Gabonese police squash illegal child labour

Thursday January 27, 2005 14:58 - (SA)

LIBREVILLE - Gabonese police have picked up 60 foreign children working illegally on the streets of Libreville as well as 20 of their suspected employers in their first swoop under new legislation against the practice, officials said.

Deputy gendarmerie commander Colonel Matthieu Douana said that all but four of the children being held were girls, more than half from Benin but also from Togo, Nigeria or Ghana. The four boys were all Nigerian.

The children, aged from eight to 17 according to the police, were still detained in the Libreville gendarmerie headquarters, along with the containers of fruit, vegetables and nuts many of them were hawking in the streets when they were brought in.

Most were reluctant to talk to reporters, claiming they were older than they appeared and were only working exceptionally because a relative was ill, while the adults insisted they were their legal guardians.

A senior official at the family ministry, Pierre Ikapi, said "these children are under threat from their employers, who sometimes say they will be killed if they reveal what is happening to them."

Smuggling of children to work for little or no pay is rife in west Africa, much of it originating in Benin.

The police raids followed legislation passed last year aimed at halting the traffic and banning the exploitation of minors.

AFP
Source: http://www.suntimes.co.za/zones/sundaytimesNEW/
basket6st/basket6st1106830731.aspx

Casa Alianza Reunites The Whole Family Of Children From El Salvador Who Crossed The Border To Meet Their Mother

Three generations join with the hope of becoming a real family

Berta Alicia Rodríguez, the grandmother of the children from El Salvador whom were traveling alone to meet their mother in Guatemala city, arrived to our offices in Casa Alianza, with the company of her daughter Neida and her sister in law, to be able to meet her grandchildren, who left San Salvador last weekend. The children were then referred to Casa Alianza through Migration Authorities from Guatemala.

Mrs. Rodríguez informed us that she is from El Salvador but has American citizenship and works in the United States in order to provide economic support for her family in El Salvador. However, during this time, she was in San Salvador taking care of her grandchildren, as her daughter was working in Guatemala. She expressed sadness to know that her grandchildren had crossed the border to look for their mother, and sadly said to us “mother's love is what children need”.

We were talking to Mrs. Rodríguez, when Rosa Rodas, the mother of the children arrived to our offices. When they met each other, they were incredibly excited, and after a brief conversation, mother and daughter hugged each other and cried at reconciliation and their concern for the children´s situation. The whole family left our offices for the El Salvador Consulate, to make the necessary arrangements for recovering custody of the children.

The situation this family is facing is an example of the crisis faced by many central Americans who emigrate to the North looking for a better economical situation. Unfortunately, children are always the most vulnerable when family relationships are broken. They deserve mother´s love, emotional stability from a family and the right every child has to be protected.

In the meantime, Guatemalan authorities and the El Salvador Consulate have been informed of the situation, and during the next hours will decide the best option for the children.

Casa Alianza hopes that the decision taken by the authorities would be correct, and that respects the family relationship, and above all, protects and keeps save the minors. We have faith the El Salvador State and society can celebrate the opportunities that these three generations, grandmother, mother and children deserve, so they can live as a true family.

COMUNICACIÓN Y DESARROLLO
TEL. (502) 2433 9600
comunicacion2@casaalianza.org.gt

Congo Rebel Group Forces Children into Army

New Report Details Recruitment Campaign

(05/29/01) -- The major rebel group in eastern Congo continues to recruit children to wage war against the Congolese government, Human Rights Watch charged in a report released today.

The report, "Reluctant Recruits: Children and Adults Forcibly Recruited for Military Service in North Kivu," details recruitment efforts since late 2000 by the Congolese Rally for Democracy-Goma (RCD-Goma) and the Rwandan army troops who support it. RCD-Goma has repeatedly pledged to demobilize its child soldiers, but has not fulfilled these promises, the report says.

"Children are being abducted and sent to battle by the very soldiers who are supposed to protect them," said Alison Des Forges, Senior Adviser to the Africa Division of Human Rights Watch. "RCD-Goma must live up to its agreements to end this terrible practice."

As part of the 1999 Lusaka Accords, RCD-Goma agreed to halt the use of children as soldiers. In May 2000, RCD-Goma said it would create a commission to supervise demobilization of child soldiers, but a year later the commission is not functioning effectively. In April 2001, authorities of the rebel movement promised to deliver several hundred children in training at military camps to representatives of the United Nations. But several days later, they reportedly allowed some 1800 new recruits between the ages of 12 and 17 to graduate from training at one of these camps. Each child soldier received a new uniform and firearm.

In the early months of the recruitment campaign, RCD-Goma soldiers and their Rwandan allies simply abducted children and young men who were sent for military training and later service in the rebel forces. Recruiters picked up children on their way to school or church and took adults en route to work or the market. In some cases, they raided homes, taking away anyone who might be made into a soldier. In some communities parents refused to send their children to school for fear of their being kidnapped. In others, families slept outdoors to avoid raids on their houses or organized to create an uproar when military raiders arrived in the community so that children and young men might escape. As the use of child soldiers attracted increasingly critical comment from international observers, RCD-Goma moved recruiting efforts further from urban centers, making it harder to document their activities. They are also increasingly using promises of rewards to enroll poor and hungry children who lacked other sources of support.

The RCD-Goma military forces pressure local civilian authorities to deliver new recruits. To ensure their cooperation with this and other efforts, RCD-Goma and their Rwandan backers in February 2001 transported more than 400 Congolese officials and traditional chiefs to Rwanda for five weeks of ideological and paramilitary training at a Rwandan military camp. "According to observers on the spot, trucks are still rolling through Goma, transporting children to military camps in the Congo and even to Rwanda for training," said Des Forges. "This is bad news, both for those children and for hopes for peace in the Congo."

Source: http://www.hrw.org/english/docs/2001/05/29/congo76.htm

The growing cancer of child labour in the global community

By Terry Bell

One in every six children in the world aged between five and 17 is now exploited as a worker. Children labour in mines and quarries, in homes, carpet and garment factories, usually for little or no pay, frequently malnourished and often subject to physical and sexual abuse.

But this growing cancer on the international body politic is often invisible, hidden in back rooms and locked factories and behind walls and fences. It is a hideous aspect of our globalising system that affects almost every country.

India houses an estimated 60 million of the nearly 250 million child labourers worldwide, which is why the central Indian city of Hyderabad was chosen as the venue for an international conference on child labour.

Organised by the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions (ICFTU), the five-day conference concludes today. It has provided some stark glimpses into this vile aspect of a globalising system that treats workers as disposable ciphers.

