Colouring pain

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Painting their feelings, the first published works of street children

"I don’t dream of anything in particular. I just wish someone could take me off the street because I’m so fed up with it." Thus Hoda, 20, a street artist who paints whatever gives her "a feeling". She is one of many contributors to On the Street, an art book composed entirely of the work of street children. The colours are vivid, but the eyes of the faces depicted remain sad; and there are hints of unhappy grown-ups, a flower side by side with an expression of bitterness. Aimed as much at giving street children an opportunity as at enriching the contemporary art world, the book is the result of collaborative work by Huda Lutfi, Kamal Fahmi, Mustafa Hasnaoui, William Wells, Nabil Samak and Sherif Boraie, and it offers glimpses of the lives of its creators, the stories behind the paintings as well as the paintings themselves. Mustafa, 14, relates how he would sniff glue and imagine he had turned into a huge animal. Things have changed since he used to sleep in the cold and search piles of rubbish for food, he says, thanks to the reception centre of the NGO that offered him shelter. Nisrine, 13, speaks of the public garden where she lived as her home — a state of affairs constantly undermined by undercover policemen who would take her in. "at night, when I am alone, I sit and think what if I get sick? I do not know what I am doing on the street, I don’t know." Rami, 14, who put an end to beatings and torture sessions to which his father had subjected him by fleeing home, was particularly responsive to praise of his work.

Bolstering credibility, the proceeds of the book will go directly to the Art Fund for Street Children, administered by the Egyptian Association for Social Solidarity. It makes no secret of the fact that those children who created are but a lucky few; for the vast majority, it is rather a talent for survival that remains paramount, and the book bears harrowing evidence of the brutality they face. According to a UNICEF study on street children in Greater Cairo in 2007, out of 191 street boys and girls, 64 per cent of the boys and 39.3 per cent of the girls were abused at home by their fathers; 78.9 per cent of the boys have sex with people of the same sex; 61.7 per cent of boys and 58.6 per cent of girls sniff glue. Out of a total of 167 children, 48.6 per cent of the girls work as prostitutes. Dawlat, one of the children included in the study, fled her father’s abuse at the age of 12. At 16, she was married for two years to a convicted thief, using a urfi (unofficial) marriage contract. On leaving him, while staying with a friend, she begged at the threshold of a mosque and found clients among taxi drivers and passers- by. She gave birth to an illegitimate child, was on drugs while breastfeeding her infant who has no birth certificate; its father was apparently serving a jail sentence when it was born — and, having handed over her child to an adoptive parent, Dawlat, over 21 now, is still on the street, caught up in the vicious circle of shopping sprees, drugs, begging and prostitution.

Two get death for killing street kids

CAIRO: Two leaders of an Egyptian children’s gang were sentenced to death yesterday for raping and killing at least three, and possibly up to 26, street children in Cairo and northern Egypt, a judicial source said.
Five other gang members were given prison terms.
The court in the Nile Delta town of Tanta referred the condemned men’s paperwork to the mufti, the government-appointed interpreter of Islamic law, for approval of the death sentences, generally a formality.
The court will hold a session on July 20 when it is expected to confirm the sentences on Ramadan Abdel Rahman Mansur and Farag Mahmoud Hanata, who are both in their twenties.
Police found three bodies. During questioning the men said they had disposed of bodies by throwing them off moving trains, stuffing them down drains or throwing them in the River Nile, police said.
Several children gave testimony in court. One child said he was sexually assaulted and then thrown off a moving train, but survived.
Egypt has tens of thousands of street children living on the margins of society but reports are rare of them committing serious crimes of violence. – Reuters

British Airways staff visit street children centres in Cairo

CAIRO, 10 May 2007 – This week, a group of British Airways staff members are visiting Egypt to witness projects for children supported through money collected from the Change for Good programme. A generous £200,000 has been donated by British Airways to fund shelters and centres that work to protect street children in the greater Cairo area. More than 5,000 children have benefited from the funding, thanks to the generosity of British Airways’ customers.

Five British Airways Cabin Crew had the opportunity to visit centres that have been set up to help street children in the city. The number of street children is a big issue in Egypt and is on the rise. Estimates on the number of street children range from 200,000 to one million, a quarter of the street child population is believed to be less than 12 years old.

The BA delegation visited five centres that support street children to reintegrate into society. Girls are particularly at risk and one special reception centre – the first of its kind in Egypt – offers protection to pregnant street girls, young street mothers and their babies. Young mothers can stay at the centre until the age of 21 by which time they have gained the skills necessary to re-integrate back into mainstream society.

