Prevalence,
Abuse & Exploitation of Street Children In the first decade of the 21st
Century gvnet.com/streetchildren/Egypt.htm
|
|||||||||||
|
CAUTION: The following links
and accompanying text have been culled from the web to illuminate the
situation in Egypt. 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 ARTICLES *** A new approach to
Egypt’s street children United Nations
Children's Fund UNICEF, Cairo Egypt, 29 December 2005 www.unicef.org/infobycountry/egypt_30616.html [accessed 9 May
2011] Among the swirling crowds of Cairo, one hardly notices the small figures of children who call the streets their home. Adel is one of them. He left home at nine to escape a life of misery and violence. But the life he
found on the streets was no better, Adel admits. Now after four years of a
rootless, vulnerable existence, he longs to return home. “When I see other
children on their way to school, I wish I could be like them. Here on the
streets, I have no future,” Adel adds with a helpless shrug. Mass Arrests of
Street Children in Egypt with Beatings & Sexual Abuse Common Human Rights Watch,
02/19/03 www.hrw.org/ar/node/75785 [accessed 9 May
2011] The Egyptian
government conducts mass arrest campaigns of children whose "crime"
is that they are in need of protection, Human Rights Watch said in a new
report released today. Children in police custody face beatings, sexual abuse
and extortion by police and adult criminal suspects, and police routinely
deny them access to food, bedding and medical care. Young girls learn
ABC of Cairo street life Reuters, Dec 12,
2007 www.reuters.com/article/2007/12/12/us-egypt-streetgirls-idUSL2355233720071212 [accessed 9 May
2011] Nora, a mother at
just 14, jingled keys above her infant daughter's head, drawing smiles from
the baby she conceived while living on the streets of Cairo. She was one of hundreds of thousands of
children who the United Nations says may be living on Egypt's streets,
including a growing number of girls arriving as young as four or five years
old fleeing poverty, abuse or broken homes.
While baby Shaimaa played with slippers at Nora's feet, the young
mother described how she traded beatings by her brothers at the age of six or
seven for a life of early forced sexuality on streets where she became
pregnant soon after puberty. ***
ARCHIVES *** The Department of Labor’s 2004 Findings on
the Worst Forms of Child Labor U.S. Dept of Labor
Bureau of International Labor Affairs, 2005 www.dol.gov/ilab/media/reports/iclp/tda2004/egypt.htm [accessed 3 February
2011] INCIDENCE
AND NATURE OF CHILD LABOR - Urban areas are also host to large numbers of street
children who have left their homes in the countryside to find work, and often
to flee hostile conditions at home.
Street children work shining shoes, collecting rubbish, begging,
cleaning and directing cars into parking spaces, and selling food and
trinkets. Street children are
particularly vulnerable to becoming involved in illicit activities, including
stealing, smuggling, pornography, and prostitution. In particular, the commercial sexual
exploitation of children is greatly under-acknowledged given that Egyptian
cities (Alexandria and Cairo in particular) are reported destinations for sex
tourism. 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/2005/61687.htm [accessed 8 February
2020] CHILDREN
- The
government remained committed to the protection of children's welfare; in
practice, the government made some progress in eliminating FGM and in
affording rights to children with foreign fathers. However, the government
made little progress in addressing the plight of street children, which
remained a significant problem. Concluding
Observations of the Committee on the Rights of the Child (CRC) UN Convention on the
Rights of the Child, 26 January 2001 www1.umn.edu/humanrts/crc/egypt2001.html [accessed 27
February 2011] [47] In light of
its previous concluding observations and taking note of significant efforts
by the State party to improve education coverage, enrolment and retention
levels and the inclusion of the Convention in the school curricula, the
Committee remains concerned at the poor quality of education in general. The
Committee is further concerned at the lack of success of literacy programs
for school dropouts. [49] In light of
its previous concluding observations, and taking note of efforts by the State
party to address child labor, the Committee remains concerned about this
problem. Its main concerns are: (a) There are insufficient comprehensive and
accurate data available on children working in Egypt; … Egypt’s generation
homeless: Aid workers struggle to help street kids Mona Salem, AFP,
Cairo, May 30, 2017 [accessed 22 August
2017] “The law doesn’t
allow shelters to receive children unless they have a birth certificate,”
said team leader Ahmed Mohammed Ahmed.
