WHY would children, given an option, ever want to stay on the streets?

This question arose when speaking to staff from a reputable organisation in Peshawar, with decades of experience in outreach and rehabilitation for children who live or work on the streets. It takes special skills to engage with that subset of ‘street children’ — or the more nuanced term, ‘street-connected’ children — who have left home of their own accord and drift between urban spaces. Experienced personnel can tell you the answers are not straightforward.

The welfare approach, as codified in law in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Child Protection and Welfare Act, 2010 (amended 2018), would offer to these children the safe shelter that seems at first glance to be the single most important element missing in their lives. The streets of Peshawar offer a range of serious protection risks including sexual exploitation and abuse, and exposure to alarmingly high incidence of substance misuse. The KP Child Protection and Welfare Commission established under the act has the explicit mandate to offer welfare services, including shelter, to children found begging, living or working on the street or “facing extreme poverty”.

Why, then, have the issues not been resolved?

One answer would be the lack of actual services. While the commission is tasked with establishing child protection units in every district, there have not been adequate resources allocated. The 12 protection units initially established with Unicef support could not be maintained upon donor exit, and the shrinking of civil society in Pakistan has meant that several facilities run by NGOs have also shut down.

The Peshawar High Court recently took notice of the rising numbers of children on the streets, and responded to several petitions regarding the implementation of the child protection act. One positive directive from the court has been to ask the Social Welfare Department to produce a detailed report about the issues faced by such children, as well as the state of current welfare facilities.

This is an opportunity to really explore the varied experiences of children; critically re-examine the systems of support available; review fractures in coordination between different departments; and to assess whether the welfare approach alone is enough. Those who argue for a holistic, rights-based approach say, it is not. Children with experience of the streets, especially those who have lived independently, have a strong sense of agency. Even if rounded up and taken through a system which places them in institutions with everything that they seemingly lack — shelter, food, opportunities to learn — they may resist or even try to run away.

Every city context is unique, but in Peshawar children with loose family connections, who leave home due to violence or neglect, may find strong systems of peer support. As a colleague from Dost Welfare Foundation shared, they may enjoy being able to choose what they eat, to earn an independent income, to spend it on going to the cinema. The streets, for some, are an unfathomable but very real choice.

This is not to say that they should be left to their devices in a world that would leave no chance for the kind of childhood every child deserves. Every child has the right to an education, the right to safety and shelter and all the elements of the welfare approach. It is just to say that, in order to be effective, it is important to take children and their lived reality on board.

This can influence the kinds of options that would be considered for investment. Residential institutions alone cannot reach every child and may not also be the right fit for every case. Ins­tead, the first step should be for the So­­cial Welfare Depar­tment to gather — as instructed by the court — enough information to determine an appropriate resp­onse, and set up the continuum of services children may need. This could include prevention of violence at the family level; connecting with poverty alleviation programmes; action against organised networks that exploit children; or the establishment of ‘one-stop’ drop-in facilities where they can access learning, hygiene, or referrals to other services including drug rehabilitation. The partnerships that the government is establishing with organisations offering vocational skills can be a particularly powerful way of giving children the tools to build a better future.

One revolutionary rights-based idea would be to start the research process by talking to the children themselves, to understand the nature and scale of services needed. Stakeholder consultation should complement efforts to gather useful, disaggregated data around how many children are out of school, how many are in hazardous labour, how many are physically on the streets and why. With a strong, informed response, there can be hope to design real alternatives for street-connected children.

The post Choosing the Street appeared first on Cities for Children.

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.

By Madeeha Ansari

IN an interview for April 12, International Day for Street Children, a young girl spoke of her life with a smile. Her grandparents lived in the same abadi where she was born, and where she now lives with her uncle — who does the same kind of labour as his father before him. She used to beg, like her grandmother, but after a night in prison and decision by a tearful uncle, has stopped. She used to go to school, but doesn’t anymore. Why? She is asked. She just doesn’t, she answers with a shrug.

The story of intergenerational poverty, shrugged off, is common. It is replayed in each of the interviews with children having connections with the street, living in ‘informal’ urban settlements, sometimes for decades. For some, the story has gotten darker with the pandemic, with families sliding deep into debt. While many started work early to support their households — by about age seven or eight — formerly economic activities were often built around school hours. Now for children falling further behind without access to digital options, the possibility of returning to education seems remote.

The theme for this year’s international day was ‘access for street children’ — but the path to real options is strewn with obstacles. The first, perhaps the greatest, is a lack of understanding of who ‘street children’ are. The dominant narrative remains that they are either victims or delinquents, associated with gangs or mafias. Vagrancy laws carried down from the 1950s reinforce stigma and legitimise their temporary removal or detention, but this still doesn’t lead to long-term answers.

In reality, street-connected children come from diverse backgrounds including refugee, displaced and economic migrant communities. Often they lack the documentation that is key to accessing services. With invisibility comes vulnerability to harassment and exploitation. Some are unaccompanied, but many have families and parents who do love them — and some (by no means all) do fall into the hands of criminal groups. So, to design solutions, step one is to acknowledge complexity.

A second step would be to review existing laws and their implementation. One is Article 25-A which affirms the right to education for every child, without discrimination. To really get this for street-connected children means investing in community outreach, and working with organisations that understand their challenges and know how to tailor solutions — accelerated programmes, creative learning opportunities and components perceived as useful, including vocational training.

Then in terms of child protection, there is an opportunity right now to shape laws that are currently at different stages at the provincial level, and also determine how they will be operationalised. There have been plans to expand protection and shelter facilities, which should be safe spaces where the best interests of the child are paramount. At no stage should these become akin to detention facilities — something that can be avoided by putting in provisions to consult children and their families about their future, and to review cases on an individual basis.

A useful framework for formulating policies for street-connected children is UN General Comment No 21 on children in street situations. This emphasises a holistic, rights-based approach to address both prevention and response in line with the Convention on the Rights of the Child. The opening paragraph contains quotes from street-connected children, one of which is “Give us the opportunity to change our story.”

Several opportunities can exist, if we want them to. Some may lie in social welfare programmes like Ehsaas, which has elements offering support to families and incentivising education, especially for girls. When it comes specifically to street children, however, there is a need to recognise the gaps in social protection mechanisms, see who falls through the cracks — and how they can be filled.

Then there is the possibility of cooperation to create and implement rights-based laws. On April 12 this year, the Minister for Human Rights Shireen Mazari reiterated a commitment to street children that was first made by the government in the prime minister’s inaugural address. Her words were important because they defined justice as access to basic rights — health, education, protection. They were also important because it was in conversation with Mehnaz Akber Aziz, the MNA with whom there was most recently landmark cooperation transcending party affiliations, to pass legislation against corporal punishment. In that conversation, for a brief moment, hope seemed very much alive.