Adam Johnson and Hisham Moussa, BA Cabin Crew, were deeply moved by the stories of the children they visited in the centres. Many children were forced to survive in very adverse and difficult situations. Exposed to a wide range of risky behaviours, they face exploitation and abuse; the children sleep under bridges, in parks, and in isolated areas. Despite the lower percentage of female street children compared to males, girls on the street are particularly vulnerable. They face all kinds of physical and sexual abuse and are exposed to many risks such as pregnancy and contracting illnesses such as HIV.  

Since 2003, UNICEF has been supporting a number of initiatives for the protection of street children. The current Good for Change fund which was received in 2006 has enabled reaching 5,000 street children through eight reception centres in partnership with five NGOs. “We are very proud of Change for Good and the vital work it helps UNICEF to achieve. I would like to thank our customers who donate their change and our colleagues who are dedicated to the programme” said Helen Rayner, British Airways Cabin Crew.

The Change for Good programme was launched in April 1994, collecting spare currency donated by customers travelling on board British Airways flights. Over the past 13 years, Change for Good has raised £23 million, helping to support UNICEF’s work with some of the world’s most vulnerable children in more than 50 countries.

The success of the programme is largely due to the Cabin Crew who act as "Champions" in the sky. They make announcements on a voluntary basis during flights, collect loose change and offer project information to customers.

“We are very grateful to British Airways for supporting this initiative to help street children. We know that this funding has made a difference in helping children deal with the daily risks they face while living on the streets and guiding them towards making choices for a better future” said Erma Manoncourt, UNICEF Representative in Egypt.

About Change for Good

In April 1994 British Airways and UNICEF, the United Nations Children’s Fund, launched ‘Change for Good’. This innovative programme is dedicated to raising money for some of the world’s most needy children. Now in its thirteenth year the partnership has raised more than £23 million pounds for UNICEF’s work in over 50 countries and is one of the most successful corporate fundraising partnerships of its kind.

Change for Good works by encouraging British Airways customers and staff to donate any spare foreign currency. During flights Change for Good videos are screened and cabin announcements are made in an effort to promote the programme. There are more than 2,350 British Airways cabin crew members who are supporters of the programme, they are known as Change for Good Champions. In addition to the cabin crew, there are collection points across British Airways offices so ground staff can also donate to the programme.

In 2006 alone Change for Good helped improve the lives of more than 20,000 children across the world.

About UNICEF

UNICEF is on the ground in over 150 countries and territories to help children survive and thrive, from early childhood through adolescence.  The world’s largest provider of vaccines for developing countries, UNICEF supports child health and nutrition, good water and sanitation, quality basic education for all boys and girls, and the protection of children from violence, exploitation, and AIDS.  UNICEF is funded entirely by the voluntary contributions of individuals, businesses, foundations and governments.

For further information please contact:

Hana Francis, British Airways Egypt PR Representative, Tel: +20-26395128; email: hanaf@actionprgroup.com

Gina Dafalia. Communication Officer, UNICEF UK. Tel: +44-207-312-7695 email: ginad@unicef.org.uk

Iman Morooka, Communication Officer, UNICEF Egypt, Tel: +202-526-5083 (ext. 206), e-mail: imorooka@unicef.org

Streets apart

 

(excerpt)

The collision of two worlds was given a very different and arguably more successful treatment at the Townhouse, which on Sunday launched On the Street, its exhibition of paintings by street children. The project originally began in the late 1990s, when artist Huda Lutfi was invited to a drop-in centre for street children run by Kamal Fahmy. There she discovered the children drawing "the Pyramids, the sun and the Egyptian flag", and asked them to instead use their own experiences for inspiration. These weekly encounters produced art which was displayed at the British Council, the French Cultural Centre and the Townhouse, until the drop-in centre was closed by the Ministry of Social Affairs in 2001 and all the paintings were lost — but not before some had been scanned and saved.

I have a low tolerance for children’s art, and generally prefer the little darlings’ efforts be confined to their parents’ fridges, but many of the images on display at the Townhouse are deeply moving, the sadness and terror conveyed jar uncomfortably with the crude naivety of the form. The emotional impact of the paintings is made even more intense by the description, in the children’s own words, of the experiences which drove them to homelessness, and how the opportunity to paint affected their lives, related in the book accompanying the exhibition. Fourteen-year-old Rami describes the effect that seeing his paintings appreciated by others had on him by saying, "When I see the foreigners looking at them, and the Arabs looking at them, saying they are beautiful, I feel a strong happiness. I sit aside alone and think, why do they say it’s beautiful? Why did they bring them here?"

Accompanying "On the Street" is a photographic exhibit by Hesham Labib. "Cut Short", a collection of portraits of five street children, is inspired by Tahani Rached’s 2006 documentary film El-Banat Dol (Those Girls), which presented a harrowing glimpse into the world of Cairo’s street children. Despite their vulnerability and the misery of their circumstances, Rached’s homeless girls demonstrate a resilience that defies pity; they are proud, and it is a trait that defines Labib’s photographs: the cinematic quality of these images, their pared down simplicity and above all their subjects combine to make something beautiful. Even the infuriating and presumably deliberate absence of any kind of background information about the photographs and their subjects only contributes to their enigma.

