Get children off the streets

THE nation’s capital is teeming with beggars, many of them young children.
These kids roam the city streets every day begging for a few kina or leftover food, especially at the traffic lights next to Port Moresby’s most modern shopping complex.
Children as young as six and five years of age can be seen selling or controlling traffic when one walks or drives down the streets of the city.
Most of these children have never been to school.
They live in the settlements and are mostly working in groups to earn a living and to get something to eat or to take food home to their siblings.
Not only the children are a concern, there are many adults loafing, loitering, littering or selling wares and causing obstruction around the city and especially at intersections and traffic lights.
Their presence at these locations amount to “obstruction of traffic”.
More needs to be done to put a complete stop to this practice.
There are penalties under the Motor Traffic Act, however, it seems it has not been enforced by those in authority.
Most times it becomes a “cat and mouse” game.
Once a National Capital District enforcement unit approaches, they dash and when it is all clear, they are back – either selling or begging.
The National has reported that the National Office for Child and Family Services will be addressing issues of child loitering and child labour starting with the nation’s capital.
As a statutory office under the Department for Community Development, Youth and Religion, one of its functions is to protect the rights of children and welfare issues of families through services by implementing the Lukautim Pikinini Act and the child protection policy.
The children are still there.
According to the child protection policy, children in PNG continue to engage in the worst forms of child labour, particularly in forced domestic service and commercial sexual exploitation.
These children work long hours, lack freedom of mobility, do not have access to medical treatment and do not attend school.
Sadly, PNG does not have a comprehensive list of hazardous occupations from which children are prohibited.
Additionally, PNG child labour laws are not effectively enforced and the lack of compulsory education may increase the risk of children’s involvement in the worst forms of child labour.
Studies conducted have identified that children became street kids because of violence at home; both parents left without informing the children so the children were abandoned; the parents had died: overcrowding at home; and, the children were sometimes sent out by their parents to look for money, so they worked on the streets of Port Moresby.
The work the children did on the street included begging, parking cars, street vending, selling stolen goods, stealing and prostitution.
Some children were sent by their parents, guardian, and/or senior peers.
To reduce the number of children working on the street, stakeholders need to assist each other by working together and taking a holistic approach to address this issue in totality.
To assist these children and get them into education, they should be removed from the street and be provided with better and more attractive opportunities.
For a lucky country such as Papua New Guinea, it is a disturbing trend that reflects poorly on the nation’s ability to look after its not the well-offs and underprivileged people.