Alarm as more parents send their children to the streets

Three girls hawk stools in the streets of Kisumu. [Denish Ochieng' and File, Standard]

It is 8pm and three children are wandering on the streets of Kisumu, selling homemade detergents and groundnuts.

The eldest, who appears about 10-years-old, clutches a bag with four plastic bottles of some coloured fluid, as his younger siblings trudge along.

The three scramble for space with matatu operators in their attempt to reach out to potential customers. In the process, one of them is almost pushed in front of a speeding vehicle.

The three are among hundreds of children from poor families in Kisumu and beyond, who, despite their age, have been thrust into the streets to earn a living.

They hawk all manner of products, from sugarcane, homemade detergents, groundnuts, boiled maize to homemade stools.

One of the three children concedes that they are merely salespersons, that the person who pulls the strings from behind the scenes is their mother.

Mama’s detergent

“Our mother makes the liquid detergent in the house, packs it alongside the groundnuts and sends us to sell at the town centre every evening,” he says.

The three, from Car Wash Estate, an hour’s walk from the city’s central business district, work late into the night before walking back home, cold, tired and hungry, to surrender their earnings to their mother.

“We sometimes sell until late then we have to walk home, eat and sleep, then wake up to the same thing the following day,” he says.

His greatest fear out there on the streets are his clients, as not all of them are kind. Some, he says, hurl insults at him or even rudely push the little ones away.

Most of these child-labourers are drawn from Nyalenda, Nyamasaria, Obunga and Manyatta estates. Every day they pour onto the streets in droves, each clutching onto something they have been sent to sell, either by a parent or guardian.

Around a corner, another 10-year-old boy, looking drained and hungry, sits outside an eatery next to a police station, where he has been hawking bottles of a homemade detergent.

Terrified of grandmother

After failing to make a sale, he turns to begging Sh10 from pedestrians, who do their best to ignore him.

Clearly frustrated, he sits outside the eatery to watch people eat, the unsold homemade detergent still clutched.

He is not certain who he is more terrified of, between his grandmother who sent him to sell on the streets or his teacher the following day.

“I come to sell after school and rarely find time to do homework. I am caned most of the time at school for this,” he says.

Clearly, he is terrified of going back home, where he must face his grandmother with the unsold “detergent” and no money.

On a chilly evening along Oginga Odinga Street, The Standard team spots two girls selling yet more homemade detergents. With them is an older boy, who they say is their neighbour in Nyalenda Estate.

“We were sent by our mother to sell in the morning,” the youngest one aged six, says as she hopefully holds up a plastic bottle that goes for Sh70.

A cold breeze is blowing from the lake beyond and the skies are dark and threatening, but none of the girls is wearing warm clothes. 

Their 15-year-old “neighbour” sticks with them.

They say they have not eaten anything the whole day, but are afraid of going home before making a sale.

Common sight

“Mother will scold and even beat us if we go back without any money,” says the little one, as her elder sister runs to a pedestrian and tries to convince her to buy.

So where is their mother?

“Our mother usually sends us to sell every morning while she goes to a hotel in Kibuye Market, where she works as a waitress,” she says.

Moments later, her sister returns, disappointed. The passerby did not buy her “detergent.”

The two sisters, The Standard learns, are a common sight on the streets, each clutching a plastic bottle of the coloured fluid, trying desperately to convince pedestrians and motorists to buy from them.   

They stop anywhere to rest, their eyes quietly begging passersby to notice them.

According to a woman who identifies herself as Mama Ndizi, more children pour into the streets as the sun goes down.

“They are not the only ones selling here, the number increases when it’s almost night,” she says.

Mama Ndizi, who is also known as Christine, doubts that the children attend school, saying they go to the streets even on a normal school day.

Children’s officer

Speaking to The Standard, Kisumu County Children’s Officer Alice Wanyonyi says curbing the vice has been a challenge, as the perpetrators are usually single parents or guardians who are the sole bread winners in their families.

As such, punishing them would mean punishing the children.

She says there have been cases where the children themselves end up in court,  but their cases are filed as “children in need of care and protection.”

“I remember a case where a child told us he was an orphan and was rescued by someone who later began sending him to sell in the streets. If we arrest this individual, who will take care of the child?” she says.

She, however, calls on police to proceed with arrests.

“We would not want to encourage this behavior because it is not the responsibility of children to fend for themselves or become their family’s bread winners,” she tells The Standard.

County police commander Benson Maweu has promised to take action against parents who send children to hawk in the streets.

“We will take action against them for neglecting and absconding their duties,” he says.

But ultimately, he says, it is up to the county to find ways of protecting vulnerable children.

“I believe the county government is coming up with programmes to address the situation, as they find ways on how such children can be sheltered and schooled,” he said.