Prevalence,
Abuse & Exploitation of Street Children In the first decade
of the 21st Century gvnet.com/streetchildren/BurkinaFaso.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. ***
FEATURED ARTICLE *** An
Increasing Number Of Young People, Aged 15 To 24, Live On The Margins Of
Society Sarah Tanou, ospiti.peacelink.it/anb-bia/nr435/e02.html [accessed 11 April
2011] In Burkina, street
children plunge some areas of towns into zones where there is a great deal of
aggression. They are generally
organized in gangs. They threaten with
flick-knives, their favorite victims being pedestrians. Some of these youth restrict their
activities to having a «fix». Many of them meet almost every night in front
of bars to smoke hash or traffic in drugs.
They become precocious delinquents and have very disturbing records.
Theft seems to be their principal activity, specializing in picking pockets,
stealing mobile phones, and stealing parts of cars or motorbikes, with the
complicity of adults. ***
ARCHIVES *** The Department of Labor’s 2004 Findings on
the Worst Forms of Child Labor www.dol.gov/ilab/media/reports/iclp/tda2004/burkina-faso.htm [accessed 24 January
2011] CURRENT
GOVERNMENT POLICIES AND PROGRAMS TO ELIMINATE THE WORST FORMS OF CHILD LABOR - The Government of
Burkina Faso is implementing a 10-Year Basic Education Development Plan
(2001-2010) as part of its Poverty Reduction Strategy supported by the World
Bank. The plan focuses on improving
primary school enrollment, literacy, and school attendance rates. Human Rights
Reports » 2005 Country Reports on Human Rights Practices 2009-2017.state.gov/j/drl/rls/hrrpt/2005/61556.htm [accessed 7 February
2020] CHILDREN
- The
government allotted approximately 25 percent of the national budget to
education, and the law provides for free compulsory primary education until
the age of 16; however, the government lacked the means to provide universal,
free primary education. If a child qualified on the basis of grades and
social condition (that is, the family was "poor"), tuition-free
education could continue through junior high and high school. Children still
were responsible for paying for school supplies, which often cost
significantly more than tuition. Many parents could not afford to lose a
child's labor in the fields or at other remunerative jobs; as a result,
overall school enrollment was approximately 57 percent (51 percent for
girls). Concluding
Observations of the Committee on the Rights of the Child (CRC) - 2002 UN Convention on the
Rights of the Child, 4 October 2002 www1.umn.edu/humanrts/crc/burkinofaso2002.html [accessed 24 January
2011] [56] The Committee
notes the pilot project involving UNICEF and non-governmental organizations
to deal with the issue of street children, but expresses its concern at the
increasing number of street children and at the lack of a systematic and
comprehensive strategy to address this situation and to provide these
children with adequate assistance UN Integrated
Regional Information Networks IRIN, www.irinnews.org/report/78112/burkina-faso-fresh-approach-to-street-children [accessed 10 March
2015] Thousands of
children, some as young as seven years old, come to the country's cities from
rural areas and end up living on the streets. An increasing
number the street children are girls, said Joel Kargougou, a former street
child who now runs a local NGO for orphaned children called AMPO. "Girls are most vulnerable and some of
them may be HIV positive or pregnant and so they are not accepted in their
home villages." Many children end
up on the streets when their parents migrate to find work or they are pushed
by their families because of poverty. Information about
Street Children [DOC] based on a paper
submitted by Tissons, ANERSER (Association Nationale pour l’Education et la
Réinsertion des Enfants des Rues), CREDO (Christian Relief and Development
Organisation), OMEEB (Organisation Musulmane pour l’Epanouissement des
Enfants au Burkina), Solidarité Jeunes IAEMO and MAEJT – Burkina Faso and is
taken from “A Civil Society Forum for Francophone Africa on Promoting and
Protecting the Rights of Street Children”, 2-5 June 2004, Senegal At one time this
article had been archived and may possibly still be accessible [here] [accessed 21
September 2011] In 2002, a survey
found 2,000 children living on the streets between the ages of 7-21, of which
62% were between the ages of 13 and 18 and 24% between 7 and 12. The older street population exerts a great
deal of influence over young arrivals, and the latter tend to depend on them
for much of their protection. Factors
pushing children onto the streets:
poverty, population explosion, rural migration, enrolment in Koranic
schools, increasing abuse and neglect within the family, and the consequences
