Girls: The Less Visible Street Children of Zimbabwe

Rumbidzai Rurevo and Michael Bourdillon

Department of Sociology
University of Zimbabwe

Citation: Rurevo, Rumbidzai and Michael Bourdillon. “Girls: The Less Visible Street Children of Zimbabwe.” Children, Youth and Environments 13(1), Spring 2003. Retrieved [date] from http://colorado.edu/journals/cye.

Abstract

This article arises from descriptive research on a number of street girls in Harare, based on meeting the girls where they operated and interviewing them informally several times over a two-month period. It looks at the background of poverty and family disintegration that resulted in the children being on the streets. It comments on public perceptions of street girls. The girls develop coping mechanisms: those living on the streets generally rely at least occasionally on the trade of sex. The article briefly discusses the difficulty of finding appropriate intervention, pointing to the intolerable damage to the lives of the girls on the one hand and their resistance to compulsory removal from the streets on the other. Finally, it points to the need of attitudinal changes in society.

Keywords: street children; girls; prostitution; Africa; Zimbabwe

Introduction

Street girls have received little attention in Harare, and the purpose of our study was to provide descriptive material on the lives of some of these girls. Insofar as people think about the girls at all, they look down on them. City people accept that girls may accompany blind or disabled parents on the streets, but girls who dare venture into them independently have been stigmatized as prostitutes. Opportunities for girls to make a living on the streets are limited, and our case studies indicate that most of them use sex at some time to sustain their lives. In the current context of the AIDS epidemic, this sustenance is short-term.

Numbers of street children are hard to assess. An unpublished survey made by the Department of Social Welfare towards the end of the year 2000 estimated that there were around 5,000 children on the streets of Harare, including children who worked regularly on the streets but who had a home to go to at night. The numbers have been increasing with growing unemployment and poverty. At the end of 2002, Streets Ahead,2 an organization focusing on children living on the streets, had around 1,500 children on its books (children who at some stage sought or accepted the organization’s assistance), of whom just over 200 were girls. These figures are far from comprehensive, but indicate the size of the problem.

In the past, girls were more protected than boys within the same family, and thus were seldom seen on the street.3 Those who did find their way onto the streets were quickly taken up by “aunties” who would give them a home and clothes in exchange for their services as prostitutes. Because boys were more prominent on the streets, early programs for street children, and studies on them, focused on boys to the neglect of girls.4

As more families are sucked into poverty and income from children becomes more important, protection of girls has diminished and they find their way onto the streets in greater numbers. There is a common pattern. A woman, often without male support, ekes out a meager living from informal trading on the streets; her daughter helps to run her stall (Mapedzahama and Bourdillon 2000; Mutisi and Bourdillon 2000). Such girls easily move into their own informal enterprises, often following their mothers in supplementing their income through the trade of sex.

Some children end up on the streets because the adults who should care for them instead abandon, abuse, or neglect them. Additionally, girls might be sent to relatives to help with housework or care for a sick relation, or in extreme cases, girls can be pledged to other families to meet traditional obligations of appeasing an angry spirit or to obtain help in a crisis. Girls who are unwilling partners in the arrangement, or perceive they are being treated unfairly might find their situation intolerable and flee to the streets.

Girls who choose to live on the streets independently have shown that, like their boy counterparts, they manage within networks that provide them some protection, despite the fact that they are highly susceptible to exploitation, especially sexual exploitation. The girls, like the boys, are capable of independent living and exhibit competencies in pursuit of independent life on the streets.

The Study Methods

Rurevo started talking to girls she met through the outreach program, and these led her to others. Some girls dropped out of the study because they moved from the place where they were first encountered, in some cases because they had been caught in a police round-up. As she got to know the girls, Rurevo asked them about their background, as well as about their activities on the street. Most interviews with the children took place within their own environments, with children as voluntary informants. Children who participated in the study understood its purpose. Rurevo interviewed them in a conversational and informal way, and in the language most familiar to the children.

The result was nine case studies involving twelve girls with whom the researcher was able to meet regularly during the research period. In two cases, the children had a home to go to at night, but worked regularly on the streets. In the remainder, the children were homeless, in three cases living with a homeless adult. The children’s life stories appear elsewhere;5 here, we present our general findings.

