Over the years especially after the 11 years conflict in Sierra Leone, there has been a miss-position of children. We see a lot of our future leaders in the street begging. Some are used as stooges by their parents or relatives. These children spend their days begging in the streets instead of being in school. Most people blame this on the destitution left behind by the eleven years civil war. This has had a huge effect on the country as a whole. The number of children in the streets is on the increase and this has contributed immensely to the soaring crime rate involving children. Most of them are used by criminals as acolytes. This is mainly because these children are left in the street to fend for themselves. They make little or no money for the day to up-keep them, hence they get involved in criminal acts such as pick- pocketing and anti-social behaviour such as joining riotous gambling clubs. When they grow older, they become depressed; join bad groups with a wanton urge to disrupt the peace and stability of the communities in which they find themselves. The number of gang violence is on the increase, which has led to the loss of lives of young people, as was the case in the Fourah Bay community in Freetown on 14th September 2013, where two young men belonging to so-called opposing cliques were butchered to death.
Some of these street children, especially girls, are exposed to sexual abuse. Men try to take advantage of them because of their present condition. As a result of this, cases of sexual penetration are on the increase as most of these street children are under-aged. These men use money to lure deprived children especially girls into having sexual intercourse with them. This exposes children to sexually transmitted infections and even teenage pregnancies, which is the reason you see ‘child-mothers’ with a child or two. These poor conditions of living are definitely not good for people we call our future leaders of this great nation.
Some of these children are either orphans, abandoned children left homeless from being denied and unattended to by their parents and relatives, who leave their children because of their economic incapability or the fear of taking full parental responsibility. People use kids as young as ten to fourteen years to do all types of hard and unhealthy Jobs. The situation is even more bizarre in the mining districts of Sierra Leone where children work day and night in mining pits. Such children are exposed to environmental hazards, bullying and other forms of abuse from elderly work mates. Others move about collecting remains of vehicle parts and iron. A lot of these children are involved in street trading putting their lives on the line.
It is clearly stated in the Child Rights Act 2007 that no one shall subject a child to exploitable labour. The biggest questions are: what is actually done to stop this? Why can some people not act according to the dictates of the law? Is there any effective means to stop this? The Child Right Act as well as the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child states that whatever decision is taken that affects a child’s life should be done in such a way that the interests of parents, the community or the state, does not override the best interest of the child. This principle touches on every aspect of a child’s life. Regardless of this, many adults often act towards children in ways that are harmful to the child. There are often many assumptions about what is in children’s best interest that are implicit and explicit. Based on this feedback the assessment of children’s best interest must be clearly directed towards the realization of their rights and proper accountability for children’s views.
Section 90 of the Child Rights Act tells us that ” a parent or any other person who is legally liable to maintain a child or contribute towards the maintenance of a child is under a duty to supply the necessaries of health, life, basic education and reasonable shelter for the child”. This suggests that it is a legal duty on parents, rather than a social responsibility, to ensure that the basic needs of a child are met. Some parents neglect their obligations to take up responsibilities for their child or children. According to the law, a child must be properly taken care of by anyone who is legally liable to maintain a child. Unfortunately, it is ever difficult to answer in the affirmative to the question of whether legal penal action is taken against all who act contrary to this law. This is because there are children who go to bed without food or are deliberately starved by their parents or guardians, given loads of household chores and left with little or no time to study or play. Some wake up very early to execute domestic assignments before leaving for school and mostly missing the first period in school. They suffer from fatigue once they are in class and pay little attention to lessons or easily fall asleep during the lesson. Such children usually have poor educational backgrounds and mostly drop out of school.
CARL believes that there can be a turning point in the lives of Sierra Leone’s children if certain steps are taken. The Local Council by laws make provisions for protecting the rights of children. It is necessary to ensure an effective, consistent and well monitored enforcement of the said bylaws. Putting in place monitoring systems and mechanisms to check on the status of discrimination against children and pressing for positive action would yield a lot of dividend to the fight to uphold children’s rights. Let us start by increasing the number of child homes. This will cut down the rising number of children in the street. There are few private organizations helping children by providing them with shelter but they cannot give accommodation for all street or homeless children. Hence, it is a pressing need for the government to set up organizational structures whose responsibility would be to take the kids off the street and provide shelter for them or where possible, re-unite them with their families. These governmental organizations or institutions must be efficient and diligent in their duties and must be adequately funded.
Also in a bid to alleviate the appalling and harrowing conditions of children in the country CARL recommends that stringent measures be put in place to track child abuse at all levels. This can be achieved by the government instituting effective and persistent monitoring mechanisms for tracking and reporting child abuse .This is in view of the fact that too many child abuse cases go unreported and as such, unpunished. Thus, the higher the level of impunity enjoyed by offenders, the more deplorable and intractable the problem becomes. The Child Rights Act makes provision for penal measures to be taken against each and every offender of the act, but unfortunately these penalties are not being imposed. Thus, the law is not serving one of its most vital purposes as a deterrent to crime (potential offenders) as the latter only see it as a toothless bulldog.
Human rights issues should not only be limited to the court room. Measures should be put in place in order to stop people from taking advantage of others and encroaching on their civil rights. People need to be sensitized on their rights, responsibilities and limitations, as this would bring the awareness of others’ rights, especially young children, who are the most vulnerable.