Restoring Children on the Streets

Bros Jacek from St Lawrence Home of Hope* spoke to our class about children on the streets of Lusaka where he has been working for the last four years. Most children end up on the streets due to dysfunctional families and neglect, not poverty. Many children who sell things on the streets actually return to their families to sleep at night and are not homeless. Last month there were 239 truly homeless children in Lusaka. Ninety-five percent of the children are boys. The streets are a “living hell” for a girl who “will never spend even one night alone.” Most girls will leave the streets quickly and return to abusive home environments which are preferable to life on the street, where they will be repeatedly assaulted, raped and become pregnant. Abortion is illegal in Zambia but costs about 20,000 Kwacha ($4) in the compounds. Abortions are done using physical force and crushing the fetus and by using instrumentation with wire as well as traditional medication to cause abortion and hemorrhage. The boys are also subject to sodomy by older adults within days of arrival. One of the names of the streets where children sleep is commonly known as Devil’s Street by the children themselves.

According to Bros Jacek, “Everyone on the street is intoxicated” mostly from sniffing petrol or “Blanket” lead-based paint solvent. Tujirijiri can also be bought in small plastic bags and contains high proof alcohol mixed often with other contaminants and cost about twenty cents or 1,000 Kwacha. It can be deadly depending on the composition.  Sniffing blocks the cold, the fear, the hunger and the pain of living on the streets. These side effects explain the protective street name of “Blanket.”  Almost all the kids are using within a week of their arrival on the streets. Other effects include detachment, dissociation, euphoria, dizziness, slurred speech, impaired judgment, and increased salivation. Long term effects include brain, cardiac and lung damage. The outreach workers know the five main places where children sleep similar to Emmaus Ministry in Chicago insert themselves into the subculture fo homeless children. They visit them early in the morning before they are high, reaching out and targeting new arrivals in the hopes of getting them into shelters before hopelessness overwhelms them and homelessness and addiction become a preferred lifestyle. Residential care is offered to all children under age 15 and they have on average 50 new admissions per year. They trace families and engage in a rehabilitation process with the relatives attempting to reunite children to their extended families. Sometimes this is almost impossible as in cases where children have been trafficked from Congo or Ethiopia. The St Lawrence Home of Hope targets the city center. There are ten other organizations that target vulnerable children from the streets in Lusaka though only three do outreach work on the streets. We were told there is no drug rehabilitation available. There are no specialists such as psychiatrists available for counseling. Even if these children were developmentally able to express themselves it is not culturally acceptable to talk about sexual abuse. Children will not report abuse in the family because the child will be blamed by the entire family for revealing the abuse.

It was surprising to me to hear how adamant Bros Jacek was that we must NEVER give money or food to a child on the street as this creates a “dependency syndrome” and contributes to children feeling comfortable on the street and that cash handouts and food actually attract children to street life. He made the point that giving money or food is to salve our own consciences at night so we can sleep but only perpetuates the problem.

*Home of Hope was established in 1998 by the Catholic Women's League of Lusaka in theproperty of St. Lawrence Community Center in the Catholic Parish of Good Shepherd.