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Prevalence, Abuse & Exploitation of Street Children In the early years of the 21st Century gvnet.com/streetchildren/Peru.htm
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CAUTION: The following links
and accompanying text have been culled from the web to illuminate the
situation in ***
FEATURED ARTICLES *** Centro Shama: From the streets of Lima to
new possibilities Living in www.livinginperu.com/features-511-society-centro-shama-from-streets-lima-new-possibilities [accessed 5 July 2011] In Victor’s case,
his mother was mentally unstable eating trash to survive when she was
pregnant with him by the birth father he has never met. He and his
mother lived with a family that abused her physically and sexually forcing
her to work as a prostitute. Like many recent immigrants to Lima from
the poverty stricken provinces, she also sold candy in the streets to passing
cars to scrape out a living. Victor, who at this time was under 9 years
old, also sold in the streets with his mother. He awoke one morning to
a goodbye note and a bag of caramels left by his mother at the foot of the
bed. He has never seen her again. He spent days searching for her
visiting her normal corners, all with no results. “Finally”, he said, notably
still affected, “I got fed up with looking for my mom and I went to live in
the streets.” He survived for over a year and half selling caramels,
receiving sporadic gifts of food, and sleeping in the streets of Lima.
Eventually, a family he calls his adoptive family, although he knew them for
only a week, approached him while he was sleeping in the street and asked if
he wanted a better life. “I felt so alone, like no one wanted me, and
no one loved me,” he murmured. “I didn’t want to keep living like
that.” To Emma Cowing, The Scotsman, living.scotsman.com/features/To-South-America-with-love.2784732.jp [accessed 5 July 2011] For the past four
years David has lived on the edge of human existence as a street boy, making
his home in an abandoned sewer deep in the bowels of At night, he would
inhale cheap glue from a plastic bag in order to, as David puts it, "rub
myself out and disappear", before falling asleep in the sewer. From the
age of seven, when he was thrown out by a family that could no longer afford
to feed him, it was the only life he had known. ***
ARCHIVES *** UNICEF
– www.unicef.org/infobycountry/peru.html [accessed 5 July 2011] The Department of Labor’s 2004 Findings on
the Worst Forms of Child Labor www.dol.gov/ilab/media/reports/iclp/tda2004/peru.htm [accessed 16 December 2010] INCIDENCE
AND NATURE OF CHILD LABOR - Children are also found loading and unloading
produce in markets, collecting garbage, and working in informal gold mining
sites. In urban areas, children often
sell in the streets and in markets. Human Rights
Reports » 2005 Country Reports on Human Rights Practices www.state.gov/g/drl/rls/hrrpt/2005/61738.htm [accessed 16 December 2010] TRAFFICKING
IN PERSONS
– The government coordinated its anti-trafficking activities with NGOs. A
Catholic order of nuns, the Sisters of Adoration, operated 3 programs for
underage female prostitutes, a live-in center for approximately 75 girls (and
20 children of the victims) in SECTION
6 WORKER RIGHTS
– [d] Forms of child labor varied. In rural areas, many children worked on
small farms with their parents, in artisanal mining, or were sent to cities
to work as domestics. In urban settings, children often worked on the
streets, performing, selling candy, begging or shining shoes; or as
scavengers in municipal dumps. Children on the outskirts of 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/peru2000.html [accessed 16 December 2010] [26]. With regard
to the Committee's recommendation (A/49/41, para.
164), the Committee takes note that the State party has submitted a proposal
to Congress to raise the minimum legal age for admission to employment from
12 to 14 years. Nevertheless, the Committee is still concerned that economic
exploitation of children remains one of the major social problems in the
State party (e.g. in the indigenous communities in the highlands) and that
law enforcement is insufficient to address this problem effectively. An outstretched hand to Mary Kovaleski
Byrnes, Boston.com, Cusco www.boston.com/news/world/blog/2009/01/post_5.html?p1=Well_MostPop_Emailed6 [accessed 5 July 2011] Early this month, the writer's
husband photographed countless street children roaming the urban heart of Maya is one of
countless street children roaming this urban heart of Cusco as dusk settles
in. Most of these children are hard at work, selling anything from finger
puppets to pan flutes and candy. Like brightly-colored butterflies, they flit
from one pack of tourists to the next, relentless, undeterred by the
persistent “no, gracias” they receive. In this shuffle of
commerce and survival, so many of Cusco’s children are lost. Many of Cusco
Department’s residents between ages 6 and 14 don’t attend school regularly,
or at all. Even for those who do, there are complications. In search of
better educational opportunities, some parents from surrounding rural
villages rent basic rooms for their children to share while they go to school
in Cusco. Evoking images of Peter Pan’s “lost boys,” these elementary-age
children, mostly boys, are left to their own devices to care for themselves
and one another and survive. Vulnerable careers in Cusco The www.nwo.nl/nwohome.nsf/pages/NWOA_7JYBDV_Eng [accessed 5 July 2011] Each day in the
centre of the Peruvian town 'Vulnerable
careers' is the title of Steel's study. Because despite the opportunities
tourism provides to the street vendors in Cusco, their existence remains uncertain
and subject to risks. For example, their income is variable: one day they
earn more than the average weekly Peruvian salary and on another day nothing.
Their political status is also uncertain. The local government tries to drive
them out of the centre of Cusco and if the vendors
are caught trading, the authorities seize their goods as well. From employee to
entrepreneur - Most street vendors live in the impoverished suburbs of Cusco.
