The Children of War – Les enfants de la guerre

The Children of War – Les enfants de la guerre[1]

In February 2005, I was sent by the Foreign Ministry to give a course to local inspectors and principles of schools at Augustino Neto University in Luanda, the capital of Angola.

I intentionally choose to begin the story of this fascinating journey with the things that bind us to the contemporary public debate over the airwaves and screeners all over the world. I refer to the discussion on the terrible state of the African continent and especially the miserable state of the population there. Out of the general population suffering from horrific poverty, I choose to tell about the vulnerable children of the civil war in Angola, the children living in the streets I met in Luanda. Children over here remain a marginal social group that is the product of a 30-year war between the various tribes of this vast country.

Children up to the age of 14 comprise 49% of the population of Angola, that is, about half of the adult population. Thousands are orphans, homeless because they have fled their homes or simply have no family, and spend the day and night on the city streets.

This is a relatively recent phenomenon in Luanda, since the war ended only two years ago, in 2002. (When we asked the members of our group: What caused the war to terminate? The answer was: The people just got exhausted…).

Due to many injuries and deaths, the war caused separation within the families and migration towards the urban settlement, especially in the big cities.

In many families, children suffer from terrible treatment and exploitation of their workforce, so many of them simply run away from their homes to become "free" at a young age, which makes it very easy for them on the streets of the city.

Another important figure to remember is that two-thirds of Angolan families live below the poverty line, which explains the increase in the number of children in the streets.

A distinction can be made between two groups of children: those who live in the streets and have a family, and those who live in the street and do not have any family unit.

The first, from time to time, can return to their homes, the second group has nowhere to flee (since they do not have a close family, because they are abandoned or because they are expelled from their home).

The children living in the streets are the most marginalized group in Angolan society. They usually live in subhuman conditions, children without education or training to work.

From the window of my room at the hotel, children take a "bath" in the puddle.

The street children come together in groups and you meet them on the side of the road selling any possible things. The kids are holding hangers, socks, two shirts, two towels and everything that comes to mind. From the money they collect, they purchase some of their daily food.

The unlucky ones, who are incapable to sell anything, eat directly from the garbage cans. This harsh look at their "breakfast" at the garbage can is a daily sight that we met on our way to study at the local university, the University of Augustino Neto (named after the first president of Angola).

We had trouble digesting this view, and it is the chief reason why I came from Angola suffering in body and soul.

Another phenomenon typical of the streets of Luanda is the phenomenon of children guarding car parking spaces. In exchange for parking (which is permitted by law) they get a few dollars and make a living.

Many of these children are addicted to drugs. And because drugs cost money and they have no money to buy, they breathe gasoline and if there is no gasoline, hemp smokers.

Streetlife carries a series of dangers. In the first place, a health hazard, the children living in the streets are much more exposed to illness than the children living in the houses (and there are also no proper sanitary conditions, no running water, no bathing and cleaning habits). On the street, you can meet many cases of malnutrition and hunger. There are quite a few children who live in caves with garbage around them.

The most common disease in the area is malaria and these children have the highest rates of disease, as the disease is transmitted through mosquitoes that attack the exposed body at night. Almost every person of the Angolan population suffers from malaria, at least once a year. People take medication and go on with their lives. However, the disease is quite dangerous and can even cause death.

Although some children are not exposed to sexual activity, the dangers of sexual contact are also a deciding factor in their mortality rates. Quite a few children are exposed to the sexual exploitation of anonymous people who cannot be punished. Some have sex with the same sex and AIDS is a high percentage of mortality. (If you ask Angolian if there is AIDS in Angola, you will be told that there isn’t really, or almost none, but we know from medical research that the number one cause of death in Africa is AIDS).

In Angola, there is no official political program that addresses social assistance for these groups of children. Some organizations are usually non-governmental, some are church-sponsored, but their activities are marginal and meaningless.

