Prevalence,
Abuse & Exploitation of Street Children In the first decade
of the 21st Century gvnet.com/streetchildren/Zimbabwe.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 *** One way street – to
despair: life for Zimbabwe's street kids Sokwanele, December 10th,
2007 www.sokwanele.com/articles/zimbabwesstreetkids_10122007 [accessed 18 August
2011] www.swradioafrica.com/Documents/SOKWAN111207.pdf [accessed 15 January
2017] Mandla sleeps under a
cardboard box and survives by scavenging for food from the city’s many
overflowing and evil-smelling rubbish bins. He has only been on the streets
for a few weeks but has learnt quickly, as needs must in this dangerous and
disease-ridden environment. There is no one else to turn to for help. His few
surviving relatives do not even know where he is. On the streets the law of
the jungle operates - literally the survival of the fittest. Frequently it is
only rapid reflexes and a swift pair of feet that keep the inhabitants of
this shadowy world out of really serious trouble. Mandla
Mpofu (*) is one of Uphold Children's
Dignity Philani Nyatsanza, The Herald, allafrica.com/stories/200904080118.html [partially accessed
18 August 2011 - access restricted] It has become
common parlance, so much that we have ignored the consequences of such labels
as "street children" and "Aids orphans". In simple terms, this is not just naming,
but naming and shaming in the same breathe. The power of life and death is in
the tongue (Proverbs 18:21). Why
should a child be made to pay the price of something over which they had
neither power, say, like losing a parent to an HIV-related illness? The tragedy is that such shaming has a
very high price because, whether we see it or not, it will always haunt the
child, looming over them like some spectre of evil. Every time you call
them "street children" or "Aids orphans" you are prophesying
into their lives (words are carriers of spiritual power) and at the end of
the day, they act and behave in a manner consistent with what you have
labelled them. So, instead of getting
answers to the problem of children making a "home" in the streets,
we exacerbate this socio-economic ill by condemnation through labelling. "Street
children" seems to have become almost like a trade name, because it is
drawn directly from the disadvantaged children's characteristically grimy
lifestyles in the streets. But
whether they live and work in streets, in families and communities, they are
just children. ***
ARCHIVES *** Covid-19: Spare a
thought for street children Gibson Mhaka, B-Metro, 3 April 2020 [accessed 8 February
2023] "I heard about
it (coronavirus) a bit but I don't know how I am supposed to protect myself
from the disease. We are already
ruined and so for us it's better to get the disease while looking for
food," Nyasha said to loud approval from other
children. He further said
they were finding it difficult to survive since most of the dust bins they
usually get food from were empty. "We are also
unable to survive in the present situation and how can I feed myself when
there are no people in town. The Good
Samaritans, who usually give us food and small jobs to earn money are locked
at home," he said. The Department of Labor’s 2004 Findings on
the Worst Forms of Child Labor www.dol.gov/ilab/media/reports/iclp/tda2004/zimbabwe.htm [accessed 17 January
2011] INCIDENCE
AND NATURE OF CHILD LABOR - Parliamentary investigation into the situation at
camps found that conditions were poor, trainees were subjected to political
indoctrination, and no real vocational training was being provided. Over the past few years, the number of
children living on the streets has continued to rise and there are reports of
children involved in commercial sexual exploitation. Since the beginning
of 2004, many schools have been forced to increase fees to cover the growing
cost of materials and salaries due to inflation. The fee increases reportedly
have led to a rise in dropout rates, affecting girls disproportionately CURRENT
GOVERNMENT POLICIES AND PROGRAMS TO ELIMINATE THE WORST FORMS OF CHILD LABOR - The government’s
“Children in Difficult Circumstances” program is intended to assist street
children. The Program and the Basic
Education Assistance Module provide school fees, uniforms and books for children
who cannot afford to attend school.
