Human Trafficking in [Somalia] [other countries]Street Children in [Somalia Child Prostitution in [Somalia] [other countries] |
Prevalence, Abuse & Exploitation of Street Children In the
first ten years of the 21st Century -
2000 to 2009
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CAUTION: The following links and accompanying text have been culled
from the web to illuminate the situation in ***
FEATURED ARTICLE *** Stray bullets and molesters are
only some of the dangers 11-year-old Abdi Mohamed Abdusamad faces when he chooses a place to sleep in the
streets of Mogadishu. War and poverty
have thrown thousands of children into the streets of the Somali capital,
leaving them in the crossfire of one of the world's most brutal guerrilla
wars and exposed to disease, drugs and sexual violence. Abdi spends his
days collecting plastic bottles as well as the bags in which khat deliveries arrive several times a day to satisfy the
Somali male population's addiction to the mild narcotic plant. The children wash them and sell them back,
earning enough to buy one or two packs of cigarettes on which they can then
make a small profit selling by the stick.
"Sometimes the little money you have earned in the day is taken
away by an older street boy... There are also those who want to molest the
younger children," says Abdi. A torn red tee-shirt dangles from his bony
shoulders as from a hanger. His face is covered in dirt. "I only get a
chance to wash on Fridays," he says. ***
ARCHIVES *** UNICEF - The Big Picture U.S.
Dept of Labor Bureau of International Labor Affairs INCIDENCE
AND NATURE OF CHILD LABOR - Self-employment and casual labor were more often observed in urban
areas, while unpaid farm labor was the primary form observed in rural
areas. Boys as young as 14 or 15 have
participated in combat and many belong to gangs who raid indiscriminately. In 1999 UNICEF estimated that 58.4 percent
of primary school-age children attended school, and that 72.5 percent of
children who had started primary school were likely to reach grade 5. Bur of Democracy,
Human Rights & Labor - Country
Reports on Human Rights Practices - 2005 CHILDREN – The authorities were generally
not committed to children's rights and welfare. The lack of resources limited
the opportunity for children to attend school. Approximately 22 percent of
the school-aged population attended school, according to UNICEF officials. Children remained among the chief
victims of the continuing violence. Boys as young as 14 or 15 years of age
have participated in militia attacks, and many youths were members of the
marauding gangs known as "morian" (parasites or maggots). This
year's annual report of the Secretary-General on children and armed conflict
documented grave violations against children in SOMALIA: Just
another day for Hargeisa's street children www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=84864 My family lives in Burao [about 150km east of Hargeisa],"
one child said. "We were so many children. One day I decided to travel
to Hargeisa and never went back home." Social workers in the city say drought and
economic hardship have forced an unprecedented number of children on to the
streets. The children lack adequate
shelter, healthcare, education, protection and guidance. Drug abuse is common
and many are involved in activities such as pick-pocketing to cover drug
costs. "We interviewed 150
street children, scattered throughout the city, and 88 percent confessed to
have experienced different abuse, including sexual abuse and
harassment," Khadar Nuur,
chairman of Hargeisa Child Protection Network,
said. In their struggle to survive, some
of the children have committed crimes and found themselves in prison. "We know that a number of street
children were sent to prison by the security committees in Hargeisa," Kalil said.
"We are worried about their situation in prison because they are
detained with old people, including criminals." Lul Hassan, who is in charge of child protection at the
Somaliland National Human Rights Commission, said the children's prison at Mija Asseye would be
rehabilitated soon. According to the commission, an
estimated 60 children join others on the streets monthly. Many of the new arrivals are girls - a
phenomenon that was previously uncommon. "We met about 15 female street
children, who had suffered sexual abuse," Kalil
said. "The number of female street children has increased from 4 to 8
percent." Mogadishu street
children await chance to shine www.middle-east-online.com/english/?id=30975 In Somalia, childhood dies fast.
By the time they are old enough to count money and carry a can of polish,
Mogadishu's shoeshiner boys have little to look
forward to. Abdi
Adan Nur can't remember a
happy moment in his life. When he was born, 10 years ago, the Horn of Africa
nation had already become a by-word for "failed state" and civil
violence has only worsened since.
