STREET CHILDREN AND THE IMPLEMENTATION OF CHILD PROTECTIONREGULATIONS : COMPARING BRAZIL AND SOUTH AFRICA

Children are the group of a society that is most vulnerable to the effects of poverty and inequality.Street children, particularly, could represent the ultimate misfortune of poverty and inequality. The problem is enlarged by the indication that the number of street children around the world isincreasing in pace with increasing social inequality. This study departs from a rights-based approach of research informed by United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC). The purpose of this study is to compare Brazil and South Africa in their levels of commitment to children's rights, specifically in making internationaland national laws and regulations widely known and enforced in their respective societies, measured through the knowledge and perceptions of NGO-staff not only as professionals, but also as private citizens. The main data sources used were email-surveys and telephone interviews with NGO-staff, alongside with analysis of the CRC and the national child protection regulations in Brazil and South Africa. The main findings of this study represent a step towards covering some of the gaps in the researchliterature concerning street children. These findings are that Brazil and South Africa do not fully cover the contents of the CRC into their national child protection laws. The other finding regards the fact that Brazilian NGOs working with street children do not make consistent use of the national institutions responsible for the protection of children's rights. South African institutions, on theother hand, do make use of the national institutions responsible for the protection of children's rights