At 14, Veronica Wangui is “mother” to her two siblings and the family breadwinner. Their real mother, Mary Njeri, was a single parent who worked as a vegetable hawker. She died a year ago, run over by a vehicle.
Veronica is one of the growing number of Kenyan children who have never known childhood. Even when her mother was alive, Veronica said, she was forced to ply the streets of Nairobi as a beggar, her baby sister strapped to her back.
But Veronica’s future looks bright, thanks to the Peace House Rescue Center run by the Child Welfare Society of Kenya.
The Peace House, located on the outskirts of Nairobi, is part of a major global offensive against child labor by the International Labor Organization (ILO). It started in 1992 with six priority countries — Kenya, Brazil, India, Indonesia, Thailand and Turkey — and has since expanded to 22.
In Kenya, the ILO funds and monitors 18 programs run by local non-governmental organizations. These reach out to children working in jobs that are considered particularly dangerous, from prostitution on the streets to heavy labor in factories. The Peace House works with girls, especially those who have been victims of sexual abuse.
The situation for children in Kenya has worsened greatly over the last decade, partly because of the devastating effects of a government program to cut social services such as health and education in order to trim unwieldy budget deficits. It has also been a period of rising prices, says Mary Mbeo, the national coordinator for the ILO work in Kenya, who links the economic turbulence to a steady flow of children into the workforce.
“The problem of child labor has always been there, but it is worse now because everything is more expensive,” she says. “People take their children out of school and send them to work often because they have no choice if they want to eat.”
Recently, the Kenyan minister for planning, George Saitoti, told a meeting between officials from the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) and government policy makers that the changing economy has made children “truly a population at risk.”
Many, like Veronica, end up scratching out a living on the streets. Two decades ago, a couple of boys could sometimes be sighted in Nairobi directing vehicles to parking bays and keeping an eye on them for a few coins. Today, even the smallest shopping center is thronged with swarms of street children, boys and girls.
The children beg, hawk groundnuts, collect paper, carry luggage, sell drugs or work as prostitutes. Those with families are expected to bring their meager income home.
Labor Minister Philip Masinde says there are now more than one million Kenyan children involved in hazardous and exploitative labor. Mbeo maintains this figure is low, although a national survey has yet to be conducted.
Masinde attributes the problem to declining business returns, particularly in agriculture, which is one of Kenya’s largest industries. While children have always worked on farms in Kenya, they are increasingly seen as a source of cheap labor by farm owners and as a source of extra income by impoverished parents, Mbeo says.
“Most children accompany their parents to sisal, tea, sugar or coffee plantations to supplement their income,” Masinde says.
Many parents can also no longer afford to send their children to school, Mbeo says. Education subsidies have vanished. The government still provides teachers and books, but local communities must chip in for the cost of the schools themselves. The fees are more than many families can pay.
While Kenya signed a 1973 ILO convention banning hazardous labor for children under the age of 16, the government has never enacted laws to penalize employers. Masinde says the government is now considering such legislation.
Mbeo says the ILO has been working with the Kenyan government for several years to review existing legislation and design a better policy. But, she adds, even in businesses where there are existing laws to safeguard children, economic realities mean they are often ignored.
In the mining industry, for example, the minimum age is 18 by law. Still, thousands of children cut stones with primitive implements and without protective gear against the dust that fills their lungs.
“Even if the laws were there, the children and their families would still want the money,” Mbeo says.
The Child Welfare Society of Kenya has targeted children working or begging on the street, as their number is rapidly climbing and they are among the most vulnerable to exploitation.
“Every day brings more children onto the streets,” says Jane Kositany, assistant program officer for the society.
The society runs several programs, with a focus on helping children go to school and, where possible, return to their families. It designed the Peace House for girls, Kositany says, because they have special needs.
“The girl child is more vulnerable. She may be sexually abused and exploited by both peers and adults and is at risk of contracting sexually transmitted diseases or becoming pregnant.”
The rehabilitation starts when social workers try to develop a trusting relationship with children on the streets. It wasn’t hard to persuade Veronica to accept help.
“Actually I was saved because I was tired of begging, but there was nothing I could do as we did not have any other means of survival,” she says.
Social workers investigate each girl’s home life to determine what kind of help they need. Some, like Veronica, come to live temporarily at Peace House, which has 18 beds. Counselors help the girls plan for the future, encouraging them to go to school or skills training. At the same time, case workers consult with the girl’s family on how the Child Welfare Society can be help care for the girl.
The program spotted Veronica before her mother died. The society gave the family a loan to start a legitimate vegetable-hawking business and to pay Veronica’s school fees. After two years in school, Veronica chose formal training as a domestic worker at the Child Care Development Center in Nairobi.
Six months later, Veronica graduated, armed with a certificate that attested to her knowledge of nutrition, infant psychology, first aid, cooking, child care, home management, personal hygiene, family life and family planning. She found a position at once.
“We managed to repay my mother’s loan, and my sister and brother have not been sent away from school, even once, for lack of school fees,” she says proudly.
Kositany says Peace House has begun to expand beyond Nairobi children, gradually opening doors for children from other areas through a network of organizations dealing with street children in all parts of Kenya.
She says 77 girls have attended the Peace House program. Not all have graduated, but some have moved on to full-time employment or to running small enterprises.
Kositany admits that the dropout rate is high due to peer pressure. Some parents refuse to support their children. But to Robert Irungu, public-relations officer for the Child Welfare Society, even one child rescued from working on the streets is an achievement.
He is emphatic that the program must remain community-based. Children are not institutionalized or otherwise forced to stay. Irungu sees the Peace House as a temporary shelter where children can sift through their problems.
He is optimistic that the program has helped to bring child labor out in the open.
“Only a few years ago, no government official would admit that there was child labor in Kenya,” Irungu says. “Today, it is discussed openly. We are seeking ways to end it, and to lessen the burden on our children.”
