Prevalence,
Abuse & Exploitation of Street Children In the first decade of the 21st Century gvnet.com/streetchildren/Mozambique.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 *** Saving 'Street
Kids' in Mozambique Zacharias M. Uqueio, New World Outlook [United gbgm-umc.org/nwo/00mj/street.stm [accessed 23 June
2011] After wars, many
Africans return from exile not to their native countryside but to unfamiliar
cities. The lands where they originally lived are not safe because of deadly
landmines. With no food production and recurrent famines, orphaned or
cast-off children become "street kids." Young boys and girls who
have had no education or moral teaching are now bringing up children of their
own. All too often, a 16-year-old father abandons a 14-year-old mother, leaving
her with a child to care for. She has no food, no place to live, and no one
to help her raise the child; so she decides to dump the baby in a garbage
can. Sometimes the young mother can manage to care for the child up to a
certain age. But when her life becomes unbearably hard, she abandons the
child to life as a "street kid." FINDING A SOLUTION - Two years ago, Bishop Felton E. May came to Maputo, the capital city of Mozambique. I drove him past an area where Maputo's street children live. When he returned last November, he asked me about these children. I told him that the ones he had seen were all still there, growing up, some having babies of their own. Meanwhile, smaller children were being added to the outcast group. The government was doing nothing–saying that the churches should provide the help. ***
ARCHIVES *** The Department of Labor’s 2004 Findings on
the Worst Forms of Child Labor www.dol.gov/ilab/media/reports/iclp/tda2004/mozambique.htm [accessed 22
February 2011] INCIDENCE
AND NATURE OF CHILD LABOR - Children work on family farms and in informal work including
guarding cars, collecting scrap metal, and selling goods in the streets. Large numbers of children in the informal
sector work in transport, where they are employed as conductors, collecting
fares in minibus taxis known as “chapas.” Other forms of informal work done by
children include collecting scrap metal, and selling of food or trinkets in
the street. Street children are
reported to suffer from police beatings and sexual abuse. Human Rights
Reports » 2005 Country Reports on Human Rights Practices 2009-2017.state.gov/j/drl/rls/hrrpt/2005/61583.htm [accessed 27 March
2020] CHILDREN
- The country
continued to have a problem with street children. There were no reliable
figures on the number of street children nationwide. In 2004 the NGO Rede de Crianca, comprised of
33 community organizations that work with youth in The Maputo City
Office of Women and Social Action continued its program of rescuing abandoned
orphans and assisting single mothers who head families of three or more persons.
They also offered special classes to children of broken homes in local
schools. NGO groups sponsored food, shelter, and education programs in all
major cities. Concluding
Observations of the Committee on the Rights of the Child (CRC) - 2002 UN Convention on the
Rights of the Child, 1 February 2002 www1.umn.edu/humanrts/crc/mozambique2002.html [accessed 22
February 2011] [68] The Committee
is concerned that: (a) There are large
numbers of children living on the street in urban areas; (b) Street children are vulnerable to,
inter alia, sexual abuse, violence, including from the police, exploitation,
lack of access to education, substance abuse, sexually transmitted diseases,
HIV/AIDS and malnutrition; (c) The
primary response to the situation of these children, as described by the
State party in its report, is placing them in institutions. FOCUS: A place for Building Design,
October 6, 2006 business.highbeam.com/410341/article-1G1-152547459/focus-place-maputo-children [partially accessed
23 June 2011 - access restricted] We were in the
rubble-strewn back yard of a derelict shell of a building in downtown Information about
Street Children - This report is taken
from “A Civil Society Forum for East and Southern Africa on Promoting and
Protecting the Rights of Street Children”, 11- 13 February 2002, At one time this
article had been archived and may possibly still be accessible [here] [accessed 23 June
2011] 45.7% of the
population is under the age of 15; 30% of the population lives in urban
areas; there has been economic improvement in the last 5 years. Numbers of
street children are estimated between 3,500 and 4,500 with numbers growing
due to the impact of HIV/AIDS. Yates Family site,
February 9th. 2002 www.yatesweb.com/Africa/Mozambique.htm [accessed 23 June
2011] As we drove through town, we were told many of the
apartment blocks had no running water on the top floor, and we saw more than a
few street children in the stylish avenues and around the garbage dumps. Accao
Voluntario em Mocambique (AVM) Project Managers:
Eric and Angela Boetius, Family Care Foundation FCF www.familycare.org/network/avm-accao-voluntario-em-mocambique/ [accessed 23 June
2011] Accao Voluntario em Mocambique (AVM) is dedicated to helping the neglected
and abused street children of Meninos de Mocambique Street Child At one time this
article had been archived and may possibly still be accessible [here] [accessed 23 June
2011] Meninos de Mocambique operates a clinic that helps malnourished
street children, who are even more susceptible to malaria, skin diseases and
sexually transmitted diseases. Meninos also has outreach workers who visit the streets
of Maputo on a daily basis and befriend the street children. Through the
gradual development of a trusting relationship, Meninos
can help street children make choices about leaving the streets. Save the Children
in Save the Children At one time this
article had been archived and may possibly still be accessible [here] [accessed 23 June
2011] Over the past 22
years, we have improved the lives of tens of thousands of children through
providing basic services such as healthcare and education, and through our
child protection work, focusing on orphans and other vulnerable children. We
have provided food, access to clean water and other basic assistance to
children and their families during times of emergency. We have helped
thousands of children register their birth so they are eligible for
government benefits and other support. And we continue to help children who
are affected by HIV and AIDS. Mennonite Central
Committee MCC, LIBERTAD www.charitywire.com/charity96/01439.html [accessed 23 June
2011] Most of the girls
arrive at the center from the street, having fled abusive family situations,
or their parents have died and a stepparent rejected them. Birth Registration
- Right From The Start [DOC] United Nations
Children's Fund UNICEF, At one time this
article had been archived and may possibly still be accessible [here] [accessed 23 June
2011] Most babies in Massacre Of The
Innocents Giovanni Ricciardi, 30Days [international monthly magazine
directed by Giulio Andreotti], March 2004 www.30giorni.it/articoli_id_3549_l3.htm?id=3549 [accessed 23 June
2011] Missionary beaten
to death with a hammer. After denouncing the ever more frequent cases of
children and adolescents disappearing from Nampula,
in the north of World Congress
Against the Commercial Sexual Exploitation of Children August 27-31, 1996 At one time this
article had been archived and may possibly still be accessible [here] [accessed 23 June
2011] FEATURE 4: Poverty
increasingly drives children onto the streets of 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,
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