Child beggars… parents to blame?

Let children be children

TARIRO SENDERAYI

When the word "child" comes to mind, it is usually associated with a lot of play, fun, school and laughter. These are the activities that children indulge in as part of their growth process. However, we have seen a breed of children in the streets of Harare or any other urban city of our country, taking to work through begging. Who is to blame for this predicament?

The Constitution defines a child as “any boy or girl who is below the age of 18”. A child as a minor is incapable of making any decision that affects his or her life, hence the need for a major - through a parent or guardian above the age of majority - to stand as its custodian. In exercising their representative capacity for the child, the parent or guardian is expected to safeguard the best interests of that child over and above all things. This provision is enshrined in the Constitution. Is it in the child’s best interest to be deprived of education, play or fun by parents who use their children as modes of survival through begging?

A child is entitled to play and learning as part of the socialization process and growth. But it would appear as though there is an increased number of children who beg for a living, or beg after school hours, in the process being deprived of both and much more. A stolen childhood is the end result.

What pulls at your heartstrings even the more is that these innocent children, most barely in their teens, are roped into this lifestyle by their own parents who are supposed to be their custodians. A child of the streets who has been born to a begging parent is being used as a front to manipulate generous givers. The parent has seen that the only way the general populace can be over generous or nudged to be generous is if they are ensnared by the pitiful faces of these children who will be asking for donations especially in the form of money.

Most of these children have not reached teenage hood. Their parents rely on the notion that the younger the begging child is, the more generous the loot. These parents actually sit in the peripheries or out of plain sight whilst monitoring the movements of their begging children. Those who beg after school hours are given a target of how much to bring home after “a day’s work”. Failure to do so has some dire consequences such as the deprivation of food.

What I greatly doubt is how much they benefit directly from whatever they would have acquired in a day’s work. Or maybe their “employers” just take the spoils without reimbursing the ones who worked for them?

Surely, who is to blame? Has the economic dwindle failed our children and influenced them to turn to begging as a way of survival, yet in turn robbing them of the childhood they deserve? Or have their own parents failed them much more by being the force behind the begging children? Some parents, upon being quizzed, actually say that they have no choice but to use their children as means of sustaining the family. I believe that in as much as the situation might be dire, as a custodian of that child and the major in that situation, you have a choice. You have a choice to let your child be a child. Let that child enjoy his or her childhood without interference from anything or anyone. Show love to your child by working hard and doing the begging yourself, in order to sustain your family.

Let children be children!


Tariro Senderayi is a former law student at the Midlands State University, in Zimbabwe. She is currently availing her expertise at a youth-led organization called the Organizing for Zimbabwe Trust (O4Z)