Plight of young shames talkfest

By KATHERINE HOBY and REUTERS

"I would like running water for us - and for adults to stop raping children."

Seven children who have had their lives documented since the first Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro a decade ago know what sort of world they want. And they want delegates at this month's Johannesburg Summit to know.

Italian film-maker Bruno Sorrentino has been documenting the struggles of the seven children, from some of the world's poorest areas.

While others were focusing on adult issues, Sorrentino decided that if the 1992 Rio summit was to mean anything to ordinary people, it would be found in the lives of babies born that year and their families.

In preparation for the Johannesburg meeting, he returned to film the children once more as a poignant measuring stick of whether any of the 1992 promises had been fulfilled.

Little has changed for the families profiled.

South Africans Visumzi and Justin were chosen to track the progress of peace and racial equality.

Visumzi was born in a black township in the Eastern Cape without power or running water.

Electricity reached his home in 1995, but otherwise the daily grind is much the same.

Justin's parents are white dairy farmers, and still keep guns and attack dogs to guard their fertile land a short drive from the township where Visumzi lives.

Chinese girl Kay Kay was born in the sprawling and polluted city of Guangzhou, and Erdo is the daughter of nomadic cattle-herders in Kenya's lawless north.

Rosamaria was the hometown girl first time around. She lived in a crime-ridden shantytown in Rio.

Her father abandoned the family when she was born.

Panjarvanam lives in Tamil Nadu in southern India, and Hailey's father was a coalminer in northern England in 1992.

Sorrentino, speaking from Johannesburg, said his film, Children of Rio, hoped to make environmental issues more accessible to the public by illustrating them through the lives of children.

The chosen group, now 10 years old, make emotional pleas for change.

Visumzi says he would like running water, and for adults to stop raping children.

Panjarvanam would like to see running water, good roads, buses, and covers on gutters.

She wants to stay at school and become a doctor, an ambition supported by her paralysed, bedridden grandfather. But her mother, who works in a fireworks factory, wants her daughter to work there with her son.

Erdo, who walks for an hour to school each day, would like to see more food aid.

Authorities have planted trees and shrubs in Guangzhou, and it is less polluted than a decade ago. Kay Kay is home alone for much of the day as both her parents work long hours to earn NZ$865 a month - a good income in China.

She dreams of "pots of money" and high-heeled shoes.

At the Children's Earth Summit in Johannesburg, teenagers from around the world summed up the hopes of their generation in an appeal to Governments and delegates:

"Rio was about talking. Johannesburg should be about walking ... let this not be another Rio de Janeiro."

Prime Minister Helen Clark arrived in South Africa on Sunday.

Unicef New Zealand spokeswoman Beth Wood said she had not seen the film but "those involved in making policy should think about whether decisions are changing the daily lives of enough children".

While some criticised the summit for simply being a "talkfest", Mrs Wood said it was a good move because "it puts some pressure on political leaders and raises awareness of issues, and that can't be bad".

Johannesburg Summit