Xavier Emmanuelli is a co-founder of Médecins Sans Frontières, a pioneer of the SAMU (Service d'Aide Médicale Urgente or Urgent Medical Aid Service), founder of the SAMU Social (municipal humanitarian emergency service), and former Minister of Emergency Humanitarian Action
Lost children invent survival strategies based upon what Xavier Emmanuelli calls “the atrocious liberty”. In this document of exceptional clinical richness, Xavier Emmanuelli recounts how the creation of the International Social SAMU brought him face to face with this very particular kind of exclusion.
Known as “rats” in certain West African countries, victims of sexual abuse by merchants or authority figures, even pursued by death squads in Honduras or Brazil, street children represent one of the most appalling scandals of modern times.
Here, examining different clinical situations — from child-witches to child-refugees to child-soldiers — he indicates possible means of intervention and shows how resilience can play its part.