Human Trafficking in [Yemen] [other countries]Street Children in [Yemen Child Prostitution in [Yemen] [other countries] |
Prevalence, Abuse & Exploitation of Street Children In the early years of the 21st
Century - 2000 to 2010 gvnet.com/streetchildren/Yemen.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 *** YEMEN: New study highlights plight of street children UN Integrated Regional Information Networks IRIN, Sanaa, 8 July 2008 www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=79145 [accessed 16 August 2011] Ahmed (not his real name) has been
sleeping near a secondary school in the centre of Sanaa
city, "My father went to Ahmed is among an estimated 30,000
street children in Street children at increased risk of sexual abuse UN Integrated Regional Information Networks IRIN, Sanaa, 25 June 2007 www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?reportid=72906 [accessed 16 August 2011] INCREASED NUMBER OF STREET CHILDREN - "If they have been on the
street for a long time, the chances of them being sexually
abused is around 90 percent," Shugaa
said. According to reports, boys as young as eight have been lured into
the cars of strangers for as little as US$1, while others are sexually abused
by older boys living rough on the street - a dire reminder of the vicious
circle of abuse found throughout the world involving street children. Yet the boys, generally brought into
the center by police or the center's own outreach programme,
rarely divulge the abuse they have suffered. "I never did those
kinds of bad things, but I know others who have," one 13-year-old boy at
the center whispered, glancing away from the peering eyes of other boys.
"When you are hungry you do what you have to do," he said, adding
he knew of several occasions when a boy would be brought to a man's home for
a few days and routinely abused, before being let go. "Yes, there are some bad boys
doing bad things," said another child at the centre who did not know his
own age and who had been left on the streets by his mother to fend for
himself after the death of his father in 1995. ***
ARCHIVES *** UNICEF – www.unicef.org/infobycountry/yemen.html [accessed 17 August 2011] The Department of Labor’s 2004 Findings on the Worst Forms
of Child Labor www.dol.gov/ilab/media/reports/iclp/tda2004/yemen.htm [accessed 17 January 2011] INCIDENCE
AND NATURE OF CHILD LABOR - Children also work as street vendors, beggars, domestic servants,
and in the fishing, leather, construction, and automobile repair sectors. CURRENT
GOVERNMENT POLICIES AND PROGRAMS TO ELIMINATE THE WORST FORMS OF CHILD LABOR - In collaboration with the Mayor of Sana’a, ILO-IPEC
began providing remedial education and vocational training in 2003 in a
rehabilitation center for street children who are victims of child labor. Human Rights Reports » 2005
Country Reports on Human Rights Practices www.state.gov/g/drl/rls/hrrpt/2005/61703.htm [accessed 17 January 2011] CHILDREN - Child labor was a problem. The
Child Rights Law prohibits child labor; however, the law has not been implemented,
and children as young as four years of age worked in workshops, agriculture,
or as street vendors. SECTION 6 WORKER RIGHTS – [d] The Child Rights Law
prohibits child labor; however, it has not been effectively implemented. The established minimum age for employment was 15 years in
the private sector and 18 years in the public sector. By special permit,
children between the ages of 12 and 15 years could work. The government
rarely enforced these provisions, especially in rural and remote areas. The
government also did not enforce laws requiring nine years of compulsory
education for children. Child labor was common, especially in rural areas. Many
children were required to work in subsistence farming due to family poverty.
