Chronicle Editor
Rufaro Winter, Chronicle Reporter
THE Government says the issue of street kids who are taken into shelters or returned to their homes but escape back to the streets is of great concern.
There have been numerous interventions from Government and its partners to keep the children away from the streets where they are often abused but most of them surprisingly return to the streets at the slightest opportunity.
Some of the children that used to roam the streets of Bulawayo were temporarily housed at the Jairos Jiri Association Centre in Nguboyenja suburb while Government organised their return to their families.
Most of the street urchins are teenagers that were rounded up under a programme that was facilitated by the Ministry of Public Service, Labour and Social Welfare following the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic last year.
Most of these children were successfully reunited with their families but what is worrying is that the majority of them are back on the streets, a confirmation that what made them leave their homes in the first place, has not changed.
The Chronicle team caught up with some of the boys who have returned to the streets and many of them said they were finding it difficult to live with their families.
“I was taken back to Mberengwa to stay with the same relatives who used to ill-treat me so I had no choice but to return to the streets,” said one of the boys.
Some said they were used to getting instant money through begging and car washing in town.
“We wash cars and beg which gives us enough money to buy drugs and food which we cannot do at home,” said one of the boys.
In a telephone interview yesterday, the Deputy Minister of Public Service, Labour and Social Welfare, Cde Lovemore Matuke said the street kid challenge was not going to be solved overnight.
“The issue of vulnerable children on the streets is an old problem that has been with us for years but as the responsible ministry, we are doing our best to address the problem. It is a fact that the problem cannot be solved overnight but what is encouraging is that we are slowly reducing the numbers. Some children have been reunited with their families and have not returned to the streets,” said Deputy Minister Matuke.
He said the Government and its partners will continue with the interventions meant to rid the streets of these street kids.
Deputy Minister Matuke said what was painful was that some of the children that are back on the streets had been enrolled at vocational training centres.
“We took them and enrolled them at these training centres to do courses such as building and sewing but some have since absconded and are back on the streets,” he said.
Cde Matuke said many of the children living on the streets are used to do as they please without parental or institutional control hence they run back to the streets at the slightest opportunity. — @rufarovaraidzo.
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