Every year, we celebrate international days to remind ourselves of what needs to change in the world. Maybe, by next year, we can give street-connected children in Pakistan more of a chance to change their story.

The post Changing the story appeared first on Cities for Children.

On 12 April 2021 – International Day for Street Children – Cities for Children along with the Special Parliamentary Group on the SDGs in Pakistan held a national consultation to review policies related to street-connected children and how best to support “Access for Street Children.” The event was supported by the Consortium for Street Children, framed with a view to understanding who “street children” are, and how to facilitate access to fundamental rights in particular access to education and justice.

The event was moderated by Hon. MNA and Convenor of the Child Rights Group Ms. Mehnaz Akber Aziz, with keynote speakers being the Hon. Minister for Human Rights, Dr. Shireen Mazari and the Deputy Commissioner Islamabad, Mr. Hamza Shafqaat.

The spectrum of participants in the roundtable included MNAs from each of the provinces including Kheso Maal Daas from Sindh and Ms. Munawara Bibi from Balochistan; representation from the social protection programme, Ehsaas; Ms. Sarah Ahmed from the  Punjab Child Welfare and Protection Bureau; Iqbal Detho from the National Commission on the Rights of the Child; and practitioners from national and grassroots level organisations including Sahil, Good Development Pakistan, Dost Welfare Foundation (Peshawar) and the Pehli Kiran School System (Islamabad). Importantly, we also worked to interview and incorporate the real voices of street-connected children via a video screened at the event, to truly illustrate the challenges of intergenerational urban poverty; what drives children out of school and into the workforce; and the vulnerability that comes with informality of status.

5 main takeaways:

1. Acknowledging complexity.

What came across very clearly was that “street children” is not a monolithic term. The situation differs in each urban context, with drivers of mobility including conflict and disaster. While some may fall into exploitation by criminal groups, it was shared that this was certainly not always the case. Many children who are seen on the streets are there for survival activities for their families who they do return to – or work around school hours. Understanding communities and children’s constraints as well as their voice and agency will help devise humane policies that are rooted in their reality.

“With or without the local governments our children have suffered. And largely they have suffered because of the War on Terror. So there is a natural corollary… It’s one thing that there are organized gangs but I think to recognize the problem, we need to understand its different types” – MNA Shandana Khan

2. Review of existing laws and their implementation.

One useful framework for shaping policy on street children is UN General Comment No. 21 on Children in Street Situations. We started out with laying out some relevant national laws to do with street-connected children, including the Vagrancy Laws carried on from the 1950s that represent status offenses and provide the rationale for criminalizing activities like begging for alms. In terms of providing education and protection without discrimination, there is Article 25A reinforcing the right to education, and child protection laws that are currently at different stages of development in different provinces. There is an opportunity to shape these protection laws and lay out their implementation so that the best interests of children remain paramount.

3. Cooperation and coordination.

There is need for communication and coordination across parties, legislative bodies, child protection and social welfare departments, law enforcement agencies and civil society. One recommendation that was suggested by Ms. Aziz was the setting up of an “umbrella” like network of organisations working on issues related to street-connected children, to share best practice locally as well as to connect at the international level.

4. Reviewing the role of protection facilities.

Not all children are unaccompanied, so there is a need to review on a case-by-case basis who belongs in a protection home or facility. Shelter and drop-in facilities have a place, and an important role to play in the lives of vulnerable children as safe spaces they can access with opportunities for learning. We need to think about what the state and private organisations can afford to sustain and how to offer, as Azaz from Dost Foundation said, “continuity of care.”

“A multi-stakeholder mechanism proposes a few things. First, how to reach out to children, how to hold parents accountable and also support parents to fulfill their parental responsibilities. This means there is also the need to assess its tailor-made evaluation which is part of what we call case management in terms of child protection.” – Valerie Khan, Good Development Pakistan

5. Casting a wide net.

The Ehsaas programme has several elements offering support and incentivizing education, especially for girls. When it comes specifically to street children, there is a need to recognize the gaps in social protection mechanisms, and see who falls through the cracks in urban spaces especially due to issues like lack of formal documentation and identity documents.

For Cities for Children, this was a first step towards creating a deeper understanding of the phenomenon of street-connected children, and taking a rights-based approach centered on non-discrimination, the best interests of every child and, as Usama Khilji said, “think more with our hearts when it comes to children.”

We would like to extend a special thank you to Ms. Mehnaz Aziz and Mehreen Mubashir from the SDGs Secretariat, for their dedication to child rights and giving this platform to discuss the issues in an open, consultative way.

Press coverage of the event is available here: Minister reiterates commitment to street children

The full video of the event is available on the SDGs Secretariat Youtube channel

The post Key Takeaways from the National Parliamentarians Consultation – International Day for Street Children 2021 appeared first on Cities for Children.

by Madeeha Ansari

A NEPALESE colleague once shared the impact of a well-intentioned government rehabilitation programme for street-connected children. The plan was to take them off the streets and provide protection facilities where basic needs would be addressed — and local NGOs like his were approached for support.

What ended up happening was a crisis of trust. Children would wait, he said, for staff who gave them up to the authorities with “blades hidden in their teeth”, to evade capture.

Nor would they stay in the facilities once enrolled. Children used to independence, even when ostensibly provided with food and shelter, would not be convinced they belonged there. A lot of it was to do with the stigma they had faced, being labelled as lazy, criminal, a public nuisance. But it was also based on the fact that initially top-down policies didn’t adequately consult the real stakeholders.

In Pakistan, there are two trends of concern when it comes to street-connected children. On one hand there is danger of the same story of good intentions being repeated without adequate consultation with children and their families. Secondly, there is a move towards criminalising children for being on the streets, echoed in both public conversation and policy domains. ‘Criminalise child beggary’ is a refrain. What this will effectively mean without addressing the roots of the issues that push children onto the streets is that households and children in extreme urban poverty will be subject to both harassment and criminalisation, for being poor.

With a government that has demonstrated a commitment to protecting street children, we would do well to look at what has and hasn’t worked elsewhere, so that resources are used most effectively. One big first step for the government and the public is to re-examine the lens and language with which we approach children on the streets, and challenge the stereotypes that may misguide our efforts.

For instance, the dominant public narrative is that street children are victims controlled by invisible gangs or ‘mafias’. While this may be true in some cases, street children do not have a single story. They come from diverse backgrounds, including migrant, displaced or Afghan refugee communities. Some may be unaccompanied without access to shelter, but the majority have families to return to and support. In our work, we often come across children who work around school timings to earn. These multiple identities are important to acknowledge, so we can build human stories and understand what greater structural or policy factors drive children to the streets — and how to support them to choose different paths.