Even in urban areas, children worked in stores and workshops, sold goods and
begged on the streets. Many children of school age worked instead of
attending school, particularly in areas in which schools were not easily
accessible. The Child Labor Unit at the Ministry of Labor was
responsible for implementing and enforcing child labor laws and regulations;
however, the unit's lack of resources hampered enforcement. The Ministry of Labor estimated that there were close to
half a million working children, ages 6 to 14 years, and that working
children equaled 10 to 15 percent of the total work force. The government was
an active partner with the ILO's International
Program to Eliminate Child Labor. During the year, this program offered
remedial education, vocational training, counseling, and reintegration of
child laborers into schools. In September 2004 the government entered into a
grant agreement with a foreign government aimed at combating the worst forms
of child labor in the country Concluding Observations of the Committee on the Rights of
the Child (CRC) UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, 3 June 2005 www1.umn.edu/humanrts/crc/yemen2005.html [accessed 17 January 2011] [70] The Committee is deeply
concerned at the information that many children are trafficked to Saudi
Arabia, often with the support of their parents, and that quite a number of
them are sent back and end up in the streets of larger cities. [72] While welcoming the Program
and Rehabilitation of Street children and the construction of the safe
Childhood Centre, in the capital municipality also extended to the
governorate of Aden, the Committee expresses its concern at the increasing
number of street children and the vulnerability of these children to sexual
abuse and exploitation and at the lack of a systematic and comprehensive
strategy to address the situation and protect these children. State of children in Yemen deteriorates, Children’s
Parliament Ashwaq Arrabyee,
The www.yobserver.com/culture-and-society/10015711.html [accessed 17 January 2011] For his part, the Director of the
Democratic School Jamal al-Shami said the situation
of children in SITUATION
OF THE CHILDREN OF SOMALI REFUGEES - The situation of Somali refugees is particularly bad in
the Haraz Camp. The camp is overcrowded, there are
no primary or secondary schools, there are not enough books, and newborns are
not registered. Bad Economic Policies Blamed for Children Drop out Abdul www.yemenpost.net/59/LocalNews/20083.htm [accessed 17 August 2011] Improper economic policies is to
be blamed for children’s daily struggle for survival that often sees them
ending up as drug addicts, drug dealers or even as sex slaves in the case of
girls according to a study. The study, conducted by the Supreme Council
for Motherhood and Children (SCMC), in cooperation with the Arab Council for
Children and Development also mentions that poverty, job loss, high fertility
rates, lack of social services, and lack of support for the poor by the
government contributed to the crisis of street children. The study also found that street
children are affected by a number of diseases like diarrhea, malaria,
backache, constant dizziness, chronic chest inflammations, ophthalmic,
hepatitis and tonsillitis. Government study shows 30000 children working in 8 Yemeni
provinces Saba Net - www.sabanews.net/en/news161633.htm [accessed 17 August 2011] According to the study, prepared
by the Supreme Council for Motherhood and Childhood in cooperation with the
Arab Council for Childhood and Development, the majority of street children
are aged between 6 -14 years and the rate of male children reached 70 per
cent. The study mentioned that the street
children work as street vendors, cars washers, cleaners and beggars in
addition to working in markets, restaurants, laundries and furnaces. According to the study, diseases affecting
the street children included malaria, diarrhea, various infections, diabetes,
anemia, pains of spinal and back, liver and skin diseases and headaches and
stomach pains. UN Integrated Regional Information Networks IRIN, Sanaa, 8 July 2008 www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=79145 [accessed 16 August 2011] Ahmed (not his real name) has been
sleeping near a secondary school in the centre of Sanaa
city, "My father went to Ahmed is among an estimated 30,000
street children in Fears over possibly rising number of child labourers UN Integrated Regional Information Networks IRIN, Sanaa, 27 August 2007 www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?ReportId=73964 [accessed 17 August 2011] "The situation [in the
country] is miserable. Child labour is on the rise due to the deteriorated
economic situation of most families," Jamal al-Shami,
chairman of Child labour has also increased
the school dropout rate. "There are about two million children out of
school," al-Shami said, adding that most of
them will end up illiterate. Street children at increased risk of sexual abuse UN Integrated Regional Information Networks IRIN, Sanaa, 25 June 2007 www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?reportid=72906 [accessed 16 August 2011] INCREASED NUMBER OF STREET CHILDREN - "If they have been on the
street for a long time, the chances of them being sexually abused is around
90 percent," Shugaa said. According to reports, boys as young as
eight have been lured into the cars of strangers for as little as US$1, while
others are sexually abused by older boys living rough on the street - a dire
reminder of the vicious circle of abuse found throughout the world involving
street children. Yet the boys, generally brought
into the center by police or the center's own outreach programme,
rarely divulge the abuse they have suffered.
