ࡱ> _a^q` aBbjbjqPqP .f::a:BBBBd$fWYYYYYY$>h!v}}ZWW Q=%B^3$0"G.""d:8}}u $    Speech Anthony Simpson, Lisbon Conference 06./07.10.2008 Ladies and Gentlemen, May I cordially welcome you to the EFSC`s 2008 European Forum on Street Children which deals this year with the issue of Street children as a challenge to social policies and the renewed Lisbon Strategy: The role of the civil society as a catalyst for the social inclusion process for children at high risk and street children. I would like to welcome in particular the former President of the Portuguese Republic, General Antnio Ramalho Eanes. Thank you for honouring our conference with your presence. Furthermore I would like to particularly welcome the Portuguese Minster for Labour and Social Solidarity, Mr. Jos Antnio Vieira da Silva whose presence shows the high importance which the Protuguese government is according both to the issues of street children and the civil society. I also give my most cordial regards to Mrs. Maria Manuela Ramalho Eanes, the President of our member organisation Instituto de Apoio Criana whose strong commitment to our cause made this important conference possible. Last but not least I welcome Mr. Jan Jarab, Member of the Cabinet of Mr. Vladimir Spidla, Commissioner for Employment, Social Affairs and Equal Opportunities. Your presence here shows your appreciation for the European work done by EFSC and IAC in favour of the group of the most strongly marginalized children in Europe: the children in the street. I also cordially welcome the great number of participants representing Child protection NGOs and welfare associations, local governments, child and youth authorities, EU institutions, research institutes and in particular all those coming from EFSC member organisations. Thanks to all of you for being with us during these two days in order to lead a critical, innovative and fruitful debate on the future role of the civil society with particular regard to the improvement of the living situation of street children in Europe. As the previous speakers have done, I have to make some welcoming words to all of you; I have certainly not the intention to present a thorough and detailed analysis of the situation. But let me just remind you of some key aspects of the topics which we will be dealing with. Street children are a growing issue, not only in the mostly concerned new Member States in Central and Eastern Europe (especially in Romania, or in the Mediterranean Member States following the strong migration flows from outside Europe) but throughout European countries. Street children are particularly apparent in certain European metropolis. Even though there is a lack of concrete recent data and facts on street children, our member organisations and other NGOs working in the field estimate that there are at least 150.000-250.000 street children, most of whom are living in the new Central and Eastern European Member States of the EU. Following a recent Unicef report, approximately 1.7 million Roma children are not even administratively registered in Central and Eastern Europe. This applies for a large part of street children too and is a reflection of social exclusion as well as one of the root causes for its perpetuation from generation to generation. Specific and targeted measures should be defined and implemented in order to improve the situation of street children, as it is clear that normal social intervention strategies are not sufficient or do not reach them. Most of these children live in the shadows and are strongly traumatised and socially excluded. They receive no formal education or health care and they are particularly vulnerable to becoming the victims of human trafficking, prostitution, drug addiction and crime. Given the increased number of street children (also of Roma origin) who are migrating from Romania and some neighbouring countries in particular, to the metropolis of Western European countries, most of the larger urban areas in the older Southern and Western Member States are faced with a growing number of street children (in particular Italy, France and Spain). The last decade has also witnessed a growing number of illegal migrants and unaccompanied minors arriving on the shores of EU Member States in the Mediterranean area, in particular to Spain and Italy. Many of these migrants are unaccompanied minors who resort to living on the streets. EFSC`s Romanian member organisation FRCCF and Terre des Hommes conducted some time ago several pieces of research on Romanian children found alone on the streets of Rome by the Italian authorities. Their research shows that more and more Romanian minors migrate alone to Italy (but also to France and Spain) dreaming of and being promised a better life. Unfortunately, they end up homeless, begging, shoplifting and prostituting themselves. Some of them become victims of child trafficking networks and may even disappear for good. Thus, what used to be a national level problem has become a European issue. Given this extremely alarming evolution, only a holistic European wide approach