World Street Children News

Last Updated: Tuesday, 21 December, 2004, 02:40 GMT
Child glue sniffing rises in Morocco
By Pascale Harter
BBC News, Rabat
Butane lighter fuel kills more than half of young solvent abusers
A non-governmental organisation in Morocco says substance abuse among children has reached alarming levels.

 

The Baiti association says 98% of children living on the streets in Morocco are now addicted to sniffing glue and the number is growing.

They shine shoes, beg from passers-by or even sell their bodies in return for the $3 they need to buy a tube of glue.

According to a government survey, more than 5,000 children are living on the streets of Casablanca alone.

Almost all of them are glue addicts.

As poverty and unemployment continue to rise in Morocco, more parents are unable to provide for their children, and more children end up living on the streets.

Crisis worsens

Cheap and easy to get, the children use glue to numb the feelings of cold, hunger and rejection.

A United Nations report says glue sniffing is making street children prone to tuberculosis, and they are contracting sexually transmitted diseases as they fall back on prostitution to pay for their habit.

Najat M’jid, president of Baiti, Morocco’s first and only association for the protection of street children, says the situation is urgent as some street children sniff between five and 20 tubes per day.

"We have to work with the street children very, very soon because when they become dependent on glue it’s very difficult to build with them a life project," Mr M’jid says.

"The impact of the glue on the brain really is a step to marginalisation and delinquency," he says.

Baiti is using sport to teach street children about the effects of glue on their lungs, and offers psychiatric counselling.

But the association is overstretched and cannot compensate for the lack of state-run social services.

Najat M’jid believes if more is not done soon, Morocco is heading for a street children crisis on the scale of Brazil.

Street kids sore over media sensationalising their woes

(Archive)
By Bishnu Prasad Aryal

DHARAN, Dec. 17, 2004: Street children in Sunsari district are irritated with media for sensationalising their plight – neither they want to talk about their woes on how they came to the street nor do they want to be called ‘street children’.

“Many people from various organisations came to interview us and take photographs, but they do nothing for us and they never return. No one comes to share our pain in reality but only to profit from our miseries,” said Saroj Rai of Daju-Bhai Child Club, the only club of the children living in the streets. There are about 70 street children in Dharan.

Rai said that he had been interviewed more than 10 times by the local and national media persons but their condition has not improved. “Rather, it has worsened.”

“So don’t ask me more about how I was thrown to the gutter of the street and living a dog’s life. I can’t hope much from you too,” he expressed his perception to this reporter. The children said that they were slightly better off after they established the club about five years ago. The club has done more for us than the assurances given by the elite groups, they said. “We share pains and try to console each other,” Rai said.

Street children, who are in dire condition, are brought to the contact centre of a local organisation, Underprivileged Children Association (UPCA) Nepal, which has encouraged and helped them to establish the club.

After visiting the contact centre, some of the children, however, do not hesitate to tell their tales of grief and anguish.

Dil Bahadur Khadka, 16, left home four years ago as his father used to kick him frequently. “Sometimes, I used to bunk the classes and smoke with my friends,” said Khadka. “As my father knew it, I was severely beaten. Then, I decided to leave the house,” he added. Khadka comes from a poor family of five daughters and three sons. But disgusted by the abominable life — picking plastics and rusted metals, having to go without food and straying as mongrels in the cold and deserted streets, he remembers that home is where the heart is. “I visit home occasionally.”

“When I reach my home, my father scold me with vulgar words like ‘khate’ (a mean word for street children). Then I don’t like to stay there even for a moment and come back to the street,” he said.

Fifteen-year-old Umesh BK’s life is no less touching than others. “My father went to India when I was small. But he never returned.” His mother eloped with another man with his two younger brothers. “I was abandoned,” BK went on.

“A cousin told me to visit the contact centre where I am sheltered now. I am studying in Class 5,” he added.

All these children are also worried of the insurgency that has added panicky miseries in their lives. “The conflict takes the lives of elders. Those death tolls turn into a demon orphaning and pushing us in the streets,” they said.

“We have raised the voices on domestic violence, exploitation and child rights,” said Rai. “But we do not dare to speak against the conflict due to the fear.”

