HUMAN RIGHTS COUNCIL OPENS ANNUAL FULL DAY MEETING ON PROTECTING THE RIGHTS OF CHILDREN WORKING AND LIVING IN THE STREET

The Human Rights Council this morning opened its annual full-day meeting on the rights of the child and held a panel discussion on a holistic approach to the protection and promotion of the rights of children working and/or living in the street, focusing on root causes and factors leading children to this situation.

Navi Pillay, United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, introducing the discussion, said that the Human Rights Council had rightly chosen the theme of children living and/or working on the streets for this year’s annual meeting, and welcomed the chosen focus on the root causes and factors that led children to the insecurity and violence they routinely encountered in the streets. Children did not belong in the streets; they belonged in school and in the safe environment of homes. Prevention could not be effective without a deep understanding of the root causes of this alarming phenomenon and understanding of the phenomenon alone would remain moot in the absence of a commitment to address and mitigate the situation of the estimated 100 million street children. The United Nations Study on Violence against Children noted the impact of stigmatization and discrimination of street children and how community violence affected marginalized groups of children. The international community had to protect these children and at a minimum it had to ensure that children living and/or working on the street were not subject to punishment by laws penalizing survival behaviours, such as begging, vagrancy, truancy and running away.

The panellists were Mohammad R. and Tania A., Youth Representatives from Plan-supported programmes, Bangladesh; Sévérine T., Youth Representative of the African Movement of Working Children and Youth, Benin and Cameroon; Najat Maala M’jid, Special Rapporteur on the sale of children, child prostitution and child pornography; Rev. Patrick Shanahan, President of Street Invest; and Paulo Sergio Pinheiro, Commissioner and Rapporteur on Children, Inter-American Commission on Human Rights.

Mohammad R. and Tania A. said they both grew up living and working on the street. Sometimes children lived on the street because they were poor or their family situation was not good or they fled domestic violence in their home. After a few years of life on the street, Mohammad and Tania said they met someone from the drop in centre and went to live there and it changed their lives. Children deserved a safe childhood with opportunities to play, go to school and prepare to become responsible citizens in society and there should be long term solutions for the situation of all children working and or living on the streets.

Sévérine T. said that although achieving the potential of children should be a priority for all, a large number of children lived in very difficult positions, including working for other people, being taken out of school, or being abandoned by parents due to poverty. They lived from begging, prostitution or stealing, and had no shelter but slept on streets or in market places. They were prosecuted by the police and often imprisoned. It was an obligation of the States and parents to send children to school and States should create professional training centres and schools, especially in remote areas, in order to better protect the girl-child, and provide free health care to children.

Ms. Maala M’jid made a distinction between a street child and a child in the street; while the first was living all the time in the street, the second kept some kind of contact with the family. Each child was unique and the solution had to be tailored to the particular case. A number of contexts and factors needed to be taken into consideration when understanding why a child lived in the street: the family context, social and cultural factors and a persistence of certain social and cultural practices, access to social alternatives, opportunities and employment, institutional context and others. All those factors needed to be taken into consideration when devising prevention strategies.

Rev. Shanahan challenged the current approach to street children and advised against attempting to impose solutions on street children that would not be relevant or useful for their lives. There should be a concern for the critical mass of the street children and the child’s best interest would come from listening. Children were on the streets and therefore in order to find a development plan for them, workers should go on the street in order to understand them. Rev. Shanahan said there should be research with reference to practitioners and the research should be triangular and the person who should run the research should be the worker on the street. Street children had a right to live on the street and to have an adult that they trusted and street workers should work to find the hidden children of the world.

Mr. Pinheiro said that home might be the most dangerous place for children. The State was often not a protector for street children but the main perpetrator of violence, by commission or omission. Over the two last decades Governments in several States had been pursuing ways of effectively protecting the rights of street children, but there was an absence of effective plans and a lack of services aimed at getting children off the streets. Also, there were no effective protective services to prevent children from becoming street children in the first place. The best way to deal with violence against children was to stop it before it happened and everyone had a role to play in that. Prohibition of all forms of violence, including corporal punishment, was a child’s right and it must happen now.

