Unity state asks UN for funds to build home for street children

June 24, 2013 (BENTIU) – Unity state’s ministry of gender, child and social welfare has inked an agreement with the United Nation Children’s Fund (UNICEF) to build up a care center for street children in Bentiu and Rubkotna.

The move to build a centre in Bentui to accommodate the children came as a result of an assessment in May.

Minister Lubna Abdelgani told Sudan Tribune on Monday that she came to the conclusion with the head of UNICEF for South Sudan’s Upper Nile region that the home should be built.

Initially the center was supposed to be built using local materials, but Abdelgani said the plan has changed as the structure is going to be more permanent.

“You cannot build a center by use of local materials as the center will accommodate more children collected from [the] streets.”

It was important to get the children off the streets before they become involved in crime.

It is estimated that there are over hundred street children in Unity state’s town centres and markets. Children often end up on the street because their parents are unable to look after their basic needs.

Khan Maguel Tap, 13, who comes from Koch county, says he lived on the streets for the last two years surviving on leftover food since his father died.

“My mother is a drunk, so when I decide to move to the house of my sister she refused to allow me to stay with her. I have nowhere to go and the only cheap way is to settle and live in the street.”

Another street child, Dabul Gatkoang, 12, has lived streets for three years after his mother decided to stay in Khartoum while his father lives in Juba.

Gatkoang hopes the new center will improve the lives of children like him if the government also provide them with an education.

“We need them to provide us with books and clothing. If they offer us such services we will become better children for this country’s future”.

Minister Abdelgani says the government wants to address the problem of street children.

“The presence of children on the streets is a big problem to the government, and the availability of children on streets will make them learn wrong behaviors’ that may lead to culprits’ activities which will be disastrous to nation building, and we are speeding up building the interim care centre in order to improve availability of more children to stay in streets”.

Last month a joint assessment conducted by NGO’s and government officials to verify the number of children that took refuge at market areas. Minister Abdelgani said that around 50 children were found in Rubkotna and Bentiu markets alone.

Abdelgani says the ministry has screened those who are with parents and those without. Children with parents will be reunited with their parents and the ministry will step in to support their education.

“The children who say need education. We will take responsibility and the child who say his or her father and mother are there, we will take the child to the parent through social workers to find out from them why the child took street and if the mother and father confirm, the child went to street because he or she have no support to go to school we as the government and the VSF shall take responsibility of sending them to school.”

The minister says many children took street not because they are orphans, but their parents are failing to support them in term of basic needs. Abdelgani urges parents in the state to take a responsibility in looking after their children.

Child labour is increasing with children below 15-years-old pushing wheelbarrows, polishing shoes and selling tea.

(ST)