UNICEF and other international organizations are assisting with the
government’s education efforts and have been particularly involved in school
feeding programs during the recent food crisis. UNICEF has also been supplying
school-in-a-box kits, which provide basic learning materials, to children
attending satellite schools. Human Rights
Reports » 2005 Country Reports on Human Rights Practices 2009-2017.state.gov/j/drl/rls/hrrpt/2005/61600.htm [accessed 11
February 2020] CHILDREN
-
There was no compulsory education, and schooling was not free. School fees
increased dramatically during the year, and enrollment declined. According to
one company's inflation analysis, school costs for low-income families
increased nearly 900 percent from December 2004 through November. Many
families could not afford to send all of their children to school. According
to the 2002 census data and age‑specific population distributions,
roughly 72 percent of school‑age children attended school. In September
President Mugabe claimed that 97 percent of primary school-age children
attended school in 2004. The highest level achieved by most students was
primary level education. There were an
estimated 1.3 million HIV/AIDS orphans by year's end, and the number was
increasing. The number of AIDs orphans (including children who lost one as
well as both parents) was about 10 percent of the country's population. Many
grandparents were left to care for the young, and, in some cases, children or
adolescents headed families and were forced to work to survive. AIDS orphans
and foster children were at high risk for child abuse. Some children were
forced to turn to prostitution as a means of income. According to local
custom, other family members inherit before children, leaving many children
destitute. Many such children were unable to obtain birth certificates, which
then prevented them from obtaining social services. During Operation
Restore Order, the government detained many street children and took them to
transit camps or juvenile detention centers. At year's end NGOs were
uncertain how the operation affected the number of children living on the
streets, which in previous years had risen dramatically. Concluding
Observations of the Committee on the Rights of the Child (CRC) UN Convention on the
Rights of the Child, 7 June 1996 www1.umn.edu/humanrts/crc/crc-Zimbabwe96.htm [accessed 17 January
2011] [17] The Committee
is concerned at the number of orphans and abandoned children as well as at
the increase in child-headed families, inter alia, as a result of the high
incidence of AIDS, at the inadequate measures taken to ensure the realization
of their fundamental rights and at the lack of alternatives to their
institutionalization. Zimbabwean girls
seek opportunity in South Africa Donna Bryson, The
Associated Press AP, Musina South www.chicagodefender.com/article-4433-zimbabwean-girls-see.html [accessed 19 August
2011] www.namibian.com.na/index.php?id=53527&page=archive-read [accessed 15 January
2017] Sofia Chimhangwa, a 14-year-old in a denim skirt, lies on the
concrete under a filthy blanket. Her 15-year-old friend sits next to her,
braiding a legless Barbie's hair. Musina is "not a
good place," Streetchildren Need Families Philani Nyatsanza, The Herald, 22 April 2009 allafrica.com/stories/200904220293.html [partially accessed 19
August 2011 - access restricted] Sometime back in
July 2006, Government -- exasperated by the number of people resorting to
eking out a living in the streets -- embarked on a programme
whereby they sought to clean up the city centre by rounding up all children
living in the streets. The action seemed
to be only a temporary reprieve, for the streets were soon flooded again,
showing that the concerned parties had applied the wrong method to addressing
this question of children living and working in the streets. This is typical of what always happens in
vicious cycle-fashion: whenever children are rounded up from the streets by
the police, it's only a temporary measure for they always come back because
the streets are probably the only "accommodating" places they
know. They would rather not go back
to empty homes: be they empty of parents, love or food. Children flee
Zimbabwe to uncertain future Justine Gerardy, Agence France-Presse AFP, Musina South mg.co.za/article/2009-01-11-children-flee-zimbabwe-to-uncertain-future [accessed 19 August
2011] Prince Jelom has sold eggs, carried bags and pushed trolleys to
survive life as a 13-year-old on the run from Jelom is one of 100
Zimbabwean children sleeping in a crowded tin-roofed garage at a Musina church, set up as a shelter for scores of young
Zimbabwean boys found wandering the streets.
