The Weekly Observer (Kampala)
Martyn Drakard
3 December 2008
book review
Book: Street Children in Africa
Author: Aylward Shorter and Edwin Onyancha
Publisher: Paulines Publications, 1999
"Street Children in Africa, a Nairobi case study", authored by Mill Hill missionary, Aylward Shorter and social anthropologist, Edwin Onyancha, is an authoritative account of a city where street children, and street families, have constituted a real "problem" for over twenty years.
This 1999 study is still extremely relevant, and is based on interviews with 120 street children, with whom the authors became friends and who were willing to be interviewed, as well as on information from teachers, pastors and counselors in 55 organizations.
Street children are a substantial section of African youth, who are, in a way, creating an alternative society, because of being rejected by ordinary citizens like us. In 1997, Kenya had some 150,000 children on the streets, of whom 60,000 lived in Nairobi alone. Eleven years later, the number has most likely doubled; 90% of them were between six and fifteen years old, illiterate and with little access to health care. No more than 10% are rehabilitated, despite the excellent work of faith-based institutions.
Their origins are traced to poverty, dysfunctional families, the "tribal clashes" of 1992 and 1997, the prohibitive cost of primary education, the "need" for child labour and the 1969 repeal of the Affiliation Act, requiring putative fathers to support children engendered out of wedlock.
In eight chapters the book covers the world-wide phenomenon of street children and families; the child in the African social tradition; the civil rights of children; child labour on the street; street families and street gangs; juvenile delinquency among street children; organizations working with them; and possible solutions. Each chapter begins with a true story.
In Kenya these children are called "chokara", which means rubbish scavenger, and the implication is that these are creatures that should also be thrown out like rubbish. Kenyan society and Kenyan legislation have not grasped the challenge, and prefer to look the other way, hoping the problem will disappear. Children's Rights exist on paper, but not put into one document; and they are curative, not preventive.
Official society treats them harshly, and the authors strongly criticize their being placed in approved schools, Borstal institutions and police cells with adults. The popular conception that they are thugs in the making is mistaken; most respond to affection, and if they steal it is to survive.
The authors quote cases of street children helping police recover stolen property, taking sick colleagues to hospital and rescuing victims in the US embassy bomb blast in 1998. Among themselves they are usually highly organized. They mention the instance of Kirima "base", a group of a dozen boys who operate from Nairobi city centre. Some collect, sort and sell paper; others wash and guard cars; still others earn money by carrying shoppers' goods to their cars. Yet this shows they are accepted as an integral part of the Nairobi scene, which no-one wants to change, and that they are exploited.
Essential reading for policy-makers, social workers and educators in Uganda, since little has been written on this problem here.
Be the first to Write a Comment!
Copyright © 2008 The Weekly Observer. All rights reserved. Distributed by AllAfrica Global Media (allAfrica.com). To contact the copyright holder directly for corrections — or for permission to republish or make other authorized use of this material, click here.
AllAfrica aggregates and indexes content from over 125 African news organizations, plus more than 200 other sources, who are responsible for their own reporting and views. Articles and commentaries that identify allAfrica.com as the publisher are produced or commissioned by AllAfrica.
