Eviction and homelessness: the impact on African children

More than 80 million African children lack access to healthy shelter, and 16 million of these children are living on the streets. This phenomenon of street children represents massive social failure as well as a violation of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child. Urbanization--and the attendant processes of industrial expansion, land speculation, and "beautification"--has created a cycle of poverty, evictions, family disruption, and unwanted and abandoned children. In African cities, at least 60% of the population lives in informal, underserviced, and frequently illegal slums and squatter settlements in households generally headed by a single mother. Increasingly, eviction is being used as a strategy for driving the poor out of urban areas where they have come to seek work. Mothers who are themselves illiterate, malnourished, and constantly facing the threat of eviction are unable to meet their children's basic security needs. Moreover, violent evictions subvert children's educational and health status, cause psychological trauma and the loss of a sense of belonging, and exacerbate the household's precarious economic status. Nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) have been successful in preventing some evictions and have established programs for the care of street children. Recommended is improved coordination between NGOs and local and national governments, as exemplified by the urban child welfare task force established by the Kenyan Government. Above all, however, NGOs need to develop strategies for dealing more effectively with mass urban poverty and providing the necessary infrastructure to improve the lives of slum residents.     

发明获得法律保护的条件

<正> (一)能够取得专利的发明概念发明是专利法的客体。"发明"(Invention,Erfindung)概念的定义对任何一个法律体系来说都具有重要的实践意义,因为专利法效力的范围是由这个定义的内容决定的。同时,发明的定义引起颇大的复杂性,因为它表现了智力活动的一个侧面。由于这些原因,发明的概念曾是法律著作中反复探讨的对象。И.Я.赫伊费茨给发明下的定义是:技术课题的创造性解决方案。许多其他苏联作者也持这个观点。外国作者在给发