Winds of Change.NET: Children Of The Stoplights, Part 1

Children Of The Stoplights, Part 1

by Discarded Lies at January 14, 2005 8:49 AM

Note: This marks the start of a recurring featured weekly post from Discarded Lies at Winds of Change.NET. To kick the party off right, we're running a double feature this Friday: a post from the Children Of The Stoplights series (simulcast at Discarded Lies) and one from the longer Terra Nostra series, above. The Children Of The Stoplights (a shorter series) is about child trafficking in Europe, and the cold shoulder that European society and authorities turn to the victims of this ghastly trade in human lives. We'd like to thank Joe Katzman for offering us a platform to tell these stories.

When evariste wrote about sexual slavery in Europe, he mentioned Salonica, my home town, the destination for many of these women. That subject led to another one: the trafficking of children. In Greece they're called "children of the stoplights" because they hang out at traffic lights selling small packets of tissues or washing windshields for small change.

They're not Greek, these children...

Greek children are for the most part loved and well-taken care of, members of large, extended families, spoiled and adored. These kids can barely understand Greek. They use the same few names. The little girls, they all say their name is "Maria," the boys "Yiorgos." They're skinny, their clothes are cheap and ill-fitting, their hair is uncombed, they're Roma, they're Albanian, they're all from some other place. They look weary and scared but they smile easily, like children do. They spend their days and nights at traffic lights, or wandering around the areas their boss has marked for them, restaurants and cafés, but careful not to hang around too long, not to attract too much attention.

But how is it possible not to attract attention? I see the little girl approaching my table, handing out the packet of tissues for sale, head tilted to the side, not even stopping completely, her eyes not completely meeting mine. Everyone sees her. The waiter, the customers, the people walking by, the policemen, handsome in their uniforms, sipping their espresso while leaning on their motorcycles.

I smile and ask how much. I've already bought several packets of kleenex in the last hour between my house and this café from all the other street children. I ask her name. It's Maria, of course, what else would it be. I ask her "is there no school today?" She tells me her classes are in the afternoon. Perfectly plausible since students attend public schools in shifts due to overcrowding. On the other hand...

The Greek government estimates that there are some 3,000 unaccompanied Albanian children in the country, with more coming during the summer months. In oral evidence about the trafficking of Albanian children to Greece, given to the Commission on Human Rights, Terre des Hommes representative Eylay Kadjar-Hamouda said, “A child earns a minimum of €30-€50 per day and gives all the money to his boss. A very small percentage is sent back to his family in Albania but in a very irregular way. Generally several children are exploited at the same time by a boss.”
“In the country of destination, Greece, the children are not considered as victims but as guilty of having illegally entered the country,” Kadjar-Hamouda noted. “Terre des Hommes is particularly concerned that some of the children placed in centres in Greece simply disappear.”
...

The governments of the European Union avert their gaze when it comes to trafficking children, despite having signed on to the Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child on the Sale of Children, Child Trafficking and Child Pornography. A 2002 report by Europol, the European Law Enforcement Agency, on the trafficking of human beings into the EU, shows that most of the 15 member states keep no relevant statistics at all. Only four provide any concrete information, with the majority reporting that figures are “not available” or “not given.”
Child trafficking in eastern Europe: A trade in human misery

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