Street Children
Published by deviousdiva November 2nd, 2007 in Children.I haven’t forgotten the Roma children I met at Votanikos. At the moment I cannot write about developments because of an impending court case. I will update you as soon as I get the word.
In the meantime, here is part of an article from Earth Times.
Carrying a bag full of lighters, key chains and other trinkets, 11-year-old Marenella walks through the cafe-lined streets of Monastiraki Square in central Athens selling her wares. Rain or shine, Marenella can be seen touting her goods to locals and tourists in the hope of meeting the daily quota enforced by her mother who waits in the shadows nearby.
Two streets away, Iliana, 10, and her younger sister Christina roam from one table to another in a bid to sell flowers and tissues.
“I went to school today and I am sent out every afternoon to help bring in money. My sister is always with me and together we help support our younger brothers and sisters,” says Iliana.
Iliana is one of thousands of children from Albania and other Balkan countries who are forced to beg or sell trinkets every day at cafes and restaurants across Athens and in other major Greek cities.
There are hundreds of children working on the streets here in Greece. What can we do to help ?
Read the full article here
Technorati: greece, street children, child labour, albania
Of course you CAN write about developments on Votanikos Roma and they are history-making, as they now involve interim measures in an Athens court by Viamax against those squatting on its property and -this is the astonishing news- interim measures by the Roma (via Greek Helsinki Monitor and European Roma Rights Center) against Greece in the European Court of Human Rights. Next deadline for both is 13 November. Sorry I have no time for more now but let people know that more will become available around that date.
In the meantime, one can see this related piece of news:
Greece/Europe: Human rights NGOs welcome call on governments to end housing crisis of Roma
Centre on Housing Rights and Evictions/European Roma Rights Centre/Greek Helsinki Monitor/Osservazione/Milan Simecka Foundation
29 October 2007
http://cm.greekhelsinki.gr/ind.....p;cid=3186
See also
Greece: CoE Commissioner for Human Rights sees no change in Roma rights protection
Greek Helsinki Monitor (GHM)
3 November 2007
http://cm.greekhelsinki.gr/ind.....p;cid=3187
“There are hundreds of children working on the streets here in Greece. What can we do to help ?”
How about sending them back to Albania and the Balkan countries they came from? Why not?
As for the gypsies, their main problem is they have too many kids. Stupid people all over the world tend to have too many kids. It’s going to prove to be one of the issues of our day if nothing is done to prevent the wanton, reckless procreation of the world’s have-nots, who only succeed in passing on their poverty to subsequant generations, and thus drag us all down with them. Not pretty, but it’s obviously what is happening. Soft-headed, well-meaning but cosmically misguided “welfare” practises only exacerbate the problem.
Wow, Daniel, fancy meeting you here too, going around the internet spreading your common sense.
Lovely! Here’s a big immigrant kiss from me, MWWWAAAHHH! Don’t worry you shouldn’t catch anything off it. I have been tested for everything, I think. There was a doctor I went to who was a friend of the illegal smugglers who got me into the country and they gave me a Smartie which is bound to cure everything.
Excuse me now while i go take a crap in Syntagma square. After all, that’s what us ignorant brown folk do! Kissy kissy!
Daniel, it seems that you have nothing better to do these days than to pollute our blogs with your ignorant and very unoriginal thoughts. As I suggested before, perhaps you should get out more.
The only thing you are succeeding in doing here is driving up my traffic (thanks for that)
Hi Bollybutton. LOL.
Perhaps these immigrants should go back to where they come from. They are not welcome in Greece, Greece’s last Empire died hundreds of years ago back in the middle ages, and even then it was ethnically and culturallly and religiously homogenous. Why should we deal with other races we have nothing to do with? We are not France, we are not going to sit with our Football team composed of 11 people from other races and say ‘these are Greeks’. Our History is our own, we are proud, we are small, but we are ready for anything.
Just about all I can find to agree with in the last post is that Greeks are proud and small. Certainly, the history of Greece is not owned by Greeks, and anyone who thinks it is knows nothing about the country.
