Executive Director of Child Rights International, Bright Appiah, has called on government to address the growing number of child beggars on the streets in the country.
Mr Appiah stated that the situation is gradually becoming a “national security issue” and it is important to ascertain the extent to which the state is interested in protecting the rights of destitute and vulnerable children.
“The law calls for the state to have shelters for these children and clearly have a plan to provide some services for them especially when it comes to issues of medical care and also their education. It is a matter of the state deciding to say that we want to have a plan to deal with this issue. But whatever it is, something must be done because the steps which we need to take to address this particular issue has clearly been stated by law.”
Bright Appiah
Commenting on the challenges confronting government’s program ‘Operation Get Off the Streets’ which was christened in 2017 to get children off the streets, Mr Appiah indicated that government’s lack of commitment has delayed the execution of the initiative. He noted that the number of child beggars as at 2012 was manageable, one which the state could have easily decided to “find an alternative in providing care for these children, which we failed to do that”.
The Executive Director for Child Rights International emphasized that the nonchalance of government made it possible for other people to find interest in conducting activities on the streets either by using children to beg or forcing children to be on the streets.
“So now, if you pick every major traffic light in Accra, you will see between five and seven children on the average on the street and that has also made it a bit difficult for the state to have a comprehensive program to deal with that because of the numbers. Because if you look at what we need to do to be able to deal with this has been clearly stated by the law.”
Bright Appiah
Assessing government’s performance in dealing with streetism
In assessing the state’s effort in dealing with the issue, Mr Appiah opined that government has not “started the fight at all” for them to insist that they have not been able to deal with the matter. He highlighted that the state apparatus is finding it difficult to touch it because they don’t know the extent to which the damage is and how they will be able to deal with it.
Mr Appiah iterated that that situation is a “national security issue” due to the fact that his outfit has conducted research based on which it has progressed to the court to “see how best we can deal with this particular matter”.
“We have conducted a research and it clearly shows that this is an organised activity. It is also something that affects the health of children and the sad part of it is that foreigners are also taking advantage of it to run the affairs of the space, because the social security system is a bit weak for that matter [and] anybody at all feels they can carry out their business within our social environment.”
Bright Appiah
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