Prevalence,
Abuse & Exploitation of Street Children In the first decade of the 21st Century gvnet.com/streetchildren/Ghana.htm
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CAUTION: The following links
and accompanying text have been culled from the web to illuminate the
situation in HOW TO USE THIS WEBPAGE Students If you are looking for
material to use in a term-paper, you are advised to scan the postings on this
page and others to see which aspect(s) of street life are of particular
interest to you. You might be
interested in exploring how children got there, how they survive, and how
some manage to leave the street.
Perhaps your paper could focus on how some street children abuse the
public and how they are abused by the public … and how they abuse each
other. Would you like to write about
market children? homeless children? Sexual and labor exploitation? begging? violence? addiction? hunger? neglect? etc. There is a lot to the subject of Street
Children. Scan other countries as well
as this one. Draw comparisons between
activity in adjacent countries and/or regions. Meanwhile, check out some of the Term-Paper resources
that are available on-line. Teachers Check out some of
the Resources
for Teachers attached to this website. ***
FEATURED ARTICLES *** Give children
quality education Ghana Broadcasting
Corporation GBC News, 10 Feb 2008 www.modernghana.com/news/157167/1/give-children-quality-education.html [accessed 16 May
2011] Six young reporters campaigning on 'Quality Education for all children' a UNICEF project, say poverty and parental irresponsibility among other things are reasons why many children did not go to school. The young reporters aged between 10 and 17, sharing their experiences and challenges faced by Ghanaian children in an interview said during their campaign, it was realized that many children did not go to school because their parents could not provide them with basic educational materials, such as school uniforms, exercise books, bags and pens. They disclosed
that, some children they interviewed engaged in different kinds of trade such
as selling iced water, plantain chips and bread rather than going to school
because they had to support their mother's who are mostly single parents,
adding that some father's of the children are irresponsible especially for
their education. Ghanaian minister
is on a mission The Commonwealth
Times, November 5th, 2007 www.commonwealthtimes.org/?p=7887 [accessed 16 May
2011] Ama, 15, lives in What hope for
thousands of street children? UN Integrated
Regional Information Networks IRIN, www.irinnews.org/report/70530/ghana-what-hope-for-thousands-of-street-children [accessed 10 March
2015] His mother wouldn't let him keep going to school, he said. Instead, he was forced to go to work with her at the market. So one night he quietly left. He went to Accra where he hoped he would find someone to support his education. Instead of school, Anderson had to work. He lugs boxes and cases, often taller than he is, in one of the city's bus stations. In exchange he gets a handful of coins. At night, he sleeps on a cardboard mat in front of a meat shop. Anderson's best
friends are also 13 years old. They stick together for protection, but
sometimes it's not enough. "Sometimes the grown-up boys beat us,
even take our money and that sort of thing," he said. He also risks
being raped and sexually abused. ***
ARCHIVES *** The Department of Labor’s 2004 Findings on
the Worst Forms of Child Labor www.dol.gov/ilab/media/reports/iclp/tda2004/ghana.htm [accessed 6 February
2011] INCIDENCE
AND NATURE OF CHILD LABOR - In urban centers, street children work mainly as
truck pushers, porters, and sales workers. Human Rights
Reports » 2005 Country Reports on Human Rights Practices 2009-2017.state.gov/j/drl/rls/hrrpt/2005/61572.htm [accessed 9 February
2020] CHILDREN
- The
migration of children from rural to urban areas increased, due to economic
hardship. Children were driven to the streets to fend for themselves,
increasing both the occurrence of child labor and the school dropout rate.
