Human Trafficking in [Bolivia] [other countries]Street Children in [Bolivia Child Prostitution in [Bolivia] [other countries] |
Prevalence, Abuse & Exploitation of Street Children In the first ten years of the 21st
Century - 2000 to 2009
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CAUTION: The following links and accompanying text have been culled
from the web to illuminate the situation in ***
FEATURED ARTICLE *** SOS
Children: Street Children in Bolivia In ***
ARCHIVES *** UNICEF - The Big Picture U.S.
Dept of Labor Bureau of International Labor Affairs INCIDENCE
AND NATURE OF CHILD LABOR - In urban areas, children shine shoes, sell goods, and assist
transport operators. Children also
work as small-scale miners, and have been used to sell and traffic
drugs. Some children are known to work
as indentured domestic laborers and prostitutes. CURRENT
GOVERNMENT POLICIES AND PROGRAMS TO ELIMINATE THE WORST FORMS OF CHILD LABOR - In August 2004, the U.S. Department of Agriculture
announced it will provide funds for agricultural commodities for school meals
in Bur of Democracy,
Human Rights & Labor - Country
Reports on Human Rights Practices - 2005 CHILDREN - Public schooling was provided up
to age 17 or grade 8; the law requires all children to complete at least 5
years of primary school; primary education was free and universal.
Enforcement of the education law was lax, particularly in rural areas, where
more than half of the primary schools offered only three of eight grades. An
estimated 50 percent of children completed primary school, and an estimated
26 percent graduated from high school Physical and psychological abuse
in the home was a serious problem. Corporal punishment and verbal abuse were
common in schools. Children from 11 to 16 years of age may be detained
indefinitely in children's centers for suspected offenses or for their own
protection on the orders of a social worker. The UN Children's Fund (UNICEF)
estimated that approximately 13 thousand children lived in institutions where
their basic rights were not respected. There also were many children living
on the streets of major cities. SECTION 6
WORKER RIGHTS – [d]
Urban children sold goods, shined shoes, and assisted transport operators. Concluding
Observations of the Committee on the Rights of the Child (CRC) - 2005 [65] The Committee expresses
concern at the rise in the number of street children in the State party. How Sister Doris helps www.indiancatholic.in/news/storydetails.php/11445-1-9-How-Sister-Doris-helps-Bolivia-'s-street-children Daniel Escalante remembers the
exact day he came in from the cold: March 16, 2000. He was living in and
around the cemetery in La Paz, more than two miles high in the Andes Mountains,
where temperatures plunge as soon as the sun goes down. By day, Escalante and
his teenage friends would do odd jobs or shine shoes to earn a few cents to
buy a watered-down bottle of alcohol to drink or glue to sniff. Then two of
the boys died, one of a liver ailment and one from the cold. "That had a
big impact on me. I decided I didn't want to die that way," said
Escalante, 26. "I have buried friends since I was 10 years old." As Escalante remembers it, they
rode to the end of the bus line, then walked and walked across the empty
landscape until at last they reached a plot of land that Sister Doris'
community had purchased. And there, brick by brick, they started building a
home. El Alto's Light of Hope Center is now a beacon for boys living on the
streets in La Paz, but Sister Doris knows that its hold on them is tenuous.
The center is home to 18 boys, with beds for about a dozen more. Some stay
for awhile, then succumb to the lure of the streets. "It's not easy for
them to give up alcohol and sniffing glue," Sister Doris said.
"Some fall by the wayside."
Like the prodigal son, however, they are welcomed back. And some come
home to die. Bolivia's
shoeshine outcasts pin hopes on Morales www.reuters.com/article/latestCrisis/idUSN09485005
His dark eyes glinting from behind
a black woolen ski mask to hide his identity, 22-year-old shoeshiner
Abel Alvarez is praying Bolivian President Evo
Morales wins a recall vote. At the bottom
of the ladder in South America's poorest country, former street urchin
Alvarez and fellow shoeshiners as young as seven
pepper the streets of La Paz, and complain they are shunned as
untouchables. They wear masks so
classmates cannot recognize them as they earn 35-50 bolivianos
($5-$7) on a good day shining shoes -- the underclass in a land where some 60
percent of the population of about 10 million is poor. Local
doctor helps 'street children' find new home Huang finally got his wish when he
met a boy who had once lived on the streets of La Paz. The boy took him around the city at night
so he could meet the children.
