The union of children’s rights groups says police force is not a sustainable solution to the problem of street children. An appropriate approach should respect the children’s rights and ensure the children do not return to the street.
Typical street children’s life by night
Children rights group says police force is not an appropriate solution to the problem of children living in the street and street begging; it just violates rights of the children.
Unicef has said in its Burundi Humanitarian Situation Report on 31 March that “in February and March 2017, 200 children, primarily boys, living or working in the streets have been arbitrarily arrested by the police”.
“The police have used force. They would nab children from where they were sleeping in the street and take them to jail where some stayed as long as two weeks before being taken back to their homes”, says Jacques Nshimirimana, the President of FENADEB (National Federation of Associations involved with Children’s Rights).
The government of Burundi has started a campaign to eradicate street living and begging in June 2016. FENADEB says it was after the federation’s repeated call to end the phenomenon that involved the exploitation of children by people who used them as economic assets. The situation also deprived children of their right to education as they would choose begging over studying.
A 2011 study showed that at least 3,253 children lived in the street of Bujumbura the capital and the cities of Ngozi, Gitega and Rumonge provinces.
In its speech of defence issued in last March during a two-day workshop with different ministries and organisations advocating children’s rights, FENADEB said that at least 420 street children and beggars had been arrested by the police from June 2016. Some children have been beaten, some injured. Some others have been traumatized and intimidated by some police officers.
Such behaviour may be due to some officers’ lack of knowledge about the protection of under age children, reads the speech of defence. It says that the police could jail 8 year- old children for over a week whereas the criminal law does not allow even the detention of children below 15 years old even if they have committed or are complicit in a crime.
Nshimirimana says “we are all for the eradication of children street living and begging, but we should do it in away that respects the law and the children’s rights”.
He says the use of force violates the children’s rights, and that those who are forcefully taken back home return to the street shortly after.
“Bogus” claims according to the police
The police deny the violation of children’s rights and dismiss the UNICEF figure as bogus. Pierre Nkurikiye, Police Spokesman, says UNICEF workers are not present when the police arrest the children. Moreover, the police do not give a report to the organisation, “so where do they find the numbers?”
Nkurikiye says police officers neither beat nor jail children. “They bring under control and use force on anyone who does not want to obey orders”, he says. When the street children and beggars are arrested, they are taken to a place “which is not a jail”, where they wait till a substantial number is reached and they are then transported to their communes of origin. “We can’t transport everyone we arrest individually”, he says.
Nkurikiye recognizes, however, that the police’s effort doesn’t pay off as many of the children taken home come back. “There is a lack of supervision in their communities, you may find a child who has been arrested three or four times back again in the street”, he says.
Street children are not social deviants…
Nshimirimana says the first step to find a sustainable solution to the problem is to understand the children and treat them with respect. “These children are not in the street because of social deviance. Many of them are there because they have no other choice”, he says.
As many as 48% of the children are in the street because of poverty in their families. Over 18% were orphaned in the war. Problems in the family account for slightly over 7% of the children in the street, while parents’ carelessness accounts for 6%, according to FENADEB.
Nshimirimana advocates recognizing and treating the children as normal Internally Displaced People (IDPs). “The fact that the government and international organisations [such UNHCR] have not treated the children as IDPs shows they assume the children are socially deviant, which is not true”, says Nshimirimana.
He says there needs to be in-depth investigation into the causes of the children’s situation. And before taking the children back home, they, along with their parents and the community at large should be prepared for their social reintegration.
Additionally, the problem of the children cannot be truly solved if the “children are not given the opportunity to participate in the process”, says Nshimirimana.
Begging should also be discouraged through severe punishment of people who exploit children by using them as beggars to get money. The public should also be discouraged to give money to beggars in disorder.
Nshimirimana says he is optimistic the situation of these children will be solved especially that they are not yet many and the government has accepted to play an important role as it should.
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