Street children belong almost exclusively to the Third World. In a host of cities, from Mumbai to Buenos Aires, and from Jakarta to Lima, thousands of homeless children and teenagers, boys and girls alike, roam the streets and perform the most humiliating of jobs including street-vending, begging and prostitution. According to United Nations figures, 100 million street children are vulnerable to violence and exploitation. In the face of their hostile environment street children tend to develop aggressive behaviour towards each other and the outside community. Being female aggravates the situation, since they are more often than not exposed to sexual abuse.
Egypt is no exception. Despite the lack of accurate figures, studies estimate that the country has from 200,000 to a million street children, the majority of whom live in Cairo and Alexandria.
Smear campaign
In recent years the plight of street children has caught the attention of several NGOs. Among the most active is Caritas Egypt, which takes Alexandria as its headquarters and centre of activities. There, it has a day care centre for street girls that provides them with food, clothes and training in manual skills. Despite its work, a media smear campaign was launched against Caritas, claiming it promoted immorality among streets girls by offering care and services to girls who fell pregnant and to unmarried mothers, and that it sexually exploited the girls that visited its day care centre.
Watani visited the Caritas day care centre in Alexandria to see first-hand the centre and the street girls.
Reda
Reda Sami Saad is 18. At the age of six she became a domestic servant. “My father forced me to work as a maid,” she says. “He used to visit me twice a month to collect my salary. I moved from one house to another, but my father never left any of my pay for me; he seized it all. When I was 13, I decided to escape and go and live on the street. I was raped by three street boys and was constantly pushed around and maltreated by everyone. Then I met Rami, who was 20, and we had a urfi (unofficial, unregistered) marriage. Two and half years later he tore up the paper on which we had written our marriage contract and said nothing on earth proved he was married to me. He left me; I later realised I was pregnant. I had a son whom I called Amr. Then I met Mahrous, 21, and we had another urfi marriage and a child, Khaled, who is now a month old. Amr is now two. The problem is that my children have no formal papers and the fathers of my children are both in prison now. I heard that Caritas offered services to street children, so I went there and I have been a regular visitor to their day care centre ever since. I go there at 8:00am; we shower and get clean clothes and have breakfast, then we take lessons in reading and writing. They offer us training in such activities as needle craft and wax works. It’s all very good but, at 3:00pm we have to leave so I’m back on the street.” Reda said she really wished Caritas could offer them permanent shelter. “I was so happy,” she said, “when I heard that they were going to offer us a home so that we would never go back to the street, but my hopes were dashed when I realised there were obstacles in the way.”
Sabreen
Sabreen, 16, is from the poor neighbourhood of Derbala. “I left my family last year because of entrenched domestic problems. I met Karim, 21, who was a garbage collector. We had a urfi marriage and went to live with his mother, but after a few weeks she turned us out and we found ourselves on the street again. I am now pregnant and my husband is in prison for forced robbery. I heard about Caritas and I go there every day. At the beginning they searched us to make sure we didn’t carry any drugs, cigarettes or blades. They treat us in a very good way and teach us reading and writing as well as other skills. They have promised to help me obtain formal papers for the baby. We heard from other street children that newspapers publish bad things about Caritas’s day care centre; these are lies because the people here encourage us to act properly and avoid all deviant practices,”
Asmaa’
Asmaa’ Abdel-Hamid, 17, has eight brothers and sisters. She left home three years ago. “I got to know a group of street girls and boys. We used to sleep in gardens and near mosques. When the Caritas day care centre opened, I went there and they advised me to go back home. I followed their advice. Now I go to the Caritas centre every morning. Then I sell tissue paper packets in the street and go home at night. I am a virgin and, at Caritas, they teach us to refrain from any indecent practices.”
Regular supervision
Watani talked to Youssef Wahba, the manager of Caritas-Egypt, who expressed his regret over the campaign by the Cairo independent daily Al-Masri al-Youm against Caritas.
“Caritas began operation in Egypt in 1967 and it now works in different fields including combating illiteracy, providing care to lepers, helping rural women, and developing desert communities among other things. We are under regular government supervision and have offered many services to Egyptian civil society.
“Caritas began cooperating with the National Council for Childhood and Motherhood in 1992 to provide protection for street children. We realised even then that we were treading treacherous waters, but we decided to go ahead and help those miserable children who suffer from violence, as well as physical and sexual abuse.
“The Caritas day care centre has 45 experts including doctors, nurses, sociologists and psychologists. We conduct programmes to raise awareness of fatal diseases including AIDS, as well as the destructive repercussions of addiction.”
Rehabilitation
Hany Maurice, director of the department of rehabilitating children at risk at Caritas, told Watani: “Last year we decided to do something for street girls, whose plight is among the most distressing. In August 2008 we opened the day care centre for rehabilitating street girls. We thought of having a centre to shelter street girls from six to 18 years old to protect them from abuse and humiliation, but the idea did not materialise due to financial and administrative difficulties.”
Farouq Abu-Stat, executive manager of the Caritas centre for protecting children at risk, said that over the past few months 131 street children had gone back to their families owing to the efforts of Caritas, and 34 had been reintegrated into the educational system. Dr Abu-Stat said one of those who benefited from Caritas was honoured by Alexandria Governor Adel Labib for gaining a university place, while another won an international painting competition. “These facts belie all the accusations levelled against Caritas,” he said.
Rich history
Rehabilitating street girls is now one of Caritas’s main concerns. Heba Mohamed Ibrahim, who works with the girls, told Watani that the campaign against Caritas had undermined the girls’ trust in the day care centre and had a bad effect on families. “We wish everybody to know the truth and I invite people to come here and see what we do to help the girls,” she said.
Kamal Ahmed, an independent MP for Alexandria, said Caritas had a rich history of civil work. He stressed that before pointing accusing fingers at Caritas there should be a proper investigation into the allegations of malpractice. A parliamentary committee has been formed especially for this purpose. Mohamed al-Halawani, deputy minister of social solidarity, said that the ministry had also formed a committee to investigate the issue.
Tareq al-Qeeie, head of Alexandria local council, said council members would be paying a visit to the centre. “We want to make sure that there are no breaches to the law,” Dr al-Qeeie said.