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Things We Should Have Written Down » Blog Archive » Arrive. Make a Scene. Take A Photo. Leave.

I wrote a story a few months ago about street children in Addis Ababa who live underground, in sewage runoffs, in old, unused construction holes, and anywhere else they can find. The story was written for a local magazine that may or may not come out due to license issues. I will post it soon.

Last week a British journalist was in town, and he was referred to me by a mutual acquaintance. He was doing a piece on overpopulation and its many side effects for a prominent UK newspaper. One of the side effects he was interested in was homelessness and street children. The colleague who had worked with me on the original story agreed to come along and introduce him to some of the kids we had met.

We met him at – of course – the Hilton Hotel, one of two hotels that white people stay in upon arrival in Addis. He was accompanied by a British photographer who had two hulking cameras dangling from his neck. I hesitated for a minute and thought that this might be more complicated than I had originally planned. It was.

My colleague and I had taken great pains to approach the street kids sensitively and subtly. We spent several weeks with them, getting to know them and their spots. These two British men were leaving the next day and wanted to get enough material in just a few short hours.

We headed to one of the areas where we knew some kids would be. As soon as we arrived the British journalist started handing out candy. This was not wise. Immediately we were surrounded by at least 30 children. Subtly was no longer an option.

The kids obligingly took us to one of the more dismal locations where they find shelter, in a drainage ditch in the center of the city. The photographer started snapping photos, and the flash attracted even more attention. Now adults as well as children gathered around the area. Some were just curious, others were angry that white people were taking photos of these kids and getting something out of it while the focus of the pictures, the children, were getting nothing. I didn’t disagree. I spoke with a middle-aged woman for some time, and I could not refute many of the claims she made. It was going all wrong.

The main reason I did not want to attract attention is because the Federal Police are notorious for treating street kids inhumanely, and I did not want them to find these kids’ shelter. They would no doubt run them off, and the boys would be in an even worse position.

Then the journalist’s wallet was stolen. He had it in his coat pocket, loose and visible. I did not feel sorry for him. He later told me that he had often worked with street children in Johannesburg and Nairobi and he was very experienced. His actions led me to believe otherwise.

A few minutes later, the Federal Police did in fact show up. I quickly told all the children, especially the ones who actually lived there, to scatter. My colleague was brilliant. He soothed the officers’ tempers and somehow convinced them to leave.

By this point, I had had enough. I told the visiting newspaperman that I was through, that I didn’t feel comfortable with the way things were going. We rode with them back to the hotel, and left as soon as we could.

As an aspiring journalist, I am conflicted about what I saw that night. An ‘accomplished’ writer, with over 15 years of work in Africa, made a circus out of an already sensitive and touchy subject. Is this what I wanted to become? Swoop in to get a story, take a few photos of impoverished children, then escape to the security and whiteness of a four-star hotel?

Ethiopia: Steady increase in street children orphaned by AIDS

© UNICEF video

14-year-old Mandefro Kassa lives on the streets of Bahr Dar, Ethiopia. The country counts one of the largest populations of orphans in the world: 13 per cent of children are missing one or both parents.

By Indrias Getachew

BAHR DAR, Amhara Region, Ethiopia, 20 January 2006 – “The street has been my home since I can remember. It’s been more than one year since I moved here (Bahr Dar) and all this time, I have not seen one good thing about living on the street. Everything is horrible,” says 14-year-old Mandefro Kassa, who grew up as an orphan on the streets of Woreta, a provincial town in Ethiopia.

Ethiopia counts one of the largest populations of orphans in the world: 13 per cent of children throughout the country are missing one or both parents. This represents an estimated 4.6 million children – 800,000 of whom were orphaned by HIV/AIDS.  
 
The country has seen a steady increase in the number of children becoming orphaned because of AIDS. In the past, famine, conflict and other diseases were the main factors that claimed the lives of parents

© UNICEF video

Street children are continuously exposed to various forms of exploitation, including sexual exploitation. They do not have access to basic rights such as access to proper care, education, psychological support and supervision.

Grim statistics

Many street children like Mandefro don’t have access to basic rights such as proper care, education, psychological support and supervision. Often, orphans and other vulnerable children are forced to work to earn an income. They are exposed to various forms of exploitation, including sexual exploitation.