At the public level, the language that treats street children as a ‘menace’ creates stigma translating into a less than empathetic approach. ‘Why don’t you work?’ is often a question asked while brushing children off. There is increasing concern expressed on social media that the phenomenon of street children is rising. ‘This is easy money’ is a common response. The truth is, there is no ‘easy money’ unless you’re rich. In a Covid-19 economy with skyrocketing prices and rising unemployment, more and more households are being pushed into making difficult choices.

At the government level, the drive to rid the streets of this ‘menace’ can translate into policies focusing on physical removal of children from the streets, which in the long run may not be sustainable. In Punjab, there has been a wide-scale anti-beggary crackdown, with over 700 children being removed in rescue operations in a single month. While the effort to take positive action is commendable, it won’t address those root causes. In addition, it is a question of human rights for children and their families to be consulted in decisions concerning them. In particular, any enrolment in residential facilities has to be voluntary, now or later.

Worryingly, with the new criminalisation drives, FIRs are being registered against parents. The experience of being taken from the streets by police can in itself be traumatic for street-connected children, as traditionally they are wary of law enforcement agencies. Many belong to informal settlements under threat by the authorities, and those without identification documents are particularly vulnerable. If we add to this the threat of parents being taken to jail, it will deepen the mistrust that children and communities have in the system.

This is not a defence of child labour, or ‘child beggary’. It is simply an appeal to look deeper at our own assumptions. To design responses that account for the nature and scale of the challenges, it will take this: counting the uncounted; seeing the ‘invisible’; and listening to the voices of the unheard. If we really do care, we should be willing to reach out to children and their communities, and engage them in ways that acknowledge their agency and human dignity.

The post Criminalizing Poverty appeared first on Cities for Children.

INTRODUCTION

Over the past four decades, Pakistan has experienced several waves of refugees due to recurring conflict in neighboring Afghanistan, as well as repeated internal displacement caused by complex emergencies within the country. It has hosted one of the largest refugee populations in the world—4 million at its peak—and in spite of efforts to facilitate return, is still home to about 1.4 million registered refugees.[1]

Although designated “refugee villages” were created by aid agencies to accommodate large numbers of refugees, many chose to live and work in cities. The capital city of Islamabad has seen refugee populations enter and leave multiple times since the 1980s. As of June 2018, the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) had registered 33,286 Afghan refugees in Islamabad Capital Territory (ICT).[2] However, it is widely recognized that the numbers of unregistered refugees as well as internally displaced persons (IDPs) are far greater.[3]

This report looks at the integration experiences of Afghan refugees in slum areas of Islamabad, particularly in the neighborhoods of F-11 and I-10 (see Figure 2). Drawing from my own experience working with street-connected children, it presents stories to illustrate the obstacles to integration for those lacking formal legal status, especially in terms of education. Finally, it highlights good practices that would improve the refugee experience of education, including wellbeing as a consideration for mobile children in cities.

The Author’s Position in Pakistan and Experiences Researching this Report

I was born and raised in Islamabad, living there until the end of high school and then returning as a young professional. My mother tongue is Urdu, the local language that many refugees, after protracted displacement, now speak or understand. I was part of the first generation “belonging” to the relatively new city. I watched it grow from a quiet, contained capital to one experiencing the challenges of rapid urbanization. During this time, I have observed how perceptions of Afghan refugees have evolved, and how these perceptions have affected their everyday lives.

Islamabad is a hub for development in Pakistan, with agencies across the aid spectrum. After returning from my undergraduate studies, I started working concurrently for a think tank and a small trust called Jamshed Akhtar Qureshi Education Trust operating a network of non-formal, open-air schools in multiple slum areas. This meant stepping outside my comfort zone and becoming immersed in the lives of Afghan communities in urban and peri-urban settlements: the way they interacted with other communities; the options they had in terms of accessing services; and the barriers to integration.

I was able to explore—and formally articulate—my interest in education for forcibly displaced communities during my graduate studies at The Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, Tufts University and later while setting up the non-governmental organization (NGO) Cities for Children. This document is a cumulative result of the academic and professional experiences related to education for refugees.

For more on the methods used for this case report, continue to Appendix A.

[1] See UNHCR country pages, https://www.unhcr.org/pakistan.html, https://unhcrpk.org/who-we-are/.

[2] See UNHCR operational portal, https://data2.unhcr.org/en/country/pak.

[3] While this is widely accepted as true in the city, the unregistered are not in official counts and they move around, so exact numbers are not available.

LOCATION

Map data ©2020

Continue to the appendices for more information on the methods used for this report, and for background on refugees in Islamabad and Pakistan.

A NOTE ON TERMINOLOGY

“Refugees” as used here includes unregistered families, those having Proof of Registration (PoR) cards, as well as those who have been able to access Afghan Citizen cards since 2017. Afghan Citizen cardholders are no longer classed as refugees/persons of interest by UNHCR, as they are seen as migrants seeking education and livelihoods. “Refugees” is used as an umbrella term in this report because most of these individuals came to Islamabad before 2017, and while the new PoR card offers some legal protection, the report findings apply to most Afghan people who live in urban poverty. The report does not address the integration issues of IDPs, although recurring internal displacement is a challenge for Pakistan.

A NOTE ON SCOPE

The report is limited to a discussion only of the integration experiences of Afghan refugees living in urban poverty, primarily in slum settlements. Many other Afghan refugees live in middle- or high-income households and have had different experiences of the city.

MAPPING THE REFUGEE POPULATION

Islamabad was constructed as a purpose-built capital city in the 1960s, when the seat of government was moved from the port city of Karachi. It is laid out in a grid structure, with each developed “sector” having schools, markets, and green belts. Slum settlements are not recorded on the official maps but have sprung up in existing green belts.

Specific points of interest for refugees include:

• Ministry of States and Frontier Regions (SAFRON) and UNHCR head office;

• The head office of the National Database and Registration Authority (NADRA), which holds the database for identity cards;

• Proof of Registration (PoR) Card Modification Centre (PCM) in Rawalpindi, where PoR cards can be modified/renewed and births can be registered;

• Offices of international humanitarian and development organizations coordinating with UNHCR to offer services, e.g., Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit GmbH (GIZ) and ICMC. Among other services, ICMC offers safe shelter for individuals referred by UNHCR, including survivors of gender-based violence and children at risk;

• Legal assistance project office of the Society for Human Rights and Prisoners’ Aid (SHARP), a local implementing partner for UNHCR.