However, it is a good sign that children of child clubs across the country have started voicing against their deplorable condition.

According to Rajiv Lochan Adhikari, manager of the Consortium of Organisations Working for Child Clubs, there are 3,000 child clubs working under 40 organisations in 22 districts.

SOURCE: The Rising Nepal

CBF of North Carolina builds future for Kiev street children

By Carla Wynn, CBF Communications
December 15, 2004

The Village of Hope, a residential foster care facility near Kiev, provides street children with a chance for a different life.

KIEV, Ukraine – As the world’s attention focuses on Ukraine during a time of political unrest, Cooperative Baptist Fellowship of North Carolina helps brings hope to the region’s forgotten children.

The street children of Kiev live under buildings, in heating and sewage tunnels, or wherever they can find shelter. Some scrounge the streets for food, or steal, and others prostitute for money so that they can eat. CBFNC hopes The Village of Hope, a residential foster care facility half an hour northwest of Kiev, will give these street children a chance for a different life.

Now in its early stages, The Village of Hope is a 17-acre site with seven buildings all needing renovation. Formerly a communist youth camp, the site has been unused since 1986. This summer 176 volunteers from CBFNC worked on completing the first building for foster care families, which could house 30 children.

"We want to bring street children into a foster care community. When they leave, we want them to have a job and be educated," said Jim Fowler, missions coordinator of CBFNC, which has poured more than $200,000 into the project.

Working side by side with Ukrainian laborers, the 15 volunteer teams did everything from painting to roofing.

The Village is owned by Ukrainian Baptists but has an international board of directors. "It’s all about the kids; it’s not about who’s in charge," Fowler said.

The Village of Hope has a consistent CBF presence through Gennady and Mina Podgaisky, CBF Global Missions field personnel in Kiev. The Podgaiskys coordinate the Coalition of Street Children ministries and workers, which seeks to be a network of resources and ministries to help alleviate this crisis.

The number of street children in Kiev exploded after the USSR disbanded, bringing an economic collapse in many of the former republics.

The abundance of street children is a relatively new phenomenon, according to Caroline Crume, a Campbell University Divinity School student who coordinated an 11-member team including four other Campbell students. When the USSR disbanded, it brought an economic collapse in many of the former republics. The inability of many parents to support their own children, combined with substance abuse and the inactivity of social programs and services forced many children to the streets.

"It’s a hidden problem you find only if you’re looking for it," Crume said.

Some estimates indicate as many as 40,000 street children in a city of 4 million, according to Bill Mason, a Wingate Baptist Church member who has been on five trips to Ukraine.

"We can’t deal with the whole problem, but hopefully we’ll be able to house some of them," Mason said.

Mason and his wife, Marie, spent six weeks at the Village as summer site coordinators. Bill, a retired manufacturing engineer, was on the original team that selected the property. He estimates the construction can be completed in five years if the necessary funds and volunteer teams can be secured.

"I hope it becomes a haven for the street children of Kiev, and that we would be able to house and feed and clothe and give them a better chance in life," Marie said. "They don’t have much of a chance now; they’re just holding on."

For information about volunteering or donations, contact CBFNC at (888) 822-1944.

CBF is a fellowship of Baptist Christians and churches who share a passion for the Great Commission and a commitment to Baptist principles of faith and practice. The Fellowship’s mission is to serve Christians and churches as they discover and fulfill their God-given mission.

Restoring smiles of Pakistan youth

(Archive)
The Navhind times

Eleven-year-old Aamir, with teeth stained a dirty yellow, gives a full smile and asks: “Will you send me back (home)? Can you?” This is a common request the boys at the Atique Stadium (situated in Lahore’s famous market place, Heera Mandi) make, when anyone meets them for the first time.

About 30 boys live inside the stadium, mostly an arena for wrestling matches. Most are addicted to inhaling Smad Bond, a cheap petroleum-based shoe adhesive, easily available at hardware, or even stationery shops. The boys carry bottles of the solvent all the time. The glue appears to be the cheapest and most accessible addictive escape for the boys. “You forget the pain, you feel on top of the world and nothing and no one bothers you anymore,” says Waseem, 14, when questioned why he inhales the glue.

