PREAMBLE TO THE PROBLEMATIC OF STREET CHILDREN

Below are some extracts from the "Little treaty to the teachers" written for the teachers of "Enfants du Soleil" (Children of the Sun) in Madagascar. This association has reached in almost fifteen years of existence a development in need of an organisation adapted to the multiple activities spread over several villages where almost 400 children are taken in.

* The street child
* The origin of the street child
* The life of the street child
* The damages of the street
* Street children, driven out of love

Upon arrival in a developing country, we are often shocked by the number of children in the streets. In Paris, a young Senegalese boy was surprised by the number of dogs that he had seen in the streets when he was looking for children; he looked in vain, as they were all at school.

Children can be seen everywhere, at all times. Thus, we tend somewhat hastily to apply the label of "street children" to these children that invade the streets. Not all of them should be considered as street children. General Amadou Toumani Touré, former President of the Republic of Mali, while leading a training session for mentors in Rufisque (Senegal) stated: "It is the toubabs (white people) who have showed me the problem of street children. I am a little African and, like all the other little Africans, I have spent more time in the street than at home. I ate at my neighbours or at home, but when it got dark, I went back to sleep at home. I was persuaded that all these children had a home where they could sleep.".

Although most of these children go back home at night, some of them do not have any contact with their family, with the adults. They are the real street children. To solve this problem, we need specific means that can be adapted to every single case. We need trained and motivated mentors, who can be accepted by the street children. We have then to make a difference between "children in the street" and "street children".

In fact, popular terms have already introduced this nuance. The actual street children are called "facman" in Senegal or "katmis" in Madagascar, but all these names are pejorative, and are linked to delinquency.

Street children are those whose family ties are broken. It does not mean that they do not have a family. They are just not close anymore. This can be for several reasons: the most frequent being the dissolution of the core family: the chief of the family is often very mobile. He doesn’t hesitate to search for a new job and start a new life hundreds of kilometres from his home. He leaves his family abandoned. A new wife, a new husband, will appear. The children often reject the stepmothers or the stepfathers who, trying to force acceptance, do not hesitate to hit the children hard. It is at this point that the children run away. It is the first and most normal cause.

Poverty is the second cause: a too large family, a drought, a natural catastrophe, can be the source of a broken family. The husband avoids his responsibilities and goes to the city. One day, the mother, not able to stand the situation anymore, will do the same, either leaving the children with the grandmother or taking them with her to the city. To survive, she is going to beg or prostitute herself. One day, it will be the grandmother who will come to the city with the children, leaving the village that cannot feed her anymore. This is a frequent scenario.

The third ground is war.

All the causes can be combined, but the result is always the same. Little by little, the children will be cut off from their family, abandoned in the big city: they will not be someone’s children anymore; they become the children of the streets.

During the day, street children mingle with the mass of poor children who go looking for money. They try to gain their living: they act as "porter madame", i.e. they carry the bags of the women that go to the market; they sell plastic bags to the clients who shop in the market (often the sellers do not have bags and the goods are tossed directly into the buyers’ bag); they pick up wood coal from the rubbish, or even pick up the rubbish, looking for scrap or rags. They are often expelled by adults who are also trying to earn their pittance. They wash cars and park them. And they beg. They collect vegetables and fruits that cannot be sold in the market. In exchange for helping a shopkeeper in the market, they will sometimes have the right to sleep one night under a stall. It is almost a form of recognition from society. But only a small number can accede to this status.

The market is the place where the street children gather, especially as it is easier to steal there. But we can also find street children in the main meeting points, such as harbours, cinemas or train and bus stations. They may well manage to earn some money. A study carried out in Madagascar has shown that the earnings of a street child in a market do not go much beyond 20 cents of a euro. For this price, they can buy a bowl of rice. Unfortunately, most of the time, this money will be spent on sweets, ice creams or drugs, or to watch videos (usually porno). In short, it is wasted. The children are badly nourished and the cycle of malnutrition will start.

Nights are especially dangerous. The little children hide from the older ones, as they are afraid that they will rob them of the little money they possess. They have to hide from police, as they often see them as delinquents. They have to hide from rapists (50% of street children have been raped either in the street or in jail). They sleep completely dressed, rolled like a ball against each other like puppies to keep themselves warm, under the stalls of the market, against a wall, under a tree. Sometimes, they are lucky enough to find a plastic or a cardboard. In Madagascar, a big-hearted employee at a bus station let the children sleep at night in the station, inside the parked vans. At dawn, they have to move and start once more the hunt for food.

Many factors of living in the street combine to rapidly destroy the children. Contrary to the policy pursued by some organisations who believe that we should help these children while leaving them in the street, I believe that they are in a mortal danger if left in the street and that we should try to eradicate this way of life: in the street they turn quickly to crime, they start to take drugs or prostitute themselves.

Children are hungry. If they cannot find food, they will steal it, or the older children will force them to steal. Stealing will become a habit. At the beginning, they are afraid, they know that if caught they will be beaten, maybe killed, and that jail is waiting for them.

To pluck up courage, they take drugs. Anything is acceptable. They take cheap drugs: they put petrol on an old rag; they sniff carpenter glue sold in small pots for some coins; they take cannabis or LSD... It all depends on the money they can get. These products are extremely dangerous as they destroy the brain, and after years of such drug abuse these poor children can become zombies.

They also get money selling their body. Here, Europeans earn the most money. The least courageous are the first to fall in this practice, as they risk little and they can earn a lot. The indigenous people blame the Europeans for this practice and its causes, but they are not free from fault.

If in Europe we search and punish pedophiles, in the other continents, we drop a veil and pretend not to see anything.

Caught in such a process, children do not have many chances and if they start living in the street when they are 8 years old, they only have a one in two chance of reaching the age of 12.

When leaving the street, they must be clearly prohibited from drugs, prostitution, lies and theft.

Children do not only need bread, but mainly love. If they have left their home, it is often because they could not find any love there: rejected, beaten, they have lost their way. From then on, they search constantly for love, through friendship or sometimes through prostitution, where they will not find this love. The hardness of their life does not leave any chance for love. From the moment they meet us, it is very difficult to make them understand that we are not moved by any interest other than their well being, by our
love for them. This language is new to them: Why does he feed me? Whatdoes he expect from me?
Does he want me to sell drugs? That I sleep with him? Love is a concept that street children seek unconsciously but that they do not know. When they discover that you act for love and only for love, it is then that you have won.

Who are they?...

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Created on 5 march, 2005 - Updated on 15 november, 2007