Pay apt attention to the street children

The street is not a place for any child to call home, yet, it is estimated that there are over 100 million street children in the world. Children end up on the streets due to several factors, though poverty is usually at the heart of the problem.

Neglect, the breakdown of the family, losing one parent and domestic violence are the other factors that force them onto the streets.

There are approximately 437,500 street children in Tanzania. Life on the streets is dangerous. Most of them become extraordinarily resilient and inventive in order to simply survive.

Tanzania has signed and ratified the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC), but has failed to enact a domestic child protection law to uphold the principles in this international treaty.

To make things worse, such children have rights under the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child in the same way that all other children do, but many government policies do not reflect this, In Tanzania, many organisations are involved in addressing the problem, but with the extinction of extended families and increasing rate of divorce, it remains difficult to eradicate it.

The International Day for Street Children is celebrated every year on April 12. It provides a platform for the millions of children on the streets around the world to speak out so that their rights cannot be ignored.

The theme of this year’s celebration is Identity. It will look at their identities in terms of the difficulties they face when trying to secure identity documents (such as ID cards or birth certificates) and how this leads to them not being able to access key services such as education and health—care or to face harassment by the police.

As the day looms, we think it is time for the UN to officially recognise it as a holiday—so that they get the help and attention they deserve.

BE RATIONAL ON ULTIMATUMS

Ultimatums, a common feature of the political vocabulary nowadays, be handled cautiously. The recent one by President Magufuli to regional commissioners to remove over 2,500 ghost workers from the government payroll within 15 days is scientific and easy to enforce.

For, it involves distinguishing between human beings and phantoms bearing fictitious names, whose fictitious salaries crooks pocket.

Not so the one by Mwanza regional commissioner John Mongella to district commissioners, to turn their respective areas of jurisdiction into cholera-free zones within 30 days. Setting a short-span deadline for eradicating complex problems like epidemics is unrealistic. Expecting DCs to solve long-time problems like shortage of school desks and toilets through emergency methods amounts to turning them into sacrificial lambs.

Mara RC Magesa Mulongo says he is aware that many people in the region possess weapons illegally. Why, then, give the obvious criminals a thirty-day grace period to surrender them instead of ordering the police force to pursue them right away?

Similar sentiments have been voiced by his Arusha counterpart, Mr Felix Ntibenda.

Rationality must be the watchword. Plus, politicians must weigh situations to determine for which the slow-motion approach would pay off, and for which they court grave risks for wananchi by being unduly hasty, in pursuit of praise.