Some boys beg or work as car cleaners to earn a living. About 40 per cent are pickpockets. All the children (most are between 8 and 14) are part of the SMILE project, initiated in September 2003 by Nai Zindagi (NZ), an NGO. NZ aims at helping children with de-addiction and leading a more safe and secure life. It has also started an HIV/AIDS prevention programme. “This (SMILE project) came about naturally as a response to the need expressed by the street children themselves,” says the project officer Muhammad Ayub. About 569 street children (with only 20-25 girls) are registered with SMILE, a project funded by AUSAID.

Dr Shaikh Muhammad Saeed, who visits the boys regularly to take care of their health needs, says almost 2 per cent of the boys suffer from sexually transmitted infections (STls). The boys are often abused - by gang leaders (older boys), adults looking for sex on the streets, and the police. “Most of the boys suffer from chest infections caused due to sleeping in the open and sniffing glue. Skin infections are also quite common. `Cutting’- a term, which indicates the practice of boys inflicting cuts on themselves - is also common. The boys suffer from depression and have very low self-esteem,” says Dr Saeed.

Azad Foundation, a Karachi-based NGO, estimates there are at least 70,000 street children in Pakistan. About 13,000-15,000 are in Karachi and about 5,000-6,000 in Lahore. According to their study, ‘Solvent Abuse Among Street Children in Pakistan, June 2004’, about 66 per cent of street children were involved in homosexual activities in Karachi alone, and 90 per cent were sexually abused by strangers. Further, the study says, there are about 5 per cent girls among the street children. But once they reach adolescence, they become ‘invisible’ as they land up in brothels.

According to Ayub, these children run away from their homes due to poverty, domestic violence, broken homes and parental negligence. Azad Foundation’s study says that most street children are from poor families that are very large. “One interesting aspect of runaway kids is that they are almost never the eldest or the youngest child in the family They (the ones in-between) crave for the love they have never been given and thus the other children on the street become their family,” says the study.

NZ’s attempt has been to give these children a sense of belonging. “We play with them, listen to them, provide them with what they need, which is very basic…that is all,” says Ayub.

NZ’s team visits the boys every day (except Sunday) at four locations - Bilal Ganj, Lahore Railway Station, Atique Stadium and Lakshmi Chowk. The team members arrive in an autorickshaw which displays the SMILE logo - a black and yellow, bright smiling face - painted on it. The vehicle is equipped with medical equipment, medicines, food, clothing, bedding, drinking water, soap and anti-lice shampoo.

All the five SMILE team members are former drug users. “We know what stigmatisation is, what it feels like to lose the trust of loved ones. We know exactly how it feels to be really down in the pits. The fact that we’ve gone through all this qualifies us to take on this responsibility,” says Ayub, a post-graduate.

“My predicament was far worse than theirs (the street children) - I didn’t even have clothes on me,” says 23-year-old Kamran Farrukh, one of the team members. “I ran away from home after my mother died. I was in Class 9 then, and had started mingling with boys who were experimenting with drugs. I started living off the streets and experimented with everything - marijuana, opium, heroin and alcohol. One day, I decided I wanted to get away from all that. if I can do it, so can these kids. These kids are lucky…they have people who care about them, who don’t moralise or judge them.”

Once Ayub and his colleagues are confident that the children have accepted them, they start the interactive activities and guided discussions to educate them. “We play games like cricket and football so that they remain distracted and don’t sniff the glue. We also have counselling sessions where we talk to them about everything under the Sun - from personal hygiene, self-grooming, to etiquette and even STls,” says DrSaeed.

“This helps improve their knowledge and can lead to reduced drug use. They are also educated about safe sex, employment prospects and how to relate to people and the police. During this process, we also choose the natural-loom leaders who will be trained as peer educators and will take our cause further,” says Ayub.

So, why are the children not sent back home?

