The Invisible Army

As the world marked the International Day for Street Children last week, children in street situations served as a reminder of how one of the most marginalized groups in the world continues to be deprived of its basic rights, failed by governments, institutions and societies.

“No one treats us like human beings. They are always trying to punch and kick us,” says 11-year-old Soheil who ended up on Tehran's streets when he was eight to escape beatings of his mother. His friend, 13-year-old Jafar, loads bananas onto trucks in a fruit market. On a good day he makes about $2 for an entire day’s hard work. “One night when I was sleeping at the railway station, a person approached me. He said come with me, I said no I can’t go with you because I don’t know you. He hit me on my face.”

If you drive in Tehran, you probably get stuck in traffic too many times you won't miss the experience of having a conversation with street children.
"Buy your horoscope of the day. It's real, I swear." Hafiza, an Afghan girl living in Tehran says through the open window of my car.
"Take this 2 bucks and eat something." I tell her.
"Take all my horoscope packs, I can't go home not selling all of these." She sounds really honest. But I know somewhere deep down that her boss -downtown street children organizer- is waiting to take all her money so I just give her my bag of crisps and drive pass her.
This is the best you can see in a crowded capital like Tehran.
In Moscow and London, the story is more or less the same or even worse in some cases. I can't forget bumping into a street girl in a freezing night in Moscow's underground. The girl was roughly 16 years old and I gave her some spare cash I had with me. She begged me to buy her a specific brand of pills from the drugstore and when I asked why, she replied with a cracked voice. "I am a street worker and have just had a miscarriage, I need to stop the bleeding but the guy in the drugstore wouldn't sell me.

More stories of personal  experience with street children and labor children are better left unsaid as they need a separate post. On the International Day for Street Children, 12 April, we need to challenge these misconceptions. The factors that drive children to the streets are similar. Once on the streets, these children adopt many tactics necessary to survive such as begging, loitering and rough sleeping. Sadly, in many countries heavy-handed treatment by the authorities – such as violence and roundups – is all too common.

Being a street child is not a crime. Today we want people to stand up for the rights of street children all over the world.

By Elaheh Zohrevandi

Seattle's Street Kid

You may pass the streets of Seattle thinking everything is glamorous and lovely.
The weather is cool, cloudy and rainy most of the time and people are so well-dressed and the shops are so many that you think nothing can crash this image. Take a look at Denny Street in downtown and everything falls down.

America has this perfect look when you see it on TV or on the big screen. It has
this perfect reputation when it comes to democracy. It look really strong when
it comes to human rights but what about Street Children, the girls and boys who
live on the streets, drink your 7UP and ask for you secondhand gum on your way
to the Argosy Cruise downtown?
America was a cool place last week but now it's just a "washed up"!

I am a regular traveller and I barely overlook the very small things. I have seen people who literally live on the streets of India and Iran and I happen to work for an organization that supports labor/street children. It's not an exaggeration to say that living on the streets of Seattle is as miserable as Tehran and Mumbai. It's even easier to be on the streets of Tehran and still be treated like a human being rather than being an American citizen and still invisible to the eyes of the high-class shopaholics of Seattle.

According to TIME Magazine, 1 in 50 children in America is homeless but what about the children who are born on the streets and grow up on the streets and raise their own kids on the streets? These kids don't have an ID so they don't count. But when you are lost in downtown of Seattle and the only living things around are the street ids you have to count them in and ask for directions. You have to see them, listen to them and shake hands their shaky hands.

It's dangerous, not being one of them and still hover around acting like a tourist. You have to feel like a second-hand gum, an opened can of soda to be close to how Street children of Seattle feel.


By Elaheh Zohrevandi

Put Your Blame On Me

I regularly teach at an NGO called Kousha Children Organization in Baharestan located in a very poor area of Tehran and I can never close my eyes on the things I see on the way. I see beggars, addicts and even the children who live on the street.

Street children are homeless children who live on the street in particular, those that are not taken care of by parents or other adults. Street children live in abandoned buildings, containers, automobiles, parks, or on the street itself. Tehran the largest city of IRAN has one of the highest rates of street children in the country.

There are significant numbers of children, Afghan and Iranian, working as street vendors in Tehran and other cities and not attending school because their parents are not able to pay the expenses. Recently the government representatives told the UN Committee on the Rights of the Children that there were less than 60 thousand street children in the country.

Working children, children living on the streets and children without complete personal documents, particularly refugee children with bi-national parents, have reduced access to schools. Recently Iranian parliament passed a law which prohibits undocumented children attending the schools or has to pay high tuition for them and it is concerned that many of these immigrants do not have steady income to pay for their children to go to schools. It is also concerned that refugee children are currently only being enrolled in schools if their parents have registered with the authorities as mentioned, and that the enrolment of refugee children comes from the pocket of these parents. In many places managed by NGOs such as Kousha Organization, based in downtown of Tehran, volunteers and teachers help immigrant kids to make them go to school even if they don't get any diploma from the government.

Tehran has 35,000 to 50,000 children forced by adults mostly parents or closed relative to live and beg on the street or to work as slave labourers in sweat shops. The death rate among street children is high. The cause of their deaths varies from malnutrition to diseases brought on by unsanitary conditions and the government is helpless fighting these criminal activities. Also the adults who exploit the children often train them for criminal activities, including selling illegal drugs and alcohol or providing them to others for sexual activities.

The majority of these children had run away from their homes to escape social pressures (because the parents lost jobs, addicted to drugs or involved in illegal activities).

Fortunately there are many Non-Governmental Organizations in Iran and they never hesitate to support any street child but unfortunately the system of their lives forces these children to go back to the streets and do everything except normal things that kids their age do. The child inside these kids is dead and who's to blame?