§ Mr. BercowTo ask the Secretary of State for International Development how much money has been allocated by his Department to Afghanistan in each of the last three years; and how much has been pledged for(a) 2004–05 and (b) 2005–06. [148101]
Mr. Gareth ThomasThe table shows the allocations made to Afghanistan by the Department for International Development Afghanistan in each of the last three years and how much has been allocated for financial years 2004–05 and 2005–06.
cent. to 55 per cent. of school age children are working. Many of these children are exploited through child labour or are involved in the sex industry. Unless these problems are addressed the problems of street children in Asia will continue to grow.
§ Mr. BercowTo ask the Secretary of State for International Development how much money has been provided by his Department in each of the last six years to tackle the problem of street children in Asia; what proportion of the money has been spent by whom; and with what results. [148131]
Mr. Gareth ThomasUrban poverty, homelessness, lack of education and the demand for child labour forces children to leave their families and live on the streets in Asia. It is important that these underlying problems are addressed as well as helping street children directly. Our bilateral programmes in Asia aim to alleviate family poverty more generally as a basis for addressing the needs of street children.
Many of our programmes support NGO activities that advocate for the rights of children and work directly with street children. In Bangladesh we are supporting two NGOs to provide informal education to vulnerable working children in urban areas at a cost of £8 million. In Burma we have been supporting a street and working children project with World Vision at a total cost of £450,000. In India we are supporting a local NGO to work with child street vendors and have several other small projects in the pipeline focusing on vulnerable working children in urban areas.
We are providing £1.6 million to Save the Children to work directly with vulnerable children in the Mekong sub region. This project aims to prevent poor rural children being trafficked to urban areas in the region for purposes of sexual exploitation and under age employment. This helps to reduce the potential for these children to end up on the street.
Other DFID activities also contribute directly to addressing the problems of street children. Improving basic education for every child is the main contribution that Asian Governments can make to reducing child 831W poverty and indirectly to reducing the numbers of street children. Support to basic education is a major focus of our bilateral programme in Asia and in 2001–02 DFID committed £130 million to support this.
Another example is the £12 million urban poverty reduction project in Cochin in India that has helped to improve basic services for poor families and their children.