Street Children: The Agony of a Nation
By
Adediran Monsurah Atinuke
adediran.atinuke@yahoo.com
In many cities of the world, especially
the developing countries, children have been subject of abuse,
neglect, exploitation and even in extreme cases murdered by "clean up
squads" hired by local businesses. These children, expected leaders of
tomorrow, experienced various obnoxious and unbearable frustrations
which in most cases made them to end up in the street thereby being
labeled as street children.
These children, either by design or
default, become victims of circumstances created by the environment;
sometimes emanating from parents with lackadaisical attitudes to the
well being of their siblings. By extension, some of these children are
on the streets because of poor parental upbringing, mistreatment,
neglect and lack of basic necessities of life. As a result, they found
ready homes in unoccupied dwellings, uncompleted buildings, under the
bridges and wastelands more than their family homes. It also includes
children who might not necessarily be homeless or without families,
but who live in situations where there is no protection, supervision,
or direction from responsible adults as well as children in such a
wide variety of circumstances and characteristics that policy-makers
and service providers find difficult to describe and target.
Besides the nation's economic situation,
these children may have chosen to make the street as their resort for
other reasons. Unfortunately, some of them may have no choice - they
are abandoned, orphaned, or thrown out of their homes. Some may choose
to live in the streets in defiance, another state that has to do with
the psychological make up of the child. Disappointedly though, some
children also work in the streets because their earnings are needed by
their families, in fact this particular case is becoming very rampart
as it were.
The challenges posed by these children
both to the government and the environment at large cannot be
overemphasized. The resultant effects created abinitio may
appear very immeasurable but on the long run it creates a devastating
imbalance on the polity. Experience has shown that these minors, later
in life become ready tools employed by unscrupulous elements in the
society to carry out their nefarious activities.
Unfortunately, a greater percentage of
these people become so irredeemable to the point that they grow up in
like manner without any proper orientation either from their parents/
guardian or the society. The consequence of that lack of care make
most of them to end up under the bridges, live in dark alley and take
over a number of public places where they operate illicit businesses
and thus constituting environmental nuisances and environmental
dangers. It must be recalled that quite a number of authors in their
books have made references to the plight of the street children, which
are mostly found in the northern part of Nigeria and called
Alimajiris.
There is no doubt that government is
saddled with a number of issues bothering on the well being of her
citizenry and also has the responsibilities of addressing the menace
of the street children in our society. But the challenge as it were is
that no particular measurable step has been taken so far to address
the issue.
Homes and families no doubt are part of
the larger society. However, the underlying factors responsible for
poverty or breakdown of homes and families could be traceable to
social, economic, political and environmental.
The Street Children phenomenon in
Nigeria is gradually assuming alarming proportions, particularly in
urban areas. The immediate cause of this challenge appears to be
deeply entrenched in poverty which defines lives of the vast majority
of the Nigerian people. Invariably, broken homes and families who find
it difficult to provide the basic needs equally end up at some point
on the streets and the phenomenon very much alarming resulting to:
child labour, child trafficking, child prostitution and a host of
others. By extension, won't it be rather interesting to realise that
with the recent saga on the baby factory on the increase where girls
who have unwanted pregnancy are nurtured, cared and looked after till
the time of delivery and are paid off for the babies delivered are
some of the extraneous situation that the challenge of the street
children birth. You can bet where the babies delivered and paid for by
some business people will end up. Sometimes when you consider the
sordidness of these stories, they sound very absurd and very
incredulous. But the truth is that they are very real. And they are
not far fetched but dwell within us. A very recent case was that of
the baby factory in Enugu with the news making round for sometime now.
It would surprise you to realise that the inability to address one
gives room for some other uncongenial situation to further surface.
Sympathetically, street children
throughout the world are subjected to physical abuse sometimes even by
the law enforcement agencies, and murdered outright by other gangs, as
societies treat them as a blight to be eradicated rather than young
souls to be nurtured and protected. Flimsy excuses are occasionally
cited for frequent and arbitrary detention by police like
homelessness, loitering, vagrancy, or petty theft. More worrisome is
the incessant attacks on innocent street-girls who are sometimes
sexually abused. Street children also make up a large proportion of
the children who enter criminal justice systems and are committed
finally to correctional institutions (prisons) that are
euphemistically called schools, often without due process.
It is necessary that governments at all
level, including non-governmental organizations, should collectively
be involved in rescuing, rehabilitating and resettling these Street
Children. Their menace requires national and international public
attention because they are part of us and deserve all attention and
concern to address their needs.
The government has a lot to do to
address the problems which are largely social, economical,
health-wise which are in the ambit of the state. In fact the menace
can be reduced through strategies towards reduction of poverty,
mass-literacy, preventive health programmes, and other social
services.
I believe strongly in the power of
advocacy which can be further strengthened in collaboration with
religious and cultural institutions in the society to play
participatory roles towards the success of the campaigns against
street-children.
It could as well sound paradoxical that
despite the billions of dollars earmarked for several advocacy
projects, examining the situation of the human rights abuses of street
children in juvenile justice systems and as it is applicable to other
six African countries including Nigeria, the phenomenon has always
been on the increase.
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