They are women, young people and children. In her analysis of this group,
Steel negated a number of stereotypical images. For example, she demonstrated
that not all street vendors are poor and that not all children who work on
the street are 'street children'. Her analysis also reveals that street
vending is a process from which it is possible to make a career. Street
vendors can, for example, work their way up from employee to entrepreneur or
from a postcard vendor to a vendor of paintings. Centro Shama:
From the streets of Living in www.livinginperu.com/features-511-society-centro-shama-from-streets-lima-new-possibilities [accessed 5 July 2011] In Victor’s case,
his mother was mentally unstable eating trash to survive when she was
pregnant with him by the birth father he has never met. He and his
mother lived with a family that abused her physically and sexually forcing
her to work as a prostitute. Like many recent immigrants to Lima from
the poverty stricken provinces, she also sold candy in the streets to passing
cars to scrape out a living. Victor, who at this time was under 9 years
old, also sold in the streets with his mother. He awoke one morning to
a goodbye note and a bag of caramels left by his mother at the foot of the
bed. He has never seen her again. He spent days searching for her
visiting her normal corners, all with no results. “Finally”, he said, notably
still affected, “I got fed up with looking for my mom and I went to live in
the streets.” He survived for over a year and half selling caramels,
receiving sporadic gifts of food, and sleeping in the streets of Lima.
Eventually, a family he calls his adoptive family, although he knew them for
only a week, approached him while he was sleeping in the street and asked if
he wanted a better life. “I felt so alone, like no one wanted me, and
no one loved me,” he murmured. “I didn’t want to keep living like
that.” Inspire Magazine www.inspiremagazine.org.uk/news.aspx?action=view&id=2521 [accessed 5 July 2011] Carlos, 10, who
arrived from the Peruvian mountains to work on the streets of San Juan of Lurigancho during his school holidays
is just one of the children who had been helped by the Red Alert team. At first he cleaned cars. Later he sold
sweets and sang songs on the buses to earn a little money. When his holiday
ended and it was time to go home, he did not have enough money for his return
fare. With no money for rent, he had to look for a park bench to sleep on. He
was in great danger of becoming a street child permanently. Two days passed, until he was found by one
of the Red Alert team who look out for new arrivals on the street. Peru fact finding day for Duns Primary
School Berwickshire News, 10 October
2007 [accessed 5 July 2011] The volunteers
faced a number of difficulties while they were in At Puerto Alegria in the Peruvian rainforest, the poverty was said
to be even worse. Mike Ledington said: "The
poverty was more striking in Puerto Alegria (than Kusi). There were open sewers, rats running around, kids
playing in human faeces. It was described as 'hell
on earth', which sums it up." To Emma Cowing, The Scotsman, living.scotsman.com/features/To-South-America-with-love.2784732.jp [accessed 5 July 2011] For the past four
years David has lived on the edge of human existence as a street boy, making
his home in an abandoned sewer deep in the bowels of At night, he would
inhale cheap glue from a plastic bag in order to, as David puts it, "rub
myself out and disappear", before falling asleep in the sewer. From the
age of seven, when he was thrown out by a family that could no longer afford
to feed him, it was the only life he had known. Cisneros, Luis-Jaime, UNESCO Courier, May
01, 1999 www.accessmylibrary.com/coms2/summary_0286-9330424_ITM [accessed 5 July 2011] Poverty,
unemployment and family problems, including violence, have pushed them onto
the streets. Often it isn’t possible–or even desirable–for them to return
home to their parents. They frequently work in very harsh conditions and are
exploited and mistreated. From the Field -
Stories from Street Children in [access information unavailable] We all slept in a
garden. They started smoking and told
me to try it, but I had heard that smoking glue is bad and told them no. They insisted and called me a sissy for not
trying it, but I didn't pay attention and kep
sleeping. Then they started smoking
marijuana with coca base paste. They
wanted me to try that, too. I wanted
to, but I had a friend named Posheco who liked me,
and he told them not to give my any, so they stopped insisting. I had other friends who stole things, and
their girlfriends were or are prostitutes.
I started hanging out with them and learned to steal things. Lawyer Helps BBC News, 9 July, 2003 news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/wales/south_east/3052265.stm [accessed 5 July 2011] Ed Saunders, 35,
from Adventists Act to Jonathan Gallagher, Adventist News Network
ANN, At one time this article had been archived
and may possibly still be accessible [here] [accessed 5 July 2011] The street children
are at high social risk, with 99 percent involved with substance abuse,
particularly glue-sniffing. One-third
of the children are girls, and about ten percent are prostitutes. In one recent case, a fifteen-year-old girl
who was eight months pregnant was still working the streets—now she is being
helped along with her baby in the Nuevo Rumbo
program. 'Las Delicias' Center for Street Children Bruce Peru [accessed 5 July 2011] Las Delicias Children's Center is part of a non-profit
organization operating from the city of Street kids, they come to us as they are;
we make of them what they let us Street Kids volunteers4u.org/streetkidsperu/ [accessed 5 July 2011] HISTORY OF OUR VOLUNTEER WORK IN PERU, LATIN AMERICA - Our work since
2001 has consisted of providing some form of assistance to over 5,000 street
kids and 2,000 impoverished mothers in and around the north 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 - |
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