Solidarity unlimited

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Street children enjoying the puppet show, exploring their artistic talents and befriending children from Al-Sayeda Zeinab district on their special day

Much fun attended on puppet shows, musical performances and colour at the Sayeda Zeinab Park on 23 February, the day set aside for street children by some 25 NGOs under the slogan "Street children: society’s responsibility". Some 100 street children blended in with others who had come with their families; and it was impossible to tell them apart. Street children had made the news over the last few months when one of them was charged with raping and killing others — by luring them onto the top of a "torbini" fast train and eventually throwing them off. Assaults, human and drug trafficking and the organs trade further threw the problem into relief, pointing to the violence street children experience on a daily basis and the often violent exploitation behind their running away from home — child labour, premature marriage and a range of other human rights abuses which are often accompanied by dropping out of school.

Efforts to address the problem have been sporadic. For one thing, in 2003 the National Council for Childhood and Motherhood (NCCM) launched a "national strategy for street children", conceived in partnership with various government bodies and NGOs as well as social organisations and UNICEF. It has yet to be implemented, however — a step that hangs on the initiative of the Ministry of Social Solidarity. On the other hand, NGOs took the lead last Friday in an attempt to speed things up. "We propose that this should be an annual street children day," Nawla Darwish, founder of the New Woman Foundation, one of the key partners, announced. "Whether the state will embrace the idea is up to them, though the issue has obviously caught people’s attention. We do not claim that we will solve the problem — it’s the responsibility of society at large." Rather, the aim is to reaffirm the existence and suffering of thousands of children in the absence of sufficient legislation; and Darwish hopes to change the social image of street children as well: "we must stop seeing them as criminals; they were not born to live on the streets — they are in fact victims. And through awareness campaigns, civil society joining efforts with the media — we might be able to change the stereotype."

Ahmed Abdel-Alim, executive director of Al-Taawon Association for Children, agreed that bridging the gap between street children and the rest of society is important; he hopes that a point can be reached where people would not yell at them and close their car windows in their faces: "street children reflect a socio- economic problem to which poverty is key, but we lack a creative approach to relations with others and ourselves; poverty, bad education, lack of economic and social awareness, inability to make use of our resources to the full." Abdel-Alim speaks of a more comprehensive approach capable of bypassing current complications, and he professes inspiration in Nobel laureate Mohamed Younes, who invented micro-credit in Bangladesh: "he started out with $100 and ended up with $15 billion, which saved millions of lives. I think we should come up with similar ideas to combat poverty and improve education." The day itself seemed to reflect the drive to break the taboo on street children, who were having fun with their peers. Hossam Hassan, 14, says he has befriended street children in his neighbourhood. "They are very kind," he enthuses. "We play together…"

For his part civil servant Ramadan Abdel-Hakam, the father of two, embraces the idea wholeheartedly, adding that such celebrations should be more frequent: "maybe once a month — it reminds you to cherish your own children." Only it confuses him that these children are still wandering the streets: "how come they are still out there? In a population of 70 million, there aren’t enough people to spare LE5-10 to provide for them? And as a society, how come we are unable to face this problem? I believe legal penalties should be imposed on people who throw out their children." But it is never that simple. According to Nadra Zaki, child protection project officer at UNICEF, "the prospects are not as encouraging as we had hoped a couple of months ago." Despite a high-profile meeting involving Prime Minister Ahmed Nazif, the NCCM Secretary Mushira Khattab and representatives of the Ministry of Social Solidarity last January, the latter — charged with implementing the project, as opposed to monitoring, awareness raising and capacity building, which are the work of the NCCM — "remains silent". Alarming Zaki in particular are reports by Caritas Egypt, an NGO based in Haram, that street children are being arrested by the police: "we have no numbers but we don’t know that it is happening and we don’t know where they go or what they go through. In the end they find themselves back on the streets, and since many of them are survivors, they cope."

On a more positive note, Zaki says concerned parties are at least talking to each other: "the government, NGOs, international organisations like UNICEF, the minister himself… We are all to blame for the fact that procedures are slower than they might be." Last Friday strengthens the movement, and would have been even more encouraging had more human rights organisations participated. More partnerships are needed, with Hope Village — the first NGO dedicated to street children — and other parties, since the emphasis is on the message, not the end results. Zaki highlights plans, which she hopes will be more openly discussed, concerning the treatment of street children at police stations and the lack of sufficient social work — thought to be the root problem. "It should not be so difficult, it’s not different from women’s rights or human rights — what’s so complicated about providing counselling, for example, or reaching out to NGOs that need training? It’s all about how we organise ourselves."