It raised again the obscene irony that, at a time when the world is wallowing in a glut of every socially necessary product, there is more suffering and starvation. There are also more children being forced into work, often merely to pay off debts to money lenders. This makes for radically reduced labour costs since the money lenders are often the employers as well.

And when such labour is available the end products become that much more competitive in the over-supplied global marketplace.

Individual cases reported to the conference are heartbreaking; cases of children as young as five, "apprenticed" at no pay to work up to 12 hours a day in the gem industry.

After two years, if they have learned skills, the top pay packet is equal to R32 a month. Skilled adult workers earn R80 for as long as their bodies and eyesight hold out.

Amid this Dickensian horror, the myth of entrepreneurial solutions continues to be peddled - and bought into.
Take Amar, a 14-year-old who has worked for two years as an unpaid apprentice in a factory, sewing sports bags. He dreams one day of "qualifying" and earning enough to open his own bag factory.

Yet in a world of surpluses, where the International Labour Organisation (ILO) estimates that 886 million adults are either unemployed or underemployed, Amar's dreams are illusions that help only to line the pockets of his employer.

And it is not only in "the East" that such conditions apply. South Africa is not immune. The ILO estimates that 48 million children under 14 work in African countries.

As the pressure to reduce costs increases, so too will the pressure on wages and conditions. Local trade unionists ask why buying "Proudly South African" products produced in this way is any better than buying products from any other region where exploitation takes place.

It is the trade unions that are in the forefront of fighting blatant exploitation, especially of children, as trade unions are the sole democratic bulwarks against exploitation.

As such, the trade union movement is perceived by authoritarian regimes and the owners of capital as something to be suppressed, tamed or fought.

In the week of the conference there were reports of the expulsion of the Cosatu delegation from Zimbabwe, but also of an ICFTU delegation to Colombia, where 50 trade unionists have been murdered this year.

On Tuesday came a report from China that child worker Chen Suo had been sentenced to two years in jail for being part of a 1 000-strong worker demonstration at a Stella International shoe factory against long hours and delayed pay.

Lines are being drawn and the words of an old trade union song seem increasingly pertinent: "Which side are you on/ One's right and one's wrong."

Source: http://www.busrep.co.za/index.php?fArticleId=2287538

Crossing A Country To Find Their Mother

Four children from El Salvador traveled along the Border to find their mother in Guatemala city.

Migration Office in Guatemala found four kids at the Border with El Salvador, three boys ages 5, 10 and 12, and a girl of 9. They indicated the authorities that they were traveling to the United States, and the Migration Office referred them to Casa Alianza, where the social worker and educators determined that their real intention was finding their mother, who works in Guatemala City.

Two days later, thanks to the cooperation of some investigators, children were able to join their mother, a 25 years old woman from El Salvador, who might be illegal in Guatemala, and who works in Guatemala City.

Personnel from Casa Alianza and some journalists were able to see the happiness of children, and the tears of excitement of the mother when they came together. The woman indicated that she works to send them money every three months, but have not seen them for around a year. At El Salvador, children are in care of their grandmother.

It is of great concern to Casa Alianza to see how those kids are traveling along without any protection, in high risk of abuse and danger, and that they could cross the Border to Guatemala without any documents and control. It is also of great concern to see how social problems and family disintegration affects specially children.

On the other hand, Casa Alianza believes and works for family reintegration, and it was of great joy to join those kids with their mother.

In order to follow recommendations of Childhood and Adolescence Protection Law, we put the children to the jurisdiction of Minors Judge, and informed the Consulate from El Salvador about this case.

MORE INFORMATION:
Casa Alianza Tel. (502) 2433 9600
comunicacion2@casaalianza.org.gt

A generation left vulnerable and scarred

24 January 2005

As Unicef and other aid agencies work among tsunami-devastated communities, they also see opportunities to improve life for the young and in particular to protect children from abuse. Maggie Stratton reports on work being done in Sri Lanka.

The tsunami which hit southern Asia a month ago left children's lives in pieces. Mothers, fathers, brothers and sisters, family members of all generations have been lost. Friends, teachers, familiar faces from childhood killed. Homes and schools have been destroyed.

An entire generation of children face a life scarred by trauma and upheaval. They are vulnerable and more at risk than ever from exploitation and abuse.

Paedophiles who were previously operating in the country are already known to be exploiting the tragedy and the economic devastation, and there are fears of a rise in the internal trafficking of children for domestic labour.

But while there are many awful realities on which to base a bleak picture, those who work on the ground know they can do good work with the vast amounts of money donated by the public towards the relief effort.

Readers of this newspaper have already donated more than £85,000 towards to the Yorkshire Post-backed Unicef appeal for the children of affected regions.

Ted Chaiban, Unicef Sri Lanka representative, said: "The tsunami that hit Sri Lanka has caused enormous devastation and loss of life.

"But there are now opportunities as well to harness the donations that are coming into Sri Lanka and use them to improve the situation of children."

From the beginning of Unicef's work, priority was given to finding separated children.

In Sri Lanka, where about a third of the population of 19,000 were under 18, a survey has now established that almost 900 children lost both their parents and 3,200 have only a mother or father who survived.

Helga Hanks, a Leeds consultant clinical psychologist, and Leeds consultant paediatricians Chris Hobbs and Amanda Thomas were part of a team of experts who before the tsunami had spent time in Sri Lanka and the Maldives helping establish the beginnings of child protection work.

Sri Lanka's national child protection unit was set up in the late 1990s as a response to the growing problem of paedophiles.

Mrs Hanks and Dr Hobbs first went to the country in 1997 as part of a team sent to raise awareness about child abuse – not only by the sex trade but also including physical abuse and child labour – and to help train staff.

When they returned four years later the system had moved on leaps and bounds.

But they fear the devastation could seriously jeopardise much of that work, with children not only open to abuse from strangers, but also within the home.

Of the orphaned children tracked by Unicef and the Sri Lankan child protection agency since the tsunami all but 38 were being cared for by other relatives.

"If these children are taken into distant families, they could still face abuse. Some families, many who have lost their own livelihoods, will not be able to afford to take on more children and if they are offered money for the children they may take it", Dr Thomas said.

Many of those who were trained to identify and deal with abuse will themselves be among the dead and missing.

The Leeds team support the work being done to register children as quickly as possible and to establish a foster-care system rather housing children in orphanages.

Mrs Hanks said the children must be quickly settled into environments conducive to helping them recover from their trauma.

"Children have a very, very strong survival mechanism and they might look like they are coping, but actually they are not", Mrs Hanks said.