"I never did those kinds of bad things, but I know others who
have," one 13-year-old boy at the center whispered, glancing away from
the peering eyes of other boys. "When you are hungry you do what you
have to do," he said, adding he knew of several occasions when a boy
would be brought to a man's home for a few days and routinely abused, before
being let go. "Yes, there are some bad boys
doing bad things," said another child at the centre who did not know his
own age and who had been left on the streets by his mother to fend for
himself after the death of his father in 1995. Street children This article has been archived by World Street Children
News and may possibly still be accessible [here] [accessed 17 August 2011] Thus, the streets become the sole
place for such children where they spend both their working hours and their
resting times. Lying on cartons with only the sky as their roof, “Poverty, want and extremely low
income are the main reasons for the phenomenon,” agrees Hassan
Al-Odaini, a child street vendor who sells kitchen equipment
in Mukalla’s women’s market, “What causes a father
send his child to such a faraway city to work are dire circumstances, poverty
and low income.” He also mentioned blackmail
practiced against street children by their bosses. “They quite often deduct
sums from our salary without any apparent reason, except that we are
children,” Ali lamented, “They don’t consider our hard living conditions,
together with our families; rather, they treat us as if they have neither
families nor children of their own.” Working toward a better future for Yemeni children www.yobserver.com/reports/10011921.html [accessed 17 August 2011] According to poverty surveys in
1999, the number of al-Akhdam children, perhaps the
poorest and most disadvantaged in The illiteracy rate of this group
is about 50 percent, while the ones who can read and write are just 33
percent. The young females in this age group have the lowest enrollment
in secondary education and universities, about 16.3 percent, compared with
40.8 percent of the young males. Of all female workers, between15 to 24
years old, only 14 percent of them go to schools, compared with 59 percent of
male workers. The small number of teachers in schools is another reason
for the deterioration of education in this age group. A study of street children in Yemen Abdul-Aziz www.yobserver.com/local-news/10011530.html [accessed 17 August 2011] About 5,000 children are forced to
live on the streets in four Yemeni governorates, according to the results of
the first stage of a new comprehensive survey of street children. Stray animals are the most abused and unwanted in Yemen www.yementimes.com/DefaultDET.aspx?i=990&p=health&a=1 [Last access date unavailable] You said in your
proposal that this project will provide beggars and street children with
opportunities to work in the shelter, but you don’t give any details of how
that can be applied? Do contact with any street children organizations in
this regard? Our project, if it can
pull all its resources together, hopes to work with YERO, a street children
organization. Its initiator has already agreed to coordinate with our project
so we can both benefit from each other. Yemeni
children narrate their sufferings on the street Anwar Murghim
& Fatima Al-Ajel, The www.crin.org/resources/infoDetail.asp?ID=11679&flag=news [accessed 17 August 2011] They shoulder the
responsibility for others before themselves. Such is their fate and their family
circumstances, whether social or economic. They must spend long hours on the
streets under the sun’s blazing heat. What they receive from their work is
nothing as compared to the exploitation of their childhood, which is subject
to various sorts of violence. Factors affecting This article has been archived by World Street Children
News and may possibly still be accessible [here] [accessed 17 August 2011] Aged between 6 and 18,
Street children can be categorized according to their type of work, the time
of day they work and their living situation.
Most children working or begging part of the day or night are enrolled
in school. They study in the morning and work or beg at night, returning home
to spend the night with their family.