Rurevo also interviewed various adults who came across the girls, including social workers and helpers, and officials, particularly in the Department of Social Welfare.

Perceptions

Adults often take it for granted that they know better than children and seek to solve their problems without reference to the children’s views and perspectives. They easily forget that children are persons, with their own experience and knowledge, individual feelings, preferences and choices about their lives. As persons, children have the right to their knowledge and preferences concerning their lives be taken seriously.

Furthermore, organizations striving to provide for the needs of children– adequate shelter, food, protection, education, and adult care– emphasize children’s dependence on adults. Children are deemed incompetent in an adult sphere and in need of protection against abuse. This paradigm often conceals children’s competence within their own areas of interaction, particularly their ability to work out survival and coping strategies on the streets (Baker 1998, 51). It also promotes the general principle that the family is the normal social and biological structure within which the child must grow and develop.

This paradigm supports taking the children off the streets as quickly as possible, rounding them up, placing them in institutions where there are no alternatives, and rehabilitating them with education and skills programs. Feeding children within the street environment is discouraged as it is said to attract and encourage more children onto the street. Over the years, however, episodic removal of children from the streets has not proved a solution. Some children return to the streets while others continue to be initiated into street life, as the factors that drive them onto the streets persist. Institutionalizing street children has not yielded the desired results of persuading them to revert to childhood activities like schooling and playing, because these children have developed different ideas of what childhood is about.

The problem with the ‘removal’ approach is that it is based on a globalized paradigm of childhood, or perhaps middle-class perceptions of what childhood should be, namely for learning and play. This view pays insufficient attention to the local circumstances of the children, or the status that children gain in poor families by contributing to the family livelihood. It ignores the valuable contributions they can make to their families and to society.

Public reaction to street children often reflects the view that children are competent only for learning and play, under the control and care of adults. Where children work for an income, even if it is for the benefit of their families, child labor is condemned.7 Poor and desperate children appearing on the streets spoil the illusion of a well-managed city, and the children are blamed. Little attention is paid to their personal circumstances or to the motives that drive them onto the streets. Girl children on the streets are particularly stigmatized, as they are perceived to be prostitutes.

By way of contrast, much recent thinking on street children takes into account children’s liberation from adult dominance, and recognizes children as capable of responding to situations of adversity.8 Adults need to learn about, and bolster, street children’s areas of competence. They need to respect the dignity of the children, the contributions they make to their families and communities, and their right and capacity to shape their own lives. Adults need to listen to the children and understand their perspectives of their own situations. Such an approach protects the children in their locations and their occupations, and improves their skills for work in their environment. It treats all children with full respect for their rights, opinions, potential and individuality (Myers and Boyden 1998, 8). This approach uses the discourse of children’s rights rather than charity.

However, Olga Nieuwenhuys (2001) has pointed to the danger that discourse on rights can distract agencies from their obligations to help the children. This can impede children’s education and push them into dangerous ways of acquiring income. Our study points to the extreme danger of contracting HIV/AIDS faced by street girls. The question arises as to how much say they should have in following such a life.

Why Girls Are on the Streets

All but two of the cases in our study are directly linked to poverty, and the growing number of girls on the streets is an indicator of worsening poverty. In one of the exceptions, two girls and their mother were struggling in poverty as a result of the neglect and abuse from the girl’s well-off father. In three of the cases, children were living on the streets with a homeless parent. Families live on minimal incomes, often eked out in the informal economy, which requires long working hours for small returns, and contributions from all members of the family, including children.

Our study supports a more general observation that many women have to supplement the meager incomes of their male partners, and some become the principal breadwinners for their families. This has resulted in a rapidly growing informal sector, and, correspondingly, a rise in young boys and girls participating in the informal economy in a pooling of family labor. This informal economy has also been the means of survival for children on their own, outside the traditional protection of a family.

Growing poverty affects women in particular. Many of the girls who were interviewed had mothers who were struggling to survive and to provide for their children without male help. Only one of the girls had any support from her father. This was a nine-year-old girl who was only peripherally on the streets: she had a home and went to school regularly, but also helped run her mother’s vegetable stall and was often in sole charge of it.

