International Day for Street Children by Consortium for Street Children & agencies 1:11am 12th Apr, 2014   This year, the fourth International Day for Street Children will take place on 12th April, providing a platform for millions of street children around the world to speak out so that their rights cannot be ignored.    The Consortium for Street Children (CSC) launched International Day for Street Children in 2011, is working to ensure that millions of street children around the globe have their voices heard. Every year since then support has grown, and the day is now celebrated in over 130 countries by street children and their champions.    UN Day needed to ensure that street children are not overlooked again, by Louise Meincke.    Estimates of street children run as high as 100 million – the truth is that no one really knows. Street children are some of the most marginalised and stigmatised children, experiencing persistent violations of their rights on a daily basis.    But they are also some of the most resilient and inspiring children and young people in the world. Every day they have to face violence, abuse and neglect, whilst struggling to survive.    “People would treat you badly. They’d say things like ‘go away’. They would say lots of things, but I don’t want to say what they said. It makes me feel bad because they don’t know how you feel and they don’t care either”, a street child in Ecuador said.    In 1993 Brazilian police killed eight street children sleeping on the steps of the Candelaria Church in Rio de Janeiro. The killing sparked international outrage and condemnation, leading to the UN General Assembly to pass street children specific resolutions to encourage national governments to support street children.    However, no concrete action was ever taken and in the past twenty years street children have become less and less frequent on international agendas and in some instances have completely disappeared. This is despite the continued presence of millions of street children in countries around the world.    This limited exposure on international stages has meant that national governments and bodies are less encouraged to take action.    Street children can experience a multitude of challenges. Common challenges include lack of access to basic services such as healthcare and education, being trafficked, prostitution, displacement due to conflict or natural disaster and often with little or no family contact.    The Consortium for Street Children (CSC) has been campaigning for increased representation of street children at international levels.    One of the main barriers that we encounter and that street children face daily is the negative perceptions of them. The best way to counter this is to amplify the voices of street children themselves.    Street children’s opinions are vital to ensuring that the realities of their lives are understood and therefore that the support they receive is pertinent to their situation. In contradiction to the prevailing images of them, street children commonly identify themselves as strong, positive and engaged.    It is upon this basis that CSC launched the International Day for Street Children in 2011. The day provides a platform for the millions of street children around the world to speak out so their rights cannot be ignored. Since 2011 support for the Day has grown exponentially, with street children, NGOs, policy-makers, academics and celebrities getting involved.    In 2013 CSC launched a campaign for the UN to officially adopt the Day. To bring greater exposure, continuity and permanence of the issue and increase pressure on governments to act for street children.    * Louise Meincke is advocacy director of the Consortium for Street Children.    The number of street children will “go through the roof” in coming years as economic growth fuels inequality, said a leading advocate for children living on the streets.    Contrary to the common perception that poverty drives children onto the streets, it is rapid urbanisation and rising inequality that have stoked their numbers.    “We tend to think this is a poor country phenomenon, but this is not a problem of being a poor country, not a problem of being a weak country,” Sarah Thomas de Benitez, chief executive of Consortium for Street Children told Thomson Reuters Foundation.    “It’s part of what happens when you industrialise and urbanise and you go through political change.”    As countries industrialise, rural areas are often left behind. Families hoping for better opportunities migrate to the city in search of work.    But without their networks of relatives and neighbours they become more vulnerable, and often struggle to care for their children in the new environment.    The growth of inequality during rapid development in Latin America in the 1960s created large populations of street children; and it is one of the main reasons why so many children are still living on the streets of Brazil and Mexico.    The same worrying pattern is likely to follow in Africa, Southeast Asia and Eastern Europe, where urbanisation, inadequate legal protection, conflict and instability are a recipe for the emergence of big numbers of street children, Thomas de Benitez said.    “I predict, in 10 years time, the number of street children in Africa will go through the roof,” she said in a phone interview ahead of the International Day of Street Children.    Street children are usually undocumented and are often on the move, making their numbers difficult to estimate.    From families to governments, everyone should share responsibility for the plight of children living on the street.    “We all bear responsibility,” said Thomas de Benitez. “Children end up on the streets for reasons caused by governments, business practices, the international community not paying enough attention, and by families and people in the street”.    Street children are not a problem confined to developing nations experiencing urbanisation. Even in wealthy countries such as Britain, the United States and Canada, there are thousands of children living on the streets.    “We call them different things maybe: we call them runaways or we call them homeless, or the young in shelters. But in effect these are young children who do not have the connections in the family, the community or the support from government policies to strengthen those bonds,” Thomas de Benitez said.    