Prevalence,
Abuse & Exploitation of Street Children In the first decade of the 21st Century gvnet.com/streetchildren/Macedonia.htm
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CAUTION: The following links
and accompanying text have been culled from the web to illuminate the
situation in North Macedonia. 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 *** Report on Situation
with Children Rights in Macedonia OneWorld Platform for www.oneworldsee.org/mk/node/5516 [accessed 19
February 2011] Fatime is five. She has five more siblings between the ages of two and ten that earn their living begging on the streets of Skpoje. She wears a faded, oversized skirt and a blouse that looks like discarded rag. She has no shoes and wanders the streets barefooted. She can’t remember when was the last time she had a bath or when was it that her clothes were washed. She has never gone to a doctor. “I have to beg, for otherwise we won’t have nothing to eat. I try to stay away from the police, for they would take me to the homeless children institution. I get tired running, but I sleep it over under the stairs. My father doesn’t beat me up,” says Fatime as her father Rasim approaches and hits her over the head with a plastic bottle filled with water. His kids’ “working hours” are from 10 a.m. till 10 p.m. The six of them can earn 300-400 Denars daily. ***
ARCHIVES *** The Department of Labor’s 2004 Findings on
the Worst Forms of Child Labor www.dol.gov/ilab/media/reports/iclp/tda2004/macedonia.htm [accessed 19
February 2011] INCIDENCE
AND NATURE OF CHILD LABOR - Children work in the informal sector, in illegal
small businesses,
and on the streets and in markets selling cigarettes and other
small items. Girls are involved in
commercial sexual exploitation on the streets of CURRENT
GOVERNMENT POLICIES AND PROGRAMS TO ELIMINATE THE WORST FORMS OF CHILD LABOR - The Government of
Macedonia has an Ombudsperson for the Rights of Children, which is
responsible for all child-related matters and is in charge of the Department
for Child Protection. The government
operates the “Project for Children on the Streets” to prevent child
labor. UNICEF is working to increase
quality and access to education for all children as well as enhance services
for vulnerable children, and promote and monitor the implementation of the
Convention of the Rights of Children Human Rights
Reports » 2005 Country Reports on Human Rights Practices 2009-2017.state.gov/j/drl/rls/hrrpt/2005/61662.htm [accessed 10
February 2020] CHILDREN
-
Romani children were often organized into groups by Romani adults and made to
beg for money at busy intersections, street corners, and in restaurants and
cafes. According to some
estimates, there were between 500 and 1 thousand street children in the
country, most of whom were Roma. With international support, the Ministry of
Labor and Social Policy operated a day center for street children. The
minister of labor reported that the center has served at least 265 children
to date. SECTION
6 WORKER RIGHTS
– [d] There were no official reports of child labor during the year; however,
there was evidence that child labor was used in the "gray economy,"
including for begging on the street and selling cigarettes and other small
items at open markets, in the streets, and in bars or restaurants, sometimes
at night. The children involved in these activities were almost exclusively
Roma. Officials did not punish such violations and children remained
vulnerable to exploitation. While the
government did little to raise public awareness on child labor abuse, NGOs
were active in organizing workshops on children's rights. International
donors supported programs to prevent children from working on the street and
to increase school enrollment of children at risk for such work. Concluding
Observations of the Committee on the Rights of the Child (CRC) UN Convention on the
Rights of the Child, 28 January 2000 www1.umn.edu/humanrts/crc/macedonia2000.html [accessed 16 June
2011] [42] The Committee
acknowledges the recent marked increases in the enrolment of children in
primary schools and other increases in secondary and university enrolment.
However, the Committee remains concerned that a significant proportion of
school-aged children do not attend primary and, notably, secondary school. Specifically,
the Committee is concerned at the low proportion of girls in general, and
children from the Roma minority in particular, who enroll in educational
establishments at all levels, and at the low numbers of children from all
minority groups who enroll at the secondary school level. The Committee is
concerned, further, at the extremely high drop-out rates of girls from
primary and secondary education. [50] The Committee
is concerned at the reported incidence of child labor within the State party,
and notes that the labor of children under 15 may also prevent these children
from attending primary school and is particularly prevalent among certain
minority groups. Daycare
Center for Street Children
Opens [access information
unavailable] [3530] The new model will
not provide any spectacular results. However, with hard work, by opening
several centers more, we will manage to get them out of streets. By their
stay in the Center, children will be protected from economic
exploitation," said Manasievski.
Mobile teams are going to check all the streets in the city. Without
presence from police, the teams are going to influence children in order to
draw them out of streets and take them to Public Attorney - Ombudsman
- Department For Protection Of Children’s Rights European Network of
Ombudsmen for Children, www2.ombudsnet.org/Ombudsmen/Macedonia/Macedonia_Update_2002.htm [accessed 16 June
2011] 2. A specific
problem that we thought had to be resolved was the protection of street
children whose numbers grew daily due to the transition, unemployment and the
economic crisis in the Activities
2000-2001 European Network of
Ombudsmen for Children, Activities 2000-2001 www2.ombudsnet.org/Ombudsmen/Macedonia/Activities_00_01.htm [accessed 16 June
2011] CONCRETE
ACTIVITIES OF THE DEPARTMENT FOR PROTECTION OF CHILDREN’S RIGHTS - On the basis of
the monitoring of the state of children on the street/street children it has
submitted a proposal for the opening of a shelter for this category of
children and which will work as a sort of a day center with the purpose of
helping the children and their parents accomplish their rights, protecting
the children and creating conditions for the children to remain with their
families. The proposal has been
accepted and is being carried out. 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 - |
