A disabled woman, accompanied by a child, begs in the streets of
Nairobi. Some of the beggars use small children like this girl to elicit
pity from passersby. PHOTO | FRANCIS NDERITU | NATION MEDIA GROUP
Covered in a scarf to keep the night cold at bay, clutching a
tin of sweets and groundnuts, a young girl, accosts Nairobi residents
making their way home from work.
Once she has marked
her target, a middle age man, *Linet resolutely follows him. She
expertly sidesteps throngs of people and dodges impatient motorists, and
intercepts him, pleading with him to buy her groundnuts, or at least
part with loose change.
Persuasive, bold and
street-smart are all qualities embodied by Linet. But at roughly six
years, she is too young to navigate the city streets at night by
herself.
AIR OF INNOCENCE
Linet,
however, sells her wares with an air of innocence and a sense of duty,
oblivious of the danger of possible kidnapping, sexual abuse and other
evils that lurk in the town centre at night.
Her
mother, a physically challenged middle-aged woman, sits a stone’s throw
away at the sidewalk along Kenyatta Avenue, hoping to sell the fruits
neatly arranged on a sack.
She is also attending to her months-old baby, keeping a
hawk’s-eye on her daughter at the same time. Occasionally, she calls out
to Linet, warning her from wandering too far from her sight. Linet’s
family ekes out a living from the bustle of street activity, selling
small wares and begging for alms.
In Roysambu, at the
outskirts of the city centre, as people have lunch at a fast-food eatery
on a Saturday afternoon, two young girls enter the restaurant. They
move from table to table, showing patrons a form asking for
contributions.
They studiously avoid the gaze of the
fuming attendants. The money, they explain, is to support the children’s
home where they live. While the patrons are somewhat vexed by this
nuisance, the youngsters’ nervous courage, if not their pitifully
emaciated looks, goad them to reach into their pockets.
They
hand them some money before turning their attention back to their
repast and talks. They don’t bother to sign their names on the form.
Children begging in food kiosks and restaurants is now an everyday affair in Kenya.
Children begging in food kiosks and restaurants is now an everyday affair in Kenya.
OFFENSIVE SMELL
Elsewhere,
in Ngong town, as passengers scramble to board a bus to the city centre
on a Wednesday morning, a dishevelled boy, who is about 10 years, sits
easy in the bus, watching as commuters take their seats.
When
the conductor starts collecting bus fare from the passengers, he spots
*Ben. He reprimands him briefly, wondering what he is doing on the bus,
and then proceeds to collect money.
Moments later, Ben
begins to beg for “bus fare” to travel to his home in Mwingi. He says
that he has been sent away by his aunt who lives at Kiserian, explaining
to indifferent passengers that he has been living with his aunt since
he was orphaned two years ago. From the offensive smell ensuing from his
grimy body, it is hard to believe that the boy has been living in any
sort of home.
Some passengers still give him money,
more to escape his nuisance than out of compassion. Others resolutely
dismiss his plight, and do not care to lift their eyes from their
smartphones. Mercy Nduta, a regular commuter between the city and Ngong
town, says she has known the boy for nearly two years now.
“He
keeps telling this false story,” Nduta says, adding that sometimes, the
bus attendants allow Ben and other boys like him to borrow money from
travellers while at other times, they are not allowed into the buses.
CRAFTY ADULTS
Juvenile
beggars have been in the city for some time now, most of whom are
exploited by crafty adults, who have ‘employed’ them to beg. In the
evening, these innocent children hand over the day’s collection to these
conmen, who then ‘pay’ them a fraction from the collection.
This,
and the two other scenarios elicit a number of fundamental questions
about the welfare of such children in Kenya. Do they go to school? When
do they play like their fellow children? How safe are these minors in
the streets?
There was a time when there were no child
beggars on our streets, now they seem to be even more than the adult
beggars that dot our streets, which begs the question - is Kenya raising
a generation of professional beggars?