Two areas of interest in terms of livelihoods are:

1. F-7 Markaz, where refugees can be small vendors selling “Afghani chips” or jewelry as well as larger shop-owners;

2. Sabzi Mandi, a wholesale fruit and vegetable bazaar.

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Some neighborhoods that were previously densely populated by Afghan families have been highlighted on the map. One was known as the “Afghan Basti” in Sector I-11, close to the Sabzi Mandi market (highlighted on the map in blue). This neighborhood was demolished by municipal authorities in 2015.[4] Another is the green belt of Sector I-12, a recognized settlement where 3,000 Afghan individuals were relocated with the support of UNHCR in 2009. According to interviews with NGO staff, one result of ongoing repatriation efforts[5] is that there are few openly majority-Afghan settlements. While many families have relocated to Afghanistan, others have scattered across the city.

[4] For this demolition, the Capital Development Authority (CDA) cited a court-authorized drive against illegal settlements that allegedly bred crime and terrorism—allegations for which evidence was not provided.

[5] See Appendix B, “Refugees in Pakistan,” for more details.

THE HOST POPULATION AND INTEGRATION

During the Soviet-Afghan war (December 1979 to February 1989), Pakistanis welcomed Afghans with hospitality and a sense of kinship. Particularly in the mountainous northern territories, refugee families were able to easily integrate into Pashtun society due to a shared language and culture.

Given its geographical proximity to the northern province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP), Islamabad was the second-most significant urban center to receive refugees after Peshawar. However, unlike KP, Islamabad is ethnically diverse. Over the decades, there has been a shift in the perceptions of Pakistanis towards refugees. Attitudes have become reserved or even hostile as host communities began to see the spillover effects of the neighboring conflict on the local economy, culture, and polity.

In Pashtun culture, the concepts of “Melmastia” and “Nanawati” represent hospitality and asylum, and are among the six basic principles of the social code, Pashtunwali. When Afghans first entered Pakistan they experienced “Melmapana”—open hospitality extended to those who arrive at the doorstep without first being extended an invitation.

While some in urban society do hold more empathetic views towards people of Afghan origin, today, many Pakistanis in Islamabad link refugee presence with the proliferation of Kalashnikovs (rifles), narcotics, and violent extremism. They blame regional politics for Pakistan becoming a route for the regional illicit opium and heroin trade. The pressures of hosting a large refugee population, in spite of substantial international aid, have also become a source of tension. National government-level politics have shaped attitudes too; in recent years, relations between the Afghan and Pakistani governments have deteriorated, and there has been a push for refugee return. Current public attitudes are reflected in the populist reaction to Prime Minister Imran Khan’s announcement in September 2018 of the possibility of citizenship for Pakistan-born refugees. One step towards better integration in 2019 has been financial inclusion; for the first time, Afghan refugees holding PoR cards have been able to open bank accounts. However, their status is still insecure. In the face of public outcry and political backlash, the issue of citizenship has not yet been taken up in Parliament.[6]

[6] For more on identity, see Appendix B, “Refugees in Pakistan.”

A FOCUS ON EDUCATION

Education is a fundamental right, as set out in the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child. For children whose lives are disrupted by emergencies and displacement, education can be a source of stability.[7] Education serves a protective function by meeting cognitive and psychosocial needs, and helps young people access livelihoods and pathways to a better future.[8]

“The State shall provide free and compulsory education to all children of the age of five to sixteen years in such manner as may be determined by law.” Article 25a, Constitution of Pakistan (2010).

The government of Pakistan has committed to providing education for all.[9] There are several categories of primary and secondary schools for Afghan children in Pakistan:

• Registered public schools;

• Registered private Pakistani schools (for middle-high income households);

• Private Afghan schools registered with the Ministry of Education Afghanistan, through the Afghan Embassy/Consulates (for middle-high income households);

• Refugee village schools supported by UNHCR;

• Non-formal schools, including those run by non-profits;

• Madrassahs (religious schools).

However, there are barriers to education for both Pakistani and Afghan children, and Pakistan has the second-highest population of out-of-school children in the world. This is because of lack of adequate school facilities and trained teachers. For Afghan refugees, there are numerous barriers in accessing education, particularly for those who are unregistered. As a result, according to UNHCR, the literacy rate of Afghans aged ten and above is 33%.[10]

UNHCR has a range of education programs for refugees in the 54 refugee villages, through which 57,000 refugee children access primary-level and sometimes secondary-level education.[11] It also provides tertiary-level scholarships to 400 Afghan refugee youth through the Albert Einstein German Academic Refugee Initiative (DAFI).[12]

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Compared to the designated refugee villages, the urban educational experience is different for the majority of refugees. Non-camp refugees and IDPs often lack access to mainstream schooling and rely on non-formal or religious schools. UNHCR’s new education strategy aims to address this gap by extending support for public schools in areas of high refugee density.

However, there are barriers to education for both Pakistani and Afghan children, and Pakistan has the second-highest population of out-of-school children in the world. This is because of lack of adequate school facilities and trained teachers. For Afghan refugees, there are numerous barriers in accessing education, particularly for those who are unregistered. As a result, according to UNHCR, the literacy rate of Afghans aged ten and above is 33%.[13]

[7] See Kirk, 2011.

[8] See Dryden-Peterson, 2011.

[9] From 2010 onwards, Article 25a of the Constitution affirmed the right to free and compulsory education for all children in Pakistan regardless of origin. In November 2012, the Islamabad Capital Territory passed a bill guaranteeing the fundamental right to free and compulsory education to every child regardless of sex, nationality, or race.

[10] UNHCR Pakistan, 2017.

[11] UNHCR Pakistan, 2018.

[12] Ibid.

[13] UNHCR Pakistan, 2017.

EDUCATION AND IDENTITY

Legal status affects refugees’ ability to apply for educational opportunities. Even after decades of living in Pakistan, there are no laws for refugees, and the reliance on temporary international agreements makes their status insecure. The citizenship status of the second generation is still “Afghan,” and there are no pathways to Pakistani citizenship.[14] As a result, large numbers of unregistered refugees live under the official radar in Pakistan’s cities, with little access to formal housing, sanitation, and education services.

The following stories and testimonies from young people illustrate the challenges for refugee education and integration in informal settlements or “katchi abadis.”

[14] See Appendix B “Refugees in Pakistan,” sub-section on “Integration and attitudes of host population” for more details.

A CHILDHOOD STORY

As a child in the 1990s, I had regular contact with refugees in everyday life. At the time, their presence was simply accepted as a reality of the city’s businesses and culture. In the markets, there were shops selling Afghani carpets and Afghani jewelry, silver/metallic accessories inlaid with semi-precious stones like lapis lazuli. “Afghani chips” were crinkle-cut potato fries sold at street stalls in small newspaper bags, with signature spices and chutney. An Afghan vendor sold Afghani chips at my high school and was a rival to the official canteen. One day, the boys in my class came back with their trigonometry problems solved during the lunch break. It turned out that the man selling fries had been a professor at a university in Kabul. His degree was not recognized in Pakistan. Like this Afghan professor, refugees often lose their national-level certification when they cross into a host country. Unless provisions are made to recognize this, they often have to start from scratch in terms of livelihoods, education, and identity.