• In Addis Ababa more than 30 per cent of girls aged 10-14 are not living with their parents. Twenty per cent of these 30 per cent have run away from child marriages.

• Twelve per cent of adolescents aged 10-14 – of the 30 per cent not living with their parents – surveyed in two areas of Addis Ababa were domestic workers. They are very young, very vulnerable to exploitation and abuse, and typically have no legal or social support.

• In the Amhara region, the average age of marriage for girls is 14, while at the national level the mean age for marriage is 17.

• There are about 2.5 million children with disabilities.

No social net for vulnerable children

Very few government services help orphans. The primary coping strategy for communities has therefore been the extended family. Increasingly, however, the capacity of the extended family to support the growing numbers of orphans is declining.

“As more and more parents die, the capacity of the extended family to take care of orphans becomes smaller and smaller,” says Björn Ljungqvist, UNICEF Representative in Ethiopia. “In all countries where you have a big HIV/AIDS epidemic, at first you don’t see any orphans at all, as they are absorbed by the traditional systems. And then all of a sudden you seem to reach some type of breaking point and you start finding these children in the streets, you start finding them working in difficult conditions, you start finding even child-headed households.”

© UNICEF video

UNICEF, in partnership with local HIV/AIDS Prevention and Control Offices as well as government ministries, is responding to the needs of orphans and vulnerable children in Ethiopia through collaboration with NGOs, youth and community-based organizations.

UNICEF engaged in helping children affected by HIV/AIDS

UNICEF is supporting the rights of children affected by HIV. This includes efforts to alleviate the personal and social impact of the pandemic by ensuring comprehensive care and support to children and families affected by HIV and AIDS.

Strategies include:

• strengthening the capacity of extended families,

• mobilizing and strengthening community and home-based responses,

• strengthening the capacity of children and young people to meet their own needs,

• ensuring the government protects the most vulnerable children and provides essential policies and services,

• creating an enabling environment for HIV and AIDS-affected children and their families.

UNICEF is also trying to reduce children’s vulnerability to HIV by ensuring that they have access to their right to health, education, equality and protection. Children have become the most vulnerable and most prone group to be infected with HIV. This is particularly true of adolescent girls and young women – those aged 15-24 – who constitute between 40 and 50 per cent of all new infections.

Key partnerships

UNICEF, in partnership with federal and regional HIV/AIDS Prevention and Control Offices, as well as government ministries, is responding to the needs of orphans and vulnerable children in Ethiopia through collaborations with non-governmental organizations, and youth and community-based organizations.

There are around 10,000 Anti-AIDS Clubs in the country, and UNICEF Ethiopia sees these partnerships as the most efficient way to reach children who are infected or affected by HIV/AIDS.

Sabine Dolan contributed to this report from New York.

Swiss charity helps Ethiopian street children (eng, NZZ Online)

5. August 2005, Swissinfo

A Swiss charity has given 50 children who were found living rough in the capital of Ethiopia the chance and confidence to rebuild their lives.

Sport The Bridge started its project in Addis Ababa at the end of 2004, targeting the city’s estimated 60,000-100,000 street children. The charity has the backing of Adolf Ogi, organiser of the United Nations-sponsored 2005 Year of Sport, and receives a large part of its project funding from the Swiss government. Children up to the age of 14 were invited to visit a centrally located sports compound run by the charity where they can play football, basketball and volleyball for up to three hours a day. They receive food and medical treatment for their ailments and are encouraged to shower and disinfect their clothes.

Sustainable project

The four Swiss team leaders are shadowed by their Ethiopian counterparts, who will take over the running of the compound at the end of 2006. Psychiatrist Stephan Zihler, founder and president of Sport The Bridge, wanted to ensure local people have the skills they need to continue the project. Four of the six Ethiopian sports assistants were once homeless themselves, so they understand what their students are going through. One is a former national soccer and basketball star and enjoys hero status among his young protégés. Many of the street children were abused and tortured before their arrival at the compound. Zihler said the first challenge is to teach the children social behaviour through team games and to restore their trust in adults. The second goal is to locate the children’s families and rebuild relationships that had broken down, causing the children to leave home. "We have to make sport and family life more addictive than street life," Zihler told swissinfo. Relatives have been traced for all but a couple of the 50 young visitors to the centre, and most of the children now live at home.