Women’s poverty is exacerbated by their subordinate position in Zimbabwean society. In one case, a woman and her children were hounded out of her home on the death of her husband by the latter’s relatives, which is not an uncommon occurrence in the country. There were tensions over marriage payments, the late husband’s family was incensed when the widow refused to be inherited by one of his brothers, and the family accused the widow of having bewitched her husband.

A man sometimes feels free to drive a woman from his home when conflicts arise. In one case, a man abused his wife and neglected his daughters, forcing them to move away. In two other cases, women in informal unions had been sent away from their boyfriend’s home. In two further cases, the woman left home with her children after quarrels with her husband or boy friend. In yet another case, a man took no responsibility for the child of an employee he had impregnated. The common economic dependence of women on men makes women particularly vulnerable.

In many cultures, girls are socialized to remain at home so as to preserve their purity and to make them desirable as women and mothers. Nevertheless, some girls are socialized into street life because their mothers are street vendors and marketers and, as young daughters accompany, imitate, and help their mothers, they gain access to life on the streets. In some cases, their mothers or guardians send the girls to scavenge, to beg, and to commit petty crime. In two cases, the mother or guardian instructed the girls to entertain men for the family livelihood.

In two cases, however, children were involved in informal trade on the streets with the support and encouragement of their families– and had a home, however meager, to return to at night. These girls were protected from harassment and abuse by their families and by other trading women. They regarded their contributions to family livelihood with pride, and their work was much appreciated by their families. In one case, an eleven-year-old girl gave up schooling to run her mother’s vegetable stall, providing an income for her sick mother and elder sister, who could consequently finish off her secondary education. The aim of the family was that the younger girl would complete her schooling later.

A common feature in our cases was a breakdown in family structures. Four of the girls were born without the social sanction of marriage, and the father took no responsibility for them. Poor people often cannot afford the luxury of marriage negotiations and payments, although their unions are sometimes relatively stable. Living from hand to mouth often makes long-term commitments impossible. Children born to these unions cannot always call on the support of both parents, which is particularly a problem when the one supporting them dies. While some women manage to care for their children without male support, others fail to cope, and their children are particularly vulnerable.

Domestic violence and abuse is a common concomitant of poverty and lies behind some of our cases. The break-up of partnerships, whether or not they were formalized in marriage, lay behind four of our cases. In one case, increased wealth encouraged the father to spend money on drink and women, neglect his daughters, and beat his wife.

Sometimes children are supported by extended family. In the current harsh economic climate, however, relatives often resent having an extra mouth to feed. Children needing support may not be fully welcomed by members of the extended family, and they often suffer various kinds of abuse from them. When a woman was thrown out of her home on the death of her husband, initially she stayed with her kin. Soon problems with them forced her and her children onto the streets of Harare. In another case, a girl was taunted first by her grandmother and then her aunt after her mother had died of HIV/AIDS.

Frequently, the break-up of the family structure is associated with HIV/AIDS and the death of a parent. In one case, the family problems followed the death of the father after a long and expensive illness. Two other girls were on the streets following the death from AIDS of their mothers, with their fathers unknown or irresponsible. One six-year-old girl appears to have been sexually abused in the house of her uncle after her mother’s death.

We have seen cases of kin imposing heavy domestic burdens on children. One girl was sent out by her aunt to bring home money for her keep in whatever way she could, and was beaten if she did not bring home enough. In two cases, the girls were required to bring in money from sex, in one case by their grandmother, who was looking after them, and another by the mother.

One girl was sent by her parents to help keep house for an aunt. Culturally her parents could not refuse such a request from a lone and childless kinswoman. The girl was kept so busy she could not get to her night-school classes and she was not paid for her work. The aunt accused her of being a troublesome girl; she felt exploited and eventually ran off onto the streets. Occasionally, girls rebel against the expectation for them to be submissive, work hard within the household, and have only restricted contacts outside the home. Related to this expectation is the failure of some adults to value the education of girl children or to make it a priority; one father refused to pay for the education of his daughters on the grounds that this would be of no benefit to himself.

