STREETISM IN GHANA

Written by: PROMISE EDEM NUKUNU

Streetism is one of the commonest societal problems in the world today which is witnessed by both the young and old each passing day. Its prevalence, intensity and visibility has made society to accept it as a part and parcel normal phenomenom of the world. Streetism even though has the tendency of ruing the prospects of a nation; it is barely spoken of unlike domestic violence, HIV/AIDS, epidemic, maternal mortality and human right abuse. Streetism does not occur in private or in secret but it takes place on the very street which commoners, government officials, philanthropists, and leaders use each passing day. Every individual is a witness to streetism but the support that is given to stop its spread is limited. As streetism basically means living on the due to lack of housing accommodation coupled with the difficulty in fending for ones self, the issue of streetism should not be attributed to children living on the street only but adult too who find themselves on the street with problems beyond their strength. Perhaps as streetism is the consequences of domestic violence, HIV/AIDS, epidemic, maternal mortality, poverty and human right abuse having an indepth solution to these societal problems will help in the eradication of streetism.

Streetism and rural dwellers

Rural dwellers have never been satisfied with their standard of living in the rural settlement due to the unfavourable economic situation. Government’s concentration on urban areas in terms of development and refusal to push some of its resource to the rural areas makes like difficult for dweller over there. For some of these dwellers as the main agriculture occupation they depend on is not lucrative enough to take care of the rapid rise in the prices of goods and services it will be better to migrate to the city where they have hope of greener pastures. According to research Over 80% of Ghanaian Farmers are engaged in subsistence farming. Most of them faced with challenges such as lack of capital or labour, lack of access to ready market, unavailability of land and post harvest losses. There are, however, immense potentials and opportunities such as labour, market, land, useful indigenous technologies and farming inputs. Many youth farmers going through the mentioned situation lay down their tool and come to the city without any source of housing accommodation hence end up living on the street till they are able to make enough money to rent a room.

Streetism and forced marriage

Education has not really helped in the eradication of forced marriage in the lives of many girls in Ghana. The fortunate ones are able to escape the trauma of being forced into marriage due to education, those with no kind of education at all are forced into marriage at a very tender age just to solve financial situation at the home or to rescue her family from extreme poverty. For some even in the classroom parents go ahead to arrange marriage regardless of the fact that the education of the girl will go waste. The Ghanaian Times issue of Wednesday March 26th, 2008 reported about the successful termination of a near marriage of a 17year old Junior High School girl in Kumasi, who is preparing for her final year Basic Education Certificate Examination in April. The young girl had been confined for the marriage ceremony planned.

The children's Act defines a child to be under the age of 18 years and the same Act 560, Section 14, sub section one and two say that "no one shall force a child to be betrothed or be subject of any daily transaction to be married". Furthermore the Act 554, 1998' section 109 on forced marriages states that "whoever by duress causes a person to marry against his or her wish shall be guilty of a misdemeanour." Girl who are not willing to adhere to the proposal of the parents and are not fortunate enough to be rescued by this law, turn to run very far away from home to live on the street where no parent will bother them and try to force them into marriage.

What happens next? A child is forced to live home to live on the street. As the girl is not old enough and does not have any profession to take care of herself, she might end up being a whore or begging for financial assistance from men. What happen next? As the man is not willing to always give out his money without gaining nothing he will indirectly ask the girl to come to a compromise with him in terms of sex and financial aid. The girl with no source of income falls in to the intention of the man the man and eventually gets pregnant. The difficult situation then surfaces as the man might not be willing to take paternity of the child making the girl single teenage mother living on the street. The trend of streetism then continues as the mother will have another child living on the street with her.

Streetism and child trafficking

Poverty has rendered many children to live on the street. In Ghana Many children are trafficked for forced labour in agriculture and the fishing industry, for street hawking, forced to beg on the street and as porters. Some parents with good intention for their children give their children out either to a relation or a friend to give them the best life they couldn’t give to their children but these trusted people turn to give these children the worse life that the real parents wouldn’t have given to them. They are engaged into doing menial job which they are never given any financial aid in return. For some parents too, they deliberately due to their own selfish interest give their children out for hiring to do tedious work just like what is happening in the Volta region where by parent give their children out for hiring to fishermen to make them work for them according to the amount they were charged by their guardian/parent. It is estimated that more than 1,000 children are working as slave labourers on fishing boats across the country. Many children who find themselves in such a situation and are unable to bare it , they tend to run away to places where they can be a master of themselves and take charge over the money they make hence making live on the street to trying to fend for themselves. Research indicates that, over 30,000 children are believed to be working as porters, or Kayaye, in Accra alone.

Conclusion

Cambrigde university press: Street children might not be securely lodged in the life-patterns that the middle class impose on young people, but their reward from trying to maintain a minimum standard of living that their parents and governments are unable to provide them is infinitely preferable to living in the absolute poverty that surrounds them. Based on a critique of our current knowledge of the maturation of children, which is informed primarily by Northern mores and ‘scientific’ proofs whose findings derive from this normative framework and feed back into it, this article seeks to explain why we find child streetism so abhorrent and take it for granted that certain norms can, and should, prevail in the South just because they are found in Northern societies.