The trauma, she said, will affect children of all ages, including the very, very young.
maggie.stratton@ypn.co.uk

Source: http://www.yorkshiretoday.co.uk/ViewArticle2.aspx?
SectionID=55&ArticleID=927351

Working children are objects of extreme exploitation

20 Jan 2005

By Mwanaid Swedi

Kailash Satyarthi, chairperson for Global March Against Child Labour, a non-governmental organisation, once said “No one will say that children should suffer.

No one will say that children should work 14 hours a day. But who will step forward to stop this?”

On June 1999, when the member states of the International Labour Organisation (ILO) unanimously voted to adopt Convention 182 on the Worst Forms of Child Labour, the world community made a commitment to stop the suffering of millions of children.

It was recognised that ending the commercial exploitation of children must be one of humankind’s top priorities.

It was accepted as a cause that demands immediate action. Since then many governments, organisations, and individuals have stepped forward to meet this challenge.

Governments have ratified Convention 182 at the fastest rate ever for an international treaty.

NGOs, trade unions, and some businesses have launched innovative programmes to protect children.

Ordinary people have readily given whatever they could to help this cause. The real measure of success, however, is the difference being made in the lives of children.

Too often efforts have been limited by lack of information about the existence and extent of the worst forms of child labour.

Many times people simply don’t know about the exploitation going on so close to their homes. Sometimes, though, people just choose to ignore it.

It is shocking to see that in an era of such tremendous material and technological advancement, children in almost every country are being callously exploited.

This trend presents a clear and undeniable challenge to the global community. It is a wake-up call for governments, an agenda for civil society, and an appeal to all people.

In Tanzania, Kiota Women Health and Development Organisation (KIWOHEDE) prepared a programme of eliminating all forms of child-labour, through a grant from the ILO under the International Programme on the Elimination of Child Labour, (IPEC).

The programme started in April and came to an end in December last year. It incorporated the wards of Vingunguti, Ilala and Buguruni in Dar es Salaam, aiming to bring hope to children of the age of schooling who in one way or the other fail to enter schools for being labourers at household level.

The programme targeted children serving as labourers and those who are in danger of becoming victims.

KIWOHEDE project manager, Edda Kawala says parents and the community in collaboration with children employers in the project area have decided to come up with steps that will help children working in houses to access their basic rights including getting education.

The majority of the people in the project area, including leaders, have been educated on the consequences that children suffer by being labourers.

The programme ensures that all children aged 5 who did not get their school education go back to schools.

Perhaps this is a commendable move towards empowering the working children back to the world of ‘sun and light’ through education.

So the project will carry out an intensive survey and collect all those who did not attend class due to various reasons, including being labourers.

At present 24 children have been taken back to schools at the Dar es Salaam based Hekima Primary School, through a special education programme for those who did not attend.

Through this programme, KIWOHEDE has also dished out grants as a capital to 75 parents in the project area as a means of enhancing income generating activities.

The programme was designed to rescue 300 children, out of them 250 have been rescued from child labour and child abuse, and they are now housed at different centres of Tabata, Buguruni and Manzese waiting for school enrolment, says Kawala.

The purpose of issuing loans is to enhance the abolition of child stigmatisation and rescue those who are in the process of engaging in this worst form of slavery.

Child labour is a pervasive problem throughout the world, especially in developing countries.

Africa and Asia account for over 90 per cent of total child employment.

Child labour is especially prevalent in rural areas where the capacity to enforce minimum age requirements for schooling and work is lacking.

Children work for a variety of reasons, the most important being poverty and the induced pressure upon them to escape from this plight.

Though children are not well paid, they still serve as major contributors to family income in developing countries.

Schooling problems also contribute to child labour, whether it be the inaccessibility of schools or the lack of quality education, which spurs parents to place their children in more profitable pursuits.

Traditional factors such as rigid cultural and social roles in certain countries further limit educational attainment and increase child labour.

Working children are the objects of extreme exploitation in terms of toiling for long hours for minimal pay.
Their work conditions are especially severe, often not providing the stimulation for proper physical and mental development.

Many of these children endure lives of pure deprivation. However, there are problems with the intuitive solution of immediately abolishing child labour to prevent such abuse.

First, there is no international agreement defining child labour, making it hard to isolate cases of abuse, let alone abolish them.

Second, many children may have to work in order to attend school so abolishing child labour might hinder their education.

Any plan of abolishment depends on schooling. The state could help by making it worthwhile for a child to attend school, whether by providing students with nutritional supplements or increasing the quality and usefulness of obtaining an education.

There must be an economic change in the condition of a struggling family to free a child from the responsibility of working. Family subsidies can help provide this support.

This analysis leads to certain implications for the international community. Further investigation into this subject is required before calls are made to ban child labour across the board.

By establishing partnerships with humanitarian organisations, the international community can focus on immediately solving the remediable problems of working children.

Source: http://www.ippmedia.com/ipp/guardian/2005/01/20/30386.html

Yemen opens eyes to prevalence of child trafficking

By Peter Willems

THE WASHINGTON TIMES

Published January 19, 2005

SAN''A, Yemen -- A two-day workshop based on the first study of child trafficking in Yemen was held last weekend, representing the first public admission that children are being sent to Saudi Arabia to support their families and thus exposed to abuse.
Awareness of the issue has grown in the past year, but it has provoked disagreement about the magnitude of the problem and how many youngsters working north of the border should be considered trafficked children.
"We have fully acknowledged that this is a problem for us and appears to be growing," said Ramesh Shrestha, a Yemen-based representative of the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF), speaking at the opening of the forum, which brought government ministers and representatives of aid organizations together Saturday and Sunday.
"There are different issues on the definition of trafficking," he said. "Whether or not it is trafficking or illegal immigration, and there are different numbers for children being trafficked, but the basic fact is that there is a problem."
The study by Yemen's Social Affairs Ministry and UNICEF was carried out in Hajja and al Mahweet, two provinces thought to be primary sources of child trafficking, and was based on interviews and group discussions with victims, families, traffickers and government authorities.
The information gathered showed that more than 25 percent of children interviewed faced risks to their well-being, including going hungry and getting lost. The study found that some died during the journey to Saudi Arabia, and many said they had been robbed or beaten and abused by security officials. In addition, nearly 65 percent of the children trafficked did not have a place to stay and ended up living on the streets.
The most common ways of earning money by Yemeni children abroad are begging or becoming street vendors.
Research teams were not able to carry out a full assessment of sexual exploitation. But according to a woman interviewed in the survey, "Children were sexually abused even by the traffickers themselves and before they got into Saudi Arabia."
One of the reasons that child trafficking has become a lucrative business in Yemen is that many families are unaware of the hardships that their children may encounter. Most parents involved in the study said they saw no difference between child trafficking and illegal immigration to boost a family's income, and most were willing to pay a trafficker to make it possible.
The major cause of child trafficking in Yemen is poverty. "Child trafficking is one of the bad symptoms of people suffering from poverty," said Amat al-Aleem al-Soswa, Yemen's U.S.-educated human rights minister. "If the families happened to be well-off, the parents would not have let their children go to another place and be vulnerable to abuse and exploitation. It is poverty, and we should fight it if we want a radical solution for this problem."
In the World Bank's recent report on Yemen, the country's rise in gross domestic product slowed from 4.1 percent in 2001 to 2.5 percent last year. Economic expansion is not keeping up with Yemen's population growth, one of the highest in the world.
The Population Reference Bureau, a private organization based in the United States, estimates that Yemen's population grows about 4 percent annually. Forty-two percent of Yemenis live below the poverty line, and the percentage is expected to rise unless the government hastens economic reforms.
The child-trafficking study shows that more than 60 percent of the children sent abroad are from families with eight or more members and that most of these families survive on less than $108 per month. Families said sending children to work increased income dramatically, sometimes doubling their family income.
"Saying that raising awareness in communities can solve the problem is probably not accurate," Mr. Shrestha said. "People will become aware that it is bad, but other compelling reasons -- like economic hardship -- might motivate families not to take action against child trafficking. Children sending money back to their families living in the poorer areas near the border might continue."