In another case, a pregnant girl was refused re-admittance to her parents’ home on account of cultural norms. She had eloped to live with her boyfriend, who at that time was renting a room with some friends in another suburb. In the Shona culture, if a girl elopes, she is not allowed back until the boyfriend comes to inform the girl’s parents formally that he has their daughter, paving the way for negotiations about marriage payments. The boyfriend had not done this, so when the girl became pregnant and tried to go back home, she was driven away by her parents. At the same time, the boy’s parents refused to accept her because they thought the couple was too young to marry. The two ended up living on the streets with the baby.

In several cases, we found children having problems at school. One girl expressed little interest in academic work and found no opportunity for developing her other talents. She was teased by teachers and school-mates for being more interested in drama and dance than in school work. In several instances, the children did not do well at school, particularly when they tried to go back after a period in the streets.

The stigma they acquire is a problem for street children, and a hindrance to returning to family life off the streets. One girl was afraid to return home because of what her family would say about this part of her life. Some children complained about taunts from other children at school about their past association with the streets. One girl was not allowed to stay at the home of her stepfather when her mother remarried, because he was afraid she would have a bad influence on his children. We frequently came across derogatory remarks about the girls from members of the public. Other girls pointed out that it was very difficult for them to find employment because of the stigma assigned to street children.

Coping

Once they are living on the streets, it is difficult for girls to survive without help from men. Street girls have fewer opportunities to make a living there than boys do. The girls in this study were limited to petty vending, begging (sometimes using infants to attract sympathy), and sex. Girls are liable to be harassed by officials and by boys and men on the streets. Like older street women, the way for a girl to cope is to have a man to look after her, or to align herself with a protective gang of boys (Bourdillon 1991, 53). Such support is exchanged for sexual favors. Even when a girl is associated with a particular boy or man as her “husband,” she is likely to supplement her income with sex for food or cash from other men.

Sexual services and prostitution are an important source of income for street girls, even though it endangers their lives. Some of the girls were reluctant to discuss this aspect of their lives, which indicates that they acknowledged the values of wider society and engaged in such sexual activities only because their circumstances demanded it. Nevertheless, all the girls living on the streets relied on exchanging sex for favors or money at some time. Coming onto the streets at a later age than do many boys, girls have often reached puberty already, so they are perceived and evaluated in sexual terms. Street girls often beget children by different men, who do not regard them as legitimate wives worthy of financial support.

Another factor that drives girls into sexual activities is the view of many men in Zimbabwean society that they have a right to sex. This attitude becomes particularly dangerous to children when it is associated with a belief that sex with a virgin can cure them of illness or help them get rich. Men in the street community appear to feel free to have sex with young girls, sometimes against their will. Businessmen feel free to hire young girls for sex. Although the law prohibits sex with minors, it is a society in which the law carries little moral status.

We also found girls capable of utilizing resources offered to them by welfare organizations that support street children. When desperate, they partake of the free meals offered by church organizations. They know which organizations might support them when in need of health care and medication, or education and training. Two girls pretended to be moving off the streets to satisfy welfare officers and welfare organizations, with little apparent intention of doing so. Some girls avoided welfare organizations to avoid pressure to return to their families. They may adapt their circumstances and their stories to obtain particular services, but resist compromising their independence.

Intervention

For most street girls the situation is desperate. They have very limited sources of sustenance, and no proper accommodation or regular, healthy food. They are deprived of education and are at high risk of HIV infection. Many have babies when they are too young and lack the basic means to care for them. They are dependent on boys and men who cannot be relied upon to treat them well, even if they had the means to do so. They are subject to harassment from other street people, from the public, and from officials. Living on the streets is not only risky and rough, but can also be humiliating and dehumanizing. However, once they have tasted the freedom and independence of the streets, and earned a quick income from sex, it is hard for them to adapt to any other kind of life.

It is not clear how they can be helped. Restrictive programs that compel girls to enter homes and institutions have not been very successful. The girls resent such compulsion and the lack of dignity with which they are usually treated, and have difficulty in adapting to a more disciplined life after freedom in the streets. When rounded up and placed in institutions, they regularly abscond. Procedures that are not based on respect for these girls are unlikely to benefit them.

