Street Action - Committed to street children through action and partnership

As the world celebrates the achievements of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child on its 20th anniversary Street Action along with the Consortium for Street Children, a network of 50 organisations operating in over 120 countries, are drawing attention to the estimated 100 million street children whose rights are often ignored and violated.

Read the press release from the Consortium for Street Children and its members. Follow the link at the end of this story to download the press release as a PDF.

Our partner in Umthombo Street Children http://umthombo.org in Durban, South Africa has released this story. The experience for many street children in Durban is one of seeing their rights constantly violated by those who are supposed to protect them:

‘Themba, a street child in South Africa, reports having been chased by the police into a road, hitting a car and breaking his leg. Themba’s experience is just one of many. For example in the lead up to the FIFA World Cup in South Africa 2010 the municipal police are rounding up street children almost daily, forcefully removing them by forcing them into trucks using teargas, striking them with batons and whips, and then dumping them outside the city limits. The street children are told that they are breaking the municipal bylaw prohibiting ‘loitering’, a so-called ‘status offence’. Their belongings are confiscated, burned or dumped in refuse bags’.

Make Street Children part of it and we urge governments around the world to ensure that all children's rights are protected.

For more information on the Convention on the Rights of the Child click here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Convention_on_the_Rights_of_the_Child

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