With a torn red tee-shirt dangling from his bony shoulders and no
shoes of his own, Abdi leaves home every morning
without eating breakfast to polish shoes in central Mogadishu. "On a good day, I get about 40,000
shillings (1.5 dollars) and I give it to my mother so that she can prepare a
decent meal," he said, fumbling a wad of grimy notes in his trouser
pocket. "I have never done
anything nice in my life, let alone go to school. I can only read a few lines
of the Koran," said the child, his hair red with days of accumulated
dust. THE CHILDREN ARE FACING THE WORST
TIME EVER - The young
boy lives with his mother and two sisters in a shelter made of plastic lining
stretched over a flimsy structure of twigs, in one of the camps for the
displaced where fighting in Mogadishu has regurgitated hundreds of thousands
of families. SOMALIA:
Poverty Forces Children Into the Streets www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=45482 Hassan Maye,
13, has been fending for himself and his family in the streets of Mogadishu
since he was ten. He shines shoes in the Sinai neighbourhood
in the southern part of the Somali capital. On a good day, he says he earns
18,000 shillings - equivalent to roughly 50 cents. Maye risks
danger every day for this meagre income, as
shooting regularly flares up around his workplace. He also has to keep an eye
out for the gangs of armed freelance robbers that roam the streets of
Mogadishu. His earnings make a small
contribution to the income of the household he shares with his grandparents
and sister. There are other street children
who do not work but are instead engaged in begging to survive. Most of those
beggars are from the more recently displaced people who have left their home
villages to come to Mogadishu because of violence, famine or drought that
prevent them from continuing to farm on their lands. They are rarely able to find even low-paid
work like Maye because the small cost of setting up
- brushes and polish, needles and thread to repair damaged shoes - are beyond
them. Maye and his mates were fortunate to be set
up by a relative or neighbour. SOMALIA: Conflict,
drought force more children onto Hargeisa streets www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=81052 Shoe-shining and car-washing are
the jobs of choice for most of the street boys in Hargeisa, while the girls
mostly clean or sweep business premises or clean people’s homes. Most beg, Osman said. While
on the streets, many children often suffer abuse, violence and particularly
sexual abuse. "Many of those… that sleep on street corners have been
victims of sexual violence," Osman said.
"On the street at night they are easy prey with no one to protect them."
RISKS - Many have been infected with "all sort of
diseases, including HIV/AIDS and they don't even know what that is," he
added. He said many of the street
children had taken to tying a sack over the lower part of their bodies when
sleeping at night. "It is an attempt to protect themselves."
Nasir Ahmed, 12, survives by washing
cars. On average, he takes home 40,000 Somaliland shillings (about US$6.50)
per day. "What I make from
washing cars is what my mother and sisters and I eat,” he told IRIN. Ahmed’s father died in 2007, when the
responsibility of caring for the family fell on him. “My mother used to sell vegetables in the
market but she was not making enough so I told her `I will do the work. You
stay at home and take care of the girls’,” he said. Somalia
children homeless on Kenya streets www.garoweonline.com/artman2/publish/Africa_22/Somalia_children_homeless_on_Kenya_streets.shtml Somali journalist Abdikarim Muhsin, the Garowe Online correspondent in Nairobi, says that the
children often live under terrible conditions, especially during the colder
months. He spoke with 14-year old
Mohamed Ahmed, who has been living in Nairobi's Somali-dominated Eastleigh quarter for the past two years. "I survive on leftover food given to
us by Somalis after we do small jobs for them," the teenager said. Unfortunately, Mohamed is among hundreds of
Somali street children who are often seen walking or sleeping on the streets,
with no family or home to go to. Street
children in Mogadishu: Dodging the bullets www.yementimes.com/article.shtml?i=1197&p=report&a=2
Mohamed Ali Madey,
an eight-year-old shoe shiner, came to Mogadishu in 2005 from Baidoa after his parents divorced. Madey works
mainly around the KM4 area, where violent clashes among Ethiopian armed
forces, Transitional Federal Government (TFG) soldiers and Islamist militants
often take place. Calmly sitting on
the pavement cleaning shoes for customers and chatting with some of his
friends, Madey says that overall he is happy with
his life, but he is concerned about the insecurity plaguing Mogadishu. “I can earn a sufficient amount of money
from this shoe-cleaning work, but the situation here is volatile and if
fighting starts we are paralyzed because there will be bullets flying
everywhere,” he says, as he laces up a pair of shoes he has just finished
polishing. Although his clothes are filthy, Madey is a tall, handsome boy. Seemingly embarrassed by
this he explains that he usually tries to bathe once a week at his aunt’s
house in the Howlwadaag neighborhood, but he only
gets a little food and a short time to wash each time he visits her. Madey arrives at
the street corner early every morning in an attempt to get more customers,
but this is a dangerous practice because Ethiopian/TFG troops often set up
roadblocks nearby. He is afraid he may be wounded in a roadside bombing or
shot dead like his friend Yasin Adle
Ahmed, who was killed by Ethiopian troops on Makka
Al-Mukarrama Street nearby. “My friend Hassan
Muruq was killed when Ugandan troops came under
attack by armed men at KM4, where Hassan had been
sleeping in front of a shop. I was with him, but I crawled away and escaped
as I saw my friend Hassan pouring blood and taking
his final breath,” he says. Madey adds that a third friend, Hussein Shelare, died after a soldier shot him, mistaking him for
an Islamist insurgent. Witnesses confirm Shelare
was unarmed and had only been walking home from work in the Waberi district, a route he took regularly. Clutching a glue bag in his right
hand, Madey says he likes to sniff it for pleasure.