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EDUCATION INTERRUPTED

Many families have moved between Pakistan and Afghanistan several times, disrupting their children’s education. Ali Khan[15] started out in the Pehli Kiran non-formal education system, which he attended until Grade 4 (age nine or ten).[16] Then his family moved back to Afghanistan, and he was able to continue classes in Pashto and Farsi, the local languages. When his family moved back to Pakistan again, Ali needed to repeat some classes, again in the non-formal system as opposed to a mainstream school. After completing primary education in English and Urdu, he was lucky to be enrolled in the local government school. There he tested well, and instead of Grade 6, was offered a place directly in Grade 9.

Ali’s experience of interrupted education followed by an accelerated non-formal program places him among the more fortunate. Many whose schooling is disrupted are more unlikely to return to school, especially if they move between academic systems in different languages. Schools in Afghanistan recognize the Pakistani system of education for children who are repatriated, but a transition back into a Pakistani school is not as straightforward.

[15] Pseudonym.

[16] Actual ages in grades may vary considerably.

GENDER AS A BARRIER

According to UNHCR, in Punjab (and ICT) only 20% of school-going-aged girls were enrolled in schools.[17] Afghan girls face a host of practical and cultural constraints in accessing schooling, including lack of gender-segregated facilities and trained female teachers. Distance is also a factor; if girls have to travel, even in densely populated urban contexts, they often do not get permission to go from male family members. One girl from an Afghan family provided written testimony about her experience:

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I am the first girl in my family to study further. When I passed Class 5 in PK-4, my brother did not accept that I would study in another school. The teachers of PK-8 talked to the administration to add Class 6 to the school. When Big Madam agreed, the teachers came to our house to talk to my brother. My brother accepted, and I am now studying in Class 6 in PK-8. — Gul Bibi[18]

Many girls like Gul Bibi are forbidden to access a mainstream secondary school by a male family member. Gul Bibi continued her education through an extension of the non-formal school in her community after a mobilization effort by staff. In most situations, these are not options, and girls fall out of the educational system.

[17] UNHCR Pakistan, “Mapping of Education Facilities,” 14.

[18] Pseudonym.

ECONOMIC CONSTRAINTS

Even when access to educational services exists, the economic pressures families in katchi abadis experience lead to high dropout rates—as early as age eight or nine—when children start working. Afghan children in katchi abadi neighborhoods work to pick through trash, particularly to find and sell metal items, or as fruit and vegetable vendors. In one school, attendance dropped on Thursdays because the boys would be helping their fathers sell produce in the local bazaar. A smaller number drop out after gaining apprenticeships at local mechanic workshops rather than continuing to secondary school. Erratic attendance impacts learning outcomes, which negatively affects motivation to attend school.

RISKS FOR THE UNREGISTERED

EXPLOITATION AND HARASSMENT

One of the Pehli Kiran schools in Sector I-10 served undocumented refugees in a mud settlement hidden from view from the main roads. The school shed served multiple community purposes, including weddings. The legal status of the families meant that they were constantly at risk of exploitation as well as harassment. A local cleric used his connections with the police to threaten the community and sought to expand his mosque by encroaching on land occupied by the school shed. In spite of this pressure, a Jirga meeting was convened.[19] All the men of the community attended and collectively decided in favor of the school. The story illustrates the high value placed on education by underserved refugee communities and the obstacle that police harassment presents to integration. Fear of harassment was cited as a major reason why Afghan families opted to return to Afghanistan in 2016.[20]

[19] A Jirga is a traditional gathering of elders to make decisions by consensus based.

[20] Conversation with UNHCR staff.

TENSION WITH MUNICIPAL AUTHORITIES

Lack of legal status means refugee in slum areas typically lack housing security, even though settlements may have existed in the same location for decades. In recent years, there has been a crackdown by the Capital Development Authority (CDA). In February 2014, a court ordered municipal authorities to clear the slums in Islamabad. A month later a double suicide bomb attack in the district courts increased the government’s motivation to act; no evidence of a link was provided, but slum areas were perceived to be unregulated havens harboring terrorists. In April 2014, the I-10 settlement where the community had voted in favor of keeping the school open for their children was demolished by the CDA. The children and their families were given no alternative housing and were dispersed to different parts of the city.

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Slum demolition continued through 2015. However, during this time an unprecedented political movement gained foothold in the city. The All Pakistan Alliance for Katchi Abadis emerged as a platform for organized protest by inhabitants of informal settlements across Islamabad. Brought together by the efforts of the left-wing Awami Workers’ Party, this Alliance garnered enough attention to bring an official halt to demolition at the end of 2015. Currently, tensions with municipal authorities are continuing for slum-dwellers of different ethnicities.

BUREAUCRATIC OBSTACLES

Education in Pakistan is a right, not a privilege, and Afghan children should be able to access education without facing bureaucratic hurdles. This has not been their experience. Ali Khan[21] was determined to continue his education in spite of the challenges of urban poverty and disruption caused by migration:

In the morning, I would work as a laborer and go to school in the evening. My father was very poor. He could not afford my education…After passing Class 5, I wanted to study more and continue education in a government school. However, things were very bad then, and I faced many difficulties in gaining admission. When my father went to get me admission in a government school, they said we can’t give you admission without a No Objection Certificate (NOC). I was told to go to the Federal Directorate of Education (FDE) to get a NOC, then I would be able to get admission. In fact, they sent us to D block SAFRON Ministry and said we had to get an Afghan Citizen card and a letter from the school where you first got education. The school prepared all the relevant documents and (a teacher) also went to the FDE, Interior Ministry, SAFRON Ministry, and Police Foundation with me to get me a NOC and admission.

This experience was at a time when the government and UNHCR were encouraging registration for Afghan Citizen cards. To go through the steps of obtaining an additional NOC is time-consuming and can be a prohibitive factor for families for whom lost time equates to lost income. The right to education for all exists on paper, but there are significant bureaucratic hurdles for Afghan children trying to enter oversubscribed mainstream schools. [22]

[21] Pseudonym.

[22] In Islamabad, UNHCR researchers working on education mapping in 2017 were not able to gain access to public schools—even telephonically—without the approval of the Federal Directorate of Education. This approval was not received in spite of several follow-up attempts (UNHCR Pakistan, “Mapping of Education Facilities,” 12).