Abla El-Badry, head of Hope Village, further explained that, out of 22,500 NGOs in Egypt, only a few engage effectively with any social issues at all, and of those even fewer are interested in street children. In Imbaba, she said, where Hope Village receives and cares for 600 pregnant teens a year, the numbers of street children are palpably growing: "For a 13-year- old with a child, there are three options: leave the baby on the street, rent it out to beggars or sell it altogether." Those who keep the child are provided with help, but in any of the three cases the street child population is bound to increase. After El-Torbini, she has found, girls released from police custody show the signs of beatings and brutal treatment."

The media is another problem, as El-Badry went on to say, with reports that summarily condemn NGOs. "But when people came and saw our efforts they realised we are doing a good job, even if it’s insufficient because of numbers — 6,500 children a year is very difficult." Sumaya El-Alfi, the NCCM street children project manager, says all relevant parties are now aware of the national strategy but that there are significant variations in the response of each: "coordination and monitoring will never be effective until we have the power to address delays caused by ministries." In fact the Ministry of Solidarity rejected the idea of a committee to represent all parties and undertake the required tasks — which was thought to undermine the ministry’s own authority. Still, the NCCM are lobbying to implement the strategy: "the role of the state is crucial to the success of such a strategy and without government bodies, no problem can be solved." Internal politics are delaying action but for some, like Zaki, solidarity is a prerequisite and, "we need to find out what impact that day has made." Yet the solidarity show that the day-long event amounted to excluded street children from any media appearances, ostensibly to avoid intimidating them. Still, to see them mingling with other children was a temporary and necessary relief: "if artists and entertainment figures are invited and such events take place at the receptions of shelters," Zaki elaborated, "the children will be so much happier."

Petros Giannakouris

January 2007 Killing Kids Investigators are still deciphering the bizarre web of lies spun by a gang accused of raping and murdering at least 14 street children By Manal el-Jesr

Police got their first big break with the arrest of 18-year-old Ahmed Samir Abdel Moneim, nicknamed Boqqo, and 19-year-old Mohammed Abdel Aziz Salama, known as El-Seweisi. The pair confessed to the murder of 14 victims in Cairo, Alexandria, El-Behaira, Gharbeyya, Qalyoubeya and Beni Sueif. They admitted that they had lured street children onto the tops of trains en route from Cairo to Alexandria, where they then raped them and tossed the naked bodies onto the opposite tracks. Other victims were drowned in the Nile or dumped in sewers; others still were buried alive.

Throughout December, parents of missing children flocked to local prosecutors’ offices to find out if their children were among the known victims. A mother from Shebin El-Kom went to the Shubra El-Kheima office with a picture of her son, who had gone missing a year and a half ago.

Mohammed Ibrahim Salem, 14, was raped and killed on the tracks between Tanta and Damanhour. Three months earlier, Boqqo continued, he and his gang had killed Mohammed Kamal, 12. (The skeleton that had triggered the search was initially identified as Kamal’s.)

CHILDREN KILLING CHILDREN

The gang’s ringleader, identified as Ramadan Abdel Rehim Mansour — better known as El-Tourbini (Express Train) — has allegedly told prosecutors he was possessed by a female jinn who orders him to rape children. All of his victims, he added, were 10–14 year-olds, including three girls whom he had raped and killed.

Tourbini left home as a child, and despite being from Cairo, he earned a thick file in the vice department of Borg El-Arab police station in Alexandria. Alexandria was a much safer haunt for him and his gang — Cairo, El-Tourbini told the prosecutors, is swarming with cops.

Little by little, El-Tourbini gave the investigators more information. Ahmed Nagui, 12, was killed in vengeance. The boy used to be a member of Tourbini’s gang, but when El-Tourbini tried to force Nagui to have sex, the boy went to the police. El-Tourbini was arrested and briefly kept in custody, but was released for lack of evidence. Soon after he got out, prosecutors allege, he raped and killed Nagui.

El-Seweisi has reportedly confessed to being Tourbini’s right-hand man. His story is similar to Tourbini’s: He had left home at the age of seven when his father, who worked in the Ministry of Education, kicked him out of the house — El-Seweisi can no longer recall why. The only way to find food and shelter was to be part of a larger group, so he hooked up with other street children who told him he had to either steal food, clean or beg. He opted to beg.

El-Seweisi later claimed that El-Tourbini had been planning to kill him after he had dispensed of Nagui’s body. According to El-Seweisi, prior to his first arrest El-Tourbini was married to a girl named Azza. El-Seweisi fell in love with her, helped her get an abortion and later forced her into prostitution. The prosecution discovered that Azza had a child by El-Tourbini and was also raising another child whom he had told her to take care of.

Tourbini has since been kept in solitary confinement.