Success stories

Twelve-year-old Dembaru was abducted from his home five years ago, probably for child labour. "His abductor punished every mistake by pouring boiling water over him, leaving Dembaru with a mutilated right hand and serious mental scars," Zihler explained. Family liaison officer, Simona Frei, managed to trace Dembaru’s mother, Sinkanesh, who had given up hope of ever seeing her child again. She now visits the sports compound twice a week and plays table tennis with her son in an effort to get to know him. Sinkanesh is also paid for knitting clothes for the children. Mesret, 16, was a prostitute when she came to Sport The Bridge. Frei helped her find a place in a hostel. Mesret now attends night school to try to fill the gaps in her education. The Bridge team is now preparing the children for school in September. Project participants have been asked to contribute a small amount towards their own expenses to give them a sense of ownership and commitment. Zihler says it is a critical stage. "If the children decide not to stay at home or not to go to school, they could easily end up back on the streets."

Political uncertainty

Political instability has created an explosive environment in Addis Ababa. When Ethiopian security forces fired on students in June, killing 36 people in three days of post-election violence, Sport The Bridge staff were in the centre of the turmoil. Zihler and Frei had to ring the Swiss embassy for advice on how to leave the compound and find a path to safety through streets still resounding with gunfire. During a recent trip to Switzerland, they explained how stressful it was to work in a place where people live in fear of political repression, as well as suffering from abject poverty. Sixty per cent of the city’s three-and-a-half million inhabitants are unemployed. The country has more than five million orphans, their parents lost to disease, war and Aids. "It’s impossible to walk through the streets without beggars clinging to you," Frei explained. "There’s a very big risk of burn-out doing this kind of work. Even so, it’s been very rewarding." Zihler and Frei plan to return to Switzerland in December, but the project will carry on with a new set of Swiss volunteers. Sport The Bridge will not be based permanently in Addis Ababa. "What we have done is to develop an exportable model for using sport as a development tool," Zihler said. "Organisations such as the UN have better resources than us for implementing the models we have evolved." swissinfo, Julie Hunt

Sport offers hope to Ethiopian street kids

swissinfo, Ramsey Zarifeh

February 16, 2005 6:42 PM

A Swiss charity is using sport to help improve the lives of some of the thousands of children who live on the streets of the Ethiopian capital, Addis Ababa.

Sport The Bridge has the backing of Adolf Ogi, a former Swiss cabinet minister and organiser of the United Nations-sponsored 2005 Year of Sport.

The charity was set up in 2002 and has undertaken several projects in Swiss schools using sport and physical activity to help integrate foreign children living in Switzerland.

Sport The Bridge’s project in Ethiopia marks the first attempt by the organisation’s team of volunteer workers to demonstrate how sport can be used as an overseas development tool.

"We chose Ethiopia because in many ways it is like Switzerland, in the sense that it is multicultural and multilingual," said the charity’s president, Stephan Zihler.

"On the other hand, Switzerland is one of the richest countries in the world, and Ethiopia is one of the poorest."

The activities centre around learning and playing sports, but the children who choose to take part are also given food, shelter and advice on how to stay healthy while living on the streets.

Zihler, who has enlisted the support of the Ethiopian government, the Swiss Olympic Association and football’s world governing body, Fifa, says the first few months were the most challenging.

"In the beginning, the children were fighting among themselves because they thought that we didn’t have enough water… so we had to teach them how to share resources and think of each other," he told swissinfo.

Team players

Twice a day, the children are offered the chance to learn and play a variety of team games, including football, basketball and volleyball.

Zihler is quick to stress the importance of sport as a social activity for children who spend most of their lives fending for themselves on the dusty city streets.

"This is not just sport for sport’s sake. In football, for example, we teach them about passing and running with the ball. In the process, they are learning about fairness, the rules of the game and about working as a team."

Sport The Bridge ultimately aims to get children off the streets and reintegrate them into family life.

"In a family, you are also a member of a team and have to take care of each other, and this is something that can be learnt through sport," said Zihler, who makes regular visits to Switzerland to drum up support for the Ethiopia project.

