Prevalence,
Abuse & Exploitation of Street Children In the first decade
of the 21st Century gvnet.com/streetchildren/Bolivia.htm
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CAUTION: The following links
and accompanying text have been culled from the web to illuminate the
situation in 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 *** SOS Children in South America: Family Strengthening and
Street Children SOS Children's
Villages www.street-children.org.uk/samericanstreetchildren/bolivia [accessed 6 April
2011] STREET CHILDREN IN Local doctor helps
'street children' find new home Mira Vale,
Correspondent, GateHouse News Service, www.wickedlocal.com/lincoln/news/lifestyle/x2113785543/Local-doctor-helps-street-children-find-new-home#axzz1Ilb5nsum [accessed 6 April
2011] streetchildrennews.wordpress.com/category/1/north-south-america/bolivia-streetkid-news/ [accessed 22
November 2016] 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. ***
ARCHIVES *** The Department of Labor’s 2004 Findings on
the Worst Forms of Child Labor www.dol.gov/ilab/media/reports/iclp/tda2004/bolivia.htm [accessed 23 January
2011] 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 Human Rights
Reports » 2005 Country Reports on Human Rights Practices 2009-2017.state.gov/j/drl/rls/hrrpt/2005/61717.htm [accessed 7 February
2020] 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) UN Convention on the
Rights of the Child, 28 January 2005 www1.umn.edu/humanrts/crc/bolivia2005.html [accessed 23 January
2011] [65] The Committee
expresses concern at the rise in the number of street children in the State
party. Nun helps Barbara J. Fraser,
Catholic News Service CNS, EL ALTO www.catholicnews.com/data/stories/cns/0901052.htm [accessed 6 April
2011] groups.google.com/forum/#!msg/soc.retirement/n2XAVYXLCoo/iqcRPLAOYRcJ [accessed 22
November 2016] [scroll up] 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 Simon Gardner,
Reuters, www.reuters.com/article/2008/08/09/us-bolivia-morales-poor-idUSN0948500520080809 [accessed 6 April
2011] 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. BOLIVIA: Dying, to
Help Others Live Franz Chávez, Inter
Press Service News Agency IPS, www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=41025 [accessed 6 April
2011] www.ipsnews.net/2008/01/bolivia-dying-to-help-others-live/ [accessed 22
November 2016] 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 Sandy McKenzie,
Evening Gazette, Jan 4 2008 www.gazettelive.co.uk/news/local-news/tees-councillor-seeks-help-bolivian-3736007 [accessed 8 Aug 2013 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 Benjamin Dangl, "The Price of Fire: Resource Wars and Social
Movements in nacla.org/news/teatro-trono-youth-theater-bolivia [accessed 30
December 2014] At Teatro Trono, located in El
Alto, a sprawling city neighboring 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 Reuters, 13 February
2008 hwtheworldgame.sbs.com.au/2006-world-cup/news/623575/Bolivian-leader-opens-his-doors [accessed 6 April
2011] theworldgame.sbs.com.au/article/2006/06/10/bolivian-leader-opens-his-doors [accessed 22
November 2016] Bolivian street
children got the best World Cup ticket in town on Friday, invited by
football-crazy President Evo Morales to watch the
opening match on television at the presidential palace. Abandoned Street
Children Turn To Drugs Christian B. Schaeffler, Editor-in-Chief, Adventist Press Service APD,
December 31, 1998 www.wfn.org/1999/01/msg00011.html [accessed 6 April
2011] The economic
realities of stark poverty are forcing children out of their homes onto New KHouse Opens in Kid Link,
December 12, 2002 – Source:
www.kidlink.org/kie/america/bo/news.html www.politicsonline.com/content/main/search/local_news_search.asp?locale=Bolivia&cmd_country=YES [accessed 6 April
2011] Two blue, mobile
containers, filled with computers and connected to
the Internet, opened their doors to street kids and schools of Life Outreach
International, lifetoday.org/outreaches/life-centers/bolivia/ [accessed 6 April
2011] With poor health
conditions, serious diseases, unsafe drinking water, malnutrition, and
inadequate housing, many of Programa www.iisd.org/50comm/commdb/desc/d34.htm [accessed 6 April
2011] There are
approximately 400 children ranging in ages from six to 18 who live on the
streets of Description And
Activities Of Amanecer arabinfomall.bibalex.org/En/OrgData.aspx?orgid=2470§ionid=3 [accessed 19
September 2011] 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 brucebolivia.org/bpowork.html [accessed 6 April
2011] brucebolivia.agendasos.com/bpowork.html [accessed 22
November 2016] 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 - |
