Human Trafficking in [Senegal] [other countries]Street Children in [Senegal ] [other countries]Child Prostitution in [Senegal] [other countries]
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Prevalence, Abuse & Exploitation of Street Children The |
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CAUTION: The following links and
accompanying text have been culled from the web to illuminate the situation
in UNICEF - The Big Picture U.S.
Dept of Labor Bureau of International Labor Affairs INCIDENCE
AND NATURE OF CHILD LABOR - Most trafficking victims are young males forced into exploitive
begging for Koranic teachers. These
boys, known as talibés, spend the majority of the day begging for their
Koranic teachers and are vulnerable to sexual and other exploitation. Domestically, some Koranic teachers bring
children from rural areas to CURRENT
GOVERNMENT POLICIES AND PROGRAMS TO ELIMINATE THE WORST FORMS OF CHILD LABOR - Since 2003, Bur of Democracy,
Human Rights & Labor - Country
Reports on Human Rights Practices - 2005 CHILDREN - The law provides for free
education, and education policy declares education to be compulsory for
children ages 6 to 16; however, many children did not attend school for lack
of resources or available facilities. Students must pay for their own books,
uniforms, and other school supplies. Due to government, NGO and international
donor efforts, school enrollment reached 82.5 percent during the year. In
fact, President Wade established "Places for the Little Ones"
throughout the country to serve as pre-kindergartens for children. He also
encouraged increased school enrollment. However, the highest level of
education attained by most children is elementary school. TRAFFICKING
IN PERSONS –
According to the UN International Children's Emergency Fund (UNICEF), the
country had 100 thousand talibe boys and 10 thousand street children. Concluding
Observations of the Committee on the Rights of the Child (CRC) - 2006 [DOC] [58] While noting the steps taken by the State party to
address the rights and needs of street children, the Committee remains
concerned about the increasing number of street children and begging children
in the State party. Concluding
Observations of the Committee on the Rights of the Child (CRC) - 1995 [14] The absence of compulsory and
free education at the primary level raises deep concern. SENEGAL: Why the`talibe’ problem won’t go away These boys are `talibes’, followers of a `marabout’,
to whom they were entrusted by their families to learn the Koran. But their `marabout’ - like many others who are caretakers of an
estimated 10,000 children in Dakar - does not have the means to support them.
Thousands of `talibes’
spend hours each day walking the city in search of scraps of food and begging
for money to meet a daily quota exacted by their `marabouts’,
or face beatings, talibe children told IRIN. Often with ripped clothes, barefoot and
filthy, the children move alone or in packs. Many never learn the Koran,
officials from non-governmental organisations
(NGOs) say, and rarely do they attain adequate schooling that will lead to
jobs when they become adults. The United Nations children's
agency (UNICEF) in 2004 estimated that there are up to 100,000 child beggars
in Senegal, constituting one percent of the country's 11.4 million people. It
is unclear how many of them are talibes. "We study the Koran from the
morning up to midday. Afterwards the kids go out in the streets up to 3 p.m.
in search of something to eat and then resume studying, which takes us up to
4 p.m., after which time we go back out to find something to eat," said Amadou, a pseudonym. Lives
of Street Children in Senegal to Improve through New Campaign PILOT PROJECT - Over the next 18 months, the
Partnership will implement a pilot project in Kolda,
Tamba and Matam––the
three main cities from which the majority of street children originate––to
bring some 500 children back home or place those who cannot go home in
appropriate structures, and to rehabilitate a dozen centers for children. FEATURE-Senegal
seeks better life for beggar boys TRADITION - A 2004 estimate by the United
Nations children's fund UNICEF indicated up to 100,000 children, mostly talibe, were begging across Senegal, representing nearly
1 percent of the population. Aid
groups say nearly all the hundreds of children sleeping rough in Dakar's
streets have run away from daaras. Success
Stories - Abdul in Senegal With limited access to education
or training and few opportunities for employment, an increasing number of
Senegal’s young people join the growing pool of unemployed or underemployed
youth who have few positive options available to them. Like Abdul, an
increasing number of young people turn to life on the streets. These youth,
most of them boys, grow up in the shadow of drugs, diseases, delinquency,
violence, and street gangs. They often resort to begging and working at an
early age and thus expose themselves to various forms of exploitation. More
and more of these boys are entering daaras, schools
that generally offer a narrow education based on extreme religious teachings.
In many cases these boys, known as talibes, do not
receive the education they are promised and instead spend much of each day on
the street, working, begging, or stealing money to support their teachers. Sexually active
street children increasingly vulnerable to HIV One sees eight-year-old children
who already have several male and female partners who are older than they
are," said Adjiratou Sow Diallo
Diouf, author of a 2005 study on the impact of
HIV/AIDS on Dakar's estimated 6,000 street children. The 30 children, aged between 8
and 17, Diouf questioned for the study revealed
sexual relations that were both homosexual and heterosexual and rarely
protected, leaving them highly vulnerable to sexually transmitted diseases
including HIV. West Africa:
Children in danger: Living on the street FORCED TO LEAVE THE VIOLENCE - It was because of another older
brother that Ale left in the first place. When his father died, and with his
mother gone to live in St-Louis, he was left in the village to work with his
brother in the rice-fields. “Whenever he came home and saw me
and my friends and brothers playing instead of working in the fields, he
would beat us,” Ale said. The boy ran away from the village three times to
his mother’s small house in town, but each time she brought him back. So in 2004 he fled as far as he
could go, joining the tens of millions of other children living on streets
worldwide. Information
about Street Children - Senegal [DOC] A child normally has references
within his or her family through which they build their own identity as
adults, but as soon as s/he starts to feel ill at ease within the household, these
ties break and the child starts to move away from the unit in which s/he no
longer feels comfortable. The majority migrate to the urban areas to survive,
and become street children. Senegal
- For The Smile Of A Child Some street children experience
family rupture. Others, called “talibés” (children entrusted by their parents
to a wise man who insures their religious education), live in “dahras”,
generally pitiful schools of the Koran. There, most of the day they beg to
earn their living and that of the wise man’s. The
last group of children is made up of adolescents called “fackmans” who, under
the influence of drugs, become violent and have broken all family ties. SENEGAL MINISTRY SETS PLAN TO REACH THOUSANDS OF STREET CHILDREN - This outreach began when the leader felt a burden for the more than 300,000 street children of Senegal. Often poverty-stricken parents turn their children over to Muslim marabouts (spiritual guides), thinking that they are pleasing God and providing a better life for their children. However, the marabouts abuse their wards, often forcing them to beg on the streets for their own gain. Street Children In
Senegal: Awareness Raising In Europe, Intervention On The Ground Children of The principal themes that emerge
from this interview are that in Senegal To
Organize Seminar On Begging By Street Kids She said there was a distinction
between the talibés (pupils in Koranic schools) and other kids who begged in
the streets, adding that there were some 500,000 street children in Curiously, the other show, Enfants
de nuit (Children of the Night), was also spun out darkness, absence, helplessness
and despair. An exhibition-performance devised by 18 young artists aged
between nine and 25 who come from the ranks of the poorest, most deprived and
abused street children in Senegal, and who live or have passed through the
Man-Keneen-Ki home-cum-art school in Dakar. All material used herein
reproduced under the fair use exception of 17 USC §
107 for noncommercial, nonprofit, and educational use |
Human Trafficking in [Senegal] [other countries]Street Children in [Senegal ] [other countries]Child Prostitution in [Senegal] [other countries]