News (Updated
November 21, 2009)
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By The Associated Press
The Associated Press Fri Nov 20, 6:23 am ET
EDITOR'S
NOTE — The United Nations adopted the Convention on the Rights of the Child 20
years ago Friday, yet hundreds of millions of children still suffer from
violence, hunger and disease. Associated Press correspondents around the globe
interviewed children who illustrate the remaining challenges, along with some
victories.
___
A Mexican boy bleeds and
has backache from toting sacks of vegetables. In
___
The round-faced girl is 15
now, and since age 6 she has lived as the captive of another family, forced to
cook their food, scrub their floors, clean their clothes and look after children
older than she. If she messes up, she gets beaten.
Saintia is a "restavek,"
one of at least 172,000 children estimated by UNICEF to be living as servants in
the
"Restavek," from
the French, is Creole for "stays with." It is so shameful that most
families keep their little servants hidden or introduce them as "little
cousins" — and indeed some are the children of desperate relations.
The family that keeps
Saintia makes no bones about her status.
"I wanted to send her
back to her mother already because she's at an age where she can get
pregnant," said Ernest Delice, a city councilman who makes money on the
side selling pharmaceuticals and homemade wine. "But if she wants to stay
we'll help her the same as we do now."
Saintia was born in the
Haitian capital's Cite Soleil slum, a notorious shantytown then dominated by
powerful gangs and the drug trade. Her mother had at least seven children and
gave them all away, according to Delice's family.
She ended up with Delice's
relatively well off family in Cite Plus, a warren of concrete shacks along the
garbage-piled banks of a sewage canal.
One recent day, Saintia
was on her hands and knees, barefoot in a green plaid dress, scrubbing the
concrete floor with a dirty rag and dirtier water. She made two trips down the
street to fill a 20-liter (five-gallon) bucket of drinking water, which she
carried back on her head.
Delice said he cares for
the girl better than her mother could, giving her food and the equivalent of $15
a year to attend school about two hours a day.
But speaking privately in
the room where she and some of Delice's own children sleep on the floor, Saintia
said she is not allowed to go out and play — and her dreams are ignored.
"They make me feel
like I'm not part of the family," she said. "When they do something
for me, they remind me I don't deserve it."
By Jonathan M. Katz
____
Conditions are lacking at
the school in a
Millions of impoverished
Chinese farmers have moved to prosperous cities to build skyscrapers or clean
homes. Those who bring their children with them often find it difficult to pay
for medical treatment and enroll them in decent schools because they are not
registered residents. UNICEF says around 20 million migrant children live in
Chinese cities, many invisible to authorities.
Chenchen almost never sees
a doctor when she's sick because medical fees are too expensive.
"If I have a cold, I
wrap myself in many thick blankets," Chenchen says. "I don't want to
burden my parents."
Chenchen has attended five
different schools in as many years since her parents first relocated from their
hometown in central
This year, Chenchen and
her brother started attending a small, rundown private school for migrant
children in Xiaxinpu, a village in
"Whenever I change
schools I have to start over again. Once, I moved before finishing even half a
semester," said the fifth grader as she squatted in front of her 4-year-old
brother during recess to wipe dirt off his face with a wad of toilet paper.
"I wish I could just go to one school."
Chenchen doesn't complain.
Her mother works as a maid and her father is a laborer, but the girl has dreams
and sees education as the key to a better life.
"I love to eat, so I
hope to be a nutritionist when I grow up," Chenchen said, her round cheeks
widening into a grin.
By Gillian Wong
____
Just a few years ago,
crowds of hungry kids were sleeping on Russian streets. Now that authorities
have largely dealt with that problem, they focus on rescuing children like Tanya
from broken homes.
"Four to five years
ago we had real problems. Children were hiding with their families around the
train stations," said Maj. Yury Tverdyakov, deputy head of the police's
juvenile department at Kazansky Train Station in central
"The government just
started taking the problem really seriously, and you see the effects. Money has
appeared, and we have the resources to do our job," he said.
The rise in poverty as
Jacqueline Gaskell, a
UNICEF consultant, says the number of homeless children has fallen sharply due
to government investment in institutions and shelters.
None could be found during
recent searches of three central train stations, parks and subway stations — a
big turnaround from the 1990s and a sign that the wealth
Road to Home, which opened
in 1992, was the first such shelter in
The 12 children's'
shelters around
The Krasnoselsky Shelter
has 60 long-term kids and a staff of 95 teachers, doctors, psychologists, cooks
and security guards.
Human rights activists
acknowledge the progress.
But they urge greater
action in other areas to address issues such as the suicide rate among minors
— eight times higher than the world average — and the 40,000 crimes against
kids registered each year.
By David Nowak
____
"She was getting so
sick so fast," Radwan said. "I was losing my daughter."
The girl survived and is
now 12. But Radwan was so shocked she decided that her two younger daughters
would not be "purified," as female circumcision is called here.
Radwan, 43, represents a
success story in the fight against female genital mutilation in
Progress is slow. The most
recent comprehensive study predicts that over the next decade, nearly two-thirds
of Egyptian girls aged 9 and under will undergo mutilation.
Radwan remembers being
circumcised when she was 8. "I kept running away from them but they'd catch
up and force me down."
She now considers herself
an agent for informing others in the community what she has learned in health
awareness classes sponsored by a women's group.
