Zimbabwe's government undertook a survey in 2023 to ascertain how many children were living on the streets of the country's second biggest city, Bulawayo. The most recent numbers were from a similar 2015 survey, the Ministry of Public Service, Labour and Welfare told reporters - and, in the intervening eight years, it was clear that many more children had ended up on Bulawayo's streets. The situation is similar in the capital city, Harare; in July 2024 it was reported that some "rowdy street kids" were robbing people in the city centre.
The phenomenon of children living and working on the streets is not a uniquely Zimbabwean problem.
Accurate figures are hard to come by: in 1989 Unicef put the estimated global population of street children at 100 million; it gave the same estimate in 2002 and 2005. More recent figures suggest that as many as one in five of the world's children are living or working on the streets. (There are about 2 billion children aged between 0 and 14 in the world.) The lack of reliable figures shows that this is a hidden population. They are mobile and often unnoticed by others.
There are many reasons that children choose to leave their homes and attempt to eke out a living on the streets. These include their basic needs, like adequate food and shelter, not being met, neglect by their families and a desire to support themselves or their families.
But the situation has been made worse in Zimbabwe by several factors. The country's decades-long economic crisis saw the national poverty rate hit 72% in 2019. Millions of Zimbabweans go hungry each day, a situation worsened by climate-induced shocks.
Life on the streets leaves children vulnerable to extreme weather, like cold spells and heat waves, as well as violence and diseases. Since most children drop out of school either before or when they leave home, they also lose out on opportunities to learn, develop and ultimately better their circumstances. Schooling is a sort of social vaccine against a number of ills.
Many scholars consider family reunification the best way to help vulnerable children such as those living on the streets. Researchers argue that it's necessary to identify and solve the problems that lead to separation, and provide proper support to the family. Studies have shown that children are more likely to return to the streets if the family hasn't been supported.
However, many governments across Africa take the view that family reunification involves nothing more than returning children to their homes.
I am a psychology scholar with a focus on child development. With several colleagues, NGOs and government representatives, I set out to test a different approach to family reunification. We worked with children, parents and guardians who were going through a reunification process to help them build resilience. The process strengthened family bonds, provided children with both livelihood and schooling opportunities - and, ultimately, means there's less chance that they'll return to life on the streets.
Giving children agency
The study, which took place over a period of two years (2022 to 2024) in Harare, involved 24 children (aged between 9 and 18) and their families. Some children had spent as few as two days on the streets; others had been living on the streets for months. The longer a child has lived on the streets, the lower the chances of a successful reunification as they may have adapted or feel there's no need to return home.
Officials from the Department of Social Development and Volunteers for Vulnerable Children, an organisation that provides reunification support in Harare, helped me to identify participants.
Many of the children cited parental neglect and abuse, poverty, peer pressure, and divorce as reasons for leaving their homes and staying on the streets. A few had been orphaned. Some of them left their homes looking for employment in the city and ended up on the streets having failed to secure jobs.
One of the most important aspects of this study was that it centred the children and their voices. Children are often considered too vulnerable and immature to have the agency to suggest solutions to the problems they face at home. This view neglects the fact that these children leave their homes to stay on the streets and then voluntarily decide to return - a solid sign of their agency.
Once the children had outlined the challenges they experienced at home, we brought them together with their families and community leaders, such as village heads and community care workers, to talk about strategies to strengthen their family bonds, build their collective resilience and keep the children at home.
The project provided livelihood support and parental training and linked the children with government support for education and communities for food support. One family that that had become homeless was helped by their community to find a shelter while two homeless children were reintegrated with foster parents.
All 24 of the children, in consultation with their guardians and community participants, decided that they wanted to return to school. They also wanted the chance to run their own small businesses, such as buying and selling goats or chickens, or buying and reselling other goods.
There was a clear commitment from all parties to making the reunification process work. One of the children's fathers said:
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I thank you for this initiative, I hope that my daughter passes her school and reaches her full potential. I promise to do anything in my power to do my best in supporting her education beyond what you have done.
And one of the children told us: "I am very thankful for this project, I am now back in school and have my goats for use in the future."
We followed up by visiting the children and their families at their homes together with officials from our partner NGOs, social development officials from government, community care workers or a combination of these groups. As of August 2024 all 24 children were still living at home with their families and 22 were back at school.
Looking forward
This initiative is similar to a model that's been successfully tested in many Latin American countries, combining therapeutic approaches, livelihood support and educational support to ensure that family reunification is sustainable.
Our results suggest that this kind of intervention can work in Zimbabwe. We hope that the method can be scaled up and used elsewhere in the country to help children get off the streets, back to their families and education - and to ensure that their best interests are kept at the heart of all reunification programmes.
Samson Mhizha, Lecturer, University of Zimbabwe
