Prevalence,
Abuse & Exploitation of Street Children In the first decade
of the 21st Century gvnet.com/streetchildren/Colombia.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 *** True cost of The Scottish Daily
Record, May 20 2008 [accessed 1 May
2011] ***
ARCHIVES *** The Department of Labor’s 2004 Findings on
the Worst Forms of Child Labor www.dol.gov/ilab/media/reports/iclp/tda2004/colombia.htm [accessed 30 January
2011] INCIDENCE
AND NATURE OF CHILD LABOR - In urban areas, children are found working as
domestic servants, and also in the retail and services sectors, and in
activities such as street vending and waiting tables. Children are involved in commercial sexual
exploitation either on the streets or in private establishments such as bars,
brothels, or massage parlors, and tend to range in age from 13 to 17 years. Human Rights Reports
» 2005 Country Reports on Human Rights Practices 2009-2017.state.gov/j/drl/rls/hrrpt/2005/61721.htm [accessed 7 February
2020] CHILDREN
-
Public schooling is provided up to age 18, and is universal, compulsory, and
free up to age 15. The National Department of Statistics (DANE) estimated
that more than 8 million children between ages 6 and 15 attended school. The
government covered the basic costs of primary education, although many
families struggled with additional expenses such as matriculation fees after
age 15, books, school supplies, and transportation costs that often were
prohibitive, particularly for the rural poor. SECTION
6 WORKER RIGHTS
– [d] The legal minimum age for work was inconsistent with completing a basic
education, and only 38 percent of working children attended school. Concluding
Observations of the Committee on the Rights of the Child (CRC) UN Convention on the
Rights of the Child, 6 October 2000 www1.umn.edu/humanrts/crc/colombia2000.html [accessed 30 January
2011] [34] In the light
of article 6 and other related provisions of the Convention, the Committee is
deeply concerned at the threat posed by the armed conflict to children's
lives, including instances of extrajudicial killing, disappearance and
torture committed by the police and paramilitary groups; at the multiple
instances of "social cleansing" of street children; and at the
persistent impunity of the perpetrators of such crimes. [38] In the light
of its recommendation concerning the need to conduct special investigations
in cases of gross violations of human rights involving children, the
Committee regrets the lack of follow-up information on this issue and
reiterates its concern about alleged cases of street children tortured and
ill-treated by members of the police and/or paramilitary groups. [41] The Committee
further reiterates its concern that children deprived of their family
environment may increasingly travel to the main cities, where they may live
on the streets and be particularly vulnerable to exploitation and abuse. [63] The Committee
expresses most particular concern for children who work or live in the street
in order to survive and who require special attention because of the risks to
which they are exposed. Hope for Rhodri Davies, Al
Jazeera, 23 Dec 2008 english.aljazeera.net/focus/2008/12/200812213421095100.html [accessed 1 May
2011] Stephania, 12, lives here
with her mother, a prostitute. Their home is a former brothel, their bedroom
is one quarter of an old bathroom, their bed takes the place of the ripped
out bathtub. LITTLE HELP - There are few
people willing to help Stephania and the other
children living on and around the streets of Colombia - they are a social
group typically stigmatised, marginalised
and at times persecuted. Maryibe Jalero Cardona, a social worker at the centre, says that
there are three main dangers for Stephania. "The constant contact with
prostitutes and their world means that daughters can think that it is normal
and follow it," she says.
"The room Stephania and her mother live
in is rented by the night, so they could easily be chucked out if they don't
pay. Stephania may think that she could work as a
prostitute if they just need the money for one night's rent." The second danger is that drug use is
widespread in the area - whether cocaine, marijuana or ecstasy. The third is abuse by any of the
significant number of men trawling the streets for prostitutes day and night. INEQUALITY - It is estimated
that about 60,000 children live on Colombia's streets - 37 per cent of them
in Bogota. Furthermore, those
displaced are targeted by illegal armed groups operating in cities. About 600 youngsters have been murdered in
the slum areas of Ciudad Boliviar and Altos de Cazuca, on the fringes of Botoga,
over the past five years. About
one-quarter of street children are assisted by public institutions or groups
commissioned by the state. But those
without assistance typically steal, scavenge or deliver drugs for dealers to
survive. Credit crunch has
forced me to snub 200 kids who need aid, admits Colombian charity priest Paul O'Hare, The
Scottish Daily Record, July 14, 2008 [accessed 1 May
2011] Fr Walters added:
"Paradoxically, the fact the violence has diminished means that more
kids than ever are coming on to the streets because they are no longer
deterred by the fear of being killed.