Your opinions are your own, your history is your own. I do not lay claim to it. The only reason people claim an internationalism to Greek History is so their appropriation of antiquities carries some merit, and the only reason this argument carries weight in itself is because Greco-Roman culture was so damn successful it’s totally indistinguishable between Western nations now.
Martin Baldwin-Edwards has no rights to lay claim to Greek history, Greece is not his country - I do not claim Greece influenced the Battle of Trafalgar. Nor should he claim Northern Europe influenced say… The campaigns of Vasilios II or the Athenian democracy.
Modern Greeks have no claim to the achievements of Ancient Greek cultures. These are just lies and nationalist propaganda which make the rest of Europe yawn with boredom. Personally, I lay claim to nothing in history because I do not need the psychological crutches that Balkan peasants walk around with.
*Yawns with boredom*
I have never understood why some people equate caring about others with being communist.
DeathToCommunism, You can stay in your own private fantasy of homogeneity and purity or you can join the rest of us in the real world. It’s your choice. While you are busy seething and ranting about foreigners, some of us are just getting on with our lives. Like my Greek friends who are doctors, government personnel, journalists, teachers, lawyers, filmmakers etc etc who came here from other countries. Syria, Ghana, Nigeria, Iran, China, Vietnam, India… You get the picture. They are all Greek citizens. They are part of Greek society whether you like it or not. Their children are born here and are Greek. This is our reality. Get used to it.
Martin Baldwin-Edwards, what are you doing on this blog anyway, what are you doing talking about Greece? I assumed you went one summer and was angry there wasnt any pubs around?
Greeks are a contiguous people, our language is one of the most contiguous on the planet along with Chinese. Our historical continuity in this sense is not to be doubted and ergo we can easily lay claim to the achievements of our ancetors.
Now, when are you going to give us the Marble Metopes of the Parthenon back?
Fuck England and it’s people, you like to pass judgment about who is European? You have been holding back European integration for YEARS because of what Washington tells you to do. You attack us for being racist??
English people have a set of pre-concieved stereotypes about every European person. Germans, French, Italians… They apply these stereotypes to all of them, they are easily the most hated people in Europe and are damn racist too.
I actually agree with you DeathToCommunism! But only on one point: The English do have a bad habit of stereotyping people. We do and that is wrong. But that doesn’t give everyone else an excuse to do the same. Instead of looking at who is worse, why not seek out better examples of humanity? Positive examples of how to live better.
I find it pointless to harp on about who is the bigger loser. That argument means we all lose. Some of us lose in a bigger way. But we are still losers.
Where is the harm in trying to be winners ? Trying to be better than the lowest common denominator. Enough of the EXCUSE that at least we are better than…(insert your favorite nationality). Let’s try and be grown-ups for a change.
I am sorry to report to you, with the silly fascist name, that Greeks know no history of their own country. They know the propaganda which is spouted by state agencies and ignorant peasants. Unlike you, I conduct serious research on the history and modern policies of Greece, and can deal with any of your childish nationalist arguments. Try to get a little education on these issues, and then perhaps we will listen to you: but don’t expect anyone to be interested in your uncritical vomiting of Greek propaganda.
I am currently undertaking my 3rd year dissertation at University College London on the subject of the Peloponessian War. I will soon have a degree in the subject of Ancient History. Can you say the same?
Do not bother to argue with me about classical antiquity if you have no knowledge of the subject. It’s clear you don’t understand the slightest thing about History, you’re probably the kind of person who claims Saint Nicholas was ‘Turkish’ and writes weekly op eds for the Indy about ‘What the Turks have done for us’.
If it weren’t for the Greeks of the middle ages my bias friend, you’d be speaking Arabic and praying to Mecca. So show some damn respect.
I do not argue about subjects on which I am not expert, and I did not argue about Ancient History. Unhappily for you, we live in the present and it is that and modern history which I am talking about.
DeathToCommunism
Does the site that you link your name to actually belong to you ? If it doesn’t, can you please not use it. I am asking because most people click on a person’s name to read more of what they say, usually their blog. When I clicked on your name recently (you used to link to another site) it pops open a load of windows full of advertising. It’s annoying. Thank you.
