Unity state asks UN for funds to build home for street children
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June 24, 2013 (BENTIU) - Unity state’s ministry of gender, child and
social welfare has inked an agreement with the United Nation
Children’s Fund (UNICEF) to build up a care center for street children
in Bentiu and Rubkotna.
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Street children at Bentiu’s Kalibalek market in Unity state, 21 June 2013 (ST)
The move to build a centre in Bentui to accommodate the children came
as a result of an assessment in May.
Minister Lubna Abdelgani told Sudan Tribune on Monday that she came to
the conclusion with the head of UNICEF for South Sudan’s Upper Nile
region that the home should be built.
Initially the center was supposed to be built using local materials,
but Abdelgani said the plan has changed as the structure is going to
be more permanent.
“You cannot build a center by use of local materials as the center
will accommodate more children collected from [the] streets."
It was important to get the children off the streets before they
become involved in crime.
It is estimated that there are over hundred street children in Unity
state’s town centres and markets. Children often end up on the street
because their parents are unable to look after their basic needs.
Khan Maguel Tap, 13, who comes from Koch county, says he lived on the
streets for the last two years surviving on leftover food since his
father died.
"My mother is a drunk, so when I decide to move to the house of my
sister she refused to allow me to stay with her. I have nowhere to go
and the only cheap way is to settle and live in the street."
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Street children at Bentiu’s Kalibalek market in Unity state, 21 June 2013 (ST)
Another street child, Dabul Gatkoang, 12, has lived streets for three
years after his mother decided to stay in Khartoum while his father
lives in Juba.
Gatkoang hopes the new center will improve the lives of children like
him if the government also provide them with an education.
"We need them to provide us with books and clothing. If they offer us
such services we will become better children for this country’s
future”.
Minister Abdelgani says the government wants to address the problem of
street children.
“The presence of children on the streets is a big problem to the
government, and the availability of children on streets will make them
learn wrong behaviors’ that may lead to culprits’ activities which
will be disastrous to nation building, and we are speeding up building
the interim care centre in order to improve availability of more
children to stay in streets”.
Last month a joint assessment conducted by NGO’s and government
officials to verify the number of children that took refuge at market
areas. Minister Abdelgani said that around 50 children were found in
Rubkotna and Bentiu markets alone.
Abdelgani says the ministry has screened those who are with parents
and those without. Children with parents will be reunited with their
parents and the ministry will step in to support their education.
“The children who say need education. We will take responsibility and
the child who say his or her father and mother are there, we will take
the child to the parent through social workers to find out from them
why the child took street and if the mother and father confirm, the
child went to street because he or she have no support to go to school
we as the government and the VSF shall take responsibility of sending
them to school.”
The minister says many children took street not because they are
orphans, but their parents are failing to support them in term of
basic needs. Abdelgani urges parents in the state to take a
responsibility in looking after their children.
Child labour is increasing with children below 15-years-old pushing
wheelbarrows, polishing shoes and selling tea.
(ST)
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