Written evidence submitted by the Consortium
for Street Children (CSC)
1. INTRODUCTION:
1.1 The Consortium for Street Children (CSC)
is the leading international member-based network dedicated to
advocating, promoting and campaigning for the rights of street-involved
children. We are committed to creating a better and sustainable
future for some of the most disadvantaged and stigmatised children
by working together to inform and inspire research and action
that influences policy and best practice worldwide. CSC published
the first report of its kind, State of the World's Street Children:
Violence in November 2007. CSC welcomes the opportunity to
submit written evidence to this enquiry as many children living
and working on the streets originate from, and live in and around,
urban slums.
1.3 This submission will follow the key
issues which was outlined in the announcement, but these questions
will be answered within the framework of what impact urbanisation
and poverty has on the most vulnerable children—street children.
1.4 Key recommendations:
— DfID adopts indicators specifically mentioning
street children in their revised and updated Institutional Strategy
with UNICEF.
— Any new initiatives designed to improve
the lives of the urban poor must take into consideration factors,
such as discrimination, stigma and denial, which can prevent street
children with complex overlapping needs from benefitting.
— Tailored education programmes which can
assimilate vulnerable children into formal education systems need
to be up-scaled and financially supported. Equally, wage earning
schemes such as rubbish collection should also be formally invested
in.
2. STREET CHILDREN:
2.1 The term "street children"
is hotly debated. Some say it is negative—that it labels
and stigmatises children. Others say it gives them an identity
and a sense of belonging. It can include a very wide range of
children who are homeless; work on the streets but sleep at home;
either do or do not have family contact; work in open-air markets;
live on the streets with their families; live in day or night
shelters; spend a lot of time in institutions (eg prison). The
term "street children" is used because it is short and
widely understood. However, we must acknowledge the problems and
wherever possible we should ask the children what they think themselves.
In reality, street children defy such convenient generalisations
because each child is unique.
2.2 Street children live transitory lifestyles,
unsupervised by adults, and have little, if any, access to health,
education or social services. As a result of society's neglect,
they are exposed to a great variety of diseases and abuses, including
sexual abuse, prostitution and intravenous drug use, and are more
likely to be sexually active at a younger age.
2.3 Due to the complex and varied circumstances
of children living and working on the street, it is very difficult
to estimate the number of street children that exist worldwide.
In 1989, UNICEF estimated that 100 million children were
growing up on urban streets around the world, and in its 2005 report
it stated that the figure runs into tens of millions across the
world, but recognised the difficulty in quantifying the precise
number. It further noted that it thought it likely that the number
of street children was increasing. Despite the difficulties of
estimating a precise figure, it is an undeniable fact that street
children are particularly vulnerable group with complex characteristics
and specific needs.
2.4 The Canadian Development Agency[9]
has estimated that by 2025, six out of ten urban dwellers are
expected to be under 18 years of age. And according to the
UN HABITAT publication, State of the World's Cities, out
of 1.1 billion young people aged 15-24, less than 4% are
employed, yet there is another statistic showing that in Latin
America, 5-20% of children in cities are street children working
in the informal sector.[10]
There is no statistic showing what proportion of the estimated
100 million street children live in slums, but it is surely
a very high proportion.
3. How effectively are developing country
governments and donors, particular DFID, addressing the challenges
presented by urban poverty?:
3.1 Street children are a complex phenomenon
and are certainly one of the challenges presented by urban poverty.
As one of the major international donors on the world stage DfID
plays a significant role in tackling poverty and deprivation worldwide.
However, CSC and its network continues to be concerned by the
lack of attention and real solutions given to the "street
children phenomenon" by DfID and other world players such
as the World Bank, UNESCO, and most importantly UNICEF. CSC believes
that DfID is, as one of the major donors to UNICEF, ideally placed
to support, guide and evaluate UNICEF's work with children around
the world, with a particular emphasis on the world's most excluded
and vulnerable children, often living in extreme poverty in and
around urban slums.
