The phenomenon of street children is one of the major challenges that Burundi has faced in recent years. In addition, lately, they constitute a public danger in the sense that they attack and steal the property of honest people. Which worries a lot of passers-by
Children in street situations are not by chance. It is up to the State to rehouse them and find them a decent job.
« As a daily job, I am a Lumicash agent. On Wednesday evening January 18, 2023, I was exchanging the money with my client. All of a sudden, about five street children from nowhere surrounded me and forcibly snatched some of the banknotes I was holding in my hands and took off. Fortunately, I was able to save some expenses “, said on condition of anonymity a young girl who carries out the work of money transfer via mobile phones in downtown Bujumbura. She adds that Lumicash and Ecocash agents are the main targets of these street children. They also target ladies who have purses or phones and run away with their loot through the underground pipes and no one follows them because they inspire fear. This example is not isolated. He is among many others.
Street children constitute a major challenge that Burundi has been facing for several years. He has not yet found a lasting solution. These children are concentrated in urban centers in general and in the city of Bujumbura in particular. When traveling in the economic capital Bujumbura, especially in the city center, it is rare not to come across street children divided into small groups of 10 people on average. They roam the different neighborhoods of the city in teams. This makes them a public danger because their main purpose is to steal passers-by’s property such as handbags, phones, money, etc. The victims are numerous.
The government has taken inappropriate and counterproductive measures
From the second half of 2022, children in street situations have become increasingly numerous and dangerous. This situation worsened when the government of Burundi wanted to forcibly remove from the streets beggars and delinquents, including the street children who are the subject of our article. They were made to pass through the supervision center located in Jabe (Bujumbura town hall) before transferring them to their families of origin. This is a measure that has been deemed inappropriate and counterproductive by various stakeholders in the sector of the protection of children’s rights. Above all, we must tackle the problems that push children to leave their families and go to live on the streets. Poverty is the main cause of this phenomenon.
In an interview he gave to Burundi Eco in August 2022, Emmanuel Amissi deputy director of the Enfant Soleil project responsible for supervising children removed from the streets in Jabe stressed that when children in street situations join their families of origin after coaching and find that the cause of their migration to the streets has not been resolved, they return directly to the streets and become more and more aggressive. For him, the best strategy is to identify and tackle the root causes of begging and to assist these children being in their families of origin. So the ball is in the government’s court.