"[Meeting and helping the street children] was challenging and
disturbing," Huang said. "On
the street, there were kids sleeping in their own fecal matter, in their own
urine, in sewers, getting beaten by police and other kids." He was able to meet the children
only in the middle of the night because most of them must stay awake until
sunrise, sniffing paint thinner to keep warm. BOLIVIA:
Dying, to Help Others Live Yovana and Óscar,
two adolescents who were brought in off the street, remember when the young
Italian man would push through the brush surrounding the spot where they
slept under a bridge in a La Paz neighbourhood,
ignoring their hostility while offering hot milk and bread. The two youngsters admitted that they at
first treated the kind young blond man with distrust, but said they
eventually accepted his invitation to abandon the violent world of drugs and
alcohol that they inhabited. Their time on the streets left
them with scars on their arms from the self-harm they used to engage in, an
increasingly common behaviour among troubled
youngsters, who cut themselves, according to experts, to seek a kind of
relief from unbearable psychological or emotional situations. Óscar openly
described to IPS his past on the streets, when he panhandled and robbed to
survive. He said he had "several specialties" when it came to
stealing. But with a newborn baby in
their arms, the young couple now envision a better
future for themselves. Yovana remembers Bertozzi’s advice: "Change for the sake of your
little son; the doors of this home will always be open for your
recovery." "He was a father
to the poor and to the children on the streets," said Hernaiz. Councillor seeks help for Bolivian street children Cllr Michna
and Janet now want to raise more cash for the project. It works with other
bodies to help the 3,000 children living on La Paz’s streets. The children, aged six to 15 years, spend
their days shining shoes or begging for money. At night, they find what shelter they can.
Many have small houses made of corrugated steel or cardboard. For those children choosing to remain on
the streets the project offers help with medical care, food, clothing, social
support and education. For the
children who agree to come off the streets the project runs
residential units. Teatro
Trono: Youth Theater in Bolivia At Teatro
Trono, located in El Alto, a sprawling city
neighboring La Paz, homeless children are the actors, and the plays deal head
on with Bolivia’s harsh reality. Their book, El mañana
es hoy, contains stories
of Teatro Trono told by
the actors. Chila, whose family’s alcoholism forced
him into homelessness at age nine, said the street was his home. There he
united with his friends and shared food, spoils from robberies, and drugs
until he found Trono. "We have reconstructed a
family [for street children]," Nogales says. "Now many of them are
teachers here." Though the theater started out working with homeless
children, Trono now works more on prevention rather
than rehabilitation, with outreach efforts that seek to stop children from
becoming drug addicts. Bolivian leader opens his doors theworldgame.sbs.com.au/worldcup/index.php?pid=st&cid=72016 SOS
Children: Street Children in Bolivia In Abandoned Street Children
Turn To Drugs The economic realities of stark
poverty are forcing children out of their homes onto New KHouse Opens in Bolivia www.kidlink.org/kie/america/bo/news.html At one time this article had been
archived and may possibly still be accessible [here]
Two blue, mobile containers,
filled with computers and connected to the Internet, opened their
doors to street kids and schools of With poor health conditions, serious
diseases, unsafe drinking water, malnutrition, and inadequate housing, many
of There are approximately 400
children ranging in ages from six to 18 who live on the streets of Description And Activities Of Amanecer Amanecer was started by a catholic order,
the Sisters of Charity of St. Vincent de Paul in 1981. They were motivated by
the increasing number of abandoned children living on the streets of the city
as a result of poor economic conditions.
Many recently unemployed miners were moving to the city in a generally
vain attempt to find work. They live in basic conditions in slums on the edge
of the city with high rates of alcoholism and domestic abuse. Their children
suffered the most with many being abandoned and others running away from
abusive situations. Volunteers helping street children - Bruce Bolivia - S.O.S. Bolivia HOW OUR PROJECT WORKS - We go into the poorest
communities where :the highest concentrations of out-of-school
children can be found: and we recruit them. When we have enough, we either
open our own school or else gain the use of a classroom in a local state
school: and there we begin the rehabilitation and education of these
children. 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 - |
Human Trafficking in [Bolivia] [other countries]Street Children in [Bolivia Child Prostitution in [Bolivia] [other countries]