“Many do go back but they return after a month or so. They have become so accustomed to the freedom of living on their own that it is difficult for them to settle into their own family,” says Ayub. Navaid Hasan, Chief Executive of Azad Foundation, says in their study, “They are misfits in their family unless they have undergone psychotherapy. The family must also meet them halfway and understand why the child left in the first place.” (Courtesy — Women’s Feature Service)

SOURCE: The Navhind Times

UNICEF encourages youth programming

HA NOI — Homelessness, drug abuse, sexual and economic exploitation, trafficking and domestic violence are problems Viet Nam must work to solve in order to protect its children, said UNICEF’s representative to Viet Nam.

Despite impressive progress in reducing poverty the country must work harder to protect its most vulnerable citizens, the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) representative Anthony Bloomberg said on Thursday in Ha Noi.

Speaking at a conference to launch UNICEF’s annual global report, entitled this year, Childhood under Threat, Bloomberg said HIV/AIDS, conflict and poverty were the three biggest threats to children worldwide.

He said an estimated 2.5 million children in Viet Nam are in need of special protection, including 150,000 orphans, over 1 million children with disabilities, 16,000 street children and 23,000 child labourers.

"For many of these children and adolescents, a safe, protected and healthy childhood is still only a dream, " he said.

"It’s now time to put children first."

This year’s report examined child poverty, based on seven basic needs; access to adequate shelter, sanitation, safe drinking water, information, health care, education and food.

The figures indicate that a large number of children in Viet Nam lack these basic necessities, especially those living in the ethnic minority inhabited areas.

The UNICEF report found that about 10 million children in Viet Nam live below the international poverty line. The figure accounts for 30 per cent of the whole population. "Viet Nam is now starting to develop it’s new National Social Economic Development Plan for 2006-2010 and I propose that a child focused approach to poverty reduction could be a vital entry point for general poverty reduction and ensuring the necessary social safety," Bloomberg said.

The report also calls on donors and governments to invest more money in children’s issue.

Viet Nam received a pledge of over US$3.4 billion for next year in official development assistance (ODA) from donor nations last week.

Bloomberg said with such funding and the national anti-poverty plan, Viet Nam has the opportunity to make quality investments in children. "The highest development returns are obtained when society invests in its children."

But he also added it’s a challenge for the country and ODA community to ensure the investment will be sustainable.

Deputy director of the National Committee for Population, Family and Children, Phung Ngoc Hung said the Vietnamese Government has taken steps to provide better care and protection to children.

He stressed the importance of the newly-revised Law on Child Care, Protection and Education in improving the lives of children, especially disadvantage ones.

However, challenges remain in meeting the requirements of the International Convention on the Rights of the Child that Viet Nam was the first country in Asia and second in the world to ratify.

"The biggest challenge to Viet Nam now is to narrow the income gap. The market economy has resulted in an increasing number of working children, street children and migrant children," Hung said. — VNS

India - Children’s own bank

(Archive)
An effort pioneered in India to organise a formal bank for street children and run by children themselves is now spreading across India and the world. For just over 3 years, Children’s Development Bank [CDB] aka Bal Vikas Bank, has been running in Delhi. It serves 300 street children through 2 branches and 4 collection centres.

CDB is an innovation of Butterflies, an organisation that works with children living by their wits, on their own. Rita Panicker who heads Butterflies, was first struck by the pluck and fortitude of these kids making a fist of life on Mumbai’s commuter trains. She fell in love with them and when she moved to Delhi in the late eighties, she was automatically drawn to Delhi’s own street children. Butterflies began its work in 1988.

Their strategy is to have trained volunteers patrol the streets and look for street children in trouble. There are many hazards these children are subject to. Their horrors come in the form of drugs, sex, police and thugs. Befriending them and getting them to trust is hard, but once they are won over, it is always heartbreaking to see the optimism and zest they have for life despite hardships. They rarely ask for handouts and are ready to face the odds.

Over the years Butterflies, has intervened in the case of 25,000 children. Relationships have been for varying lengths of time. "Our first endeavour is always to help them go back home," says Rita. There has even been a case of a lad sent back, with an escort, to his family in Bangladesh. But quite often, children’s memory of unhappiness and physical abuse is so extreme that they opt for a life on the streets. For these, Butterflies provides a focal point. They induct them into education by whatever means that is appropriate— casual, formal and distance. Children have counselors they can turn to, a place where they can get a subsidised meal and a shelter for the night.

