Neglecting Children, the biggest crisis

​Some extracts from the old CCALP website

Child neglect is the biggest crisis facing the world. It is even worse than corruption. Neglected children grow to become armed robbers or street children. Neglected children end up not going to school or dropping out early leading to future unskilled or semi-skilled labour force. They therefore, are potentially trapped in poverty circles since they are likely to attract very low pay wages that hardly cater for their individual basic needs as well as for their immediate families. ..
Children are the sacrificial lambs when families breakdown. Because they have no political right to be heard and no vote, they are usually marginalized
More than 150 million children between the ages of five and 14 years work for a living in developing countries, with half of the number working full time. About 1.8 million children are also exploited in prostitution and pornography and 1.2 million others become victims of trafficking annually
It’s the work of CCALP to serve as an advocate for children to release them from their spiritual, economic, social and physical poverty and to enable them to become responsible adults…
I always thought that beggars were those who were homeless – but these are not beggars. They are working children. These children work on the streets everyday and their number is increasing. I never saw these many beggars when I was growing up. Maybe it is the population. But now the street kids are everywhere, outside restaurants, outside malls and at traffic signals. Either begging or collecting scarps for selling Many children are selling scraps, but in my heart I feel angry with the parents for allowing this. At times I have seen that the parents are fit and fine and are simply using their kids…
Target group

• Children living with HIV/AIDS
• Street children
• Children living in excessive poverty
• Orphans and vulnerable children
• Children selling scraps (children working on streets)
• Working children (house girls, house boys, children working in stone quarries)

Every child has the right to education without discrimination. In Uganda, huge numbers of children are denied this right by their parents or guardian, yet the government of Uganda provides free education to every primary child…
Some reasons why children work on streets
The street children are not always homeless, but simply poor like the majority of other children. They explain that [their] parents are unemployed. They send their kids to beg, collect and sell scraps because they know that children earn more money as people do not like to give to adults. Also, people look more kindly on child street hawkers, and as a result the kids earn more money.
What the rural poor who come in droves into the city need is proper training.
In Uganda children are seen as insurance policies. Hence the rush to get married early and have children so that they can be made to work and support the family. The parents who force the children to work have no shame because they are uneducated and have themselves done that for 12-15 years. So they think it is normal.