Street kids, beggars, thieves, pick pockets, burglars are some of the names people use to refer to these children! You will find them in all major towns, Mbale, Soroti, Jinja and Kampala, one thing they have in common is that they hail from Karamoja and live on the streets. They arrive to these major cities on foot, some get lifts on produce lorries, others have saved money enough for a one route bus journey since they have no intention of ever going back.
Reasons for their migration are poverty, hunger, insurgency. they all arrive to the urban city in search of a better life the typical reasons fronted for rural-urban migration.
The HIV scourge did not leave Karamoja untouched however, due to their cultural practices once when the man discovers he has been infected by the virus, the woman is blamed for introducing the virus in the family and banished from her home. She is shunned by society and in some instances thrown out of her home with her children. One would expect that the children who arrive in these urban centers are with their mothers and are protected by them but how wrong that assumption is! You see the children are turned into a money-making machine, their mothers send them to beg and pickpocket. As expected, people are more sympathetic to children and will easily part with money for a hungry child than a full grown able-bodied woman. as soon as a child is able to sit, the child is put on the street with an empty container to begin his or her career in begging. If you are keen, you will observe the mother seated at a distance watching the children closely, she will give instructions from time to time, shake or even slap a dozing child to keep alert, send others off in the direction of a potential “customer”, the children keep running back and forth to take the alms collected to the mother. The more children one has, the more money one makes so family planning is not an option for these women.
A local TV station once ran a story of two Karimojong women who had been arrested for child abuse. they were arrested from Kisenyi a slum in Kampala. The two women were very healthy but carrying a malnourished child and when asked why they had neglected the child, they boldly said that he was their source of income. when people saw the emaciated child, they were quick to give them money for their survival. Thank God that child was saved in time, he was rescued and taken to a children’s home and the women sentenced but this just makes one wonder how many more children are being deliberately starved by their mothers.
These children grow by the day, life on the streets is harsh and they have been hardened, they are aggressive when it comes to begging and some have resorted to using knives and getting violent in their begging acts. When the child grows older, he or she is left to fend for themselves and in the streets resort to a life of crime. The girls are more vulnerable and exposed to rape and molestation.
One fact that cannot be denied is that these are children and have a right to food, shelter, medicine and an education, this is according to our constitution. The government must intervene and take care of this situation before it gets out of hand! NGOs are doing their best but due to the limited funds, they cannot absorb all these children. Kampala city council has tried to round them up and take them to the children’s center in Kampiringisa but they are not doing enough!
