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Freetown City Council Making Mockery of the Plight of Children

By Festus Lahai

The Freetown City Council (FCC) has started an operation to chase the children off the streets of Freetown.  All children below the ages of 15, who roam about the city with no serious reason are being intercepted by metropolitan officers and whisked to the FCC headquarters for questioning. As commendable as it may seem, there are a series of questions needing answers and clarification, with regards the actual intention of the FCC in the matter under review.

It is no secret that the streets of Freetown and other parts of the country are overcrowded with children below the age of ‘consent’. It is also true that these under aged children engage themselves in all sorts of immoral activities, ranging from petty thievery to prostitution. Some of them spend considerable amounts of time in the streets, whilst others actually spend their whole lives in the streets - eat, drink and sleep on the streets. Others help their parents with the ugly trade of begging for their daily survival.

Sadly, some parents sit at home and wait for their children to come home and feed the entire family. How and where they get the money is none of their concern; what is important to such parents is that the family is sustained. While the children are blaming their parents for being on the streets, the parents also have their own sets of reasons such as poverty.  Some parents send their children to the streets because they cannot afford to take care of the family not to talk of paying school fees for these children. Whilst some parents prepare all sorts of wares for the children to sell at a time when their mates are in the classrooms, others are actually encouraging their children to go fend for themselves. That is the sad reality in present day Sierra Leone.

In the midst of this, there are a number of street children who actually abandon their homes for the streets, either because of the impoverished state of their family or simply because they want to live without any adult supervision. Some street children come from well-to-do families but prefer living on the streets either because of peer pressure, drug addiction or simply juvenile delinquency. Kids also leave their homes because of the habit of parents. Other children in the streets alleged that they abandoned their homes because they were unable to cope with the sights of their poor parents who cannot afford sending them to school.

If one decides to take a walk along the major streets of Freetown, he/she will be gripped with the shock and disbelief at the sight of little children sleeping at the doorsteps of shops and market stalls. Others are spotted at notorious prostitution and criminal areas. It is hard to comprehend why children as small as below the ages of 15 are engaged in prostitution - exchanging their bodies for monies. The result of all these activities that children engage in is disastrous and deadly.

Having no one to supervise their movements, children have become major victims of all sorts of diseases, ranging from typhoid to HIV/AIDS. There is absolutely no doubt that kids engage in prostitution, sleep in the open of doorsteps, eat and drink contaminated food and water, and are prone to several deadly diseases. Some receive the beatings of their lives whenever they run out of luck and are caught in vices, including pick pocketing, stealing of mobile phones and shoplifting.

With all of these realities, the news of ridding the streets of homeless kids by the FCC is welcome news by several citizens. But the numerous flaws in the said operation cannot be overemphasized. The intention of the FCC might be good, but the method being used has minimal impact on the menace the city council is purportedly fighting. Taking a critical look at the operation, it is more of a fund raiser for the FCC, rather than addressing the plights of the children.

How can the FCC arrest street children, request for their parents to make an appearance, only to charge them some amount of money for the release of these children? Yes, the FCC is arresting children below the ages of 15 only to release them to their parents, after the parents would have paid a fine of at least Le. 100,000. Is that the way to addressing the menace of street children? The answer is a big NO. The reality is that the FCC is only making a mockery of the plights of children. The council is using this very serious problem to raise more funds for itself. What a shame?

A good number of the citizenry are demanding a clear explanation from the FCC as to where the fines collected from these parents are going. Let the FCC make clear their intention on this issue and put better modalities in place to address the concerns of children.