Strapping one of her twin babies on her back, while another is on the ground, Rumbidzai Guru (not her real name) talks about her family’s life on the streets.
“Life has not been kind to me since I separated from my husband,” she said.
“We had had a fight over his misuse of money. He would drink most of the money he got from vending juice cards. That left little for food and other household provisions. One day he left home after a fight over his delinquent behaviour. I was pregnant at that time. I strongly suspect that he left because he did not want to take responsibility for the child.”
She had twin boys and ended up living on the streets because she could not raise money for rent. She now calls home the stream running between Barclays Bank and Nando’s food outlet at Avondale shopping centre, and survives selling vegetables.
“My biggest burden at the moment is my children. They had been living with my mother in rural Mutoko for the last five months, but she brought them back to me,” she said.
“My business cannot sustain me much because I do not have much wares on the market due to limited capital. If I get say $100 a month that is doing well.”
Guru said she fears illness because she lacks the wherewithal to take her babies to the clinic.
Another woman – identified only as Mai Manu (Emmanuel’s mother) – was indifferent to her situation to the point of being cynical when asked how she was coping with her baby.
“Can you not see that we are living well here? In any case what has that got to do with you whether we are coping or not?” she asked.
University of Zimbabwe sociologist Dr Watch Muparanganda said children who grow up on the street develop a way of “hitting back against society.”
“These are the people who resort to mugging, dumping children, murder, breaking into shops and homes, etc,” he said.
“They commit such crimes because they feel rejected and the best way to assuage their feeling is to hit back on the society.”
He said integrating people who live in the streets back into society was an onerous task that required patience and careful planning.
“Society should address their concerns first – mostly monetary, before sending them back into society,” he said. “Loan facilities can do much good because most of them have aspirations they want to achieve.”
Childline fundraising officer Patience Chiyangwa said her organisation was doing all it could to ameliorate the poor living conditions of street children.
“Childline operates a 24hr free phone at the central referral point for all child protection issues in Zimbabwe,” she said.
“We receive about 1000 calls of child abuse cases every month – including those suffered by infants living or and with mothers working on the street. We also offer face to face and telephone counseling services and follow-up services which are conducted with the Department of Social Services as well as the ZRP Victim Friendly Unit.”
Minister of Labour and Social Services Paurina Mpariwa said although the government was incapacitated due to lack of money, it was doing all it could to make a difference in the lives of children in the streets.
Post published in: News