Source:http://www.wpherald.com/storyview.php?StoryID=20050119-101022-8752r

Warning against tsunami adoption

From correspondents in London

06jan05

HUMANITARIAN groups warned today against westerners rushing to adopt Asian children orphaned by the tsunami disaster, proposing instead that they sponsor children or continue donating to aid organisations.Humanitarian groups have already received requests from westerners on how to adopt children from tsunami-hit south Asian countries, but discourage them, saying children need the emotional stability that only their own communities can give.

On the other hand, relief groups and governments are encouraging sponsorship programs, in which individuals or companies ensure long-term financing for children or families hit by the disaster.

"We certainly have received a few requests on how to adopt children," said Shima Islam, a spokeswoman for the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) in London.

UNICEF recommended against the practice, she said.

"Wherever possible, children should be placed within their own communities because that's where people know them best, that's where they have their friends, they have extended family members who can look after them," she said.

In a bid to prevent human traffickers from smuggling orphaned or homeless children out for adoption, child labour or the sex trade, UNICEF is already working with the Indonesian government to establish centres across the tsunami-hit province of Aceh to register and keep track of them.

UNICEF is also providing trauma counselling to children, as well as helping them return to school as soon as possible to re-establish "normality" in their lives, Ms Islam said.

The agency, while assessing damage to schools in Indonesia and other countries hit by the December 26 tsunami, is also delivering packages of blackboards, textbooks, notebooks and pencils to allow makeshift schools to be set up.

The best thing westerners could do at this stage was to continue sending funds that allow aid organisations to do their own relief work on the ground, Ms Islam said.

Claire Brisset, also of UNICEF, said adoption should only happen if it turned out that a child had ended up with no extended family members at all to take care of them.

Ms Brisset recalled that in Rwanda, some 100,000 children were eventually able to be reunited with relatives, though in some cases it took up to two years.

"Uprooting should not be added to the dreadful trauma these children have already experienced," Ms Brisset said.

Christiane Sebenne, a member of the board of directors of French group Enfance et famille d'adoption (Childhood and Families of Adoption, or EFA), took a similar stand.

"One should not confuse adoption and humanitarian work," Ms Sebenne said on Tuesday in Paris.

"Adoption is about building a family, it's taking a child for one's own. It happens both on the emotional and practical level."

Several families, moved by images of traumatised children, have contacted EFA, she said.

"The first priority is to save these children, send money, supplies, medicine, rebuild their lives, so that, on the contrary, these children can remain in their environment," Ms Sebenne said.

Instead of adoption, experts recommend that westerners opt for sponsorship instead.

In Sweden, SOS-Barnbyar, a branch of the Austrian Kinderdorf International organisation, has registered a surge in requests from individuals or companies wanting to sponsor children.

"We have 15 to 20 requests daily on average during normal times. Since the catastrophe, the figure has risen to about 90 registrations per day," spokeswoman Caroline Maino said.

"Prospective sponsors are not asking for a specific country or geographic area. They want to commit themselves over the long term to help a child or a village," she said.

In Madrid, Ayuda en Accion (Action Aid), which sponsors children, said today it has received 1548 requests for information about sponsoring children in Asia since December 27, a day after the disaster.

In Budapest, the Baptist Church of Hungary said that more than 3400 Hungarians had already agreed to pay for one year the cost of feeding a child, and the figure would probably exceed 5000 soon.

Source: http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/common/
story_page/0,5744,11865386%255E1702,00.html

NGOs’ perspectives of children’s rights in Mongolia

(TheUBPost, 05 Jan 2005 10:30 pm ULAT. 0 comments)

By Save the Children UK Programme in Mongolia

Teachers ask for cash for holidays or for children’s birthdays. They don’t allow us into class if we have no textbooks or notebooks. We are poor and children do not play with us. We do not have clothes to wear for school, no money and school stationary is expensive. Rich and wealthy children bully us and teachers discriminate against us.

(Working children aged 12-15 in Darkhan-Uul aimag, in Assessment of Children and Women’s Status in Mongolia, 2000)

The violation of children’s rights is an everyday occurrence in Mongolia and in many other countries. The government of Mongolia has ratified the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) and provided a second Report to the UN Committee on the CRC in 2003.

The Alternative Report of the National Coalition of NGOs on the Rights of the Child of Mongolia was developed in 2004. Authors included the Coalition of NGOs comprising the Mongolian Child Rights Center, National Center against Violence, School Social Workers Association, Gender Center for Equal Development, Association of Parents with Disabled Children and the Agency for Prevention and Protection of Children against Abuse and Neglect. Among the authors are also an independent researcher and Save the Children UK.

The purpose of the Alternative Report (AR) is to give a different perspective from that of the Government Report (GR). It doesn’t seek to be overly critical of the government’s achievements. However, it uses case studies to point out gaps and problems that the government has overlooked. It seeks to include the voices of children and to highlight any unintended negative consequences of government policies. The AR provides recommendations for improving the situation of children in Mongolia.

The GR identifies the allocation of resources and achievements in child health, education, child protection and the development of children’s organizations. It also underlines the active contribution of international and local civil society organizations in securing the rights of the child.