"When we first started, all the kids wanted to do was grab the ball, score goals and win every game. Losing was just unthinkable. And if they did lose, they tended to cry and run away.

"So the first step was to persuade them to stay. We then encouraged them to celebrate as a team rather than as individuals whenever one player scored a goal."

Global effort

The launch of Sport The Bridge’s programme in Ethiopia coincides with the 2005 Year of Sport and Physical Education.

The UN hopes activities such as the Swiss project in Addis Ababa will focus attention on how sport can help achieve the Millennium Goal of halving global poverty by 2015.

Zihler anticipates that up to 200 Ethiopian children will have taken part in the programme by the end of the year.

But he admits that the reality of life on the streets of one of the poorest capitals in the world makes it difficult at times to live up to global promises to help developing nations.

"The street children on our project have nothing. All they own is the T-shirt and shorts they are wearing.

"One particular ten-year-old boy who joined us had been abused… he had no fingers and terrible wounds on his leg. He was very angry and didn’t trust any adults. Eventually we had no choice but to take him back to the streets. This made me very sad."

Ethiopia: Godanaw - Google Video
A song dedicated to street kids in Addis.

Focus On the Plight of Street Children

Frehiwot Eshetu appears like any ordinary daughter. As a 13-year-old she helps her mother clean around their small, mud-walled home and looks after her youngest brother Tariq. Yet a year ago she was living on the streets with prostitutes, her friends were using drugs, sniffing benzene and begging. Surviving on scraps from garbage she soon became sick, her stomach infested with worms and her skin and hair riddled with lice. But Frehiwot is lucky. She is described as a success story – plucked from the streets of Addis Ababa and re-united with her family.

“I feel as though I lost my childhood with the horrible things I saw while I was living on the streets,” said Frehiwot. “I was always sick and cold. My life was miserable. I sometimes see street children I know and it makes me very sad that they still have to live like that. Some of them do not have any family. No child should have to live like that.”

Currently there are around 60,000 street kids living a desperate existence in the Ethiopian capital. Some say there could be twice that number. Yet all agree that the number of street children, too often seen begging at the sides of expensive cars, is set to soar as the number of AIDS orphans in Ethiopia tops one million, according to the health ministry.

Frehiwot’s mother Tewres, 38, clings to her daughter as she tells of the hardship faced by their family which eventually forced Frehiwot to run away. Each day they would go out begging as Frehiwot’s father Eshetu is unable to work after losing his eyesight at the age of 16. If they were lucky they scraped together around four Ethiopian birr a day – around US $0.50. The family would get food scraps from hotels in the city.

The poverty and the shame of leading her blind father to tourist spots to help beg eventually drove Frehiwot away. “I used to be ashamed by this,” she says. “We would live on leftovers. I would miss school because I would have to take my father out to beg.” She weeps as she explains why she ran away to the streets. But Frehiwot is quick to add: “I love my family despite them being poor.”

Frehiwot is not the only victim from her life on the streets. The traumatic effects are deeply ingrained on the entire family. “I feel very sorry,” says her mother Tewres, who has five children, speaking through an interpreter. “At this age, to see the catastrophic things she has seen. It has taken away her childhood just because we are poor.

“I was forced to give my young girl to the streets. Now when I look into her eyes all I feel is guilt. She is our only daughter and we almost lost her.”

Frehiwot’s plight is certainly not unusual and is seen in developing countries across the world. The Irish non-governmental organisation, GOAL, is one of the leading agencies in Addis Ababa working with street children – and who rescued Frehiwot. Their programmes are increasingly designed to re-integrate children into the community. They are currently looking after the needs of over 500 street children, through two drop-in centres and seven night shelters, located in some of the poorest parts of the capital.

GOAL psychologist Asafach Haileselassie says that all too often street children are very bright and excel at school. “They are very aware of their environment,” said Asafach, who has worked with street children for over 10 years. “They can see the squalor and poverty, and think that they can make a better life somewhere else. “In some cases their decision to leave home is completely selfless – to reduce the burden on the family, but often they are forced to leave purely because the family cannot cope.”

Asafach, who specialises in child psychology, said the effects of living on the streets can be extremely harmful and long lasting. But GOAL not only focuses on the child. Counsellors work both with the children and their families.