During the year MOWAC officials estimated that as many as 40 thousand
porters, most of whom were girls under 18, lived on the streets in major
cities, including Concluding
Observations of the Committee on the Rights of the Child (CRC) UN Convention on the
Rights of the Child, 6 June 1997 www1.umn.edu/humanrts/crc/ghana1997.html [accessed 6 February
2011] [19] The Committee
is also concerned by the increase in the number of children living and/or
working on the street in major cities. It is also worried by the violence
that is often directed against them. The Committee is further concerned by
the lack of statistical data and studies on such children. Child delinquency
on the increase in North The Ghanaian
Chronicle, 27 February 2009 www.modernghana.com/news/204182/1/child-delinquency-on-the-increase-in-north.html [accessed 16 May
2011] I asked them, in
clear words, why they were not in school? And almost all of them expressed
the desire to be in school. Some said though they had parents, they have no
money to take them to school. I quickly asked,
“But don't you know basic education is free in Ghana?” The children
intelligently replied, “So will the government give us books, bags, pencils,
pens, sandals and uniforms? There is no room for us to sleep, and there will
be no food after school.” Some said they have to work to support their
family, and take care of junior ones, because their parents had died, or were
sick, old, or just don't work at all. The children expect
to find work in the streets, find friends, earn money, and be able to bring
money home to cater for their families. The children get
sick easily, so they tell me, and there is no money for medicines. “If someone needs
to go to hospital, we make contributions, and if someone hasn't earned money
to buy food, we share what we have.” Bill Graham, The Ghanaian
Chronicle, 18 July 2008 ghanachild.wordpress.com/2009/02/03/ghana-who-cares-about-these-children-on-the-streets/ [partially accessed 17
May 2011 - access restricted] WORK THEY ENGAGE IN - The Ghana
Statistical Service estimated that approximately 27.2 percent of children
aged 5 to 14 years in Ghana were working in 2001.These children work as cart
pushers, bar-keepers, head porters, hawkers, shoe shine boys just to mention
but a few. . Ignored by authorities and the public, they are often the target
for exploitation, threats and violence. But the question is: where are their
parents? Who cares about them? Should we pretend not to see it as a problem
or accept it to be normal and live with it? CAUSES - It will be an
understatement to say that these children are suffering. At night, they sleep
in kiosks and in front of stores exposing them to all kinds of diseases and
thieves. Vehicles knock some down. They are easily lured into robbery, drug
peddling, child prostitution and other vices. The girls are compelled to
satisfy the sexual desires of their male counterparts to get food and for
protection. Ernest Best Anane, www.modernghana.com/news/169028/1/porters-street-kids-registered-for-nhis.html [accessed 16 May
2011] The Subin Sub-Metro Mutual Health Insurance, in collaboration
with the Kumasi Metropolitan Assembly (KMA), has moved to register porters
and street-children in the metropolis, to enable the less-privileged in the
area access healthcare, under the National Health Insurance Scheme
(NHIS). The programme
resulted from the realization that most of the porters were located in the Subin area.
Launching the mass registration, Ms Esther Odoom, Scheme Manager, noted that most of the porters
were dying of malaria, and other common diseases, because they cannot afford
medical costs. About 2,000 porters and
street-kids were registered at the launch of the exercise, with 800 of them
getting it virtually for free. Street Academy
organizes Dinner Dance to support children’s programme www.modernghana.com/news/150209/1/street-academy-organizes-dinner-dance-to-support-c.html [accessed 23
September 2011] A call has been
made for a study to be undertaken to understand why many more children are
leaving their homes and finding solace in the streets of big towns and
cities. “Today the children on the
streets are multiplying as more and more join them, those already there are
also starting families, sadly these families have single parents and if we do
not quickly and collectively find solution to the root courses of this
upsurge of streetism things will get out of hand”. He said it was
obvious that most, if not all the children are refugees of one form or the
other. There were cultural refugees, who run away from their homes to avoid
being forced into marriages, undergo female genital mutilation (FGM) and
being enslaved under the Trokosi system, among
others. The others are economic
refugees who leave for the streets because of adverse living conditions at
home, most likely due to conducts of hostile parents and guardians. Committee on child labour, trafficking inaugurated mobile.ghanaweb.com/wap/article.php?ID=130307 [accessed 6 February
2011] www.ghanaweb.com/GhanaHomePage/NewsArchive/Committee-on-child-labour-trafficking-inaugurated-130307 [accessed 3 December
2016] A 21-member
steering committee for an International Labour Organisation (ILO) project on
combating child labour and trafficking was inaugurated in Kumasi on Thursday. Dr. Slyvester Sakyiamah, Executive
Director of the Social Research Associates, said the Kumasi Metropolis had
become the destination for most of the children trafficked from the Upper
West, Upper East, Northern regions and other parts the country. He said the
children were found to be cart pushers, bar-keepers, head porters, hawkers
and domestic servants among other exploitative jobs. Dr. Sakyiamah
said due to the nature of the work they engaged in, the lack of shelter and
better conditions of life, some of them become street children, who were easily lured into robbery, drug
peddling, child prostitution resulting in socio-economic problems. Organizations
Partner to Trio News, www.trio-solutions.com/news/project_okurase.shtml [accessed 16 May
2011] www.portergaud.edu/cf_news/view.cfm?newsid=3341 [accessed 3 December
2016] Services at the
center will include formal education for street children, many of whom are
