Street Children

Part of Orders of the Day — Opposition Day – in the House of Commons at 10:15 pm on 10 March 1997.

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Photo of Liam Fox Liam Fox Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Foreign and Commonwealth Office) 10:15, 10 March 1997

First, I thank the hon. Member for Crewe and Nantwich (Mrs. Dunwoody) for bringing this subject to the notice of the House. It is a distressing and upsetting subject that too many people, sadly, would rather not know about.

I know from my own recent visits to some of the places that the hon. Lady mentioned, especially India, how distressing it can be. I do not know how many hon. Members read the article in the Observer recently about street children in Madagascar, which painted a distressing picture of some of the horrors that may await tourists in some parts of the world.

I had an unfortunate experience that will have been shared by many hon. Members. I was confronted with children who had had limbs amputated, and I wondered whether to give money to the parents; having given them money, I wondered for the rest of the day whether they might have another limb amputated simply to increase their ability to get money. It is a most distressing subject.

The needs of children have always been at the heart of the United Kingdom's development assistance programme. As the hon. Lady correctly said, street children face particular problems, finding difficulties in gaining access to health and education, and suffering sexual abuse and a lack of human rights. Even so, for some, the sad reality is that life on the streets may be more attractive than life elsewhere.

The hon. Lady asked at the outset the total number of programmes targeted at children. We adopt an integrated approach to children's needs in our development assistance programme, so we cannot specify the number of projects of benefit to poor children, but I should like to answer some of the specific points about some of the projects that can be identified.

Street children's needs vary. Some live entirely on the streets, while others work on the streets but go home to their families. In responding to their needs, we must ensure that children are given a voice in decisions that affect them. that is why we support several relevant non-governmental organisations through our joint funding scheme in Brazil, Ecuador, Guatemala, Peru, Kenya, India and the Philippines.

While some of the projects provide safe havens for the children, the main common thread throughout is access to health care and education. Skills training to give the children the opportunity for a better future is particularly important.

Some of the larger NGOs that receive block grant support from the Overseas Development Administration, including Save the Children Fund, also respond to the needs of street children in their country programmes: for example, in Brazil, Angola, India, Bangladesh and the Philippines. We have also supported various initiatives of the Consortium for Street Children UK.

We gave £30,000 in 1994–95 and 1995–96 for the production of a resource directory; £16,000 for a pilot project on girl street children; and £12,000 for a legal handbook. At the international level, the United Kingdom has taken a prominent role in promoting the rights of street children.

In 1992, we produced a resolution on the plight of street children to the United Nations General Assembly. We followed that up at the UN Commission on Human Rights in March 1993, and we continue to take every opportunity to ensure that children's rights are at the forefront of the international agenda. In particular, we have encouraged all countries to ratify the UN convention on the rights of the child.

I regard this issue as very important, and I raise it at every meeting that I can in the countries I visit. As the hon. Lady and my hon. Friend the Member for South Dorset (Mr. Bruce) said, the issues must be raised by western politicians to keep them up the agenda of developing countries, and to make it clear that we have not forgotten about them.

Perhaps I can clarify the situation relating to the inadvertent mistake of my hon. Friend the Member for Banbury (Mr. Baldry). My officials have discussed the matter at length with the director of the consortium, and she accepted that it was a genuine mistake. The consortium knows that we do not provide core support. As a general principle, the ODA does not provide funds for core activities such as staff salaries and overheads for non-governmental organisations in the UK. We consider the funding of specific projects with time-bound activities that complement the ODA's policy and programmes. We believe that that is a more appropriate and worthwhile use of development assistance.

On future support to the consortium, the ODA remains happy to consider project proposals from it. The outline proposals for 1997–98 are already being seriously considered by my officials. Individual members of the consortium can make proposals for consideration under the ODA's joint funding scheme.

We have already provided comments on the consortium's briefing paper to its director. I have read the paper in depth, and have much sympathy with the issues raised. Many of its proposals cover areas in which the ODA is already active; others involve actors and organisations outside the scope of the ODA's day-to-day work. We agree that the needs of children, including street children, must be addressed in an integrated way in our aid activities. The ODA's policy on children in development is evolving in the light of growing experience in the field, and it will continue to do so.

The ODA already has a strong commitment to a strategic, integrated policy on children, which regards them as positive actors in development and not only as passive recipients of aid. We support several NGO initiatives through our joint funding scheme. They include two ChildHope projects in Brazil. The one at Casa de Passagem aims to strengthen and develop various educational mechanisms to improve local NGO activities that provide information on health, reproductive health, gender and human rights to young girls on the streets.

In Salvador province, ChildHope is working with the Ibeji management committee to provide street children with a safe haven, where they receive shelter, medical attention and skills training. The aim is to provide children with income-earning opportunities for the future.

We are also tackling the problems of street children through our main bilateral programmes. Our urban poverty project in Kenya involves specific support to street children. Another urban poverty project in Kingston, Jamaica, will help street children more generally by improving livelihoods and living conditions in deprived, inner-city areas. Young people are encouraged to become involved in discussions on community planning, reducing conflict and violence, and the provision of better access to leisure and informal education services. In our poverty reduction project in Cochin, India, the provision of safe havens for street children in poor areas is a priority for this identified vulnerable group.

