On 23 June 2021, Cities for Children facilitated a workshop for civil society organizations in Pakistan entitled “Change Our Story” – Understanding and Implementing UN General Comment No. 21 on Children in Street Situations. 

This was the second in a series of three events to forge a path forward for street-connected children in Pakistan, with support from the Consortium of Street Children. The aims of this session were to promote participants’ understanding of the UNGC 21 as an authoritative international instrument; to discuss real-world challenges faced by organizations in education and protection; and explore how to embed the rights-based approach of the UNGC in practice.

Participants included representatives from a number of organizations who have been working on issues related street children and child protection in Pakistan, including  Dost Foundation, Sahil, Search for Justice, Door of Awareness, National Commission on the Rights of the Child and SPARC. 

The session began with a conversation on who we meant by “children in street situations” or “street-connected children,”  and an exploration of some of the salient features of UNGC 21. The UNGC 21 takes a non-discriminatory, rights based approach towards street-connected children, with an emphasis on children’s participation in matters concerning them. It lays out three kinds of approaches: the welfare approach, taking the lens of rescuing children as victims; the repressive approach, which includes criminalization for survival activities; and the rights-based approach, which considers the child as a rights-holder and the state as the duty-bearer.

UNGC 21 holds guidance for prevention (pre-empting the challenges of poverty and domestic violence) as well as the response that governments can adopt to ensure the rights of street children. It lays out a roadmap for developing comprehensive national strategies related to such children. These include a legislative and policy review to eliminate provisions that discriminate against street children, and the practices that place them at risk including forced eviction. Data collection to gauge the scale of the challenge (while avoiding stigmatising street children or placing them at greater risk) is another national level recommendation, as is the creation of comprehensive child protection systems. Also,  importantly, the General Comment reminds policy makers and civil society organisations to acknowledge the complexity of the issue and to prioritise individual children’s best interests in all situations. As adults, it is easy for policy makers and civil society members to assume that they know what is best for a child. The UNGC 21 emphasizes that children must be given a say in determining their future.

Urgent challenges 

After an initial description of UNGC 21, the workshop participants were asked to share their experiences and identify urgent challenges faced by street children in Pakistan. Five major themes emerged during this brainstorming session: 

• Violence of different kinds including physical, sexual and psychological
• Access to education, impeded by factors like lack of documentation
• Discriminatory laws and policies that criminalise children and families
• Lack of data on the nature and scale of the challenge
• Absence of a national strategy for street children. 

Sexual violence, corporal punishment in schools and domestic settings were identified as major challenges for street-connected children in the country. Azaz from Dost Welfare Foundation emphasized that breaking the cycle of physical, sexual, emotional and psychological abuse for street-connected children was extremely important as survivors could turn to violence if they did not receive the help and support they need.

Identity documents like B-form and birth certificates were also described as one of the biggest impediments to street children’s access to education. Participants pointed out that since many children were from displaced communities and had been on the move for years, they did not have the required documentation to access public schooling. Sabeen from SPARC emphasized that a national strategy was needed to address the challenges faced by street connected children, to ensure that national and provincial institutions were working towards the same end goals. 

Iqbal Detho from NCRC shared that the present criminalization of street children, their vagrancy and presence in public spaces could be traced back to colonial times. Colonial definitions of vagrancy were designed to prevent people from gathering and protesting, something that could not be extended to street children in the present day and rendered the current legislation problematic. A point of discussion in the group was shared that many organisations were using the pretext of rehabilitation to institutionalize street children, which was against the spirit of UNGC 21 and needed to be rectified. According to the UNGC21, “Deprivation of liberty is never a form of protection”.

Recommendations for action

After a brief introduction to the case study of Uruguay’s participatory national strategy on street-connected children, the discussion moved towards potential solutions for Pakistan. 

Some major takeaways highlighted during the discussion were:

• An urgent need for a national action plan to make progress on street children’s issues, possibly within a larger framework of child protection. Ifitkhar Mubarik from SJFP stressed that the government needed to make its commitment to street children clear before passing any national or provincial legislation to tackle the issue.

• Comprehensive legislative and policy review in line with the rights-based approach and UNGC 21. Iqbal Detho called for the removal of discriminatory laws in particular. 

• A  life skills-based educational approach including vocational opportunities for street children, for learning to be valued. Manizeh Bano from Sahil and Ghazi Taimoor from Doors of Awareness both had insights to share around this, as there is a need to frame education as something that will add practical value to the lives of children who often need to choose between earning or going to school.

• Simplifying the process for obtaining identity documents, especially for children with refugee or displaced community backgrounds. Sajida from SPARC shared that the difficult process of retrospectively obtaining B-form and birth certificates compounded problems by hindering their access to healthcare, public schooling and jobs.

• Strengthening of child protection legislation and systems. Children face multiple risks of violence with little recourse, and working to prevent them from taking to the streets as well as to provide real support in working with families to overcome the challenges of urban poverty will take careful thinking as well as investment. According to the UNGC, interventions moving children into alternative care without consultation don’t work – they won’t stay – so sustainable solutions must be found. There is need to train officials as well as law enforcement agencies and put in place measures to reduce risks of harassment and have transparent systems set up to protect their rights.

Overall, the workshop provided civil society organisations with a chance to share their expertise with each other and gave them an opportunity to use the UNGC 21 framework to discuss the challenges faced by street-connected children. It will be followed by an in-person action-planning session involving a broader swathe of policymakers and civil society representatives, being planned for August 2021.

