The public considers street children a nuisance

The street children are a group of people that have greatly been marginalized since they are a forgotten lot. The public considers them a nuisance in the society without getting their part of the story.

In most cases when they ask for food from the public while wearing the torn dirty clothes, most people just pass them even though they are asking it genuinely. For drivers while on stuck on traffic, they close the windows of their vehicles and even if they come to their windows they don’t even give an ear to them and when the traffic clears they speed up.

The street children are not in the street because of their own liking. Some of them go to the street because of the cruelty of the guardians or parents. Some parents insult their children, mistreat them and even some of them use threatening language against them. This always makes them to run away from home and end up joining the street.

I have interacted with one street child by the name Kevin aged 10 who went to the street when the mother died since the aunt threatened to kill him if he dares sleep in their house. The aunt considered him a liability and that is why she wanted him to go.

Most street children face a lot of challenges while on the street. They don’t always attend frequent medical checkup, they are sometimes taken advantage of by people whom they seek assistance from, they always use of the most common drug “gum” as they refer to which result to them losing touch with their environment and sometimes violent behavior. They also develop skin infections which results from sleeping on the streets without any proper cleanliness and also by putting on dirty attires.

Something needs to be done, there are quite a number of children with great minds in the street whom if well care for and loved can really transform the country to be a better place. Parents and guardians should love and treat their children whether biological or adopted with some form of respect.