Shown a picture of a missing boy, El-Seweisi promptly affirmed that the gang had raped and killed him. Investigators found out that the boy had since returned to his family in El-Beheira.

Frustrated investigators began to feel that the gang was only buying time. Although the accused had confessed to over 30 murders and identified 21 pictures of deceased and missing children, only 10 bodies had been found.

Recent developments suggest there may in fact be several street gangs kidnapping and raping children ­— Bazzaza admitted he hopped between a number of such gangs. He named members of a Damanhour gang allegedly led by 17-year-old Ali Karim Abdel Azim, aka Hantoura, and including 16-year-olds Haitham Hamdy Hassan, Karim Hanafi Eid and 15-year-old Sami El-Shahhat El-Sayyed.

The case took its most surprising turn yet when the 12-year-old Kamal, very much alive, gave an interview to the independent newspaper Al-Masry Al-Youm. Kamal — who used to sell tissues on the streets but had returned home last fall — had known Tourbini, whom he described as “an idiotic lunatic.” Kamal told reporters that El-Seweisi was the real ringleader and that the suspects in custody would readily confess to crimes they did not commit.

At press time, investigators were still looking for more bodies in Kafr El-Dawwar, Itay El-Baroud, Mahmoudia, and Beni Sueif.

 

Excluded and invisible

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Street children are subjected to abuse, malnutrition and sexual harassement on a regular basis. At many times, their conditions lead them to inflict their painful state on others

Mohamed, 12, is showing off his new clothes. He got them right here from Hope Village, he explains, which also provides him with meals, hot showers, medical and social care. At the institution’s Day Care Centre in Sayeda Zeinab, Mohamed confesses that he has been on and off the streets since his father died 10 years ago, when his stepfather proved abusive. After he was old enough to strike back, he was permanently banned from home. As a tabbaa, microbus driver assistant, he managed to get by. At one point he moved to Alexandria. (On the way he even witnessed El-Torbini at work, he reports: the infamous street gang leader who made the headlines after his arrest for raping and killing street children on top of the fast "turbini" Cairo-Alex train, had delivered his trademark, fatal shove when, happily, passersby walking along the tracks managed to catch the unfortunate victim just in time to save his life). Once in Alexandria, however, Mohamed was arrested — only to be released back onto the streets. "But I don’t sleep in the open," Mohamed is quick to add. "I sleep in a mosque…" Mohamed says no such misfortune befell him but, according to centre head Khaled Dawoud, no less than 99 per cent of street children are sexually abused on a regular basis. Talking to Mohamed, now, it feels strange to have driven past so many of those clinging souls who cling to one’s car windshield or clothes insisitng that you buy their disposable tissues, flowers or simply give them money — never bothering to give them a name. Indeed a 2006 UNICEF report indicates that there are in the cities of the world millions such "excluded and invisible" children, impoverished, uneducated and malnourished. In Egypt numbers are yet not forthcoming, though a new survey promises to give a relatively accurate estimate. But in the end, one is inclined to ask how such a state of affairs comes about despite human rights treaties and international laws.

According to Fadia Abu Shehba, professor at the National Centre for Social and Criminal Research, "the factors are numerous, including fragile families, broken homes and the absence of one of the two pillars of the family. Lack of compatibility within homes gives way to domestic violence, forcing children to run away. And this is not to mention the complete lack of any form of parental guidance. Besides, crammed into little apartments with as little as one room for 10 people, children often see their parents having sex and want to copy them, initially with siblings, hence rape and harassment. Children choose the street, where there is enough room, only to be exploited by street gangs, whether sexually, in the drug trade or, more recently, trading internationally in their body parts." Throughout the 1990s, especially, rising unemployment rates and inflation have contributed to the erosion of the moral fabric of society, giving way to a heartless materialism that doesn’t balk at exploitation through child labour or early marriage. As Dawoud points out, another factor is dropping out of school: failing to see the point of education, students skip classes, thus taking their first steps on the streets; once this forms into a pattern, a child will spend the night out simply to avoid confrontation with his parents. Thankfully organisations like Hope Village — according to its chairwoman, Abla El-Badry, the first organisation in Egypt to cater especially to street children — understand all this.

Hope Village provides for 4,000 children every year; most come from broken homes with a strong component of domestic violence; some five per cent are literate. Children are housed in temporary shelters where they can resume their studies or take up vocational training; money allocated to them, together with any money they make, is automatically saved and part of it goes towards the purchase of a small flat. "We provide for some 180 children in our shelters, aside from those whose families we manage to contact. Some 700 families have been supported using a micro-credit programme on condition that they take the child back in." Hope Village reception centres have also conducted blood tests on all those who walk in (an average of 35 children a day), as part of the national campaign against AIDS; so far results have been invariably negative. A greater challenge, says Dawoud, is to persuade the children to give up peddling and begging, which can bring in up to LE90 per day; at the shelters they receive no more than a pound’s allowance. Street children, says Dawoud, are classified into first-timers, regulars and leaders, the latter, who are often violent and capable of murder organise the day’s work, oversee their younger partners, and molest them at night. Another challenge he mentions is when parents decide to have the children back — no guarantee, in that case, that they will not abuse them as they did before they first left home. Here too nothing can be done.

