The boy who lives on a rubbish tip

[LalaMimi]

Throughout the year, the US has hailed a series of elections in the Arab world - the latest in Iraq - as evidence that its foreign policy is getting results. But what can democracy really offer ordinary people? Humphrey Hawksley travelled to Morocco to find out.

"How many of you go to school?" I asked the group of children gathered round.

Behind us was an open drain then shanty huts which crept back along the grey rocky landscape. There was a mild aroma of rotting rubbish.

Across the road, two men from the interior ministry, sitting on wooden chairs, eyed us, but said nothing.

We were just outside the Moroccan capital Rabat, in a slum called Akrash.

Hands shot up, all except one: a boy in a filthy yellow shirt, arms marked with little scratches, his face filled with a child's awe and innocence, but his eyes firm as if he knew that if he lost his confidence he might not survive.

"Why don't you go to school?" I asked.

His parents, although alive, had abandoned him and for some reason that meant he wasn't at school.

"So what do you do?" I said. "Where do you live?"

"Up there," he said, pointing to the top of a hill misted with smoke.

Continue:
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[Anisa]

What a shame unfortunately I see a lot of kids in Tangier who sleep rough & beg for food It breaks my heart

[LalaMimi]

Same here. I have seen some of the kids in Ksar grow up on the streets- getting bigger, older and more out of their heads on glue sniffing - I remember them when they had not yet started doing that