"I take the things we
learn and tell them to my friends," she said. "But then, everyone is
free to do what they want."
By Hadeel al-Shalchi
___
The 12-year-old boy's back
aches from hauling the 10-pound (5-kilogram) bags from the bed of a pickup truck
to his family's stand. On an average day, he prepares up to 35 bags.
The leaves on the
vegetables are sharp. "My hands sometimes bleed," said Leonardo,
sitting in the back of his family's truck, wiping mud from a massive bunch of
green onions before bagging them.
By 1 p.m., he has already
worked eight hours, but he has no time to rest. The soft-spoken boy takes off
his apron covering his car-racing T-shirt, rushes home for a quick shower and
heads off to school. He returns home at 7 p.m., eats and falls into bed.
In
Leonardo is a
third-generation child laborer. His father started working to help support his
family before he reached puberty. So did his grandfather. Their toil has aided
the family's slow climb from deep poverty.
The grandfather lived in a
shack in the central state of Tlaxcala before he moved his wife and five
children to the city. He saved his money and bought a stand at the market, where
his children worked. The family now owns a cinderblock home in
Leonardo's aunt, Socorro
Sanchez, said she dropped out of school at 15 to work. Today, she picks up the
day's merchandise from distributors at 2 a.m. The boy meets her at the market
three hours later.
"It's a tough
life," said the aunt. "That's why we want him to keep studying."
Leonardo does not want to
work at the market forever.
"Some day," he
said, "I would like to be a police officer or a firefighter."
By Julie Watson
___
Sawaneh was fetching water
from a river with his brothers when rebels abducted him at gunpoint in 1997.
They killed his uncle in front of him, and took the boy with them.
"I walked for 10
days, day and night, restlessly, killing, burning of houses, and amputation
continuing by the rebels during the journey," said Sawaneh, now 22.
The commander called them
the SBU, the Small Boys Unit.
"When we were about
to arrive in the village, my commander gave me a small machine gun and
instructed me to shoot directly into the village. He told me that if I refused
he would kill me," Sawaneh said.
"The commander
himself started shooting toward the village and the villagers started running. I
started shooting with my gun and 15 people were killed in the village, while
some were also captured.
"My commander asked
us to cut off their limbs and when I delayed to carry out the instruction, he
warned me for the last time and called me 'little rat.' We cut off limbs of 10
civilians."
In his second year with
the rebels, Sawaneh began thinking about his parents and tried to escape. When
he was caught, his commander flogged him with a machete. His back still bears
the scars.
In January 2000, Sawaneh,
then 13, was released with other child soldiers and put in a center for former
child combatants. The center was unable to find his family.
More than 10,000 children
younger than 15 were forced to fight in Sierra's Leone's 10-year civil war,
according to UNICEF, and there are about 300,000 child soldiers around the
world.
Sawaneh is now in his
third year at the
"I would like to
dedicate my knowledge to the advocacy against the use of children in armed
conflict, which will help to promote peace and security in the world," he
said.
By Clarence Roy-Macaulay
____
The 8-year-old was
thrilled to find her favorite dish in the noisy kitchen at Die Arche, or The
Ark, where she and some 400 other children in Berlin's Hellersdorf neighborhood
come each day after school to fill up on what they don't have at home —
supportive adults, activities and a hot meal.
"I've been coming
here since I was 2," she said. "All of my friends are here, my sisters
used to come here."
According to the
Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, nearly every sixth child
in
While that is below the
roughly 20 percent of children the organization says are considered poor in the
U.S., the number in Germany has been rising, despite relatively high government
spending on education, social services and direct payments.
Children from impoverished
homes struggle more in school. This can have long-term consequences in a system
where pupils are tracked at age 10 into middle and senior high schools,
determining whether they will attend university, technical or vocational
secondary schools.
"I mostly do my
homework at The Ark," said Tabea, who had to repeat second grade. "All
of my friends are here. I come here every day. It's kind of like a home."
Tabea lives in a
high-rise, communist-era apartment with her parents and three of her four
half-siblings.
Her two older sisters
started coming to The Ark shortly after it opened in 2001. Back then there were
200 children, most of whom had been hanging on the streets.
That number has doubled in
recent years, growing with the rise in child poverty.
By Melissa Eddy
_____
He had been infected with
HIV while in the womb. His mother died three years ago, leaving him and his
brother in the care of their sister, just two years older than him.
There was little to eat
beyond the occasional piece of bread scavenged from a neighbor.
Concern about the children
— and the smell coming from their
"He couldn't suck on
a bottle. He couldn't walk and he could hardly sit," said social worker
Kathy Hawthorn. "By the time we got there, their mother was terminal. The
children never saw her again."
The boy is not identified
because AIDS is a stigma in
Within months of going on
AIDS drugs, he was sitting up and starting to walk.
"Now he is a healthy,
happy, mischievous little 5-year-old who is going to go to school in a year's
time," Hawthorn said.
About 5.7 million South
Africans are living with HIV — the highest number of any country in the world.
Great progress has been
made in getting treatment to millions of poor South Africans, but 1,000 still
die every day from AIDS-related illness.
Hawthorn sees firsthand
what the medicine can do. She began working with Cotlands 15 years ago when few
drugs were available and children died daily. In the last year only one died.
"What we are seeing
here, what treatment has done, is a miracle," she said.
By Celean Jacobson