MONROVIA – So is the fate of young Liberian children who escort their visually impaired parents, guardians, or relatives to the streets to beg for ends meet daily.
These young ones, also known as “Begging Guides,” crave education, decent living conditions, and adequate protection from family members (parents or guardians) but remain hopeless in their yearning for a productive life.
According to a roadmap developed by a joint initiative of the Government of Liberia and UNICEF, 366,584 street children across the 15 counties are found in street situations—realities that are alarming enough to threaten peace and stability, as well as economic growth, recognizing that this group has no developed potential to contribute to the country’s socioeconomic viability.
Begging Guides, with no available programs to meet their basic needs, continue to roam the streets with their parents, guardians, or employers, who suffer from the disability of blindness and have resorted to begging to survive due to harsh daily living conditions.
This three-month investigation focused on identifying the crucial experiences of street children in this category and has compiled these basic details to inform policymakers and international partners with a vested interest in ameliorating the compounding crisis confronting this group of young ones in the world’s eighth-poorest country.
Three key traffic terrains outside Monrovia—72nd and Neezoe junctions in Jacob Town, Paynesville, and Bardnersville Junction in Gardnersville—continue to harbor scores of visually impaired people daily, guided by children to fend for daily bread through begging.
Narrating their prevailing experiences of tearful nature, both the disabled and their Begging Guides share heart-touching stories that could fill volumes of books.
Visually impaired Dorcas Varmoh, a single mother of three children, has been begging in the streets of Paynesville and its environs for nearly ten years, something she expressed sadness over, as there is no one to provide for her basic needs.
“Since 2016, I have been begging to survive. I have three children, and their father abandoned me,” she said. “That is why I am begging to send them to school and to pay our rent,” Dorcas narrated.
Dorcas expressed frustration over always having to roam between moving vehicles in the streets to beg for a living and hopes someone could help her with at least US$150 to establish a small business to continue supporting her children.
“I beg the school my children go to every now and then, so they do not put my children out,” she said. “They are helping, but I must pay tuition to continue keeping them in school,” Dorcas added.
Dorcas’s two of three children: Yassah and Derrick
Yassah is 8 years old, while Derrick is 12, and both live with their mother, Dorcas. The two smart-looking children who have become Begging Guides to their mother expressed sadness over their living conditions.
“We want to learn so we can one day provide for our mother and make sure she is no longer begging in the streets,” Derrick said.
Derrick is a student at Tender Heart, a school at Neezoe Junction. He is in the second grade, a class far below his age, as he would have advanced much earlier if he had received adequate support to attend school. He said he does not know where their father is or if he helps to pay their tuition.
Like Derrick, Yassah is sad, too, grieving at her tender age for always seeing herself escorting her mother to the streets to beg.
“I am in K2 (Kindergarten-2nd level). I love my ma. She uses the money people give her to pay our school fees and feed us,” little Yassah narrated. The other child, a girl too, is said to be five years old and is also under the care of Dorcas, the mother.
Samuel Roye: Begging Guide to Madam Edith Roye
Samuel is 16 years old and in the third grade at a school in Mount Barclay on the Kakata-Monrovia highway. He is one of two Begging Guides to his mother, Edith Roye.
Edith is 55 years old and visually impaired. “I lost my sight when I was 35. My eyes started hurting me, and gradually, everything became difficult,” she lamented. “We went to the hospital, and I was asked to go outside the country for an eye operation, but I did not get money to travel. That is how I lost my sight in the end,” Edith disclosed.
Like Dorcas, Edith has been left alone to care for her five children, who, like Dorcas’s children, are not mature enough to fend for themselves or help provide for her.
“My first child is 19 years old, and she is in the seventh grade. Samuel, who is next to her, should have been far in school by now, but they always have to bring me to the streets to beg so I can get something for us to eat,” she said. “They have missed school many times and, at times, do not finish the school year,” Edith painstakingly shared.
Samuel is displeased with their living condition but, at the same time, happy that he can help his mother by escorting her into the streets to beg for their daily bread.
“At times, I feel ashamed to do it because some people speak to us rudely in many places we go to beg,” Samuel said. “I wish my mother was not blind and that there was someone to help us,” he narrated, tears halfway down his cheeks.
Ministry of Gender’s Plan and Intervention
The Ministry of Gender, Children, and Social Protection (MGCSP) under the Boakai-Koung administration has taken control of the 2022 roadmap developed on street children’s situations and has begun acting on a portion of the report, although with no immediate plan to target Begging Guides.
“The first thing we did when we got here was review every policy document, including the roadmap on street children’s situations that was developed by the Government in partnership with UNICEF in 2022,” Alex Divine, Program Lead for street children’s situations at the MGCSP, said. “The roadmap indicates that there are seven reasons why kids are out there on the streets across the country,” he disclosed.
According to Divine, while there is no immediate plan to address crises confronting Begging Guides, the Ministry hopes to secure the needed support to minimize the rising situations.
“Their case is not a focus issue yet, but it is earmarked for possible consideration in future programs,” he disclosed. To mitigate the increase in street begging and help provide children the care they deserve, the government will have to roll out a “food stand program” for visually impaired people and other disabled individuals who beg for their needs, he recommended.
Divine added that empowering the visually impaired by providing them small funding for businesses and other skills would also make an impact in reducing the amount of begging they do daily to survive.
He also believes that addressing the needs of the disabled community does not require the regular political approach but one that is sustainable and goes beyond a particular government administration. Divine continued explaining that a “systematic approach to reunite children with parents is important and that Liberia’s situations differ from other countries making fast progress in tackling hunger, poverty, and development,” he said.
“We are moving slowly, and there are many different priorities with funding never enough to attend to every one of them,” he continued.
According to the MGCSP Street Child Situations Program Lead, 20 percent of the estimated 366,584 street children are currently targeted for removal from the streets and assisted with means to reunite with families, relatives, and receive fully funded education opportunities.
“That number is a little over 150,000. We wish we could target more now, but there is not enough funding available,” he revealed. “This is why we need everyone who has the compassion and empathy to help; they are our children, and it is only us Liberians who can help save them from a lifetime loss of opportunities for a better life,” Divine said, adding that multidimensional poverty is the main reason why there are many young people in the streets.
UNICEF
Hellen Nyangoya is the Chief of Child Protection at UNICEF in Monrovia. She said her office supports all efforts employed by the Liberian government to address the troubling situations confronting children in the streets.
“It was a joint initiative in 2022 when we launched the roadmap development on street child situations, and it has proven to be a comprehensive tool the government can use to deal with the prevailing situations children in the streets face,” Nyangoya said.
Nyangoya disclosed that UNICEF looks forward to seeing concerned ministries and agencies collaborate and execute the plan.
She alleged some striking discoveries, with one of them being that “some of the children who escort people around to beg are hired, adding that ‘they get commissions from those adults who are disabled or visually impaired for taking them around,’” Nyangoya said.
The UNICEF-Liberia Child Protection office chief said the survey that led to the collection of data making up the report was comprehensive as it was based on a child rights approach, evidence-based research, participatory methods, and system building.
She mentioned poverty, persistent nonsupport to children and their mothers, lack of access to affordable education, and some children being orphans as four of seven reasons why there are children in the streets. Nyangoya added drug abuse, teenage pregnancy, and accusations of witchcraft and wizardry as the other three conditions responsible for the growing number of street child situation cases.
She disclosed UNICEF’s interest in seeing the streets of cities and communities in Liberia free of street children’s situations and pledged to always support government efforts where necessary.
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