Stories about children

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The following stories are not made up, they have all happened in real life, and similar situations take place every day. Some of the stories are very rough, but it is nonetheless the truth.

INDIA:

Ballu’s story

Twelve-year-old Ballu work 11 hours every day, in the Gurukul quarry, 15 miles outside of New Delhi, India. Ballu’s parents, who are poor workers in Chatarpur had to take him out of school, so he could earn a bit of money for food. Ballu makes less than a dollar a day.
- I really wanted to be an engineer, but now I’m to old to start studying, and I’ll have to work in the quarry for the rest of my life

Fatil and Eril’s story

"Life in Haiti is good when you are rich, but bad when you are poor. To be poor in Haiti is like being born into slavery and to know that you will never be free."

That is Fatil’s bitter experience. He has now lived in the streets of Port-au-Prince for four years. Port-au-Prince is the capital of Haiti and a great part of its 2 million inhabitants live in the streets. Fatil came to Port-au-Prince with his brother Eril to find a job. They quickly discovered that it was almost impossible to find work, so they accepted an offer from a "friend" of getting a job in the neighbor country, the Dominican Republic. When they got to the border they discovered that they weren’t getting a job in the capital, as they had been promised – they had been sold to a sugar plantation for 15 dollars, if they refused to work they would be put in prison.

HAITI:

- At first we didn’t dare to escape. We were told that if we tried to go back to Haiti, we would be beaten, arrested and put in jail. The work was very hard. The leaves of the sugar canes cut like razorblades.

After three months of work in the plantation the boys succeeded in fleeing back to Haiti. Now they live by begging and various small jobs. Sometimes they wash cars, sometimes the wash car or polish shoes or sell papers and candy. None of them wants to go back to their parents. One of them explains why: - my mother worked hard all day, but she still didn’t make enough money to give us enough food. My father, well he just beat us.

PHILIPPINES:

Photographer: Elisabeth Borch

Maria’s story

Maria is standing in the piles of sickening, stinking garbage. She is small and fragile. Much smaller and more fragile than most 12-year-olds - even in this poor part of the world. A garbage truck empties dumps another pile of garbage. The stench of rotten garbage spreads through the air.

Along with a small crowd of other children and a few adults, Maria is now busy grabbing the "best" garbage. She collects all the plastic bags that she can find. She puts them in the basket that she pulls behind her. She can get a peso for a pound of plastic bags, but then she also has to wash them first. If she is lucky and works hard, Maria can earn 10-15 pesos a day, this is about the same as one dollar.

Maria goes to school, but she hasn’t been there for a long time. In the daytime she collects plastic bags, and at night she sells them at Ologapo’s vegetable market. Her small income is very important for the family to survive.

Maria has four siblings. Her father once had a job at the naval base, but that is a long time ago. He got tuberculosis and was fired. Her mother walks from one house to another, offering to launder for people, but she is also sick and she can rarely get a job.

Their house is made of cardboard, sheet metal, and scrap wood. The family pays 50 pesos a month for the small room with no furniture and just a little fireplace in a corner of the room. Maria dreams of becoming a maid for a wealthy family, but there is a long way from dream to reality when you live in a garbage dump in Olongapo

Olongapo: A town in the Philippines where most of the population live by selling their body or doing filthy work like Maria.

Nharala’s story

Nharala’s terrible story started early in the morning in his village in the Gaza-province in Mozambique. A group of Renamo soldiers captured him and forced him to set fire to his parents’ hut, while the whole family was asleep.

When Nharala’s parents parent and siblings ran out of the cabin, the soldiers caught them and cut of their heads with big knives. Then they wrapped the head in the national flag and said to the boy: "This is the support that Frelimo gives you!"

Later Nharala was forced to participate in similar acts of violence and terror, until he was taken away from the governmental army and brought to the Lhanguene Centro in Maputo. At the center that is supported by UNICEF, the personnel tries to help the children overcome their psychological problems after the terrible experiences.

SOUTH AFRICA:

BANGKOK:

Poo’s Story

Ten-year-old Poo is sitting in the "waiting room" in Madame Suzy’s brothel in Bangkok. The girls are all heavily made up, with bright red lips. A man in the late forties studies the girls closely. He asks Poo to stand up and turn around. He likes what he sees and ask about the price for a night.

- 40 dollars, because she is young and fresh Madame Suzy answers.

Poo didn’t choose to work at the brothel herself. Forced by extreme poverty her father has sold her for 400 dollars, now she is working to pay back those money.

? - Assignment

Find the places where you think the convention on the rights of the child is being violated. Explain the violations.