Jessica Maw, October 30th 2008, 9:30pm
Conflict, drought and hardships has resulted in the number of street children to increase in the capital of Somalia’s self-declared independent republic of Somaliland Hargeisa. There is an estimate of 3,000 to 5,000 children living on the streets in Hargeisa.
These children have been spilt into three categories: those who work to help their families and go home at night; those who sleep on the streets; and, those who move from town to town. The children have different jobs with the boys working shining shoes, cleaning cars and the girls can be found cleaning and sweeping business premises.
The risk for these children that live on the streets is one mainly of their own safety. These children are known to suffer abuse as they are vulnerable by themselves. The street children have resulted to tying a sack around their lower body in an attempt to help protect themselves from a possible sexual attack.
To help prevent these conditions UNICEF and CCBRS identify vulnerable communities and then help put systems in place to better protect the children. The systems include ensuring the poorest and most vulnerable have access to schooling and healthcare.
These children are on the streets from no fault of their own which makes this so hard. They have come from backgrounds where the family can not afford to send them to school so they must work and households where they have suffered from violence. These children deserve the right to experience their full childhood and not be put through such experiences.
http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=81052
1 comment:
Its really sad that there are so many children living on the streets in Hargesia. These children need to get out of these area, not working, and enrolled in school. I hope someone is doing something about this because its very unfortunate.
Post a Comment