The post Change our Story: Understanding and Implementing UNGC 21 appeared first on Cities for Children.

“The approach that is taken towards street children is either as victims or delinquents…viewing them as rights-holders is going to take a whole shift in perspective.”

Cities for Children’s work

The first part of the conversation was an introduction to Cities for Children’s work. Cities for Children was set up with a rights-based approach, to support organizations working with street-connected children and build programs around learning and wellbeing.

CfC’s work to support the Right to Childhood knits together three strands of child rights:

• The Right to Read – through programmes like Seekho Sikhao Saathi (Partners in Learning), with Big Partners teaching Little Partners within their communities and forming beautiful bonds, throughout the COVID-19 school closures.
• The Right to Play, especially through structured recreation and community volunteering programmes like Hansti Basti (Happy Hoods). 
• The Right to Feel Safe – psychosocial support and positive mental health. Most recently, CfC’s Maar Nahi Pyaar (Care not Scare) campaign was launched around the time the Anti-Corporal Punishment legislation was being pushed in the Islamabad Capital Territory. Maar Nahi Pyaar resources provide practical alternate strategies and positive caregiving tools that parents can use in place of corporal punishment.

Street Children and COVID-19

“There are some rights that children are entitled to no matter who they are and where they come from.”

The conversation then turned to how pandemic has had a disproportionate effect on communities in urban poverty, leading to an increasing number of children on the streets. There are several great elements to social welfare programmes like Ehsaas, including incentivising parents to send children – especially girls – to school. But when it comes to “street-children,” there is not enough conversation about who they are and the communities they come from, which means they often fall through the cracks.

A dominant narrative is that street children are sent by gangs or mafias – which may be true in some cases, but it is important to understand individual stories and the multiple identities that a child may have. Whether from a refugee, internally displaced, stateless or migrant community, lack of formal documentation often impedes access to rights. Lack of legal rights also makes street children vulnerable to exploitation and harassment.

Madeeha spoke about the massive impact of Covid-19 pandemic and learning losses for children, especially for those on the other side of the digital divide. She emphasized that now is the time to be innovative – benchmarks, especially around assessments, need to shift to give children the support and reassurance they need when they are eventually coming back into schools. 

Policy-making with children

“It’s not just about asking (children and their families) what they want, but saying ‘How can we support you?’”

Article 12 of the UNCRC says that children have a right to be heard in matters concerning them – and in order to make policies that work, it is not only important to consult them but also understand where they come from. Madeeha highlighted the importance of the UN General Comment No. 21 on Children in Street Situations for organisations working in this area, and stressed on the need to incorporate street children’s voices in all discussions about them

“How is it that we can support street children to go to school, and remove the barriers they face? How is it that we can better protect them and their best interests? How can we take this opportunity to build strong child protection systems?”

The Rights Podcast Series explores issues related to human rights in Pakistan. It is an initiative of the Centre for Human Rights (CHR) at the Research Society of International Law, Pakistan (RSIL), an independent, non-partisan think tank based in Pakistan. The Centre for Human Rights (CHR) is a dedicated Centre conducting research on international and domestic human rights issues, raising awareness and building State capacity in Pakistan.

The podcast can be heard on the link given below.

The post Living on the Margins: Street Children in Pakistan – RSIL podcast series appeared first on Cities for Children.

Looking back, 2017 marked a milestone in the world of child rights. The United Nations General Comment No. 21 on Children in Street Situations was published in June marking an important step towards protecting street-connected children. While children are recognised as rights holders under the Convention of the Rights of the Child (CRC), there had previously been no explicit mention of street-connected children.

The development of the General Comment itself involved extensive consultation sessions with over 1,000 former and current street-connected children in 49 countries, to include their views. The participatory process is exemplary, as it recognises that children are the experts on their own lives and that they should have a voice in matters and decisions that concern them.

Since street children are often mobile, they have stayed relatively under the radar in the development and humanitarian spheres. It has been difficult to find sources on exactly how many street-connected children there are globally and consequently assess the dangers they face. During the consultation sessions, several interesting and important things were brought to light by the children that hopefully will be changed with the publication of the General Comment.

Governments often see street-connected children as a nuisance and believe them to be criminals. Not only did the children report that violence from the police is a common occurrence for many of them, they also said that oftentimes they do not receive any legal or protective help from the authorities. The peer relationships amongst street-connected children are thus very important – and even these are sometimes threatened by authorities.

Street-connected children were also concerned about the lack of access they have to basic necessities, such as food, medical care, shelter, clothes and education. It is very usual for shelters to be in such bad conditions that children prefer to stay on the street; medical care and education often requires documentation that the children struggle to obtain; and food and clothes are expensive, making children resort to begging or sometimes even unlawful activities, in order to sustain themselves. We at Cities for Children believe that street-connected children deserve to have their basic needs met, whilst also gently be supported to make the best of their lives, for example by giving them access to education.

Moving forward, we believe that governments, communities, NGOs and any actors involved with protecting and supporting street-connected children need to find a balance between trying to prevent children ending up on the street, providing those that do with services they need, whilst also recognising the realities these children face that prompt them to choose the streets. The fact that the General Comment demands States to take a child rights approach to strategies and initiatives for children in street situations, is a leap forward for young people whose voices were previously unheard.

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