14137: (Chamberlain) Street Children (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: Greg Chamberlain <GregChamberlain@compuserve.com>

   By IAN JAMES

   LES CAYES, Haiti, Dec 15 (AP) -- On the edge of town, dozens of boys
congregate below a statue of Jesus. It's their home as they scratch out
lives on the town's littered streets noisy with trucks and motorcycles.
   Forced from their homes by poverty and broken families, the children
load and sweep buses for meager tips. They don't attend school, their
clothes are ragged, and fellow citizens largely regard them as a nuisance.
   "I don't know my age," says a barefooted Jean-Claude George, who has the
body of a 10-year-old but the gaze of a man who has known years of
suffering. "I've been on the street a long time."
   Like others among the children who sleep on buses or near the white
statue, Jean-Claude fled an abusive home in the countryside for this town
on Haiti's southern coast, 100 miles from the capital of Port-au-Prince.
   He earns small change on the buses to pay for food and shoes, but the
sandals often disappear in the company he keeps.
   "The other kids keep an eye on me all night," he says. "Once I go to
sleep, they steal them."
   Street children struggle in cities around the globe, from Sao Paolo to
Bombay. But in this Caribbean nation, the Western Hemisphere's poorest, the
problem of homelessness among children is especially severe.
   Some experts say the situation has worsened in recent years amid Haiti's
political turmoil. Thousands of children wander the cities, looking for odd
jobs, begging or stealing to eat.
   President Jean-Bertrand Aristide, a former Roman Catholic priest, has
tried to make children's issues a cornerstone of his presidency, but
government efforts have failed to bring the children off the streets.
   In 1986, before he was president, Aristide founded the Family Is Life
orphanage.
   His political involvement eventually made it a target for opponents. In
1991, the same year he was ousted in a coup, five children died in a
suspicious fire at the facility. In 1992, some children were wounded when
Aristide opponents stormed the building and began shooting.
   The orphanage eventually closed in 1999 amid protests by orphans who
said promises of jobs weren't kept.
   Dominique Esperant, the former regional head of the social affairs
ministry in Les Cayes, hopes to put street children back on the political
agenda.
   "Everyone seems to think the best way to deal with this is to kick these
kids out of town," Esperant says. "I believe they can become good citizens
like anyone else if someone is there to help them out."
   Frustrated by a lack of government funds, Esperant is trying to raise
money independently to start a center to house street children.
   He meets with the children below the statue of Jesus, drawing a crowd as
he writes their names on a list. At last count, the list had 57 names.
   "There is no work back home," says Lesene Souverain, 17, who says he
left home when he was 9 because his parents couldn't pay for school. "At
least on the streets, there are people who can help me."
   In the nearby hills, deforested land is turning into desert. Curls of
smoke rise as farmers use remaining trees to make charcoal for cooking.
Esperant says most of Les Cayes' street children come from this wasteland.
   "They don't have any arable land to plant anymore," he says. "So they
came to the city to look for life, to look for a way to survive."
   Child labor is common even for those who stay at home. Boys in Les Cayes
sell crackers and muffins from trays on their heads. In Port-au-Prince,
some young girls work as prostitutes to augment family earnings.
   Sometimes, poor parents give away children to be servants for better-off
families. It's widely accepted in Haiti to keep a child servant, or
"restavek" -- a Creole term that means "staying with."
   The children often are mistreated, and human rights groups criticize the
practice as child slavery. Abuse drives many restaveks to the streets.
   In Les Cayes, many people express little pity for the children, calling
them "grapiyay," or hustlers.
   Jean-Claude's young face, like those of others, bears scars. He says he
won't return to the home where his father beat him.
   "I'd rather stay with the guys," he says. "They're practically my
family."