Despite the implementation of many projects, the GR recognizes that “poverty and unemployment are still critical issues” and that not all children are equally benefiting from state social protection. Major government achievements include legislation like the Law on Protection of Child Rights of 1996. Mongolia has also ratified international agreements such as the UN Basic Principles on Prevention of Juveniles against Crimes and the International Program for Eradication of child labour.

The GR identifies the national legal acts that strengthen the legal framework for the protection of children’s rights. Nevertheless, the report underlines the insufficient implementation of these legal acts. The government has taken steps towards creating reasonable judicial conditions for children’s rights, but the practical implementation is still a distant goal. The GR explains this gap between the laws and the reality for children by pointing out the low “knowledge and practice levels of citizens” when it comes to children’s rights. Also many of the law provisions fail due to the economic realities of the country.

The AR, developed by the NGOs, recognizes the efforts of the Mongolian government towards the realization of children’s rights but it points out that not only economic conditions lead to violations of these rights. This report was also submitted to the UN Committee on the CRC. It notes that “during 1995-2000 the government was not stable, and was changing frequently which negatively influenced the implementation of the policies covering children’s rights”.

The AR confirms that poverty is a major, but not the only reason for the violation of children’s rights. It argues that violence against children is directly related to the stress of modern life and unfortunately, children are becoming stress release objects. In Mongolia, violence against the child may occur because adults and children do not know about children’s rights and are unaware of different methods of solving disputes other than by force. Society sees domestic violence as a family matter rather than as a social issue.

Research conducted by the National Center against Violence indicated that 54.5 percent of participating children claimed that there is fighting, verbal accusations, chasing and knifing incidents in their families. The research findings suggest that 1 child in every 2 is a victim or a witness of violence.

The home workload assigned to girls in cities and countryside are equally high, for example, 49% of adolescent girls in soum centers and 37% in cities and settlements spend most of their free time doing household chores. The AR argues that children’s household work should be restricted in terms of time and load to allow time and energy to study and to obtain knowledge and skills to function successfully in the new century.

Alarmingly, child prostitution cases are increasing drastically. Most girls involved are former victims of sexual abuse themselves. Mongolia has been promoting an open policy and many tourists and business people visit the country. There is no guarantee that child sex will not be developed in the country and therefore the AR advocates an advertising campaign in order to prevent these crimes.

The number of school dropouts, especially boys in the countryside, has increased. Boys are not prepared for their future roles as fathers, and not encouraged to learn to take care of other people’s needs. The AR recommends that the state focus on this issue at a policy level.

The issue of child labour has been highlighted during the last decade. Working children are often school dropouts. Children’s labor often requires a lot of physical strength, the working environment is difficult and there is little concern for occupational safety. In the countryside, small and medium businesses are mostly family businesses and there is no practice of making contracts with children. People tend to see the rural child labour as a learning method or children’s duty. The pressure on children to work can often compromise their right to reasonable education.

Many people wrongly assume street children voluntarily ran away from their families because they dislike discipline and study. These children are counted as potential criminals instead of being treated as victims of neglect, violence, labor exploitation and other forms of child abuse. This societal attitude may be an obstacle in the implementation of legislation concerning children’s rights.

Children with disabilities and their families have particular struggles to achieve their basic rights. MOECS reported that 37 percent of children with disabilities are outside of the education system. Parents who take care of children with disabilities can be limited or restricted in their opportunities to work. There is only limited support from organizations for these parents, and working hours are not flexible, which doubles the burden of existing problems.

“When she was 19 years old, O married B in 1995. O and B had a girl who was born with brain damage. Her parents-in-law were very upset and blamed O for the tragedy. They started persuading their son to divorce O. Her husband also blamed O and soon left her. O has to raise the daughter alone, and her daughter needs constant care.” (Association of Parents with Disabled Children)

In most cases mothers are blamed for giving birth to a child with a disability. Families often hide and separate the child from society. According to the law, the cost of artificial limbs and orthopedic equipment must be compensated 100 percent by the state. This law does not meet the needs of a growing child as there is a need to frequently replace the equipment. The law states that wheelchairs should be provided once free of charge to disabled people, only applying, however, to those under the poverty line. However the government wheelchair supply does not meet the real demand. Buildings, roads, traffic lights, public transportation in Mongolia are not suitable to serve children with disabilities. This fact contradicts the principle of equal participation of all members of the society.

Teachers are supposed to provide a good example of communication and behavior. However, there is an alarming growth of incidents when teachers verbally, mentally and physically abuse children. There is an urgent need to focus public attention on the issue. Research should be done and the results distributed throughout Mongolia.

During Mongolia’s transition period, some teachers started hidden business forcing pupils to buy books, handouts, newspapers, collecting money for ‘class funds’, etc. The public is aware of it and children from vulnerable social groups are under a lot of pressure. This situation violates the principle of free primary and secondary education for all children and is a big burden for low income and poor families. Discrimination emerges when parents hand their children to school and kindergarten teachers and then are reluctant to interfere in order not to harm their children. Children who are not able to find money suffer more and some even avoid schools. The AR also identifies many leading teachers who show great professional and personal examples to others. It recommends that courses on child rights be developed and embedded into the curricula of teachers colleges and universities. Similarly, it recommends an official subject dedicated to child rights in primary and secondary schools.

The Government Report describes the growth of child participation mainly based on the growth of the number of children’s organizations in Mongolia. The Alternative Report indicates “Children’s participation is absent in the government report.” Given that 36.9 percent of children say that they do not know their rights and 45.9 percent can not express their will and thoughts freely, children’s participation is a major challenge for Mongolian society. The fact that adults decide children’s future without consulting them leads to negative outcomes in poverty elimination.

During 1995-2000, many public places designed for children’s activities were closed down and given to businesses. Thus, a bank took the children’s library building; the stock exchange took over the children’s cinema. Many playgrounds were destroyed and turned into new construction sites. For the present there are few places for children to attend outside of school. This leads to many teenagers hanging around aimlessly in the streets and the AR concludes there are very few child-friendly spaces in Ulaanbaatar.

The Alternative Report points to the problems and challenges in the implementation of child rights in Mongolia, but it also provides a summary of recommendations for improvement. These include empowering children with information about their rights. NGOs can cooperate on the improvement of the free-topic hour in schools providing useful first-hand information for children. The report also recommends that the government implement the law concerning the rights of people with disabilities when decisions are taken for city and country infrastructure issues.

The government should ensure active participation of schools, parents, civil society and children, when it makes decisions on issues concerning children. Finally, the Alternative Report recommends the government address problems in all their complexity rather than focusing on statistical results which do not include children’s voices and concerns.