Living rough, often eating from rubbish bins, the street children are
casualties of the worsening crisis at home where deadly cholera has come on
the back of chronic food shortages, mind-boggling inflation and the collapse
of hospitals and schools. Zimbabwe: Council
in Drive to Rehabilitate Street People The Herald, allafrica.com/stories/200712030563.html [partially accessed
19 August 2011 - access restricted] Mrs Gambiza-Pasipanodya said the programme
involved urging residents, ratepayers and private organisations
to desist from offering money or material support to street children and
adults as this was a major factor in influencing their continued stay on the
streets. Jotham Dhemba,
The Herald, streetchildrennews.wordpress.com/2007/11/01/zimbabwe-children-need-everyones-protection/ [accessed 15 January
2017] THE EXTENT OF THE
PROBLEM
- There is rapid growth in the number of orphaned children in The worsening
phenomenon of street children in urban areas is also symptomatic of a
worsening problem and a malfunctioning child welfare system. It should be
evident to all concerned about the problem of child welfare, that there are
many more "invisible" children who are not accounted for in
official statistics. Tracey C. Velt, REALTOR® Magazine Online, September 19, 2007 www.realtor.org/RMODaily.nsf/pages/News2007091908?OpenDocument [accessed 19 August
2011] “When I got there,
I heard about this wonderful woman who would bring the street children tea
and bread every morning,” she says. “I expected this benevolent, shining
woman to step out of the shadows to feed the kids, but she was an old woman
living in an apartment that was about to be condemned, barely able to make
ends meet. The children would climb out of storm drains and ditches to get
food from her.” Voice of www.voazimbabwe.com/content/a-13-56-74-2007-09-12-voa39-68996237/1465393.html [accessed 15 October
2012] Police in the Zimbabweean capital of Food Experts: Time
is Ripe to Grow More Bananas in Voice of www.voanews.com/content/a-13-2007-07-30-voa54-66781617/565204.html [accessed 15 October
2012] Munya is a street child
who earns money by guarding cars in the capital. He says he regularly
buys bananas from Chiwkama, because he can afford
neither chicken nor chips. Street children's
project still to fly Augustine Mukaro, The allafrica.com/stories/200607210148.html [partially accessed
20 September 2011 - access restricted] To date, there are
no indications of any developments relating to a children's home. However,
the farm is being fully utilised. R W Johnson, The
Sunday Times, www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/article1290268.ece [accessed 19 August
2011] jeffweintraub.blogspot.com/2007/01/zimbabwe-land-of-dying-children-rw.html [accessed 15 January
2017] Suffer the little
children is a phrase never far from your mind in today’s Zimbabwe. The horde
of painfully thin street children milling around you at traffic lights is
almost the least of it: in a population now down to 11m or less there are an
estimated 1.3m orphans. Go to one of
the overflowing cemeteries in Under the weight of
the general economic meltdown — the economy has shrunk by 40% since 2000 and
is still contracting — the health system has collapsed and a populace now
weakened by five consecutive years of near-starvation dies of things which
would never have been fatal before. A staggering 42,000 women died in
childbirth last year, for example, compared with fewer than 1,000 a decade
ago. Children of the
streets feel wrath of Mugabe David Blair, The
Telegraph, [accessed 19 August
2011] President Robert
Mugabe began a new onslaught on Last year they
bulldozed thousands of "illegal structures" in the poorest
townships, leaving 700,000 people without homes or livelihoods. Police The Herald, streetchildrennews.wordpress.com/2006/07/18/police-round-up-street-kids/ [accessed 19 August
2011] Police in Asst Insp Pamire said people should desist from giving the street
kids and beggars money because they usually buy intoxicating beverages,
thereby inciting violence and eventually disturbing peace as they harass the
public. The number of
children living on the streets is increasing because of the money they get
from people. Street Kids Unite
to Write Book streetchildrennews.wordpress.com/2006/04/12/street-kids-unite-to-write-book/ [accessed 15 January
2017] The book, entitled The book asks
whether street children are badly behaved, despised and rejected. It also
explores whether they are safe in the streets, they have dreams and hopes,
aspirations to succeed and above all if at all they choose to be in the
streets. The 60-page book chronicles their life and the story is told first
hand by the street children themselves. Plot to dump street
kids in youth training camps The Financial