Children who work during the day usually are school dropouts or those
who didn’t attend school at all. Most are from rural areas and live away from
their family. They either come to cities with relatives or alone and spend
the night in inns or living in groups in apartments. Yemeni street children work in the
following professions: Street vendors selling clothes, home appliances
and other commodities on streets and at traffic lights/intersections;
Car washers in street intersections and car parks; Porters carrying
commodities on their shoulders or on carts working in general open markets
and fruit and vegetable markets; Workers in restaurants and
cafés; Fare collectors on buses. Government is losing street children At one time this article had been archived and may
possibly still be accessible [here] [accessed 17 August 2011] The number of street children in
Sana'a governorate, according to a previous study conducted by MSAL, there
were 15,000 children on the streets. In the mean time, this phenomenon is on
increase due to the spread of poverty and more drop-outs from school. Women complain of the rise of street harassment Kawkab al-Thaibani,
Yemen Observer, Jul 11, 2006 www.yobserver.com/reports/printer-10010498.html [accessed 17 August 2011] Another girl blamed poverty and
social fragmentation- “They have no goals, no jobs, and too much free time”
she said. “Poverty is part of the problem because it means there are a lot of
street children, and they soon learn how to bother girls on the street.” The economic and social situation of street children: A
study Mohammed Al-Jabri, Sana'a
University, June 29, 2006 This article has been archived by World Street Children
News and may possibly still be accessible [here] [accessed 17 August 2011] Most street children stated that a
large part of their income contributes to their families’ needs. It’s
indicated that 92.9 percent of children whose families live in Sana’a city
assist their families financially; whereas 85 percent of children whose
families live outside Sana’a assist their families financially. Some fathers believe the street
children phenomenon isn’t caused by family problems, but rather by poverty.
During a focus group discussion, one father explained, “I was married to four
wives. We had no problems, although each wife gave birth to a child per year.
After my economic situation worsened, I divorced three of them. Now I don’t
know where my kids are. I only have the kids from the fourth wife and they
dropped out of school. They work and beg and the reason is poverty.” Leprosy, sexual and skin diseases This article has been archived by World Street Children
News and may possibly still be accessible [here] [accessed 20 September 2011] MORE SUSCEPTIBLE TO
DISEASE -
Due to the absence of
personal cleanliness and prevailing unsanitary conditions, most street
children suffer scabies, chicken pox, measles and other infectious illnesses
transmitted by direct and indirect contact, according to Kashnoon.
“These children also are subjected to respiratory diseases like sore throat,
pneumonia, bronchitis and tonsillitis, which may lead to meningitis,” he
confirmed. Information about Street
Children - 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 17 August 2011] The phenomenon of street children
in www.ecpat.net/eng/ecpat_inter/Country/ChildProstitution/Yemen.html [Last access date unavailable] Available information indicates
that 30,000 street children in Mohammed bin www.yementimes.com/DefaultDET.aspx?i=682&p=local&a=2 [accessed 17 August 2011] More than 30.000
children are living as vagrants in the streets of Juveniles Between The Reality And Ambition At one time this article had been archived and may
possibly still be accessible [here] [accessed 17 August 2011] PAINFUL SCENES - Gamil
Massoud al-Wasabi,
12-year-old, loiters bare-footed in Committee On Rights Of Child Concludes Review Of Yemeni Report On
Measures To Implement Convention UN Committee on the Rights on the Child, Press Release At one time this article had been archived and may
possibly still be accessible [here] [accessed 17 August 2011] DISCUSSION - Concerning street children and beggars,
the delegation said that the problem of poverty had increased the rate of
street children and those making a living through begging. The Government had taken steps to combat
the phenomenon of street children, particularly child beggars. The authorities were also undertaking a
study of the situation in order to find alternative means to keep away
children from the streets. Rude awakening Peter At one time this article had been archived and may
possibly still be accessible [here]
[accessed 2 October 2011] UNICEF discovered child trafficking
in Parents, Children Complicit In Human Trafficking Mohammed At one time this article had been archived and may
possibly still be accessible [here] [accessed 2 October 2011] The report found that most
children started the journey accompanied by a direct relation, although some
children traveled with other children instead. According to the study, just over 50% fell
within the age range 13-16 years old, and of the 59 cases, only two were
girls. On arrival in All material used herein
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Cite this webpage as: Patt, Prof. Martin, "Street Children - |
Human Trafficking in [Yemen] [other countries]Street Children in [Yemen Child Prostitution in [Yemen] [other countries]