Child Streetism in Accra. Child Streetism in Tamale too!

Last Tuesday morning, I heard a heart-breaking report on Fiila FM radio in Tamale about the plight of young people who live on the streets. My heart raced to find the writer of the report. So today, I bring you verbatim, the report of child streetism in Tamale, which is said to be the fastest growing city in West Africa.

It’s an honour to share this page today with Ziem Liebyang Joseph Philip (better known as Joseph Ziem) who researched and wrote the said report. Ziem is the News Editor of Fiila FM and doubles as the Northern Regional Correspondent of the Daily Dispatch newspaper. You may contact him at ziemjoseph@yahoo.com. What immediately follows is his report.
“The negligence of some parents to cater adequately for their children is gradually breeding more street children in the Tamale Metropolis. The children are now using the Tamale main Transport station behind the Ghana Telecom Offices as their "homes" where they sleep, bath and eat.
Even though some street adults are also using the station as their sleeping place, about 75 percent of the people using the station as their homes are children usually referred to as "street children". Some of them are without parents and relatives while others are neglected by their irresponsible parents.
Smoking of cigarettes has become part of their lives. Nobody cares how they eat, sleep or access healthcare delivery. One can truly feel or get the clear picture on how these children are managing life only when you take the pain to roam around the Tamale town in the night.
These youngsters, both boys and girls ranging from the ages of 5 to 18 sleep together with some hard guys on pavements, in front of stores and on benches especially around the bus-stops. Most of them are involved in smoking, stealing and prostitution. Some of them are eager to go to school or learn trade but they have no support.
Reports available to Fiila FM from the Youth Idleness Control Centre (YICC), a Tamale based NGO which helps some of these children to learn a trade, has it that the Tamale Metropolis alone hosts close to 4,000 street children who are going through all forms of abuses and life difficulties.
However, our reporter Joseph Ziem asked the children whether they see themselves as street children? They all said yes, but they were ashamed of it, and did not like to be called ‘street children.’ They preferred to be called by their own names. They are apparently very aware of how other people see them, and they told our reporter they call themselves the ‘bad street boys’ because other people think they are bad, because some of them are stealing to survive.

One other important aspect that was considered about the lives of the street children was their security in general. Because most people perceive them as neglected and abandoned children with irresponsible or no parents, they usually intimidate, harass, suppress and use them to their advantage.
But the good thing is that most of them are very cautious of their lives and thus dance to their own tunes since they are fully aware that they will have no relatives to support or come to their defence in case of any eventuality.
I asked them, in clear words why they are not in school. Almost all of them expressed the desire to be in school. Some said though they have parents who have no money to take them to school. I quickly asked, but don’t you know basic education is free in Ghana?
The children intelligently replied: so will the government give us books, bags, pencils, pens, sandals and uniforms? There is no room for us to sleep and there will be no food after school. Some said they have to work to support their families and take care of junior ones because their parents have died, or are sick, or old, just don’t work at all.
The children expect to find work in the street, find friends, earn money, and be able to bring money home to cater for other family.
The children get sick easily, so they tell me, and there is no money for medicine. "If someone needs to go to hospital, we make contribution and if someone hasn’t earned money to buy food, we share what we have". This is the end of the Filla FM news report. My comments follow.
The above report about child streetism in Tamale should shock the conscience of Ghana. Several issues are apparent. First, there are irresponsible parents who enjoy making babies regardless of the reality of their situation. Why bring forth children when you know you do not have the means to take care of them? Child-bearing should not be like staking lotto, with the hopes that someday, some numbers will drop to change ones circumstance.
In times past when Ghana was an agrarian society, it was indeed critical to have several wives and children because they were needed as free labour to work on farms. But no more! The very nature of society has changed. Civilization has caught on with us making it unnecessary to empty ones groin just to populate the earth.
Without a doubt, it is the excess population that spills over into the streets. At one location in Tamale, the above report claims that children constitute 75 percent of people who live on the street. If this statistic is reliable, then we have a big problem on our hands. If nothing is done soon to stem the tide of the phenomenon of the increasing number of discarded youth throughout the county, then in ten, twenty to thirty years, this matter will get out of control and solving it will be next to impossible.
Tamale’s population stood at 300,000 in the 2000 population census. It is currently estimated that Tamale’s population is about 500,000 – still counting. In the above report, the number of street children who live on the fringes of society is estimated to be about 4,000. They are squatters in life and at the mercy of unscrupulous people like rapists. They are open to abuses and to a difficult life. Their safety is compromised.
These children are the victims of the break-down in our society. Not surprisingly, some of them consider the streets as places of hope, of promise and of opportunities, despite the risks because they do not have other options. Some young people spend endless hours of their youthful days as hawkers selling anything they can lay hands on while others are just idle. Yet, we claim that these are the future of tomorrow. Tomorrow indeed!
Fact: the street is no place to grow up. You don’t plant seeds by the roadside on rocky ground in thorns where the wind blows, where wild birds descend and pick the seeds, and yet, expect those seeds to germinate, sprout and bear fruits. As a society, if we do not straighten out this matter of child streetism, someday, we will bear these children like a crown of thorns and their children’s children like a mighty cross.