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[16 March 2010] - Street children from eight different countries will come together in sport and advocacy in the following days for a South African charity's Street Child World Cup, hosted in Durban. Yesterday, for the first time ever, the Deloitte Street Child World Cup kicked off in Durban, South Africa. Street children aged 14-16 from across the world gathered in a day of friendly competition and awareness-raising about the plight of the millions of children without homes or families. The tournament is being held by Umthombo Street Children (an organisation created by former street children themselves). The countries competing this year are South Africa, Brazil, Philippines, United Kingdom, Tanzania, India, Ukraine, and Nicaragua. The sporting events will be complemented with recreational activities for the competitors and the local community, as well as public engagement events headed up by children’s advocates and child rights specialists. As such, this “mock-World Cup” is able to use the growing media focus on the FIFA World Cup that South Africa will host in June in a way that highlights the immense challenges of child poverty around the globe. The timing of these events is providential, as a recent South African AIDS conference in Durban raised issues about the lack of research and awareness about the depth of the troubles facing street children in South Africa. The children all have different reasons for being on the streets. Some are runaways and some are orphans. Some have had their families ripped apart. Others have faced physical, emotional and sexual abuse at the hands of those who are supposed to love and protect them the most. In South Africa, the average age of street children in 16 years old, though most begin living on the streets at 13, reports UNICEF. Tragically, a life on the streets can be as fraught with danger as the situations they fled. Street children may face brutalization and forced displacement by police cracking down on crime; they are also vulnerable to kidnapping and child trafficking, as well as economic exploitation by handlers who force them to beg. Street children rarely have the chance to attend school or receive adequate health care. They are also more likely to be chronically hungry. Children consigned to a life on the streets have fallen through a gap in many countries’ social planning. The Street Child World Cup presents a way to restore to many children their sense of empowerment, confidence and sense of self.