World Street Children News

Tuesday, October 31, 2006
City vying for ‘Most Child-Friendly’ title
By Erwin Ambo S. Delilan

AFTER winning the title as one of the “Most Business-Friendly City” in the country, Bacolod is again adjudged as the “Most Child-Friendly City” in Western Visayas and is automatically the region’s official representative in the national competition for the Highly Urbanized City Category.

It’s two top contenders are Makati City and Naga City, disclosed Sally Abelarde, officer-in-charge of City’s Department of Social Services and Development (DSSD).

Abelarde, however, is confident that Bacolod has a great chance of winning in the national level because of its consistent excellent program, planning, policies and budget for children.

Although it is only limited to those children in the day care program.

Abelarde admitted that the City is still learning to solve the problem on street children.

Abelarde said that solving the problem on street children needs scientific approach.

This appoach, Abelarde said is to first know the number of years these street children have lived on the streets and multiply it to three years. The result is the minimum period of successfully taking them from the streets.

“So if they have spent five years in the streets, multiply it to three, we then need about 15 years in solving the problem,” Abelarde explained.

The DSSD OIC lamented the difficulty in solving the problem. “For time being, what we can do is to only lessen their number but we can not totally take them out from the streets because it’s really, really difficult,” she added.

Abelarde though noted that the number of street children has decreased to only 900 from the 2,121 street children eight years ago.

On the other hand, Mayor Evelio Leonardia said that Bacolod getting selected as among the three nominees in the entire country for the Highly Urbanized City Category, is enough proof that the City excels in its programs for children.

Meanwhile, judging for the contest is on the third week of November while the awarding which will be held in Malacanang Palace is scheduled on Dec. 6.

The contest is sponsored by the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) with the Sub-Committee for the Welfare of Children as facilitator.

“Enfant Dit Sorcier” Music Video
In 2003, Internews produced two videos to raise awareness of the plight of Congolese children accused of witchcraft. The first video was a documentary, “Enfant Dit Sorcier” (”Child Accused of Being a Witch”). This is the second video, co-funded by USAID and Search for Common Ground, that uses pop music to spread a similar message to Congolese society. It features the musicians of L’Orchestre Lachytoura, most of whom were once street children, some accused of sorcery. They perform their own song “Enfant Dit Sorcier.” Internews created and inserted a narrative drama to help illustrate the story of an innocent boy accused and discarded by his family. The song is in Lingala. Subtitles are in French.

Street children saved via sports

The New Anatolian / Ankara
31 October 2006

The police in a northwestern city have saved 90 children from streets over the last seven months.

Kocaeli’s Gebze district police has rehabilitated some 90 street children so far with a project aiming to adapt them to society through sports.

Speaking to the Anatolia news agency yesterday, Gebze Police Force Sports Club Association Press Secretary Vahap Turfanda said that the project, which was launched for the rehabilitation of street children, has been going on for seven months.

Turfanda, underlining that the association was established with the idea that the best way to steer street children away from bad habits is sports, said that the administrators of the civil group led by Gebze Police Chief Ali Sahinli are mainly businessmen and bureaucrats.

He also said that Gebze attracts many people and receives much migration due to its industrial zone.

He added they try to rescue children from the streets and bad habits such as substance abuse and smoking through instilling a love of sports in light of the principles of Turkish Republic founder Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, who stressed sports to raise healthy generations.

Turfanda also said that they saw significant changes in children who took part in the project, since their self-confidence improved.

Apart from giving them an opportunity to take part in sports activities, the association also provides financial support by buying them shoes, T-shirts and sports equipment and giving their families YTL 200 monthly.

He also called on the Gebze townspeople, public institutions and non-governmental organizations to contribute to their efforts to adapt street children to the society.

Enfants Dits Sorcier - Children Accused of Being a Witch
Internews (http://www.internews.org) has produced two videos to raise awareness of the plight of Congolese children accused of witchcraft. The videos were part of a project funded by the United States Agency for International Development that trained journalists from Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) to report on peace talks and social issues. The videos were produced by Angela Nicoara and Mike Ormsby.

SENEGAL: Sexually active street children increasingly vulnerable to HIV

Photo: Pierre Holtz/IRIN

Beggar children on the streets of Dakar, Senegal

DAKAR, 31 October 2006 (PlusNews) - Many of the thousands of children that wander the busy streets of Dakar, the capital of Senegal, are sexually active but few have any knowledge about the risks of HIV.

"One sees eight-year-old children who already have several male and female partners who are older than they are," said Adjiratou Sow Diallo Diouf, author of a 2005 study on the impact of HIV/AIDS on Dakar’s estimated 6,000 street children.

The 30 children, aged between 8 and 17, Diouf questioned for the study revealed sexual relations that were both homosexual and heterosexual and rarely protected, leaving them highly vulnerable to sexually transmitted diseases including HIV.

More than 70 percent of the children surveyed said they had multiple partners, often other children and one third admitted that the sex was not always consensual. "Sometimes they are forced into sex, and there were cases of rape of smaller children by older children," said Diouf.

Occasionally, the children have sex with young women who do laundry in the working class suburb of Médina. "Some women give them work but they want to sleep with them in return," explained Diouf.

Most of the children or ‘Fakhmans’ (derived from ‘fakh’, which means ‘to run away’ in Wolof, the most common local language) as they call themselves appear to have left their family homes voluntarily as a result of divorce, violence or abuse.

Economically and socially excluded, they wander the sprawling Sandaga market in the heart of the capital often appearing drunk. They are in fact high from sniffing t-shirts soaked in "guinze", an industrial thinner.

According to Diouf, the ‘Fakhmans’ are regular drug users. For a few hundred francs, obtained by begging or stealing, they can buy a daily dose of ‘guinze’ and escape their difficult realities for a while.

According to Diouf’s study, 60 percent of ‘Fakhmans’ have never been to school. More than half of those interviewed had their first sexual experience before the age of 14 and often by as early as eight.

Without guardians, they are excluded from health services and neglected by most available HIV/AIDS information and prevention programmes.

Half of the respondents did not know how HIV was transmitted and 40 percent were unaware of how to protect themselves from infection. While two thirds of the children admitted to having sexual relations, less than 10 percent of them used condoms. The others "did not know how to use them", lamented Diouf.

Le Samu Social Sénégal is the only NGO that provides street children with socio-medical care. Two nights a week, small groups of children in tattered clothing wait for the Samu van to bring them small quantities of food and basic medical care.

Samu teams have worked hard to build trust with the occasionally violent minors and have become their only link with the adult world. Last year, when hoodlums tried to assault members of the NGO on their rounds, a group of street children came to their rescue.

According to Isabelle de Guillebon, who runs Samu, this relationship of trust has encouraged the children to speak freely to Samu staff about their risky sexual behaviour. "They are not altogether aware of the problem. They are always under the influence of drugs. One does not think of danger in such a state," she said.

While conducting her study, Diouf organised workshops at the Samu offices to educate the children on STDs and HIV. "The workshops were very good. They didn’t talk in the beginning, but after we became friends, they were comfortable and relaxed. They told me things they did not mention before," Guillebon said, adding: "One of the children confirmed to me that there were homosexual activities in the group when this had been a taboo subject for the children before."

Legislation in Senegal, like that in many other countries, does not allow children to be tested for HIV without the consent of their parents, a situation that Diouf described as "scandalous". UNAIDS estimates there are 5000 children living with HIV/AIDS in Senegal. The country, with a population of 11.5 million, has a prevalence rate of 0.9 percent.

"There is no programme for the street children and they do not have adequate medical care," she said. "If they cannot be tested [for HIV], interventions will be too late."