Prevalence,
Abuse & Exploitation of Street Children In the first
decade of the 21st Century gvnet.com/streetchildren/Suriname.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. ***
ARCHIVES *** The Department of Labor’s 2004 Findings on
the Worst Forms of Child Labor www.dol.gov/ilab/media/reports/iclp/tda2004/suriname.htm [accessed 27
December 2010] INCIDENCE
AND NATURE OF CHILD LABOR - In 2000, the net primary attendance rate was 78
percent. School attendance is significantly lower in the rural interior
than in the rest of the country at 61.2 percent. As of 2000, 84.0
percent of children who started primary school were likely to reach grade
5. Although the government covers the
majority of primary school costs, parents must pay school registration fees
and provide school supplies and uniforms. These costs limit access to
education for children from poor and large families. Lack of transportation, appropriate
facilities, and a teacher shortage also present barriers to school attendance SECTION
6 WORKER RIGHTS
– [d] Children under 14 worked as street vendors, newspaper sellers, rice and
lumber mill workers, packers for traders, or shop assistants. Working hours
for youths were not limited in comparison with the regular work force.
Employers in these sectors did not guarantee work safety, and children often
worked barefoot and without protective gloves, with no access to medical
care. Although government figures reported that only 2 percent of children
were economically active, a 2002 survey conducted by the Institute for
Training and Research found that 50 percent of children between the ages of 4
and 14 were economically active, working mainly in the informal sector. Concluding
Observations of the Committee on the Rights of the Child (CRC) UN Convention on the
Rights of the Child, 2 June 2000 www1.umn.edu/humanrts/crc/suriname2000.html [accessed 27
December 2010] [23] The Committee
notes that education is compulsory for children between the ages of 7 and 12
years and that the legal minimum age for employment is 14 years. The
Committee is concerned that insufficient legal and other measures have been
taken to protect adequately the rights of children between the ages of 12 and
14 years, who are beyond the age of compulsory education but too young to be
legally employed. [49] The Committee
notes with concern the increasingly high number of children living in
households below the poverty line. The Committee is also concerned about the
poor housing situation and living standards of families who fled their homes
in the interior during the civil unrest of the 1980s and are currently living
in urban squatter communities. Concern is also expressed at the large and
increasing number of children living and/or working on the streets. [53] In light of
the current economic situation, the increasing number of school drop-outs and
the increasing number of children living and/or working on the streets, the Committee
is concerned about the lack of information and adequate data on the situation
of child labor and economic exploitation within the State party. [55] The Committee
is concerned with the high incidence of drug, alcohol and substance abuse
among youth and the limited psychological, social and medical programs and
services available in this regard. The State of the
World's Children 2002 Carol Bellamy,
Executive Director, United Nations Children's Fund UNICEF, 2002 www.unicef.org/sowc02/pdf/sowc2002-final-eng-allmod.txt [accessed 26 July
2011] CHILDREN'S
PARTICIPATION
- When UNICEF in Suriname consulted primary-school-age children during a
child rights promotion campaign in Marowijne in
July 1999, it found that among the most significant abuses were those
involving corporal punishment. 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 - |