“Most of them are second- and third-generation street children and
don’t have any official papers, and usually their fathers refuse to
acknowledge paternity,” he said.
According to the most recent ministry figures from a 2014 survey,
Egypt has about 16,000 street children, said Hazem
el-Mallah, spokesman for the “Children Without
Shelter” program. “The main factors pushing
the children out of their homes are domestic violence… incest and poverty,”
said Maes.
“In general, it affects households experiencing unemployment, drug
use, low or no education”, he said. A child of Cairo's
streets, with a child of her own Jeffrey Fleishman,
The Los Angeles Times, February 17, 2009 articles.latimes.com/2009/feb/17/world/fg-egypt-streetkid17 [accessed 10 May
2011] AMIRA HAS A BABY
GIRL AND IS EXPECTING. SHE IS 13, WITH NO PERMANENT PLACE TO STAY, ONE OF
THOUSANDS OF STREET CHILDREN IN EGYPT, WHOSE LAWS MAKE A HARD LIFE HARDER FOR
A SINGLE MOTHER LIKE HER She has a baby in
her arms and another growing inside. She says she knows about love, says she
found it on the streets, where boys fight with razors and a one-armed glue-huffer whispers the pretty things a girl yearns to hear
before she curls and sleeps in the abandoned buildings that clutter Cairo's
heart. "I love
him," says Amira, holding Randa, the
18-month-old daughter she had with Ahmed. "I had an affair with him four
years ago. I love him because he protected me. When anybody bothered me, he'd
fight for me, and when it got cold he took me into his house. I still love
him. I saw him last Friday." Egypt child labour a sombre reality Agence France-Presse
AFP, Cairo, Jun 11, 2008 www.iol.co.za/news/africa/egypt-child-labour-a-sombre-reality-1.404184#.VLKueMk7X9o [accessed 11 January
2015] While the situation
is difficult for the children who work while living at home, it is dire for
those living on city streets who are vulnerable to protection rackets,
prostitution and AIDS. "Their
situation is worse. Reintegrating the children living at home into school is
relatively easy. Those on the street are so traumatised that psychological
help is the priority," says Nevine Osman, coordinator of the state-run
National Council for Motherhood and Childhood. Authorities, protective of the country's
reputation for reform and modernity, are eager to keep the problem of street
children as quiet as possible, with few officials willing to speak on the
subject. According to UNICEF, a few
encouraging signs are emerging such as NGOs like the Hope Village Society,
which takes in street children and teaches them to mentor others in tougher
circumstances. In Egypt, child
workers a growing problem as food prices rise The Jerusalem Post,
04/03/2008 www.jpost.com/MiddleEast/Article.aspx?id=97097 [accessed 3 February
2011] In large cities
like Cairo, it is common to see children as young as age 5 dodging cars to try
sell gum, flowers, tissue paper or trinkets to cars waiting at red lights.
Many of those working children, in contrast with the factory child workers,
have no families or have run away and live on the streets. An official at the National Center for Criminal
and Social Research said the country has fewer than 30 public shelters for
street children or other poor children and about 160 private shelters. Police
often arrest those trying to sell on the streets, if they are considered
vulnerable to delinquencym and put them in shelters, where they often again
run away The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not
authorized to speak to the press. In Cairo, hordes of
street kids, but no longer ignored Jill Carroll, The
Christian Science Monitor, January 31, 2008 www.csmonitor.com/World/Middle-East/2008/0131/p01s04-wome.html [accessed 9 May
2011] Kareem and Mustapha
were little more than toddlers when their parents sent them onto Cairo's
streets to sell mints and tissues.
