Prevalence,
Abuse & Exploitation of Street Children In the first decade of the 21st Century gvnet.com/streetchildren/SierraLeone.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 *** Sierra Leone's
Children are Pushed onto Streets Voice of www.voanews.com/english/news/a-13-2005-05-26-voa54-66922487.html [accessed 18 July
2011] It is a common
sight to see street children in Stop The Abuse Now!
Children In Alhaji Saidu
Kamara, Standard Times Press News - standardtimespress.net/cgi-bin/artman/publish/article_3288.shtml [accessed 18 July
2011] www.standardtimespress.org/artman/publish/article_3288.shtml [accessed 4 January
2017] At one time this
article had been archived and may possibly also be accessible [here] Dr. Ibrahim Sallieu Kamara, a senior lecturer at the MMECT recently
drew the attention of Sierra Leoneans to what he termed the emergency of
“second generation of street children”, referring to street children who have
given birth to children and are raising them in the streets. He warned that until something concrete is
done about these children, moral decadence, violence and crime in the Sierra
Leone society will likely escalate. He
said unlike their parents, the second generation of street children have no
definite cultural heritage or background except the culture the “survival of
the fittest”. This is because they
only learn about violence, cheating, armed robbery and illicit business like
the drug trade just for them to survive.
He said that they lack the opportunity to learn cultural values like
discipline, hard work, love and respect which are needed in every stable and
civilized society. ***
ARCHIVES *** The Department of Labor’s 2004 Findings on the
Worst Forms of Child Labor www.dol.gov/ilab/media/reports/iclp/tda2004/sierra-leone.htm [accessed 22
December 2010] INCIDENCE
AND NATURE OF CHILD LABOR - UNICEF estimated that 71.6 percent of children aged
5 to 14 years in Human Rights
Reports » 2005 Country Reports on Human Rights Practices 2009-2017.state.gov/j/drl/rls/hrrpt/2005/61591.htm [accessed 11
February 2020] CHILDREN
-
Public education is available up to the university level. The law requires
school attendance through primary school; however, only 41 percent of primary
school-aged children were enrolled in school, according to UNICEF. Schools,
clinics, and hospitals throughout the country were looted and destroyed
during the 11-year insurgency, but the majority have been rebuilt. A large
number of children received little or no formal education. Formal and
informal fees largely financed schools, but many families could not afford to
pay them. SECTION
6 WORKER RIGHTS
– [d] In rural areas children worked seasonally on family subsistence farms.
Children also routinely assisted in family businesses and worked as petty
vendors. Adults engaged a large number of street children to sell, steal, and
beg. There were reports
that children whose parents sent them to friends or relatives in urban areas
for education were forced to work on the street. Concluding
Observations Of The Committee On The Rights Of The Child (CRC) UN Convention on the
Rights of the Child, 28 January 2000 www1.umn.edu/humanrts/crc/sierraleone2000.html [accessed 22
December 2010] [50] The Committee
is deeply concerned at the large numbers of children who have been deprived
of a family environment through the death of, or separation from, their
parents or other family, and at reports of the difficulties and slow progress
in tracing separated families and children. The Committee is concerned,
further, that children deprived of their family environment may increasingly
travel to the main towns, where they may live on the streets and be
particularly vulnerable to exploitation and abuse. [80] The Committee
is concerned by the increasing incidence of child labor, in particular on the
streets of the main towns, and anticipates that, in the current post-conflict
situation, the number of children engaged in such labor is likely to
increase. The Committee is especially concerned at the situation of children
begging in cities and major towns. Street children are
embarrassment to the nation Solomon Rogers, Awoko Newspape, 18 June 2009 www.awoko.org/2009/06/18/street-children-are-embarrassment-to-the-nation-nacwac-boss/ [accessed 18 July
2011] He said they have
been monitoring most of their activities to ensure its sustainability.
Contrary to wide spread speculations that most of the street kids and
child guides do not go school , he said they do go to school,
explaining that those child guides in the afternoon shift accompany
their disable parents to the street in the morning
hours and help them beg for some hours before leaving for school, but
those in the morning shift only drop their parents in the morning
hours to join them when schools are over.
He therefore attributed the alarming situation street children to
poverty as he put he has never seen a child of a rich man beg for his living
in the street. What does the
future hold for these children?...Child rights must be preserved Awareness Times
Newspaper, news.sl/drwebsite/exec/view.cgi?archive=5&num=7603 [accessed 18 July
2011] Most or all of
these disadvantaged children the Roaming Pen spoke to expressed interest in
education. The fact however is, their parents cannot afford the expensive
education system in the country, hence have no alternative but to follow them
in the degrading act of begging. One of the destitutes, an old blind man named Pa Momodu Kamara
intimated that it is not his wish to use his only child in begging, but he is
left with no option other than what they are presently engaged in as he
cannot afford sending his child to school. C.C. Y. O vows to
help street children in Sierra Leone Bampia J. Bundu, Awareness Times Newspaper, news.sl/drwebsite/exec/view.cgi?archive=5&num=7350 [accessed 18 July
2011] Mr. Freeman further
stated that children and youths have become the prey of drug barons, human
traffickers and prime targets for prostitution due to poverty. To a large extent youths and children were
the unwitting perpetrators and victims of the ten-year war the nation endured
just five years back, and their continued plight has the potential to make
this nation implode. Mr. Freeman noted.
