Chansa Mulalami
8 March 2004
AN old ruggedly dressed blind man in charcoal-black glasses cautiously walks along Ndola's President Avenue under a steady mid-day drizzle.
Alongside him and equally drenched, is a little boy who could be no more than 11 clutching the old man's hand to ensure that they both steer clear of on-rushing crowds.
And since begging knows no weather, the lad consistently approaches a stationary vehicle or passer-by, hoping someone will drop a polymer note in his small palm.
If some sympathetic soul does fish out a Kwacha or two, the boy immediately passes it over to the blind man in spontaneous obedience.
To the average on-looker, the two are father and son trying to survive through alms, a typical scenario at the height of Zambia's economic malaise.
But for those who may endeavour to investigate, it is not always that the children we see guiding blind folks on their begging errands are actual sons or daughters.
In Ndola, for instance, it has become common for street kids and possibly other children from economically disgraced homes to put themselves up for hire after which they are paid a little token of appreciation.
This is mostly in cases where these children take advantage of childless blind couples who have no one to guide them around town or those who have simply realised that the whole idea is lucrative.
One such boy is Ezra, a 13-year-old from Chipulukusu township, who admits earning a living through escorting blind folks.
His own biography speaks of shattered dreams after the death of his parents which has forced him and his four younger siblings to live with a distant grandmother who has five other children under her care.
Hardly able to scratch up a decent living through tea leaf sales, Ezra's grandmother encourages her children to use their initiative to supplement her efforts to feed them.
And young Ezra is doing just that.
He and a few friends have formed a network of street kids being "hired" by blind people.
As with everything else, there are days when there's nothing to show for it after a hard day's work while at other times, there is something to give thanks for.
"Limo limo nda sungapo nangu five pin pakwinuka eyo ntwala kun'ganda (Sometimes I make about five thousand Kwacha, which I take home)," Ezra revealed recently.
With barely an ounce of education to talk about, Ezra says the only hope for him and his fellow street kids from Chipulukusu is to make themselves available for hire.
Oddly, this aspect of child streetism has somehow escaped the knowledge of social workers, the ones responsible for the welfare of children.
Despite having attained political independence as far back as 1964, Zambia still has not come up with a coherent and clear-cut child policy to address the plight of children.
This has had a direct negative effect on the development of children who constitute the largest percentage of the population.
The combination of the global economic decline and the increasing constraints in providing resources for child welfare have aroused national concern regarding the conditions under which the majority of Zambian children live.
More than any other, it is the HIV/AIDS pandemic which has accentuated the plight of children, forcing them to resort to unorthodox means for survival.
It is estimated that there are about 800,000 orphans and vulnerable children (OVC) in Zambia.
The basic unit of society, the family, has been torn apart by the HIV/AIDS pandemic as children are left to fend for themselves under frail social safety networks.
In this regard, there is need to step up awareness strategies that will highlight the plight of OVCs in Zambia in the interest of national development.
Since it was long agreed that children are the leaders of tomorrow, much needs to be done to ensure that their welfare is taken care of, even in the face of meagre resources.
Apart from the Government of the day effecting a tangible framework that will serve as the benchmark of children's rights, society at large has a moral responsibility towards the same.
It is past bed time that Zambians went the extra mile to eliminate the environment of persistent child abuse, lest destiny judges us harshly.
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