Prevalence,
Abuse & Exploitation of Street Children In the early decades of the 21st
Century gvnet.com/streetchildren/SouthSudan.htm
|
|||||||||||
|
CAUTION: The following links
and accompanying text have been culled from the web to illuminate the
situation in South Sudan. 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 ARTICLES *** The heart-breaking
misery of street children in South Sudan Peter Deng, South
Sudan News Now SSNN, 6 March 2021 ssnewsnow.com/the-heart-breaking-misery-of-street-children-in-south-sudan/ [accessed 14 July
2021] It’s sunny and
windy in South Sudan and street children’s lives is
punctuated by the hot temperatures and the noise of cars above their heads.
Children are really suffering in South Sudan; they spend day and night on the
street. They polish shoes and wash cars for their daily survival. They spend
their nights sleeping in the commercial centers, in the shop verandas, bushes
and on the other open spaces. Street children are misused by exploiters.
They’re abused making them stress and traumatized. There’re thousands
of street children in Juba city and across South Sudan; many children who
lost their parents during the civil war of 2013 are suffering in the street.
They decided to be in the street because of the hardships; Furthermore, in
Juba; some families can’t afford to put food on the table and to pay the
school fees for their children. And Speaking to one of the street boys in Gudele, Wani James, he stated
that “there is no food at home, mother can’t afford to medicate siblings and
I, we’re willing to go to school but there are no school fees,” he stressed! Juba's street
children survive at risk of HIV UN Integrated
Regional Information Networks IRIN PlusNews, www.irinnews.org/report/72892/sudan-juba-s-street-children-survive-at-risk-of-hiv [accessed 10 March
2015] One of the main
dangers faced by homeless boys and girls is the sexual predators.
"Sometimes it happens that men come and look for boys for sex; they are looking
for boys and girls, but where I stay there are only boys," Mabior said. "It is a mixture: Arabs,
southerners, soldiers from all over ... some boys
will go straight away for the money, others will resist and refuse, but this
means they can get beaten." He said the children earned between US$0.05
and $0.10 for providing sexual services. Although Mabior
had heard of HIV, he had no real understanding of how it is spread, or the
dangers posed by unprotected sex. "There needs
to be a campaign to raise awareness of HIV amongst children living on the
streets; children need to be encouraged to know their status so they can
avoid risky behaviour," Lemi
said. "But testing is voluntary, and they will only come forward to be
tested if they have been educated." Making the Best of
a Home Away from Home Nhial Bol,
Inter Press Service News Agency IPS, hpn.asu.edu/archives/Jun98/0211.html [accessed 25 July
2011] Rahman says his
parents left him in a railway station in western Another young boy, from Southern Sudan, told IPS that the young and the old on the streets, who have found themselves cast out of society, have tended to form new families among themselves to survive. Pointing to an
elderly man nearby, who is a leper, the young boy says: ''This man is my
father, but not my real father, because he treats me like a son'' ***
ARCHIVES *** 2020 Country
Reports on Human Rights Practices: South Sudan U.S. Dept of State Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and
Labor, 30 March 2021 www.state.gov/reports/2020-country-reports-on-human-rights-practices/south-sudan/
[accessed 14 July
2021] EDUCATION The transitional
constitution and the 2012 Education Act provide for tuition-free, compulsory,
basic education through grade eight. Armed conflict and violence, however,
were key factors preventing children from attending school. UNICEF estimated
nearly three-quarters of the country’s children were not attending school. Myth of JEM child
soldiers Mahmoud A. Suleiman,
www.sudantribune.com/spip.php?page=imprimable&id_article=27663 [accessed 14 July
2021] The Government of
Sudan (GOS) is famous for recruiting children as soldiers in its armed forces
during the wars it waged against its own citizens. In August 2006 the former
UN Secretary General Kofi Annan condemned the practice of recruiting child
soldiers in Sudan in a report to the United Nations Security Council (UNSC)
implicating the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) in child recruitment in southern Sudan, in Khartoum, and in
child abduction and sexual violence in Darfur. His report said this continued
despite peace deals in southern Sudan
and the western Darfur region. The report also said sexual and other violence
against children by army and militia groups persisted in southern and western Sudan. Mr Annan
urged the leaders of Sudan’s Government of National Unity and the regional
government of southern Sudan to
end child recruitment. He added saying:” The current peace processes in
Darfur and southern Sudan offer a real opportunity for the leaders of the
Sudan to end the practice of recruitment and use of children once and for
all." Furthermore, Mr Annan’s report stated
that the National and Southern
governments are directly accountable for violations by individuals under
their command.. Human Rights Watch
- Street Children Human Rights Watch At one time this
article had been archived and may possibly still be accessible [here] [accessed 25 July
2011] In several countries
where we have worked, notably Press Conference by
Special Representative for Children and Armed Conflict UN Department of
Public Information • News and Media Division • www.un.org/News/briefings/docs/2007/070208_Coomaraswamy.doc.htm [accessed 25 July
2011] According to Ms. Coomaraswamy, communities were also ill-equipped to
absorb child soldiers who were demobilized, leading many to return to the
armed forces where they seemed to enjoy a clearer sense of status and
belonging. As a result of the finding, it had been decided that UNICEF
would conduct a study to determine the types of social services needed to
ensure that children were better rooted in the community upon leaving the
military. While in Juba, she
said she had also noted the burgeoning number of orphans and street children
throughout the Sudan, saying it would require programmatic intervention by
the United Nations. Information About
Street Children - Sudan [DOC] This report is taken
from “A Civil Society Forum for North Africa and the Middle East on Promoting
and Protecting the Rights of Street Children”, 3-6 March 2004, At one time this
article had been archived and may possibly still be accessible [here] [accessed 25 July
2011] The privatization
of public services, together with limited public awareness of children’s
rights, has deprived street children of access to health, education, shelter
and other social services. They are forced instead to rely on leftovers as a
source of food, and to washing themselves and their clothes on the streets.
This renders them vulnerable to a wide range of illnesses and infections such
as cholera, gonorrhea, STDs and HIV/AIDS. AIDS
Orphans Throng The Streets Nhial Bol,
Inter Press Service News Agency IPS, www.aegis.com/news/ips/1999/IP990102.html [accessed 25 July
2011] www.ipsnews.net/1999/01/health-sudan-aids-orphans-throng-the-streets/ [accessed 8 January
2017] Babitis is in charge of
one of the hostels with 40 children, 14 of whom are AIDS orphans. “I don’t
know the situation in other hostels, but I think they’re all the same,” he
says. “It’s even worse in towns like Juba, the capital of southern Sudan,
where parents are dying in large numbers to AIDS.” The social worker
says the AIDS orphans have experienced “terrifying treatment”. “They were abused
by their relations and some were forced to do work meant for adults in return
for accommodation and feeding,” he says. “I talked to one of
the boys who was brought here recently by a church
official. The boy, aged 13, claims he was kicked out
of the house in 1995 by his uncle. “His uncle told him that his parents died
of carelessness,” Babitis says. Before he was
brought to the hostel in 1996, he had spent one year on the streets, eking
out a living by begging. Social workers
accuse Sudan’s hardline Islamic regime of not doing enough to alleviate the
plight of the street children. Instead, they say, the regime spends most of
its time rounding up the children, who are regarded as an “eye sore”. 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 – South Sudan",
http://gvnet.com/streetchildren/SouthSudan.htm, [accessed <date>] |