He also stated that some of the street children are being treated
callously be society in a manner the civilize world would frown at. Thousands of them need protection which has
not been forthcoming and such protection is necessary as many of them were
orphaned as a result of the war. Benefit will help feed
orphans in Sierra Leone www.nwitimes.com/news/local/article_7e58f852-8d1b-574a-942e-c029a5b6526b.html [accessed 18 July
2011] Aminata concentrated her
efforts on the orphaned street children. In the spring of 2004, when she
herself was only 21 years old, Aminata asked the
Rev. Gibson if she could adopt the children she was helping. He agreed and with
the government’s approval she adopted 20 street children and opened what she
calls Savior of the World Children’s Center.
Back in the U.S., friends of the Rev. Gibson organized the relief
efforts into a nonprofit charity and Savior of the World, Inc. was born. Aminata, now 24,
is the legal mother of 30 children rescued off the street. She and the
children live in a small, rented apartment that is without running water,
electricity or even doors. The 30 children share two bedrooms and 14 single
beds. They do not have a yard to play in. Youth Organization
Promotes Street children in Sierra Leone Aruna Turay,
Awareness Times Newspaper, news.sl/drwebsite/exec/view.cgi?archive=4&num=6487 [accessed 18 July
2011] In expressing
thanks and appreciation, one of the beneficiaries, Komba
Kelley, said he is thankful to PMBF for affording him those needed items
which will greatly improve his condition. Asked by our reporter why he
decided to stay in the streets, he had this to say: "I lost my father
during the war and my mother is so sick that she can not support me now. She
is staying with her friend in a single room which can not accommodate all of
us. So I have nobody to care for me that is why I decided to fend for myself
in the streets." He however, said that he wants to go to school if he
has the support as he wants to become a medical doctor in future to help his
ailing mother. AYPAD to reform
street kids in Sierra Leone Sama Garrick, Awareness
Times Newspaper, news.sl/drwebsite/exec/view.cgi?archive=3&num=4103 [accessed 18 July
2011] Speaking on behalf
of the street children, 12-year old, shabby-looking Francis Amara narrated a
tragic story that led him to take to the streets. According to Francis, he has
been living in the street for the past three years, after he left his poor
parents in Guinea in search of fortune in Sierra Leone. "My only source
of livelihood is sweeping, toting and doing other odd jobs," Francis
informed the gathering. Street Children of Gabi Menezes, Voice
of www.voanews.com/a/a-13-2005-05-27-voa1/394921.html [accessed 4 January
2017] At one time this
article had been archived and may possibly also be accessible [here] [accessed 18 July
2011] A decade of
conflict has made poverty in Letter from Collins
Kamara Collins M kamara, 25 Nov 2001 At one time this
article had been archived and may possibly still be accessible [here] [accessed 18 July
2011] In trying to combat
Information about
Street Children – This report is taken
from “A Civil Society Forum for Anglophone West Africa on Promoting and
Protecting the Rights of Street Children”, 21-24 October 2003 in At one time this
article had been archived and may possibly still be accessible [here] [accessed 18 July
2011] www.streetchildrenresources.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/civil-society-forum-for-anglophone-west-africa.pdf 4 January 2017 [page 12] CONSTRAINTS AND
CHALLENGES --
Lack of basic needs (shelter, clothing, medical care and food), lack of
access to education, vulnerability to HIV/AIDS/STIs, a negative societal
attitude towards street children arising from a misconception that they are
responsible for all the ills of the society and a failure to consider their
plight; harassment by police and local hoodlums. Children working in
Lansana Fofana,
BBC News, news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/3189299.stm [accessed 22
December 2010] HIRED – Abou, a boy aged nine whom I spoke to at the mines, told
me that he and his brother, who is 14, work for their father, who is
disabled. Abou
has never been to school and he told me that he is not at all interested in
school. Other children, some of them
former combatants, some orphans and street children, are hired by adults to
do their dirty work for them. UN Special Envoy
for Children and Armed Conflict applauds progress United Nations Press
Release, www.unhchr.ch/huricane/huricane.nsf/view01/40658142EEC597B4C1256CDE002C8734?opendocument [accessed 18 July
2011] childrenandarmedconflict.un.org/press-release/28Feb03/ [accessed 4 January
2017] Yet, Mr. Otunnu noted, tremendous challenges lay ahead - some a
legacy of the decade-long conflict and others linked to persistent poverty.
Uppermost is the education sector, where many classrooms require repair or
rehabilitation, there are acute shortages of teaching materials, and teaching
staff need training and adequate remuneration. Another is the condition and
dire needs of the disabled, particularly the amputees and other war-wounded.
A third area of concern is the extensive use of children as labour in diamond
mining, preventing their schooling. Mr. Otunnu noted that child labour and other social ills
aggravated by the war, for example, growing numbers of street children and an
increase in child prostitution, are linked to pervasive poverty and dramatic
disparities in development between urban centres
and the rural areas. He also drew attention to the particular plight and
vulnerability of girls. Many girls associated with the fighting forces were
bypassed in the disarmament process and ostracized from their families and
communities. Many others are victims of sexual abuse and violence, with an
inadequate response by the judicial system. Human
Rights Developments Human Rights Watch
World Report 2001, www.hrw.org/legacy/wr2k1/africa/sierraleone.html [accessed 18 July
2011] CHILDREN - Over 1,700 child
combatants were demobilized before the collapse of the peace process, but
from the May collapse to this date, only 115 had been registered. While some
eight hundred children were reunified with their families between January and
August, some four thousand children were still registered as missing (most
abducted by rebel forces). 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,
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