For her part, El-Badry highlights a different problem: street girls bearing nameless unregistered children who make the census unreliable. Hope Village has paid attention to them since 2000, and in 2005 opened a centre dedicated to teenage street mothers. According to Amal Abdel-Rahman, the woman in charge of the latter, many street pregnancies are the consequence of rape, yet it makes the rape victim, already cast off by her family, even less acceptable to them, producing a new generation of street children: "We now have 10 young mothers — children bearing children — who don’t know how to provide for them. In many cases, infants end up dead or kidnapped. They come here seeking a stable shelter, but many of them leave again to become sex workers, often due to drug addictions." Amira, who has stayed, was only 13 when she ran away from home to sell flowers, sleeping in a public park. "To avoid prostitution," she says, "I had to marry the neighbourhood thug" — a urfi or unregistered marriage, evidence of which tends to remain in the husband’s hands — "and he disowned me once he realised I was pregnant, destroyed the contract and disappeared. I tried to abort myself but didn’t manage to, then I talked to the social worker at Hope Village, who explained that there was a place for me here. I wish I’d come straight here when I first left home." Amira works as a nurse; she has reached level six of the literacy programme and is learning how to raise her son, now one. "That’s what my problem is now: my son is illegitimate, so I can not legally obtain a birth certificate. My worst nightmare is that someone should stop me on the street and demand proof that I am this child’s mother." A parentless child might be issued a birth certificate by the government, explains Abdel-Rahman, but a fatherless one cannot; he will get neither an education nor any other government service; such, sadly, is the law.

More generally, Mushira Khattab, secretary-general of the National Council for Childhood and Motherhood (NCCM), feels that not enough attention is paid to street children: "I’m glad about the case of El-Torbini, sad as it is: it indicates that we as a society are waking up." Legal amendments in the Child Law are underway and should be submitted to parliament by the end of the month, she announced. This will help people like Amira obtain birth certificates for their children. Yet she believes children should be returned to their parents, who now have the easy option of abandoning their offspring to NGOs; the families should rather be assisted, the reasons behind children ending up on the streets countered: "Don’t ask me to amend the law to allow NGOs custody at the expense of parents. I want to discourage parents from giving away their children. A broken, illiterate family might think of their immediate need rather than the best interest of their child. It’s my duty to show them that they have a responsibility, whether I represent the government or an NGO." Will the new amendments provide for a penalty against parents who abandon their children? All Khattab is willing to divulge is that it will stress both the responsibility of the family and that of the state to empower it: "We are concentrating on the right of the child to family care. If we don’t limit the tendency to give up children, abandoning children will be a ‘business’ option for everyone." Legal amendments, it is worth noting, are part of a programme the NCCM is undertaking in partnership with other government bodies, NGOs and UNICEF, its object being the implementation of a national strategy for the protection, habilitation and re- integration of street children, which was launched back in 2003. A hotline for lodging complaints was launched in June 2005, in collaboration with a number of NGOs.

Salma Wahba, adolescence officer at UNICEF Egypt, says that according to the present law, street children fall under the category of children in danger of being juvenile delinquents: "We are lobbying for listing them as children at risk, hence sparing them any police interference. Moreover, UNICEF is aiming at a comprehensive approach, with a social body that provides safety nets, monitors school dropouts, offers children health insurance and protects them from arrests." On a parallel note, Nadra Zaki, the child protection project officer at UNICEF, explained that on the advocacy level, UNICEF worked with governmental and non-governmental bodies to support the aforementioned strategy; more recently they have supported NGOs by helping children such as those supported by Hope Village to communicate messages to their peers on the street; they also secured funding for the young street mothers’ shelter. Street children ought to be a national priority, as Abu Shehba concluded — better improve security on the streets than secure them for government authorities: "Those children lost all sense of belonging — they will grow up to be terrorists if we continue to ignore them."

The children’s names were changed and their faces blurred to protect their right to privacy.

Facts and figures

ACCORDING to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, the Regional Office for the Middle East and North Africa’s final report on drug abuse among street children in Cairo and Alexandria in 2002 (a study conducted on a sample of 50 children), 86 per cent face violence, 48 per cent face social rejection and 14 per cent do not know how to co-exist; 82 per cent of street children are on the streets because they were abused by their families or at work, 62 per cent due to negligence and 36 per cent due to peer pressure.

EGYPT: Street children worst hit by violence, experts say

[This report does not necessarily reflect the views of the United Nations]

©  IRIN A street child in Cairo, where abuse of those living rough is the norm.