of HIV/AIDS. Reports to Treaty
Bodies - Committee on the Rights of the Child Produced by Human Rights
Internet, FOR THE RECORD 2002 - THE UNITED NATIONS HUMAN RIGHTS SYSTEM,
Volume 2: At one time this
article had been archived and may possibly still be accessible [here] [accessed 21
September 2011] The Committee also
noted with concern: the increasing number of street children and the lack of
a systematic and comprehensive strategy to address this situation and to provide
these children with adequate assistance; the increasing number of child
victims of commercial sexual exploitation, including prostitution and
pornography; the insufficient programs for the physical and psychological
recovery and social reintegration of child victims of such abuse and
exploitation; the absence of juvenile courts and juvenile judges, and the
limited number of social workers and teachers working in this field Save the Children Save the Children www.savethechildren.ca/documents/SCC%20Annual%20Report%202005-2006_EN_Final.pdf [accessed 11 April
2011] www.savethechildren.ca/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/2005_report.pdf [accessed 24
November 2016] [page 15] WEST & EAST
AFRICA - BURKINA FASO
- Burkina Faso is one of the poorest countries in the world, where even basic services such as health care is not available
for most, and the scourge of HIV/AIDS looms large. Since 1995, Save the
Children Canada has supported non-formal education programs in various
regions of the country. Thousands of very young children do not have access
to schools, or must migrate to urban centers and enter the labour force in
order to survive. Save the Children Canada's Training and Education against
Trafficking (TREAT) Project in Burkina Faso strives to reduce the risks of
the worst forms of child labour, including child trafficking, in four
regions, ensuring the enrolment and graduation of children at risk. The main
objective is to reinforce and develop both non-formal and formal education
capacity. The project has created new schools, developed new curricula, and
established local awareness-raising committees to take action against child
trafficking in their own communities. UN Integrated
Regional Information Networks IRIN, 6 April 2004 www.irinnews.org/report/49418/burkina-faso-government-tackles-rising-number-of-abandoned-children [accessed 10 March
2015] According to
government statistics, there were 2.1 million orphans and abandoned children
in Burkina Faso last year. They accounted for nearly 18 percent of the
country's 11.8 million population. The perils for orphaned and
unprotected children are numerous. Thousands each year end up as street
children who beg to survive. – htsc BURKINA
FASO: Project to help street children - OCHA IRIN UN Integrated
Regional Information Networks IRIN www.irinnews.org/report/32086/burkina-faso-project-to-help-street-children [accessed 10 March
2015] United Nations
Volunteers (UNV) has announced that it will run a five-year project aimed at
transforming the lives of some 1,200 disadvantaged children in two of Helping Street Children
+ Providing Care Médecins Sans
Frontières At one time this
article had been archived and may possibly still be accessible [here] [accessed 21
September 2011] Médecins Sans
Frontières
is helping children and youngsters living on the streets of the capital,
Ouagadoughou. Instead of operating
from a center, the team works on the streets in close proximity to these children. Today, the program reaches 700 children and
80 teenage girls. Low-profile
Japanese volunteers reap high praise in Boureima Hama,
Agence France-Presse AFP, www.aegis.com/news/afp/2003/AF0309E7.html [accessed 11 April
2011] Fujimoto Naohiro
roams the town in search of the street urchins who typically hang about
outside restaurants, movie theatres or bakers' shops. He tries to persuade those more involved in
petty crime to give up on drugs and robbery and he tries to raise their
awareness of HIV-AIDS. His colleague
Kazuhiro Akashi helps the children step closer to leaving the streets. In an effort to raise their self-awareness
and stimulate positive attitudes, he enrolls them in his amateur theatrical
company. Beyond the short term, Vocational Training
for Young Women, Kombissiri
[PDF] Terre des Hommes At one time this
article had been archived and may possibly still be accessible [here] [accessed 21
September 2011] To avoid the
economic and social marginalisation of young girls who have never been to
school or who had to drop out early, our Partner, The Song Taaba Association
has opened a The success of this
Project lies equally with the involvement of the parents, aware of the
necessity of further education to ensure the integration of their daughters
into Burkinabe society. 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 – |