They had begun on the path trod by Cairo's growing thousands of street
kids – sleeping on streets, joining gangs for protection, underfed and covered
with the filth of a city packed with 18 million people. Egypt fights
ignorance on HIV/Aids Alasdair Soussi, BBC
News, Cairo, 1 December 2007 news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/7120737.stm [accessed 9 May
2011] TARGETING THE YOUNG - Meanwhile,
HIV/Aids peer education programmes have been introduced by a range of NGOs
dealing with young people. Particular
attention is given to those most at risk, such as Egypt's estimated one
million street children. At a
reception centre run by the Cairo-based Hope Village Society, HIV and the
risks associated with the disease are a regular topic of discussion with
groups of street children. "HIV
is a very dangerous disease, so because of the training, I'm more aware of
risks, and it's influenced my behaviour," says 15-year old Emad. "I
look after myself better now when I'm on the streets than I ever did
before." Zizou kinder and
gentler Reem Leila, Al-Ahram
Weekly, Issue No. 870, 8-14 November 2007 weekly.ahram.org.eg/2007/870/eg11.htm [accessed 9 May
2011] www.unicef.org/egypt/protection_4397.html [accessed 28
November 2016] It is hard to tell
how many children are living on the streets of Egypt, but one thing is clear;
the numbers are huge and certainly growing. With the difficulty of
quantifying the phenomenon, studies estimate that there are anywhere between
200,000 and two million homeless children in the country, most of them in
Cairo and Alexandria governorates. The children lead an unhealthy and often
dangerous life that leaves them deprived of their basic needs for protection,
guidance, and supervision and exposes them to various forms of exploitation
and abuse. Zidane launches
homeless children project in Cairo Agence France-Presse
AFP, Cairo, Nov 1, 2007 afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5gMssjSz75L89Luczw9CURfMpQR1A [accessed 9 May
2011] www.dailynewsegypt.com/2007/11/03/zidane-launches-homeless-children-project-in-cairo/ [accessed 28
November 2016] Besides setting up
a home to take in some of Cairo's thousands of streetchildren, the programme
will also look at the possibility of job-creating projects for their
families. Cairo has between
200,000 and one million street children, according to the UN's children
agency UNICEF. On this trip to
Egypt, the beggars were the ones who gave Joel Carillet, The
Christian Science Monitor, August 3, 2007 www.csmonitor.com/2007/0803/p19s01-hfes.html?page=1 [accessed 9 May
2011] Being a veteran
traveler as well as having once lived in Egypt for a year, I was no stranger
to children begging or people asking me for help. But seldom had I been so
moved by the sincerity of the plea. In
my broken Arabic I asked when they had last eaten – about 16 hours ago, they
said – and then I turned to look through the window beside us. For the boys,
to look through this window was to gaze upon a world inaccessible to them;
for me, it was to see familiar ground. Colouring pain -
Amira El-Noshokaty delves into a spontaneous yet harrowing world of
imagination, and reality Amira El-Noshokaty,
Al-Ahram Weekly, 19-25 July 2007 -- Issue No. 854 weekly.ahram.org.eg/2007/854/fe2.htm [accessed 10 May
2011] weekly.ahram.org.eg/Archive/2007/854/fe2.htm [accessed 17 January
2017] "I don't dream
of anything in particular. I just wish someone could take me off the street
because I'm so fed up with it." Thus Hoda, 20, a street artist who
paints whatever gives her "a feeling". She is one of many
contributors to On the Street, an art book composed entirely of the work of
street children. Nisrine, 13, speaks
of the public garden where she lived as her home -- a state of affairs
constantly undermined by undercover policemen who would take her in. "at
night, when I am alone, I sit and think what if I get sick? I do not know
what I am doing on the street, I don't know." According to a
UNICEF study on street children in Greater Cairo in 2007, out of 191 street
boys and girls, 64 per cent of the boys and 39.3 per cent of the girls were
abused at home by their fathers; 78.9 per cent of the boys have sex with
people of the same sex; 61.7 per cent of boys and 58.6 per cent of girls
sniff glue. Out of a total of 167 children, 48.6 per cent of the girls work
as prostitutes. Two get death for
killing street kids Reuters, Cairo, 24
May, 2007 www.handsoffcain.info/archivio_news/200705.php?iddocumento=9317459&mover=0 [accessed 17 January
2017] Two leaders of an
Egyptian children’s gang were sentenced to death yesterday for raping and
killing at least three, and possibly up to 26, street children in Cairo and
northern Egypt, a judicial source said.