The Children’s
Act stipulates in sections 6, 7, 8 and 9 the rights of children, which
include the right to parental care, education, religious education and
healthcare.
Section 10 of the Act states that “every
child shall be protected from economic exploitation” and from “any work
that is likely to be hazardous.”
This protection
extends to all forms of work likely to “interfere with the child’s
education”, work that is “harmful to the child’s health or physical,
mental, spiritual, moral or social development”.
Despite
the clarity of this law, underage children have been turned into
caregivers, they generate income for their families and raise money for
real or imagined causes, often by manipulating the empathy, or guilt, of
Kenyans.
Naturally, children’s homes should protect
children who come from abusive homes, or are orphaned, for instance.
Oddly enough though, some of these institutions order their wards to
raise money for the facility and their hazy projects.
CRIMINAL LIABILITY
“Most of the children’s homes perpetuating this illegality are run by unscrupulous individuals who are out to exploit the vulnerability of these children for their own selfish gains,” says Rose Mbanya, the Nairobi branch convenor of the Family Bar-Bench committee in the Law Society of Kenya.
“Most of the children’s homes perpetuating this illegality are run by unscrupulous individuals who are out to exploit the vulnerability of these children for their own selfish gains,” says Rose Mbanya, the Nairobi branch convenor of the Family Bar-Bench committee in the Law Society of Kenya.
Such practice, she argues, punches
holes in their integrity. She explains: “Using minors to fundraise for
any project is illegal. Such institutions are, therefore, criminally
liable under Section 10 of the Children’s Act which prohibits child
labour. It also raises legitimacy questions on the said projects.”
She adds: “To operate in Kenya, children’s homes must be registered with the Director of Children’s Services. The director is mandated by the Children’s Act to supervise any such facility’s operations.”
She adds: “To operate in Kenya, children’s homes must be registered with the Director of Children’s Services. The director is mandated by the Children’s Act to supervise any such facility’s operations.”
Exploitation
of children in Kenya, nonetheless, occurs under the noses of children
welfare groups, county authorities and the national government.
Judy
Thongori, a family lawyer and rights activist, attributes the menace of
child labour and street begging to poverty among most Kenyan families.
“Every
parent desires the best for their child. By the time a parent decides
to send his or her child to the streets to beg for alms, it could just
be that the parent has exhausted all possible avenues to raise income
for support of his or her children,” Thongori says.
To
plug the nuisance of children beggars in the streets, the government
must address the root of the problem, which, according to Thongori, is
the poor state of the country’s economy.
She argues:
“When the economy is good and every family is stable financially, no one
would want to have their own begging in the streets.”
Besides
poverty, ignorance of children’s rights, greed and negligence by the
society are the other factors cited by children’s rights activists as
fuelling economic exploitation of minors in Kenya.
DISABLED CHILDREN
Disabled child beggars are a common scene in most towns in Kenya. Their families dump them in the streets in the morning to beg from strangers all day, and fetch them at dusk. This exposes the children to hostile weather, abuse from strangers and even the danger of abduction.
Disabled child beggars are a common scene in most towns in Kenya. Their families dump them in the streets in the morning to beg from strangers all day, and fetch them at dusk. This exposes the children to hostile weather, abuse from strangers and even the danger of abduction.
On
any given day, Tom Mboya Street in Nairobi alone is frequented by more
than five physically or mentally disabled children beggars. They have to
crawl to shelter to escape the baking sun, while avoiding being run
over by motorists.
“The Children’s Act guarantees the
right for special care, education and dignity for children living with
disabilities,” Mbanya points out.
In what fits the
bill of tragic irony, some families treat a disabled child as an asset
for income generation. Such children are consigned to begging for life.
Sometimes,
child labour takes the form of criminal activities, where perpetrators
use their underage subjects to commit illegalities such as trafficking
of illegal drugs and contrabands on their behalf.
