Funmi Ogundare
9 January 2008
column
Lagos — It was a Wednesday morning at the ever-busy CMS bus stop, Lagos. He couldn't have been more than five years old, Ibrahim Sule's (not real name) out look paints a vivid picture of his state of helplessness.
He appeared unkempt and hopeless. He cuts a pathetic picture of a child who maybe due to lack of parental care and economic hardship of the country, had to take to the street to beg for alms from motorists.
More pathetic is Ibrahim's condition as he has only one leg and he has to move with the aid of an old crutch to support himself. Ibrahim could have been hit or gotten his only leg crushed by an oncoming vehicle when his mates are already in school or preparing to go back after the festive season.
Ibrahim's case is however not the only one as hundreds of children are taken to the streets daily to eke out living. It is also a common sight in major parts of the country to see children who are supposed to be in school, washing windscreens, begging or hawking on major roads.
The United Nations (UN) estimates the population of street children worldwide at 150 million, with the number rising daily. Their ages range from two to 18. According to the UN, about 40 per cent of them are homeless which is unprecedented in the history of civilisation. The other 60 percent work on the streets to support their families. They are unable to attend school and are considered to live in 'especially difficult circumstances '.
Regrettably, these children are the defenseless victims of brutal violence, sexual exploitation, abject neglect, drug addiction, and human rights violations.
But what could lead a child to the streets to constitute a problem to the society? THISLIFE sought to find out from the special adviser to the Lagos State Governor on youths, sports and social development, Dr. Enitan Dolapo Badru, who said aside economic problems of the country; some parents and guardians use the children for business by using their sorry state to beg for alms.
He said the Child Rights Act as enacted has given the government some powers to prosecute parents or guardians who maltreat children by sending them to beg or hawk on the streets when they should be in school. Badru added that such children, after some time, are forced into armed robbery or even become tools in the hands of robbers who used them as gun keepers because they are underage.
"For example, in Lagos, people come from all parts of the country to 'hustle'; it is now getting to an alarming stage where you see underage children come on their own. So when this happens there is no where to stay except under the bridges. They join bad gangs and many other vices and armed robbers use them as an opportunity to keep guns because they are under aged", he said.
Some other children, the special adviser also noted, aside running away from home because the guardians or parents are maltreating them, some parents even send them to be used as house helps elsewhere by collecting money.
"For those children, when they are maltreated there, they run away and knowing fully well that if he goes back home, he would be taken back there or to another place for the same purpose", he said.
Are there plans to rid the streets of these children? Badru said the Universal Basic Education (UBE) law section 2(2) criminalises failure of parents and guardians to send their children to school. He said the law is enforced by the ministry of education but it is the social responsibility of the government to make sure that such children are taken off the streets.
"Under the social responsibility of the government, you must see that every child goes to school. Apart from that there is a criminal tendency in a child roaming the streets not only at school time but anytime of the day. It's even more dangerous when you see them roaming the streets at very odd times at night", he said.
He affirmed that the ministry has included them in its 2008 budget and it plans to 'rescue' them from the streets by first counseling them and reuniting them with their families.
He said those they are unable to reunite and others, who have criminal tendencies, would be sent to remand homes where they can learn a trade to be useful to themselves until they are able to find who they can actually hand them over to.
"We are trying as much as possible to equip the remand homes and after the budget must have been passed in January, we would go full hog into rescuing them from the harm the parents, guardians or Godfathers want to-do to the child", Badru said.
The Project Director, Community Art Development Initiative (CADI), a non-governmental organisation and community art specialist outfit, Mrs. Njideka Eke said her NGO established a programme tagged, 'School Kids Back to School' to put children who were denied the opportunity of going to school a chance to do so. Eke, an accomplished artist said her NGO felt the need to reduce the illiteracy level amongst children and promote good citizenship." The base of the intellectual resource is education, and if the children are denied the basic education, they start out in life on the wrong note. We noticed that, these children who are being denied education today as a result of their socio-psychological condition or because of their indigent condition, if they are allowed to grow up without proper educational base, they become a menace to the society.
Some of them may grow up to become robbers, street urchins' and miscreants and then get back at the society negatively. This is the reason CADI is involved in ensuring that, these children are helped to get back to school. So our programme, School Kids Back to School is instructive and urgent for the sake of the kids and the society," she said. Eke said her NGO aside planning to reach as many less privileged kids as possible in different communities and be able to proffer help accordingly, it is also planning programmes around the family unit to aid a hitch-free education and equally make their environment conducive.
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