“A street child will suffer very negative affects,” she said. “These children have serious health problems, more often than not they will have serious psychological problems and these can take a long time to sort out. “The children you find on the streets are extremely distrustful. They can be aggressive and are wary of adults who they believe have let them down in the past. The key to helping these children is to make them realise that they are members of the community and have a role to play. However, at the same time it is important to work with the children’s families and communities so that they also realise street children’s predicament. That is why our programmes focus on awareness raising, re-unification and re-integration with all members of the community. Often these children will have very low self esteem. We have to build that back up.”

The children also receive non-formal education – a strategy designed so that children can come in for reading and writing lessons at times that suit them. Under the re-unification project, street children’s families also receive a small loan to try and help them escape from their poverty – which is often the root cause of their break-up. “But we don’t just leave them with their family after that,” said Asafach. “Sometimes it is hard for these children to re-integrate. We will visit every month to see how the family are getting along and to help smooth out difficulties they have.”

So far GOAL has re-united 43 children with their families. Not one has returned to the streets. But it is a long, drawn-out process, often taking up to a year of counselling and education to help the children fully re-integrate.

Fantu Hawaz, a nurse who works the two drop-in centres for street children run by GOAL, said many of the children have contracted serious diseases by the time they arrive. “We have seen very young girls with sexually transmitted diseases,” she said. “But most of the children will usually have parasites in their stomachs because of the food they have been eating. Skin diseases are common, as are bronchial problems and eye infections.”

Frehiwot, like many other children eking out an existence on the streets, fled from poverty. She was picked up by GOAL after just a few months and before more serious damage was done. A bright-eyed girl, she was seduced by the idea of making a better life for herself. The small loan her family received has helped them buy some sheep so they can sell them for a profit when they have been fattened up.

“Now I know it was impossible to make a better life by living on the streets,” Frehiwot says. “I am now back at school studying and want to become an English teacher. It is hard to come back and I think I learnt a lot on the streets, but you cannot live life like that. You become an animal, all you have is hate.”

Ethiopia: Cruel and inhumane actions against street children in Addis Ababa (World Organisation Against Torture (OMCT) Human Rights NGO)

Case ETH 080501.CC
CHILD CONCERN

The International Secretariat of OMCT requests your URGENT intervention in the following situation in Ethiopia.

Brief description of the situation

The International Secretariat of OMCT has been informed by the Ethiopian Human Rights Council (EHRCO), a member of the OMCT network, that the government is engaged in cruel and inhumane actions against street children in Addis Ababa.

Due to the recent conflict between Eritrea and Ethiopia, children who do not have parents or economically strong relatives to support them are forced to discontinue their education. The streets, churches, mosques, bus and taxi stations of cities in Ethiopia are crowded by a increasing number of these defenseless citizens.

According to the information received, as of February 2001, the government tried to solve this problem by rounding them up, taking them to and abandoning them to hyenas and other wild animals in forests outside the city. A number of the children that EHRCO has been able to interview reported that some of their friends, especially the very young and weak, which had been taken with them to these forests, have so far not returned. 

For instance, according to the information received, 14 year old Yirgalem Melaku was among those picked up on 29 April, taken to Dukem and abandoned in the woods. Yirgalem has not returned and his whereabouts are still unknown. His friends fear hyenas may have eaten him. 

According to EHRCO, between March and April 2001, the police detained destitute children at Kolfe Police Training Camp (KPTC) where they were made to perform various military-like ìsports" and, later, taken and abandoned at such places as Dukem, Sebeta and Kara Qore. Some of these children managed to return to Addis Ababa in spite of the threats and strict instructions they had received from the police not to come back to the city. As pointed out earlier, it is feared that some may not have been as lucky.

In addition to what the government has been doing to the destitute, it has started a similar campaign against those children that have been trying to survive and support their families by selling newspapers, magazines, and second-hand items in the streets. These children are also being picked up from the streets, taken to Kolfe Police Training Camp, and made to perform military-like ìsports". Then, they are made to sign written statements that they "will never again sell newspapers or other things anywhere in the city", and released. A number of these children have also reported their grievances to EHRCO. It has not been possible to include samples of these, since the children are frightened of even more serious retaliation.

So far, EHRCO has registered 41 children who have been persecuted by the police (a list is available at the International Secretariat of OMCT).