Prevalence,
Abuse & Exploitation of Street Children In the first decade of the 21st Century
gvnet.com/streetchildren/Albania.htm
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CAUTION: The following links
and accompanying text have been culled from the web to illuminate the
situation in Albania. Some of these
links may lead to websites that present allegations that are unsubstantiated
or even false. No attempt has been made to validate their authenticity
or to verify their content. HOW TO USE THIS WEBPAGE Students If you are looking for
material to use in a term-paper, you are advised to scan the postings on this
page and others to see which aspect(s) of street life are of particular
interest to you. You might be
interested in exploring how children got there, how they survive, and how
some manage to leave the street.
Perhaps your paper could focus on how some street children abuse the
public and how they are abused by the public … and how they abuse each
other. Would you like to write about
market children? homeless children? Sexual and labor exploitation? begging? violence? addiction? hunger? neglect? etc. There is a lot to the subject of Street
Children. Scan other countries as well
as this one. Draw comparisons between
activity in adjacent countries and/or regions. Meanwhile, check out some of the Term-Paper resources
that are available on-line. Teachers Check out some of
the Resources
for Teachers attached to this website. ***
FEATURED ARTICLE *** Albanian street
children’s plight recognized by study World Vision Meero, February 22, 2008 streetchildrennews.wordpress.com/2008/02/22/p1276/ [accessed 16 January
2017] Of the street
children interviewed, 94% were boys between 10 to 14 years old, and as many
as half of them started to work before the age of 10. Some children belonged
to ethnic minority groups such as Roma and Egyptian, while others were
non-minority Albanian. In many cases the reasons the children are on the
street were the same, regardless of whether or not they were a from minority
group. Family poverty is one of the main conditions that result in
children begging or working on the street. Many of them labor an average of
seven hours a day and others as much as 18 hours, with most of their earnings
given to their families. More than 80% of street children work mostly during
the day, hence school drop out is high among them. However, most of the
children interviewed during the quantitative study reported that if they
could they would be happy to attend school. ***
ARCHIVES *** The Department of Labor’s
2004 Findings on the Worst Forms of Child Labor U.S. Dept of Labor
Bureau of International Labor Affairs, 2005 www.dol.gov/ilab/media/reports/iclp/tda2004/albania.htm [accessed 18 January
2011] [113] The Roma or
“Egyptian” minority groups are significantly marginalized in Albanian
society. The study also estimated that the majority of street children in
various cities in Greece are Albanian. Human
Rights Reports » 2005 Country Reports on Human Rights Practices U.S. Dept of State Bureau
of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor, March 8, 2006 2009-2017.state.gov/j/drl/rls/hrrpt/2005/61633.htm [accessed 4 February
2020] CHILDREN
- Homeless,
displaced or street children remained a problem, particularly Romani
children, who lived in extreme poverty throughout the country. Street
children begged or did petty work; many migrated to neighboring countries,
particularly during the summer. SECTION
6 WORKER RIGHTS
– [d] According to the CRCA, the majority of child laborers worked as street
or shop vendors, beggars, farmers or shepherds, drug runners, vehicle
washers, textile factory workers, and shoeshine boys, some as many as 16
hours a day. In Tirana and other cities, children—mostly Roma—worked as
beggars or sold cigarettes and other items on the street; the police
generally ignored this practice. The CRCA also noted that there were
approximately one thousand street children in Tirana. Concluding Observations of the Committee on the Rights of the Child (CRC) UN Convention on the
Rights of the Child, 28 January 2005 sim.law.uu.nl/SIM/CaseLaw/uncom.nsf/0/10c1b349cbae3e05c1256fa4004ac5b2?OpenDocument [accessed 18 January
2011] [72] The Committee
is very concerned that street children represent the most unprotected
category of children in Albania and regrets the lack of information in the
State party's report in this respect. Children of the
Stoplights Discarded Lies,
Winds of Change.NET, January 14, 2005 www.windsofchange.net/archives/006160.html [accessed 18 January
2011] They're skinny,
their clothes are cheap and ill-fitting, their hair is uncombed, they're
Roma, they're Albanian, they're all from some other
place. They look weary and scared but they smile easily, like children do.
They spend their days and nights at traffic lights, or wandering around the
areas their boss has marked for them, restaurants and cafés, but careful not
to hang around too long, not to attract too much attention. For
Albanians, It's Come to This: A Son
for a TV Nicholas Wood, The
New York Times, Durres Albania, 13 November 2003 www.essex.ac.uk/armedcon/story_id/000159.html [accessed 28 March
2011] www.nytimes.com/2003/11/13/world/for-albanians-it-s-come-to-this-a-son-for-a-tv.html [accessed 27
September 2021] Judy Mitstifer, 43, a missionary from Liberty, Pa., has set up
a school for street children in Pogradec. Many of
them, she said, are on the cusp of becoming child prostitutes and run a high
risk of being trafficked. State Report /
Alternative NGO Report / CRC Concluding Observations [DOC] www.streetchildren.org.uk/reports/38th%20session%20ALBANIA%20Jan%2005.doc [access date
unavailable] OVERVIEW OF STREET
CHILDREN ISSUES - STATE REPORT - Unsourced information alleges that there
are some 800 children on the streets of Tirana as beggars, vendors and
shoeshine boys. Many of the street
children are believed to be Roma who are involved generally in begging and in
some cases end up in prostitution.
