NEW BOOK EDITED BY MORSOLIN: On children’s rights debt – Reconsidering the debates about working and street children in a globalized world

On children’s rights debt

Reconsidering the debates about working and street children in a globalized world

Editor: Cristiano Morsolin 

Ed. Mediafactory (Italy), pag. 308, 2014

ISBN: 9788898849017

 Raffaele K. Salinari – President of the Terre des Hommes TDH International Federation: All round the world, in all countries, from the low income ones to the highly performing BRICS, but even in the USA and in Europe, the working children are an increasing reality. After decades and decades of efforts to eradicate the worst form of child labor, after hundreds UN plans, International and national Ngos effort, grass roots organizations projects, engagements from Governments and private donors, the phenomena seems to be still well established in the center of our model of development.

So what’s really news in this study, which lessons or best practices we can learn from the different witnesses, points of view, evidences and facts and figures that Cristiano Morsolin provide us? For sure that if we want to change the reality of children involved in labor, and or living in the streets, we must listen to them first. This change of paradigm, this child point of view based approach, this bottom up prospective is, in the end, what the different voices of children directly involved in their own liberation from child labor are asking us.

Vernor Muñoz, UN Special Rapporteur on the right to education (2004-2010): I support the open letter promoted by Cristiano Morsolin. I believe that the situation of children in the street shows one of the most serious impacts of exclusion and discrimination in our societies. It is necessary to deepen the analysis of the causes and the solutions that lead to better government interventions, to better public policies based on culturally relevant and socially effective. For this purpose, it is required that the actions taken by the agencies and United Nations bodies, expand their scope of action, so that they can strengthen research and intercultural and intersectoral action.

Adolfo Perez Esquivel – Nobel Peace Prize:  «I have thoroughly read the open letter prepared in December 2011 by 74 experts from academia and worldwide civil society, letter promoted by Cristiano Morsolin.

In my opinion the suggestions done there by panelists regarding the methods to be used in this area are highly successful: they will certainly and positively contribute to the initiative undertaken by the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights OHCHR.  I think vital to consider this opportunity of actual participation of children and youth in the design and implementation of policies for children and, above all,  to listen to their personal experiences.
Finally any action that may be brought forward on behalf of the quality of life for children living and working in the street should be highly considered so that, in this way,  violations of their rights can immediately cease «.

Cristiano Morsolin declared the objectives of this book: “The composition of an adequate reference base would be possible by means of a network of experts working together. They could come, for example, from universities, from specialist civil associations and from United  Nations Agencies.  In the nineties this dialogue was carried on by the International Working Group for Child Labour (IWGCL) with the coordination of Nandana Reddy and Maria Cristina Salazar.  We must go ahead in this direction”.

 Contents

PREFACE – Raffaele Salinari (President Terre des Hommes Int. Federation)                

Introduction                                                                                

Cristiano Morsolin                                                                        

 PART 1: REVIEW OF DIFFERENT DEBATES

Childrens’s work in Southern Africa                                           

Michael Bourdillon  (Emeritus professor of Zimbawe University                                                            

The International Working Group on Child Labour IWGCL and the International Movement of Working Children                       

Nandana Reddy (Concened for Working Children CWC Director, India – Nobel Peace Prize candidate in 2012)                                                                             

Researching new international alliances                                       

Cristiano Morsolin                                                                     

 PART 2: POINTS OF VIEW FROM LATIN AMERICA

Violence, discrimination and social cleasing against street population in Mexico                                                                  

Juan Martin Perez Garcia  (Director NGO network REDIM-Mexico)                                                       

Political formation for children: the partnership between social movements and the public University in Brazil

Veronica Muller (professor of Maringua University and member of Movimento Nacional Meninos/as de Rua MNMMR Brezil)                                                                         

 PART 3: POINTS OF VIEW AROUND THE WORLD

Child participation and civil society in Africa                           

Fabrizio Terenzio  (Director NGO ENDA- Senegal, most bigger NGO in Africa)

Working children in India today                                                

Nandana Reddy                                                                           

NGO cooperation and the fight against child exploitation         

Raffaele Salinari                                                                         

APPENDIX

Open letter to United Nations signed by 74 experts

Adolfo Perez Esquivel – Nobel Peace Prize message

The contributors

PHOTO: Morsolin met Madame Oviedo Sara, Vice President of the Committee on the Rights of the Child of the United Nations, in Palais de Nations – Geneve.