In the ensuing interactive dialogue with the panel on root causes and factors leading children to live and/or work on the street, speakers welcomed the focus of this annual meeting on street children and said, among other things, that the underlying causes of this phenomenon must be tackled. Poverty, exclusion and lack of education were often underlying causes for children living and/or working on the street, together with domestic violence, abuse and armed conflict. This was a phenomenon found in developed and developing countries alike. A country noted that one of the causes was also displacement of children from their country of origin due to economic hardships or persecution. Speakers agreed that children living in the street, particularly girls, were extremely vulnerable to exploitation and abuse, including sexual. They were often victims of trafficking and assault. Not enough was being done to provide children with better and safer places to live and work and speakers indicated that annually 11 million children died. The strategy to develop and implement adequate national and international strategies tailored to each concrete reality had to be coupled with a dialogue with children, countries noted. Prevention was of special importance in this regard and education was crucial in helping to break the vicious circle of marginalization and help potential street children towards a better life.

In the interactive discussion, the following delegations spoke: European Union, Uruguay, Belgium, Chile, Spain, Germany, Cuba, Thailand, Nigeria on behalf of the African Union, Guatemala, Ecuador, Sri Lanka, Russian Federation, Pakistan on behalf of the Organization of the Islamic Conference, Peru, Argentina, Saudi Arabia, Brazil, Indonesia, China, Slovenia, Iran, Malaysia, Turkey, Djibouti, Finland and Bangladesh.

The national human rights institutions and non-governmental organisations taking the floor were: Ukrainian Parliamentary Commissioner, Foundation ECPAT International, and International Save the Children Alliance in a joint statement, World Vision international and International Movement ATD Fourth World in a joint statement.

The next meeting of the Council will be this afternoon at 3 p.m., when the Council will continue the annual full-day meeting on the rights of the child and will hear a panel discussion on prevention strategies and responses to conditions of children living and/or working on the street.

Opening Statement by the High Commissioner for Human Rights

NAVI PILLAY, United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, said that she was very pleased to open this third annual day of discussion on children’s rights. This year’s theme was on children living and/or working on the streets. The Council had rightly chosen to focus on the root causes and factors that led children to the insecurity and violence they routinely encountered in the streets. They did not belong there. They belonged in school and in the safe environment of homes.

It was truly pertinent that this morning’s discussion would be complemented later in the day by an assessment of strategies and responses. Indeed, prevention could not be effective without a deep understanding of the root causes of this alarming phenomenon. By the same token, such understanding would remain moot in the absence of a commitment to address and mitigate the situation of the estimated 100 million street children and the evaluation of options to this end. This figure was, however, far from firm, given the isolation and fear that accompanied the daily existence of these children. Indeed, empirical evidence pointed to much larger numbers. In order to develop appropriate strategies to deal with this situation, there was a need for more reliable and in-depth systematic data collection and research on children living and/or working on the street.

Ms. Pillay noted that children living and working on the streets was a problem of great magnitude and of suffering that no quantitative analysis could account for and accurately describe. One thing was clear: children living or working in the streets were to be found everywhere. It was a shame that affected both the developing world and wealthy countries alike. This reality flew in the face of existing international standards for the promotion and protection of the rights of the child, particularly the Convention on the Rights of the Child and its Optional Protocols.
Children who lived and worked on the streets were particularly vulnerable to human rights violations, including sexual exploitation and abuse, violence and trafficking. Yet, due to the condition of isolation and fear that the High Commissioner mentioned previously, children were unlikely to report or even complain about abuse. Thus, they endured their condition in silence and impotence.

The UN Study on Violence against Children, which was the first comprehensive, global study on all forms of violence against children, noted the impact of stigmatization and discrimination of street children and how community violence affected marginalized groups of children. Violence by police against street children — ranging from verbal harassment and beatings to rape and other sexual violence, torture and “disappearance” — was a trend reflected in the study. Street children were often the target of violent roundups, attacks, detention and even murder. Children living on the street were frequently harassed and arrested by police; they might be charged with loitering or petty offences, and remained without representation in court, deprived of their liberty for years in corrective institutions.