In
November last year, Nairobi Governor, Mike Sonko, said that hotels in
the city were paying street boys to collect garbage from their premises
and dump it along city lanes. The hotels, according to the governor,
having been taking the easy route of getting rid of their refuse by
exploiting the minors and paying them peanuts.
Children
are hardly ever targeted during police crackdowns on drugs and other
criminal activities. Coupled with their ignorance (they lack the
understanding that what they are being asked to do is illegal), they
make an easy target for their exploiters.
With the promise of a small tip, food or protection, the children will gladly undertake any task given to them.
According
to Lucy Ondari, a teacher and a paralegal at CRADLE, The Children
Foundation, sexual exploitation against underage girls is widespread in
counties in the Nyanza region, especially in communities living along
the shores of Lake Victoria.
“Fishermen are the main
culprits. They coerce schoolgirls to have sex with them in return for
fish, because most of them come from poor families that cannot afford a
meal. Sometimes they offer them nothing,” says Ondari.
ABUSED BY FISHERMEN
Mbita,
Chindo and Kirindo areas of Homabay County lead in cases of sexual
exploitation of school girls due to high poverty levels, says Ondari,
who has worked as a paralegal for 30 years.
“Between 2016 and 2017, we rescued 17 schoolgirls who were being sexually abused by fishermen in Mbita,” she recalls.
“Fifteen
of them were in primary school while two were in secondary school. We
took them back to school and reported the criminals to the police,”
In one particularly upsetting case, Ondari and her fellow paralegals rescued a schoolgirl who had been taken hostage by four fishermen, who would regularly sexually abuse her.
In one particularly upsetting case, Ondari and her fellow paralegals rescued a schoolgirl who had been taken hostage by four fishermen, who would regularly sexually abuse her.
She and her team
occasionally have to deal with hostile molesters who confront them for
exposing them. “Relatives of the victims are also not always
cooperative. Sometimes they accuse us of ruining their family’s
reputation,” she says.
Compromised police officers and
chiefs are also an impediment in cases of sexual exploitation of minors.
“Pursuing justice for the victims depends almost entirely on the
goodwill of the parties involved, and when local authorities are bribed,
they stop cooperating with us, leading to delayed investigation
processes. This frustrates efforts to seek justice for the victims,”
says Ondari.
As one who’s job is to fight for
children’s rights and get them justice, Ondari, believes that existing
laws on protection of children in Kenya are sufficient. “What we need
are strict enforcement measures where the police, paralegals, parents
and the society cooperate in the fight against exploitation of
children,” she says.
EXPLICIT FORMS
While
armed conflict is not common here as it is in neighbouring countries
where minors are recruited by rebel guerrillas to fight for them, among
communities that still practice cattle rustling, children are taught how
to carry out raids - these teenagers are denied a chance to go to
school, and therefore robbed of a bright future.
Child
labour is frowned upon in most quarters, especially when it takes more
explicit forms, such as employment in factories. Mbanya, however, notes
that child labour is even more rampant in homes where children are
required to do domestic work, such as household chores.
“Children from rural areas are made to work in the family farm, tilling, weeding or gathering crop produce,” she says.
She
observes that while assisting with chores at home is not prohibited by
law, parents and guardians must be careful not to overwork their
children.
Article 30 of the Constitution in part 1 and 2
prohibits slavery, servitude and forced labour. In most instances,
however, minors do not have a say when it comes to domestic work.
The
introduction of Free Primary Education (FPE) in 2003 promoted enrolment
in primary schools. It also minimised the erstwhile high rate of school
dropout.
When the government starts implementing free secondary education this year, school dropout cases are expected to drop further.
But a Nation Newsplex
report in 2016 painted a rather grim picture of the fruits of free
primary education. Only two out of five learners enrolled in Class One
go all the way to Form Four.
According
to the report, the majority of these dropouts, are “thrust into a harsh
world without life-saving education and marketable skills.”
Consequently, they become an easy target for cheap labour, and sometimes forced labour, for lack of employable skills.
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