Prevalence,
Abuse & Exploitation of Street Children In the first decade
of the 21st Century gvnet.com/streetchildren/Australia.htm
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CAUTION: The following links and
accompanying text have been culled from the web to illuminate the situation
in Australia. 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 *** Homelessness among
young people in Australia - Early
intervention and prevention Phil Crane, Jillian Brannock (Project Directors), a report to the National
Youth Affairs Research Scheme www.acys.utas.edu.au/nyars/pdfs/pdfs-homelessness/h-full.pdf [accessed 19
September 2011] citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.137.3997&rep=rep1&type=pdf [accessed 21
November 2016] EXECUTIVE SUMMARY - The study found that young people see their relations with parents, or other parent figures as central to their capacity to remain at home. Young people indicated they principally left home because of conflict with parents, various forms of abuse, because they were kicked out, and/or because of drug and alcohol related issues. Themes of a lack of felt emotional support, a culture of blame, and unresolved grief and loss pervade the accounts of these young people. Young people suggested that well in advance of home leaving occurring, there needs to be improved parental and adult attitudes and behaviours to them, greater understanding of the impact of new parental partners on them, a halt to abuse, and early access to third party facilitation of communication. ***
ARCHIVES *** Runaways
- Where To Turn For Help Before You Are Homeless www.homeless.org.au/runaways.htm [accessed 30 March
2011] Here are the best
phone numbers to call …They are Confidential - which means they won't tell anyone
about your call unless you want them to talk to somebody for you, or you are
in danger. They are open 24 Hours - it
doesn't matter what time you call In
Australia, call 1800 55 1800 ECPAT Global
Monitoring Report on the status of action against commercial exploitation of
children - AUSTRALIA [PDF] ECPAT 2005 www.ecpat.net/A4A_2005/PDF/EAP/Global_Monitoring_Report-AUSTRALIA.pdf [accessed 30 March
2011] www.ecpat.org/wp-content/uploads/legacy/global_monitoring_report-australia.pdf [accessed 21
November 2016] Although Australia
has a high standard of living, high numbers of children and young people are homeless,
which in some cases leads to commercial sexual exploitation. According to the
census of 2001, 46 per cent of the 99,900 homeless people at that time were
below 25 years of age, with those aged between 12-18 years a prominent group
(26 per cent of all homeless people). Factors that push young people to live
on the street include poverty, domestic violence, and sexual abuse at home,
which results in the disintegration of family relationships. ‘Speaking for
Themselves’, a research publication produced by Child Wise (the ECPAT group
in Australia) in 2004 confirms significant links between commercial sexual
activity of children and those who have experienced abusive backgrounds,
exposure to violence, homelessness, and/or drug addiction. Once children live
on the street, they become more vulnerable to cycles of drug abuse, sexual
abuse and petty theft and may fall into commercial sex as a means of
survival. As underage sex work is illegal, they therefore work on the street
rather than in a legal brothel, which leads to further risks of violence and
increased vulnerability; they are sought out by exploiters because of this. A significant
number of indigenous children, in particular, have been victimised
by sexual abuse as a result of inadequate policies for their protection,
which also makes them vulnerable to commercial sexual exploitation. – sccp 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/2005/61601.htm [accessed 4 February
2020] INDIGENOUS
PEOPLE -
According to a 2004 ABS survey indigenous youth were 1.9 times more likely than
non-indigenous youth to leave school before graduation; however, this was a
significant improvement over the previous 5 years. Although Aboriginal
adults represented only 2.2 percent of the adult population, according to the
ABS they accounted for approximately 21 percent of the total prison
population and were imprisoned at 11 times the rate of non-indigenous persons
as of June 2004, down from 15 times the non-indigenous rate in 2002. More
than 45 percent of Aboriginal men between the ages of 20 and 30 years had
been arrested at some time in their lives. In 2003 Aboriginal juveniles
accounted for 47 percent of those between the ages of 10 to 17 in juvenile