The international community had to protect these children, Ms. Pillay said. At a minimum, the international community had to ensure that children living and/or working on the street were not subject to punishment by laws penalizing survival behaviours, such as begging, vagrancy, truancy and running away. Law enforcement authorities had to punish those within their ranks who committed violations of these children’s rights. Other abusers also had to be brought to justice.

Statements by Panellists

MOHAMMAD RIAZ AND TANIA A., Youth Representatives from Plan Supported Programmes in Bangladesh, in a joint presentation by Riaz, 16 years old and Tania, 14 years old, said they both grew up living and working on the street. Sometimes children lived on the street because they were poor or their family situation was not good or they fled domestic violence in their home. After a few years of life on the street, Riaz and Tania met someone from the drop in centre and went to live there and it changed their lives. They learned how to write their names, read books and newspapers, and how to make handicrafts in addition to having learned life skill training such as how to build relationships with others. Eventually Riaz and Tania had the opportunity to work as peer monitors and they learned how to fit themselves into the real world. There were many children in Bangladesh and in other countries around the world that, for different reasons, were forced to spend their childhood on the streets and Riaz and Tania felt sad to see those children growing up without love and affection from their parents or opportunities to go to school and have decent lives. Children deserved a safe childhood with opportunities to play, go to school and prepare to become responsible citizens in society and there should be long term solutions for the situation of all children working and or living on the streets.

SEVERINE T., Youth Representative of the African Movement of Working Children and Youth, Benin and Cameroun, said she was 17 years old and was a member of the Association of African Working Children, based in Dakar, Senegal. Although achieving the potential of children should be a priority for all, a large number of children lived in very difficult situations, including working for other people, being taken out of school, or being abandoned by parents due to poverty. They lived from begging, prostitution or stealing, had no shelter but slept on streets or in market places. They were prosecuted by the police and often imprisoned. The membership of the Association of African Working Children included seamstress, porters, shoe-shiners and other trades. The Association was created to fulfil the gap left by the lack of care and services by the States. It was an obligation of the States and parents to send children to school and those who were older needed support in order to get training and education to earn their living. It was not possible to just sit back, do nothing and not assist those children. There were still many children living in poverty and they did not deserve that kind of treatment. States should create professional training centres and schools, especially in remote areas, in order to better protect the girl-child, provide free health care to children and use resources to promote and protect the rights of children, rather than use them to buy weapons.

NAJAT MAALA M’JID, Special Rapporteur on the Sale of Children, Child Prostitution and Child Pornography, said she was pleased to participate in the discussion today which dealt with a complex subject because the Council was talking about children who were living constantly in the streets. Ms. Maalla M’jid made a distinction between street child, and a child in the street; while the first was living all the time in the street, the second kept some kind of contact with the family. Children in the street were not a single group but the Council was talking about a large variety of situations depending on their age, sex, how long they were in the street, how they came in the street, how they survived in the street, and if they were children who lived and worked in the street or only worked there. It was also important to emphasize the specific status of girls living and working in the street because they were more vulnerable to sexual exploitation and early pregnancy. Each child was unique and the solution had to be tailored to the particular case. The family context was an important factor to analyze to understand the reasons why a child lived in the street; maybe the families were unable to protect and bring up the child. There were also social and cultural factors and also a persistence of certain social and cultural practices that were harmful for the children such as early marriage or forced marriage. In developing countries there was the phenomenon of children’s gangs and there was a lack of access to social alternatives, opportunities and employment, as well as armed conflicts, natural disasters and the HIV/AIDS pandemic. There was also the institutional context that sometime did not meet protection standards and the needs of the children. Some children were running out and suffering from mental illness. Ms. Maalla M’Jid emphasized that to prevent the phenomenon the international community needed to take into account all the factors she had mentioned. It was important that children had access to protection mechanisms. It was also important to establish monitoring institutions where children were placed and to ensure easy access for the most vulnerable children to advice and complaints mechanisms. Prevention was about preventing that children ran away and lived in the street and it was important to identify the children quickly and provide support to the families and to the children’s rehabilitation.

