The 16th Day of the African Child, celebrated every June 16, this year is designated to raise awareness for the plight of street children across Africa. It commemorates the bravery of children who took to the streets to ask for quality education in Soweto (1976) only to be massacred.
Street children are any girl or boy who has yet to reach adulthood who seeks a livelihood or residence in the street. The demographic is growing globally, with an estimated 120 million or 1 in 5 children turning to the street. One quarter of the total - 45 million - are in Africa; the majority of those boys.
“If I had a choice, I would go to school like other kids my age, but then what would my brothers and sisters eat,” 15-year old Senegalese boy who drives a cart to support his family.
This boy’s story is too often heard, he is a member of a lost African generation without education or vocational training. Both a symptom and a cause of poverty, street children put a face to massive human rights violations daily.
For more than 70 years, Plan International has been working to improve the lives of children so they do not have to seek refuge in the street. Plan raises awareness of child rights by working with communities to improve education and health while creating an environment free from violence and exploitation in which children can participate. The end result is a community where children feel safe and go to school; there is no need to seek refuge in the street.
Children leave their homes and communities and turn to the streets for many reasons. Plan commissioned a study on street children in Africa. The study was designed to inform programs to increase outreach to street children. The findings and recommendations include:
• Develop children as the main actors in realising the rights of street involved children through their active participation and building their resilience and capacity to protect themselves.
• Build the sense of responsibility and capacity of families and communities to care and protect all children, including those that are street involved.
• The prevention of family separation and street involvement by children at specific risk may require intensive support to individual families.
• National child protection and child welfare systems that are sensitive to the rights of street children to care and protection are needed, and should be adequately funded to operate effectively.
• Organisations working in rural areas on issues of childhood migration need to link with those working in urban areas on childhood safety, to reduce the levels of vulnerability that arise with mobility.
• Specialist agencies working with a particular focus on street involved children, or children without parental care, need to collaborate with generalist child focused organisations to ensure that their issues are included in broader agendas.
While today’s children in the streets may not have the combined focus on one issue as those in Soweto, they do have voices and deserve access to their rights. We in the international community need only listen to understand the issues and follow the lead of the children to finding the solutions.
Paul Fagnon
What else should be done by NGOs and governments to reduce this annual rise of children turning to the streets? Tell us below!