Case Study Cards
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My name is Hong and I am eleven years old. I left my home to come to the city and work to send money to my family. A man offered me a job at the train station. Now I'm working in a factory making T-shirts. I work twelve hours a day for little money. The factory is very dirty and hot. There are hardly any windows and sometimes it's hard to breathe. The boss is very mean. He makes us work very hard without breaks. The other kids and I want to leave but we all know that the factory work is better than begging in the streets. The boss tells us this every day. We do what he says. |
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My name is Kathy and I am ten years old. My father comes home late every night. When he comes home drunk, he hits my mother and calls her names. When I try to stick up for her, he beats me too. I can't tell him what I feel because he's the boss. He says that in his house I don't have the right to speak about things that concern me. I think he is wrong. Things concern me because he is hurting my mom and me. I always feel sad when he's around. Mostly I feel angry. I'm planning to run away when I'm thirteen. He'll never find me then. |
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My name is Amelia and I am nine years old. I was born in the suburbs of a city at war. The other day my mom and I had to leave our home so we could run away to another country. We left on buses. More than a thousand other people left at the same time. We had to leave everything behind. My mom says that we are refugees now. Some people don't want us because of our religion. Now I have no home, no books, no toys and I don't know where my friends are. I will probably never see my friends and the rest of the family again. I don't like this bus. We are all crowded and hungry, and some soldiers held us hostage for two days. Does this mean I don't belong to my country any more? My mom cries all the time. I try to be strong but deep inside I'm really scared. |
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My name is Abdi and I am eight years old. I live with my parents, my five sisters and four brothers in a refugee camp. We have no rain and all the crops are dead. That means that there is no food or water. People are starving. Children are sick and dying all the time. To make things worse, there is a war and many of my friends and relatives have been killed. My dad told me that other countries are sending food but men with guns steal it before it gets to us and sell it. The men come to our camp and torture us. They took our food, our clothes - everything. My brothers and I tried to go to a hospital but the doctors and nurses didn't have time to treat our wounds because too many people with shotgun wounds were they and they were important. |
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My name is Jao and I am seven years old. I live in a big city. My sister and I don't have a home so we hang out on the street all day. My mother and father said they couldn't support us so they told us to leave the house and get a job. I worked on the buses selling candies for a while but they wouldn't let my sister do it because she was too young. She was alone all day so I had to quit. All there is to do on the street is beg and steal. Otherwise you don't eat and you can't survive. I'm going to survive because I'm strong and at least I've got other kids on my side. There are twenty of us. The oldest is twelve. Every night we sleep in this empty warehouse. It's just us and the rats. I'm worried for my sister though. If police catch us they're going to separate us. Then she'll be left with no family. |
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