In Luanda, the capital, there is no municipal or private garbage disposal company. The garbage is collected and thrown into containers or on the street right through the kids who move from apartment to apartment and collect the garbage for a piece of bread or a few dollars.

Every morning, we drove in the university car along the bustling city streets with people and vehicles. Luanda is a city that can accommodate about half a million people and currently has about two and a half million residents. It is not surprising that most of them live in harsh conditions. The lucky ones manage to live in clay houses, although roofless or windowless but still something that can be reached and sheltered from the cold and heat, the rest simply live in the street or under the sky. The evidence I give below is an accurate reflection of reality. You see these kids on every corner of the street: selling something, washing their faces and feet with a bucket out of a hole in the town square, playing soccer in the local field, or, worst of all, eating out of the junk bins by the road. Bins that do not contain the large amount of garbage that accumulates and therefore most of the garbage is piled up, or thrown wherever possible.

All the pictures taken here were taken from the car, as photography is prohibited in many places in Angola and the police can confiscate your camera in a moment. Of course, these children are not happy to be photographed and therefore the photographs were almost hidden taken…

Here are testimonials of children living in the street as they appeared in a bi-monthly called "Economics and Commerce"[1] that I found in the Angola hotel room, February 2005.

"I'm already tired of this life"

My name is Walter and I am 9 years old, I arrived in Luanda in December 2003, with a few other friends. We stopped a cab, paid for it and arrived in Luanda. Here, in Luanda, we have no family and everyone is looking for a living area.

The truth is, I just came to know Luanda and I want to come back because I'm already tired of this life, of living and sleeping in the street. I sleep in the area of ​​Motemba, where the cabs park. But if anyone offers me home, I'll go. I also want to learn.

I get up in the morning and go to residences in the city to "dump the garbage." I wash my face wherever there is water.

In the residences, we are given money or food and then we stay in the street looking for money, for example, if we call for a taxi for these people.

In the evening, I walk through the residences again, knock on the doors to ask if they have any more garbage, throw it (into the street) and then we go to the store (near a supermarket), and are left to ask for a handout: "Friends, give me ten (Kwanzas - local money) to Buy bread. "

When a taxi shows up, we call the people. Sometimes when work is weak, we move to the Roque Rock area and then come back here.

At night, we stay there near the same restaurant, asking for money. Then go to sleep. Sometimes we stay awake, tell stories and finally fall asleep. "

Another testimony

"I don't like to stay at home"

"My name is Pilarte and I'm 14 years old. I live in the street because I don't like staying at home. My mom usually is drunk.

I like to inhale a drug or smoke hemp. There are those who after smoking become violent and want to fight, but I am not.

We sleep right here in the street. I wake up at 6 a.m., wash my face and my feet and we go to school. Sometimes I'm absent from school. Then I go to the residences to collect and dump garbage in the street containers. Sometimes people give us something to eat, and I eat.

Then I help people stop a cab and ask for money from people passing through the street.

Sometimes we go to the Roque area to buy something, go back and "call" taxis or help someone who asks us for some help.

Sometimes we're going to play soccer there on the 1^st May field, with other friends from the street from other neighborhoods in town.

At night, we're left to take care of cars, so when a car arrives; we go there and say, "Amigo, I'll keep your car." If he agrees, we take care of him and then he pays us... About 50 or 100 Kwanzas.

When there are no cars to keep, we are left to chat. If there are cars that need to be kept, we stay there until midnight. "

Nations have collected donations everywhere. The best musicians took the stage in the big city centers and played songs.

However, when you come to Africa when you move through the city streets, in the center and especially the suburbs, you realize that these donations will not reach the residents and certainly not these children living in the street.

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[1] Economia &Mercado, Janeiro-Fevereiro 2005, Ano 6 N. 23.

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[1] [1] "Children of War" is a term coined in recent decades in Black Africa. The aspects related to the law can be read in French at the following French language site: www.icrc.org/web/fre/sitefre0.nsf/iwpList2/Focus:Children_in_war?OpenDocument

http://www.unicef.org/graca/