3.2 There is an assumption amongst many
donors, including DfID, that funding to UNICEF benefits street
children. However, as has been documented through the years DfID
does not record expenditure to particular groups and are therefore
unable to evidence their assumption that the funding given to
UNICEF benefit street children. For example, "DfID links
the classification of its expenditure to the MDGs, not to expenditure
on particular groups. It is therefore not possible at present
to identify the total amount spent on programmes for the direct
benefit of orphans and street children"[11]
and "We do not record or report expenditure specifically
on street children[12]".
3.3 UNICEF state in their medium term strategic
plan (MTSP) that "UNICEF also pays particular attention to
the circumstances of children who lack parental care",[13]
and that street children fall under their theme of "Child
Protection", although street children are only mentioned
twice in that strategy.[14]
Our members working on the ground has extensive experience of
trying to engage with UNICEF at a country level. Below is an excerpt
of comments made to CSC from its network for input into our recent
written submission for DfID's consultation on "Working in
partnership with the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF):
New DFID institutional strategy 2009/10—2011/12":
— "We have had extremely limited interaction
with UNICEF";
— "UNICEF is simply impenetrable";
— "It seemed to us that the work we
do with children still living on the streets did not seem to be
one of their priorities. We did not receive any support or feedback";
— "In the case of South Africa there
has been poor interaction with UNICEF over their responses to
the issue, ranging from a total lack of engagement with grassroots
initiatives, to emails from the Pretoria office stating that street
children are not currently a strategic priority";
— "Networking forums/coalitions are
exclusively chaired by government ministries and UNICEF are rarely
present, giving the sense that consultation with (I)NGOs outside
predetermined policy boxes is rarely done";
— "As experts on the ground working
with upwards of 2,500 street children & CSW/CSEC, we
have rarely been consulted and almost never visited by UNICEF".
3.4 In its consultation response to DfID's
enquiry into its Institutional Strategy with UNICEF CSC recommended
that DfID adopted indicators in its revised institutional approach
which specifically mentioned street children. CSC believes that
this is the only way for DfID to ensure that the funding that
is given to UNICEF actually benefit street children, as a particular
challenge of urban poverty.
4. DfID's contribution to meeting the MDG
7 target which seeks to improve the lives of slum dwellers:
4.1 Some of the biggest slums of the world,
with people living in extreme poverty, are in middle income countries,
such as Mexico and India, which DfID has increasingly focused
less of its efforts on. However, many of these countries have
growing rates of urbanisation and as a consequence large slum
areas, which often go hand in hand with economic growth. In addition,
middle-income countries are often faced with high levels of inequality,
with many of the poorest living in slums, in severely impoverished
circumstances with little or no work, and suffering from open
sewers and lack of clean potable water or good sanitation. This
has predictable consequences for the well-being of inhabitants
of slums (including physical health and emotional well-being).
4.2 As well as developing strategies to
deal with poor sanitation, housing and education, development
agencies such as DfID need to recognise and consult with the different
populations that constitute an urban slum of which street children
are a significant proportion. For street children, factors such
as mobility, gender, disability, public discrimination and denial,
can prevent them access to any new initiative designed to improve
the lives of urban poor.
4.3 Educating communities that street children
should not be defined as social "problems" whilst at
the same time identifying that street children often have very
different needs and realities from other urban poor children.
Thus, programmes such as educational support to slum dwellers
need to encompass children living out of families and communities.
Much programming is also single issue based so again can exclude
street children experiencing overlapping complex needs (ie Disabled
and homeless; HIV positive and in prostitution).
5. The provision of basic services and infrastructure
in slums, including energy, housing, transport, sanitation, water,
health and education:
5.1 Slums dwellers often have only one room,
with no privacy for parents (a factor influencing the early age
which some children become engaged in sexual activity). Also,
lack of privacy can lead more often to exposure to domestic violence—a
factor which drives many of the world's children to the streets.[15]
In addition, children do not have light and quiet space to do
their homework. Slums also do not allow for adequate space for
education facilities, forcing children to travel a long way (at
a cost of time and money) and/or being educated in severely cramped
and unhygienic facilities. Lack of space for sanitation facilities
in schools is a particular issue related to the attendance rates
of girls in education, and causes problems for boys also who are
expected to just put up with lack of privacy.