with the close co-operation of the EU with the Member States and European networks of NGOs can contribute to solving the problem in a sustainable manner. Given this situation we consider it very encouraging that the resolution of the European Parliaments Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home affairs on the EU Communication "Towards a strategy on the rights of the child dated 16.01.08 (2007/2093(INI)) stresses in two particular paragraphs the situation of street children. It" Takes the view that the EU should set itself the objective of ensuring that there are no homeless children or street children in the EU; calls for appropriate and targeted measures to be taken to assist homeless children and street children, since most of them are badly traumatised and socially excluded, do not receive formal education or health care, are particularly vulnerable to becoming the victims of human trafficking (including prostitution, organ trafficking and illegal adoption), drug addiction and crime or are often forced to beg"(paragraph 106). Furthermore, it Asks the Commission and the Member States to recognise the thousands of street children and children forced to beg as a serious social and human rights issue which infringes the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, and also calls on the Member States to introduce sanctions against those responsible for the degradation of children forced to beg " (paragraph 107). EFSC is particularly encouraged by the speech given by DeputySecretary-General of the Council of Europe Ms de Boer-Buquicchio on the occasion of the Spring Session of the Council of Europe's Congress of Local and Regional Authorities, held in Strasbourg on 27.03.2007, in which she pointed out that street children are an escalating phenomenon on the global and European level.The UN estimates the number of street children worldwide to be 150 million. It was stressed that "Poverty, family disintegration due to health or death, neglect, abuse or abandonment, and social unrest are all common triggers for a child's life on the streets" and that street children are exposed to the worst forms of violations of their human rights. They may be killed, exploited, abused or tortured, and yet their suffering remains invisible.The Council of Europe willhopefully soon enact a newlegal instrument for the protection of children from sexual exploitation and abuse. EFSC has since 2007 participatory status with the council of Europe. The cooperation with this organisation has led to prioritising the issue of street children in the framework of the CoEs programme Building a Europe for and with children. In this context we note with great satisfaction that the Council of Europe Congress of Local and Regional Authorities has approved during the spring session of the 27-29 May resolution 271(2008) and recommendation 253 (2008) on the social reintegration of children living and/or working in the streets. These texts were based on a study conducted by EFSC on European good practices regarding successful initiatives carried out by municipalities in Europe and aimed at the social reintegration of street children, based on a collection of case studies in four EFSC member organisations in the UK, Romania, France and Italy. An additional case study has been developed on Ukraine. We also welcome that the European Commission and the Member States have made the fight against child poverty a priority under the Open Method of Coordination on Social Protection and Social Inclusion (OMC), which forms a framework for mutual learning between the Member States based on a series of common objectives and indicators, and the adoption of national strategies to promote access to and ensure the quality of social protection systems. EFSC hopes that street children will in future finally also be mentioned in an adequate way in the National Action Plans on Social Inclusion (NAPs) which the Member States deliver to the EU; this has until now not been the case. EFSCs review of the recent NAPs just published by Member States on 30th of October some of which are still lacking - is ongoing and an assessment of the extent to which street children have been prioritised in this round of the NAPs will be brought to your attention soon. It is clear that one of the main reasons for this is that there is very limited systematic governmental consultation with the relevant NGOs (particularly in the new Member States) during the development phase of the National Action Plans compiled by the governments for the European Commission. The list of recommendations made towards the Member State governments are clearly not taken into serious consideration and EFSC Member organisations complain about the lack of consultation regarding the design of the NAPs and the social inclusion policy in general. Fortunately, the EU programme PROGRESS with its cross-cutting approach and the focus on achieving outcomes marks an important new step in the support of NGOs fighting against social exclusion and poverty. It offers a unique possibility to fight against the