Greeks think they are related to Ancient Greeks? I find it humorous that a homophobic society (Greece) wants so much to be related to an ancient Greece that was rife with homosexuality. So, should not Greece be more tolerant of Gays since it wants to claim association with Ancient Gay Greece??
Meh, I don’t really have a problem with gays.
You know what else I find funny? The fact that English equate their little englander attitude with the rest of Europe, Baldwin-Edwards claims that they do, he thinks the rest of Europe thinks in a uniform pattern along with British opinion! How incredulous! Has he ever visited France, Germany, Spain or Italy one wonders? No of course not. He is a small man with a dim view of countries that yearn to be free of globalism and the evils of immigration.
Martin Baldwin-Edwards
-When did ignorance become a point of view?
-There is a thin line separating cynicism from idiocy
@Martin Baldwin-Edwards
how much money you get from the panteion and the other research programs?
They are money of the Greek people .you say against the greek people.
WHY?
And what is the effect of all these money spending by you?in practical?
NOTHING MORE NOTHING LESS.
You just exist and spend the money of the greek people.
So please stop saying against greece and greek people.
Actually, you ignoramuses, I give much more to Greece than Greeks give to me. I take more or less NOTHING from Greece and teach in Panteion University without fee. Quite a contrast to most Greeks, I would say.
And for your information, anti-socialist child who is studying in London, I have lived, researched, lectured and published in probably more European countries than you have even visited. Your nationalist arrogance beggars belief.
@Martin Baldwin-Edwards
Actually i like your audacity and your sosialistic answers about the”without fee”.
Then for what reason you give “much more to Greece than Greeks give to uou” is it a memorial service to your grand-grand mother? or only for your ideas?
On the other hand I would like from you to go for a tour to the other countries which you have not ever visited.
We dont need the salvation army in Greece.
We can destroy our country better than you do ….bad boy.
We sure can destroy our own country, without anybody’s help.. with bastards like AgainstCommunism (im sorry deviousdiva, but thats the most polite word i can use for a fascist) and dialectics-of-the-ass, as we would call it in this country youre talking about, we doing a pretty good job in making this place a hellpit..
Martin Baldwin-Edwards, do your job as good as you can, i dread the day this guy will have the chance to teach others..
tralala - who has done more damage to Greece? Leftists or capitalists like me? Yes, it is leftists, like PASOK for the past 20 years. Or the KKE and their stupidity?
AgainstCommunism..
I agree with you, PASOK has done more damage than capitalism could have ever done (although I wouldnt name PASOK a leftist party, especially in 2008).
As for KKE, I despise it for the same reason I despise opinions like the one you have expressed many times throughout this post -cause they’re nothing more (and less..) than disguised fascists.
Plus, does anyone else think that the KKE and the Greek communists need to come up with some new material? They have been parroting the same crap for years and it’s the same tired bullpuckey!
Pure evil is what I call that female leader of the one of the communist unions which said that the people who died in the world trade center deserved to die.
I think anyone who thinks Communism is still in fashion and cool needs to see a wonderful movie called “ELENI” by Nikos Gatzoyianis (GAGE) and then we’ll talk about those lunkheads.
Now, Against Communism, since you see decent people agree with you on that, how about you work on being nicer to immigrants with your views.
Think about the greatest capitalist country on Earth (USA), and how they truly find decent ways to treat everyone equal. The governments of the US (state/federal/military etc) all agree that hate has no place in the states!
God Bless Immigrants, Capitalism, and the USA, and OK Greece too!
I thought id never see these words written in the same sentence..
underinformation: I do what I believe in, and only what I believe in. Sometimes I am paid well, usually poorly, and often nothing: that is life.
My research on migration takes me abroad a lot, and since 2004 to the following countries: Serbia (4), Spain (3), Romania (2), UK (2), Kosovo, Cyprus, Malta, Croatia, Turkey, Italy, Germany, Sweden, Switzerland, Egypt. This excludes personal travel and my work in Austria.
Martin, I am still waiting on a respone:
http://www.genocidescholars.org/iagsnews.html