The failure of many programs for street children comes from the lack of realistic alternatives for them. Children fleeing abuse and an intolerable situation at home are not helped by being returned to the same conditions. Many programs fail to teach street children how to survive in the world beyond the streets (Swart 1990, 37; Aptekar 1996). In certain circumstances, given what is possible, the streets may provide the most viable form of livelihood for some of them. Food and income at least keep them alive in the short term. Arresting street children for begging, scavenging, or stealing, then placing them in approved institutions, does not address the circumstances that pushed them onto the streets in the first place

Although the girls repeatedly complain of the hardships of life on the streets– the cold in winter, the lack of regular meals and proper sleep– attempts to place them elsewhere have rarely succeeded. One of our cases was reconciled with her aunt with promises of support for education; soon the tensions and mistreatment which caused the girl to leave in the first place returned and she was back on the streets again. Several of our cases were placed in a training institute outside Harare, where they were given food, accommodation and education. They complained of food shortages and poor treatment by staff, and a group of children absconded and returned to the streets of Harare. Girls in some cases appeared to be happy and settled in a foster home, and to be responsible about their return to schoolwork, but two years later were back on the streets, lured by freedom and independence.

One girl complained that organizations took insufficient account of the particular needs, wants and talents of individual girls. She claimed that most children took part in the proffered programs only because there was no option, and out of fear that organizations will think that they do not want to improve their plight. Another girl criticized organizations that depended for their existence on street children, and yet offered inadequate services.

The situation in Harare has been worst for the younger street boys and street girls, who are marginalized within programs dominated by the older street boys. There has been insufficient explicit provision for girls, in particular for helping them to deal directly with sexuality and their reproductive health rights, given that they are at high risk of HIV infection and of bearing children without being able to care for them. Any girl on the streets is likely to be sexually abused and infected, which makes prevention the key intervention, ideally through the removal of young girls from the streets immediately after they arrive there.9

One approach is to try to empower the children with knowledge and skills, and to educate them about children’s rights. Such knowledge, however, is not helpful when children are not able to demand these rights and others are neither able nor willing to defend them.

Some programs provide street children with knowledge of AIDS, but with limited success. The girls in our study were no different from other street children, who generally know that AIDS is not curable and that it is transmitted through sex. Like many adults, however, they do not understand the long dormant residence of the virus and think that sex with someone who appears healthy is relatively safe (Dube 1997; Richter and Swart-Kruger 1995). Besides, at their age, danger is often ignored in the face of immediate experience, and their circumstances make them unlikely to think much about the remote future.

Girls in particular need knowledge and skills that will enable them to earn income and survive in less harmful ways, so training in general and specific income-generating skills might help. It is difficult, however, for disadvantaged children to earn their keep in a climate of economic collapse and severe poverty. In Zimbabwe today, there is heavy competition for any source of income. Children are further disadvantaged by an attitude that refuses to recognize their economic activities, which makes their employment illegal and makes them dangerously vulnerable to exploitation. Campaigns against child labor do not help street children, whereas protected employment for desperate children might.

Another form of empowerment is to involve the children in making decisions that affect their lives, which may gain their greater co-operation in programs. In Brazil, for instance, including children’s contributions to interventions that would improve their lives has had some effect (Swift 1997). Attempts to involve children in Harare have had limited scope and success: improvement in the lives of the girls is sometimes only temporary, and interventions have not on the whole succeeded in preventing girls from engaging in activities likely to result in HIV/AIDS and child pregnancies.

Some success has come from the system of employing older street children to care for younger children, and particularly to bring children newly on the streets to the attention of staff of the intervening organization.10 These older “street peers,” however, are children who successfully provide for themselves on the streets in a street culture of exploiting and being exploited. Their work needs careful guidance and monitoring. Some children have alleged that street peers occasionally delay passing on the information for a few days while they make a little money out of the naïve newcomers to the streets. The peers concerned deny the charges, which could well arise from jealousy because of the stipend that the peers receive.

What Can Be Done to Help?

The provision of a supportive network for working children instead of harassment and laws that criminalize their work. Street children can benefit from opportunities to earn an income safely, and under conditions that can be monitored.

