Street children - A time bomb in the making

Our paths crossed about five years ago at the Makola market. He used to accompany his father, who was visually impaired, around some markets in town. After making a donation, I enquired why he was not in school and he said it was due to financial constraints.

When I probed further as to whether he was ready to abandon his father and go to school, he only smiled at me with no response to my question. A couple of years down the line, I met him in the company of others, meandering through traffic in search of daily bread. They were three young boys who were bubbly and full of life and content with the meagre earnings they were scrapping from the art of begging for alms on the streets. Now I had come to know him as Dumbia.

Recently, I spotted Dumbia again, this time looking tanned and weary, with his usual smile gone. I stopped for our usual chat and the revelations were worrying. One of his three friends had been killed by a speeding vehicle and the other had diversified from begging into armed robbery. After a botched operation, he is now serving a long sentence in jail.

As I drove off, I kept wondering the kind of social system we had that was so callous and did not care a hoot about the plight of these otherwise future leaders.
The causes of streetism are many, they include poverty, parental neglect, and is largely determined by the kind of environment children find themselves in. As it has been noted, no one is born a criminal but society makes them so.

Dumbia and his other friends could have become productive citizens if only society had shown a little care. Though the onus rested with their parents, in their absence or inability, it should have been the responsibility of a responsible and caring society.

In the face of such neglect, the alarming reality is that the number of children on our streets seems to be increasing by the day at our own peril. We will not know any peace should they decide to unleash their frustration and disappointment on us. We will become an easy target for them if we haven’t become already, considering the high level of crime in our society. After all, it is said that “adidigya ene muna na enam.”

Must children of school age suffer because their parents are handicapped? Why should a mentally ill person be allowed to remain on the street and keep their children (who are not mentally ill) with them? How many talents are we wasting as a result of such societal neglect? How many engineers, doctors, architects and teachers are wasting away as a result of such blatant neglect? Shouldn’t the story of Abraham Atta have awakened us to do more for the street child? We are told he was a school absentee selling on the streets until he was spotted by a philanthropist. The rest, they say, is history. Today, the once street boy is a person of international acclaim who we are all proud to associate ourselves with as our compatriot.

As we count the cost of our inability to ensure that all children of school age are in school, we should not forget about contemporary challenges such as recruitment into Boko Haram, ISIS and the like, in addition to routine ones such as cybercrime, teenage pregnancy, pick pocketing and armed robbery.
The Free Senior High School (SHS) policy is a laudable initiative but education at the basic level is even more critical. What are we doing to ensure that we meet the objectives of the Free Compulsory Basic Education (FCUBE)? State institutions responsible for clearing our streets of child beggars/hawkers should be up and doing. It may be impractical to have no child begging/hawking on our streets but we can certainly reduce the numbers. People should be made aware of the opportunities available to them through vibrant public education in terms of where to access such help.

It is also important for civil society, particularly religious groups and individuals, to do more in this area so that we minimise or rid our society of streetism and its unpalatable repercussions. Failure to do this and we should brace ourselves for hard times ahead. The child on the street today could be useful to himself and society as a whole with a bit of help and direction. I am yet to see a well-trained teacher or lawyer opting to go into armed robbery and terrorising people. As a society, it is high time it dawned on us that a well-educated, employable youth is an asset not only to his parents but society at large.

Writer’s E-mail: doreen.hammond@graphic.com.gh/aamakai@rocketmail.com