correctional institutions. Human rights observers noted that socioeconomic
conditions gave rise to the common precursors of indigenous crime, including
unemployment, homelessness, and boredom. Indigenous groups
charged that police harassment of indigenous people, including juveniles, was
pervasive and that racial discrimination by police and prison custodians
persisted. Human rights groups and indigenous people alleged a pattern of
mistreatment and arbitrary arrests occurring against a backdrop of unofficial
yet systemic discrimination. Concluding Observations
of the Committee on the Rights of the Child (CRC) UN Convention on the
Rights of the Child, September 30, 2005 www1.umn.edu/humanrts/crc/australia2005.html [accessed 19 January
2011] [51] The Committee
welcomes the various efforts of the State party to reduce suicide among youth
in recent years, but it remains concerned that the youth suicide rate is
still high, especially among indigenous children and homeless adolescents,
and that mental health problems and substance abuse are increasing. [65] While the
Committee welcomes the information that the State party is seriously
considering the issue of youth homelessness, including by means of the
National Homelessness Strategy and the “Reconnect” program, it wishes to
express concern at the situation of homeless children, who are also more
likely to be affected by educational and relational problems and are more
exposed to substance abuse and sexual exploitation. Indigenous children
beg police for help Tanya Chilcott, The Courier-Mail, December 20, 2007 www.couriermail.com.au/news/queensland/indigenous-kids-cry-for-help/story-e6freoof-1111115169804 [accessed 30 March
2011] The details of the
way some Queensland children are living in indigenous communities make for
saddening and maddening reading. They tell of a
litany of abuse and neglect at the most basic levels – from rape and
malnutrition to homelessness and child prostitution. "In addition,
the review team was told that children as young as nine years of age are
sexually active. It was alleged that girls less than 16 years of age are
soliciting men for sex in return for money, alcohol and marijuana." 300 street kids at
risk of abuse Craig Bildstien, The Advertiser, February 14, 2007 www.adelaidenow.com.au/news/street-kids-at-risk-of-abuse/story-e6freo8c-1111112999686 [accessed 30 March
2011] At least 300 street children in Adelaide and "large numbers" in
regional cities and country towns are vulnerable to sexual abuse, the head of
the Commission of Inquiry into Children in State Care said today. Former Supreme Court judge Ted Mullighan, QC, says there has been "a long
history" in Adelaide of street children – many of them runaways from
state care – being exploited for sexual favours. He lists well-known haunts as Veale
Gardens, the banks of the Torrens River and a public lavatory near Jolley's
Boathouse restaurant. Gang culture in our
schools [access information
unavailable] "These kids
are not yet organised, but if somebody with some
real gang experience, an older person who wants to move drugs or weapons,
gets a hold of these kids and organises them,
that's when Brisbane's going to have a problem." I can tell you this, this is already
happening. Living Rough:
Preventing Crime and Victimization Among Homeless Young People [PDF] Strategic Partners
Pty Ltd, 1/1/2001 www.ag.gov.au/agd/www/rwpattach.nsf/viewasattachmentPersonal/%281B6AD81F813D96A0E19CE0909B1663BA %29
~no9_fullreport_part2.pdf/$file/no9_fullreport_part2.pdf [accessed 21
September 2011] Click [here]
to access the article. Its URL is not
displayed because of its length [accessed 21 November
2016] APPENDIX 1 - CASE
STUDIES – INTRODUCTION
- As part of profiling successful practices and strategies currently being
undertaken to prevent crime and victimisation,
contact was made with a wide range of agencies working in the areas of
homelessness and crime prevention.
Following considerable contact with agencies and individuals, 28
projects were selected as examples of good practice. To build a profile of what might be
considered good practice in this area, 22 agency visits and six telephone interviews
were undertaken across Australia. The
critical aim of the visits and interviews was to document programs which make
a difference in the prevention of crime and victimisation
of homeless/at risk young people. Following the visits and interviews, services
were then contacted by fax and telephone to review and comment on the case
studies before inclusion in the report.
