After years of wandering about and living in deprivation with no one to care for them, succour has at last come the way of street children in Aba, Abia State as members of the National Association of Seadogs (Pyrates Confraternity) from across the federation stormed the famous commercial city Saturday April 2 for the launch of their Street Child Project: “Save the Street Child Aba Initiative.”
There has been growing concerns about the increasing number of street children and the destitute along major roads of Aba. Just as the city’s human population keeps growing, the number of street children and the destitute increases daily, even as many who could not afford shelter take to sleeping on the streets.
Impoverished people
Vanguard Metro, VM, investigations revealed that these impoverished people are seen at different parts of the city: York Street, Bata junction, Azikiwe by Asa Road, Market Road by Asa, Brass junction, amongst others, where they usually ‘harass’ passersby and often run after motorists soliciting for alms.
They are exposed to vagaries of the weather, as they lack shelter and are usually dressed in dirty clothing. Most of them retire to public buildings and open spaces where they sleep at night.
A senior official of the Social Development Department in one of the council areas in Aba who chose anonymity, told VM that most of the children found on the streets of Aba are from broken homes.
She said: “These children are on the streets for no fault of theirs, it is due to circumstances beyond their control. The society has been so cruel to them. They have been abandoned. It cannot be argued that most crimes committed in the cities are carried out by youths who are products of the ‘streets’”.
Save the street child: In a bid to rid the streets of homeless children in Aba, the National Association of Seadogs, Pyrates Confraternity, Sancta Sacramento Deck(Aba Chapter), came up with the “Save the Street Child, Aba Initiative” to provide education and care for these unfortunate children.
Speaking at the event which attracted eminent personalities in the society, including federal and state lawmakers, Christopher Chijioke Joseph, Capon, Aba chapter, said the “Save the Street Child, Aba Initiative” event was geared towards eradicating the act of street begging and taking children of school age off the streets of Aba and shelter them in homes where education, health care, food and other services can be provided for them, adding that they have also embarked on several projects to better the lives of the less privileged.
Scholarship initiative: He listed other aspects of the initiative to include ‘adopt a child scheme and NAS scholarship scheme where people are encouraged to adopt a child or support the scholarship initiative to help the child acquire education.
Joseph also narrated the story of a minor, Ogechi, a 17-year- old girl from Ndundu in Isuikwuato council, who got pregnant while hawking, lost her mother and was brought on the wings of fate with her born baby to Aba where she came in contact with members of the Pyrates Confraternity. Ogechi was registered at the Joy-Rita Motherless Babies home, Abayi, Aba where the Confraternity pays for her upkeep.
Motherless babies home
He disclosed that though they are partnering with some motherless babies homes at the moment, they intend to build a home where children taken off from the streets would be catered for, nurtured/rehabilitated and reintegrated back into the society. He expressed hope that the initiative would reduce crime rate in the society and give the children a sense of belonging.
According to him: “It is a project which the pilot scheme will run for four years. Within the first four years while this pilot phase of the project is running, we will make plans for the exit; it is just like a continuation of other years ahead.
“The campaign is continuous as the project is continuous too. So, we will keep doing it from time to time on social media, print media and other areas in order to reach out to as many people as possible that may be interested to join hands to see that the act of child street begging is sorted out.”
Educational pursuit
The event which provided guests the opportunity to meet some of the children whom NAS had taken off the streets, also provided members of the confraternity and spirited individuals the opportunity to donate generously for the upkeep and educational pursuit of these children in motherless babies homes in which the Pyrates Confraternity is partnering in the initiative.
In a paper titled: “Street Children as a Social Burden to the Entire Population: The Situation in Aba, Abia State”, a guest speaker, Sandra N. Anyanwu, Programme Officer at Children at Risk Development, CARD, initiative, a non-profit child rights protection organisation, said that children who took to the streets for survival always dressed in tattered clothes, scavenge, beg for alms, peddle drugs, become members of armed robbery syndicates, move in colonies, do menial jobs, amongst other things, to survive as they spend most of their childhood on the streets.
Sexual abuse, rape: Anyanwu, who lamented that living on the streets exposes the children to sexual abuse and rape, sexually transmitted infections, however, attributed the prevalence of street children in Abia State to the existence of high level of poverty in the state, the strategic location of Abia which shares common boundary with more than four states, resulting in an increase in migration from neighbouring states due to the porous nature of its borders and the commercial status of Aba where many children, including adults from the hinterlands, come to seek for greener pastures.
According her, although there have been efforts by the government to put an end to the phenomenon of children being on the streets of Nigeria, she lamented that most of the government policy efforts are poorly designed and only provided temporary solutions. She called for a well-structured strategy that would offer a sustainable way of removing children on the streets, rehabilitate and reintegrate them back to the society to become useful citizens.
Abia State Commissioner of Education, Prof. Ikechi Mgbeoji, in his paper titled, “The Nigerian Child on the Street: Its Implication for the Future of the Country”, traced the advent of street children in Aba to the Nigerian Civil War (1967-70) and the increasing urbanisation and dislocation of extended family system.
Mgbeoji listed “correctional model, rehabilitative model, outreach strategies and preventive approach” as some of the measures to use in dealing with issues of street children. Education summit: The Education Commissioner said that the state is planning to bring stakeholders in education to a roundtable for an Education Summit.
Reintroduction of free education
He added that the state on its part is planning to propose an Education Bill which is expected to be passed into law by the State House of Assembly before the end of 2016, stressing that the bill when passed into law would make street hawking by children a crime in the state.
Education mobile court: According to him: “Under the proposed bill, the guardian or parent of any child caught hawking on the streets of the state will be tried and if found guilty, will be fined by a Mobile Education Court which is specially designed for education-related offences.
“And for the enactment of the Child Rights Act and Persons with Disability Bill into law by the state legislature, reintroduction of free education regime and the abolition of street begging syndicates and gangs who specialise in using children on the streets for the purpose of begging for alms”, a practice he described as dehumanising.
By Ugochukwu Alaribe, Aba (Vanguard)