"The sort of social problems and pressures that were forcing them
on to the streets in the first place have not diminished." Latin American
countries call for end to child labor Xinhua News Agency, www.hindu.com/thehindu/holnus/003200806131123.htm [accessed 1 May
2011] news.xinhuanet.com/english/2008-06/13/content_8361092.htm [accessed 27
November 2016] In Colombia, the coordinator
to eradicate child labor, Liliana Obregon, said 1 million children work in
the country and that 1.4 million do not have access to education. Obregon listed Monteria, Ibague,
Bucaramanga and Cali as cities with a high rate of child labor, citing the
National Department of Statistics.
President of the United Center of Workers of Colombia Carlos Rodriguez
said "this is proof of the poverty we have in the country, of their
parents' precarious salaries that provoke many children to be obliged to work
in the street and even sexually exploited." Making
“Disposables” ‘Angels of the House’ canadafreepress.com/index.php/article/370 [accessed 1 May
2011] They come
cautiously and unbelieving, many in the most desperate of straits. The facial
expressions of the children when they spot the food keep the volunteers
wanting to be there to look after the cooking and clean-up, no matter how pressing
their outside commitments. Diana
Sanchez could not work in more desolate circumstances, but is mostly too busy
to even notice. Bogota’s hungry
children number in the tens of thousands.
The stories of the children’s backgrounds are always sad. No one wants
them, for some not even their own families.
At worst, they are `Los desachables’: the
disposables; at best, the “gamines”, in Espanola pronounced (gah MEE nays).
Sent out onto the streets to fend for themselves, they forage in the
garbage along with the city’s stray dogs. To be a poor child
in Colombia is as complex as the circumstances that made them. It is to
be a runway, a disposable, a child prostitute, or a child abandoned by a
family coming into the city from a war zone.
In some circumstances, a mother knowing her brood goes hungry sends
one child out to the streets in the hopes that even a few pesos will make the
difference at that night’s supper table. In other even crueler
instances, a child is thrown out onto the street because there will be one
less mouth to feed. SOS
Children: Street Children in SOS Children’s
Villages www.street-children.org.uk/samericanstreetchildren/colombia [accessed 1 May
2011] In "Social
Cleansing" Of Children Human Rights Watch
Children's Rights Project, “Generation Under Fire - Children and Violence in www.hrw.org/legacy/reports/1994/colombia/gener1.htm#cleansing [accessed 1 May
2011] Frankie has been on
the street since he was eight years old.
He has survived three "social cleansing" attempts on his
life. Let the Children
Live
– The
Gamines NotreDameSixthForm sites.google.com/site/notredamesixthform/let-the-children-live [accessed 1 May
2011] [see left margin:
the gamines] They are called
'the disposable ones', the children who live - and sometimes die - in the streets
and the rubbish dumps of the cities of Human Rights Watch Human Rights Watch pangaea.org/street_children/latin/colombia.htm [accessed 1 May
2011] Street children and
other youths in Marc Cooper, Spin,
November 1993 pangaea.org/street_children/latin/spin1.htm [accessed 1 May
2011] In Youth Ambassadors
for Peace – Youth Ambassadors
for Peace At one time this
article had been archived and may possibly still be accessible [here] [accessed 1 May
2011] Children are the
victims of "disappearances" and massacres and are currently dying
at a rate of 12 each day as a direct result of violence. Children are forced
to live as refugees abroad or are displaced within their own country, and
many take to the streets as a means of survival. These children then confront
the dangers of hunger, harassment, sexual abuse and forced prostitution,
death or even murder. With the current atmosphere of violence and poverty,
the majority of children in Colombia go without an education. 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 - |
