Street Children On the Increase in Douala
Street Children On the Increase in Douala
The Post (Buea)
June 15, 2006
Posted to the web June 15, 2006
Joe Dinga Pefok
The number of street children in Douala, Cameroon’s economic capital has attained an alarming proportion, administrative authorities have said.
Speaking on June 12 in Douala while launching weeklong activities to commemorate the 16th edition of the Day of the African Child, slated for June 16, Littoral Governor, Gonoukou Haounaye, announced a number of measures envisaged to help tackle the situation.
The Governor disclosed that a census of street children in Douala will soon be carried out. He said the government wants to reintegrate them into the society as fast as possible. He admitted that for now there is no statistics about street children which government can use.
Though he did not explain how the census will be carried out, given that street children do not have any fix location, Mr. Houanaye said the census would enable the government and related partners map out an appropriate strategy on how to reintegrate them into the society.
He said the state-owned Reformatory Centre for Minors at Bepanda, Douala, will soon be renovated and be transformed into a Reference Centre for street children.
Abusing A Child’s Right
Commenting on this year’s theme: ‘A right to protection, stop violence on children’, Haounaye said the government is planning a better legislation to protect the rights of the child. The Governor condemned the persistent abuse of children’s right in the family.
Besides sexual abuse, which some children continue to suffer in their families, he mentioned abandonment, forceful marriage, overwork, torture, starvation and denial of access to education.
Why They Become Street Children
Speaking in a specialised programme over CRTV Douala Wednesday, June 14, Littoral Provincial Delegate of Social Affairs, Samuel Njock, said irresponsibility of some parents and guardians and persistent maltreatment of children cause them to flee their homes.
But Njock noted that some stubborn children take to the streets because they do not want to submit to the authority of their parents. He also talked of children who are misled by their friends to run away from home. Njock cited cases where children take to the streets due to inevitable circumstances.
If the authorities are getting worried about the increase in the number of street children, it is because of the rising crime wave in the city, involving many street children. These children mostly hang out in the busy commercial streets of Akwa during the day and sleep at the corridors of the commercial buildings in the night.
Street children are said to mostly start off as ‘pick pockets’. With time, they gain more and more experience, and eventually move into big robbery operations. Most of those who grow to start participating in big banditry operations are said to leave the street for hotels, or put up with women.
They generally smoke marijuana with impunity, and are also notorious for rape, especially at nightfall.