CAIRO, 19 Nov 2006 (IRIN) - A culture where the rights of children, especially those living rough and homeless, are intrinsically protected has yet to emerge in Egypt, according to child experts and testimonies of children themselves.

A number of awareness initiatives have been launched on 19 November to commemorate The Women’s World Summit Foundation (WWSF) World Day for Prevention of Child Abuse. However, Egypt’s street children are yet to feel the impact.

“We get chased and hit all the time by all kinds of people, from police to taxi drivers to passers-by,” said 12-year-old Mohammed, who spends most of his time at the gates of Cairo University but sleeps in a different area most nights.

Abla El-Badri, who heads the government-run National Council for Childhood and Motherhood (NCCM) committee for street children, said Egypt’s half a million street children were always vulnerable to physical attacks.

“If boys find life on the streets hard, then girls, who might face more frequent sexual attacks and rape, live in near-constant fear,” El-Badri said.

She also highlighted the critical importance of raising awareness in order to alleviate the problems faced by street children as the world marked the World Day for Prevention of Child Abuse on 19 November.

“People perceive street children as being dangerous, and that if they attack them they feel they are in fact protecting themselves. This perception obviously needs to change,” she said.

Part of the problem is the fact that the existing law on street children marks them as being vulnerable to delinquency, said Nadra Zaki, UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) project officer for child protection.

“At UNICEF, we are pushing for a change in the wording of the law, to describe street children as being vulnerable to danger,” she added, explaining that the amendment is set to be voted on soon in parliament.

Street kids not alone

However, it isn’t just children braving the streets who face physical and verbal violence.

“Of course I am beaten. Are there any children who aren’t?” said nine-year-old Sherif, who complained that his parents punish him physically for things as commonplace as dropping a glass or not finishing his food.

Sherif comes from a wealthy background, attends a private school and is therefore living proof of the fact that violence against children is not confined to the poorer echelons of Egyptian society.

Despite the existence of laws and decrees prohibiting violence against children, a lack of social awareness, collective responsibility and the appropriate monitoring mechanisms often make it well-nigh impossible to limit the physical or verbal abuse of children, said Nadra.

“People are for the most part unwilling to report abuse, and implementation of the law is hard,” she said.

As the law on physical and verbal violence against children currently stands, only the testimony of an eyewitness who is willing to sign a declaration can be used in a case against a given aggressor.

“One solution would be to relax the law, so that the testimony of a relative, a social worker, or an NGO can report on a given case, as a child is highly likely to confide the situation to someone he or she trusts,” said Nadra.

In school, teachers resort no less often to violence as a mode of punishment. “I have to hit the children, otherwise they won’t listen to me or learn to respect their studies,” said Mohammed Shita (real name withheld), who teaches in a Cairo primary school.

As for reporting incidents of violence to the police, Zaki said that awareness-raising was as important in that sector as it was elsewhere – or else the police might not take reports seriously.

Efforts for improvement

In a bid to bridge the gap between affected children and a social support system, in July 2005 the NCCM launched a free 24/7 national hotline service, putting children, relatives or witnesses to violence in contact with child protection workers.

“When we identify a problem, we organise sittings for the whole family with specialised health professionals and social workers,” said Manal Shahine, director of the NCCM children’s emergency hotline. “Ever since our launch, we have received over 200,000 phone calls.”

Perhaps given some positive social change as Sherif and Mohammed grow up, they will be able to realise their dreams one day. “Facing my parents’ harsh treatment has only made me more likely to be naughty, to challenge them more,” Sherif said. “Hitting doesn’t work. I know full well that when I have children, I will not hit them, whatever they do wrong.”

For Mohammed, violence is no solution to problems. His voice is particularly valuable as violence is almost second nature to many hardened children living in the streets for months, if not years at a time.

“Many of my friends in the street are younger than I am, and I always try and tell them they should not hit each other, that we have enough with what the police do to us,” he said.

No nationwide statistics are available showing how many children in Egypt face physical or verbal violence, proof perhaps of a lack of any genuine attempts to eliminate violence against children. Giving some indication of the general situation, Nadra said that it was estimated that 50 percent of children in Upper Egypt faced violence in schools, while in urban areas it was 70 percent of children.

Harsh life of Egypt’s neglected street kids

By CNN’s Hala Gorani

CAIRO, Egypt (CNN) — I decided to focus on 14-year-old Hussein precisely because he looked more like a thug than a poor homeless child.

I was in Cairo shooting a story on Egypt’s street kids and Hussein wanted us to film him acting tough. He play-fought with other grubby children and strutted his stuff for the camera. Hussein looked look more like a kid who would pick my pocket than break my heart.