CITIES FOR CHILDREN

Even when refugee children from slum communities gain access to schools, barriers to learning remain. They lack support at home due to time, knowledge, or resource constraints on the part of parents. The chronic stress of urban poverty takes a toll on all family members, with children experiencing neglect and often emotional and physical abuse. These factors affect their performance as well as behavior at school. During a workshop of the NGO Cities for Children that brought together mental health professionals and teachers, the teachers discussed their troubles dealing with behavioral difficulties, especially without corporal punishment. Boys from Afghan and Pashtun communities often demonstrated aggressive or hyper-masculine behavior, and the only strategy the teachers saw for dealing with it was violence. There was a problem of school refusal too: children sometimes ran away from class, particularly if there were attempts to discipline them.

Cities are challenging places for children, and schools should represent an opportunity for integration and for building the resilience of street-connected children. The teacher can be an important attachment figure, supporting refugee students, and school-based programs involving socio-emotional learning can improve behavior and academic performance, while also promoting positive mental health.[23]

[23] INEE, 2016.

LOOKING AHEAD

LEGAL RECOGNITION

Recent efforts to register births and provide Afghan families with the chance to claim an identity have had some impact in Pakistan. Legal recognition of status entails recognition of human rights and of children’s right to education. However, for unregistered families to have the confidence to come forward, they need the reassurance that they can retain the choice to live in a country that many have come to call home. For the second generation, it is the only home that they have known.

EDUCATION AND INTEGRATION

Urban settlements in Islamabad are loosely organized according to ethnicity, as people from similar backgrounds tend to cluster together. Within the open-air schools, Afghan, Pakistani, Pashtun, and Punjabi children are sometimes divided along linguistic lines, with students speaking the same language preferring to sit together. Education can be a powerful force for integration. It provides the opportunity for host and refugee children to interact as peers and share the experience of learning and growing. Play-based interactions and learning within the school space can additionally aid integration by blurring the lines drawn by ethnicity and class.

A curriculum designed to support integration can promote the ideals of peace and tolerance, as well as an appreciation for diversity. It can challenge notions of male dominance and promote better gender equity. Teaching might be arranged such that students are not partitioned by linguistic group, to allow normalization and social cohesion to build. Access to secondary and tertiary education can further provide adolescents and young people with opportunities to contribute positively to their households and to participate in broader society.

A USEFUL EDUCATION

For Afghan children facing the challenges of urban poverty in Islamabad, unhindered access to quality education would provide the opportunity to overcome vulnerabilities and to build true durable solutions for their families. Skills that would be useful to focus on as part of education for both documented and undocumented Afghan children include the following:

• Language skills. Fluency in Urdu helps overcome barriers to local communication, and English is the language of social mobility. English skills are particularly useful if young people return to Afghanistan. Languages are offered in most schools but can be challenging for children to learn if parents are not fluent. Language barriers can affect their performance in all subjects.

• Vocational skills. Many children living in katchi abadis are pushed to choose between work and school at an early age, and time spent at school is seen as loss of income. The perceived and actual value of time spent at school would be higher if they were able to gain access to technical skills:

  “For us Afghan children, along with education it is important to learn skills, because we are from poor households. By using these skills, we can increase our income and improve our economic situation, e.g., through computer courses, driving, and electrician courses, etc. If Afghan families go back, then along with education it is important for them to have skills they can use and contribute to the prosperity of their country.” — Ali Khan

• Socioemotional skills. Beyond literacy and numeracy, children in urban poverty also need spaces where they can gain respite from daily stressors. There is a strong case for creating play-based programs that build socioemotional skills for children, as well as their resilience to cope with difficult circumstances.

  One example from Cities for Children is the “Happy Hoods” project, which equips local volunteers to build socioemotional competencies like self-awareness, self-management, social awareness, and relationship skills. The programs involve discussion and extracurricular activities, based on the premise that “happy memories build resilience” for vulnerable children. The pilot programs were conducted with a school and drop-in center for migrant children, with the aim to scale up to reach refugee populations. At the end of the pilot, staff reported improvements in confidence and interpersonal skills, with shy children coming forward and speaking up, and higher general motivation to attend school.

CONCLUSION

The integration of Afghan refugee children in Islamabad will continue to face obstacles, including police and municipal government harassment, financial barriers, insecure housing, and limited legal protections. However, educational efforts that improve language abilities, build vocational skills, support connections across populations, and build social skills may help improve wellbeing and integration.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I would like to acknowledge the students and team from the Pehli Kiran Schools, in particular Managing Trustee Sabira Qureshi and Operations Coordinator Ghazanfar Ali for support in the research; Wali Kandiwal for his comments; and Usama Khilji, Director of Bolo Bhi, for his feedback.

About the Author

Madeeha is currently spearheading the non-profit Cities for Children, which seeks to protect the “right to a childhood” for street-connected children—the right to read, play, and feel safe. Cities for Children partners with other organizations to provide services to children from refugee, internally displaced, and migrant communities on the margins of urban society. Previously she worked with open-air schools for mobile children, Save the Children, and the Malala Fund. She has written on issues of forced migration for leading newspapers and think tanks in Pakistan, as well as for international blogs. Madeeha completed her master’s degree as a Fulbright scholar at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, Tufts University and earned her undergraduate degree at the London School of Economics.

REFERENCES

1. Dryden-Peterson, S. (20110). “Refugee Children Aspiring Toward the Future: Linking Education and Livelihoods,” in Educating Children in Conflict Zones: Research, Policy and Practice for Systemic Change, edited by Sarah Dryden-Peterson and Karen Mundy, 85–100. New York: Teachers College Press.

2. INEE. (2016). “Background Paper on Psychosocial Support and Social and Emotional Learning for Children and Youth in Emergency Settings.” Available at: http://s3.amazonaws.com/inee-assets/resources/161114_PSS_SEL_Background_Paper_Final.pdf

3. Kirk, J. (2011). “Education and Fragile States,” in Educating Children in Conflict Zones: Research, Policy and Practice for Systemic Change, edited by Sarah Dryden-Peterson and Karen Mundy, 15–32. New York: Teachers College Press.

4. UNHCR Pakistan. (2017). “Mapping of Education Facilities and Refugee Enrolment in Main Refugee Hosting Areas and Refugee Villages in Pakistan.”

5. UNHCR Pakistan. (2018). “Fact Sheet.”

APPENDIX A: METHODS 

For this report, I relied on my personal and professional experiences while working for non-formal schools in slums around Islamabad, and while setting up Cities for Children, a non-profit to address the wellbeing of street-connected children. The report draws on personal, in-depth contact with approximately 250 refugee children at two non-formal schools from the Pehli Kiran School System (PKSS); a focus group discussion with 15 mothers from a slum community; and written responses of 4 pupils to a questionnaire. I would like to acknowledge the cooperation of the schools’ management team in facilitating the written responses.