orphaned due to HIV/AIDS and who will live at the center, and other local
children in nearby villages. Arts-based skills training will be provided to
women, older street children and vulnerable teens by master craftspeople,
visual and performing artists from Nkabom and the Craftspeople
Association of Accra, Ghana. Education in information technology and English
as a second language will be available for adults to make them more
competitive in the global marketplace. Seminars will be conducted to inform
the local community about malaria and HIV/AIDS. Children orphaned due to AIDS
will have the chance to grow up in a home with a family on the grounds of the
center, and students from colleges around the world will be given
opportunities to intern, student teach and work at the center, local
orphanages, the children's hospital. Survival of the
Fittest: Pushing Wheelbarrows to live in Buduburam Laura Suen,Buduburam, New Liberian, January 11, 2008 newliberian.com/?p=154 [accessed 16 May
2011] He doesn’t have the
luxury to attend school. For the past six years, he has worked pushing heavy
loads for at least 12 hours each day, every day of the week. He is one of the wheelbarrow boys working
in Buduburam. Mehrenburg’s day begins at 5
a.m. That is when he rents his wheelbarrow for 10 000 cedis
($1 US) and begins work immediately, pushing goods within the camp in order
to make money to survive. Clients include shopkeepers who need vegetables,
rice, cement, and other loads moved to and from shops and homes. Within his 12-hour
work day, his only break is a quick 15-minute lunch – that is, if Children push
wheelbarrows to survive in Buduburam Abednego David,
Vision Online.net, 2 May 2007 jmghana.blogspot.com/2007/05/child-labour-at-liberian-refugee-camp.html [accessed 16 May
2011] Samuel David, 14, a refugee child at Buduburam,
does not go to school with other children. He goes to the Buduburam
market at 6 am with a wheelbarrow, which was bought for him by his sister
Mamie David. David’s routine
includes transporting heavy loads of vegetables and other commodities for
marketers to and from the Buduburam market center
and at the residence of buyers’ returning from Kasoa,
a central commercial market town within the same Gomoa
Buduburam District in the Central Region. David, who starts
work very early in the morning and finishes work at 6 pm, said he can’t
afford to go to school. “I am not
attending school because there’s no money for fees,” he said. “I give the
money that I earned daily to my sister for food” he said. David is one of many boys who push
wheelbarrows at Buduburam camp. Most of them do
this work to survive and do not go to school. Northern, Upper
East & West Are the Suppliers of Street Kids in Oppong Baah,
Public Agenda, allafrica.com/stories/200705211552.html [accessed 3 December
2016] [accessed 17 January
2017] Several reasons
have been adduced for the swarming of He explained that
the geographical position of Kumasi makes it more vulnerable to the
phenomenon of street children, as it offers a transit point to migrants from
all parts of the country and beyond. These migrants, he said, more often than
not terminate their journey in On a good day a
porter can earn between ¢ 30, 000 and ¢ 50, 000. On bad days, however, a
porter has to fall on a colleague to have something to eat. The girls are
compelled to satisfy the sexual desires of their male counterparts to get
food to eat. Due to such instances a number of young girls become pregnant
and have to go back home. Untold stories of “Kayayei” 17 May 2007 news.myjoyonline.com/news/200705/4704.asp [accessed 16 May
2011] edition.myjoyonline.com/pages/news/200705/4704.php [accessed 17 January
2017] There are thousands
of children living and working on the streets, and the number is growing in
Accra. This is a result of increased urbanisation
and the difficult socio-economic circumstances rural families are
experiencing. Like other children
living and working on the streets, the Kayayei are
vulnerable to all forms of exploitation and abuse, including what may be a
higher risk of exposure to HIV/Aids. The Ghana
Statistical Service estimated that approximately 27.2 percent of children
aged 5 to 14 years in Ghana were working in 2001. The report indicates that
in rural areas, children can be found working in fishing, herding and as
contract farm labour. Children also work as domestics, porters, hawkers, mine
and quarry workers, and fare-collectors. In urban centres
like Accra, street children work mainly as truck pushers, porters, and sales
workers. Poverty in Ghana
driving children into prostitution Reporter: Prue
Clarke, Transcript from PM, Australian Broadcasting Corporation ABC, 13
October 2005 www.abc.net.au/pm/content/2005/s1481873.htm [accessed 16 May
2011] Growing poverty has tripled the number of children living on the streets. “During my visit to a class organized for street children by an NGO, I was puzzled to find just a handful of girls in the class. ‘That's because of the job they do’, the teacher told me. ‘They're all asleep now. They're prostitutes’. - sccp Family policies,
family planning needed to end child homelessness Editorial, The
Statesman, 19/12/2006 www.thestatesmanonline.com/pages/editorial_detail.php?newsid=110§ion=0 [accessed 16 May
2011] But The Statesman
still thinks that the NPP as a government, and we as a society, should be
doing more to prioritise the development and
well-being of the next generation of Christmas on the
streets Mary Morgan , The
Statesman, 16/12/2006 www.thestatesmanonline.com/pages/news_detail.php?newsid=1778§ion=7 [accessed 16 May
2011] www.thecrowdfundingcenter.com/?page=project&id=F48FCC [accessed 3 December
2016] Streetism is one of the most
visible problems faced by the youth of today; visible, but unmeasured,
because nobody really knows quite how many street children there are in this
country - they don’t show up on our national censuses and mostly don’t appear
on the school rolls. Catholic Action
for Children, a non-governmental organisation, has
been tracking the growth of child streetism in
Ghana over the past few years. At the last headcount in 2002, there were
19,165 street children in Accra alone.
