Street vendors face tough challenges

IN Port Moresby, you will see vendors desperately running away, clutching tightly to their containers of food, betel nuts, and cigarettes, from the city rangers and the police almost every day.
Some vendors cheat death, almost getting hit by moving vehicles in their attempts to evade the authorities.
Are they criminals?
What is a proper way to approach this sort of issue?
Most times, the unlucky ones are manhandled, their betel nuts scattered while onlookers rush to pick them.
The frightened vendors stand some distance away with an adrenaline rush and embarrassment and watch onlookers collect their betel nuts.
They wonder how they’re going to earn something for dinner.
The ones caught are forced into police vehicle to be brought to an office located behind the Works Compound at 4-Mile to be further assaulted.
I was once standing outside the office to lay a complaint and I could hear groans and shouts of men in pain as they were kicked and whipped by the officers before being charged and later released upon paying a fine.
What a nightmare for the unlucky ones. I live around the 3-Mile area and this is the norm. I observe each time the city rangers or the police come around to chase away the street vendors.
I have witnessed a mother being put on a city ranger vehicle at 3-Mile.
The rangers snatched her purse containing that day’s collection and dropped her off at Taurama Foodland.
She returned to collect what remained of her scattered items.
How do we describe this sort of action?
The most unfortunate ones are the mothers who find opportunities to sell their food items such as the Kerema mothers selling cooked fish and sago as they walk along the streets from Sabama to 3-Mile and Boroko areas.
You would ask why the street vendors continue to sell everyday despite the harassment they receive from the city rangers.
It is a desperate situation between the two parties.
One party is doing all its best to keep the city clean and the other is looking for means of survival in the city trying to make ends meet for the families.
Maybe the wages of their husbands are not enough to cater for all the families’ needs so the mothers tend to sell food along the streets to contribute in providing for the family.
Maybe their families are totally dependent on informal market every day.
Would you say this is justice for humanity?
This scenario poses serious questions that could only be answered by our government.
To find answers one has to put themselves in the shoes of the street vendors and to listen to the life struggles they face.
This is a democratic country where our government is governed by this statement: ‘government by the people, for the people’.
When can our common people break free from the struggles they are faced with every day?

Jenny Ope Steven
Port Moresby