Told that such habits are harmful, he responds that he did not know the
practice was unhealthy. Madey also collects the remains of the khat (a mild stimulant plant chewed for pleasure) at the
teashop and hawks them, along with packets of cigarettes he buys to make some
additional profit. The main concern of Madey and
his fellow shoe shiners are bullying and robbery at the hands of older street
children armed with knives and the occasional firearm. SOMALIA: Street
children increase as food insecurity grips region www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=79823 NAIROBI, 14 August 2008 (IRIN) - Food insecurity compounded by
inflation and recent fighting between insurgents and government forces around
the town of Beletweyne in central Somalia's Hiran region has led to a sharp increase in the number of
street children. "More and more
children are taking to the streets; some to engage in petty trade while
others are just there in search of food," a journalist based in Beletweyne, who declined to be named, told IRIN. The journalist said children, numbering at
least 100, had resorted to Beletweyne streets in
recent months as access to food dwindled for many families. Layla Maowlid, 12, is one such child: "I am on the streets
daily to sell sweet potatoes due to the poor condition and hunger of my
family, I have no other choice. My mother prepares this food in the house and
I sell it in the market." Stray bullets and molesters are
only some of the dangers 11-year-old Abdi Mohamed Abdusamad faces when he chooses a place to sleep in the
streets of Mogadishu. War and poverty
have thrown thousands of children into the streets of the Somali capital,
leaving them in the crossfire of one of the world's most brutal guerrilla
wars and exposed to disease, drugs and sexual violence. Abdi spends his
days collecting plastic bottles as well as the bags in which khat deliveries arrive several times a day to satisfy the
Somali male population's addiction to the mild narcotic plant. The children wash them and sell them back,
earning enough to buy one or two packs of cigarettes on which they can then
make a small profit selling by the stick.
"Sometimes the little money you have earned in the day is taken
away by an older street boy... There are also those who want to molest the
younger children," says Abdi. A torn red tee-shirt dangles from his bony
shoulders as from a hanger. His face is covered in dirt. "I only get a
chance to wash on Fridays," he says. AHMED
HASSAN … In 1991, he
was shot in the back and robbed by one of Mogadishu’s countless khat-chewing, gun-toting street children. “I’ll show
you,” he says to me, standing up and removing his jacket. He rolls up his
shirtsleeve and shows me the light brown circle of scar tissue on his bicep,
where the bullet exited. It went into his back and came out his side before
penetrating his arm. “They shoot first, ask questions later. But what can I
do?” In Hargeysa, young homeless girls
sleep in among the petrol containers in the hope that the smell and the
danger of the petrol will keep away potential attackers. Having to live on
the streets of the large urban centers is one of the most dangerous prospects
for Somali children. In some cases street children were forced to beg for
gangs after being raped and beaten. UNICEF Humanitarian Action: Somalia donor update 4 Jun 2004 www.reliefweb.int/rwarchive/rwb.nsf/db900sid/SZIE-5ZMK7E?OpenDocument www.reliefweb.int/rw/RWB.NSF/db900SID/SZIE-5ZMK7E?OpenDocument Protection and Youth Participation
- During the first quarter of the year, child protection coordination
networks have been established in Bari, Nugal, Mudug, Benadir, Lower Shabelle
and Hiran regions, and similar initiatives are under way in other areas. Successful efforts include: access to
education for disadvantaged children; commitment from businesspeople to
provide support and care to street children; community action to protect
children against prostitution and exploitative labor; and the commitment of
some militia leaders to support children's attendance in school as opposed to
involvement in the conflicts. PROFILE OF
INTERNAL DISPLACEMENT : SOMALIA [PDF] - (as of 20 June, 2003) www.madhibaan.org/in-depth/Somalia+-June+2003.pdf www.internal-displacement.org/idmc/website/countries.nsf/%28httpEnvelopes%29/13EAEFB63B9EDE82802570B8005AACEF?OpenDocument [page 53] DISPLACED CHILDREN LACK PROTECTION - Displaced children often from southern minority groups are forced to seek ‘protection’ by joining urban gangs … Displaced children are often exploited and have jobs dangerous to their health … Children displaced from minority groups suffer from deprivation and abuse … Displaced children are sexually abused … Displaced children in single-headed families often end up on the streets and are often drawn into drug-dependency Decision by USA leaves 3 000 children homeless in Somalia Several orphanages will be forced to
close their doors in the coming days due to a lack of financing, resulting in
at least three thousand children being abandoned in the streets. The reason:
the entity which financed these orphanages, the aid agency Al-Haramayn, from PROFILE
OF INTERNAL DISPLACEMENT : SOMALIA [PDF] - (as of 6 May, 2004) www.internal-displacement.org/8025708F004BE3B1/(httpInfoFiles)/2849BC4616EC282C802570B50053ED1A/$file/Somalia+-May+2004.pdf www.internal-displacement.org/8025708F004BE3B1/%28httpInfoFiles%29/BC127850FB1156B9802570BA00540318/$file/Somalia%20-November%202004.pdf [page 148] In the ICRC-supported hospital
south of Novib Civil Society Organisations - Profiles [scroll down]
STREET CHILDREN REHABILITATION PROJECT - All material used herein
reproduced under the fair use exception of 17 USC § 107 for noncommercial,
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