Gazette, November 25, 2004 streetchildrennews.wordpress.com/2004/11/25/plot-to-dump-street-kids-in-youth-training-camps/ [accessed 15 January
2017] The Harare City Council
is planning to dump more than 7 000 street kids at the controversial national
youth training centres in a sweep likely to be
replicated in other towns and cities. Plans are already
at an advanced stage to forcibly round up beggars and a hardened army of
street children, starting in the capital Street Children
Vulnerable to AIDS The International
Child and Youth Care Network CYC-NET, 8 July 2004 www.cyc-net.org/features/ft-streetchildren.html [accessed 19 August
2011] Ten-year-old Molin
considers the streets of Increase
In Street Children As Economy Worsens UN Integrated
Regional Information Networks IRIN, www.irinnews.org/report/50886/zimbabwe-increase-in-street-children-as-economy-worsens [accessed 22
February 2015] Results from an
assessment of children living and working on the streets in urban areas
around the capital, Bleak
Future For Valentine www.zimbabwesituation.com/jun20a_2004.html#link11 [accessed 19 August
2011] With the economic
crisis showing no signs of a respite, there was little to cheer, particularly
for street children who have to endure cold nights and starvation in the
country's major cities. Government
Establishes Fund for Street Children The Herald, allafrica.com/stories/200507051446.html [partially accessed
19 August 2011 - access restricted] Government has
established the Children on the Streets Fund meant to protect and
rehabilitate children living or working on the streets and shall be applied
for the removal of children below the age of 18 from the streets for
reunification with their families or placement in institutions dealing with
street children. Zim Online (SA), www.zimbabwesituation.com/jun14_2005.html#link1 [accessed 11
Aug 2013] The Femi
Kuti Speaks Out For Zimbabwe’s 1.3 Million Orphans United Nations
Children's Fund UNICEF, 09 May 2005 At one time this
article had been archived and may possibly still be accessible [here] [accessed 19 August
2011] Despite the world’s
fourth worst rate of HIV/AIDS, the highest rise in child mortality of any
nation, and the number of street children doubling in the past five years,
Zimbabweans receive just a fraction of donor funding compared to other
countries in their region. Information About
Street Children - This report is taken
from “A Civil Society Forum for East and Southern Africa on Promoting and
Protecting the Rights of Street Children”, 11- 13 February 2002, At one time this
article had been archived and may possibly still be accessible [here] [accessed 19 August
2011] Over 30,000
household headed are headed by children under 21 and another 3,000 are headed
by children under 15; 600,000 children under 15 are estimated to have lost
their mother; estimated 12,000 street children of whom about 5,000 are in
Harare; numbers increase during school holidays and weekends when children
are sent out by their parents to supplement the family income or to earn
their school fees and levies. Tanya: It’s Better
to Die of AIDS Than Hunger www.newint.org/features/2005/04/01/harare-zimbabwe/ [accessed 17 January
2011] ‘Soon after the
death of my father I was evicted from the house where my parents lodged in Mbare. I went to
stay with my grandmother who lives in Mabvuku. There were 10 of us children staying there
and we had all been left by deceased relatives. Life was difficult because, being an old woman, my grandmother had no means of sustaining herself
and all of us at the same time.’ CHILDREN: Those The
Anti-AIDS Campaigners Forget Isabella Matambanadzo, Inter Press Service News Agency IPS, www.aegis.com/news/ips/1996/IP960601.html [accessed 19 August
2011] www.ipsnews.net/1996/06/zimbabwe-children-those-the-anti-aids-campaigners-forget/ [accessed 15 January
2017] Generally, the boys
do odd jobs such as guarding parked cars, while the girls beg. But destitution transforms many children of
both sexes into easy prey for people who sexually exploit them in exchange
for a little money, warm clothes, a pair of old shoes or simply a hot meal. Firelight Foundation Firelight Foundation grants.firelightfoundation.org/ [accessed 19 August
2011] www.firelightfoundation.org/pdf/Firelight_Foundation_Annual_Report_2000-2003.pdf [accessed 15 January
2017] [scroll down] SCRIPTURE UNION /
CHIEDZA STREET CHILDREN’S PROGRAM, BULAWAYO 2003 – $5,800 - Scripture Union,
a nondenominational Christian group, has been working with children, youth,
and families in [scroll down] NEHEMIAH PROJECT,
BULAWAYO 2003 – $7,000 - The Nehemiah Project works with children
in Sauerstown, an extremely poor community outside
of All
material used herein reproduced under the fair use exception of 17 USC § 107
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ARTICLES. Cite this webpage as: Patt,
Prof. Martin, "Street Children - |