The number is up from 10,400 in 1996 when the survey began, and is
estimated to have reached some 25,000 to 30,000 now. Only those children
who actually sleep on the street and have no one to support them were
counted. Some of these include "second generation" street children,
whose mothers are street mothers. Who Is A Street
Child? [access information
unavailable] Sometimes children
find themselves on the street because their parents are too poor to provide
for them. These children are supposed to go to school but instead they sell
all kinds of wares, such as dog chains, toffees, toys, etc. Some of them beg or run errands for
survival. Most of them have travelled
from far away villages in search of jobs.
But when they move to the cities they don’t get the jobs and have
nowhere to go so they end up sleeping in front of stores and kiosks. Streetism and Editorial, The
Statesman, 11/10/2006 www.thestatesmanonline.com/pages/editorial_detail.php?newsid=63§ion=0 [accessed 23
September 2011] The Statesman is
worried by society’s growing disregard for the street child. But society must
remember that in every street child, we have a potential cutlass wielding
robber and a potential or actual drug addict.
These are kids have virtually nothing to lose. They are a threat to
themselves and a threat to the very society that shuns them. We are turning
our streets into breeding grounds for potential terrorists. UNICEF, DANIDA
support Upper West to reduce child mortality www.ghanaweb.com/GhanaHomePage/regional/artikel.php?ID=110850 [accessed 16 May
2011] This year's
celebration in the region was held at the Wa
central lorry park with the main focus on street children, many whom are victims
of the worst forms of violence against children and are also exposed to all
forms of abuse on the streets. Mr Dery urged the street children, many of who dropped out
of school to push trucks in order to earn their living, to avoid the use of
narcotic and other hard drugs and aim at becoming responsible adults in
future. Micro finance
scheme launched in Kumasi ghanaweb.com/GhanaHomePage////economy/artikel.php?ID=109711 [accessed 23
September 2011] The Street Children
Development Foundation (SCDF), a Kumasi-based non-governmental organisation (NGO), has embarked on a micro finance
scheme for porters and street children in Mr George Baffour Owusu-Afriyie,
Executive Director of the SCDF, said this when he launched the scheme in
Kumasi on Friday. He said the organisation had so
far registered 670 porters and street children and they would contribute
between 5,000 to 10,000 cedis daily. Information about
Street Children - This report is taken
from “A Civil Society Forum for Anglophone West Africa on Promoting and
Protecting the Rights of Street Children”, 21-24 October 2003, At one time this
article had been archived and may possibly still be accessible [here] [accessed 16 May
2011] CONSTRAINTS AND
CHALLENGES
- Girls are less likely than boys to have any form of education, are known to
be less aware than boys about sexually transmitted diseases, despite their
increasing involvement in commercial sex work. This puts them at risk of
contracting HIV/AIDS and of unwanted pregnancy, which helps to explain the
large numbers of second-generation babies born on the street to parents who
are themselves street children The Alternative
Africa: Street Children in The International
Child And Youth Care Network CYC, Issue 24, • January 2001 www.cyc-net.org/cyc-online/cycol-0101-shanahan1.html [accessed 16 May
2011] KWAME’S STORY - Within the first
week he discovered that the streets are rough. He was beaten by other street
boys, by city guards and by police. By the end of the first week he had found
three other boys from his area, just a little older, and he joined them and
200 others in their street dormitory area. The
Alternative Africa: Street Children
in The International
Child And Youth Care Network CYC, Issue 25, • February 2001 www.cyc-net.org/cyc-online/cycol-0201-shanahan2.html [accessed 16 May
2011] SURVIVAL - The girl
children have to adopt extra survival strategies. Once the age of puberty has
been reached many of them will have boy minders who will demand sexual favors
as payment for protection. Many small girls will use sex for survival in
terms of supplementing their income. It is too easy to call them prostitutes.