exclusion of at-risk children through its general objective: to boost the capacity of key EU networks whose activities are linked to implementation of the objectives of this programme. We are very grateful to the European Commission for having signed with EFSC a three-year framework-partnership-agreement within PROGRESS for the period from 2008 to 2010. This offers a unique opportunity for the EFSC network to play an active role together with its member organisations in promoting the inclusion of the strongly excluded group of street children and thus to promote the participation of civil society by a number of means one of them is this conference. In conclusion, we are facing a situation in which the horrible phenomenon of street children is increasing and gaining more and more a pan-European dimension. In the same time the above quoted institutional approaches of the EU showing a growing sensibility for the issue and an increasing political will to tackle the problem jointly with the NGOs and the member states can only succeed if it is possible to implement them in the regional and local framework. Here we are facing as always in social inclusion matters the challenge to translate all these political designs and declarations into reality particularly within national and local contexts. Facilitating this is one of the core tasks of EFSC as a platform between the EU and its NGOs. But realizing in particular the concrete support work for these most vulnerable children necessitates another element: the contribution of the civil society. I don`t want to pre-empt the conclusions of the high level experts at this conference. But let me just indicate some main elements of the civil society`s role in this context. From all our collective experiences in particular of our NGO`s we can say that the active involvement of civil society and other relevant parties in terms of volunteers, either as experts or as practitioners, is an inalienable element of any successful inclusion strategy for street children. This means in particular the contribution of volunteers without whom the valuable work of NGOs giving support to street children could hardly be carried out. It also includes all other areas of the work done by NGOs committed to the improvement of the living conditions for disadvantaged children such as awareness rising, administrative support and the provision of expertise in all relevant fields. But it has also a much deeper value for the European societies: As a recent position paper of the European Volunteer Center states, Volunteering is translating European values into practice: While volunteering differs in EU member states concerning traditions, activities and age groups involved and legal standards in place, the values that underlie the engagement of these volunteers are common: They live solidarity striving for a more inclusive society and greater social cohesion and they directly respond to social problems they care about. Volunteers are, thus, the human faces putting in practice the values that the European Union has been founded upon. and Volunteering enhances social cohesion: Volunteering is often referred as the social glue that holds together different groups of people in society younger people and older people, people of different faiths, ethnic groups, religious groups or groups with different social background into a cohesive whole. Volunteers get involved in service provision for disabled people, for the ill, for homeless people (and especially for most disadvantaged children like street children) and volunteering can be a way of empowerment for these target groups if they volunteer themselves. Volunteering is also a means to escape isolation, especially important for those cut off from social networks in the workplace or their families. And volunteering in the means by which citizens are aware of social problems and the situation of their fellow citizens. Nothing more could be added to these definitions which exhaustively describe the important role of volunteering except to say that there is no other group in the world that is more in need of these resources of civil society than street children. On the EU level a European framework to ensure favourable working conditions for volunteers and thus the active involvement of civil society in the inclusion process for high-risk children would certainly be an important step. Let us discuss during these two days how to put this into reality as well as methods, strategies and concrete examples on how to shape a future framework for a most efficient contribution of the civil society to our common mission: Save children from the streets of Europe. I wish the conference much success! 3=?@WXY& ռՑ|j|U;#/h4Th#Pe56B*OJQJ^JmH phsH 2h4Th#Pe56B*OJQJ]^JmH phsH )h4Th1*B*OJQJ^JmH phsH #h4TB*OJQJ^JmH phsH )h4Th#PeB*OJQJ^JmH phsH )h4ThqB*OJQJ^JmH phsH +h4TB*CJOJQJ^JaJmH phsH 1h4Th4TB*CJOJQJ^JaJmH phsH 1h4Th#PeB*CJOJQJ^JaJmH phsH !h4Th#PeB*OJQJ^Jph >?@VWX $^`a$gdq$a$gdq$  <*$^<a$gdq$  <*$^<`a$gdq$  <*$^<a$gd#Pe$a$gd4TaB < ?    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