World Street Children News

EGYPT: Street children abandoned by the system

By irinnews.org

CAIRO, 13 Nov 2005 (IRIN) - It has been 10 years since Dalia ran away from her family in Manoufiya, in Egypt’s northern Delta region, and went to live in the fast-paced capital city of Cairo.

Now 18 years old, she has become so accustomed to living on the streets that she no longer wants, or knows, how to live anywhere else.

"I would rather live on the streets than go back to my family," Dalia said.

She ran away from home after her parents divorced, shortly after which her father began beating her. "He would hang me upside down and torture me," she said. “I had to leave.”

While Dalia’s chief reason for running away was domestic violence, aid workers say that poverty is also a major contributor to the phenomenon. According to the UN’s 2005 Egypt Common Country Assessment, almost 17 percent of Egypt’s total population of some 77.5 million was living below the poverty line as of 2000.

Salma Wahba, UNICEF Assistant Project Officer in the Adolescence department, conceded that poverty is a decisive factor in the majority of Egypt’s social dilemmas. She added that in the case of street children, poverty was commonly coupled with other problems, such as domestic abuse.

Now, Dalia survives by selling packets of tissues to cars gridlocked in the city’s notorious traffic jams. With the money she earns, she can buy falafel sandwiches – a cheap, local meal consisting of chick peas and bread.

"I know how to take care of myself," she asserted.

She and her friends, a group of boys and girls also living on the streets, spend most of their day hawking cheap products or begging. At night, they sleep in a public garden which they use as an ad-hoc campground.

"The key is to be together, to protect each other," Dalia said.

Most runaway children end up living in big cities, such as Cairo or Egypt’s second largest city, Alexandria. Once on the streets, however, children are often exposed to further abuses.

“For girls, it’s sexual abuse, often of the most horrific nature,” said Simon Ingram, Communication Officer for UNICEF in Cairo. “The borderline between rape and prostitution is often quite thin.”

The children themselves tell all manner of stories, he added. “Many street children bear scars from knife attacks, if not from sex attacks, from other street children trying to steal from them.”

Dalia, for example, spoke of how she was once kidnapped. "They wanted to hurt me," she said, pointing to a scar on her left cheek – a jagged, permanent mark on her olive skin.

Discrimination under the law

Dalia has learned to protect herself not only from strangers, but also from the police, who have arrested her several times. She says that, while in police custody, she has been verbally abused and occasionally slapped in the face.

Under Egypt’s current Child Law, any person under the age of 18 who solicits money in public, is engaged in immoral behaviour, or who lacks a permanent residence is defined as “vulnerable to delinquency.”

This law, however, carries a value judgement, said Clarissa Bencomo, author of a 2003 report by New York-based lobby group Human Rights Watch, which described abuses against Egypt’s street children.

"The word ‘delinquency’ implies that these children are a social threat – thus, they are treated as if they were a threat to the social order," said Bencomo. She added that such perceptions led to frequent abuses against them.

"They’re considered ‘lost souls,’ and policemen often believe that abusing them will ‘set them straight,’" she said, noting that policemen were generally ill-equipped to deal with children.

Bencomo emphasised, "These are just children in need of protection."

According to Human Rights Watch, nearly 11,000 street children were arrested in Egypt in 2001.

In response to the problem, the government-run National Council for Childhood and Motherhood (NCCM) has held two workshops to train policemen on how to deal with homeless children.

Somaya al-Alfy, head of the NCCM’s street children division, said 200 policemen from all over the country have so far attended the workshops, which have been held for the past two years.

Al-Alfy noted that the legal definition for homeless children is expected to be changed from “vulnerable to delinquency” to “vulnerable to danger.” The amendment is currently awaiting ratification by parliament.

Lost in the system

Despite these proposed changes, however, many Cairenes, while hoping to see the children off the streets, have simply lost hope in the system.

Cairo resident Sherif Mansour, for example, recounted the time he handed a troublesome street girl over to a police officer who merely insulted her and dragged her into his car by the shirt.

"Two days later,” Mansour recalled, “she was on the streets again,”

Theoretically, children picked up by police are turned over to a prosecutor, who quickly decides whether they should be released or handed over to an official foster home.

According to Bencomo, however, this wasn’t always the case.

"Children quickly go back to the street," she said. “And the more they are recycled like this, the more they learn how to stay on the streets and away from juvenile detention or the possibility of being returned to their families.”

No one from the Ministry of Interior was available to comment on the issue.

"The best thing now for street children is for the police to stop arresting them," Bencomo asserted.

Precise statistical data on street children is scarce, and there is virtually no official information. "The government doesn’t make the numbers public because, officially, homelessness doesn’t exist in Egypt," said Bencomo.

Al-Alfy noted that no surveys of street children had ever been conducted. "These children are highly mobile, and it’s difficult to get accurate information on their numbers," she explained.

She pointed out, however, that the NCCM was planning to implement a survey in the near-term future.

More civil society involvement needed

While few organisations in Cairo or Alexandria have taken up the issue, a handful of NGOs and philanthropic groups are doing what they can.

Eighteen years ago, for example, Sami Gabr and a group of businessmen set up a “Village of Hope” to provide food and shelter for children found on the street. The organisation currently runs 15 shelters and drop-in centres in and around Cairo.

"We have permanent shelters, temporary shelters and reception centres," Gabr said.

The reception centres, open from 9.00am to 6.00pm everyday, provide a place where street children can go to seek help.

"We take in girls between the ages of four and 18," said Mohammmed Fathy, who works in a drop-in centre for girls, located in a low-income district of the capital’s Giza district. He explained that girls visiting the centre can watch television, get free meals and receive medical assistance if needed.

But when the centre closes in the evening, some of the children, like Dalia and her friends, prefer to go back to the street. "The more time the child spends on the streets,” noted Fathy, “the more difficult it is for us to get them to a shelter or back to their homes."

In an effort to provide medical aid to homeless children outside of the Cairo area, mobile units have been dispatched to areas where there are no reception centres.

In August 2005, The French NGO Medecines Du Monde (MDM), in cooperation with the Village of Hope, began a three-year project to provide mobile health-service units for homeless children.

According to Isabelle Braund, MDM General Coordinator in Egypt, street children mainly suffer from skin diseases and respiratory complications, often the result of inhaling an industrial glue known locally as kola.

Gabr explained that, by inhaling kola, which gives a brief but intense high, “children can survive the pain of being on the street."

Despite the fact that some organisations are addressing the problem, though, aid workers and volunteers are quick to point out that more help is badly needed.

"To be really effective, we need more organisations involved in this issue," said Gabr.