A prostitute is for me a professional sex worker. A 14-year old who offers
sex for food and a few shillings to buy a length of cloth is not a
prostitute. Quotes from the
street www.onelifebeautiful.com/2006/11/african-dream.html [accessed 16 May
2011] www.open.edu/openlearnworks/mod/oucontent/view.php?id=102368§ion=1.5 [accessed 17 January
2017] [scroll down] In 2003, Wendy
Jones asked street children in Accra some simple questions and recorded what
they said. Their lives may seem very different from our lives but by reading
their replies we can see that they are people just like us, often with the
same dreams and aspirations. ‘If you could go
anywhere in the world, where would you go?’ Peter, 19: ‘My home
town.’ ‘If you had three
wishes, what would you wish for?’ Simon, 14: ‘Shoes.
One Shirt. Sneakers.’ ‘What makes you
happy?’ Sandra, 4: ‘Clapping
games.’ ‘What makes you
cry?’ Sandra, 4: ‘When I
am hungry.’ ‘If you had three
wishes, what would you wish for?’ Sandra, 4: ‘A dress.
Sandals. Eggs.’ ‘What do you think
about last thing at night before you go to sleep?’ Godfrey, 18: ‘I
think about the next day. Because I think that evening has passed so I have
to think about the next day. As for the night I have no place to go and I
just sleep.’ ‘What would you have
if you could have anything?’ Peter, 10: ‘A
necklace, a watch, a bed I can sleep in, a TV, a
video tape – any tape, a chair.’ ‘Tell me about your
mother.’ Larni, 18: ‘She wants me
to be somebody. Yet I am on the streets.’ ‘What would you like
to do in your future?’ Larni, 18: ‘In the
future, if I'm rich – I know I will be rich – yes, I hope, I hope I will be
rich, I will care for street children. Children with broken legs who can't
work...’ ‘What do you
regret?’ Betty, 18: ‘I will
say I regret being a street girl and I regret picking a boyfriend. And I
regret having bad friends – those that don't give good advice and wish for your
downfall.’ ‘What’s your favourite thing?’ Aisha, 19: ‘I have a
long black dress. I used to wear it and go anywhere. If I go to an exhibition
or to visit some people I can wear it. I love my long dress. It's fitted with
sleeves. It's black.’ [Adapted from:
streetchildafrica.org.uk] Meeting
Street Children Damon Albarn, photos by Greg Williams, Oxfam content.espressoeducation.com/espresso/modules/www/pshe/www_oxfam/oxfam/org/coolplanet/kidsweb/stars/damon7.htm [accessed 9 Aug 2013] More than 11,000
young people are living rough on the streets and the number increases each
day. The majority of these children
lack almost all basic needs: shelter, education, health care, adequate
nutrition, economic independence and personal safety. Ignored by authorities and the public, they
are often the target for exploitation, threats and violence. Who is to Blame for
Our Youth On the Streets? Joe Kingsley Eyiah, www.ghanaweb.com/GhanaHomePage/features/artikel.php?ID=41059 [accessed 16 May
2011] TYPES OF STREET
YOUTH
- 2. About ninety-five percent (95%) of street youth come under the category
of homeless. In Street Life
as Labour: The Working Lives of Street Children in
Phil Mizen, Department of Sociology, www2.warwick.ac.uk/fac/soc/sociology/staff/academicstaff/mizenp/mizenp_index/phils_research/ghana [accessed 16 May
2011] For the past two
years, Yaw Ofosu-Kusi and myself
have been undertaking research examining the working lives of street children
in Street Children:
The Time Is Ripe For Harder Action! Heerko Dijksterhuis,
02-10-2003 At one time this
article had been archived and may possibly still be accessible [here] [accessed 16 May
2011] A really new
approach we are taking is that we plead for the higher skilled professional
categories also to be thrown open to street children. In Nketsiah
Sings For Street Kids Source:
ghanamusic.com, 4 March 2005 www.ghanaweb.com/GhanaHomePage/audio/artikel.php?ID=191857 [accessed 16 May
2011] The project seeks
to help raise significant amounts of money through eight major concerts to
support five selected Orphanages and Children’s home who have pledged to take
up a considerable number of street children across the country. All
material used herein reproduced under the fair use exception of 17 USC § 107
for noncommercial, nonprofit, and educational use. PLEASE RESPECT COPYRIGHTS OF COMPONENT
ARTICLES. Cite this webpage as: Patt,
Prof. Martin, "Street Children - |