But his is a story of loss and misfortune that would devastate many twice his age. There are between 600,000 and a million children in Egypt who either live on the street or are made to work outdoors to earn a living for their families.

According to Unicef Egypt, 17 percent of the population in this country live in poverty and millions have trouble meeting basic food needs. This means children are often seen as economic tools rather than right holders who deserve care and proper schooling.

And to survive in this urban jungle, kids better be tough. They are routinely victims of physical abuse; they are made to drop out of school and beg or work long hours on streets and under bridges at an age when children should be learning and playing.

I first met Hussein in something called a mobile health care unit. There are only two in the whole of Cairo, operated by a small but admirable charitable organization called Hope Village.

It’s a vehicle with a doctor and a couple of social workers handing out sandwiches. The kids are given creams to treat the type of skin disease they catch from living in street slime every day.

I noticed Hussein’s hands were badly burned. I asked him what happened.

"A fire," he said laughing.

"Why is that funny?"

"Ha ha ha."

Hussein was a tough cookie.

But I’ve always liked a challenge. As difficult as it is for boys, it’s worse — much worse — for girls. They are exposed to the worst type of violence and abuse.

"That includes everything from rape to molestation," according to Unicef Egypt’s Simon Ingram. And to numb the pain?

"Taking drugs like glue is like a reflex mechanism, it’s very freely available. It’s the first thing, in many cases, that they buy when they do manage to get a bit of money."

Life on the streets

I meet 14-year-old Fatma in a dingy day shelter for girls. In the main room, social workers are helping kids pass time by stringing beads and making jewelry. I almost trip over two girls fast asleep on the floor. I’m told it’s so dangerous for them to sleep outside at night, that some children fall asleep from exhaustion anywhere they can during the day.

On the shelter walls, children can draw and write with crayons. I ask Fatma to write her name. She does. I write mine. "Haala," I say smiling, pointing at my name. She looks at me quizzically. "Haala," I repeat. Fatma, like more than 50% of Egyptian females according to a recent CIA fact book statistic, is basically illiterate.

When a social worker asks her why she ran away from home and sleeps in a bus station, she breaks into tears. Her dad is gone, her mother remarried.

Family breakdown

"Family break-up is one of the biggest reasons kids end up on the street," says Ingram.

The father moves onto another wife and the woman cannot support herself and her children. The problem of street kids in Egypt is not just tied to overall poverty, but a direct result of women not able to provide for a family on their own. If a man leaves, the woman is helpless. The children are a financial burden they simply cannot carry on their own.

We follow the loud and colorful Hussein to a day shelter where young boys spend a few hours before heading out onto the streets. I ask him to tell me more about the fire that burned his hands so badly. He tells me there was a fire at his house when he was 7 years old.

His mother, his aunt and two other family members died one after the other in the hospital The same year, his father was sent to jail for ten years on drug trafficking charges. He now lives with his aunt and works on the street selling trinkets.

"Do you think about it often? The fire?" I ask him.

He smiles: "It’s better not to," he answers.

I’ve done my fair share of interviews and I know this one will stay with me for years to come. Hussein continues to smile as the memory of the fire that killed his mother creeps back into his mind.

I don’t want to push it. I don’t want to make him cry. He forces himself to smile in the way people who hold back tears smile. It’s more of a grimace. I know it took Hussein exactly four seconds to get a hold of himself because I twice counted the time down on the interview tape.

Tough Hussein doesn’t allow himself to act vulnerable for more than four seconds. In some of the tougher neighborhoods, we decided to film using a camcorder rather than our professional TV camera.

Ashraf Abdel Monein, the Hope Village projects manager, told us it’s better not to attract too much attention, especially at night.

From our car on the way back to our hotel, we’d find the same children in the exact same spots. We’re told organized gangs employ kids in prime tourist spots. A few yards from our hotel, the same two boys latched onto my car window throwing jasmine necklaces at me. One of them didn’t look older than six or seven.

Government action

We asked the government official in charge of women and childhood what was being done by authorities to help solve the problem. Moushira Khattab told me the issue isn’t just poverty, but public perception.

She says the overall Egyptian population must stop viewing these children as delinquents and pests, but as human beings with rights. "We are training the police to treat them as such," she added.

Don’t throw a 13-year old in jail for begging. Sounds obvious to some, but to others, it requires a true cultural sea change.

Khattab, who is also a U.N. ambassador, says she is pushing for a laws to change in Egypt. If a bill she is promoting passes, street kids will go from being "vulnerable to delinquency," to "vulnerable to neglect."

Before leaving Cairo, I wanted to see Hussein one last time. Armed with a camcorder, we find his trinket stand opposite the Saiyeda Zeinab mosque. He looks happy we’ve tracked him down, perhaps flattered by the extra attention we’ve given him.

Today, Hussein is a bright, funny boy with a tragic past. Where will he be in ten years?