The Sunday Mail
Victoria Ruzvidzo
“We contend that the problem of street children remains an ignored tragedy and is set to have a devastating impact on the development of African countries.
“The paper indicates that the response to the problem has at best been muted and remains ignored or side-lined . . . , writes Peter Kopoka of the Institute of Development Studies in Tanzania in his paper titled ‘The problem of Street Children in Africa: An Ignored Tragedy’.
“Key players who are supposed to play a leading role in finding a solution to the problem (of street children) have become the major source of the problem . . . Government policies that embrace liberalisation and the free market economy are contributory factors to the persistent state of poverty and increased hardship with children being affected most. The family, which is supposed to be the bedrock of children’s welfare and protection, is today becoming a major cause of the problem of street children,” he further asserts.
The research document goes further to say parents are sending their children into the streets to beg, steal or engage in petty trade. Children are leaving their homes to escape domestic violence or because of the breaking up of family structures.
It all boils down to high levels of poverty on the continent and failure by communities to take full responsibility of their children’s future.
The findings above depict a sad state of affairs that demands redress. Socio-economic challenges have left the street children caught between a rock and a hard place and your guess is as good as mine, of the choice they ultimately make with their uninformed and as yet to mature minds.
UNICEF says at least 150 million children worldwide live on the street, presenting a situation that needs to be handled deftly. UNICEF (2001) defined a street child as any boy or girl who has not reached adulthood, for whom the street has become her or his habitual abode and/ or sources of livelihood, one who is inadequately protected, supervised or directed by responsible adults.
There is so much that can be done to ensure we do not lose the next generation to the streets
This effectively means that the street not only becomes the child’s home, but the source of a living. Such a child assumes full responsibility on his or her own life.
In our Society section today we lead with a story on the street children scenario in Zimbabwe — the challenges they pose and those they face in their everyday lives. Street children are not a new phenomenon, but one that has been with us for a long time. Solutions have been sought, but these have, in most instances failed to produce enduring solutions, a reflection of societal strictures that manifest in such forms and in many others.
These street kids, found largely in the central business district of many towns and cities, are as much a menace as they are a constituency crying out for help. They cannot just be ignored or wished away as a daily nuisance, but now demand real attention.
Now more than ever, there has been a proliferation of people, especially children, on the streets of our beloved country particularly in the capital city of Harare.
Many are engaged in untoward behaviour such as taking drugs, glue, stealing and harassing motorists and pedestrians alike in the streets while a few “innocent” ones just go about asking for money or scavenging for food.
Some come with relatives to whom they lodge their daily harvests while others use any earnings to feed and clothe themselves. Some, as the story says, have lodgings or stay with parents, but come to the streets to eke a living during the day, retiring to their respective homes as night falls.
Due to experiences and harsh encounters with the street children in some instances, many have no good words about them, referring to the street children as society’s misfits or malcontents that should be condemned to hell or some such place.
However, a deeper analysis of the reasons many of the children find themselves on the street shows that circumstances force them to opt for the streets although others choose to run away from their homes opting for the “freedom” of the streets where they are not answerable to parents or guardians.
Cases of abuse, domestic violence, family disintegration, absence of decent living act as push factors. Some are orphans whose parents have succumbed to such diseases as HIV/Aids. The Covid-19 pandemic is not helping matters.
Although some of the factors that have contributed to this quandary we find ourselves in as a people, have admittedly been beyond our control as a nation, we must still assume responsibility for those factors that we could all have done something about it, to avoid the degeneration.
We need to respond in a more constructive manner. Without absolving many of the street children for the misdemeanours they engage in, it would be more purposeful if attention was directed more towards finding lasting solutions as opposed to mere finger-pointing.
Our reactions on the street towards these evidently helpless beings is presently nothing short of disdainful in the extreme.
When we come face-to-face with their psychological responses to the environment they find themselves in, we react in ways that are not sympathetic to their plight.
We do not give reason to the fact that however they behave on the streets is as a result of the harsh living conditions they find themselves in, situations that cause even the best of us to react in exactly the same way.
On the bare and cold streets of Zimbabwe, are thousands of young boys and girls who are bruised and battered from the circumstances they find themselves in.
Whatever foul language and inhumane behaviour you may come across on the streets from this section of society, please be conscious of the fact that it is only as a result of a combination of horrible factors you cannot even begin to imagine, unless you’ve walked a mile in their shoes.
“The general public pretends not to notice the plight of an increasing number of destitute children on our streets.
There is at present no real alarm or outrage from the general public on the increasing number of children on our streets even though these children face starvation and are at the mercy of unscrupulous individuals,” observes Kopoka.
Some of the children begging on the streets come from households they will return to at the end of the day, households that have, with the best of intentions, failed to come to terms and cope with the largely coronavirus-induced state of affairs we currently find ourselves in as hunger, fear and family instability creeps in.
However, amidst all the real or perceived madness on the streets, lies a glimmer of hope in the frame of a few individuals, societies and organisations that have taken it upon themselves to redress this unsavoury story playing out on the streets on our watch.
We commend the Government, the First Lady Amai Auxillia Mnangagwa through her Angel of Hope Foundation, and other partners for taking at least 300 children off the streets recently, as part of initiatives to rehabilitate and reunite them with their families where possible.
These initiatives will surely give a much better life to the children that find themselves helpless on the streets.
A lot more needs to be done, without taking anything away from the current efforts by stakeholders alike, if we are to win this battle and ensure every child on the street is taken off and given the chance to live and carve out a much better life for themselves — if only by us holding their hands, all the way.
Those of school-going age need to be taken back to school through BEAM or other such programmes through which public and private sector funds can be pulled together to ensure that careers, businesses and potential inventions resident in these children do not just disappear on the streets, but that the children are given the opportunity to realise their potential.
Those that are much older can be grouped into clusters and given farmland from which they can practice agriculture.
Not only will they contribute to GDP growth, but actually change their lives and those of future generations for the better.
There is so much that can be done to ensure we do not lose the next generation to the streets.
Let us debate, discuss and adopt solutions around this area so we can impact society more and achieve Vision 2030 together. Indeed no one should be left behind.
Everyone deserves a chance to make it in this life, the street children included.
May God help us all to do what we ought to!
In God I Trust!
Twitter handle: @VictoriaRuzvid2; Email: [email protected]; [email protected]; WhatsApp number: 0772 129 972.