Five other gang members were given prison terms. British Airways
staff visit street children centres in Cairo United Nations
Children's Fund UNICEF, Cairo, 10 May 2007 www.unicef.org/media/media_39599.html [accessed 10 May
2011] Five British
Airways Cabin Crew had the opportunity to visit centres that have been set up
to help street children in the city. The number of street children is a big issue
in Egypt and is on the rise. Estimates on the number of street children range
from 200,000 to one million, a quarter of the street child population is
believed to be less than 12 years old. Streets apart Sara Carr, Al-Ahram
Weekly, 5-11 April 2007 -- Issue No. 839 weekly.ahram.org.eg/2007/839/cu23.htm [accessed 10 May
2011] weekly.ahram.org.eg/Archive/2007/839/cu23.htm [accessed 28
November 2016] Accompanying
"On the Street" is a photographic exhibit by Hesham Labib.
"Cut Short", a collection of portraits of five street children, is
inspired by Tahani Rached's 2006 documentary film El-Banat Dol (Those Girls),
which presented a harrowing glimpse into the world of Cairo's street
children. Despite their vulnerability and the misery of their circumstances,
Rached's homeless girls demonstrate a resilience that defies pity; they are
proud, and it is a trait that defines Labib's photographs: the cinematic
quality of these images, their pared down simplicity and above all their
subjects combine to make something beautiful. Even the infuriating and
presumably deliberate absence of any kind of background information about the
photographs and their subjects only contributes to their enigma. Vilified for
voicing dissent Zvi Bar'el, Haaretz,
04.March .07 www.haaretz.com/print-edition/features/vilified-for-voicing-dissent-1.214551 [accessed 10 May
2011] Last month,
al-Sadawi published another article in Al Hayat, blaming male society for the
phenomenon of over two million street children in Egypt. She relates that a
poor woman whose husband abandoned her and their two daughters, arrived at
her Cairo clinic. Without any real income, the woman had to leave her home in
the middle class Al-Maadi neighborhood and move to the impoverished Shubra
area. When she tried to
transfer her daughters to a school in the Shubra neighborhood, she was told
that she had to obtain her husband's approval to do so. She was unable to
locate the deadbeat husband and her connections to the education minister
were useless. In the end, she turned to her mother-in-law, who managed to
persuade her son to submit the paperwork and permits needed to transfer the
girls. However the husband set one condition: that his wife waive her monthly
alimony payments in court. Solidarity
unlimited Amira El-Noshokaty,
Al-Ahram Weekly, 1-7 March 2007 -- Issue No. 834 weekly.ahram.org.eg/2007/834/feature.htm [accessed 10 May
2011] weekly.ahram.org.eg/Archive/2007/834/feature.htm [accessed 28
November 2016] NGOs
marked a national day for street children, but, asks Amira El-Noshokaty,
what about the rest of the year? UNICEF Executive
Director commends Egypt’s progress towards Millennium Development Goals United Nations
Children's Fund UNICEF, Cairo/Geneva/New York, 20 February 2007 www.unicef.org/media/media_38371.html [accessed 10 May
2011] The need to provide
protection to more vulnerable children – including those living on the
streets and girls subjected to female genital cutting -- were high on the
agenda of the UNICEF Executive Director’s meetings with senior government
officials. Excluded and
invisible Amira El-Noshokaty,
Al-Ahram Weekly, 21-27 December 2006 -- Issue No. 825 weekly.ahram.org.eg/2006/825/feature.htm [accessed 10 May
2011] weekly.ahram.org.eg/Archive/2006/825/feature.htm [accessed 28
November 2016] WHY, ASKS AMIRA
EL-NOSHOKATY, ARE NUMEROUS EGYPTIAN CHILDREN LIVING ON THE STREETS? - According to
Fadia Abu Shehba, professor at the National Centre for Social and Criminal
Research, "the factors are numerous, including fragile families, broken
homes and the absence of one of the two pillars of the family. Lack of
compatibility within homes gives way to domestic violence, forcing children
to run away. And this is not to mention the complete lack of any form of
parental guidance. Besides, crammed into little apartments with as little as
one room for 10 people, children often see their parents having sex and want
to copy them, initially with siblings, hence rape and harassment. Children
choose the street, where there is enough room, only to be exploited by street
gangs, whether sexually, in the drug trade or, more recently, trading
internationally in their body parts." Killing Kids Manal el-Jesr, Egypt
Today, January 9, 2007 streetchildrennews.wordpress.com/2007/01/09/killing-kids/ [accessed 17 January
2017] They admitted that they
had lured street children onto the tops of trains en route from Cairo to
Alexandria, where they then raped them and tossed the naked bodies onto the
