Prevalence,
Abuse & Exploitation of Street Children In the first decade of the 21st Century gvnet.com/streetchildren/Namibia.htm
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CAUTION: The following links
and accompanying text have been culled from the web to illuminate the
situation in Namibia. 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 *** Namibia: Omaheke
Kids Turn to Crime Surihe Gaomas,
New Era ( www.newera.com.na/2007/07/05/omaheke-kids-turn-to-crime/ [accessed 25
December 2016] There is an upsurge
in serious crime among street children in Omaheke region, with children as
young as 10 years counting among the suspects accused of murder, rape, stock
theft and the abuse of dagga.
Revealing these findings to New Era on Tuesday, Rahimisa
Ndjarakana, a social worker at the Ministry of
Gender Equality and Child Welfare in Gobabis, said the trend now in the
region was that minors end up raping other minors. "There are in fact much fewer cases of
adults raping children, as compared to children raping children. Early this
year, there was also a case where three boys all aged 10 years raped a girl
who was even younger than them," said Ndjarakana. ***
ARCHIVES *** The Department of Labor’s 2006 Findings on
the Worst Forms of Child Labor [PDF] www.dol.gov/ilab/programs/ocft/PDF/2006OCFTreport.pdf [accessed 9 December
2010] INCIDENCE AND NATURE
OF CHILD LABOR
- In 1999, approximately 15.5 percent of boys and 13.9 percent of girls ages
5 to 14 were working in Human Rights
Reports » 2005 Country Reports on Human Rights Practices 2009-2017.state.gov/j/drl/rls/hrrpt/2005/61584.htm [accessed 10
February 2020] CHILDREN
-
Although the constitution provides children with the right to primary and
junior secondary education (grades one to 10), the numerous fees, which
included fees for uniforms, books, boarding costs, and school improvement,
placed a heavy burden on students' families and precluded some children from
attending school. SECTION
6 WORKER RIGHTS
– [d] There are laws to protect children from exploitation in the workplace;
however, child labor continued to be a problem. Criminal penalties and court
orders were available to the government to enforce child labor laws, but such
action involved a complicated legal procedure. Under the law, the minimum age
for employment is 14 years, with higher age requirements for night work and
in certain sectors such as mining and construction. The minimum age was
inconsistent with the age for completing education requirements (see section
5). Children below the age of 14 often worked on family owned commercial
farms and in the informal sector, and some also worked in communal areas. Concluding Observations
of the Committee on the Rights of the Child (CRC) UN Convention on the
Rights of the Child, 28 January 1994 www1.umn.edu/humanrts/crc/NAMIBIA.htm [accessed 23
February 2011] [3} The Committee
welcomes the political commitment within the country to improve the situation
of children. The Committee also wishes to express its appreciation as regards
the Government's willingness to be self-critical and to search for creative
and innovative approaches to address the problems facing children in society.
The Committee takes particular note of the following initiatives: the
activities undertaken to promote greater public awareness of the rights of
the child, also among children themselves; the encouragement of cooperation
with the local, national and international communities in efforts to promote
and protect the rights of the child; the Early Childhood Protection and
Development Programme; the "street children" programme;
the "Discipline from Within" Programme in
the schools; and the development of Youth Councils. Flood Camps Develop
Own ‘Culture’ Helvy Tueumuna,
New Era, Oshakati, 14 Apr 2009 [accessed 20
September 2011] A group of boys are
said to have been sleeping in the dry drainage pipe situated at the centre of
the camp. According to the women at
the camp, these children wait until everyone at the flood camp is asleep
before they sneak into their ‘bedroom’.
During a recent meeting held by
Oshana Regional Governor Clemens Kashuupulwa and
flood victims at Oshoopala Flood Camp, the street
kids’ situation was among the issues discussed. Since then, it was decided
that the street children would get a tent, bedding, food and pots. “The governor and other officials were
shocked to see where the boys were sleeping. The drainage is very
dangerous. “If it rains heavily while
they (boys) are sleeping, they will all drown and it will take time before
someone discovers them,” said another woman. Mbatjiua Ngavirue,
New Era, www.newera.com.na/2007/10/08/kids-saved-from-life-on-the-street/ [accessed 25
December 2016] The majority of street children were heavily steeped in a dagga and mandrax drug culture, as well as glue and petrol sniffing. Fisch originally planned
to operate the home as a day-care centre, where children arrived at 08h00 and
left at 17h00 in the afternoon. This arrangement, however, failed to
break the cycle of negative and destructive behaviour
they had caught their lives up in. They would start abusing drugs again
when they left the centre in the afternoons - and in some cases even criminal
activity - returning in a morose and dulled state the next morning. Wezi Tjaronda,
New Era, www.newera.com.na/2008/02/27/row-over-imprisoned-children/ [accessed 25
December 2016] She said the
concerned children had not committed any crimes and were not charged. But City
Police spokesperson Marx Hipandwa said street
children were a problem in that they robbed tourists, caused malicious damage
to property, shop lifted and broke into people's houses. He said in January
and February alone, the kids committed seven crimes. Big Step's Mathew Rukoro said most kids were not criminals but some robbed
people of their belongings in a bid to survive. Kakunawe Shinana,
The Namibian, www.namibian.com.na/index.php?id=42807&page=archive-read [accessed 25
December 2016] Fourteen of 16
street children picked up by the City Police in She called on the
public to contact the Ministry whenever they saw street children so that
their parents could be traced and reminded of their parental
responsibilities. This would also give
the Ministry a chance to investigate the home circumstances of these children,
she said. The Minister pointed out
that it was a criminal offence for parents to neglect, ill treat or abandon
their children in terms of the Children's Act of 1960. She said, however, that many children ran
away from their homes because of poverty, while others were abandoned because
their parents or guardians were unfit to give them the proper care. Surihe Gaomas,
New Era, www.newera.com.na/2007/07/26/success-story-of-lizas-journey-of-caring/ [accessed 25
December 2016] "When my mom
passed away two years ago, I noticed some street children crowding at the funeral.
They would in fact move from one funeral to the next, looking for food. You
look at each child closely, the ragged clothes and the dirtiness of the
skin," said Hilger. "You see in
their eyes that something is wrong - they are sad, and it really touches me a
lot," she said. Soon after the burial, Hilger
decided to investigate into the background of these street children to know
more about them. The Protection
Project - Namibia [DOC] The www.protectionproject.org/human_rights_reports/report_documents/namibia.doc [accessed 2009] GOVERNMENT RESPONSES- The Labor Code of
Namibia prohibits employing any child younger than 14 years of age. In addition,
the code provides that no child under the age of 15 may be employed in an
industrial undertaking or mine, no child under the age of 16 may work
underground, and no child under the age of 18 may work at night. The
constitution protects children under the age of 16 from hazardous work that
would conflict with their 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 - |