Efforts are paying off. Today Butterflies has 4 shelters in Delhi. Hundreds of children are getting some education and six have enrolled in the Indira Gandhi National Open University. 48 of them are true alumni, having spent most of their first 18 years of life with Butterflies. Two of them are also street educators. A few are married and content with life.

In April, 2001 when funding became available for starting a Youth Bank modeled after the one in the UK, Rita discussed it with children at the shelter. They showed they had a mind of their own: they wanted to start and run a bank exclusively for children. Thus began the exciting new adventure with backing from various donor agencies—Comic Relief, UK, the Ford Foundation, USA and Misereor, Germany and the Ministry of Social Justice, India.

About 300 children account holder/ members deposit cash saved from their earnings. 20% of this is loaned out to members for sound business ideas, as long as they have two guarantors. A part of the profit from interest is paid out and the other part rolled into the capital. The bank has two full time managers and a street canvasser promoting the idea among non-members.

It turned out that the greatest relief for children was that there was somewhere they could safe-keep their money. Often they just spent it all, lest the police or pick-pockets should relieve them of it. The bank also has a strict rule of not advancing loans to adults: very often estranged parents show up when they learn their child has put away some money.

Borrowers from CDB have also to fulfil the condition that they continue their education. Life at the shelters is friendly but also disciplined. Children have pooled in and bought themselves a TV and a DVD player, but it is switched off when its time to study or sleep. They run a community kitchen and give themselves inexpensive, nutritious meals. And many have taken to catering as a business. Shelters are for boys only. Rita says that the majority of run-aways are boys. Girls do roam the streets but each invariably returns to a home of sorts. Girls are however, account holders in CDB.

The idea has caught on. The Delhi CDB is a lab from where a replicable model has evolved , complete with registers, passbooks, ID cards and an operation manual. They also impart training and send start up teams. So far there are CDB - Bal Vikas Banks in Muzaffarpur, Bihar, Chennai, Kolkata and Leh, in J&K. CDB has also helped begin similar banks in Nepal and Bangladesh. One is coming up in Afghanistan. Next year, Sri Lanka and Pakistan will join the network. There are enquiries from Iran, Sudan and Central Asia.

Rita has clearly kept her date with those kids she first saw on Mumbai’s trains and fell in love with.

Mercury: Glue sellers facing action

December 01, 2004 Edition 1 The Mercury

Latoya Newman

Policing authorities are to embark on an aggressive campaign to address the problem of glue being sold to street children, and have already set up a "priority committee" to deal with this issue.

This follows a second protest by street children in less than a week to highlight the matter. Yesterday, 200 street children and outreach workers walked through central Durban creating awareness about glue addiction and encouraging the public not to give the children money or handouts. Their demonstration followed one held on Friday.

These demonstrations were organised by the humanitarian organisation iCare, city officials, police and health and social government departments, as well as private sponsors.

Members of the public were encouraged to invest in organisations which provide services that care for the children’s needs. This was echoed by all quarters, with the children themselves leading the cheers.

Linda Treadwell, a spokeswoman for iCare, said: "Some of the children like their lifestyle on the street and they’re the harder ones to get off the streets. But we feel that if we push awareness and tell people to stop giving them money or food they’ll have no choice but to get off the streets."

Police said earlier this week they were aware of which businesses sold glue to the children, knowing that it was an addictive substance. They said Friday night’s protest against the sale of glue by street children, outreach workers and city authorities was the first step in a full-on campaign to clamp down on the "morally incorrect" deed.

Capt Gugu Sabela, police spokeswoman for the North Durban region, said that the priority committee had been formed in September and that Friday’s action had been the start of the action campaign.

"We are going to speak to glue manufacturers and tell them who the businesses are that are selling to the children. We will ask them not to sell their product to these businesses.

"There are no laws yet that regulate the sale of glue, but we believe it is morally incorrect to sell to these children and we plan to picket in front of these businesses," she said.