opposite tracks. Other victims were drowned in the Nile or dumped in sewers;
others still were buried alive. Forgotten children Salama A Salama,
Al-Ahram Weekly, 14-20 December 2006 -- Issue No. 824 weekly.ahram.org.eg/2006/824/op4.htm [accessed 10 May
2011] weekly.ahram.org.eg/Archive/2006/824/op4.htm [accessed 17 January
2017] As the tragic
circumstances of the rape and killing of street children unfolded, one would
have expected the government to form a committee to look into the phenomenon
and find appropriate solutions. The recent
atrocity, attributed to a gang led by someone called El-Turbini, involved up
to 30 victims. This alone tells us that the phenomenon is as widespread as it
is alarming. We have a Ministry for Social Welfare that is supposedly in
charge of children's homes around the country. We have several NGOs that
receive no financial help from the ministry and rely on funding from private
citizens and foreign aid organisations. And yet the government has been
unable to find real solutions to the problem of homeless children. The latter
are falling prey to gangs of racketeers and drug dealers who have no qualms
or conscience. The phenomenon resonates with the history of some Latin
American countries where belts of poverty around major cities produce child
gangs as well as gangs that kill children. Of mice and men Pierre Loza,
Al-Ahram Weekly, 14-20 December 2006 -- Issue No. 824 weekly.ahram.org.eg/2006/824/eg10.htm [accessed 10 May
2011] weekly.ahram.org.eg/Archive/2006/824/eg10.htm [accessed 28
November 2016] The two-week saga surrounding
the capture of an 11-member gang that is believed to have committed a series
of rapes and murders in a number of governorates, including Cairo,
Alexandria, Al-Beheira and Qalioubya, has prompted concern about the
perennial problem of street children. According to interrogations,
26-year-old Ramadan Abdel-Rahman, also known as El-Torbini (meaning express
train), is the gang leader who ordered the murders of numerous street
children. Although
Abdel-Rahman and his accomplices allegedly led investigators to more than 10
bodies in scattered parts of the country, they also took them to Marsa Matruh
where no bodies were found. But after being remanded in custody for an
additional 10 days, gang members are said to have confessed to killing more
than 30 street children. Street children
worst hit by violence, experts say UN Integrated
Regional Information Networks IRIN, Cairo, 19 November 2006 www.irinnews.org/report/61949/egypt-street-children-worst-hit-by-violence-experts-say [accessed 10 March
2015] "We get chased
and hit all the time by all kinds of people, from police to taxi drivers to
passers-by," said 12-year-old Mohammed, who spends most of his time at
the gates of Cairo University but sleeps in a different area most nights. Abla El-Badri, who
heads the government-run National Council for Childhood and Motherhood (NCCM)
committee for street children, said Egypt's half a million street children
were always vulnerable to physical attacks. "If boys find
life on the streets hard, then girls, who might face more frequent sexual
attacks and rape, live in near-constant fear," El-Badri said. A Firm Foundation Business Today,
August 11, 2006 — Source:
www.businesstodayegypt.com/article.aspx?ArticleID=6892 www.nextbillion.net/news/social-entrepreneurship-awards-in-egypt [accessed 10 May
2011] Iskandar put two and
two together, and the result is a program in which garbage collectors recycle
the empty containers instead of reselling them in return for educational
funding from the companies looking to protect their brands. Big business is
happy, plastic goes eco and the garbage collectors get a chance at
educational mobility. It’s a win-win situation. Egypt street
mothers find refuge Alasdair Soussi, BBC
News, Cairo, 1 June 2006 news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/5036382.stm [accessed 10 May
2011] Many Egyptians
regard street children as a nuisance, or at worst as petty criminals fully
meriting the harsh treatment to which they are often subjected. Their health
problems are often severe, ranging from cholera to tuberculosis and anaemia. Studies show they
are exposed to a variety of toxic substances, both in their food and in the
environment around them. They are also at
risk of various kinds of abuse. In one survey, 86% of
street children questioned identified violence as a major problem in their
life, while 50% stated that they had been exposed to sexual molestation. Mass arrests of
street children Human Rights Watch,
Cairo, February 19, 2003 www.hrea.org/lists/child-rights/markup/msg00170.html [accessed 10 May
2011] [scroll down] VOICES OF EGYPT'S
STREET CHILDREN SELECTED CHILDREN'S
ACCOUNTS SEXUAL ABUSE AND
VIOLENCE
- The guard here says, 'You are a woman [sexually].' He keeps saying that to me.
