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Prevalence, Abuse & Exploitation of Street Children In the early years of the 21st Century gvnet.com/streetchildren/Argentina.htm
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CAUTION: The following links
and accompanying text have been culled from the web to illuminate the
situation in ***
FEATURED ARTICLE *** Thousands of kids struggle on the streets
of Buenos Aires Alejandra Labanca,
business.highbeam.com/6033/article-1G1-155361127/thousands-kids-struggle-streets-buenos-aires [partially accessed 29 March 2011] A slim, red burn crosses the left side of Víctor's face from cheekbone to forehead. His eyelid is burnt. His lower eyelashes are gone, charred to the rim of his eye. Only 3 ½ months old, Víctor faces a tough life. ''He got burnt with a pipe,'' says his 16-year-old mother, Marta, referring matter of factly to the pipe she uses to smoke paco, a cheap, highly toxic byproduct of cocaine refining. With her baby in
tow, Marta lives on the streets, begging and stealing, seeking shelter in
dark porches or under trees. They rarely spend two nights in the same place.
Many times they don't even spend them together. They eat what she can get,
when she can get it. Marta and Víctor embody the plight of the most vulnerable of
Argentines, the street children of Buenos Aires, a city struggling to come to
grips with in-your-face misery since the 2001 economic meltdown led the
country to the largest debt default in history and plunged more than half of
all Argentines into poverty ***
ARCHIVES *** UNICEF
– www.unicef.org/infobycountry/argentina.html [accessed 29 March 2011] The Department of Labor’s 2004 Findings on
the Worst Forms of Child Labor www.dol.gov/ilab/media/reports/iclp/tda2004/argentina.htm [accessed 19 January 2011] CURRENT
GOVERNMENT POLICIES AND PROGRAMS TO ELIMINATE THE WORST FORMS OF CHILD LABOR - The National
Council for Childhood, Adolescence, and Family (CONNAF), a federal government
agency, works with local governments and NGOs to provide services for and
protect the rights of children who have been sexually exploited or are at
risk of exploitation. In Human Rights
Reports » 2005 Country Reports on Human Rights Practices www.state.gov/g/drl/rls/hrrpt/2005/61713.htm [accessed 19 January 2011] CHILDREN
-
Education is free and compulsory for 10 years, beginning at age 5. Although a
2001 government survey reported school attendance rates between 92 percent
(at age 5) to 97 percent (ages 13 to 14), an appraisal by the International
Bank for Reconstruction and Development stated that of 100 students entering
primary school, 84 would enter the seventh grade, and 40 would enter the last
year of secondary school. Attendance rates were lowest among children from
low-income households. Access to schooling was limited in some rural areas of
the country. SECTION
6 WORKER RIGHTS
– [d] In 2004 the National Commission for the Eradication of Child Labor
(CONAETI) estimated that up to 1.5 million children, or 22 percent of the
children under the age of 15, worked in some capacity. Most illegal child
labor took place in the informal sector, where inspectors had limited ability
to enforce the law. Child labor in urban zones included such work as
small-scale garment production, trash recycling, street sales, domestic
service, and food preparation. Children also were involved in prostitution,
sex tourism, and drug trafficking. Concluding
Observations of the Committee on the Rights of the Child (CRC) UN Convention on the Rights of the Child,
April 10, 2002 sim.law.uu.nl/SIM/CaseLaw/uncom.nsf/0/3567bf5c062c819e41256c5d0043aa0b?OpenDocument [accessed 19 January 2011] [29] The Committee
is concerned that the principle of non-discrimination is not fully
implemented for children living in poverty, indigenous children, children of
migrant workers, primarily those from neighboring countries, street children,
children with disabilities and marginalized
adolescents who are neither studying nor working, especially with regard to
their access to adequate health care and educational facilities. In B. Olidort, Lubavitch News Service LNS, [accessed 29 March 2011] When Eduardo was
six years old, he couldn’t tell you that. He didn’t know what you to do with
a fork or spoon. He’d never eaten at a table. He’d never eaten a cooked meal.
Eduardo had a swollen, infected sore on his foot, but refused to remove his
shoe. When anyone approached him, he threw his hands up over his head as if
he was expecting a beating. Locked up at home
by a violent father and non-responsive mother, Eduardo’s life was on a
downward spiral from the moment of his birth. Sooner or later, social
services would find him, and place him in one of the city’s reform
institutions. Then, if things took their predictable course, Eduardo would
break out of there and join the other ragamuffins on the streets of Buenos
Aires. If he could learn the art of petty theft without getting caught,
Eduardo might even count himself lucky.