In order to obtain a fuller picture of available services, I also conducted key informant interviews with the following people:

• A staff person formerly at the International Catholic Migration Commission (ICMC);

• Two representatives from UNHCR Pakistan;

• Two representatives from the International Rescue Committee.

To compare the experiences of non-camp versus camp refugees, I talked to an Afghan researcher who was educated in a refugee village. Information about practical challenges was obtained from informal conversations with staff from the Society for the Protection of the Rights of the Child (SPARC) as well as staff and teachers from the Pehli Kiran school system (PKSS). I gleaned insights about the host population from informal conversations with residents from Islamabad in group settings, as well as from social media responses to policies for Afghan refugees.

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APPENDIX B: REFUGEES IN PAKISTAN

The largest ethnic group of refugees in Pakistan is of Afghan origin. Historically, Pakistan shared a porous border with neighboring Afghanistan—the Durand line—where tribes could cross without passport or visa restrictions. Following the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in the 1970s, Pakistan experienced an influx of refugees fleeing violence and became host to one of the largest refugee populations in the world. Movement continued during the Taliban regime, and a second wave of forced movement occurred after the invasion of US-led coalition forces in Afghanistan from 2001–2005. At its peak, the number of registered Afghan refugees in Pakistan was estimated at 4 million. Non-Afghan refugees are from Somalia, Iran, and Iraq. See Table 1.

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Despite hosting one of the world’s largest refugee populations for over 40 years, Pakistan is not party to the 1951 Refugee Convention and its 1967 Protocol and has not adopted any national refugee legislation. Since 2003, there has been reliance on a tripartite agreement between UNHCR, Pakistan, and Afghanistan that formally establishes voluntary repatriation as the durable solution for Afghan refugees. The timeline for return has been periodically extended, as return has been fraught with challenges.[24]

Afghan refugees in southwest Asia have experienced the world’s most protracted displacement. The majority of Afghan refugees live in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province (58%); 2% live in Islamabad Capital Territory.[25] Out of the registered refugees, 32% live in designated “refugee villages,” which are located primarily along the borders with Afghanistan in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan. The remaining 68% have long been settled in rural, urban, and peri-urban areas.[26] A large proportion of the Afghan population was born and raised as a second generation in Pakistan.

Out of the registered refugees, 39% are school-aged children between five to eighteen years of age.[27] Within the refugee villages, only 30% of the total school-aged children were enrolled in school.[28] This number drops further for refugee families settled elsewhere.

REGISTRATION AND REPATRIATION

A UNHCR-funded repatriation program for refugees was initiated in 2002, but conditions in Afghanistan were not conducive for voluntary return. Since then, there was an effort to document refugees and issue PoR cards, which temporarily provided the legal right to stay. PoR cards originally set to expire at the end of 2015 have been extended several times since then. In 2015, there was a greater push towards return from the Pakistani government, with revised incentives from UNHCR. The numbers of repatriating families have fallen in 2018.

As of June 2018, there were 1.4 million registered refugees in Pakistan (see Table 2). Unregistered refugees are still estimated to be between 600,000 to 1 million.

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There was an additional drive for registration of undocumented families of Afghan origin in 2017 and for the issuing of Afghan Citizen cards. These help to protect cardholders from arbitrary arrest, detention, and deportation, and give the option of applying for visas to stay on as students or families. However, Afghan citizens are not considered “persons of interest” by UNHCR, as they are not categorized as seeking asylum but as having migrated for other reasons, e.g., livelihoods opportunities.[29]

In order to address the challenges that Pakistan was experiencing as a host country, from 2009 the government partnered with a Consortium of UN agencies to initiate the Refugee-Affected and Hosting Areas (RAHA) Programme. One goal of this program is to promote social cohesion and coexistence by addressing challenges such as access to livelihoods and education.

[24] Original tripartite agreement available here: https://www.refworld.org/docid/55e6a5324.html

[25] UNHCR Pakistan, “Mapping of Education Facilities.”

[26] Ibid.

[27] Ibid., 25.

[28] Ibid.

[29] From telephone conversation with UNHCR staff members Faisal Azam Khan and Uzma Irum, September 13, 2018.

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APPENDIX C: REFUGEES IN ISLAMABAD

As the seat of the government and bureaucracy, Islamabad is not associated with any other provinces but exists as a federal territory. According to the 2017 census, Islamabad Capital Territory (ICT) houses a population of just over 2 million. It is often associated with the older city of Rawalpindi as a “twin city,” and the Islamabad-Rawalpindi metropolitan area is the third largest in Pakistan, with a population of more than 4 million.

Islamabad also has some of the fastest growing slums in the country, as informal settlements have grown in the absence of affordable housing. These are populated by ethnically diverse communities including rural migrants from Punjab province, Pakistani Pashtuns, and Afghan Pashtuns.

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The post A Case Study of Refugees in Towns – Islamabad, Pakistan appeared first on Cities for Children.

Today was the International Day for Street Children. It passed, unmarked, barely ruffling the stillness of these days of quarantine. In this, the strangest time in living memory, it is hard to be stirred by anything beyond the heightened consciousness of ones own fragility.

The war has come home.

It has swept the world in a quiet wave, pushing over the foundations of the lives we took for granted. And while we wait in our fortresses surrounded by cloudy dread, it is of course difficult to spare space in our minds, our newsprint and our Twitter feeds for those who are invisible on a clear day.

But clarity matters. It’s important to know that those empty streets and stillness come at a price. Not all have the security of fortresses, and everyone needs to care. Like it or not, this is a war that we really are all in together.

Why care now?

Street-connected children are those who live on the streets, work on the streets or depend on the streets for survival in some way. So some have homes to return to, and some don’t. Many of the safe spaces they used to access, such as drop-in centres, are closed until further notice. 

Social media has come alive with some trends that are repeated, because they are important. Here’s why #SafeSpacesForStreetChildren matter too:

#PublicHealth

Without access to information and adequate medical care, many children, young people and adults living in urban poverty are at risk of contracting and spreading coronavirus without even knowing. Contrary to initial observations, children too are affected by it – especially if they have low immunity. The danger of this insidious disease is that it can be carried without exhibiting any symptoms – which, for congested slum communities, can have exponential, catastrophic consequences.

#StayHome

Everyone agrees that the “smart” thing to do right now is to stay home. But what of those for whom the street is home? Children who experience homelessness or live on the streets are at risk of police harassment and of being detained in overcrowded, unsanitary conditions. In places like Pakistan where prisons are already overflowing and that hazard is being recognised, the last thing we want is for street children to be criminalised.

#WashYourHands

The new rule is “at least” 20 seconds. But what about those who lack access to clean water and sanitation? 