5.2 CSC has recently been working in partnership
with the Tanzanian government to develop a national street children
strategy to deal with the "street children phenomenon"
in a positive and pro-active way. As part of this initiative CSC,
together with its network and local partners operating in Tanzania,
carried out two needs assessment in the local slum community,
one by the children and one by the adults. Both identified education
as a major factor which they thought was crucial to the slum.
The problem in the past has been that the children have not been
able to attend "normal" school as many of them works
in the local market during the day. Working with local charity,
the Faraja Trust, who initially started a Street Side School for
market working children, one school has been built in the slum
which cater to the particular needs of these vulnerable children,
and another school is currently being built. However, the crucial
difference is that since the law in Tanzania stipulates that any
child over the age of 10 is not eligible for entry into primary
school. These schools help street children to catch up with their
education before being reintegrated in to the school system. Children
are assisted with school fees (secondary schools), transport fares,
school uniforms and medical support.
5.3 It is crucial that any new initiative
designed to improve the lives of urban poor involves the (most
vulnerable) children as well as the adults in identifying and
designed appropriate interventions. Tailored education programs
that assimilate vulnerable children working and living on the
streets into the formal education systems are crucial. NGOs working
on the ground are ideally placed to support these initiatives
but are as always poorly funded.
6. Supporting opportunities for employment
and livelihoods for the urban poor:
6.1 Besides recognising the importance of
tailored education for street children, it is also vital that
schemes such as rubbish collection and recycling to benefit young
slum dwellers and street children as wage earners are formally
invested in. It will also have the added value of benefitting
their environment and recognise them as contributors to their
communities. Several street children charities also run successful
"street children banks" where the children can deposit
their day's earnings, and save money for a more sustainable future.
7. The role of property rights in improving
the lives of slum dwellers:
7.1 Some street youth and children can group
together to rent rooms in slum dwellings; however, there is often
no security of tenure as property registration processes are inefficient,
complicated, expensive and often illiterate landlords are excluded
from municipal processes that could help address the gap between
formally "recognised" properties and informal/"illegal"
settlements. This creates uncertainty, inability to plan for the
future and vulnerability to eviction. There must be a call for
further research and co-operation between local government and
young people to determine their property needs for the future.
8. The implications of the current global
financial downturn for urbanisation in developing countries.
8.1 The slums themselves may not increase
as the economic crisis unfolds, but its effect is likely to be
found specifically in the urban slums as this has been the main
area of growth in recent years.
8.2 The consequences of the economic downturn
can be manifold for children. Lack of income for parents may provide
renewed or increased incentive to put children out to work, to
the street or in places that expose them to risks relating to
their physical health and emotional well-being. Recent research[16]
shows that in times of economic crises domestic violence tends
to increase given the increased pressures the household faces.
Children that are faced with such violence, either as a victim
or as a witness can suffer from the effects of such trauma throughout
their lives, affecting their ability to sustain regular attendance
at school and/or find employment. Often, violence in the home
is a deciding factor in children deciding to run away from home
and take to the street for survival. Once on the street these
children are faced with even more violence in the hands of police,
the public and other street children, traumatising them and complicating
their reintegration back into society.
9 http://www.acdi-cida.gc.ca/CIDAWEB/acdicida.nsf/En/REN-218125542-Q3B Back
10
http://www.ilo.org/global/About_the_ILO/Media_and_public_information/Press_releases/lang--en/WCMS_008014/index.htm£N_1_ Back
11
Written answers, Baroness Amos, 18 January 2005, on "Orphans
and Street Children". Back
12
Written answers, Gareth Thomas, 7 December 2006 on "Street
Children". Back
13
The UNICEF medium-term strategic plan, 2006-09, p 12 para
23 and 24. Back
14
UNICEF Child Protection Strategy 20 May 2008, p 2 (4),
and p 14 (48). Back
15
Consortium for Street Children, State of the World Street Children:
Violence report, November 2007. Back
16
ODI Background Note, "Children in times of economic crisis:
Past lessons, future policies", March 2009. Back
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