PATRICK SHANAHAN (President, Street Invest) said he challenged the current approach to street children and noted a girl who lived in West London named Poppy who was able to survive street life because there was someone, an adult in her life, who cared, a woman called Cathy. In Ghana where Mr. Shanahan believed that by building schools he would get the children off the street, one day he carried out a straw poll among 100 youngsters in Accra and asked if he gave them everything, school fees, book fees, board and lodging, would they go to school and only two said they would go to school. One boy said the question was stupid and asked ‘what was your school for?’ His question meant that he did not want to wear a uniform for six years and then come back and live on the street. Mr. Shanahan advised against attempting to impose solutions on street children that would not be relevant or useful for their lives and said that there should be a concern for the critical mass of the street children. There was no word in French for a drop in center, it was called a centre d’ecoute, which meant to first listen. The child’s best interest would come from listening. When Mr. Shanahan finished a head count in Addis Ababa where he found 12,000 street children, among them was a girl in the sex trade who said she was not interested in a lecture but wanted someone to listen to her.

Children were on the streets and therefore in order to find a development plan for them, workers should go on the street in order to understand them. He quoted Benno Glauser: ‘Might growing up in the street, rather than just being a negative experience for children, also show new and potentially positive ways or even provide a new paradigm, for children’s lives and growing up in disintegrating societies?’ Mr. Shanahan said there should be research with reference to practitioners and the research should be triangular and the person who should run the research should be the worker on the street. Every child on the street should work, otherwise they would be dead. Street children had a right to live on the street and to have an adult that they trusted. Street workers should work to find the hidden children of the world. Mr. Shanahan urged one government to start a policy to accept a child’s right to be on the street and to accept the role of the street worker in reinventing the development of the street child.

PAULO SERGIO PINHEIRO, Commissioner and Rapporteur on Children, Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, said he was very moved to participate in the panel this morning. Street children in the Americas were among the main victims of violence on the planet. Poverty was the main cause of this problem and often street children ran away from the violence, abuse and neglect at home. The home all over the world might be the most dangerous place for children. States should provide special protection for children, especially street children. But for those children, the State was not a protector but the main perpetrator of violence, by commission or omission. Street children were often labelled as criminal gang members that should be taken off the streets for the sake of security. Those responses from States compromised international human rights standards and were absolutely ineffective and costly.

Concerning the way forward, Mr. Pinheiro said that in the two last decades governments in several States had been pursuing ways of effectively protecting the rights of street children, but there was an absence of effective plans and a lack of services aimed at getting children off the streets. Also, there were no effective protective services to prevent children from becoming street children in the first place. Despite their visibility, street children had more often served as tragic illustrations of neglect and vulnerability than as targets for positive programmes, policies and services. Children on the streets must be protected from State and other violence, but it could not be done in isolation. The best way to deal with violence against children was to stop it before it happened and everyone had a role to play in it. States had human rights obligations and must take primary responsibility. Prohibition of all forms of violence, including corporal punishment, was the right of all children and must happen now. In August 2009 the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights had published a report stating that corporal punishment was a violation of human rights of the child and it was an obligation of all States to prohibit all forms of violence in all contexts where they might occur. That meant investing into prevention programmes to address the underlying causes, and the establishment of a strong legal framework which was not only about sanctions, but about sending a robust, unequivocal signal that society would not accept violence against children.

Discussion

In the ensuing interactive dialogue, speakers welcomed the fact that the Human Rights Council had organized this important panel discussion on the rights of the children working and /or living on the street. Many States said that the rights of the child and the right to a life in dignity were part of the fundamental rights and reaffirmed their responsibility to eradiate poverty with regards to children who were the future of all mankind. Speakers called on all States to ratify the Convention on the Rights of the Child and its Optional Protocols and to develop systematic disaggregated data collection on children living in the street. This was the only strategy to develop and implement adequate national and international strategies tailored to each concrete reality. This strategy had to be coupled with a dialogue with children to know their opinions on the implementation of policies in their favour which would lead to cooperation and international solidarity. Furthermore, speakers noted that especially girls living on the street were at risk of becoming victims of sexual violence and exploitation. Of course, there were many national and international challenges that needed to be overcome and integrated cross-sectoral policies, national plan of actions as well as cooperation at the national, regional and international levels were very important, especially in sharing experiences and good practices. Speakers expressed concern at many children working in the street and they were convinced that the protection of children had to be put at the top of political agendas and public policies of States.