Source: http://ubpost.mongolnews.mn/index.php?subaction=
showfull&id=1104985833&archive=&start_from=&ucat=6

Indonesia on alert for child trafficking

AP, JAKARTA

Thursday, Jan 06, 2005,Page 5

SLAVERY: Welfare groups are concerned that well-organized gangs are whisking orphaned children away and selling them into forced labor or even sexual slavery

Fearing child-trafficking gangs will exploit the chaos of the tsunami disaster, Indonesia has slapped restrictions on youngsters leaving the country, ordered police commanders to be on the lookout for trafficking and posted special guards in refugee camps.

The moves this week come amid concerns by child welfare groups such as UNICEF that the gangs -- who are well-established in Indonesia -- are whisking orphaned children into trafficking networks, selling them into forced labor or even sexual slavery in wealthier neighboring countries such as Malaysia and Singapore.

"I'm sure it's happening," said Birgithe Lund-Henriksen, child protection chief in UNICEF's Indonesia office. "It's a perfect opportunity for these guys to move in."

Yesterday, UNICEF spokesman John Budd, based in Banda Aceh, said the group had two confirmed reports of attempted child trafficking, but he did not immediately provide any further details.

Such trafficking, if true, would vastly deepen the suffering of children already struck hard by the disaster: Indonesia estimates 35,000 Acehnese children lost one or both parents in the disaster.

Fueling the suspicions, many Indonesians are getting mobile phone text messages this week inviting them to adopt orphans from the tsunami-savaged province of Aceh on the island of Sumatra. The messages are being investigated by police. It's not clear whether such messages are pranks, real adoption offers or linked in some way to trafficking networks. The Associated Press was unable to get through to phone numbers given on two of the messages.

But child welfare experts warn the messages could be a sign that children are being removed from the province.

Rumors about possible trafficking are widespread in Indonesia, but officials concede they have little hard evidence of specific cases yet.

Still, a disaster on the scale of Asia's tsunami catastrophe is a perfect breeding ground for such traffic, experts say. Hundreds of thousands of people have been driven from their homes, children have been separated from their families and the deaths of parents leave their offspring especially vulnerable to criminals.
Making matters worse, the hardest hit area in Indonesia -- Aceh -- is not far from the port city of Medan and nearby island of Batam, which are well-known transit points for gangs shipping children and teenagers out of Indonesia.

"This is a situation that lends itself to this kind of exploitation," UNICEF director Carol Bellamy told the AP in an interview on Tuesday. "Our concern here is ... whether these children are frankly turned into child slaves, if you will, or abused and exploited."

"They could be put to work -- domestic labor, sex trade, a whole series of potential abuses," she said.

Bellamy said it was not clear whether any children already had been trafficked, but she couldn't rule it out. Such smuggling did not appear to be widespread and UNICEF and other agencies were working hard to make sure it didn't become a bigger problem, she added.

Indonesian officials were already taking steps.

The government has temporarily banned Acehnese children under 16 from leaving the country, and national police chief General Da'i Bachtiar said on Monday he had ordered provincial commanders around the country, especially in and near Aceh, to be alert to possible child trafficking.

UNICEF and aid agencies plan to set up special centers focused on children's needs within five Aceh refugee camps by the end of the week, and 15 more soon after, she said. Workers will help protect children from traffickers and try to identify and register them.

Source: http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/world/archives/2005/01/06/2003218237

Child trafficking concerns add to tsunami woes

Last Update: Tuesday, January 4, 2005. 1:20pm (AEDT)

By John Taylor in Jakarta and staff reporters

Indonesian Vice-President Jusuf Kalla has warned people intending to adopt orphaned children from Aceh to follow proper protocols amid concerns about child trafficking.

Mr Kalla has warned that orphaned Acehnese children must stay in the province until their status is confirmed.

He says people intending to adopt should do so only after it was confirmed that the children concerned were orphaned.

It comes as a foundation in the ravaged Aceh province warns that at least 20 children have fallen victim to child traffickers.

There are fears trafficking may increase as more than 35,000 children are thought to have been orphaned or cut off from their families.

The Indonesian Government has banned all Acehnese children younger than 16 from leaving the country.

Police around the nation have also been instructed to be alert for child traffickers.

Protection

There are also similar concerns in Thailand.

Swedish police haved confirmed they have sent two officers to investigate the disappearance of a 12-year-old Swedish boy, who has reportedly been kidnapped from a Thai hospital.

One of Australia's leading non-government child protection agencies is calling on countries involved in the relief effort to make child protection their top priority.

Child Wise acting director Karen Flanagan says paedophiles are known to prey on children during difficult times.

"Someone needs to be really focused on child protection measures not just... the physical needs, the hygiene needs, the water needs, all of that needs to happen, of course, for survival," she said.

"These children are wandering around aimlessly without parents or guardians so of course they're going to vulnerable to exploitation."

In other developments:

Adoption groups are advising it is unlikely children orphaned by the Asian tsunami disaster would be repatriated to Australia. (Full Story)

Governor-General Major General Michael Jeffery has congratulated Australians on what he has described as a phenomenal response to relief appeals for the Asian tsunami disaster. (Full Story)

Foreign Minister Alexander Downer and Australian Federal Police Commissioner Mick Keelty have arrived in Phuket to assess Australia's efforts to help Thailand deal with the devastation caused by last week's tsunami. (Full Story)

Police in Tasmania will not charge the author of an unauthorised tsunami relief web site because they believe he was acting in good faith. (Full Story)

Survivors of last week's tsunami are suffering not only from diarrhoea, mental trauma and dehydration but also from horrific crush injuries, one charity has said. (Full Story)

Related Links:

Full coverage: Asia Tsunami Disaster
ABC News Online special presentation.

Photo gallery: World rushes to Asia's aid
Images of the relief effort to help tsunami victims, which is the largest ever staged.

Tsunami Assist
The Australian Government's national tsunami assistance website, including contact details, fact sheets and media releases.

Source: http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200501/s1276276.htm

3,000 kids bailed out

2005-01-01 11:25:50

By Asrajii Mvungi, PST, Simanjiro

A non-governmental organization, Good Hope Programme, has bailed 3,200, children out of dangerous child labour in homes and mines in Simanjiro District, Manyara Region.

Director of the NGO, Dorah Mushi, said the children were freed from domestic labour and mining activities at the Mererani Tanzanite mines from 2001 to 2004. Most of them had been taken back to school and others were enrolled in vocational training institutes.

A survey conducted in 2001 by the NGO in collaboration with the International Labour Organization (ILO) at the Mererani Tanzanite mines indicated that 4,500 children were engaged in hazardous labour.

A total of 400 children were saved from hazardous child labour in 2002 and 1,678 children were saved the following year.