Several specific recommendations were made in the consortium's briefing paper. I should like to deal with them, because both the hon. Lady and my hon. Friend the Member for South Dorset raised them. First, there is the question of a special rapporteur for street children. The idea of creating one has been raised in the past. It is important to consider existing mechanisms to avoid duplication. Sadly, in too many aid programmes, there is still too much international duplication.

The UN Committee on the Rights of the Child monitors the progress of states parties in implementing their obligations under the convention on the rights of the child. The convention has near-universal ratification, so the committee's monitoring role has wide application. In considering states party reports, it can examine problems such as street children and make recommendations. The United Nations Children's Fund, UNICEF, is also active in that area. The UN special rapporteur on the sale of children, child prostitution and child pornography addresses issues of direct relevance to street children. The most recent report makes recommendations at local, national and international level.

Countries seeking practical help can approach the UN Centre for Human Rights in Geneva, which runs a technical assistance programme. In addition, since 1992, the European Union has sponsored resolutions in the General Assembly and the United Nations Commission on Human Rights that call on all countries to seek comprehensive ways to address the root causes of street children and to bring to justice those responsible for acts of abuse. Sadly, as the hon. Lady said, we are not even aware of scale of such abuses. The more information we can get on that, the better. I am grateful to her for bringing the matter to the attention of the House.

It is worth pointing out that such resolutions were originally a United Kingdom initiative. We continue to take a prominent role among our partners on the issue. Therefore, the plight of street children will be more effectively addressed using a combination of the mechanisms, rather than concentrating functions in a single individual. That is our current belief.

The hon. Lady also alluded to the proportion of aid allocated specifically to children's issues. As I said earlier, most ODA projects cover the wider population, and it is not possible to isolate expenditure on specific target groups within it. Although the data may be readily available for those projects that are designed specifically for children, given the expenditure on all areas that impinge on children, and given what I said about different projects, such a number is involved that they cannot be separated from the more general expenditure. I shall look at the figures to see whether I can provide the hon. Lady with better and more particular information.

My hon. Friend the Member for South Dorset also mentioned the possibility of a children's desk officer in the ODA. The ODA now has about 30 social development advisers based overseas and in London with specific responsibility for carrying out social appraisal in project design, monitoring and evaluation to ensure that the needs of people, including children, are taken into account in aid activities. All countries where we have a development assistance programme are covered from a social development angle. I believe that, in that broad sense, we are covering the need for such a desk officer.

I should like to touch on two issues which the hon. Lady mentioned briefly—child labour and sexual exploitation of children.

A recent International Labour Organisation conference in Amsterdam on child labour has played a significant part in furthering international consensus on the issue of combating the most intolerable forms of child labour. Those are seen as comprising slavery and slave-like practices; forced or compulsory labour, including debt bondage and serfdom; the use of children in prostitution, pornography and the drugs trade; and their employment in an type of work that is dangerous, harmful, or hazardous, or which interferes with their education. When I read the briefing provided by the Department, frankly, I found it hard, as does everyone in this country, to imagine that children are subject to child labour anywhere in the world in 1997.

It is also important that we differentiate between the abuse of children in child labour and the child labour that occurs in many poorer parts of a country, which acts as a supplement to low-income families and does not fall into the category of child labour. I am pleased that that definition has been understood more widely in the world debate on the matter.

The conference was hosted by the Dutch Government as a contribution to the ILO's programme to develop a new convention to deal with combating the most intolerable forms of child labour. It is hoped that that will be ready for submission to the ILO's annual conference in 1999. The United Kingdom supports the intention to develop such a convention, and we will be a full and willing partner in the preparatory discussions.

It is worth stating that poverty is a root cause of child commercial sexual exploitation in developing countries. Income from child sex work is often seen as a way out of poverty for many families. Therefore, it is extremely important to tackle poverty. Children, particularly girls, are often completely powerless in such situations.

The ODA funds a number of projects, including support through NGOs, which help to provide alternative income opportunities, education and improved health care for children who have been forced into prostitution. I was involved in discussions on child prostitution in Thailand just a few weeks ago. We also provide funding to UNAIDS and to UNICEF. Support is also given to programmes that address the sexual needs of commercial sex workers—for example, in India, where I also had recent discussions.

In the follow-up to the World Congress Against Commercial Exploitation, which was held in Stockholm in August 1996, the ODA organised a meeting with NGOs working in the United Kingdom and developing countries. We have invited the Coalition on Child Prostitution and Tourism to let us have a proposal for data collection and information gathering.

There are many factors which force children on to the streets throughout the developing world—for example, poverty caused by population growth and increased numbers of people seeking a new life in urban centres. The hon. Lady mentioned Calcutta and Dhaka. I recently visited those cities, and saw children on the streets, which is a distressing sight.

Other causes that force children on to the streets include conflicts and war, which cause loss of family or separation. Poor education and health provision are also factors, as well as the need for children to make money to support themselves and their families. Another simple fact could be that home life may be so difficult and terrible that street life is preferable.

In many developing countries, the issue of street children can be very sensitive. We need to support ways in which to promote changes in public attitudes towards children to show that they have rights and the ability to play an active role in their communities. Health education programmes are also important for street children, especially in relation to HIV-AIDS, sexually transmitted diseases and drug abuse. The ODA addresses all those issues in our development assistance programme. We have a strong commitment to a strategic and integrated policy on children, which sees them as positive actors in development, and not just passive recipients of aid.

This is an extremely important subject, and I am sorry that more hon. Members were not present to hear such an important debate. I am grateful to the hon. Lady for raising it.