The international community had not done enough to provide their children with a better place to live and work and some States indicated that annually 11 million children died. Speakers agreed on the fact that prevention was of special importance in this regard and education was crucial in helping to break the vicious circle of marginalization and help potential street children towards a better life.
Some States said that their Governments had adopted strategies, including necessary legislative measures to ensure that street children continued to enjoy their right to education, while also providing for the rehabilitation of offenders and victims.
The reasons that led children to work or live on the street were many and some of the factors were extreme poverty, urbanization, family breakdown, natural or man-made disasters or migration.

Non-governmental organizations and national human rights institutions said that street children did not have a future because they were virtually without a voice and often had lost one or both parents. Children affected by HIV/AIDS suffered from extreme isolation, discrimination and economic destitution. Preventive and protection actions were critical to guarantee the rights of children that were living or working on the street and those affected or infected by HIV and AIDS and to ensure their wellbeing and security. Speakers urged that steps were taken as part of the obligation of States to uphold and protect the rights of all children, including children on the move, and that these steps were reflected in national plans, legislation and policies, including HIV-AIDS policies.

In the interactive discussion, the following countries spoke: The European Union, Uruguay, Belgium, Chile, Spain, Germany, Cuba, Thailand, Nigeria, Guatemala, Ecuador, Sri Lanka, Russian Federation, Pakistan and Peru. The following national human rights institutions and non-governmental organizations also spoke: Ukrainian Parliamentary Commissioner, Foundation ECPAT International, and International Save the Children Alliance.

Response from Panellists

NAJAT MAALA M’JID, Special Rapporteur on the Sale of Children, Child Prostitution and Child Pornography, said she would respond to the question on the need for information systems. Though it was difficult to quantify the number of children on the street, she emphasized that it was important to get as much information as possible about them from those that have worked on the street with them. All actors should work together to prevent children from ending up on the street, to help them while they were on the street and then after they had left the street. There were many integrated programmes implemented by non-governmental organizations and the main thing was that programmes should be done by those who worked in the street and had a long term relationship with the children. There should be long term social and psychological support and where possible a return of children to their parents. Legislation should recognize the need to protect children; there should be access to economic activities for children and the resource mechanisms for most vulnerable children. There was a globalization of the problem which reinforced the need for cooperation. Responding to Spain’s question on unaccompanied migrant children, Ms. Maalla M’jid said there should be cooperation based on protecting the child and not on protecting the borders.

PATRICK SHANAHAN, President of Street Invest, said that he was still amazed at the States looking for magic answers. There were no magic answers. If dedicated and trained workers were put on the streets of the cities, countries would start finding answers from children relating to those workers. If this was not done, the interventions would be faulty at best and in the worst case they might blow up in the faces. It was a long process that took time. Mr. Shanahan said that he heard over and over again old and tired definitions. He said to the countries to put dedicated workers on the streets and they, with the street children, would work out doable plans of intervention. It meant that States should listen to children and take their opinion into account. He appealed to the countries not to count the street children only to use big, great figures for different purposes.

PAULO SERGIO PINHEIRO, Commissioner and Rapporteur on Children, Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, said that carrying out surveys and aggregating data was an area of international cooperation and UNICEF in America was doing outstanding work on gathering information on violence against children. Countries had to cooperate with the south to obtain information on children in the street and implement the main elements on the studies of violence against children as well as policies and legislations which prohibited violence against children. Only one English speaking country, New Zealand had adopted some prohibitions in this regard. All countries would be receiving an appeal to adopt such legislation on violence against children. Concerning the situation of children of migrant families, Mr. Pinheiro said that it was embarrassing the way in which children of migrant families were treated in detention centers, as well as the treatment of Roma children in the European democracies. There was no magical solution but there were possibilities to reduce child poverty such as programmes to transfer and provide resources.

TANIA A., Youth Representatives from Plan Supported Programmes in Bangladesh, said if everyone in their society would extend their hand then children would have a better life and education.

