Mozambique: Children in the streets and childhoods lost in Tete

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Mozambique: Children in the streets and childhoods lost in Tete

7:28 CAT | 01 Jun 2023

FILE - For illustration purposes only. [File photo: DW]

The International Children’s Day is celebrated on June 1st. Civil society in Tete province reveals that around 80% of children have lost their childhood, and warn of constant cases of abuse.

Associations working with children’s rights warn about the effect of constant abuse on the future of Mozambican society, identifying poverty, orphan-hood and abandonment as the greatest threats facing the age group.

“These are children on the streets carrying out adult jobs. We see children being raped day after day, which is a shame,” complains Isabel Jacopo, president of the association that bears her name.

For Isabel Jacopo, many children in Tete province are being denied their fundamental rights, to “education and assistance”. To make matters worse, “We have seen children kidnapped and others killed,” she adds.

Jacopo told DW that her organisation wants to support a larger number of children, but lack of financial means has been an obstacle.

Child labour

Cristiano José (fictitious name), is 12 years old. Due to lack of necessary conditions, he dropped out of school at Grade 3. He lives with his mother, but spends most of his time on the street, prey to the sun, rain, cold and the inevitable hunger.

His struggle is for survival, he tells DW. “I beg for money. Sometimes I get 50 meticais (about €0.32), which I give to my mother, who doesn’t work,” António reveals.

Alexandre Martins (fictitious name) is another child we found on the streets of the city of Tete. He is 11 years old and attends Grade 6. In the mornings he goes to school, and in the afternoons he sells roasted peanuts in downtown Tete.

His activity does not follow regular hours, and sometimes he heads home after midnight. He tells DW he is aware of the danger, but says there is no alternative.

“I’m a child, yes, but we are suffering, sometimes we don’t have anything to eat,” Pedro says.

Alarming levels of rape cases

Rape on minors reaches alarming levels in this part of Mozambique. The Viva Mais children’s rights project developed by the Anglican church in partnership with the Community Development Fund (FDC), revealed that, last year, it registered more than 50 cases of rape on minors. Ten new such cases were identified in April of this year alone.

Francelina Nganhane, a paralegal who works on the project, says that the situation is increasingly worrying. “We noticed that the numbers tend to increase in the city of Tete. Although we are giving lectures and trying to sensitise the population, it seems that the more information there is, the more the situation worsens.”

Recently, the Provincial Directorate of the Ministry of Gender, Children and Social Action (MGCAS) in Tete reported a case of seven minors aged between 11 and 16 years being kept in captivity, drugged and sexually exploited in the district of Angónia.

READ: Mozambique: 7 minors subjected to sexual exploitation rescued from captivity in Angónia

By Jovenaldo Ngovene, in Tete

Source: Deutsche Welle