By Mabinty Kamara
Due to high level of poverty and illiteracy in Sierra Leone children are constantly being abused day in day out. They face many challenges ranging from child labor, child marriage, to lack of quality education.
Hawking on the streets is a daily routine for many children under the age of 14 years, a phenomenon especially common in Freetown and which contravenes existing laws protecting the rights of the child. They can be seen running here and there after vehicles, with goods on their heads, like headless chickens chasing nothing. Even in market places, the voices of children often stand out louder than adults’ craving the attention of potential buyers.
In the cause of hawking these children become susceptible to various abuses including such criminality as stealing, rape and gambling.
Almost every beggar in the streets of Freetown is accompanied by a child. They move from shop to shop and from one end of the city to the other. Many girls are being handed into marriages at a very tender age, ignoring the bright future they may have ahead of them.
While the deplorable nature of government schools serves as a disincentive for many parents to send their children there, very few can afford to send their kids to school because of the exploitative nature of private ones. This leaves many parents with no option but petty trading for their children.
Even in a case where some parents summon enough courage to send their kids to school, the children will have to contribute to their upkeep, which means losing out on learning time.
Sierra Leone is signatory to a number of treaties that safeguard the rights and protection of children. The Child Rights Act of 2007 defines a child as any person below the age of 18 years. At this age, the wellbeing and welfare of the child should be upon the parents and the state. But this is hardly the reality in most cases in the country as many households are effectively run by children and the state could not care less!
The National Commission for Children (NCC) was set up in 2014 to monitor and coordinate the affairs of children. It does so by implementing various documents, including the United Nations Charter on the Right of the Child. Through 2014 and 2015 the Commission hardly did anything, largely due to the Ebola epidemic, according to its Advocacy and Communications coordinator, Addie Valcarcel. It has kickstarted its activities with the launch in January of an 11-day sensitisation programme against street trading involving children under the age of 14 years.
Valcarcel told Politico that her commission had looked into some of the challenges children were faced with amongst which were child marriage, lack of quality education and child labour. These, she said, were the top priorities of the Commission during their first year of operation this 2016.
The Commission is partnering with the Freetown City Council and the Ministry of Children’s Affairs to enforce the directive against child labour.
Imprisonment
Having kids selling on the streets means that they are deprived of many rights, which affects their development and health, she said. Therefore, she went on, the Commission intended to embark on sensitising market women in Freetown to encourage them to see the need to stop giving businesses to children. Eighteen different markets have been identified for this within the 11-day sensitisation period which ends on 1 March.
Valcarcel said the sensitisation is intended to be extended to other parts of the country later.
Children selling on the streets are exposed to sexual abuses in the case of the girls; with the boys it’s stealing and gambling, she said, adding that all of them are exposed to dangers like vehicular accidents.
According to the Child Rights Act, anyone found wanting for violating the law relating to the treatment of children is liable to a fine not less than Le10 million or face an imprisonment of not less than two years.
In the market places, a lot of market women claimed to appreciate the law, noting that it’s in their interest and those of the children. One of them, Aminata Barrie, a petty trader at the Krootown Road market, challenged the government to pursue the law to its fullest.
If defaulters were really held to account, she said, law and order would prevail. Mrs Barrie noted that many people were in the habit of going to the provinces to demand for children from their relatives in the guise of helping them out with their education but that in reality they only intend to turn them into street hawkers.
“If you know you can’t take care of the children then don’t give birth to them or have them as wards, because once you have them they become your responsibility,” Barrie stressed. She said she believed that taking good care of your children meant they in turn taking good care of you at old age.
But some parents blame poverty for the state of their children, and they extended the blame to the government for not helping out. For such people, the Child Rights Act is a manifestation of how the government was only bent on frustrating their efforts to make the best out of their children.
“In America, the government provides for the children that is why they regulate parent’s behaviour towards their children, but that’s not the case here in Sierra Leone,” argued Hawa Kargbo, another petty trader at the same market.
“How do I pay school fees or take care of my children if we don’t sell; they must help me with whatever I do to support them,” she added.
(C) Politico 11/02/16