I keep saying, 'No, I'm a girl [i.e. a virgin].' Yesterday, he said, 'If you
are really a girl, take your clothes off so we can examine you. -Warda N.,
sixteen The guards at the
[Sahel police] station curse us with curses about our mothers and so sometimes
they hit us. -Amal A., sixteen Every little bit
[the guards at al Azbekiya] hit us. They hit us
with belts. When they come to wake us, they wake us up with belts. If someone
says anything, they hit all of us -Marwan `I., thirteen They ask you where you
are from. Then the prosecutor says 'You stole something.' I say, 'I didn't
steal anything.' Then he says, 'O.K. Begging.' - Khaled M., eleven Police
Criticized On Child Arrests Steven Lee Myers,
The New York Times, February 21, 2003 [accessed 10 May
2011] Street children and
truants were being arrested on the basis that they were ''vulnerable to
delinquency,'' even if they had committed no crime. Violence
Against Girls in Conflict with the Law Human
Rights Watch, 20 February 2007 www.hrw.org/legacy/english/docs/2007/02/20/global15345.htm [accessed
10 May 2011] VIOLENCE
IN DETENTION FACILITIES - “He
[the officer] curses me and makes me stand while he hits me with a stick.
When I fall to the ground he makes me stand again. He hits me all over my
body—from my head to my feet.” — Amal A., sixteen, detained in Cairo,
Egypt Information About
Street Children - Egypt [DOC] This report is taken
from “A Civil Society Forum for North Africa and the Middle East on Promoting
and Protecting the Rights of Street Children”, 3-6 March 2004, Cairo, Egypt At one time this
article had been archived and may possibly still be accessible [here] [accessed 22
September 2011] A quarter of the
street child population is believed to be less than 12 years old, with
two-thirds between 13 and 16 years old and only 10% over 17. The key factors pushing children onto the
streets in Egypt are family breakup (divorce, separation, remarriage, and
death), large family size, child abuse and neglect, low income and
educational levels, unplanned rural-urban migration and children’s
difficulties in coping with the formal school system, increasing the rate of
drop-out. Child Protection -
Egypt's Street Children: Issues And Impact United Nations
Children's Fund UNICEF At one time this
article had been archived and may possibly still be accessible [here] [accessed 10 May
2011] These children lead
an unhealthy and often dangerous life that leaves them deprived of their
basic needs for protection, guidance, and supervision and exposes them to
different forms of exploitation and abuse. For many, survival on the street
means begging and sexual exploitation by adults. Update December
2001 – United Nations Office for Drug Control and Crime Prevention [PDF] UN Office for Drug
Control and Crime Prevention UNODCCP, December 2001 www.unodc.org/pdf/newsletter_2001-12-01_1.pdf [accessed 10 May
2011] [page 12] HOPE FOR STREET
CHILDREN IN EGYPT
- With some 16 million inhabitants Cairo is the biggest city in Africa and
the Middle East. It is also home to a rapidly growing street children
population of around 150,000. Many of these unfortunate children have to deal
with broken families, poverty, abuse and violence. Sadly, drugs such as
cannabis herb, tablets, and solvents, are all too often used to cope with the
pain, violence, and hunger of the streets. Drug Demand
Reduction among Street Children in Egypt UN Office on Drugs
and Crime UNODC www.unodc.org/egypt/en/drug_demand_reduction_egypt.html [accessed 10 May
2011] The project builds
up comprehensive drug abuse prevention and treatment services for street
children in Cairo and Alexandria at selected governmental and
non-governmental institutions. It also provides assistance for the
development of a program of action on prevention and treatment, the
development of institution and reception center facilities, including
vocational training units, and trains the staff at these institutions. A
children at-risk monitoring system is also being developed and police
detention facilities for street children are being upgraded, with special
training for police officers. 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 - Egypt",
http://gvnet.com/streetchildren/Egypt.htm, [accessed <date>] |