The following section provides a description of the model of service
and service objectives of each case study, how they are making a difference,
what outcomes demonstrate this, best practice principles underpinning
projects (as articulated in Section 5), how they are evaluated, and whether
the model could be replicated in other contexts. Rebecca's Story Dominic Mapstone, Director, Rebeccas
Community www.homeless.org.au/people/rebecca.htm [accessed 31 March
2011] "Two things
happened when I turned 12, my Father who used to beat the hell out of us left
home and the other thing that happened is I started using drugs... One of my
friends said 'Here try this it will make you feel better', and it did. When I turned 13, my Mum found a new
partner who lived at home with us. He raped me regularly and abused my
younger sisters as well. I was only 13. Jazmin's Story Dominic Mapstone, Director, Rebeccas
Community www.homeless.org.au/people/jazmin.htm [accessed 31 March
2011] Jazmin was raised
by her alcoholic father for the first eight years of her life and foster
parents until she was 12 years old.
She ran away from foster care to escape a foster father who was
violent. Living on the streets using
whatever drugs or alcohol she could get her hands on to escape her pain,
Jazmin was using heavily when she became pregnant at 15. Gish's Journal Dominic Mapstone, Director, Rebeccas
Community [accessed 31 March
2011] I'm 26 years old and
have lived on the streets since I was 6 years old. A year ago I moved into
Rebecca’s Community 'Hospitality House.' This website chronicles my life
journey through foster care, homelessness, drug addiction, prison and my new
life off drugs and off the streets. Sydney’s Street
Kids Get Connected Megan McAuliffe,
ZDNet, June 12, 2001 cdn.zdnet.com.au/sydneys-street-kids-get-connected-120230690.htm [accessed 10 October
2012] The project aims to provide the homeless and disadvantaged with
access to computers and free Internet access. It will also provide
meals for those using the Café. The
project is the brainchild of Salvation Army Oasis Youth Support Network and
the Rotary Club of Sydney Cove. Tech
Pacific was also instrumental in gathering local IT support to build the
Street Level Internet Café. Street Kids Produce
Hip Range Of ‘Speakout’ Streetwear With Help Of
Commonwealth Minister for
Education, Training and Youth Affairs, Media Release, 19 August 1999 www.dest.gov.au/archive/ministers/kemp/aug99/k6908_190899.htm [accessed 31 March
2011] "Speakout is a remarkable success story. All of
their products have been designed, produced, packaged and marketed by young
people who have overcome personal setbacks or difficult situations in their
lives." Dr Kemp said. "These
young people may have been street kids, homeless or long-term unemployed who
took up the chance to get nationally accredited training certificates in
office work, screen printing or garment production at Speakout." Open Family Australia Open Family
Australia | Homeless Youth At one time this
article had been archived and may possibly still be accessible [here] [accessed 21
September 2011] 39,000 young people
aged between 12 and 25 are homeless in Australia on any one given night. Saving street kids:
Fr Chris honored Damir Govorcin,
The Catholic Weekly, 15 December 2002 www.catholicweekly.com.au/02/dec/15/23.html [accessed 31 March
2011] Without significant
government funding, Youth Off The Streets has become one of the largest youth
services in Australia offering street-based programs, secondary schooling,
drug and alcohol rehabilitation, counseling,
long-term residential treatment, semi-independent living, individual casework
and family support facilities. Youth Off The
Streets Community
Development & Outreach Services foundation.youthoffthestreets.com.au/page.aspx?pid=255#.UgLL_KyS_Bw [accessed 7 Aug 2013] Street Walk is a
Youth Off The Streets Outreach Program that engages with at risk and homeless
young people on the inner city streets of Sydney. Street Walk staff and volunteers provide a
night time presence Sunday through to Thursday, making contact with and
building trust with the young people on the streets. The program assists
young people with accessing relevant services including drug and alcohol
treatment, counselling, accommodation and education programs. The young people
who come into contact with the Street Walk program are either chronically
homeless or at risk of homelessness and often struggling with an alcohol or
other drug dependence. The young people are between the ages of 13 and 22 and
can be on the street for various reasons, from complete family breakdown to
poor family relations resulting in a lack of belonging for the young person. The Street Walk
program is a core component of Youth Off The Streets. It makes vital contact
and connections with young people living on the streets, providing them with
support and alternatives to their situation at a grass roots level within
their own environment. The Street Walk program also provides an element of
safety for these young people, by having a trusted adult out on the streets
and referring and transporting young people to safe places. 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 - Australia",
http://gvnet.com/streetchildren/Australia.htm, [accessed <date>] |
