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Street Children (Congo)

I am pleased to have secured this debate, and I am delighted that the Secretary of State for International Development will respond. The fact that he is with us this morning shows the significance that he places on the subject. The Democratic Republic of Congo has had a turbulent recent history. Colleagues in the Chamber today will be au fait with events of the past 40 years, but during the past decade thousands of child soldiers have been thrown to the forefront of the conflict. The United Nations mission to Congo—MONUC—was deployed in the DRC in 2003, and it now constitutes the largest peacekeeping force in the world. Living without shelter, access to health care and food has meant according to current estimates that, since the conflict began in 1996-97, 4 million people have died over and above what would normally be expected. That is a colossal increase in mortality. It is the most lethal conflict since the second world war, and most of the dead are women and children. The lives of the children, more than anyone else, continue to be devastated by the ongoing conflict in the east of the country. War not only kills children but destroys the infrastructure that provides them with food, medicine, education and shelter—the very social fabric that would otherwise provide them with protection, care and hope. As a result, many children living with the consequences of war end up being conscripted into armed groups, are accused of being witches or are forced to undertake dangerous and exploitative work just to survive. Invariably they are pushed into a life on the streets. There are more than 250,000 homeless children in the DRC. More than 40,000 children live and work on the streets of Kinshasa alone. These children are regularly beaten and sometimes even murdered. They are subject to frequent sexual abuse and, due to the lack of health care, die from illnesses that are both preventable and curable. In general, they have no access to education. Our Government are the largest European Union provider of bilateral funds to the DRC. They have committed the support of the British public to the people of that nation. It is a long-term commitment that will help build a viable nation and establish the security and opportunities for people to lift themselves out of poverty. In June 2005, the all-party parliamentary group on street children received a report, ““Your War is Not With Me””, from the British charity, War Child. As a result, the charity was invited to make a presentation on the street child crisis in the DRC to the all-party group. In turn, that led to the hon. Member for Gainsborough (Mr. Leigh) and I, the co-chairmen of the group, visiting Kinshasa last month. The visit engaged street children and established an informed basis on which our group can support the efforts of the Government and the international community in responding to this acute crisis. Unemployment and a lack of income-generating opportunities have stretched the capacity of households to function as viable, economic units. Divorce is increasingly common, and those children who are left with their mother are a burden that the extended family can rarely bear. Many children therefore end up working on the streets. Children who remain with their father are often marginalised by their stepmother in order to create the economic space to provide for her own children. Increasingly, HIV/AIDS results in the death of both parents, leaving children with the extended family, which is rarely able to care for them. Within that framework, fetish priests turned pastors have established thousands of private, revivalist churches in the major cities. Some of those fetish pastors regularly accuse children of witchcraft. For example, if a pastor is unable to cure a parent of illness through prayer, he will claim that a bewitched child in the family is the obstacle and request additional fees to perform an exorcism. Those children are often tortured in unimaginable ways by the fetish pastor as part of the exorcism process. That abuse is enabled by a widespread lack of education, which makes parents vulnerable to the exploitation of a deep-seated belief in witchcraft. Accusation of sorcery and witchcraft is the single largest factor resulting in children being pushed out of their families and on to the streets of the DRC. The hon. Member for Gainsborough and I were fortunate enough to visit some of the centres that War Child is supporting which provide shelter and protection for some of the younger street children and help with family tracing, mediation and reintegration. War Child also arranged for us to meet some of the youths who are still living on the streets. I want to give Members a couple of examples of children who found themselves on the street and describe some of the challenges that they faced—and still face. Joseph was nine years old when his parents died of HIV/AIDS. He became a burden to the extended family as an extra mouth to feed. A local fetish pastor accused Joseph of bewitching his parents and causing their deaths. The extended family beat him, and he was finally pushed on to the streets. He slept at the local market, scavenging for food, occasionally stealing, and earning pennies by carrying heavy bags and sacks of produce for people. The police would regularly seek him out, also accusing him of witchcraft and telling him that he could not stay at the market. On one occasion he was kicked so hard by a police officer that two of his ribs were broken. Eventually, Joseph found his way to the Ameema abandoned children’s centre, which is supported by War Child. He is now safe, and trained War Child staff are trying to reintegrate him gradually with his family, but the process will take time, as strongly held attitudes have to be overcome. Evelyn’s mother suffers from epilepsy, which makes it difficult for her to work and to generate income. Her father left them because of that, and Evelyn and her mother turned to the extended family for support. Epilepsy is not well understood, and Evelyn’s mother was accused of witchcraft and shunned by her family. She became separated from Evelyn, who was a baby at the time and was left to the care of her grandmother. Evelyn grew up believing that her grandmother was her real mother, but other children would tease her that her mother was a witch. Evelyn eventually tried to find her real mother and made contact with her, but she was accused of consorting with a witch and was pushed on to the streets, where she joined her mother. Evelyn was repeatedly raped during her time on the streets, and at the age of 12 she fell pregnant. Soon after that, Evelyn and her baby were identified and were helped by one of the abandoned children’s centres supported by War Child. Accusations of sorcery and witchcraft are the primary reasons why children end up on the street in the DRC, but the phenomenon is compounded by an increasing divorce rate in the face of high unemployment and extremely low income.