The national context in Pakistan
There can be no doubt that the health situation (physical, mental and social well-being) of children can only be described as miserable – especially when dealing with refugee children.
“With a population of approximately 155 Million and fertility rate of 5.0, in another few years Pakistan is going to be the seventh most populous country in the world. There are too many children fighting individual battles for survival. The struggle that begins at birth takes them into a meaningless adulthood; the years between are spent dealing with hunger, disease and in work situations where they do an adult job of providing for their families. And far too many children spend their formative years in lifeless educational institutions that only perpetuate their marginalized status. On the other hand Pakistani people have one of the strongest traditions of philanthropy; there is also a strong civil society movement that continues to work at grass roots level, providing low cost, workable and practical solutions and policies” (The State of Pakistan’s Children 2000;

Street activities with active involvement of social animators are a very important component of the project:
Street children often have little time for recreation. Middle childhood, from around six to twelve years, is the major period of the child’s intellectual and cognitive development. Recreation is integrated in the project approach as well as children’s development, rather just a bit of fun on the side.

During the month of May 424 children participated in rope skipping, cricket, football, volleyball, racing and badminton.  Recreation and strengthening social abilities encompasses more than sport and fun. Socialization must ensure that both their skills and their physical appearance must be minimally acceptable to the society.

SPARC, 2001). “Human rights advocacy groups have been instrumental in starting public debate on issues such as child labor, juvenile justice, child abuse and violence against women, and in giving policy advice to various government departments. At the same time there are strong counter currents; incidents of violence against women and children and minorities have been on the increase. There is a noticeable absence of programs working directly with children to improve the quality of their lives. The damage being caused to children is often intangible and long-term, and extends to their mental, emotional, social and cognitive development.” (The State of Pakistan’s Children 2000; SPARC, 2001).

The regional context
There is absolutely no information available how many refugees and refugee children are living in Peshawar or in the region. “Today’s refugee children have often been born to adults who either never knew their own country or carry a nostalgic picture of the Afghanistan of the past. Little information is available on the changing coping mechanisms, on the numbers of children involved or the impact of the work and new environment on the boys and girls and their families.

The conflict in Afghanistan, like most others, has threatened the cornerstones of children's well-being and development, damaging the security offered by family relationships and creating an unpredictable environment.

70 young street children are presently admitted. They are carefully chosen by social workers who assessed the psychosocial conditions of the respective families.

“The Serious Road Trip” Clowns, already partners of Terre des hommes’ projects in Kosovo, spent quite some time with the street children of the project in May this year. Events like trips, excursions, drama, circus etc help children to learn more about their society. Mobilizing self-esteem through recreational activities and promoting social skills through role-plays, drama etc will improve children’s ability to deal with adults.  Socialization must ensure that both their skills and their physical appearance must be minimally acceptable to the society.

War experiences are thought to have caused a great deal of psychological distress and trauma among children as well as adults, and the long-term impact of these experiences on their development is so far unknown.  Stress factors include not only direct experience of war but also its indirect consequences - changed roles, status and responsibility, poverty as well as restrictions on lifestyles, customs, and activities which may previously have been used to overcome or lighten these pressures such as music and entertainment.  Many women are using health care facilities for psychosomatic illnesses, which are most likely to be related to stress and depression.” (Lost Chances, the changing situation of children in Afghanistan, 1990-2000, UNICEF).

The problem analysis
Despite the prolonged conflict and the damage to the social fabric underpinning Afghan society – here also Afghan refugee society, there are virtually no children to be found living on the streets in Peshawar. Observations indicate that few children are already found living in the streets in some parts of Peshawar. There are, however, many children working on the streets and in various types of hazardous work.  These include sorting of rubbish for recycling, and collection of scrap metal, as well as work at a distance from the protective family environment where they are at greater risk of physical or sexual abuse.  The earnings of working children are, nonetheless, invariably vital to the family income and survival.

Basic education encompasses both tools of literacy, numeracy and problem solving and content, such as knowledge, values and attitudes. However, not all street and working children are able to benefit from these programs, which are essentially formal in methods. They need more participatory ways of learning, particularly in early stages. Formal ways of teaching may be unsuitable for children whose time and energy are limited and whose concentration span is short.
Two teachers take care for groups of 12 who are learning in different shifts during the day.
 

In the crisis situations faced by many street and working children, service provision may well be a key element of the project. The center creates alternative environments for children whose lives are difficult. This is a place where children can feel relaxed and comfortable, safe and looked after. This is a place where children can talk to each other and to project workers, knowing they will be both listened to and heard. This is not a place where they will be talked at or preached to, even though this should be a place where they may be able to practice, learn or recover the skills and habits of good interpersonal relationships.

Terre des hommes (Tdh) and UNICEF collaborate in Rustaq
Terre des hommes (Tdh) and UNICEF signed an agreement in April in order to implement an ‘expanded program for immunization’ EPI for the whole Rustaq district with its 173 villages. The Rustaq clinic will therefore become a focal point of immunization in one of the largest districts in Takhar province.

On 1^st of June Terre des hommes moved its delegation office from Peshawar to its new office in Shar-I-Naw, Kabul. With this step we respond to the development in Afghanistan.

National Day of Immunization
The health teams in Rustaq vaccinated in April, with the help of 146 volunteers, 38.188 children in Rustaq against Polio. Again in May, the project managed to vaccinate 40.481 children against polio – covering all 173 villages of Rustaq district.

