Congo: Street Children Subject to Widespread Abuse, Exploitation by Government Officials

^{Category: International Human Rights}

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A new Human Rights Watch report, What Future?: Street Children in the Democratic Republic of Congo, examines the dangers tens of thousands of Congolese children presently face from all sectors of society:

Many street children live in fear of the very state forces charged to protect them. The testimonies from children we interviewed revealed a common pattern of routine abuse by police, soldiers, and members of the military police. These figures of authority approach street children, often at night, and demand their money or articles of clothing, threatening them with their fists, boots and batons. One fourteen-year-old boy, who sleeps with his friends in empty kiosks near a Goma market, told us, “We are regularly harassed by the military police. In the evenings, they come to where we are sleeping and take whatever they can from us. We are chased and if caught, they beat us with their fists or a piece of wood.” In addition to physical violence, police and soldiers forcibly rape or sexually assault street girls. Girls can also be approached by soldiers or police officers who offer them small amounts of money in exchange for sex. The police use street children to spy on suspected criminals, provide decoys in police operations, and in some instances recruit them to participate in robberies of stores and homes. Children told us that they have no choice but to comply with whatever law enforcement personnel demand or risk further abuse and harassment.

The police routinely arrest street children when crimes are committed in areas where they are known to gather. While it is true that street children are sometimes involved in crimes, the police often hold them collectively responsible for crimes or knowledgeable about the events or the perpetrators. During interrogations, the police regularly beat children with their fists, batons, belts, or pieces of rubber to elicit a confession or information about a crime. Officials in the Ministry of the Interior also periodically order general roundups of street children under a colonial-era law that forbids vagrancy or begging by minors. Large groups of children, guilty of nothing more than homelessness, are apprehended and held in overcrowded and unsanitary police lockups. Once in detention, children are often kept together with adult criminals and receive little or no food or medical attention. They are rarely charged with crimes, but instead are released back to the streets after several days or weeks, in part because the state has no alternatives to prison or the street for vagrant children.

Civilians also exploit street children. They employ children as porters, vendors, cleaners, or laborers in homes and stores, often paying them little money for long hours and physically demanding work. Some street children told us that they are used by adults to work in hazardous or illegal labor, such as mining, prostitution, or selling drugs and alcohol. Street children also report that many adults, like the police, taunt them, beat them, and chase them from places where they congregate. The youngest street children we interviewed said that some of the worst treatment comes from older street boys and men. Both boys and girls are survivors of rape and sexual assault perpetrated by older street boys and men; some girls are the survivors of brutal gang rapes. Street children told us that the police fail to investigate these crimes or offer protection from abusive adults.

Conflict, internal displacement, unemployment, poverty, disease, the prohibitive cost of education, and myriad other factors have all contributed to the growing number of children living and working on the streets in the DRC. Two additional and interrelated factors, however, are helping to fuel the increasing numbers of street children: the abuse and abandonment of children accused of sorcery, and the impact of HIV/AIDS on families and children affected by or infected with the virus.

The sorcery and HIV-AIDS issues are connected, because many traditional Congolese religious leaders teach that the disease is inflicted by sorcery--similar to a practice referred to in some cultures as the "evil eye." This problem suggests that better government HIV-AIDS education initiatives are needed, one of many recommendations made in the report. The report also suggests that the international community needs to step up and play a role to help the new government solve this problem, particularly by:

• Working with and encouraging nonprofit organizations to document, and protect children from, abuse.
• Working to make certain that international programs that assist in the training of police and military personnel also address child welfare issues.
• Lobbying donor governments to make child welfare a central issue in bilateral negotiations.

But the report makes recommendations primarily for the sake of governments and influential nonprofits. What can we do, as individuals, to address this problem? Some options might include:

• Making more people aware of the report. Bookmark it and link it off your web site. Email a link to friends who might be interested. Blog about it or talk about it in your newspaper or magazine column. Whenever another story on the Congo is published, send a letter to the relevant newspaper and magazine editors highlighting this specific problem.
• Donating to or volunteering at nonprofit groups, such as Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International, that have a track record of addressing these sorts of concerns.
• Lobbying. Write letters to your local senators and congressional representatives making them aware of this concern. Legislative pressure alone could lead to greater U.S. leadership on this issue.