DATE=1/7/2000
TYPE=BACKGROUND REPORT
TITLE=STREET CHILDREN IN ETHIOPIA - PART-I
NUMBER=5-45188
BYLINE=HILLETEWORK MATHIAS
DATELINE=WASHINGTON D.C.
CONTENT=
VOICED AT:
INTRO: The issue of street children is one of the
fast growing social problems in Ethiopia. The U-N
Children's Fund (UNICEF) estimates that there are more
than 150-thousand street children in the country.
Economic problems have made many of them assume
responsibilities normally reserved for adults. A
large number of them are forced to work on the streets
to satisfy their basic needs and support their
families. V-O-A's Hilletework Mathias -- recently
visited Addis Ababa and talked to some of them.
TEXT: Their ages range mostly between eight and 20.
They include orphaned, disabled, neglected, and
abandoned children all over the country. They can be
seen on any day, wearing torn clothes, roaming
barefoot, and begging motorists and pedestrians in
Addis Ababa.
// ACT - SOUNDS OF STREET CHILDREN AS THEY BEG FOR
HELP //
Some scavenge through garbage for food and material to
build shelter. Others spend their days selling things
or sleeping on sidewalks beneath plastic sheeting or
anything that can provide cover.
Some of the girls practice prostitution to support
themselves. This makes them vulnerable to pregnancy
and sexually transmitted diseases such as AIDS. Once
pregnant or with a baby to care for, they find that
few people will hire them. As a result, many end up
in desperate conditions.
For some, a constant need for escape from extreme
poverty and hunger lead them to unwanted sexual
assault at a very young age. Tegest Orga - a street
girl in Addis Ababa - says she had a terrible
experience when she was 12.
/// TEGEST ACT: EST. ACT IN FULL IN AMHARIC THEN
FADE UNDER FOR TRANSLATION ///
Once when I was a kid, I was working in Merkato. A
man came and asked where I live. I told him where I
lived. He said his brother also lives in my
neighborhood. He said "let us go together, I will
show you his house." I said, 'Okay' and we started
going. But he took me to a wooded area saying that
was the direction to his brother's house. Once we
were in the wooded area, he told me to get undressed.
He said, "if you scream here police will come." He
took out a knife and said he will kill me if I scream.
I was so frightened. Then he raped me and left me
there. After that, it took me almost six-months to
walk normally. I was only 12.
/// END OF ACT ///
Several factors are blamed for forcing many of these
children to the streets. Poverty, family breakdown or
instability and peer pressures are considered the main
reasons forcing children to the streets.
*************(ACT to be inserted).
For others, like Bezuayehu Demissie, family disharmony
was the main reason that pushed him to the streets at
the age of 13.
/// BEZAYEHU ACT: EST. ACT IN FULL IN AMHARIC THEN
FADE UNDER FOR TRANSLATION ///
I left home because of a disagreement with my
stepfather. After I left home I went to the bus
station where I met street children. After a while I
got along with them and started doing all kinds of
things they do. When they smoke, I smoke, and when
they take drug, I also take drug. We sleep on the
streets even in the winter. When I do not have money,
I beg or sleep in the streets. Sometimes I scavenge
through garbage cans for food.
/// END OF ACT ///
There is another dimension to the problem of street
children in Ethiopia. Their desperation for food and
other basic necessities leads them to be involved in
illegal activities such as stealing. Elias Zewde - a
former street child - was living with his grandfather
and his aunt after he lost his father when he was 10.
Elias says hunger led him to all kinds of illegal
activities.
///ELIAS ACT: EST. ACT IN FULL IN AMHARIC THEN FADE
UNDER FOR TRANSLATION ///
My aunt did not treat me fairly. She was not giving
me food when my grandfather was out of the house. I
was denied food while her kids were fed. As a result,
I used to get very hungry. My grandfather was a
priest. He was also working as a cleaner at
Zenebework School, while spending most of his spare
time in church. So he did not have time for me and
for my younger brother. I had stopped going to school
when I was in the second grade. That was when my
father died. So when kids in the neighborhood with
parents go to school, I was spending most of my time
with my vagabond friends in the streets doing all
kinds of things; including stealing, gambling, and any
thing that brings money. We do this just to survive.
You do anything when you get hungry.
/// END OF ACT ///
The use of alcohol and drugs as a survival strategy
leads a few to insanity by the time they are in their
early 20's. As a result, they are branded by society
at large as vagabonds, nuisances, and criminals.
Tense day-to-day interaction between street children
and the police is routine.
Minas Hiruy is the executive secretary of HOPE - an
indigenous non-governmental organization that provides
food, education, and counseling to street children in
Ethiopia. Mr. Minas says the public lacks awareness
about the true nature of the problems of street
children.
/// MINAS ACT ///
Not too long ago, 30-years ago, this country was never
dependent on anybody. The kinds of problems we have
in the streets were not really problems. They were
absorbed in the community, in the extended family.
Since recently with drought, war, and so forth the
extended family has broken down, the community has
been trained not to spare anything to anybody. As a
result, this problem has become a sudden problem. And
we do not really know how to face it. Sad to say many
in the community see it with a negativity, not with a
kind of compassionate attitude because the community
as a whole is not used to seeing people dependent just
on begging. But that is now becoming a reality.
/// END OF ACT ///
Street kids are also highly exploited. Younger
children guarding cars are chased away by older ones,
particularly where business thrives, or else they will
have to pay a small fee to the older ones. In some
cases, the teenagers force the younger kids to work
for them for free. Bezuayehu is one of them.
/// BEZUAYEHU ACT: EST. ACT IN FULL IN AMHARIC THEN
FADE UNDER FOR TRANSLATION ///
Older street kids kick me and order me to work and
give the money to them. After I do that, they tell me
to go and dump trash. If I do no get trash to take
out, they kick me. When they want drugs they tell me
to go and get drugs. After they take the drugs they
get high and again kick me and mistreat me.
/// END OF ACT ///
For Bezuayehu and thousands of others like him,
working on the streets has become a vital necessity in
their young lives. What matters to them is not
tomorrow, but their day-to-day survival - something to
eat, something warm to wear, and somewhere to sleep.
There is no space or time for childhood.
NEB/HM/ENE/RAE
07-Jan-2000 08:51 AM EDT (07-Jan-2000 1351 UTC)
NNNN
Source: Voice of America
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