to switch off graphics (without having to learn brain surgery), then do so as a precaution.
Padraig O'Morain, social affairs correspondent, is at: pomorain@irish-times.ie