Some 1,200 children had been saved by November this year, with the co-operation of government leaders from village to district levels.

Commenting on the problem, Simanjiro District Council Director, Lusia Ngiloriti, said child labour was a crime before the law and God and it should be fought vehemently. She hailed the NGO for its effort and asked the community to support it.

She said childcare was the obligation of every Tanzanian and not the government or certain NGOs alone as the number of orphaned children was on the increase due to the devastation of HIV/Aids.

Some of the children bailed out of hazardous employment at Mererani were treated to a Christmas and New Year party recently also attended by government officials as well as Mererani residents.

Source: http://www.ippmedia.com/ipp/guardian/2005/01/01/28862.html

We want to continue schooling-Children rescued from tobacco factories demand at Daulatpur

Sun. January 02, 2005

Amanur Aman, Kushtia

It was a unique event when over 1000 children, rescued from hazardous tobacco factory jobs and enrolled in schools, brought out a procession and stood hand in hand with banners and fastoons, appealing for continuation of their free education and saving thousands more like them.

They also held a rally at Daulatpur, the largest tobacco and Bidi producing area in the country, where they appealed to the government and others concerned to free children from risky work and ensure their rights.

Banners and fastoons reading slogans like "We want education", "No more child labour" drew attention and sympathy of all quarters including big stake holders in the tobacco industry.

Alongside, a workshop on saving children from tobacco industry, organised by a local NGO-- SETUY-- and Bangladesh Trade Union Kendra evoked good response from some of the Bidi factory owners.

" I have greatly reduced child labourers in my factory and will replace the few still there", said Nasiruddin Biswas, owner of Nasir Bidi Factory while talking to this correspondent yesterday.

Sunil Kumar, owner of Sonali Bidi Factory, said "I will gradually eliminate child labour from my factory. It can not be done abruptly".

At the workshop, speakers including 'card holders' (those who supply child labour for Bidi processing) from different tobacco factories promised they will no more use children to produce and process Bidi and tobacco.

The workshop titled 'To Eliminate Child Labour: Role of Cardholders in Bidi Factory' was organised by BTUK.

The SETU and BTUK are working to eliminate child labour from tobacco factories with assistance from ILO (International Labour Organisation) and the United States Department of Labour (USDOL).

The ILO programme in Bangladesh under an IPEC (International Programme to Eliminate Child Labour) project is part of its activities in Third World countries to get children out of five 'most risky jobs' in tobacco industry, match factor, tannery, construction work and working as domestic help.

According to survey made by SETU and BTUK, at least 5,000 children were working in eight big tobacco factories in Kushtia in 2001.

The ILO programme implemented by SETU and BTUK was launched in December 2001.

Meantime, SETU took out 1459 children from Bidi factories and 896 of them have been enrolled at schools after orientation at pre-school centers run by it. It runs 28 pre-school centers in the district.

The rest aged between 13-17 were provided with income generating activities including tailoring, paper bag making, nursery raising, electrical work and other technical jobs after short training.

The SETU also singed an agreement with the owner of Mansur Bidi Factory, a big tobacco factory, on May 9 last year that he will not employ children any more.

The NGO also have taken initiatives to bring poor parents of the children under income generating programmes so that they are not forced to send their children to tobacco factories.

It has also formed 53 'mother groups' with the children's mothers to create awareness among them not to send their children to tobacco factories.

"About Tk 29 lakh has been disbursed among 497 poor parents and we have attained success in bringing their children out of tobacco factories," SETU Executive Director MA Kader told this correspondent.

Now 3000 children are still working at eight tobacco factories.

But the 30-month ILO project, extended for six months earlier, concludes in March this year.

People of all classes this correspondent talked to have expressed their deep concern and said children will go back to Bidi factories once the project is closed.

The project should continue for at least three more years to produce a sustainable result, they said.

BTUK coordinator Ahsanul Haq Nabab said, awareness has been created among the children and their parents. If the project is stopped, many of them will go back to their old hazards jobs, he said.

Chairman of Hogolbaria Union Parishad, Belal Hossain, expressed his deep concern that the ILO project would be closed.

"The ILO opened great opportunities for children in the area. They will go back to Bidi factories if the programme is closed", he said.

Abdul Khaleq, 16, son Noor Hossain of Hosanbad village, who worked at a Bidi factory earlier, is now an electrician.

" I earn Tk 70 a day now, which is more than three times the amount I used to earn at Bidi factory", he told this correspondent.

"Many like me have been benefited by the ILO project", he said.

Source: http://www.thedailystar.net/2005/01/02/d50102070164.htm

Recruiting child warriors worst form of trafficking

Sunday, January 2, 2005 11:04 PM

By ALVIN GUANZON

TODAY Correspondent

BUTUAN CITY - Recruiting minors as soldiers in the armed conflict is the worst form of child trafficking, exploitation and child abuse, according to the private international group End Child Prostitution, Child Pornography and the Trafficking for Children for Sexual Purposes (ECPAT).

At the Media Assessment Meeting against Child and Women Trafficking Advocacy Campaign here recently, ECPAT Advocacy Officer Gala Enerio, clarified, however, that the alleged recruitment of minors by the New People’s Army (NPA) for armed struggle is not in the scope of ECPAT’s work in the Philippines since their mandate covers child and women trafficking for purposes of sexual exploitation.

“ECPAT will only come in if recruited minors are sexually exploited after they are used in the armed struggle because ECPAT’s clear objectives are for campaign against sexual exploitations only,” Enerio said.

On the other hand, Enerio admitted that it is also very difficult to prove whether young women recruited to the folds of the NPA are sexually exploited because of the difficulty of getting data inside the NPA lairs.

“ECPAT will only act on the basis of proven facts and proof about women or children sexually exploited in the hands of their recruiters who [appeared] to provide them employment but [brought them to] brothels and night clubs,” said Enerio.

Her comment came on the heels of military allegations that the NPA in the Caraga Region is recruiting minors or even children, tapping them as combatants in their more than 30 years of armed struggle against the government.

According to the military, Caraga Region is a communist hotbed because of the growing disenchantment of people who view their government as helpless or uncaring in easing the widening poverty.

ECPAT, however, could not present updated data of cases of trafficking in women and children in Caraga. But national data that it gathered recently showed Agusan and Surigao provinces among the primary sources of trafficked women and children who either go to urban areas, mostly Manila and Cebu, as destination areas.

Enerio agreed with newsmen at the open forum that with the worsening economic problems, trafficking of children and women in the countryside could increase as employment and livelihood opportunities decline.