Violence, neglect, or their parents’ substance abuse or mental health problems can also push children onto the street – despite the dangers it may be their only option.    The solution, said Thomas de Benitez, is in the hands of the governments, which should implement policies to tackle economic inequality and earmark more government money for programmes to help children. In the long run, it would be a sound economic investment.    “We know it makes economic sense,” she said. “The few studies that have been carried out on looking at the cost of helping children to recover from a long time on the streets (show) that the cost of that is considerably more than the cost of preventing a child going onto the street.”    Official UN recognition for International Day for Street Children would add increased pressure on governments around the world to recognise and support street children. It will mean street children finally get greater help and the attention they deserve.    Join us in spreading the word so that these 100 million children worldwide are no longer ignored.    The Consortium for Street Children (CSC) was set up by NGOs around the world, to amplify the voices of street children, promote their rights and improve their lives.    With a network of members in over 130 countries, including small charities, large international NGOs, academics, and affiliated groups of street children.    For over two decades, CSC has been working to improve the lives of street children worldwide, including through the International Day for Street Children.    There are a number of common misconceptions about street children, from who street children are, to how many there are around the world, to why children take to the streets in the first place.    Street children are children who live on the street    Street children have many connections to the street - some live on the street, some work on the street. Some street children maintain relationships with their family whereas others break all contact.    There are 100 million street children in the world    UNICEF estimated there were 100 million street children in 2005. However, it is not known how many children worldwide depend on the streets for their survival or development. Numbers vary by country and by city because of different socio-economic, political and cultural conditions.    Additionally, counting street children can be difficult due to their elusiveness and lack of permanent location.    Street children are present in all countries, in both the developing and the developed world.    There are many factors which can push children onto the street including poverty, family breakdown, violence, war, natural disasters and forced marriage. However, there are also factors which pull children onto the street.    Although street children are vulnerable to the dangers of life on the street, they are also resourceful and resilient. Street children actively make connections with the street - they build homes, friendships and earn a living on the street. These connections are vital to their everyday survival.    Street children adopt many tactics necessary to survival on the streets, such as begging, loitering and rough sleeping.    In criminalising these survival behaviours, society alienates street children and stigmatises them. Street children see themselves as able to make a positive contribution to society despite often negative attitudes towards them.    Society needs to understand the reasons for street children"s behaviour and provide specialised support.    Street children often experience direct exposure to violence. It can be a factor in pushing them onto the street, perhaps through family violence or war.    Once on the street, violence is also a challenge - street children have repeatedly reported suffering violence at the hands of adults, the police and other street children.    One of the greatest challenges faced by a street child is being recognised and treated as someone with rights. Although street children have rights under the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child in the same way that all other children do, many government policies do not reflect this.    A street is no place for a child to call home. (WarChild)    It is estimated that there are over 100 million street children in the world.    Children end up on the streets for a mixture of reasons, though poverty is usually at the heart of the problem. In the countries where we work, conflict and poverty combine to force children onto the streets.    In many cases a child"s family can no longer afford to care for them properly or may need their help to supplement the family income and help put food on the table.    Or it could be that a child"s parents have been killed by conflict or HIV/AIDS, or they may have become separated when they were forced to flee their homes.    In parts of Congo and Uganda, families and communities sometimes accuse children of being witches and for bringing bad luck upon them.    In Afghanistan girls may end up on the streets after they have been forced to leave home for commiting "honour crimes" like adultery (i.e. being raped or sexually abused) or refusing an arranged marriage.    Some children spend the daytime on the streets (to beg or to work) but return to their families at night. For others, the streets are their home and they have nowhere else to go.    Life on the streets is a dangerous, harsh existence and most street children become extraordinarily resilient in order to simply survive. On the streets they may earn money in a number of ways including: Begging, Shoe shining, collecting rubbish for recycling, other menial tasks. Girls can be forced into prostitution or sex work in order to survive and are extremely vulnerable to abuse and violence.    Many street kids are the victims of violence. http://www.warchild.org/    http://www.streetchildrenday.org/ http://www.streetchildrenday.org/csc/ http://www.streetchildrenresources.org/ http://www.streetkids.org/ http://www.casa-alianza.org/ http://www.trust.org/spotlight/Street-children-a-hidden-crisis http://sites.google.com/site/shelterdb/world-of-street-children-1 http://www.streetinvest.org/blog http://www.unicef-irc.org/search.php?q=street+children http://www.ohchr.org/EN/Issues/Children/Study/Pages/childrenonthestreet.aspx http://www.ohchr.org/EN/NewsEvents/Pages/Forchildrenonthestreetsarenosoftpillows.aspx
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