15^th Plenary Session of the Congress, 27-29 May 2008

Wednesday 28^th May

Speech of Mrs Irmeli Henttonen

The social reintegration of children who work/or live on the streets

Mister Chairman, ladies and gentlemen,

I have the pleasure to introduce to you the report concerning street children or children in the streets, one of the most strongly marginalized group of children at risk.

Europe is not the continent we think first when we are speaking about the street children. Still there are a growing number of children who work and / or live in the streets in the member states of council of Europe.

The European Foundation for Street Children (EFSC) was assigned by the Congress of Local and Regional authorities of the Council of Europe the task of compiling a study on the situation of street children in different municipalities in Europe. The aim of the project is to illustrate successful examples of cooperation between NGOs and local authorities regarding the social reintegration of street children and to identify aspects of these experiences that are transferable to other local municipalities throughout Europe.

The report is based on case studies in different parts of Europe: Cherta Mica –Romania, London – United Kingdom, Marseille – France and Verona – Italy. The case studies are the result of field visits during which the EFSC expert met the relevant representatives from the municipal authorities, the social services, the police, judges for minors, teachers, street workers and sometimes the children themselves.

This report aims to provide a comparative overview on European good practices regarding initiatives carried out by different municipalities in Europe to protect children living and working in the streets.

A central focus in the report is placed on the positive and the constructive role of municipalities and the innovative actions put in place to reintegrate street children into society in co-operation with NGOs.  The report also outlines a series of concrete and targeted recommendations for improvement and actions related to the reintegration of street children which are addressed to municipalities in Europe.

There are different views about the definition of “street children”:  According to UNICEF a street child is: Any boy or girl for whom the street in the widest sense of the word has become his or her habitual abode and/or source of livelihood, and who is inadequately protected, supervised or directed by responsible adults.  It is possible to do more categorizing as Erki Korp from Tallin defines: 1) the children who are without home and family and who live in the streets, 2) the children who are constantly on the streets but who have a home and a family, 3) children who are in the danger of falling into a situation where they would end up on the streets and 4) children who are evading the obligation to attend school and children deprived of parental care.  It should be remembered that though majority of the children covered in this report live on the streets many of them also return home at night.  The streets provide them an opportunity either to assist, voluntarily or because they are forced, in supporting their families trough begging or working on the streets - or the streets provide them a daily escape from their experiences at home.

The knowledge of the local circumstances is crucial when the strategies to help these children are planned.  That is why the local authorities play the most important role in building successful strategies, which should be tailored as a consequence to the local needs.

Several general conclusions can be drawn from the case studies:

1. Life on the streets puts children at serious risk of physical and sexual abuse, at risk of serious health problems and may inhibit their long term growth into healthy adults.

2. There is a clear lack of material resources and qualified personnel to assist street children and to meet their educational, health and emotional needs.

3. The problem of street children illustrates the failure of the safety net provided by social assistance and social care programs.

4. There is a need to integrate and co-ordinate in a systematic way the activities of the many different agencies – both governmental and the NGO sector.

5. There is a lack of systematic knowledge about both the scale and the nature of “the street children/ children on the streets”- phenomenon.  We still do not

know who they are and how many they are.  There should be none.

In the resolution we ask local authorities to establish a long-term, municipal action plan for street children covering many important aspects of prevention and protection of children. We invite authorities to undertake targeted training and to network with other relevant actors. We ask them to adopt an intercultural approach to avoid discrimination and to initiate partnerships with third parties – such as private enterprise in order to help with job creation and lastly we ask them to help avoid the stereotyping of street children.  There are indeed many separate groups within the street children. They are similar in the sense that they are at severe risk of losing their future. They are different in the sense that the reasons which led them to live and/or work on the streets are various. The most important thing to remember is that although the all-over image of street children is negative, the situation is not the children´s fault.

Our recommendation asks member states to co-ordinate the collection of objective, up-to-date national data on the phenomenon of street children with a view to developing indicators on the impact of national social policies on street children and informing and re-defining national and European policy. We also ask, amongst other things that they include within their planned or existing national action plans on the protection of children, specific policies for street children with a strong emphasis on prevention. In planning the preventive acts it is important to pay attention to the situations which could be preliminary stages leading the children to the streets.  They are at first the situations where the families can not take care  of their children because of their economical or other difficulties. Secondly there are situations where material well-being is sufficient but there is a lack of emotional care.

We also recommend that states provide the municipalities with state land, premises or funding to increase the shelters or centres providing accommodation and assistance to street children and to consider the establishment of a children`s ombudsman or mediator, preferably with intercultural skills, to investigate violation of children´s human rights and violence against children, including, in particular, those on the street.

Dear colleagues, it is time to do something for these children at risk.   I would ask that you adopt the recommendation and resolution I am presenting today, thank you.