#SocialDistancing

When ten people are crowded into a single room, with ten single rooms in close proximity, this is hardly an option. Furthermore, families in lockdown conditions are under extraordinary stress, especially when livelihoods are being affected. The risk of unreported domestic abuse rising is a terrifying thought.

What then?

There has been a rise in global generosity at this time, which is beautiful to see. Individuals and organisations are stepping up to provide monetary and in-kind support to families whose income has been disrupted and who will bear the brunt of this crisis. Government, too, has taken notice and there have been some historic efforts in terms of emergency support.

However, the wave seems to have swept away some of the principles that took a long time to build into good practice – for instance, looking at how vulnerabilities can differ according to gender and age. Perhaps the champions of those sensitive approaches are themselves under too much psychological and emotional strain to speak up, but they should be factored in so the impact of generosity is magnified.

It is important to see children, and for at least some of us to put them at the centre of what we are doing. Then we will be able to see their needs, and address them accordingly – in terms of disseminating life-saving information in ways that they can understand and practically apply; in terms of creating life-saving options for hygiene; and ensuring safe spaces for them to live.

Today was the first day of summer. Through the open window, the birds haven’t ceased their busy exchange; the blossoms are at their most dazzlingly proud. For so many, it has been a gentle war. But it is without end, unless we dare to care.

The post Those empty streets appeared first on Cities for Children.

By Madeeha Ansari, Founder

A COUPLE of years ago, I visited a drop-in centre for street children in Peshawar as part of a mapping exercise. The children there were generally ‘of the street’, i.e. they did not return to their families or homes. The programme manager explained how many of them would travel between Islamabad and Peshawar, and at the time, they were particularly excited to be part of the PTI dharna.

Such political engagement was not too surprising. In some ways, it resembled the participation of street-connected children in the Arab Spring. In Egypt, they were termed the ‘revolution’s smallest soldiers’, as they would show up at the front lines, braving the violence to feel like they were part of something bigger. The public movement — democratised by the streets — held the promise of food, camaraderie and a sense of belonging.

It was a moment to celebrate, then, when Prime Minister Imran Khan gave some of his youngest supporters the dignity of recognition in his inaugural address. “Street children are our children,” he said, extending the promise of an invitation to children who otherwise stand on the margins.

For those interested in human rights and development, it seemed like the time had finally come for the national conversation to shift to human security by addressing the vulnerabilities of the individual in order to achieve longer-term peace and prosperity, and sparked something like hope.

However, it was also a moment to pause. Advocacy agendas can take on new life in the hands of a powerful champion, which would not otherwise be possible in spite of the diligent efforts of child rights workers over decades. There is an opportunity in the sudden sparking of national interest, as well as a risk. ‘Street children’ cannot be a buzzword.

In order to ensure that things are done well, it’s important to understand the nature of the challenges. According to the Wilson Centre, Pakistan is urbanising at the fastest rate in South Asia. Already it appears that about half the urban population lives in katchi abadis, or informal slum settlements. These include Afghan refugee communities, those who have been internally displaced by disaster or conflict within the country over the past few years, as well as economic migrants coming in from rural areas. A most difficult aspect of working with communities that are undocumented and often seen as ‘mobile’ or ‘transient’, is that their existence in cities may be in conflict with the laws of municipal authorities.

‘Street children’ itself is an umbrella term, encompassing a wide range of young people who may or may not have links with these informal urban communities. In the child rights world, the term increasingly used is ‘street-connected’, meaning children who depend on the streets for survival — whether they live on the streets, work on the streets, have support networks on the streets, or have some combination of the three. Children exposed to the streets experience a range of vulnerabilities that are different from what they would experience in rural areas eg the risks of abuse, neglect and exploitation by criminal or militant groups. Economic pressures mean they must choose between work and school.

Pakistan is a signatory to the Convention on the Rights of the Child, and the underlying principles are non-discrimination and the best interests of the child. Non-discrimination means that no one gets left behind — even those who live in the sprawling settlements that exist as an inconvenient truth. The best-interest consideration means that solutions need to be tailored by listening to children whose stories and experience are not uniform.

If the plan is to have more and better protection facilities for street-connected children, that will be welcome. However, the task is far more complicated than setting up brick-and-mortar structures. While physical protection matters greatly, particularly for those who are vulnerable to both physical and sexual abuse on the streets, what happens inside those walls is of critical importance. The quality of services can really determine the trajectories of the young people who enter, and how they will interact with the world when they leave. It is also important to consider where the children will go from there, and whether their families are in a position to support their return.

The issue of street-connected children cannot be viewed in isolation; there are drivers and stressors that bring them where they are. The ‘urbanisation’ of poverty is a dilemma that much of the world is struggling with, and solutions require some bold and dynamic thinking. Perhaps the present government, with its reform-oriented agenda, can be the one to take it on.

Time will tell what the tangible outcome of the prime minister’s promise will be. For now, the first significant step has been taken: children who were invisible have finally been seen.

The post Promise for streetchildren appeared first on Cities for Children.

As part of our “Right to Play” strand of work, on 21st April 2018 we supported a special Sports Day event for over 400 children and parents from the urban slums of Islamabad.  These are communities served by our partner, the Pehli Kiran School System, a network of open-air, non-formal schools in settlements across the city. They cater to nearly 1800 refugee or migrant children who often have to choose between work and education, and face a range of risks on the streets.

It was a day filled with colour and joy, as each of the eight schools chose a different colour to represent themselves. Hajra Khan, captain of the national women’s football team, was present as Chief Guest and helped distribute prizes. She represented a positive female role model for the boys and girls who participated with equal enthusiasm. Competition was tough, but the red team – Pehli Kiran School No. 8 – took away the trophy for the overall tournament.

The Sports Day was not only an opportunity for the children to showcase their talents and to proudly represent their schools but was also a chance to develop qualities like discipline and sportsman’s spirit. In addition, for the schools, it was a way of increasing engagement with the communities: both mothers and fathers were invited to participate in the games, and to help with organising the distribution of refreshments as well as the “clean-up” zone.

One of the games for the mothers was “Getting Ready for School,” which involved a simulated race against time to get their children ready for the day. This worked towards one overall aim of the event, which was to increase motivation for communities to continue sending their children to school.

Looking around at the happy faces, music and festivity, one of the participating mothers couldn’t hold back a smile.

“My heart is bursting with happiness at this sight,” she said.

We believe that “happy memories build resilience” for young people who otherwise face hardships that force them to make adult decisions far too early. Ultimately, the Sports Day was one in which community volunteers, students, teachers and parents were all brought together for a rare and memorable shared experience.

NB: We would like to particularly acknowledge the support of volunteers from Right to Play Pakistan, who gave generously of their time and created the video above.

The post Colour and Joy – PKSS Annual Sports Day 2018 appeared first on Cities for Children.