Source:http://www.abs-cbnnews.com/NewsStory.aspx?section=PROVINCIAL&oid=65934

Help needed for street children in T&T

A SPECIAL REPORT By HAYDEN MILLS

Sunday, January 2nd 2005

All the stakeholders-social welfare services, the non-governmental organisations (NGOs), the police and social scientists-admit these facts about street children-but the problem persists.

A survey in October by director of the Social Investigations Unit at the Ministry of Social Development, Dr Russell Foote, identifies at least 154 street children in Port of Spain and 57 street children at institutions in the capital city.

Children are persons under the age of 18, according to the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF).

Street children, according to University of the West Indies (UWI) sociologist Dr Ronald Marshall, are "children who leave their homes or are forced to leave their homes and sleep in abandoned buildings".

A point made by Marshall-based on data he collated in 1997 and 1998 and analysed in the book "Return to Innocence"-was supported by director of National Family Services (NFS) in the Ministry of Social Services Delivery, Eunice Gittens:

Most of the country's street children are not orphans or even homeless.

Gittens told the Sunday Express there were basically two types of street children in Trinidad and Tobago: "Those who have no homes to go to because their parents abandoned them, and those who do have homes and families but, for one reason or the other, are left to or made to fend for themselves."

The latter describes the majority of street children in Trinidad and Tobago, Gittens revealed.

Marshall profiled the typical street child as "male, Afro-Trinidadian, between the ages 10 to 14, attends primary school, returns home at the end of the day and still manages to engage in aspects of sociability with his counterparts from mainstream society".

"He is not homeless," the profile continues, "and views his parents in a positive light. Above all, he comes from the low socio-economic ladder (of society) where his parents are either blue-collar workers or unemployed."

These children leave home due to abject poverty or abuse in the home, whether physical, emotional or sexual. Despite this, most return home and have a natural love for their parents and caregivers. "An innocence," Marshall explained.

Gittens said whenever a street child was reported to NFS, it tried to locate the child and investigate his/her background.

If feasible, she said, the child was reunited with his/her family or placed in an institution.

But, she disclosed, many children who were reunited with their families usually ran away again.

Some of these children were actually sent out to peddle, Gittens said, or pushed into prostitution.

When they reach the streets they tend to remain in the street life.

"It (living on the streets) is very addictive," explained Jocelyn James-Ransom, administration co-ordinator and counsellor at the Credo Foundation For Justice, Nelson Street, Port of Spain.

The foundation, one of the NGOs which undertakes the challenge of dealing with displaced boys, receives a subvention quarterly from the Ministry of Social Services Delivery.

James-Ransom noted that the boys had access to games, a playground and "superb" remedial classes at the foundation.

But a lot of street children opt to not take advantage of the resources at the Credo Foundation or those of other NGOs.

James-Ransom said the foundation had several children in residence but there were about five to eight who "drop-in" to take a bath, get a change of clothes, eat, watch television and/or play some games.

She explained that the lure of money kept them on the streets.

By begging and doing odd jobs, a street child can make between $80 and $100 in one day, said James-Ransom.

"Soft-hearted women rarely turn them away," she said.

One street child who spoke with the Sunday Express two Wednesdays ago said money was the reason why he had left Credo Foundation and vowed never to return.

The boy, who said he was 12 and named Arnold, said: "I went there with ah hundred dollars and when ah ask them for it the next morning they didn't want to give mih so I take my things and gone."

Arnold was just finishing up some doubles and about to drink a Vita Malt when he spoke with the Sunday Express. He was sitting on the curb obliquely opposite a businessplace on Chacon Street, in the doorway of which he and three other boys had slept just hours before.

These children felt a sense of freedom on the streets-there are no authority figures, no rules, no chores, no responsibility and no structure to be assimilated into, James-Ransom explained.

More compelling was their desire to be away from "a home" which, to them, was the source of their problems, she added.

But the stark reality, as painted by WPC Elizabeth Daniel of the City Police, is that children often run from the frying pan into the fire.

Daniel is half of a two-woman team constituting the City Police Welfare Department.

Though street children tend to perambulate in groups, James-Ransom and Daniel agreed that they were not necessarily safe in numbers.

"That's what they consider safety," James-Ransom said.

To illustrate the point, Daniel pointed out how easy it had been for this reporter to observe them for hours undetected.

"You see, imagine if you were someone else," the policewoman remarked.

Street children rarely participate in petty crimes, far less violent ones, of their own accord.

In the four years that Daniel has been attached to the City Police welfare department, she has arrested "hardly any" street children. The few cases were for pilfering money from home or other small items.

Reporter HAYDEN MILLS spent some time observing and speaking with street children in downtown Port of Spain:

At 7 p.m. three Saturdays ago, two boys were playing games at DVD Movies and Games World on Charlotte Street, just opposite Express House. It's a favourite haunt of many street children.

At 1.43 the next morning, one of the two boys joined a group outside the 24-hour KFC outlet on Independence Square.

Two of the boys were assisting the "boss lady" sell pirated CDs nearby. A third, who was joined by one of the boys from the arcade, was milling around 'Ras', who sold nuts, cigarettes, and other small snacks. Two others sat on the window-sill of the KFC outlet facing Broadway.

At 3.12 a.m., the two who had been selling CDs, who later gave their names to the Sunday Express as Kevin Williams and Michael Thomas, and one of the two who had been sitting on the sill, went to the doorway of a businessplace on Chacon Street. After about 25 minutes, they were sleeping together on their bed of cardboard boxes.

In contrast, four men were asleep in separate nooks and crannies along the same street.

At 4.30 a.m. security guards, with batons in hand, ran the boys from the area.

At 7 a.m., when Williams and Thomas were approached by the Sunday Express, they ran off.

Fifteen minutes later, when they were approached again at the CD stall, they spoke, but hesitantly.

Williams and Thomas, who were organising the CD rack, were in the company of their friend from the arcade and another boy.

This new boy, with a half-pack of cigarettes and a fold of notes in one hand, checked his money quite conspicuously. It could not have been more than $40.

The boy from the arcade was playing a hand-held electronic game.

They all said they were 15 years of age, one after the next when asked, although two paused before responding.

They all said they were not homeless or orphans, and lived with relatives in or around Port of Spain.
In fact, one boasted of living in a big wooden house. He was then jeered at by another of the boys, who said: "A wouldn't house, a wouldn't toilet and a wouldn't bedroom."

They all said they had finished school.

The "boss lady" was very pleased at the prospect of the children's plight being "highlighted".

She admitted she was engaged in "child labour" but lashed out at the Government for not "taking care of all these children sleeping on the streets".

Source: http://www.trinidadexpress.com/index.pl/article_news?id=53107099