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Street Children (Congo)

I was privileged to go as an international observer to the elections in the Democratic Republic of the Congo with a group of hon. Members from the all-party group on the great lakes region and genocide prevention. I want to express my gratitude to Christian Aid, which was my host and that of my hon. Friend the Member for Islington, North (Jeremy Corbyn), and which will fund me to go back for the second round of elections at the end of next week, for the presidential run-offs on 29 October. I also thank the other organisations, such as War Child, which fund our all-party parliamentary group. Without them we would not be able to do the work that we do. The elections were very impressive. They mostly went off peacefully, without a great deal of difficulty and with great enthusiasm from people for voting. They were mostly well run, with a few difficulties and hiccups. After the elections we saw how easy it is for violence to erupt, with the death of 23 people in Kinshasa. Given the continuing tension and the fact that the two remaining presidential candidates have their own armed forces and that other people have arms, the potential for further violence can be seen. At this point I want to note our condemnation of the beating up, last week in London, of President Kabila’s chef de cabinet, Leonard She Okitundu, who had been visiting members of the all-party group and the Foreign Office. I condemn violence from whatever quarter, whatever the reason for it. Given the way in which, as the hon. Member for Gainsborough (Mr. Leigh) pointed out, street children have been used as part of the political process—rounded up and used on the streets—they may be particularly vulnerable if there is any potential for violence in the run-up to the next round of elections, and subsequently. We need to be aware of that. I think that it is important—I know that the Secretary of State has this in mind and has already taken action on it—that the UK Government should make every effort to emphasise to the two candidates and the other people involved in the political process, such as the parties and those who have been elected to the new National Assembly, that it is their responsibility to ensure a continuing peaceful round for the next elections and subsequently; to protect the most marginalised groups such as the street children; and to take on board the issues already raised so eloquently by my hon. Friend the Member for Dumfries and Galloway (Mr. Brown), whom I congratulate on opening the debate, and the hon. Member for Gainsborough. We have a huge responsibility to keep with the process for a long time. This is just the start of the process. There are many things we need to do to put pressure on all political parties to take seriously the issues to do with street children. Those include trying to ensure that there is training on and, at least, awareness of the issues in the local law enforcement and security agencies, whose approach to street children at the moment is often more part of the problem than an attempt to deal with those issues. I shall return to the matter of the elections and the situation thereafter, but I want to mention that while hon. Members were in the country for the first round of elections we had the opportunity to visit some projects involving street children. With some of my colleagues, I visited a project run by Save the Children, which has 15 projects. I remember seeing Ilunga, who was not accused of being a witch, as many children are, but whose parents had died in a diamond mining accident and who had then traipsed across the country to be taken in by his grandparents in Kinshasa. They threw him out because they did not have the money to look after him. Then he lost touch with his brother. He is living by himself on the streets of Kinshasa, going into that project during the day and making money by collecting rubbish from people’s houses and taking it to the dump. Given the state of the streets in Kinshasa and Congo generally, he is probably one of the few people who do go round collecting rubbish, but he looked so forlorn, so miserable. He had such a sad long face until we did the trick of taking photos and showing them to him, which always brings great smiles to the faces of the children, but he had looked so forlorn that our hearts went out to him and the other children there. We also visited a War Child project, where a large number of children are living. Many of them had been accused of being witches. To me, they seemed like normal, bubbly, lively children who were living in desperate circumstances and had very few resources to do what they wanted to do. In fact, they were livelier than the children at the project in the middle of Kinshasa. When we talked to them about the elections, we got a better answer on how they were meant to be about getting people to make the country better and life better, than we did from most of the politicians on television. When we asked the children about the elections, they all started yelling, ““Kabila, Bemba””. They were very well engaged. One boy we found who was one of the very few receiving an education was very bright and had just come top of the exams in his class, so the potential is there. Many of these children have been accused of being witches, yet to me they are just normal, bright, lively kids. I did gain a greater understanding of the beliefs behind witchcraft. That is not the only element, but it is a very large element in why the street children are out on the streets. There is also the issue of child soldiers and their re-engagement into society, which we have not touched on as much as we might have. A very good Save the Children pamphlet called ““The Invention of Child Witches in the Democratic Republic of Congo”” explains the belief in the spiritual world that is very prevalent in Congo and how that ties in with the issue of dislocation. Interestingly, there is more of a problem in urban areas than in rural areas, which is not necessarily what one would expect when considering the concept of traditional beliefs. Those beliefs are deep-seated. Whether or not we change people’s beliefs on whether witches and sorcery exist, we must say that it is completely unacceptable for children to suffer cruelty and be abused on the basis of what is a false belief. I was as bemused last year, when I went to America, by the fundamentalist Republicans who told me that people were invaded by Satan, as I am at the idea of there being witches, so I am not sure that we can always say that someone’s belief systems are all that peculiar. Of course, exorcisms still take place in some of our traditional Churches. The key point is that this is not about religion or people’s beliefs; it is about cruelty and child abuse, which must be tackled. That is why Save the Children had been working with a group of pastors to try to say to them that even if they still believed in witchcraft, the children they were seeing were not ones who had been infected by witchcraft and if they did come across any who they believed were, they should deal with them in a way that was not cruel and did not involve physical violence, because that is clearly unacceptable.