Eduardo was on his way to becoming another one among the thousands in
Argentina’s tragic statistics. Thousands of kids struggle on the streets
of Buenos Aires Alejandra Labanca,
business.highbeam.com/6033/article-1G1-155361127/thousands-kids-struggle-streets-buenos-aires [partially accessed 29 March 2011] A slim, red burn crosses the left side of Víctor's face from cheekbone to forehead. His eyelid is burnt. His lower eyelashes are gone, charred to the rim of his eye. Only 3 ½ months old, Víctor faces a tough life. ''He got burnt with a pipe,'' says his 16-year-old mother, Marta, referring matter of factly to the pipe she uses to smoke paco, a cheap, highly toxic byproduct of cocaine refining. With her baby in
tow, Marta lives on the streets, begging and stealing, seeking shelter in
dark porches or under trees. They rarely spend two nights in the same place.
Many times they don't even spend them together. They eat what she can get,
when she can get it. Marta and Víctor embody the plight of the most vulnerable of
Argentines, the street children of Buenos Aires, a city struggling to come to
grips with in-your-face misery since the 2001 economic meltdown led the country
to the largest debt default in history and plunged more than half of all
Argentines into poverty The street children of Buenos Aires Peter Andrew Bosch, This article has been archived by World
Street Children News and may possibly still be accessible [here] [accessed 21 September 2011] • More than
3,000 children — twice as many as in 2001 — wander the streets begging, scrounging
through trash or opening cab doors for some change. Most have somewhere to go
at day’s end, but 700 sleep on the streets every night. • 75 percent
are boys, 25 percent are girls. • 30 percent
of their fathers and 70 percent of their mothers are out of work. • About 30
percent to 40 percent say they left home to escape poverty or domestic abuse
and violence. Games
Roberto Belo, BBC in news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/3731908.stm [accessed 29 March 2011] Street children in Felices Los Ninos Foundation www.obrapadregrassi.org/fundacion/en/nosotros/situacion.html [accessed 10 October 2012] STREET CHILDREN IN
THE CITY OF CHILD LABOR - Seventy-five
percent are children aged 6 – 12 and 70% collect garbage; others clean cars
or sell whatever they can. Forty percent drop out of school because they have
to work. Thousands of
Children Need Our Help Father Julio Cesar Grassi,
Founder, Felices Los Ninos
Foundation www.obrapadregrassi.org/fundacion/en/nosotros/bienvenida.html [accessed 10 October 2012] Cold official data
on the Argentine reality show a two-fold increase during the past two years
in the number of kids and teenagers who spend the day begging, working or
wasting their golden years of childhood in the street instead of studying,
playing with friends at home or practicing sports. One half of the Argentine
population is poor... and there they are, "the poorest among the
poor": the children. The problem of
these kids is manifold: they grow up too soon towards a kind of maturity they
are not yet ready to live, they compromise their future because they are
potentially illiterate, they will not study or will drop out of school, they
will be undernourished and have their physical and emotional development
reduced or impaired, they will starve and beg in the streets under the
indifference of others and they will be chronically unemployed. These
children are not aware of the fact that they have less possibilities and no
opportunities, and that their rights are encroached. Fear
For Safety/ Death Threats: Marcelino Altamirano Amnesty International, Index Number: AMR
13/015/2003, 8 September 2003 www.amnesty.org/en/library/info/AMR13/015/2003/en [accessed 29 March 2011] Amnesty
International is seriously concerned for the safety of Marcelino
Altamirano, coordinator of the street children’s
home La Casita del Puente Afectivo (The Little
House of the Complaints
of Abuse in Police Custody Lutheran World Information LWI, www.lutheranworld.org/News/LWI/EN/821.EN.html [accessed 29 March 2011] An order on police
to routinely round up street children and beggars in Training in the
Exercise and Recognition of the
Rights of Children [access information unavailable] ACC provides
training to minors and young people about their rights, helping to protect
them particularly from abuse of authority and police violence within the
framework of articles 2, 4, and 6 of the International Convention on the
Rights of the Child (ICRC) and recognized by Argentine Legislation, Law
23.592. TOOLS OF HOPE: Adding Leaven to Young Lives Church World Service, Stories of Hope,
February 26, 2007 At one time this article had been archived
and may possibly still be accessible [here] [accessed 21 September 2011] At "La
Casita," abandoned or marginalized young people in Buenos Aires,
Argentina, are gaining not only self-acceptance, but are also learning bread
making, meal preparation, and catering -- skills that offer future employment
possibilities. Graduations
at Bruce Argentina Children's Centres, August 2004 Bruce Peru, August 2004 bruceperu.org/bpograduationsframe.html [accessed 29 March 2011] We graduated many
of our children already in school, to make way for the children we are
beating the back streets and hedgerows to find. The reasons the children we are
looking for are not in school are three: extreme poverty, abusive parents or
abandonment. 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 - |
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