Outreach work is essential to identify potential street children as soon as they come onto the streets, with the aim of finding alternatives for them.

The provision of facilities and services. Children who find it hard to leave the streets, and who are probably in any case infected by HIV, need services to enable them to live with some dignity and without infecting others. They need facilities for washing and food preparation, and to be able to relax and play. They need treatment when they are hurt or ill. They need education that treats them with respect. They need people who will listen to them with respect and understanding and who will give them some hope in a society that has treated them badly.

Profound changes in society’s attitudes. Destructive attitudes and priorities lie behind the plight of some of the girls in this study. Here are some of the areas where change is needed:

Poor people need sympathy and respect rather than vilification. It is hard, however, to respect the poor in a society in which status and success are closely identified with material wealth.

Street girls need acceptance rather than rejection. When a girl drops out from the normal life of children and earns a living on the street, moral outrage by kin and others and insistence on cultural practices can hinder her rehabilitation. Values need to be asserted without rejecting the girls.

The subordinate position of women still needs urgently to be addressed. Lack of security in marriage (particularly on the death of the husband) and in the home can drive girls onto the streets. Suffering comes from inequalities in earning power, and from the perception that education for girls is unimportant.

The assumption that men have a right to sex needs to be opposed rigorously.

All sex with minors needs to become socially unacceptable in order to support the law which clearly prohibits such practices.

The authorities need to commit themselves to listening with respect to children’s appeals for help, and to guarantee that nobody in authority will ever connive with people who exploit or abuse children in any way.

Endnotes
1. A fuller version of this study will shortly appear as a booklet: Girls on the Street, Weaver Press, Harare, http://www.weaverpresszimbabwe.com. We thank the girls who gave freely of their time to help Rumbidzai Rurevo with this study. We are also grateful to Elisabeth Lickindorf for time and suggestions freely given in preparing this text.
2. Streets Ahead is a donor-funded welfare organization, established in 1991 and dedicated to helping street children to become spiritually, physically and financially self-sufficient. At the time of our study, it operated a drop-in centre, which provided the children with washing, cooking and recreational facilities, and a base for educational and training programs. The organization employs a small team of outreach workers to visit the children on the streets. The aim is to get the children off the streets, preferably reunited with their families, but without using compulsion. The outreach workers also help children to access services such as medical care and social welfare.
3. The countrywide survey by Muchini and Nyandiya-Bundy (1991) estimated that only 5 percent of the children on the streets were girls.
4. See, for example, Dube, Kamvura, Bourdillon 1996; for a recent exception, see Lopi and Kiremire 2001.
5. See Girls on the Street (forthcoming), http://www.weaverpresszimbabwe.com.
6. See on Harare: Dube 1999; with reference to South Africa: Swart-Kruger 1996; on the general perception of street children in terms of society’s problems rather than the children’s: Glauser 1990.
7. For a discussion of perceptions of child labor in Zimbabwe, see Bourdillon 2000.
8. Ennew 1994, 201; for changes in emphasis in studies of street children in South America, see Butler and Rizzini 2001.
9. Since this research was undertaken, Streets Ahead has been paying attention to girls. Also, it has been paying more attention to reuniting children with their families before they get established in street life.
10. Streets Ahead runs a “street peer” program, in which, under guidance from the staff, certain older children are elected by other children to positions of leadership. They receive a small stipend from the organization to compensate for loss of earnings on the street, and their role is to maintain communications between children and the staff. They bring children newly on the streets to the attention of staff. They are also expected to pass onto other children what they learn about such topics as hygiene and AIDS.

Rumbidzai Rurevo did this research as part of her M.Sc. course in Sociology in the University of Zimbabwe. She now works in the civil service in Harare.

Michael Bourdillon has taught in the Department of Sociology of the University of Zimbabwe for over 25 years. He has also taught at the University of Calabar in Nigeria. He was a founder member of Streets Ahead, and organization working for street children in Harare, and has been on the board since its inception. Recently, he has researched on working children and published "Earning a Life: Working Children in Zimbabwe" (Weaver Press, Harare, 2000).

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