streetism in ghana

By Helena Selby

Streetism is one of the commonest societal problems in the world today which is witnessed by both the young and old each passing day. Its prevalence, intensity and visibility has made society to accept it as a part and parcel normal phenomenom of the world. Streetism even though has the tendency of ruing the prospects of a nation; it is barely spoken of unlike domestic violence, HIV/AIDS, epidemic, maternal mortality and human right abuse. Streetism does not occur in private or in secret but it takes place on the very street which commoners, government officials, philanthropists, and leaders use each passing day. Every individual is a witness to streetism but the support that is given to stop its spread is limited. As streetism basically means living on the due to lack of housing accommodation coupled with the difficulty in fending for ones self, the issue of streetism should not be attributed to children living on the street only but adult too who find themselves on the street with problems beyond their strength. Perhaps as streetism is the consequences of domestic violence, HIV/AIDS, epidemic, maternal mortality, poverty and human right abuse having an indepth solution to these societal problems will help in the eradication of streetism.

Streetism and rural dwellers

Rural dwellers have never been satisfied with their standard of living in the rural settlement due to the unfavourable economic situation. Government’s concentration on urban areas in terms of development and refusal to push some of its resource to the rural areas makes like difficult for dweller over there. For some of these dwellers as the main agriculture occupation they depend on is not lucrative enough to take care of the rapid rise in the prices of goods and services it will be better to migrate to the city where they have hope of greener pastures. According to research Over 80% of Ghanaian Farmers are engaged in subsistence farming. Most of them faced with challenges such as lack of capital or labour, lack of access to ready market, unavailability of land and post harvest losses. There are, however, immense potentials and opportunities such as labour, market, land, useful indigenous technologies and farming inputs. Many youth farmers going through the mentioned situation lay down their tool and come to the city without any source of housing accommodation hence end up living on the street till they are able to make enough money to rent a room.

Streetism and forced marriage

Education has not really helped in the eradication of forced marriage in the lives of many girls in Ghana. The fortunate ones are able to escape the trauma of being forced into marriage due to education, those with no kind of education at all are forced into marriage at a very tender age just to solve financial situation at the home or to rescue her family from extreme poverty. For some even in the classroom parents go ahead to arrange marriage regardless of the fact that the education of the girl will go waste. The Ghanaian Times issue of Wednesday March 26th, 2008 reported about the successful termination of a near marriage of a 17year old Junior High School girl in Kumasi, who is preparing for her final year Basic Education Certificate Examination in April. The young girl had been confined for the marriage ceremony planned.

The children's Act defines a child to be under the age of 18 years and the same Act 560, Section 14, sub section one and two say that "no one shall force a child to be betrothed or be subject of any daily transaction to be married". Furthermore the Act 554, 1998' section 109 on forced marriages states that "whoever by duress causes a person to marry against his or her wish shall be guilty of a misdemeanour." Girl who are not willing to adhere to the proposal of the parents and are not fortunate enough to be rescued by this law, turn to run very far away from home to live on the street where no parent will bother them and try to force them into marriage.

What happens next? A child is forced to live home to live on the street. As the girl is not old enough and does not have any profession to take care of herself, she might end up being a whore or begging for financial assistance from men. What happen next? As the man is not willing to always give out his money without gaining nothing he will indirectly ask the girl to come to a compromise with him in terms of sex and financial aid. The girl with no source of income falls in to the intention of the man the man and eventually gets pregnant. The difficult situation then surfaces as the man might not be willing to take paternity of the child making the girl single teenage mother living on the street. The trend of streetism then continues as the mother will have another child living on the street with her.

Streetism and child trafficking

Poverty has rendered many children to live on the street. In Ghana Many children are trafficked for forced labour in agriculture and the fishing industry, for street hawking, forced to beg on the street and as porters. Some parents with good intention for their children give their children out either to a relation or a friend to give them the best life they couldn’t give to their children but these trusted people turn to give these children the worse life that the real parents wouldn’t have given to them. They are engaged into doing menial job which they are never given any financial aid in return. For some parents too, they deliberately due to their own selfish interest give their children out for hiring to do tedious work just like what is happening in the Volta region where by parent give their children out for hiring to fishermen to make them work for them according to the amount they were charged by their guardian/parent. It is estimated that more than 1,000 children are working as slave labourers on fishing boats across the country. Many children who find themselves in such a situation and are unable to bare it , they tend to run away to places where they can be a master of themselves and take charge over the money they make hence making live on the street to trying to fend for themselves. Research indicates that, over 30,000 children are believed to be working as porters, or Kayaye, in Accra alone.

Conclusion

Cambrigde university press: Street children might not be securely lodged in the life-patterns that the middle class impose on young people, but their reward from trying to maintain a minimum standard of living that their parents and governments are unable to provide them is infinitely preferable to living in the absolute poverty that surrounds them. Based on a critique of our current knowledge of the maturation of children, which is informed primarily by Northern mores and ‘scientific’ proofs whose findings derive from this normative framework and feed back into it, this article seeks to explain why we find child streetism so abhorrent and take it for granted that certain norms can, and should, prevail in the South just because they are found in Northern societies.