There is recognition of a rise in the numbers of drug addicts among
children although no figures are available. Trafficking in Human
Beings in South Eastern Europe [PDF] United Nations
Children's Fund UNICEF, 12/5/2003 www.unicef.org/serbia/Trafficking2.pdf [accessed 28 March
2011] ALBANIAN CASE
STUDY: CHILD TRAFFICKING AND MIGRATION [page 51]
TRAFFICKING OF CHILDREN FOR BEGGING AND OTHER FORMS OF FORCED LABOR - The number of
younger children under 13 trafficked for begging to
Greece also fell in 2002. These estimates are based, in the first instance on
the number of foreign street children visible on the streets of Greece. In
the 1990s there were thousands of street children reported in Italy and
Greece, but now the number is much lower and, according to the Greek police,
90 percent of the 300 children arrested for begging each year at the streets
of Athens are Albanian. Child Trafficking
in EU countries [PDF] www.stopchildtrafficking.org/site/uploads/media/english/EU.pdf [access date
unavailable] The majority of
street children in Greece are Albanians. Child trafficking has concentrated
on Athens and Thessaloniki. terre des hommes estimated the
number of street children in the big Greek cities in December 1999 at approx.
1000. According to the figures given by the Athens police, about 300 children
were picked up for begging, 90 percent of them being Albanians. – htsc UNICEF
Calls For Eradication Of Commercial Sexual Exploitation Of Children United Nations
Children's Fund UNICEF, Geneva / New York, 12 December 2001 www.unicef.org/newsline/01pr97.htm [accessed 28 March
2011] In Albania, UNICEF
works with a local non-governmental organization that runs reintegration
classes for street children, 80 per cent of whom have been exploited in
Greece or Italy. Human Development 04/03/2005 courses.wcupa.edu/rbove/eco343/050Compecon/Centeur/Albania/050000human.txt [accessed 10 October
2012] The Constitution
prohibits discrimination based on sex, race, ethnicity, or language; however,
discrimination against women and Roma minority groups persisted. Societal
discrimination against Roma, the Egyptian Homeless, displaced or street
children remained a problem, especially among Roma children. They begged in
the street or did other petty work, and many immigrated to neighboring
countries, especially during the summer. The Roma and the Egyptian
communities were among the most politically, economically and socially
neglected groups in the country. UNDP-Albania
Launches the National Human
Development Report for Albania 2005 [access information
unavailable] * Young people in * There are
approximately 6700 employed and street children in * Only 3 out of 10
children attend secondary schools in rural areas. * 64% of Roma and
24% of Egyptian children aged 7-20 years old are illiterate. Interim
Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper Government of Albania,
May 3, 2000 www.imf.org/external/NP/prsp/2000/alb/01/INDEX.HTM#II [accessed 28 March
2011] II. POVERTY
PROFILE 9. The social
stratification since the 1996 LSMS may have changed as a result of the
economic downfall caused by the pyramid scheme crisis, and large-scale
internal and external migration. There are indications that significant
pockets of urban poverty have appeared. Slum-like communities have formed
around Tirana and other major cities, lacking urban infrastructure and
services. Children from these communities often have to walk for about an
hour to reach school. It is estimated that in Tirana there are about 800
street children. Parents working abroad often leave their children with
grandparents or relatives who in some cases are not able to take adequate
care of them. Everychild
::: Helping Children Worldwide - Country Overview [access information
unavailable] New social groups,
such as street children and children who leave the education system early in
order to work, have been created; UNICEF states that there are approximately
2,500 street children in Albania, and the Ministry of Education has reported
that 16,000 children do not attend compulsory education. Project
representation/childhouse Tirana National Help
Program Albania www.adanet.com.al/kinderhaustirana/interest.htm [accessed 28 March
2011] The child house
Tirana is open leisure facilities for street children, children from ruined
parental homes, children of former refugees and children from social weakly
supplied families between 6 and 16 years independent of ethical and cultural
origin, their religion, membership and
their sex.. The Kinderhaus Tirana is open leisure
facilities for street children. The integration of more partly handicapped
children is natural in the context of the possibilities. National Help
Program Albania is an Albanian non-governmental organization that was founded on the bases of
voluntarily union of its initiators in February 2000. This strong initiative
was inspired by many social-economic problems that exist in the society of
Albanian. The main target groups are children and youth of Albania. All
material used herein reproduced under the fair use exception of 17 USC § 107
for noncommercial, nonprofit, and educational use. PLEASE RESPECT COPYRIGHTS OF COMPONENT
ARTICLES. Cite this webpage as: Patt,
Prof. Martin, "Street Children - Albania",
http://gvnet.com/streetchildren/Albania.htm, [accessed <date>] |