SEVERINE T., Youth Representative of the African Movement of Working Children and Youth, Benin and Cameroun, said that children often found themselves in tragic conditions of poverty and stressed that States should take care of children living in the street by providing free education for children, especially for girls, by building schools in isolated areas, and by building vocational training centres for children who had left school. Governments should adopt measures to improve the purchasing power of parents so they could provide for their children and money should be allocated to maintain schools. The experience of the African Movement of Working Children and Youth was useful as it promoted awareness through discussions with children.

Discussion

During the second slot of interactive dialogue with the panel on root causes and factors leading children to live and/or work on the street, speakers welcomed the focus of this annual meeting on street children and said, among other things, that underlying causes of this phenomenon must be tackled. Poverty, exclusion, stigmatisation and lack of education were often underlying causes for children living and/or working on the street, together with domestic violence, armed conflict and natural disasters. This was a phenomenon found in developed and developing countries alike. A country noted that one of the causes was also displacement of children from their country of origin due to economic hardships or persecution. Speakers agreed that children living in the street, particularly girls, were extremely vulnerable to exploitation and abuse, including sexual. They were often victims of trafficking and assault and once in the street, children were seen as a threat to society. Often invisible and overlooked, they were seen as not having rights, which meant that those rights could not be effectively protected. The international community should be paying full attention to this issue, which was a phenomenon characterised by complex root causes, countries agreed. Speakers asked a number of questions of the panellists, including how the shift from a charity-based to a rights-based approach could make a difference in dealing with street children; and examples of best practices in dealing with the phenomenon in countries where cases of street children were scarce.

A number of countries informed the Human Rights Council about the steps taken at the national level with regard to the protection of children. For example, Argentina aligned its national legislation with international obligations with regard to the protection of children; Saudi Arabia undertook a series of measures to promote and raise awareness of the rights of children and prevent violence against children in families; and Brazil had recently conducted a study which revealed a whole range of reasons why children found themselves on the street. Indonesia noted that a lack of comprehensive policies, effective law enforcement and sizable development gaps between rural and urban areas impacted on progress in addressing the problem of street children.

Speaking in this slot of interactive dialogue with the panel were Argentina, Saudi Arabia, Brazil, Indonesia, China, Slovenia, Iran, Malaysia, Turkey, Djibouti, Finland and Bangladesh.

World Vision International and International Movement ATD Fourth World in a joint statement spoke on behalf of non-governmental organizations.

Concluding Remarks

NAJAT MAALA M’JID, Special Rapporteur on the Sale of Children, Child Prostitution and Child Pornography, said that the protection of children living or working in the street required a systematic approach and that institutionalization should be viewed as a tool and not an end in itself. The process of finding, supporting and rehabilitating children required resources and was a longer term solution. The family environment should provide a protective environment to allow the development and flourishing of the child. The challenge was how to incorporate child protection rights into national, social and development policy, which would require right indicators to see if children were being integrated. International cooperation should include financial support to developing countries. The Special Rapporteur urged all States to adopt the resolution proposed by the European Union to seek the protection of children living or working in the streets.

PATRICK SHANAHAN, President, Street Invest, in his concluding remarks, said that Slovenia was in a situation where they could create a system where making deals with the Government to protect children would be fairly simple. For Djibouti Mr. Shanahan would be happy to offer any assistance. To conclude, on the question about what would happen when the international community moved from a charity-based to a rights-based approach, he said that this would give back the child its voice and this would be the beginning and would lead to the solutions. Brazil had taught him a lot about talking with children and underneath they were ready to examine the situation and they had to be one of the leaders to give back freedom to children and this was the beginning of a better life.

PAULO SERGIO PINHEIRO, Commissioner and Rapporteur on Children, Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, said he was very impressed because every Member State speaking had welcomed the need to hear the voice of children and asked when would they establish the structures to enable them to listen to the voices of children. Concerning the question of Brazil, Mr. Pinheiro said that it was regrettable that the collective communications procedure was not present in the resolution on the children on the streets. Many speakers referred to the rights of the child and all countries must respect those rights, which meant doing away with corporal punishment or the death penalty, which were still in force in some countries. The best solution to any problem regarding children was for the States to guarantee their human dignity on a daily basis.


For use of the information media; not an official record

HRC11/025E