Routine beatings of children and extortion by the police in Kinshasa
The market at Delveaux spills onto the main road. Papaya, jack fruit and sweet potatoes piled
in perfect pyramids. Basins of caterpillars, Bananas and butchers.
Good natured banter over the price of produce reaches fever pitch.
And moving throughout are street children. Through hard work, guile and theft they make
their living and survive.
Christian tells me that it is not in his heart to steal, “but I have no job, no where to
stay and need to eat. I want to work. I want training in mechanics.”
Christian has been on the street since he was five. Now sixteen he has a “wife” and they have a child, a second generation street child, eighteen months old.
According to one of War Child’s local partner organisations, Reejer, the number of children
living and working on the streets of Kinshasa has doubled to almost 30,000 over the last two and half years.
Poverty underlies much of this acute problem. And it is the war in DRC that has massively aggravated this poverty. Families are now struggling as viable economic, even social, units.
Christian’s friend, Albi, has lived on the streets for the last five years. He was nine when his mother died. His father remarried and his step mother brought two children with her into the family. Because of acute poverty Albi’s step mother ensured that her own children received the lion’s share of the food.
Albi and his two sisters complained their step mother attempted to poison them and fled. His elder sister is now married but Albi has lost contact with his younger sister. He fears that she has died on the streets.
Christian and Albi sleep on the floor of a make shift bar in Delveaux market. They flatten
out cardboard boxes to sleep on and plug the holes in the corrugated iron roof with grass or pieces of vegetable when it rains.
But their biggest fear is the police.
The police raid the market at night on a regular basis. They round up street children like
Christian and Albi. The police extort the money earned by the older ones and steal their clothes. If they resist they are severely beaten, so badly that when they bleed they are made to drink their own blood.
The younger children are forced to go and steal for the police. If they do not return with
stolen goods then when they are caught again – and they will be - the beating they will receive can sometimes be fatal.
War Child is working with local partner organisations to provide care and shelter for street children like Albi and Christian. Their outreach work takes local staff to places like Delveaux where they provide advice and information, counselling and monitoring. Recently, we have worked to ensure the release of street children after round ups.
Most importantly War Child is helping street children into education and with training.
War Child is now working in partnership with Parlophone on the release of the Heroes album in February. This project is designed to raise money to increase the support and help we provide to street children in Kinshasa, and to strengthen local organisations to do this over the long term.
Mark Waddington
CEO
War Child UK
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