 | | EDUCATION
"Girls are victims of their families"
Heba lives on the streets of Cairo, Egypt. She was left with her father when her parents separated but his mistreatment made her run away from home.
So far, she has not had any schooling. On the streets, however, she has learned other survival skills, such as selling flowers and dealing with the police.
Under the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, all children have a right to an education and to develop their personality and talent to a full potential.
Article 28 stipulates that governments, "... shall... make primary education compulsory and available to all." One of the document's main goals is to eliminate "ignorance and illiteracy throughout the world."
Due to poverty and a fractured family situation, Heba has not had access to primary education. She blames her family. This is her story: | |  Listen to Heba's story in Arabic | | 
My mother has been separated from my father since I was three-years-old and my sister was two-years-old. My mother took my sister and my father took me.
I started to work to support myself. I said to myself I should start working in order to help myself and help my father so that he wouldn't have to beg from my uncles and so that I wouldn't have to beg if something happened to my father and nobody was ready to help.
I did everything. Once I worked in a factory and another time as a housemaid - but I failed.
When I went out to the street I learnt from my friends how to sniff glue. I saw them sniffing and that gave me a feeling that I would like to do it too. They also took tablets and I did the same.
We sold boxes of paper tissues, or flowers, or we would find a man walking in the street and trick him.
A girl who may be deviant would say to him, "I will come with you and charge £5 or £10 but I'll have the money first."
As soon as he gave her the money in advance, she would insult him and run away. He would then go to a police car and tell the policeman of our whereabouts.
We would tell the policeman that he wanted to do such and such, that indeed we took the money, but it was fair to take it.
The policeman would laugh and say that he would send us to jail unless we gave the money to him. After the man had left, the policeman would divide the money with us, half and half. You take this and I take this. We would take the money and buy glue.
If one of our girlfriends was hiding money we would search her and take it.
We would say, "out with the money in your pocket." We would hold a razor... to her and say, "If you don't give us the money we will cut you."
[I was] not a leader. I did as my mates did.
We slept in a mosque, a church or a bus station.
Girls are victims. They are victims of their families. Some girls are victims of something else.
A girl might have made a mistake but is afraid to go back to her family, who may kill her. Someone might have seduced her and she is afraid to go to her family, who would kill her or harm her.
Sometimes she feels that she is the one who bears all the guilt. She feels she was wrong; she left her family in the first place.
But we are not to blame. Our families are to blame. Had we been brought up properly and educated, nothing like it would have happened to us. No policeman would have slapped us on the face, cursed our father or mother or ever humiliated us.
We would have felt that we were girls like other girls walking by. Whenever I see a girl going to school I feel sorry for myself because I haven't been to school and haven't been educated like her.  | | | Listen to Heba's story in Arabic | | |  |  |
 Egypt's constitution guarantees basic compulsory free education for all children, between the ages of 6 and 15.
In an effort to provide access to education, the government has implemented several projects. Two main ones are: schools with only one classroom and larger community schools. Both serve rural areas deprived of teaching facilities.
One-classroom schools offer primary education for girls, aged eight to 14. In community schools, girls aged six to 12 are given priority.
According to the UN report We The Children, published in May 2001, Egypt has successfully established its community schools project.
One hundred schools are in operation and more are scheduled. The enrolment rate for girls has increased from 30% to 70%. Importantly, attendance is high, between 95-100%.
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