Street children and child labor are two sides of the same coin. To completely lift the children away from the street into a safe haven, we should first wage a fight against the child labor. Eliminating child labor is indisputably a sound financial investment. A recent reconsideration by the ILO (International Labor Organization) estimates that eliminating child labor over two decades would yield an estimated US$5.1 trillion in benefits for both developing and transitional economies where most child laborers are found.
An additional vital component of eradicating the problem is the insertion of community awareness activities in project designs. For example, a public awareness campaign to educate parents, community leaders, local organizations, teachers, and civil society about the multifarious hazards associated with street children and its negative long-term effects on future society would be beneficial. Let us not forget that the fight against street children is to expand the frontiers of human dignity and independence in the long run.
Wednesday, August 11, 2010
Do you think they are worried about their future?
What about the unlucky ones?
The unlucky ones are forced to sleep on the street, run towards dumping site to collect plastic, glass bottles which they collect and sale to scrap shop to earn some money and kill their hunger. They are not always lucky enough to make money out of such dumps to kill their hunger. They are forced to beg or get into pick pocketing. Sometimes, they fight among each other and steal friends money but
still they are seen together walking around corners of Kathmandu's streets. We can even see them begging, especially with the tourist as they know most of Nepalese people won give them a single paisa.Now-a-days, we can see that these street kids have developed a new kind of addiction. Their addiction is towards the odor that comes from some adhesive which are mostly used in making leather shoes. In Nepal they are commonly known as Dendrite by the name of the company that produces them.These adhesive are synthetic rubber which is a combination of Aromatic and Aliphatic Solvent with a strong odor. They are highly flammable too.
Boys with adhesive in miniral water bottle and a plastic bag. I met few such kids and questioned them why they want to take such smell of adhesive. They simply replied me that it gives them pleasure. They get stoned with suck odor; they get relief from their hunger, pain and other unpleasant things they come across in their daily life.I don't know what kind of pleasure they get from such odor of adhesive nor do I have any idea what impact such odor will create in their health.
Fact Sheet on Glue Sniffing Among Street Children in Nepal
According to CWIN estimation there are 5000 street children in Nepal and around 400 - 600 are based in the Kathmandu Valley. CWIN Research on Alcohol and Drug Use among Street Children in Nepal, 2001 has shown that between 25 and 90 per cent of street children use substance of one kind or other. Glue sniffing is relatively new trend in Nepal. It is fast becoming an addiction among street children in Kathmandu. The current prevalent of glue sniffing is 51.7% among street children in the Kathmandu Valley. 19.7% have started using glue two years ago, 34.4 % started a year ago and 27.9% started just few months back. Glue sniffing is taken as a ˜debut" drug by street children.
Mostly street children begin drug-taking by glue sniffing and end up on other, more hard-core, drugs. Street children, who do not even smoke or drink alcohol often sniff glue. In general, the main short term effects reported by the responding children were hallucinations. Its ill effects have resulted in problematic behavior, self-destruction due to hallucinations and fighting amongst friends.The reasons given by the users for sniffing were low self-esteem, an inferiority complex and having enough pocket money to buy this substance. Children also use glue because it is cheap and easily available.
Effort for reducing Street Children
It is an undeniable fact that the present scenario of street children of Nepal are not the result of poverty alone but several other circumstances concluding to problems that force these children to be what they are today. These street children need to be educated, protected and havethe right to live in the society. Thus, there are many Government and Non government organizations helping these street children to be independent individuals through education and vocational trainings. The people in Nepal who are living under the line of poverty, has to keep themselves out of the basic need of life such as shelter, education and general medical treatments. Most of the people from poor family are labor, working in someone farm, construction site or somewhere else, the toughest job. Generally these families have great number of family members followed by yearly born children and their children are also forced to work more hours a day then their age, since the income of parent canÆt afford lodging and food for the entire family members. Those children living/working with their parent have to keep themselves out of school. Not only family matters or poverty but also many circumstances that keeps children out of school.Somewhere there is no school nearby and somewhere their parents don't want them to go to school as the traditional rural Nepalese community who still thinks that the school education don't let them have enough instantly what they want - the daily bread whereas if they work on someone farm they will have it by the evening.
Nepal Child Labour And Street Children In Nepal
Nepal-One of the poorest countries in the world (49% of the population living in absolute poverty) Estimated 40,000 street children in Nepal, of whom 4,500 are homeless. Although street children in Nepal are relatively few, it is a growing problem: there is great concern that the phenomenon will become unmanageable without immediate preventive action. More than 60% of street children belong to the Dalit untouchable community (compared with approx. 17% of the population as a whole). An estimated 46% of street children are illiterate. It has only been a decade since civil society has raised the issue of street children and child labour in Nepal.
There are 2.6 million children who work as child laborer. Among them, more than 5 thousand children are toiling on the street in many cities of Nepal, mainly in Kathmandu, Pokhara, Dharan, Biratnagar and Butwal. These street children pass their days collecting scraps and plastics thrown away by people and nights on the footpaths
Monday, August 9, 2010
Organizatio's view on street kids
The New York-based Human Rights Watch said it had received more than 200 reports this year of the torture in police custody of street children or minors suspected of crimes. "Sometimes, the torture is inflicted to extract confessions from the children," said Human Rights Watch researcher Bede Sheppard. "At other times it appears to be carried out purely for the entertainment of the official," Sheppard said. The youngest alleged victim of police torture was a 13-year-old, and methods of torture reported on the minors included kicking, punching, forcing metal nails under toenails and beatings with plastic pipes, the rights group said.
Various NGOs in Nepal are holding a rally to raise awareness in every citizen of the problem of child labor. Many street children will join the rally for a chance to get a full meal. More than 500 children are expected to participate. But there are more than 5,000 street children in Nepal. Street Children in Nepal Struggling with AIDS. It is well documented that street-based children share an environment and practices that make them vulnerable to HIV infection.Furthermore, two independent tests conducted by an NGO in Kathmandu in 2002 identified the existence of HIV infection among this sub-population. In these tests, 25 out of 80 (31 percent) street children were HIV positive, and 16 out of 32 (50 percent) "high-risk" street children were HIV positive.The street children make their livelihood from rag picking, so they are seen in the localities mostly after the protest scenes are over to collect scarps, said Suchita Shah, programme manager of Sath Sath. Amrit Pariyar and his friends have been moving to the places after the riots are over to collect wires from the remains of burnt tyres and aluminum of used tear gas shells.
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