WRITTEN QUESTION E-0781/98 by Glenys Kinnock (PSE) to the Commission (18 March 1998)

Subject: Street children in Guatemala

Could the Commission please provide a brief evaluation of its programme of assistance for street children in Guatemala, which has been in operation since January 1996?

Does it consider that any further measures should be taken to deal with this serious problem?

Will it renew the current programme once it expires at the end of this year?

What representations has the European Commission made to the Government of Guatemala to ensure that reported abuse of street children in Guatemala by the police are put to an end?

Answer given by Mr Marín on behalf of the Commission (23 April 1998)

The Commission thanks the Honourable Member for her interest in the problem of street children in Guatemala.

The ECU 2.5 million programme to help street children, adopted in 1994, is one of a number of schemes for children and young people conducted by the Community since 1992. There are three main components to the programme, which has been operational since January 1996.

Direct aid. The project is intended to support non-governmental organisations (NGOs) which work with the street children, providing humanitarian aid and promoting measures to protect the children and reintegrate them into society. The organisations concerned are Casa Alianza (legal support), Sólo para mujeres (Consciousness-raising and training for adolescent women) and CEDIC (Consciousness-raising and training for adolescent men.

Institutional capacity building. Measures to strengthen the judicial bodies responsible for protecting children and young people, carried out in conjunction with measures to restructure public institutions and restore the rule of law, as part of the peace process.

Prevention. Promotion of joint measures with local communities and specialised NGOs, to take the children off the streets, deal in non-judicial forums with the social problems affecting children and reduce the extreme poverty which is the root cause of the phenomenon.

In order to carry out this work, programme representatives have taken part in meetings of all the national coordinating bodies dealing with matters concerning children and have played an active part on the advisory board of the international organisations responsible for cooperation programmes concerning children and young people in Guatemala.

The Community, through this programme, is very much at the fore of cooperation concerning children and young people. In order to improve the results further, the Commission is examining ways of continuing and extending its work concerning children, young people, women and the family. This will probably be done initially by prolonging the current programme.

The Community is also setting up a major programme to improve the professional skills of the new national civil police corps; under the peace agreements this is intended to replace the national police and the 'policia militar ambulante', who have frequently been guilty of violence against the street children. This is the context in which the problem of police behaviour towards street children will be examined in depth and in which the possible introduction of specialised teams will be discussed.