School & Education in Rustaq
The number of pupils in schools supported by Terre des hommes (Tdh) has increased by 260 %. The number of girls going to school increased from 752 to 2.084 and the number of boys from 1.262 to 3.164. The ratio of girls going to schools is now given with 39,71 % - a very positive result of Terre des hommes’ gender policy in Rustaq.

Water & Sanitation
The Tdh engineers in Rustaq together with village people constructed since end of February new water supply systems in the remote villages of Jarahyel, Ganda Chesma, Dashtak and Bai Khoah. As a result around 12.000 people have now access to safe drinking water, in a region, which has been destroyed by two devastating earthquakes in 1998.

37,284 children are working and begging in the streets of Kabul
Terre des hommes together with its local partner ASCHIANA surveyed and assessed the situation of street working children in 16 districts of Kabul during the months of March to May 2002. This needs assessment of children, working and begging in the streets in Kabul, was the result of a collaboration between Terre des hommes, the Aschiana Centers, staff of the Census Department of the Interim Administration of Afghanistan, and the many children and families who participated in the survey. The survey was jointly funded by ECHO and Terre des hommes (Tdh).
The estimate of the number of children working in 16 districts in Kabul is not complete, as this survey only included children observable on the streets. Surveyors did not seek out children working in closed shops, garages or factories off the streets. Thus, the actual number of child laborers in Kabul is likely to exceed 50.000.

68% of the street children in Kabul are working more than 8 hours per day in order to get an income between 0.3 and 0.9 USD per day. 36% are 8 to 10 years old and only 31% go to some sort of school. 74% of all children have nothing to eat during the day and almost all are sent into the streets by their parents or relatives.

Suffer the children
“The United Nations has decided that the world’s 2 billion youngest citizens need healthier, more peaceful lives. To do that, member states last week cobbled together an action plan that sets ambitious goals – yet failed to create a consensus on how to get there. It will take considerably more than lofty rhetoric and good intentions to make the world a better and safer place for children.

In an era of unprecedented wealth, 1.2 billion people – half of whom are children – live on less than 1 $ a day. Even in the world’s richest countries, one in six children lives below the poverty line. Nearly 11 million children die each year before the age of 5, many from preventable causes. A lack of basic health care and drinking water are the primary contributors to this deplorable situation. Nearly 150 million children are malnourished, and 120 million do not go to school. By 2000, an estimated 13 million children lost one or both parents to AIDS.

During the 1990s, armed conflicts killed some 2 million children, and left millions more physically and psychologically scarred. About 300.000 children are fighting in wars around the globe. At least 10.000 others are killed or wounded by land mines each year. About 250 million between the ages of 5 and 14 work, and the International Labour Organisation estimates that 50 million to 60 million  work in intolerable conditions. About 30 million children each year are exploited or involved in sexual trafficking and abuse.

Given this appalling state of affairs, the results of the three-day Special Session on Children – the first General Assembly meeting devoted exclusively to children – were predictable. The objectives included reducing malnutrition among children under the age of 5 by at least one-third and increasing the number of children who receive a primary education to at least 90 percent by 2010.

The 1989 Convention on the Rights of the Child was designed to set global standards for children’s issues. That document has been ratified by 191 countries – all nations except Somalia and the United States (Somalia is set to ratify the convention soon, leaving the US as the only holdout.) Then-US President Bill Clinton signed the document, but he never submitted it to the Senate, fearing that conservative opposition would block ratification. Those opponents claim that the treaty would undermine the rights of parents; that logic prevails in the current US administration, and its efforts kept the Special Session from adopting language that would set the convention as the standard for children’s rights.

US obstinacy – along with that of the Vatican and Islamic countries – also obliged delegates to water down provisions on other key points. Those governments split with other delegates on issues concerning reproductive health. They wanted to ensure that there would be no language that could be construed as supporting sex education, contraception or abortion. In addition, the US won exemption from provisions that bar the death penalty or life imprisonment for individuals under the age of 18. Another paragraph allowed for differences on “cultural and traditional practices,” a concession to Islamic countries that allows males to dominate women in the family.

The result was considerable back-pedalling from rights already won. One envoy complained that the document “falls significantly short” of reaffirming the right to high-quality family planning and counseling and in information for adolescents, a view that was seconded by many other delegates present.

Such compromises are inevitable in any political process. But concessions on language need not be reflected in the policies that follow. That is the real test. A good place to start is in budget priorities: Developing countries need to spend less money on defence and more on their citizens.

The time has come to close the gap between the pious words of those who sing the praises of children and the sad reality in which millions of the world’s youngest citizens are forced to live.
The News International, May 15, 2002: from Suffer the Children, The Japan Times, May 14, 2002.

ASCHIANA lost three drop-in centers for street children in Kabul
Due to the recent political changes in Afghanistan, the Aschiana project is presently loosing three of its centers. The landlord of one center increased in June the rent from 100 USD/month to 4,000 USD per month. The Ministry of Social Affairs – Kindergarten Department - evacuated Microrayan Center III, hosting a drop-in center for boys & girls, a woman’s center for adolescent girls and a maternal health clinic. The ministry is going to establish a kindergarten in the same center. Terre des hommes & Aschiana managed to rent a dilapidated place nearby in order to accommodate about 900 street children who have been evicted.

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